Board - Regular Meeting

You just Sorry. I don't know. Amen. Jesus. Okay, I have 7:00. We're going to start the meeting. Um, we're going to start with the pledge. I pledge algiance 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. Pray.

Lord, bless this meeting and the work we do together. Grant us wisdom in our decisions, respect in our conversations, and success in our efforts. Help us serve others with integrity and purpose. Amen. Roll here. Tim Brown here. Carol Cole here. Julie Edwards. Chrissy Grant here. Jeff Gray here. Clay Hardy here. Ethan McCormack. Christine Matlaw here. Tad Mayhall here. James Mitchell here. Tim Moors here. Austin Pritchard. John Stroll here. Larry Cipher here.

Don Tate. Christy Wford here. Brent Wallace here. Judy Wood here. We have forums. Okay. Need a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting. Judy second. All in favor?

Public body comments. Before we get started on this, I want everybody to know we've got a big agenda tonight and Cad's not able to be here, so we will get through this. So, just please be patient. Okay. I've got Matt. Is that over, Beck? Yes.

Okay. We have a rule about public body comment. It is just a comment. We don't respond to it. And you have five minutes is what you have. Okay. Go. Uh, good. Wanted to express some concerns over the junkyard special permit application. I know this matter was postponed from being voted on tonight, but I just wanted to express my concerns in case I couldn't make it to the next meeting. My name is Matt Overbeck and my wife and I own the property that joins the whole north property line of the junkyard. We purchased our home in 2022 and at the time it was not an operational junkyard which if it would have we never would have purchased our property. The reason for this is the noise, the extra traffic and the main concern of hurting our property value if we were to ever resell and move. I've looked into multiple articles online and businesses such as a junkyard are very likely to hurt the resale value of our property and neighboring properties. We bought our house for our its location, how quiet the area is, and all of our neighbors and how respectful they are to one another. And it has grown into a residential area where many new people have moved into and built houses over the past several years since the junkyard had previously closed. With this being said, I do not feel like it is a good location to be reopened. Another concern I have with the proposed junkyard is just being used on the south property half. At the last board or at the last zoning board meeting, Mr. Blossom said he was still going to use the gate to which is on the north half, the scale house which is on the north half and park his personal vehicles which is on the north half which is still within the 300 ft of a residential area and does not meet the ordinance. In my personal opinion, these three actions are still for junkyard use. Another concern I have is after the last zoning board meeting, it was very made very clear that no more junk yard operations

were to take place and this has not been the case. There have been many vehicles hauled into the property and scrap metal on several different occasions. This has continued to happen as recently as yesterday when I went home for lunch and a trailer full of old boats was pulled into the property. I feel like this shows that if it were to pass, the rules that are put into place will not be followed as they have not been to this point. Thank you for listening to my concerns. Thank you.

Okay, go ahead. Uh Hannah.

Hello. Um I'm Hannah Overbeck. This is going to reiterate some points my husband shared, but in similar fashion, should we not be able to make it to the next one, I would like you guys to hear our concerns moving forward. Um, so good evening. I apologize. I'm going to be reading from my phone just so I make sure I get points that I'm not speaking from the heart or place of frustration. This will be the same message that was recently read at the Zoing board meeting and I do apologize for that as well. I truly have nothing against Mr. Bloxom and I have nothing against the business that he is wanting to run. But my husband and I did our due diligence when buying land. While looking at multiple houses, we knew we wanted a quiet place to re return home to each day and for us to spend our time home. Our neighborhood should not suffer because he did not do his due diligence. Though I understand that the junkyard has been moved to only part of the land be he purchased, there is little reason to believe it will be used appropriately, as it has been used before it even truly has permission to open. And my observation is when I got home from school today that he was using it as early as just this evening hauling junk to her. I hope that is something that's taken heavily into considerations. The majority of our neighbors who live now residential area have lived here long after the junkyard has closed and under the by line it was not going to reopen. In this instance, the past is brought up often for justification of reopening. But I think it's highly important now consider what the area looks like presently. If that was the case, I speak for my husband and I when I say once again we would have never purchased our property. We live in a community with wonderful, quiet neighbors, many of whom are retired, soon to be retired, and those who are home more than the average person. I wish for us not to be subjected to the noise, even with ordinances in place, the unsightliness, and the remainder of concerns that have already been addressed at the previous three years. I also understand that this is not trying to upset anyone. And while

I do deeply believe that, I would like to think someone would not put something in our backyard or our front yards for some of us that they wouldn't like in their own. And I believe this would stand true for many of the community members here this evening. Farmers who use the road despite no semi sign posted have been brought up multiple times which I understand as I am personally married to a farmer and they are down the roads two times a year planting the harvest that pales in comparison to daily prohibited use and proper use of this road has been by Mr. blocks him in order to justify his own use. But that's where integrity comes in and law-abiding citizens are trusted to be the example. I do believe it is most likely a community need. However, I disagree that this is the prime location. Thank you for your public body comment. Okay.

Yes. Thank you. Um, Martha, uh, I'd like to speak to you 20 and the salary setting resolutions for the next four years for the county clerk, county assessor, and county treasur positions. I wanted to share some concerns and perspectives in advance and hopes the board will address these points thoroughly during the discussion of these agenda items. Currently, it is being proposed that both the clerk and assessor positions receive annual pay raises over the next four years, while the treasur's position salary remains frozen at its current rate. This is a significant departure from the long-standing practice of treating these three positions equitably with respect to compensation and increases. When the disc discussion comes up, I hope the board will explain why the clerk clerk and assessor's positions are considered deserving of annual payraises yet the treasur's position is not. If the rationale is that the clerk's office took over payroll duties from the treasur, it's important to remember that state statute mandates payroll responsibilities belong to the clerk's department. The treasurer previously performed these tasks without additional compensation. So, it's unclear why the reverse would now warrant a pay increase. Moreover, what additional duties has the assessor's position taken on to justify an increase, if any? If none, the assessor's position is receiving an annual pay raise based solely on cost of living adjustment. Shouldn't the treasur receive the same? It only seems fair that the treasur's position also receives an inflationary adjustment. Some have argued the treasur ought to be a certified CPA. If this is the expectation, it seems counterintuitive to freeze the treasur salary at a rate

that would deter qualified CPAs from considering the position. By the end of the four-year resolution as currently presented, the clerk and assessor positions will earn over 10,000 more than the treasurer's position. The pay gap may discourage capable candidates from running for an office that appears to be unfairly and blatantly disadvantaged. With recent union contracts granting county employees somewhere between 17 and 20% pay increases and all other elected positions receiving scheduled payraises, it's crucial for the board to explain publicly why the treasur's position is singled out for a freeze. Would any of you accept a role knowing you would not receive a raise, even to offset inflation for 5 years, especially when your peers are compensated more generously? I suspect not. My hope is that the board will let common sense, fairness, and decency guide tonight's decision. I urge someone to make a motion to amend the compensation setting resolution for the county treasurer to match those of the clerk and assessor positions, as has been the historical norm in our county. I also hope there will be support for this motion and a unanimous vote to confirm equitable treatment for all three positions. I'd also al also like to ask since these resolutions were were um brought forth from the budget and audit and legislative committee that you would please um let the public know who the members of that committee are. Thank you.

Thank you. Public body comments. Okay. Erin Bernhabr, taxpayer, Michelle County. On December 19th, 2024, a contract was signed with performance services in the amount of $536,863. This obligation should have been accounted for in the fiscal year 25 budget. However, no payments were made to performance services in fiscal year 25. And the board also failed to include this contractual obligation in the fiscal year 26 budget. The line item currently being discussed was budgeted at only $90,000 despite the existence of a signed contract totaling 536863. Now the board is considering amending the budget to increase this amount to $837,863. Taxpayers deserve an explanation for why this increase is necessary and how this discrepancy occurred. Additionally, how much was paid to sick for budget preparation services and were they provided with complete and accurate information regarding this contractual obligation? Effective financial guidance depends on full transparency and accurate reporting. Fiscal year 26 budget was already passed with a deficit of 1.556598 over $1.5 million deficit budget. Adding another $783,863 would increase the deficit to approximately $2,340,461. This level of deficit spending is unsustainable and could significantly deplete the general fund within the next

few years. We would also like clarification regarding the board's statutory authority to amend the budget in this manner and further increase the deficit. The situation does not appear to be the result of an unforeseen emergency, but rather a failure in financial planning and oversight. As taxpayers, we strongly oppose this amendment and urge the board to identify meaningful costs reductions and implement stronger financial accountab account accountability moving forward. And today I went through the budget and just out of the O29 uh office alone I I identified probably around $455 a little over $455,000 that wouldn't have to be s spent and probably won't be spent just in that line item or that office. Last year the two the fiscal year 25 budget only 81% was spent but yet then the budget was increased by hundreds of thousands. It does no good to to set a budget and so what if we spend only 80%. It just means we didn't do our job. The job wasn't done to budget effectively. But I think there needs to be strong consideration and I'm not sure that you can legally increase the deficit budget. Please consider that strongly and look at the budget closely. Thank you.

Thank you. Public body comment.

Thank you. My name is Kirk Allen. Um, sorry the chairman is not here tonight because once again he's ignored a foyer request, failed to produce the emails, the private emails that he's conducting public business on. Mrs. Cole, you also have not provided all of those emails. Miss Walry, you as well have not produced all of the emails, the private emails where you're conducting public business. Can any of you explain to the public the purpose in using your private emails for public business rather than the ones provided by the public body? Claiming to be transparent when you fail to provide known records tells a different story. A foyer request April 16th for a copy of all works work products submitted to the state of Illinois by the person handling PECOM. I was told the request was unduly burdensome. That's pretty special in light of the reason Effingham appears to be set to take over Peon. For those that don't know the reason, it's because the person Tad selected for this overpaid job did not do her job. How is my request for work product unduly burdensome when there was no work product? I narrowed the request as the law permits on April 20th along with an additional request for records that I knew would expose the fraud that's been taking place under your own eyes. 4 days later, she resigns and my FOYA has still not been answered. Stay tuned for more FOYA lawsuits. Can anyone explain how this woman was allowed to open up a credit card with her name and the county's name on it? A part-time employee accessing unchecked credit? What happened to the credit card ordinance? Another example of not following established directives. Considering she was paid with grant funds and did not do the job, is that not grant fraud? Where was the oversight, Tad?

He picked her literally and then ignored the problem for months. Has anyone read the budget amendment limitations in the county code? We've been through this before. And the last board actually was the first to follow the law on that point in this county for years. that budget was the contract with the people and the legislature made it clear violations of the law on this point is in fact a crime. I would encourage all of you to read those statutes and get a legal opinion as to whether or not doing some of the things that it appears you're going to be doing are done properly or done legally. There are violations. It's a class B misdemeanor. It's spelled out real clearly here. And like I said, the prior board made sure that didn't happen again. And I would hope that you follow the law all including FOYA and OMA for those that still haven't done their training. That's all I have.

Thank you.

Public body comment. Public body comment. One more time. Public body comment. Moving on. Okay. We're going to announce the vacancy in district 7 with the resignation of Trisha Miller. Number six, announce the vacancy in district 9 due to the resignation of Jean Price. Now we're going to do an appointment of Chad Ganis to Shelby County District 9. I need a motion. Tim and Christine Christine.

Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Welcome back, Chad. Thank you. Jessica is this way.

I am repeat after me. I state your name. I having been appointed I have been appointed to the office of Shelby County Board District 9 to the Shelby County Board of District 9 in the county of Shelby County of Shelby State of Illinois state of Illinois. Do solemnly swear or affirm Do you solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Illinois the Constitution of the State of Illinois and will faithfully discharge and faithfully discharge the duties of the duties of the office of Shelby County Bo District 9 the office of the duties of Shelby County District Court 9 to the best of my ability

to the best of my ability for me please. Okay, John, I think he's here. You want to you want to talk about number eight?

Yes. The proposed amendment updates our storage ordinance to comply with new state laws taking effect June 1st of 2026, including changes related to commercial wind, solar facilities, energy storage systems, sighting procedures, and the new solar bill of rights. In addition to the required compliance updates, the ordinance has been simplified and reorganized for clarity and ease of use. The draft was reviewed and approved by the state's attorney's office and feedback submitted by representatives of Lenia and Cordell Power as well as their legal council was reviewed with selective recommendations incorporated, modified, and rejected or rejected as appropriate. These amendments should be adopted prior to the state's June 1st, 2026 deadline.

Need a motion to approve this? Thank you.

Is there any discussion on this or any questions? Okay. All in favor? I. All opposed? I I ones that are opposed SC motion passes. Thank you, John. Okay, Michael. Want to go over your things here then? You want to go read it? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. Uh resolution to award low bid for removal and replacement of a bridge over TR 313 section 20311800BR over Richland Creek in Clarksburg Township to Sea Hill Civil Contractors Inc. with a bid of 1,28,424 to be paid with LPF grant funds and Township Bridge funds. Um and as Shelby County Highway Department recommends approval of the low litter. Yeah, I need a motion to approve this. Make Samine what they do is they do

all. Okay, go ahead and do the rest of them and then we'll do one.

Absolutely. Resolution to review and change permit fees for the purpose of access permits, specifically field culverts. C50 petition from Big Spring Township Highway Commissioner to remove a failing corrugated medical metal pipe and replace with a 72in diameter by 50 foot long corrugated metal pipe. Project location 3100E810 North project or the estimated cost of project will be $14,224 which will be shared 50/50 between the township and county bridge account. D. No truck in and or seasonal weight restrictions on 2100E, 2200E, 2325E, south of Illinois 16, county and county highway 7 from 2200E to Illinois 32 as well as county highway 16 from state highway 16 to county highway 21. Um, that one I would need one or the other. uh no trucks or uh seasonal weight and I think it was in the recommendation of the road and bridge committee to do uh no no

no trucks no trucks is what we talked about the easy yes so um with that I would entertain any questions regarding any of those four yes the first one where exactly is that path for I didn't look that one up it is west of Hidden Springs I believe it's kind of close to where the big tree trail is at okay so is that the one We got the email about saying that the bridge was That's a different one. It's close to that one. It's not It's not that one. Okay. But there's one east of of the Big Tree Trail and then there's one that's east and then south on Clarksburg Road. Is it the one on the Clarksburg road?

It is. It's a bigger long It's not on the Clarksburg like our county highway. It's not on It's It's hard to explain that one. Yeah. South big long It's a very long wood plank bridge. Oh, is that okay? I think I know where that's okay. All right, that answer my question. Thank you. Any other questions? I got quick question on the weight restrictions. Why are we wanting to put a weight restriction burning through trucks on roads?

It is infrastructure. It is partially due to those it it's there's a lot of GPS's and and cgraphy and mappers are basically are leading trucks down these roads. We're trying to limit that. So we're not trying to limit

like locals using those roads, farmers using the those roads. Um a lot of these roads are if they went straight down to 16 and turned down 32, everybody would be better off. But they're leading 80,000lb loads down an oil and chip road. They're not made for a significant amount of what we're seeing. So just trying to limit that and guide them on better roads for them as well. So thank you. Anybody else call vote? B. Yes. Brown. Yes. Cole, yes. Edwards, yes. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, yes. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes.

Moors, yes. Stroll, yes. Cyford, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, yes. Wood, yes. Janice, yes. Motion passes unanimously. Number 10. Go ahead.

Okay. Item number 10, discussion and vote to approve a resolution to amend the 2026 fiscal year budget to accept funds from the Illinois Department of Transportation. State of Illinois local project funding grant and approved use of township bridge funds for bridge reconstruction. This is just to amend the budget so that um we can't accept the funds. I reached out to our auditor and they said this is the best pra best practices for this and we're just taking the recommendation. This is is this grant money then that we're going to be receiving and about 1.5 million of it is is grant money. Yes. So it would be flow through money then.

Yes, it is flow through money. Zero net funds. So okay I need a motion. Christine

Bane. Yes. Brown. Yes. Cole. Yes. Edwards. Yes. Grant. Yes. Yes. Gray. Yes. Hardy. Yes. Mattwalk. Yes. Mitchell. Yes. Mors. Yes. Stroll. Yes. Cyford. Yeah. Wavern. Yes. Wallace. Yes. Wood. Yes. Janice. Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Okay. Number 11 is the treasure. Do you want to speak to this, Erica, since you're on an agenda? Just ask for discussion and a vote to approve the recode of the two performance solution payments from the 066 06150 560 ARPA project line item to the general fund 00129743 0 the courthouse maintenance and repair and the general fund for the fiscal year uh 2026. Uh, and this would be to complete the action that you voted on last month uh to recode those ARPA payments, but I cannot complete that until there's an approval for the line item. Need a motion. Make a motion.

I'll second the motion. Okay. Okay. Discussion.

Have a quick question. Why are we having to recode them? Was there not enough funds in the 06 apartment?

No, there was not. And this project was not reported to the federal government as obligated. And what was obligated to the federal government is going to the rest of the funds are going to be used. The 4.2 million plus dollars is going to be gone. That report has been filed. That report was filed last year. The report was filed um in April this year. Um this project was not obligated in to the federal government. It was voted on last month to recode, but I was not given a line item. So I have to have a line item direction to recode because you've already approved to recode it. There's there's no there's not another option at this point. and I sent out to the full board uh the budget for ARPA that is sitting at a negative $137 plus,000 and I can't transfer back from the general fund for what we did recode for all of the other payments that I was I received line items for the audits and a couple other the sheriff gave me some and Heather did. I can't move that money out of the general fund back to the uh ARPA fund so that we have a a positive balance until this gets recoded. But you already voted to recode. So there's really not an option. Okay. So who does the recoding? Have you done that with this you've written here? No, I have not done it and will not do it until you vote to recode it to that line item. Okay. Okay. Because when the auditors ask us because they constantly asked us, I mean, we have to provide, they'll pick out various reclasses that we've done and we have to provide the documentation. I don't reclass anything in my office without something

in writing from the department, whoever controls that budget. You know, Heather provided a um a line item out of her budget. Brian has provided some for to reclass because we're not going to spend all the money on the courthouse cleaning. Um, so I guess my question is if somebody has a line item, who puts the code on it? The clerk do. But technically, whoever's controlling that budget does because they turn in a claim form to the county clerk. So, she goes based on I mean, she can speak to it better than I can. She's the accounts payable. So it could be the department head that does the coding. It depends on what budget. Like when I turn in a claim for my budget, which I'm 001004, and then my budget, when I turn in a claim, I have to put the line item, which is always 001004, you know, and if it's postage, you know, or if it's office supplies or if it's payroll, the last five five numbers are the same pretty much for each office because those last five numbers dictate. Jessica's line item for office supplies is going to be 001 002, you know, 7,000. Our our last five numbers are going to be the same. Ruths are going to be the same. Debbies are going to be it's all the same. So when we turn in claims, I am telling the accounts payable department where I need where to code this claim in the system. Some mistakes can happen. Someone can hit the wrong key and then we need to recclass it. But if it was if it was coded to ARPA and we didn't have the money and it wasn't obligated.

Okay. So, so with the ARPA money, different departments were given specific amounts. So, they're the ones that should have put the made the code u I'm just trying to understand this. They would have been the one that create the line item for let's say the courthouse work. They would have created a line item and it would have had the code for that line item. ARPA had very few codes. There were like five or six and the ARPA line item projects had the had the specific five digits. There was administrative which is what we paid bellweather. There were a couple different payroll line items that had five digits. ARPA did not have a lot of line items, but most of then what was done, you know, what was paid out for the tower, what was paid out for the airport, what was paid out for the rescue and dive team equipment, all of those were coded to the ARPA project line item. So that ARPA project line item encompassed a lot. So yes, the airport would have had to have coded it to that. The um rescue and dive would have had to coded to that. Everybody would have coded it to that and if they weren't aware of the line item then you know I'm assuming Jessica would have given it to them.

How much money are you talking about and is there money in that budget to cover the cost?

Well, it's it's a part of I mean in my opinion yes there's money in the budget. It would be coded back to the general fund. Is there enough money in that line item? No. But my understanding of budgets are the overall budget can't go over. You can go over in a in a single line item as long as the overall budget doesn't go over. Ruth can correct me if I'm wrong. It's the way I read the statute and we've got plenty of I mean I just want to make sure we're not transferring the problem somewhere else. I mean there's if there's money there in that line item you want to transfer it to

there's not money in that particular line item because we only budgeted 90 we didn't budget the performance services anywhere that I can see we didn't it wasn't budgeted in ARPA and it wasn't budgeted in the general fund but again it was passed in December of 24 which but it would have been fiscal year 25 and I don't know if everybody just forgot there was an obligation there I mean I don't know because I wasn't consulted on the budget one time. Uh taxpayers paid sick I'm not sure how much money to work on the budget. So I wasn't a part of those conversations. Uh does this relate directly really to 13 sheriffs? Aren't they kind of hand in hand? Yes.

Okay. because the it actually I think Erica just said that it was approved by the board in 1224 but it didn't make on the list the $530,000 and when it didn't make on the list it went to the federal government then we find out this March wait a second it's not on the list there would have been enough money in AR anyway because we only had 30 because we didn't that's why what's that so we spent 1.6 6 was what we were told and then we find out we don't have enough.

Okay. Anyway, so the money has to come from somewhere. If we take the 536,000 plus the money for the drone, I believe that wasn't accounted for either. If we take those dollars amount, what dollar amount you come up with that was not put on the ARPA report that we now have to reimburse ourselves for from somewhere?

I I I have no idea what you're talking about and I don't know anything about it. Oh, September of 24. Mr. McKin knows all about it. Um, so we've got like $600 and some odd thousands that we have to take from what we thought was going to be paid for by ARA funds which are now depleted. We have to move into something else. So we have addressing again 11 and 13 are are similar processes. So we put this line item for performance services under courthouse maintenance and repair. And then in 13 we go ahead and use 250,000 of Deco to offset some of those expenses. Is that accurate? And I I was not informed anything about a Deco grant that was not in the estimated revenue.

It's on the agenda. I think you can find it. Does that sound Christine? I said I don't know where I was informed until I read this agenda when I put out to all department heads of known any known revenue they're going to have so that I can create an estimated revenue. When I heard this agenda was the first time that I'd heard anything about DECO. So if it comes in, we put it in a line item in the general fund, but that doesn't really change anything as far as your expenditures because expenditure line items are there. So sheriff, is that correct? Is that where you want the 250,000? Is that 250,000 going to offset some of this 500 and some thousand expense?

Courthouse work can be we can put in for reimbursement through this DC area grant. So it'll be a 250,000. Okay. So it'll be kind of a two-part. We'll take care of this first and then here in a few minutes we'll go through and apply hopefully apply the Deco grant to cover some of those costs. Is that correct? Well, the grants already been awarded to us. We just have to turn in work and invoices. Okay. All right. So, it does offset some of that expense. Okay. But it doesn't change the expenditure line item.

You don't credit you don't get a grant in and credit an expenditure line item. So then therefore decrease the expenditures by $250,000. Any grant money that comes in goes into a revenue line item. Any expenditure paid goes out of an expenditure line item. So yes, there's going to be some revenue coming in, but you still the budget still has to be budgeted in those and that amount has to come out of an expense lineup. It might have been handy for you to show up at a budget meeting when you requested to discuss those. Thank you. I didn't hear a word you said. I didn't hear what he said. I'm sorry. I think you Julie's got a question.

Can we get back to the focus and that's we have to vote to recode. There's not an option. That's I mean that's what we're here to do is vote to recode, right? And that No, you Well, you voted to recode last month.

There was however many were present, everybody voted yes, one person voted no. You already voted to recode. What I need is a line item to recode it too so that I can do that and then get money from the general fund back into the ARPA fund. So maybe we'll have some kind of idea of how much money is left in ARPA to cover what has been obligated in the federal government which is going to be somewhere around because you've already spent 9,000 there's I believe some 5,400 maybe a little more in the bills you're going to pass tonight. So we'll have somewhere around $64,000. So, does anybody in the budget committee know how to resolve this situation to advise us on what we need to do to resolve this?

She just needs a line item, but Okay. Who gives the line item? Where do we how do we create that today? Yeah. Yeah. I don't speak out of turn. No, you're fine. What I understand is basically she is suggesting that this be assigned to the sheriff's line item. Okay. for courthouse repair and maintenance. Makes sense. And then in number 13, the sheriff is asking for a budget amendment to cover that line item that this is being added. Okay. So then we can vote. Call the vote. Roll call. Bane. Yes. Brown. Yes.

Cole, yes. Edwards, yes. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, yes. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes. Mors, yes. Stroll, yes. Ciphert, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, yes. Wood, yes. Janice, yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Item number 12. I am asking um for discussion and vote to approve the transfer from the general fund. We have a remaining uh $60,000 of the LATCF uh money that came in from the federal government a couple years ago. We've received $100,000. Um this this also has to be reported to the federal government. Um but we need to transfer that money to the social security fund. I sent you all um the social security fund budget and we ran out of money in the social security fund with last week's payroll. Right now, there's a due to from the general fund to the social security fund for $8,000. Every payroll from now until, you know, the first to second week of July when we get our first uh real estate property tax dispersement, it's it's just going to increase. The $60,000 a would get rid of that money. We can next March, somebody can finish a final report to the federal government. Uh it's a legal payment with that money. Um, but it'll at least float us, I think, close to the July 3rd payroll, and then hopefully the week, the next week, we will have a a property tax dispersement, get it into the social security fund, the due to from the general fund to social security cleared up, and hopefully it's the last discussion you all ever have about social security being bankrupt. Need a motion.

I make a motion. Need a second. Um, in budget auditory, we discussed not using LTCF because of the wide variety of things we can use it for and we planned on using it out of the general fund reimbursing it after tax time. That was the official decision we made. What was the decision?

To not use LACF to use money from the general fund and then reimburse it after tax time comes. That's what we decided on. And then that way that LACF funds can stay there and if something comes up, we can use it for anything. Yes.

If you deplete it, it's gone. It's just restricted money in the general fund. It's all general fund money. It's simply rest it's simply restricted money. It's budgeted like everything else. There's a line item out of the general fund for LATCF reimbursement. So either way, it's budgeted in the general fund. Whether you use it for the social security or you use it for something else, it's $60,000 that's budgeted out of the general fund. So I mean, you can do what you want. near the board, but the due to from the general fund is just going to keep increasing and increasing and increasing probably between 17 and $18,000 for every payroll.

I have a question. If um the budget committee decided to do it that way, is it going to delay the ability for her to have money to make the payment? When did you say that was due? We we continue to make I mean the social security payment but we pay it out of the general fund. So it's depleting the general fund which there's not an expenditure out of the general fund to make that payment. So then it creates a due to from you cannot close a fiscal year with a due to from. It doesn't look good on your books. And as you know, as somebody sitting in the public, I don't really like looking at it at the Social Security Fund, which I have to post online every month. It's one reason I don't have the March reports out because the ARPA fund is at a negative 137. You know, the the Social Security is going to be it's showing a negative 7,700 some odd dollars. when we get to June and we're putting those reports out on the website, we're going to be at a negative 40ome thousand and then by July 1st, I mean, you're just showing a negative. So, it's not it's being paid out of the general fund because it has to be paid. We have to pay the federal government the social security that is due. But it as that goes on, it's just that negative balance every time we put it out to the public is more negative, a greater negative and a greater negative. I mean, and then yes, it'll be cleared up as soon as the property taxes are dispersed because we will transfer from from the general fund over to the social security fund and it'll go back into the positive because there will be a you know, but it's not a good look. But that's again you're the board.

I do have something. Go ahead. It was my understanding when we started looking at the budget fiscal year 26 um that social security had been short the last few budgets and we allotted in I believe enough for this shortfall when the tax levy come in when the taxes come in to compensate the what was the shortfall was going to be that's why the the lat whatever they didn't want to use cuz there's supposed to be enough coming in on what we set the levy for to cover that. We accounted for this.

Yes. And I made it clear back when you transferred the 35,000 for LATCF that it wasn't enough. I I gave a pretty clear outline as to when the social security fund would be out of money. So, I mean, that's up to you all. If you want to put negative budgets out there and keep going in the negative, I mean, you're the board. You make those decisions. I've made you aware of the problem. I know there's $60,000 sitting there that's restricted. Um, your choice. Whatever you want to do. Call up, please. Do we have to amend anything to get it done? Roll call vote. And if you vote yes, that means you're going to use the LATCF money. No means no.

Bane, no. Brown, yes. Cole, no. Edwards, yes. Grant, no. Greg, no. Hardy, yes. Matlock, no. Mitchell, no. Mors, no. Stroll, yes. Cyford, no. Waford, no. Wallace, yes. Wood, no. Janice, no. Motion fails. There's 11 names, five eyes.

Okay. Number 13 is the chair. Sheriff, do you want to talk about this?

The big thing is we we have phase one underway, which is the exterior of the courthouse. We have a contract to performance services and phase one is the $436,424. In December of 25, we had made a payment out of our at that time of 13773930. Um in February 13th, we had another payment due of 72,000 to 7435. It was at that time that we were told, our office was told there was only 63,000 left in ARPA. So we made 63,000 of that payment, what we believed was going to be out of ARPA and 9,000 out of the courthouse maintenance budget. So if this is getting all recoded, the entire phase one is going to have to be paid for um out of courthouse maintenance. And again, the courthouse maintenance budget was only $90,000 to begin with. Um, now we've only signed the contract for phase one, which is the 436424. Um, phase two was the interior work, fixing all the plaster in the basement, working on the restrooms down there, um, doing the upgrades, making them handicap accessible. We do not have a signed contract for interior work yet. So, but the what I was showing was the entire phase one and phase two, but phase one is the more important one. They've already began the work and they're going to be finishing up.

So, one more time, phase one, we've paid how much and how much is the bill? Well, we made payments, but if you've recoded those payments, in essence, we've made nothing. I mean, they have to come from somewhere. They have to be moved. So, we're going to owe with 40 436,424 is going to have to come from a budget. That's after. I already paying 10,000.

Well, we did pay. No, that's not after. That would be that 100, the 13779 and the 72274 were part of that number. But what I'm saying if it got recoded and it's not coming out of our it has to come out of another line, right? Yes. So we had 436,000 roughly. That's what that contract is. You said we had 90,000 we could put towards that currently. Well, we we have 90,000 for the total courthouse maintenance, but I'm spending that all the time. Anytime we have Indian air come, anytime we have the elevator people, I mean, yeah, that's that's my general maintenance. Okay.

So, if we take the 436 and change, we take off the the deco grant of 250 gives us a dollar. Christine, let's stop just a minute. We need a motion to accept this. So, somebody make a motion. Christine, somebody second it. Okay, Judy, now we can discuss. Okay, so we had 436,000 some change with the contract. We've essentially paid zero. We have a $250,000 DECO grant. Subtracting the two, you get what?

$186,000. Thanks, Chad. So, there's about 186 still outstanding for the work that they're finishing now. Is that correct? The one thing I can't tell you is I don't know how fast when we turn in the bills when that money from the state of Illinois will get here. Will it get here during this fiscal year? I think so, but I don't know. We've not we've not drawn on any of that grant money yet, but we have been approved for we Yes, it was awarded.

So, we're about 186 off then. Julie. Well, just based on the questions that was raised during public comment, can legally, and I'm going to ask since our council is here, can we amend a negative budget to be more in the negative? Generally speaking, I haven't looked at this specifically. I don't like giving answers off the and I apologize. I'm just before we Yeah. But generally speaking, I mean, budget amendments are the standard procedure for dealing with unknown expenses and unknown um uh revenues. Mhm.

So, you know, whether it's between departments, line items, uh appointed to different functions. Um so, my understanding is so long as it does not increase any levies that it can be amended. No, I'm being told that's not true. But like I said, I have your legal counsel research it thoroughly. But that was my general understanding. So, Sheriff, you said that you already amended some put line items to some of this already. Is that what you just said? No, that was was just Sorry,

that was voted on. There were there were two bills that we thought were paid, but they I guess at this point I mean perform services got the money, but they need to be reported to another line that doesn't. But does that money go towards that 436424 that we owe performance services? The money that they've already gotten, does it go towards the 436424?

It does, but where's it coming from? We turned the claims in as the AR line 06 60615056. I guess I'm so totally confused. If you turned it in and Artha paid it, how can we say that they didn't know about it and stuff?

Can anybody answer that one? Cuz I'm confused. I can. If you want me to, I'll answer it. Christine,

my understanding it was not even though it was voted on December 24, it was not put on the report. So when the report came out, we had 4.2 million of expenditures. But if there are things that didn't make it to the report, then we spent too much. And when you spend too much, that means a bucket got in too fast. ARPA buckets here. This is this other bucket. We're trying to we say this bucket's empty. We got to pull money out of this bucket to pay these bills. And that is going to include this DECO grant, which is 250,000. So we're basically it's taking money from another bucket to pay the bill inside the courthouse. We went, "Wait a second, that was not the right bucket. Let's pull it out of this bucket." So we're authorizing that ability to pull it from the correct bucket once it was recoded.

Do you have plans to do the work inside the courthouse still or is that some of the stuff that we've not signed a contract with them? So that's up to the board whether you want that inside work done and whether you want to obligate the money for it or not. Um but there is no ARCA money to do it. So it would have to come out. Right. Okay. And at this point there's no money in your budget to do it. There's not no right unless unless that was that full amendment was done.

There is money in the general fund. There is plenty of money in the general fund. There's been stuff there. There's line items in the general fund that were way over budgeted. There are line items in that 029 budget that were budgeted last year for 40,000 that we spent 5,000 that then was budgeted up to 60,000 this year. If you go through that line by line and look at it and there's stuff that can be cut or places to maybe not spend things that aren't absolutely necessary, but you have the entire general fund budget, which I believe is uh well, just the 029 is $1.89 million. So, if you look at it hard, there's no reason to amend. And again, last year you came in at 81% of your expenditures, but then only spending 81% last year. Do you jump the budget up this year another I forget how much it was, $150, $300,000? I mean, we're at a $9 million budget. So, you had an increase over last year when last year you only spent $81,000. There are line items in that budget that were increased this year when not even close to what was spent. I mean, there's one with the opioid money. There's $19,000 in that expenditure that last year we spent $1610 out of opioid.

That that that's restricted money. Yeah, that is we can't use it for it's where you're not using it, but it's it's it's money that's in the general fund. And if you don't use it, if this line item goes way over, as long as these line items don't spend what was totally budgeted and the overall budget doesn't go over, there's no reason to

Okay, Jeff, your question. Well, looking at the numbers and the list of discussion, I mean, I would personally be in favor of approving the phase one money of 436 424 and sending phase two back to the budget committee next month to let them review it, discuss it, bring it. I mean, I don't think we're in a time crunch on this phase two, are we? Brian, I mean, it's not like we're going to start tomorrow, right? No, there there's the you know what they said on phase two is if if this is something that gets kicked down the road the next year, you can expect that that cost will be much much higher.

I I would just like, you know, the the second phase to go back to the budget committee, give them an opportunity to review the whole thing and and bring it to the board next month. because we're not in a time crunch for phase two. Chad, at the end of the day, the bill's got to be paid. We just need to approve this on take it out of the O29 fund, let budgets, the budget committee, reacal reall allocate the money towards the end of the fiscal year and be able to transfer the money on unuted monies back into the general fund. We can sit here for the next 5 hours and debate this and nothing is going to get done. So, we just need to call the vote, vote on it, and move it on. Agreed. Thank you. Call the vote. Roll call. Bane.

Yes. What? What are we voting on? To amend to amend the budget and pay the 436. Okay. Okay. 424. That's just that part of it. Okay. Brown. Yes. Cole. Yes. Edwards. No. Grant. Yes. Greg. Yes. Hardy. Yes. Matt Law, yes. Mitchell, yes. Mors, yes. Stroll, yes. Cipher, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace,

yes. Wood, yes. Janice, yes. Motion pass is um 15 eyes one others. Okay, moving on. Discussion and vote to approve the FY27 ordinance to allow Effingham County to serve as the grant recipient of the Illinois Department of Transportation fund and public transportation provider for Shelby County. I need a motion. Excuse me. Um, you also need to resend the previous ordinance first. It's not on the agenda.

I I've got an agenda and I've got to follow this. If it's not here, I can't do it.

Okay. Need a motion. I think Judy made a motion. Judy, who second her? Christine, can I ask a question? Yeah. Why is this happening? We have anybody do the work, Julie? Why? What? We have no one to do the work. And that's the peep position. Yes.

We're not going to try to rehire somebody to keep that. Effingham has somebody down there that does this work and they are agreeable to take it. We will not lose any of the services and stuff. So this is the answer to it. I agree. Want to do a roll call again? That's your choice. Roll call. Bane? Yes. Brown? No. Cole, yes. Edwards, yes. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, no. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes. Morris, yes. Stroll, yes. Ciphert, yes.

Waford, yes. Wallace, no. Wood, yes. Janice, yes. Motion passes. 13 eyes. Three days. Okay. Number 15, discussion and vote to approve the intergovernmental agreement for the county of Effingham and the counties of Christian, Clay, Fet, Montgomery, Moltry, and Shelby counties. Therein referred to as the participants for the pro provision of public transportation in S County. Need a motion. Christine and Jeff.

All in favor? opposed. All agreed. Okay. Okay. 16 is uh Tim Brown. Discussion and vote to approve the dive team forensic audit D by Benford and Brown in 2024 prior board action taken June 12th. I think we've already done this once. So I guess we need a motion. I'd like to make a motion. to approve the a the Yes, ma'am. forensic audit of the diet team. Yes, I need a second.

I'll second it. This is just releasing the information. We're not We're not trying to do another audit. No, you're not trying to do another audit, but you have to approve it to release it, right? Gotcha. I understand.

No discussion. There were some things in that audit that I didn't feel like should be in the diet team audit and it had to do with some reports that Mr. Hanland made about supervisor of assessments Mr. Bame, Alan Spessard, and the board of review. I don't remember what paragraphs they were, page three or four, but it seemed like that had nothing to do with the audit. Was nothing about the diet team, but it was basically about the grand jury stuff. And for that reason, I would not approve.

The county board voted to have the audit done. The county paid for the audit. I feel very strongly that the audit should be public information. If um the public agrees with you that the information in the audit is baloney, that's that's fine. But the audit should be publicly available information. It was voted upon by the Shelby County Board and it was paid for by Shelby County. It should be available to Shelby County. It is in draft form though, so it has to be approved in order to go out. Yeah, just I believe it was already on.

Well, I think it's been released. It's been We're going to do a roll call vote. We're just going to vote on it. Call the vote. Well, go ahead. There was some things I'll agree, right? I think it started page 15 or 16. There were some things in there that really didn't seem like it had anything to do with the dive the dive deep, but there's some information in there that, you know, they're trying to assist in, you know, helping keep things solvent, helping, you know, and I, you know, I think they're just trying to help us do businesses as we should be doing it. Madam Chair, call the vote. We can now we can always say

we're going to vote. Call B. I vote not to approve it, not to release it. Brown, yes. Cole, no. Edwards, yes. Grant, no. Greg, no. Hardy, yes. Matlock, no. Mitchell, no. Mors, no. Stroll. No. Cipher. Yeah. Waford. No. Wallace. Yes. Wood. No. Yantis.

No. Motion fails. Five eyes. 11s. Okay. Moving on to number 18. 17. 17. Okay. I already marked it off. Got to go backwards. Okay. Discussion and vote

of the salary resolution for Shelby County Sheriff to take office on December 1, 2026 as per public act 102-0699. The salary of the sheriff to be 80% of the salary set for the state's attorney. We need a motion. Carol and Christine. There any discussion? Just go ahead and vote. I mean, his is set by statute. Yes, his is set by statute. It's out of our control when the sheriff gets paid. Um, we have to do a roll. I mean, it's it's out of your hands. You can All in favor?

I. Those opposed. Okay. Now 18 discussion and vote on salary setting resolution 50 ILCS 145-2 for the 4-year term as supervisor of assess assessments to take office on December 1, 2026 as recommended by the budget audit and legislative committee. I need a motion. Motion Tim call. Roll call. Okay. Anybody got any discussions on this?

I don't know. Is this where we discussed it or not? But why why was it determined that two of the three elected departments are going to get raises and one is not? I have some notes and some of the other members you Yeah, that's fine. I mean you you everybody meetings but I can also ask in this meeting. Yes. Yes. Why? But everybody's in these meetings and stuff if they have questions or some people can only come to this meeting. You can't you can't tell me no because I didn't come to

I didn't tell you no. I didn't tell you no. I have every right to ask that in this meeting. These were discussed at the meeting and there was members of the committee that had reached out to some of the other counties and the same people that had these jobs in other counties and told what they made. These people, the supervisor of assessments, Jessica and um the coroner corner's really been frozen. have not had any kind of a substantial raise in several years and based on this one is the supervisor of assessments. It was agreed to that that she will get a 9% raise this year. She has a union person working in her office that makes more money than she does.

So is a treasure, but that's that's part of that is part of it. But she is your salary. So it was agreed to that they would get 9% this year, 2% the following three years. So to those people who on this board in this room said the treasurer should be a CPA, why are you asking me? I didn't say that. People have said that. That has been said, you guys. Come on. I'm not delusional. It has been said that the treasurer should be a CPA. Why is it then that you're asking a CPA to take less salary? You couldn't get a CPA to take

and you're asking someone for that. I've got a daughter-in-law who is a CPA. I understand that from what I call voting. Okay. Number 18. So, I never really got an answer as to why other than somebody somebody said there was a a poll taken with what what counties what counties took the poll? the salary poll. What counties did you pull? There's a whole bunch of them. There's a whole list. Which counties? I tell you off the top of my head. It's in my diary. Which counties? You can tell me every other thing off the top of your head. You can't tell me that. Find it if you like to know. Okay. Okay. Bane. Yes. Brown. No.

Cole, yes. Edwards, no. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, no. Matlaw, I'm sorry. Yes. Mitchell, yes. Mors, yes. Stroll, yes. Ciphert, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, no. Wood, yes. Janice, yes.

Motion passes. 12 eyes, four names. Thank you. Okay. Number 19, discussion and vote on salary resolution 50cs 145-2 for four-year term for Shelby County Clerk and Recorder to take office on December 1, 2026 as recommended by the budget audit and legislative committee. Motion, please. Jeff,

I'd like to speak to this one if I could. Uh we recently had an election. We have two people run for this job. To the best of my knowledge, neither individual said, "I will take this job provided I get a big raise." Um, both individuals wanted this job at base salary. Another point I'd like to make is I lost my train of thought. Oh, the timing of it. I read in the read ahead that this money has to be submitted by June before the June meeting. We should have brought this up in March or maybe even April, but not May. I mean, we have no time to table this or or do research for other counties. And and the third point I'd like to make is um I put a email out to the board asking everyone to do their research on these positions in other counties. Um I I don't know if anybody was able to do that, but I think if you're making the case where you want the raise, you should make the presentation to us. show us the visual aids and show us what other counties are paying. And the counties that I did have time to research online, it looks to me like we're already paying enough for both these positions. That is the county clerk and the assessor. And I agree with Julie. We shouldn't be I I think we're paying all three of them enough, but we certainly should not pay uh just the two and and leave the treasurer out of the role.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Roll call vote.

TR, I have one thing to say. With the with the clerk's office, we've added we've added payroll. Elections are getting more and more complicated. I understand that position getting an increase. I don't understand with my I guess I should have said my point. What position what did we add to the assessor's position that warrants an increase like we've increased the clerks. So that was that's my I'm not opposed to increases. I want to know what has changed to to each of these departments that has caused two departments to get an increase and one not. The assessor's office has not changed their responsibilities at all. The clerk's office is office has. There's been a lot of things added to the clerk's office. Absolutely.

The assessor's office also has a regimenal requirement of education. Mhm. If Debbie would retire tomorrow, there isn't anybody in here that could step into that position and take that job because they don't have the education in the Never has been. She took it. I understand she's the only one. Yes. But anyway, sorry, we're getting away from the point. Okay. Vote. B. Yes. Brown. No. Cole, yes. Edwards, yes. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, no. Matlock,

yes. Mitchell, yes. Mors, yes. Stroll, present. Ciphert, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, no. Wood, yes. Gantis, yes. Motion passes. 12 eyes, three nays, one present.

Discussion and vote on salary setting resolution 50 LCS 145-2 for the 4-year term in the Shelby County Treasury to take office on December 1, 2026 as recommended by the budget legislative committee. Need a motion. Christine and J.

I'm gonna make a motion to amend this that we give the treasur's office the same increase that we've given percentage of increase that we have the other two. I'll second that amendment. Take a vote. You vote on a motion to vote on the amendment initially. on the amendment. Mhm. Okay. This vote you're going to take is to increase the treasur salary. Okay. The same the same percentage that we've increased the other two departments. Yes. Roll call. Bane. No. Brown. Yes. Cole.

Yes. Edwards. Yes. Grant. Yes. Greg, no. Hardy, yes. Mattlock, no. Mitchell, no. Mors, no. Stroll, yes. Ciphert, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, no. Wood. No. Yantis. No.

It's time. It's time. Oh, shoot. What do we do now? You want to arm wrestle, Teresa? No. Failed on a tie. It failed on a tie. Does it fail on a tie? I think before we done that motion, I think this should have broke out into discussion on why that was held at the same pay rate. We just jumped right into a motion with no explanation. Go backwards. We can go backwards. So, I think we need to open this up, have a discussion on why it was chosen to keep that that pay rate at that pay rate before we need to make a motion. Can we do that?

Okay, we're going to go backwards. We had a motion in a second. Now we're gonna have discussion. Okay. Thank you. On why the salary was more or less frozen. Okay. Anybody have any comments? Christine, I have one. Um, this is a phone call I had today with Don Deol. He asked me to read this exactly verbatim. During discussion regarding treasurer salary, I pointed out that because a significant portion of the duties have been transferred to the clerk's office, it is not logical to then reward the treasur with the pay raise. and approach. That's from the person that's going into the office.

He's going to be in the office potentially four years. We're talking about a fiveyear increase. I mean, if him, he may only be in the office two years. It's one term, four years. Four years, not five. Anybody else got any comment? My whole reasoning was the fact that there is less workload. If you base what people are getting paid by how much work is done, that's why treasur's office has fewer employees. How many employees are do we have in there too now? Treasurer wasn't making more when she did payroll.

She Christy asked how many employees are in the treasur's office. I have one full-time and one part-time. Because when I got rid of payroll, I cut down an employee and only replaced with a part-time. That's what I was going to ask was if you had the same amount of people. No, I decreased. So, you decreased from two full-time to a full-time part-time. Yes. Correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to do it again.

I do have one more question. If we vote to keep it, the treasur's position does not get a raise, what happens next year if can it be re-evaluated? Every four years. So if something would happen to our treasure, that's the next treasure that stuck at that. We ran into that with the corn. Exactly like And I That's Anybody else got anything? Roll call again. We're going to vote.

If you vote yes, you're voting to increase the salary for the treasurer has we did for the clerk and the we no we just voted on the amendment we just voted on and it tied yeah but we had a discussion I don't know if anybody's changed their mind we go back to Can we revote no go back to the original motion the original motion and second was as presented on the agenda okay we're going to vote now to freeze the treasur's salary the original that's on the agenda. Okay. To raise it to freeze to freeze to freeze freeze freeze it where it is.

So if you vote yes, you're voting to freeze freeze it. Yes. Okay. So if you vote not to freeze it, that means that we can amend it later or we can't because this is still four years. No salary setting resolution in place. Yeah. And it has to be done by June 1st. We'll have to vote. Do it tonight. A yes vote means that you're going to vote to freeze the salary. Well, you're I mean you're not going to increase you're voting to approve the salary setting resolution. You guys were presenting it. Yes. But this four years

township level, you cannot raise your salary after you took office. Well, they they can on this one either. So that's why years four years four years. But are you saying Ruth if we don't pass it then we're not meeting it for anybody or just this position? Just this it would just be this position. This position. Okay. Because you guys have already voted. And then what are the consequences of not having that done? They don't have a salary. Well, they would have probably the corner. The same thing happened to the corner. They shed. Okay. Can we amend it again because for the four years the salary is exactly the same?

Yes. Can we amend it the first year whatever it is but then every year after that can get the same increase as the other offices. Can we have that? Why would we do that? Why wouldn't we just give it the increase the whole four years? Well, good. I am confused. So, we're back to the original keeper the same cost of living for at least the three years. A cost of living increase in the second, third, and fourth year.

Go ahead. I was curious just how how many how many employees does the county have over you know I have I now have three three okay and does what the amount of hours uh is is the county clerk a larger amount of hours than than I generally work eight hours a day I mean I don't I don't normally take a lunch and Yeah. Okay. And you would be working with the elections and take a lot more time. Yeah. Yeah.

Follow Bane. Yes. To keep it resolutions. Brown. Um. Yes. Cole. No. Edwards. No. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, yes. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes. Morris, yes. Stroll, no. Cipher, yes. Waford, no. Wallace, present. Confused. Wood, yes.

Yantis, present. Okay, we've got um 10 eyes, four nays, two present. So pass. So passed. Pass.

Okay. Number 21. Discussion and vote to the salary setting resolution for the 2-year and expired term for the Shelby County Corner to take office on December 1, 2026 as recommended by the budget audit legislative committee. Need a motion. 15 Judy. Okay. Now, want to have some discussions about this. Has anybody got any questions? I'll be quiet. Well, she didn't. This should have been done two years ago. It was. Okay. Now, let's make this a little less confusing, please. Uh, so this is going to be that you've already set the salary.

Yes. And Yes. It's being raised also. Yes. Or it's Yes. Because you remember when our corner passed away and this lady Oh, I stepped in. She's worked the last two years without an increase. So, has it been four years since that? That that office hasn't been increased in probably 20 plus years. Okay. It hasn't been increased in 20 plus years. Probably not. It's considered a part-time position, but it still hasn't been increased in Yeah. It's a It's a part-time position, but she's on call. That's right. 247, right?

Yes. ready to vote. Bane, yes. Brown, no. Cole, yes. Edwards, yes. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, yes. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes. Morris, yes. Stroll, yes. Ciphert, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, no. Wood, yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. 14 eyes. Two nays.

Discussion. We vote to appoint Walt Laoski, Gary Cool, Patricia Tate Hendrickson to the ethics committee. Need a motion. Jeff, and James. Hey, Julie. Go ahead. You're up. Um, can I ask why these are not under chairman appointments? Well, the stat I mean the statute just says I just wondered because it says that they'll be appointed by the chairman and so I just well he more or less did this but we had affidavit that we had to have signed and stuff

and those have been done. Okay. Also, was there discussion at all? How how did we go about picking these people? Walt and Gary Cool were on it prior. Mhm. And Patricia had to be a Democrat. So, I had to find a Democrat. Okay. I I just am curious because I sent a foyer asking for information on how any discussion or any and I never got a response to my FOYA. So, I'm just wondering how that discussion was had without any response to a FOYA. Did that go to me? Yeah.

You got one more day. Okay. But Walt was on it before. Mhm. And then there was a judge that was on it before. Kylie was on it and he moved. So Walt just assumed he would be on it again. No, I talked to Walt. Okay. I I've talked I did not talk to Gary Cool, but I've talked to this Patricia Hendrickson to confirm that she's willing to do this. Okay. and they filled out the affidavit. So, okay. Okay. Yeah, that for you was sent Monday. Okay. Um, yes, sir. Patricia Hendrickson.

Yes. Was she the one that in public body comment said something like she put her parents in the nursing home and somehow she put her husband in the nursing home and he was in hospice and he passed yesterday and then that put it on Erica and said Erica you should step down kind of put it all together. Is that the that was her comment? That was her public body comment. That was her comment. Okay. Okay. Okay. Motion. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? I'm opposed. Okay.

Discussion and vote to appoint Assistant States Attorney Gina Vanderhide as the ethics commission advisor. Need a motion. I'll move James. and okay. Do we have any discussions on this? Otherwise, I'm going to vote. I got you. All in favor?

Opposed. Okay. Committee reports. We have any reports that anybody wants to talk about? Sheriff, you want to talk about the car? What you sold? Wasn't my car. Your car, but we did have a But we did put out a sealed bid for the the car and the man has paid for it and he should have the title cuz I signed it today. Okay. Okay.

Uh Cooperative Extension Advisory Board had their meeting. It was uh very informative. What they're trying to do now is try to figure out how to outreach the older people. 4 is big and now they're trying to figure out how to reach everyone with all all the other opportunities that they're able to put out to the company. Anything else? Anybody? Well, the finance committee met and we paid the bills. I can tell you that it's a good thing.

The highway department then we paid the bills out there too. Paid a lot of bills out there.

So that's the only ones I'm on. That's all I'm chairman and correspondence. We've got thank yous here that was sent from the Illinois Extension to the board and our house sent us a thank you too. So, we got those. Okay, we're going to do chairman appointments. Tri County fire. Mark Wolf trustee three years. Can we do them all? Tim Morris to finance committee. Chad Ganis to budget audit legislative committee to replace grant and Judy Wood to public safety committee. Christine Matlock to the farm committee and Tim Morris and Teresa Bane, Jeff Greg. We're on a special committee for the FOP for a grievance procedure. Been on this board years and it's the second one of these I've had to sit.

Is this the one that is this the meeting that I attended the other day? This is the FOP. This is the sheriff's department. Okay. So, all in favor of these appointment motion, Carol, Christine, all in favor? Could we do some discussion? Okay, go ahead. Uh, Judy Wood, the public safety committee. I I don't I'm sure she's here. I don't know Judy Wood. I wouldn't know if I saw her right there. I Yeah, but I still don't know who she is. Raise your hand, Judy. Hi, Judy. Oh, yes. I saw you at the blood drive. Yes. Okay.

Good. You're good. Why was Julie Edwards removed from the public safety? That's a question only the chairman can answer. I can't answer that. I'm not the chairman. Okay. Okay. Any other discussions? All in favor? I opposed.

Okay. Old business. I have some old business. Okay. If you haven't heard enough from me, you're going to hear some more. I want to thank the clerk and the treasurer for bringing to attention the in my opinion waste, fraud, and abuse that happened with the PEOM position. They brought it to the state's attorney's attention in October of 25. There was so much going on that it I'm afraid had they not brought it up, it would still be going on to this day. But to that fact, I don't know how many people have looked at the expenses from the PECOM position. We've had that position in this county for many years and never hardly had any expenses. In eight months, we spent almost $40,000. And let me tell you what, I sent an email out to the finance committee. I asked about oversight several months ago in a different department than the of the finance committee and I was removed from that committee. I don't know why. I mean, I'm just asking. I also voted no to make the um PEOM position a salary position. Hang on. Now, of course, my thing's not going to work. And um I was then removed from the public safety committee. So, I'm not saying it's a coincidence, but if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it might be a duck. So, I sent out an email after looking at some of these expenses to the finance committee asking why these expenses were approved. Some of the expenses include Starlink mobile internet, Starlink internet,

a chat GPT subscription, um, mileage that was never part of the I mean, if there's a training or something like that, I understand why, but driving routes was never part of the job description. Um, I can't I I had to stop looking at the receipts because I became so angry. There was a case of copy paper, a home copier, all these things that were available within this courthouse that could have been used. But again, a a a laptop or I mean maybe a notebook, a desktop that was turned on one time in eight months. All this got through the committee and I don't get that because that is our job is oversight and nobody asked a single question. I confirmed with CFS why would they need chat GPT? Why would they need an Apple computer or Apple cloud? Nothing. They don't. They don't need it. So why did we spend money? And before I hear it's a grant, when this grant is reviewed and all these unnecessary expenses are shown, they may not reimburse us. And that falls to the taxpayer. I'm not a legal expert in any way, but that was waste, fraud, and abuse that we hear of every day on the news. I don't know that those those things were um inventoried when she resigned, when this position was resigned. But when we talk about the peon position

now going to Effingham, this is why. This is why because all this was allowed to happen right under our noses. I mean, if somebody came to me and said, "I need mobile Starlink internet to the tune of $700." I think I would ask why. And I've asked the state's attorney if there's any what her opinion is, if there's a legal option that we have to try to get recoup some of this money because I don't I I just don't and I sent out the email to the finance committee. Carol, you're on the finance committee. I live in your district. You're my rep. I didn't get a a reason.

I don't know if I got the email. I don't know what the question how how are we not getting emails that go to our county emails? I don't know. It didn't say FOYA on it. It just had questions. It didn't say FOYA on it. But I mean, do we have to foy it to get an answer? Some of us do. Some offices. But you know, Julie, to accuse somebody, I'm not accusing. I said in my opinion, and that is not Okay.

There's facts. There's facts. There's receipts. There are receipts. the the fraud part of it that I have been talked to about it and stuff about the mileage, the hours and stuff like that. Nobody knows what this person did because she worked from home and a lot of people that means no oversight. No over. She had no direct supervisor. No oversight. Do you know how many people work from home? That's just what I'm saying.

I know this position is an ID do position that requires 20 hours a month supposedly. and a new new employee. You can't expect a new employee to go in and know how to do this job. I'm not accusing anybody of anything and I think people better be the doubt real careful about what you accuse people of. Not a single grant was submitted. The July 25 grant was submitted by Beth Martz the day after or the day she resigned. Who did them the prior two or three years prior to that? Who did them? Who did the grants? The driver's office did them.

No, they didn't. They weren't done. That's why we were in trouble. That's why we were in trouble. Paying someone to do point of order on this. We were paying someone to do it. Let's move. If this is going to turn into an investigation, we need to quit putting speculation out there because you're tainting a possible investigation. Let's move on. Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay. Approval of the claims. Make the motion to pay the bills. Jeff second, James. Okay. Roll call. Teresa Bay, yes. Brown,

yes. Cole, yes. Edwards, nope. Grant, yes. Greg, yes. Hardy, yes. Matlock, yes. Mitchell, yes. Morris, yes. Stroll, yes. Cyford, yes. Waford, yes. Wallace, yes. Wood, yes. Y, present. Motion passes. Um 14 eyes, one present, one nay. Edwards. Okay. Public body comment. You only get one time. No. No. One before, one after. I think you only get one. Chad is allowed one before and one after. Always allowed one before, one after.

Okay. I don't think that you responded. So, okay. Um, I'm Beth Martinson with CFS and um, I think IDOT made it pretty clear that the ordinance and the intergovernmental agreements prior had to be rescended and I reminded TAD a couple times. I don't know why they weren't on here, but we're probably going to have to revisit this next month because I don't think you can have two conflicting unfortunately ordinances. I didn't get notification until the agenda had been sent out and posted. Okay. So, we'll probably have to revisit that again next month. And and comments about reports and stuff not being done prior to this current pe. They were they were always done. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. You only get one. No, you don't. Your policy says twice. Tad allows one before and one after. Okay, Martha, go. Thank you to those of you that voted for the treasur's position to get a pay raise. Thank you. Because too many of you have made that position about the person that's in it that you don't like and your disdain is abundantly clear.

But to those of you that voted for it, thank you. You can read Don Bull's statement he put out on public uh um Facebook, social media that he intends to retire after two years. And then what he and he did put it. I've got it the screenshot, Christine, so you can shake your head. No. I want you all to know that when the treasurer took office eight years ago, there were three full-time employees in that department. One resigned. It wasn't refilled. She had two full-time people because she that department took on was was doing the responsibility of payroll which was to be done in the clerk's department. When it got moved to the clerk's department, she went from two full-time to one and a half full-time. You have now just made the treasures department in Shelby County, Illinois, the only position in the county, county employee, that got zero pay raise. Y'all just voted to to pass the union contracts gave the majority of the employees in this in this county 17 to 20% pay raises. You just gave the assessor and the clerk who, in my opinion, deserve it. Those three positions went at least 10 years, if not 12 years, with zero. Y'all, we live IN THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. GAS TAX IS going to 46 cents 71. Would you all sit in a job for 5 6 7 years if your employer told you, "Sorry, you're frozen. Cost of living is going through the roof, especially in the state of Illinois. But you, guess what? You get nothing. Who do you think we're going to get to come into that position or run for election? It is absolutely ridiculous. and you did it out of disdain for a person and not the position and it's sick. And to your comment about Debbie having a union employee that makes more than she does, the one full-time employee in that department makes more than she does. So

that argument just fell flat on it on its face. It's disgusting. For those of you that keep going, Coco goat, coat, you don't do it when the people you like aren't talking. You do it when the people you don't like. That was so rude what you did to Mr. Hardy. You did the same thing to Julie. You don't do it when the people you like are talking and it's abundantly obvious that you're playing favors. You are here to represent the people. If all you do is call road of uh cold vote and you don't have discussion, this is where we the taxpayers find out what you're thinking, what you're doing, and why you're doing it. And if you refuse to have discussion, how do we know what's going on? And for those of you that that u voted to not put the diet audit out there, the taxpayers paid for it. It came out of our pockets. We deserve to know what is in that audit. And the last thing I want to say, just because money comes into this county, that's grant money. Grant money is taxpayer money. That's money that comes out of our paychecks that goes to Washington and then some of it comes back. IT'S TAXPAYER MONEY. WE DON'T HAVE A tree somewhere dropping Benjamins to just pay for all of this. So they think, well, it's a grant. We can do whatever we want or we can have fraud or we can have waste or we can have abuse. And by the way, a PECOM position gets $42,000 a year for a 20our a month position. And you all voted to give that position IMRF and health benefits. That was no vote. was just done. Health benefits for 20 hours a month. Did anybody go talk to our health provider? You have to average 32 hours a week to be eligible for health insurance. But it was just handed to her on a silver platter. Julie, thank

you. Thank you for standing up and asking for oversight because what's going on right now? You guys are going to bankrupt the county. You tell them you're going to bankrupt the county. Come here. Chad,

I was part of the negotiations for the ASP employees and I can understand where where some of the taxpayers it seems concerning that the quote unquote amount of raises they received. However, this board didn't do it. I believe it was the previous board didn't do it. It was in fact the board before that that took ARPA funds and made them a part of an hourly paid salary which there was instructions from ARPA that that was never supposed to be done like that. So when they took us to basically arbitration they won that. I didn't give them that pay raise. This board didn't give them that pay raise. Two boards ago did. As far as the other salaries that were approved or not approved, that was never done in time for two years ago in the election, but now somehow that's our fault to try to make that difference up. I I I disagree with that. We're trying to do what's right for the majority. And if it rubs some of you the wrong way, I I apologize for that. But we're trying to make it right.

Excuse me. This is my time. Martha, you can shut up. You know, union contracts from the negotiations are supposed to be done at a certain time. We left our aspie and our FOP hang out there 9 months without a pay raise. We had to go back and back pay him. How's that right? But we got it taken care of. But yet here we are getting crapped on for what we're trying to do to try to make things right with the employees and get it called back up. That's all I got to say. Tammy, go ahead Tammy.

So I'm Tammy Smith. I just want u to speak for the supervisor of assessments office for a moment. not for that office, but from what I understand, there used to be a tax assessor in every township. No one I think there are only what, two or three now. There's not very many because a lot of the townships

and Debbie does it. She puts her life online at some of those places that she has to go and assess. She's been chased by dogs. Um, she's been called all kinds of names. Um, and she has a lot of knowledge and when we lose her, we're going to be in big trouble. That's that is just all I have to say about that. Um the other thing that I would like to say is that a lot of accusations are being thrown around here and I uh look on Facebook and I see people making comments about Mr. Debbolt's ability to do his job, to be our treasurer, should he be elected. And the ma the man's mind, he's got it all going on. So when you speak negatively about someone's handicap,

Yes. Uh that might be a little liel lielist. Um and there have been some other comments on Facebook recently about business people that have nothing to do with their role in our county government that could also be without consequ not without consequence. So, y'all are here to serve us. We pay your salaries. We pay for this building. We pay every elected official salary, every employee salary. All we want is for you to do your jobs, be respectful, and treat people the way you want to be treated. I have been in this courtroom more in the last three years than I ever have in my life. Well, that's probably a good thing. But I've listened to the back and forth and the back and forth and the back and forth. And I have to tell you, as a taxpayer, the only thing that I want elected officials to do is their jobs. That's all I want as a taxpayer in this county. And when we have something to say, it needs to be treated respectfully and with consideration. You know, there was a push to sell our farm. Why? It didn't need to be sold.

There are influences here that have some people's ears and they need to be gone. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Can you speak now?

Yeah. Thank you. Marshall Life taxpayer haven't been here in a while. Had a little health issues. I want to thank the ones who tried to hold the ground today. We should be ashamed of ourselves in Shelby County. We are letting graph corruption fraud go on and not doing anything about it. And um I just I want to commend the ones who tried standing your ground. I appreciate you as a taxpayer. I appreciate you as a person. So um you know folks the things that are getting caught now are the fraud and we are going to see a day and if not on this earth you will pay a price before the Lord when you stand before him and you have not done correctly. Please come to your senses and do what's right. You're here to represent the people, not your vested interests. Thank you. Jay, go ahead.

So, my name is Jay, who I think you all know. I still have some information on my phone I took directly off of the website. At the end of September 2023, our balance in funds was, let's see, it would be the end of August 2023. Our balance in time on 831 was 26,31139852. At the beginning of the following month for the same day of 83123, our balance was 25,81372123. So for the same day uh the the end of August and the beginning of September, this was off short $497,000. So do you think that sounds good, George? So this went on and on for months and months. I still got maybe 24 months. The ending balance for a month and the beginning balance for the next month were only correct maybe four or five times. They were all 50,000, 100,000, 150,000, 10,000, but hardly ever were they correct. At the end of this same fiscal year of 2023, I believe I can find it on my phone, where we had $14 million taken care of by our county treasurer earning less than 1%. I don't believe that's really a good way to run a business. Now, it may be. And another thing I've heard for several years now accusations from Erica Martha and Kirk Allen about all the corrupt people in Shelby County. The only problem with this is no one's agree been proven to be corrupt. My wife's never she's never

done anything illegal in her life intentionally. She doesn't have any incriminal intent. I know almost everyone in here now personally. Some of them I've known him for years. There's no criminal intent from anyone. They can't prove it because there isn't any. They can't take it to court because it can't win. They've tried that, but it didn't work. They tried that a couple different times. So, until you can prove criminal intent, that's with any government official. Unless you can prove criminal intent, nothing means anything. So I think the sheriff was backing me up on that because if you don't have Montana, you might as well keep your match there. No, no accusing judges and court system of being private or anyone else of of you can't prove. So another thing I drive by the courthouse almost every day, not every day, but a lot of days until they release. So the firm has been doing the work on the courthouse since they began and they've been dry sawing concrete and creating silica dust. I've seen the employees breathe it. I've seen it come in the bin on the courthouse. I've seen the walls covered with it. I believe they were cemented. The problem in one office the girls had to leave the home in the probation office because there was so much. I I explained that to the sheriff one day. I never didn't see anything change. Uh I think that's I think you have someone that may be real uncomfort that's the way they're running their business or at least that's the way I read the room. So I don't really take much stock in all these accusations that I know some can be. Please,

just a minute. Carol, go ahead. I'm going to read an email that I sent to the full board on um April 29th because I'm going to back up what Julie said. Uh county board members on October 9, 2025, Jessica and I met with the state's attorney to discuss several serious concerns regarding discussions, time sheets, and claims submitted by the part-time PECOM employee. Unfortunately, following that initial meeting, the issues not only persisted but worsened.

At the very next board meeting, the employee was granted a significant salary increase without any discussion of the concerns we had raised. And by the way, she went to over $43,000. On January 5th, 2026, a second meeting was held with the state's attorney, board chairman Tad Mayhall, Jessica, and myself. During this meeting, documentation was provided and it was clearly advised that mileage claims needed to cease immediately. There were also concerns raised about the employee failing to fulfill required job duties while spending substantial time on tasks outside the scope of her responsibilities. Jessica requested a close session so that you, the full board, could be made aware of the very serious concerns. Um but uh however that request was denied. You were you were you were not made aware because of one person's decision. Uh following this meeting there was still no corrective action. Mileage claims continued and required duties remained incomplete. On April 15th, 2026, I requested another meeting with the state's attorney, Jessica Tad, and invited Julie because it was time that somebody on the board uh knew and Julie had prior experience uh with CEFS and and was the board member that was appointed to that at one point. Given that prior meetings had not resulted in action or broader board awareness, I believe in I believed including a board member would help ensure appropriate escalation. This meeting lasted approximately an hour and 15 minutes. It was collectively determined that a special board meeting should be called to fully inform the board of the seriousness of the situation and to include an agenda item for a vote on termination of the employee. That employee was afforded the right to resign before they left. I have questions. Who is responsible? Because Jessica and I went through and

inventoried everything that we paid for. $5,411 and some odd as Julie said for a a desktop that was turned on once, a laptop, $710 for um internet. Only employee in Shelby County that works from home. No other employee in Shelby County works from home. No oversight. uh Christine that you signed off and approved a claim where there was $462.91 where there is no receipt. CFS has been asking for that receipt from October was emailing the PECOM asking from October still emailing and requesting the same documentation uh on March 31st. And then when that person resigned, Jessica and I were asked for those receipts. So, I put my name on a check because you brought before this board and my name went on a check. These board members names went on a check where there was no receipt provided. We paidund and Carol, you approved this one $129.30 in late fees and interest because that said employee couldn't even turn in her credit card statement every month so that it could be paid. So taxpayers are paying $129 and some odd cents for late fees and interest. If I would have turned in a a a plane late with interest to pay, it wouldn't have been paid. The preferential treatment was insane. And just so you all know, I did call for a criminal investigation. The sheriff turned it over to state police. But whether it's $18,000 in Shelby County, Illinois, or $18 million in Minnesota, it doesn't matter

because we are the taxpayers, and we're sick and tired of having our money taken out. That's enough. You're done. That wasn't five minutes. Yes, it was. Okay. First of all, we'll time it. First of all, I am being yelled at at work. I'm not yelling. I am irritated. I AM NOT. SO, sit down. No. And you're not going to retire here anymore. Great. I'm glad our

Okay. The only thing I wanted to say is I don't know if board members are aware that Heath Graven Heath Graven Heath McCormick has not been to a meeting since last June. When Charlie Davis was on the board, the Shelby County GOP had a fit because Charlie didn't show up for three months. He was working at the prison at night and couldn't show up. He finally resigned. Why isn't the Shelby County GOP concerned about Heath now not showing up for his district? Those people are not getting representation for Have you reached out? Pardon me. Have you reached out to the GOP? This is comment guys. Oh, sorry.

Um, so anyway, that's Well, now Ross isn't the isn't the chairperson anymore. It's Christy. Okay. And I will make one comment about what Erica said. We went through finance about fees on a credit card. If you don't pay those fees, it it just goes to the next month and you're paying more fees. Okay? If you don't pay off your credit card, why don't you pay off your credit card and get it over? I mean, that's okay. Okay. Christine

like to address a couple things. America saying it's my fault that that got paid. The way it works in finance committee is the bills get submitted to Jessica. Jessica, please stop me if I get this wrong because I don't want you doing it. They submit it to Jessica for reimbursement. She prints up a form of who it's to, what it's for, etc. And then paper clips on the back. She usually staples together the claim forms if there's more than one page. She paper clips on the back. And sometimes it could be one page. Sometimes it could be what was it played the other day? 10 or 15 for some envelopes, all sorts of stuff. So, it goes from Jess, it goes from the the claimant, whoever turned in the claim, it goes to Jessica. It goes in a folder. She prepares that wonderfully for the meeting. Some departments are really, really good. Some departments aren't so good. You never know what you get. You just go with it. She turns it in. It's in a folder by department. It comes in Teresa, we all sit around the room. Teresa, Teresa gives us all folder. When we get done, if we have questions, we ask each other. That is the theme of the meeting and that's the way it should be. If you have a question about a bill or something doesn't add up, it's not at all uncommon for us to call someone. Julie was on finance before. Is that not true? We call and ask. We call and ask for clarification. If something didn't seem right, we call and ask that person. And sometimes they would have forgotten something. Sometimes it it's a miscalculation. So the the claims go from the person to Jessica to the folder to Teresa to Clay, right? It went to Clay first and then it went to me and then it went back to Teresa. It went to Jessica. Ended up with Erica to pay the to pay the claimant. Now to accuse me personally of accepting that I think is a little hanky because the law of averages is there not there because yesterday did we or did we not Clay call out a $1512 bill from Ace Hardware. We did see him shaking his head. Yes. Is it possible that we are human and we missed one? You bet. Is it possible that if we

saw something missing, we would have asked? You bet. Come to a finance meeting and see how it works. Um, so that slows that that accusation down. As far as PECOM, I was not involved in that, but I do know it is a grant. You're correct. It is a grant and that is a those items that are purchased belong to CFS. They're not county property. So, that's one thing that you said. It is my understanding it was all received and returned. All that stuff, whatever was purchased should go back to CFS because it belongs to them. Now, as far as the CFS audits from before, my understanding was that the reason that they were having problems with ID do is because we were behind on our audits and that is not my fault.

Yeah. So, it makes it and I don't know Beth. I'm sure she's a wonderful person. She seems to know what she's talking about. If she had to do the paperwork, I'm sorry, but I didn't have control over that. That that's not my deal. But I do know that Effingham is not behind on their audits and it was much easier when these problems arose with their audits being late to turn it over to Effingham. Beth is shaking her head. Am I correct? It is correct. The government with the grant audit the FY24. Basically, as I do has said, they are not going to approve the FY27 grant application for Shelby County as the grantee until that FY24 audit is complete. Thank you. We do not know when that is going to be.

Thank you. So you risk because there's not enough funds in the PTA account to carry the services without a guaranteed grant, you risk shutting down transportation services for six counties. Correct. So

the only way we could get this done by July 1st was to go with Effingham because they already are an established grantee. It would take one to two years to get another county established as a grantee. So um it was kind of hail Mary to talk Effingham into it. So that Shelby County, Christian, Clay, Fyet, Montgomery, and Moltry County did not ex did not get any shutdown of services at all. It is to keep public transportation going. Okay. So follow up to that. So she just told us it would take one to two years to get somebody caught up today. I did not do that. I was not responsible for that. None of us on the board were responsible for that. You try to get someone that will do it. We have two applicants. Two. It's wonderful. I think that Effingham is caught caught up on their audits and such. If they can handle it, great. Um, I think that's pretty much it. I think that pretty well will cover.

You're out of time. Yeah, that's fine.

Kirk, go ahead.

Thank you, Chairman. Three sentences. Miss Warbury, I believe you'll be familiar with these because when you first came in office, you guys used this to do it properly. It's on the budget out of the county code. Further appropriations barred after the adoption of the county budget. No further appropriations shall be made at any other time during such fiscal year except as provided in this division. appropriations in excess of those authorized by the budget in order to meet an immediate emergency may be made. Takes a two-third vote to do it. That's how you do a proper budget amendment. It has to be an emergency. This was no emergency. It was identified the money is in there. You have the money. You didn't need a budget amendment.

Nobody's reading the statute. It's three sentences. It's not rocket science. Are you giving us legal advice? Chairman, would you call point of order, please? Please, Jay. Please.

I challenge you to prove me wrong. I'm just reading the statute. You don't need to be a lawyer to read it. When you talk about amendments, there's a reason. The law is what it is. You made a contract with your taxpayers. This is all you're going to spend. You broke the contract with them. That's why elections have consequences. So be it. When it comes to compensation resolutions under 50 ILCS, it outlines the requirement for the county boards and other units of government to set that amount 180 days prior to their term of office beginning. It's an obligation you have. Now, a recent AG opinion, if you don't do it, it stays at what it what it was. Although, there is a county, they set a resolution that had an expiration date. That means when they didn't do the second one, that old resolution expired. Those people shouldn't be getting paid. As far as budgets and levies, your budget amendments have nothing to do with your levy. The word levies nowhere in the budget section on the county code. Powers and duties of the county board are in the statute. Read them. If you read them, you may not have all these issues. What happened with Christine? you speaking to things and the pecom person from Effingham and I'm not sure if that's your title over there. That is problem resolution. That's how it works. That's how you solve problems. But I find it interesting. You didn't shut them down, Jeremy, like you did when other people tried to interact. You directed them, no, this is not the time for that. You can't have two standards and not have people get upset. You need one set of standards. When you don't answer questions, and I have said this for years in this

courthouse and many others, when people ask a question and you refuse to answer it, you have forced that person to make an assumption. And that assumption may be right, it may be wrong, but why do that when you can provide the answer? That's why there's also a county code that requires you to have a time in every meeting for citizens and employees to ask questions. It's a specific statute separate from public comment. It's not part of the Open Meetings Act. And the legislative purpose was so the people and employees can get answers to questions. I know it's tough. I know it's tough, Jake. We just asked, read the law and follow it. It's really simple. The budget amendment you just did was not an emergency. You violated the statute. It's all I got. Actually, I have one more thing. I'm glad Miss Cole brought it up. Contacting the appropriate political party regarding vacancies or someone not showing up to meetings. Learn the difference between shall and may. The law says the chairman shall notify the political party when there's a vacancy. The chairman of that party. Why has your chairman not done that when you've had vacancies?

They haven't contacted any of them. The the the chairman hasn't. Right. But I I always contact when there was I have Jessica. I have no doubt that the chairman is not doing it. But nobody's concerned about it. Anybody have any questions for me? I'll be happy to answer them. Comment. Yeah, you have 22 seconds. I'm good. Thank you,

Ruth. still public by common. Yes.

I just Thank you. I just like to respond to an accusation that was actually uh made against myself at the beginning of this meeting regarding using private email for county business. I do not use my private email for county business. I received a foyer request regarding emails that happen to come through county business. My private email. I provided the single email that I could find in a search of my private email account was provided in response to that foyer and that was one that was sent to me. So for the record, I just want to state that I do not use my private email for county business. If you know of other emails, please share them with me. I'd love to see them.

We will. Okay. Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor? I I