County Commission - Special Meeting

All right. Good morning, everyone. We'll call to order Committee Number 1, Budget and Finance. Madam Parliamentary, we read Item Number 1.

Good morning. Item 1, Contractual Funding Requests and Audiences.

Okay, this is I think most of you probably received this email around the process. So this is a special called meeting to hear primarily hear the budget resolution, which we'll hear in the next item. This wasn't ready for us at the last committee, so this is why we're having this particular committee. At the end, depending on the action taken at the end of this, this item will be referred to next Wednesday, so there's not going to be a commission meeting this coming Monday. It'll just be referred to the next committee. My hope, just so that everyone understands, is to have this process be a little different from the past. I think what we've seen is hearing amendment requests in no particular order throughout the process, and then we get to the point where we haven't figured out the revenue doesn't match the expenditures. It's not as efficient, right? So the hope is that it will be a little more efficient and a little more purposeful in how we're looking at this, especially given the fact that we're trying to set up the next term and the next administration in a good position. So that's why we're focusing first here on contractual funding requests and items by ordinance that this commission has committed to. So those are the amendments that we're prepared to hear today. It doesn't mean that there are others that we won't hear today because we're going to continue to hear amendments as we go through the process. So we'll continue to hear them on Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday, Monday, until we get to the end of the fiscal year and get to a budget we can approve. I also, for those of you who were At our budget retreat in March, two of the key themes that we talked about, and this is particularly important for my fellow commissioners, number one being aligning on what the revenues are going to be, what is the actual income that's going to come in to fund the expenditures, and making sure that we have a open and honest conversation about that earlier on in the process versus at the very end. So that is what I hope we can start today. And since we don't have everyone here, we need to really, really get serious about that next week. And then the second piece is around the fund balance and making sure that we're making every possible effort to contribute to the fund balance versus pulling from the fund balance. So I've asked our team kind of as we're going through this process to make sure we're keeping a real time tally of these revenues and expenditures so that we know either it's got a clear revenue source and offsetting reduction in a budgeted expenditure or very clearly lays out the cost on the tax rate to fund that particular item. Okay, so we're gonna break that out sort of to the hundredth of a penny, okay? So if you know one penny is 3.314 million, so you can take, right, a tenth of that would be 331,000, a hundredth of that 33,000, et cetera. So that'll help us really understand because we now, thank you to the trustee's office, have the ability to capture super fractional pennies. We don't need to go all the way out, but we do want to take as many of those fractions as we can. And so we're going to try to be really detailed and specific with the fractional penny costs of any of these amendments that are being considered. The other point is that any amendment considered throughout this process can always be re-amended. It's not just because it's on today, as you can see we don't have everyone with us, doesn't mean it's in. And there may have to be some additional compromise on some of these amounts as we go through the process because we need to balance the budget. So the expectation is not that everyone gets everything they asked for, that compromise is a part of the budgeting process, and we need to make sure, number one, we have revenues matching expenditures, and that we are replenishing the fund balance to the extent that this body is willing to do so. So that'll set us up for today, and then we'll read item number two, and then we can start taking amendments from there.

Item two is a resolution approving and appropriating Shelby County government's operating budget for fiscal year 2027, sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley.

Okay, if we can get a mover and seconder on item two. All right, moved by Commissioner Caswell, seconded by Commissioner Shalai. So, Director Tipton, anything you want to say on this item? This budget resolution should match what's in the proposal. You're good? Okay. I think also, commissioners, just as an FYI, we passed out, we're not going to add this on today, but it was the information we requested from Director Tipton on Monday around the fractional pennies on the three funds. So I think that's been passed out. We don't need it. We're not going to add that on because that's already moving through the process. But in committee next week, when we're on the third reading of the tax rate ordinance, we are going to need to fill in all of those blanks. So the blanks that that Director Tipton has provided would be if we were to approve the budget as is with the tax rate at the recapture rate, those are the fractional pennies that can be used.

Okay.

All right. So we've got a few amendments already in the system. I think if we're ready for that, Madam Clerk, okay. So we have the first item which is from Juvenile Court, I believe. Is that the first one we have in there? Okay, so if we, Madam Parliamentarian, if you can read that motion to amend, and then if we've got juvenile court here, Chief Folsom, if you want to come up and present this item.

Yes, sir. Item 2A is a motion amending the fiscal year 2027 operating budget to allocate funding to Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County in the amount of $645,000 from the opioid special revenue fund sponsored by Commissioner Charlie Caswell, Jr.

Okay. This motion, this amendment was moved by Commissioner Caswell, seconded by Chairwoman Avamp. Chief Folsom.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Karan Folsom, Chief Administrative Officer for Juvenile Court. Thank you for allowing us to come before you today to hear about our amendment. I won't go into the full presentation unless you will like me to do so, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I think what we need to, this one's a little different from the other one, so we need to clarify the funding source and just... try to get concurrence from finance on how we're offsetting this expense.

Okay. So I'll just give a bit of background for this particular item. The commissioners, you have before you a copy of this presentation as well. So the court has three programs that had renewals attached. I believe you may recall the $1.8 million that was opioid funds that was awarded to the court. And of those funds, there were six programs that had the opportunity to receive those dollars. And of the six, there were three who had renewals, one-year renewals. So we were asking the county for the dollars to support the renewal so we wouldn't have to end the progress that we have seen thus far for these programs. Youth Advocate Program, Nurturing Parenting Program, and Inside Circle. In the presentation, you'll see some of the early outcomes for each of the programs here. One of the programs that faces towards our child welfare side, which actually takes up 80% of the work that the court actually does for Memphis and Shelby County, we had strong participation from the parents who were referred by the bench. So these referrals came specifically by way of the judge or they came specifically by way of magistrates where they had to complete a six or 12 week program. The six week program is a fast track program. And then the 12-week program is a little longer. One of the key things provided for the parents who participate in this particular program is they receive transportation, food on site, and child care while they are attending. It's an evidence-based parenting and family strengthening model. It builds healthy relationships, increases positive parenting practices, and mitigates child abuse and neglect. We had an 85% program completion rate. We've had three cohorts successfully graduate thus far, and we actually have a graduation this evening. And you're more than welcome to come.

Okay. Thank you so much. Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to share this and sponsor this opportunity here. When we look back on the history of this program, I know even in public safety ad hoc, we had many meetings around these particular issues when we talked about crime, how it continued to happen in our community. many times was because we were not mitigating some of the issues that our young people went to. Like to see more of that in the community-based than it is in the courts. But with the courts seeing, and I forgot what antiquated was from Tennessee antiquated that talks about the need for the county to support youth that are in detention center with services and support. And so looking at root cause issues around opioid, many of these traumatic issues that these young people are experiencing in their parents is things that I feel like can be mitigated if we continue programs like this. When I got here, I think, and I went over and visited Juvenile Court, there was 100 and some young people there. How many people are in Juvenile Court now?

Earlier this week, I think our count was 53.

53. And when you talk about a reduction of those youth that's not coming in there, how much of an impact are y'all seeing with retention of those young people, the ones who've been let back out and how they're coming back through the system?

So, again, one of the programs that the court is excited about adopting into our YJAC facility is the Inside Circle program. And that particular program is to assist us with building long-term community stability by way of providing therapy, group therapy sessions there at the YJAC facility so that they have the opportunity to learn the necessary social-emotional skills that they need to be able to navigate when they have the opportunity to matriculate outside of our YJAC facility. So we want to ensure that we are providing the youth advocate program provides wraparound services, which is also a component that's facing to our youth justice side. So we're wanting to ensure that we have whole strategies that we can provide to young people as they transition and matriculate outside of the YJAC facility. And soon, by way of resolution, we are bringing the UT Health Science Center's second chance reentry program for your approval. We hope to have that on the agenda probably for the meeting, not this coming meeting, but the next one. So we'll be ready to proceed forward with that grant. as well to provide some additional supports for our young people.

Yeah, and to my colleagues, when we talk about some of what was brought to us, even in public safety, what we've seen from juvenile court was 70% of the children that ended up in detention later in life were those who was coming through the courts early, right? Child support, DCS. And for the nurturing parenting program, actually, when we hear the people talk about what the parent's going to do, Many of these babies who were raising babies just didn't have the guidance to do that. And to see what Port-A-Leaf and that program is doing is a game changer for many of those parents who never had those type of households. I would like to see this become part of our regular budget, general funds, this needs to be supported long term. When we know the history of trauma and poverty and generational cycles that have been hurting our community, we need to be as a county more intentional about this work. So I appreciate the fact that it's not coming out of general funds and that we can look at opioid dollars to continue this work. I believe it's going to continue to show us the outcomes that we need to be seeing that we can bring back to this body and have that in a future conversation. So I support this item and thank you all for bringing it back.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Cotswold. Chairwoman Avian.

Thank you, Chair. You mentioned that this was for renewal for a few of these programs. Which of the programs are the renewals?

The renewals are for our Youth Advocate Program, our Nurturing Parenting Program, which is through Porter Leaf, and Inside Circle. Those are all items that were approved by resolution, and within the resolution there was a renewal attached to each of those programs.

So the Inside Circle says program launch is currently pending.

Yes, program launch is pending due to contractual issues at the county level. They were asking for an updated certificate of insurance from Inside Circle, and we just received that from them this week.

So is it a renewal or it's a program launch?

So, in the approved resolution, the inside circle had the dollars approved for one fiscal year, and they also have approval for a renewal. So, while we will get the dollars for them to start participating in the YJAC facility this month, during this fiscal year, we will also have, if allowed here today to get the funding, we will have the opportunity to renew with them for another 12 months.

So the inside circle doesn't have any outcomes to date?

To date, no, because we haven't been able to get into the facility because we don't have an executed contract from the mayor's administration.

Okay. And then of the other cohorts from the nurturing parent, you said there's three cohorts that have successfully graduated. How many were in each of those cohorts?

How many individuals in each of the cohorts?

Yes.

I believe we had 16. I believe it was 16 per cohort. We had 33 participants to complete of the last three. We have 12 that will graduate this evening.

Okay, and so what's the annual cost for each participant? Most of those, you know, are broken down by cost per participant.

So, yes, so the way that this particular grant budget was set up, the court decided to ensure that the operating dollars for poor reliefs for the program itself to be funded and then there are also dollars that point directly to the participants. So if you break it up based on the number contractually over the time course of the contract itself it comes out to about thirteen hundred dollars per participant.

And that includes for the nurturing parent is it both parent and children or just parents?

for the curriculum is facing the parents, but the child care support is provided on site as the parents are obtaining their services through Port-A-Leaf.

And then the early outcomes for the youth advocate program, you've had 18 participants. So is that over the whole fiscal year?

Yes, ma'am. That is over the entire fiscal year. They have referrals, and these are individuals that are justice impacted. So these are young people who have specific charges, felony, and other serious legal involvement with the court.

Chair, I'll get back in queue.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Mills?

Thank you. My first question, how is this previously funded? Was it opioid funds as well? Yes, ma'am. It was, so it isn't approved. Okay. My other question, you had mentioned Porter-Leath. Who's doing the programming? The Nurturing Parenting Program?

All of them. It's three different providers. Inside Circle is an organization that has come down into our court to provide those services. They currently have They are currently supporting the Sheriff's Department at 201 Poplar with the same setup for group therapy sessions. there at 201. So we're, we are bringing that over to our YJAC facility.

Okay. And so they're, what's the name of the group?

Inside Circle.

Inside. Okay. And then, um, so they're outside nonprofit or organization, community organizations.

They're one of our level one partners.

Okay. Um, and then what's, what's the plan after the opioid funds run out for, to continue this?

So we did make a ask this particular time for general fund dollars. So the court, I mean, we, based on the number of staff that we have and based on the required contractual obligations that we have by law, we didn't have the additional dollars to continue this program, which is why we asked for the additional funds during the budget process. And we were hoping that if we were unable to receive general fund dollars, that there could be an opportunity to instead receive additional opioid dollars.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

All right, Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Chair. And again, I get back in, just I know as the question was asked about from a colleague about Inside Circuit, I know a lot of the support when we supported them at 201 Poplar, we've seen, and I mean, many of us went over and saw that program in action and know the impact of what that does. I can speak to a major case that just happened not too long ago that it was, just talking to the parents of that inmate, the person who's a resident now, inmate, how that person came in compliance with law because of his impact, working with inside circle, right? And that's the whole story. So we saw the need and support of that at the younger age of bringing them to juvenile court and working with these kids so they mitigate them before they get upstream, right? Once they can really get the counseling and the therapy. through the group therapy and all that the inside circle offers. So I say to my colleagues, if you have not seen it, please, on a Monday, go over to 201 Poplar and see that work because it's a powerful, powerful work there. The other thing is that to juvenile court, I just say to you, our CAO, is that what is going to be needed, and I hear my colleague talking about sustainability, is showing that return on investment that we're getting. Not only that, I think that we're no doubt required to do something, but the return on investment that then show to state and federal level when you talk about grants and through DOJ and other things that we need to be intentionally going out there that do this type of work. that we can begin to mitigate and save this county a whole lot of money in supporting something like this. I think that breakdown in your numbers need to be probably assured when we talk about the amount of kids that are returning or not in the system, and then what we actually pay for them being in the system when we have programs like this. Comparing those will help us understand that these type of investments not only helps us in the short term, but in the long term as well. Thank you.

Okay. Chairwoman Avant.

Thank you, Chair. So question for the, since the inside circle is a renewal of 215,000 and the program was not able to be, has not started yet, it's the launch is coming up. What, where were the funds utilized for this past fiscal year? So if it's a renewal, I would assume that it's the same amount of $215,000?

It is the same amount. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is the same amount. However, the services were not rendered, so they have not gone into the facility yet.

Were the funds already allocated?

Yes, ma'am. They were allocated by resolution in February. We came back here to get the resolution and the contract approved by this body in February. and then we were stalled due to the certificate of insurance situation.

So have you used any of the $215,000 in this fiscal year?

No, ma'am.

So then maybe Director Thompson can maybe share. If the funds have been allocated, where are the funds?

Good morning. Michael Thompson, Finance Administrator, Juvenile Court. The funds, since they have not been utilized this fiscal year, will be in the opioid fund balance and available for use in the coming year if appropriated to this cause.

Okay. But it's... For this... I guess I'm thinking about fiscal year 26. The funds are allocated in fiscal year 26. So you're saying since the funds were not utilized in fiscal year 26, I guess I'm just trying to understand there's a lot in limbo at times. And I know we've moved to a new system. So just explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old so that I can understand where the funds are. Thank you, Director Tipton.

Thank you. Good morning. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Yes, the opioid fund, which is a special revenue fund, we allocated these funds for the juvenile court judge. And once allocated, the way that finance has been doing this, we've been carrying forward the budget for the fund or for whatever project that it was allocated for. So the one that CAO Folsom is talking about, we have that budgeted in FY26, but it has not been paid out yet. So the intent is to carry that forward to FY27. So if they're renewing, I don't know if, because I can't speak on it, but I don't know if they're renewing and still owe for the previous year, or will they just start paying next year in 27?

Karam Folsom, Chief Administrative Officer, Juvenile Court. So we were anticipating having the opportunity to start in March. So we would have already had the contract. so that we could proceed forward with the services. At our YJAC facility, unfortunately, we got delayed. So we are still wanting to proceed forward with Inside Circle for the dollars that we were approved for in February, and we would then come back to this commission for dollars if you give us the funds for the opioid to proceed forward for the next fiscal year. Now, of course, it will likely push us into, again, a March timeline in 27 to get those additional dollars so that we can proceed forward with the program. So it will end up spilling into FY28 just because of the timing. But we wouldn't ask for additional dollars because we only had one renewal allowable.

Okay. All right. Chairwoman Avant?

So the funds that, the carryover funds for what was not spent in 26, is there a way that you all could provide an updated budget for those funds? Because if there's a spillover of those funds but you anticipate You anticipate there are up to 40-year that can be served in each fiscal year. I guess I'm just trying to see, will you be able to spend down all the dollars, or is there some adjustment that needs to be made?

It's been my experience. I'm sorry, Karan Folsom, Chief Administrative Officer, Juvenile Court. It has been my experience that even if there are situations where dollars are not spent in a fiscal year, once that has been contracted during that fiscal year, those dollars, that PO can still be utilized until it's extinguished, until there are no additional dollars remaining. Because there was a renewal attached to this, we would be mid-year without funds, and the program would have to cease. So this is why we're asking for the additional dollars so we'll be in preparation when we come to that period when the dollars are no longer available. early 2027, so we would be prepared to start the next fiscal year's dollars. So it's delayed, unfortunately, but the dollars are still needed to continue the work once it gets started.

And then for the other program, which is the Youth Advocate Program, you've had 18 participants who've been served Starting in July? Yes. Of 2025? And that was the anticipated number for this cohort?

I don't have the numbers in front of me as far as the actual permissive numbers for the referral. I don't have that before me at this time, but of the 18 participants who've participated in the program by way of July 2025, we've had 100% program completion. So this is the program that provides wraparound services, but this is also the program where the process to add these young folks into the youth advocacy program is a process that is built out with inclusion of the DA's office as well as the public defender's office. So when we have a referral, we have to have conversations first before we allow the youth advocacy program to pick up and support those young people. So it takes a bit more time to add these persons into the program. So I want to also indicate to the commission that these are brand new programs here for the court. These are programs that haven't ever positioned themselves here in Shelby County. Some of these entities are outside. We're outside of Shelby County, and this is their first foray into this community. So it did take time for them to ramp up their program here in order for them to provide the services that we wanted them to provide.

And just last question, if you're dividing $300,000 by 18, that's $16,000 per participant. So I'm sure there were other costs.

Yes, ma'am. There are definitely other costs. They have their ramp-up costs. They have staff here in the community. So again, the way that they shape the budget, they shape the budget around the actual individuals providing the services, and it was not on a per-person budget.

Can you share the budget of just the cost for the program? Can you email that? Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you, Chairwoman Avant. All right. Commissioner Caswell, we'll just do one minute, and then we'll talk about the action we can take on this item.

Thank you. And I just say to, I hear a chairwoman, and I think that need to be made clear even around inside circle, right? So if they delay their coming, I hear you, CAO, that you want to be ready in March, but if they're delaying and we're starting, let's say, July or June. that the budget that we have, if we already approved that budget, should take us to next July, right? Next June, if they're just starting. Because if you're going back to March, but it was a delay there, we should be saying we're not paying all for sessions if the sessions never happen, right? Just looking at the budget. So I want to be clear, like, I mean, because I won't, They're understanding that what we're asking for is not a whole year and then another whole year, but we haven't did a whole year. So that's what Chairwoman is asking is how do we measure that down?

Yes. Karan Folsom, Chief Administrative Officer, Juvenile Court. So yes, we are asking for 12 months and then an additional 12 months. So when a PO is cut, that PO is open as long as there is a contract that's in place. So we're able to exhaust those dollars for the PO that we already got approved in February. The only issue was we couldn't get it executed because of an insurance matter at the contract administrator level. So inside circle it has the team here ready to go And again the way the budget was built out it was built out specifically around the individuals providing those services So we want to ensure that the they will have the funds they need to be able to provide us with the services And we would need to have the renewal to be able to continue the work So it's not like I understand the question of but the way that the county cuts POs, we're still able to use the dollars for this fiscal year, even if it bleeds into FY2027. And then we will come back and get the dollars for 27, and that can bleed into 28. That's not uncommon.

All right, thank you all. So I wanna just get us back to the numbers here and some of these amendments and what we're doing. So are we clear, so Director Tipton, are we clear around the funding source for this particular item?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Thank you, Commissioner Whaley. I did want to be clear on the opioid dollars. The way we collect those, we are collecting them in buckets. We don't get all that money all at one time. So we need to ensure that the funds are available and ready to be used before we commit. So right now, as of FY2026, we still do have the district connected program in place. But my understanding is it ends June 30th. 2026. So after that, then the funds that were allocated there will become available. And as CAO Folsom said, they do have an encumbrance in place right now for this program. And that PO is open. So we carry that forward and don't use those dollars for anything else but for that.

Okay. So just to clarify on that, does, does, cause what I want to make sure we're doing here is matching the numbers with that obligation and, you know, we can do further amendments if we need to, but is that the way this resolution set up now do just that? Does it, uh, is it essentially carrying or the funds that are being carried forward into the special revenue fund, this amendment to the special revenue fund is the same amount as that obligation?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Yes, that is correct.

Okay, because I say that because I don't want to conflate it with you just mentioned the District Connector Program. I want to make sure we're looking at this in isolation, that this either way has no impact on that. That is a separate item. This is not reappropriating funding. It is simply carrying forward the existing obligation into the new year.

Audrey Tipton, it sounds like we are carrying forward what was budgeted for in FY26, but if my understanding is correct, you're asking for another year, an additional year, which will increase that amount.

We're asking for the cost of the renewal that was built into the contract that was approved by this body. That's what we're asking.

So it's an additional year of funding. Okay, but that is just one year, the one-year renewal?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. All right. Commissioner Thornton, I'll go to you.

Thank you, Chair. So the one-year renewal will be on top of the carry forward. So the organization will only, is the organization going to do two different, I mean, the renewal would have been for the work that they were already doing, but the carry forward is for the work that they have yet to do but will want to do. So there are two funding sources for the same organization to do just the same service. We're going to approve the renewal funds and the care for funds to initially do the work in the same fiscal year, fiscal year 27. Is that correct?

Objective then, direct administration and finance. That's correct. From what I'm hearing, we've approved for one year already in 26.

But they have not been able to expend any of the dollars.

But they have not been able to spend it.

So I guess I'm just trying to figure out, are we saying that we're going to double up the service size to expend all of the dollars? Or is this one organization going to expend their annual commitment with a renewal pool of funds on the side? I think that's what Chairwoman was trying to figure out. In terms of just what it means I support inside circles But when my next question is going to be related to the opioid fund and the district connector program I'm just trying to figure out to a certain extent once they touch the juvenile court system once they touch, you know the 201 system they have been marked and so there are more proactive measures that can be done and I am aware of more proactive work that inside circles does and so if anything my heart will want to invest any extra dollars into proactive work that does not require people to touch the criminal justice system to be able to receive such a high quality intervention so when I think about the opioid funds I don't think that we should invest the dollars into post criminal justice Intervention, I do believe that it should be spent towards preventative intervention and I'm just trying to understand if there's a way for us to be able to support inside circles by Connecting to preventative work if it's coming from the opioid special revenue fund, so I guess going back to chief Tipton I'm gonna try and get this in and just two rounds of comments chair, but Can you just clarify from your perspective? Is what is being presented by this amendment request Different in nature or is the service that the county can expect? One service with two pockets of funds attached to it for fiscal year 27 Like have you seen anything that indicates that they're going to double up their size to be able to expand all dollars in fiscal 27 I

Audrey Tipton, I don't think I can answer that question. What I'm hearing is that the funds have been allocated for service and encumbered and that we're going to now allocate an additional year, a renewal. Within the same fiscal year? No, it'll be 27.

But the carrier for it would...

Within the same fiscal year. Right. If I say that, yeah.

Okay. So I think I understand that part. Can you just clarify the district connector program is ending June 3rd of 2026. How much of their adult, because it was a three-year grant, how much remains to go back to the opioid fund?

I can pull that up for you. But you can go on to something else. I'll come back with that.

And then is the connection being made? Sorry, the conversation was happening when I walked in. So are we pulling any of the $645,000 from the district connector funds that are going to pick up for fiscal year 27? Because it's my understanding that program should have gone, their three-year period would have been through 28 or something like that. It's ending early, correct? Okay, so... Are we saying that we are going to accommodate this amendment through the District Connector funds that are going to the opioid fund?

Dr. Tipton, we're accommodating all the programs based on the dollars that we have available in the opioid fund. So whatever program is in place, we will allocate the dollars accordingly at that time. Right now through 2026, those are the programs that are in place, and we're funding them based on opioid funds. And then with 2027, whatever funds we have available in opioid fund, we'll fund those projects that are approved.

Okay. Are you back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still have a few, you know, we've got... Yeah, just one question.

I think Commissioner Thornton-Gittner, so I'll let her go back to this, but could you tell us what is in the opioid fund now? Not including what the... I mean, the disconnector, too, but if you could tell us what's in that fund. And that's all I had. Sure.

Audrey Tipton, I'll have to pull that information up for you.

Okay, while you're doing that, Commissioner Thornton, I'll go back to you.

So I do think you haven't laid out what our options are for this item in these budget hearings. But, you know, in hearing what those options would be, I don't think that we're prepared to take action on this item until we get clarity. Because, I mean, I hope, Commissioner Caswell, you're hearing a number of things in this. With the end of the District Connector Program, that's three months away. So I have immediate questions about how are we preparing constituents who are running around talking about the district connector program, the district connector program, and we're about to end the program with no notice of what is next for them. So now that becomes a fiscal burden on us to figure out how do we continue to provide intervention and access to county government funded in the fiscal year 27 budget. you know, it just takes on a whole new, um, priority for me. If we're talking about prioritizing this allocation from juvenile court over all of the citizens of Shelby County, which we've had an inroad into serving proactively, you know, are we talking about the same funds? Is this a competing funds? Like I just need to know today for this $645,000 request from juvenile court, is it competing? with our ability to serve all of Shelby County through the District Connector Program. Questions like how much are currently in the fund? Is this $645,000 coming from the fiscal year 27 District Connector dollars? These are two questions that I would need to have answered to be able to act on this particular item today.

Okay. That is a great segue into what type of action we can take. Madam Parliamentarian, so just want to make sure I'm going to go over what I think we can do, but if I'm incorrect, please correct me if I'm wrong. So we can, one option is we take no action. We can defer it, I think, to the next Budget Committee meeting, which would be next Wednesday. It can be withdrawn by the sponsor and brought back. Okay, that's another option. We can vote on it. And that would thus amend the item number two, which is the budget resolution. And so it will follow it where it goes. Those are, if there are any other options that I missed.

I just wanted to raise the issue that with these budget amendments, if you do choose to vote on those amendments today, it would require a majority vote of Commissioner's President voting for the amendment to be incorporated into the budget resolution, however, If that same amendment, if it does not receive a favorable recommendation, is not incorporated, that amendment or another amendment can be made at full commission, but the threshold is higher because it would be considered a substantive motion and would require a majority vote of the membership to be incorporated into the operating agreement.

So if we choose, obviously we can vote an amendment up or down and that will either, yes, it incorporates into the budget resolution, it amends it, no, it does not amend it. But if we choose to not vote today, is it proper procedure to refer an amendment or would it be to withdraw an amendment? Can you refer an amendment?

I would not refer an amendment. I would just not take action on those items. Or you can just refer the item, not amend it. And then take up the amendments at the time that the item is being going to be taken up.

Well, we're definitely going to refer the item. Okay. Um, but the question is if we, we've got a few more to go.

So you would take action on the amendments or not? I would not refer an amendment or you can refer the item.

So it is appropriate to just move on to the next item.

Correct.

Okay. All right. Uh, Is that what you want to do? Okay, all right, thank you. All right, thank you so much. We're not going to take action on this right now, but I think we've got clearly some questions that we want to answer ahead of next week, assuming that this gets brought back.

Just a point of privilege, Chair. Director Tipton had us on hold for a response.

I would like to know. Oh, yeah, sure, Director Tipton.

Thank you. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I think you were asking, well, I can't remember now which one, asked how much was available or was left over from the district connectors. Was that a question? I think it's $1.8 million that is currently encumbered for that. I think the contract says that it does end, though, so they did not use that much. And then as far as the available cash, after all of the encumbrances that we have, which are the juvenile court judge and district connectors, we did receive another payment, I think, about a week ago. So we're at about $1.8 million. within the entire opioid fund.

Point of information. You were saying 1.8 plus another 1.8. The 1.8 that was in common, then another 1.8. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Madam Parliamentarian, can we read... Actually, sorry. Before we go to 2B and the rest, the other... proposed amendments that we have in front of us today do not have dedicated funding sources. So these would be fund balance. And this is where it's, even though we only have a few commissioners with us today, this is the time for us to discuss the revenue because every dollar that we amend from here without an offsetting cut has to be funded somehow. Okay, so this is a good opportunity for us to share our thoughts there. Okay. All right. Commissioner Caswell, where do you go?

He stepped outside. Do you need me to get in?

Yeah, we need him to officially withdraw that motion. Yeah, Commissioner Caswell, we just need you to withdraw that amendment. The remaining ones we're just going to do is discussion items, and then if this body decides to take action on it, which, again, we don't have to because we're going to hear this all again, and I cannot stress enough the importance of the tax rate in all of this, but can you just withdraw the motion?

So withdraw it, but I can bring it back?

Yeah, yeah, we'll be able to bring all these back, just procedurally. Okay. THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME ACTION

And just point of information, this wouldn't be an item that we could have sent down without recommendation? No.

No, we're going to refer the budget resolution to Wednesday. Okay. Whether or not it's amended today or not, what we're hearing are the requests, a portion of the requests, in a form in which we could amend if we decide to. What I'm hearing is that we want to hold it for additional questions for now, and then it can be brought back when we have the budget resolution in front of us again on Wednesday. All right. I'm open to withdrawal. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So that has been seconded by Chairwoman Avant. Without objection, that motion is withdrawn. Okay. So back to revenue. What I've got in front of me for the next few motions to amend that do not have funding sources other than general fund, the approximate cost of that is 10.3 million in total. That's just among the four remaining that we have today. So I just want to make sure we understand that. And this is before we've considered a whole host of other things. It's before we've considered replenishing the fund balance, right, remember, which is part of the, should be part of our top considerations. So we need to figure out what that balance is because otherwise if we, and these are all important needs and understand that, but as we say yes to them, the budget gets further out of balance. So it's a productive, I think, conversation to have what is our individual sort of commitment around how we fund that, or if we fund it, that'll help us avoid, or be a little more efficient with hearing these requests, whether we can actually take them or not. So if you have thoughts on that, please jump into the queue. And that would be, I think, helpful for us to consider before we start hearing these amendments that amend the fund balance. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. With experience comes a little bit more wisdom. And so I'm just trying to figure out in year four the budget process. So we have our own independent finance professional that is here. Would it so the mayor sends us a budget and the commission has to approve it? It's the scrutiny of what the mayor sends that is lacking for me. And so I would think if you could just speak to your understanding and your scope of work of where you come into these conversations, because what I would like to see is. I'm not of the opinion that everything that the mayor sends needs to be in the fiscal year 27 budget. So the commission has the authority and the option right now to amend what the mayor has sent. Where there are opportunities for us to make amendments and free up dollars, I would think that that would be per your advising interest in collaboration with you. This is both to the budget chair, to our finance professional. When do we carve out meetings for us just to sit with what has been sent with us to figure out as we're receiving these priorities where we can make those changes? Because I wouldn't want to do that without the advisement of our finance professional on payroll. So that's the first thing. The second thing is just, I think, just understanding from the administration how many allocated dollars have not been expended from fiscal year 26 so that we can know. I guess my question is how did those dollars show up in the budget that you would propose for fiscal year 27 for any unspent dollars, which I know District 10 has un- expended dollars and I'm just curious in the budget how those would have shown up in fiscal year 27 did y'all just take the dollars and just balance the budget off of what wasn't expended that went back to the general fund just curious about that particular point Um, as we're talking about places that we can, um, reallocate and from what has been sent to us. So really the core of my question is to you, um, director Lynn, and then to, um, chief Lindsay, I mean, to chief Tipton, if you could just talk about the process of, um, how any on, um, expended dollars in fiscal year 26 were factored into the 27 budget.

All right. Make sure your microphone is on.

Is that better? Thank you. Lynn Johnson, 8650 Heatherly Germantown. Commissioner Thorne, there's a few ways in which I can be helpful and continue to be helpful in terms of this process. So, I mean, I think the first way is that, you know, I'm happy to sit down one-on-one WITH EACH COMMISSIONER, AND I THINK A FEW HAVE ALREADY TAKEN ME ON THAT OFFER, AND PROVIDE, YOU KNOW, ANALYSIS AS WE THINK THROUGH KIND OF THE BUDGET. THERE'S A FEW THINGS THAT I'M ACTUALLY WORKING ON CURRENTLY TO JUST BETTER ANALYZE THAT, AND I'M HAPPY TO SHARE IT WITH A BROADER GROUP IN TERMS OF THE BUDGET. I THINK THE SECOND, I THINK PART OF THE DISCUSSION REALLY DOES RELATE AROUND TO, LIKE, the commissioner's priorities, um, and those, those guidelines that you guys want to set. So similar to the question that commissioner Whaley raised, what is, what is the level, um, that you want to have in terms of reserves and think about that line? How quickly do you want to replenish that as well? Keep in mind that the mayor's budget, um, assumes zero, um, zero use of reserves. Last year, it was about 9 million use of general fund reserves. The question is, do you want to have zero? Do you want to come in the middle? I mean, part, I could definitely help facilitate in that kind of discussion. But I think that I would leave that to the commission to decide as well in terms of that. Yeah.

Okay, all right, thank you. And Director Tipton, so I think the question Commissioner Thornton asked is an important one, like how do we look at actual spending trends from this year and how we forecast and what the budget is because, again, I want to reiterate my goal is that we balance this budget. And there are many ways you can do that, right? So you can make sure, but balance means revenue equals expenditures. And ideally, revenues are higher so that we replenish the fund balance. That can be done generally through either additional revenue and or reductions in budgeted expenditures. But can you share more about, to Commissioner Thorne's question, around how that is formulated based on actual spend from this year going into next year?

Great. Yeah, that's a good question. Thank you. Good morning. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. The way the budget process starts off, we have a baseline budget. That is what all of the departments have in their budget originally from the previous fiscal year. and we remove anything that was a one-time expenditure that was added to the budget. So in other words, if you had like a special or like a catastrophe occurred or something and we had to bump up utilities by $500,000, we take that $500,000 off and we come down to our baseline budget, and that's where we start. And then we add in any CTAS increases as modifications, like the elected officials automatically, some of their salaries go up, and we put that in as a modification. And then we layer on top of that any contractual things that we think we need to include, we add that in, and that's a modification. And then any other things that we think are required or needed or should be included in the next year's budget, we put that in as a modification. And then once we have our base budget with the modifications, any insurance increases like health insurance, pension, those type of things. We then look at the revenue that we have, and that's based on now this year's recapture rate. We look at the revenue. It was based on the $3,314,000, I think it was, per penny and we calculate how much that's gonna be. Then the next process is to balance that because we have debt service and we have CIP that also requires the same attention. So we balance all of those things based on how many dollars we got. And the mayor then comes with his proposed budget And in this case, it's a balanced proposed budget. The expenditures we've come up with for general fund, debt service, and CIP, it all equals to what we're going to receive in the property taxes and other local taxes.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Chairwoman Avent?

Commissioner Whaley, thank you for bringing and I think trying to structure this conversation in a way that gets us to some agreement without the back and forth and adding in budget amendments we actually can't afford. And so I guess my question to Director Tipton and Commissioner Whaley was some of the contractual obligations that we have? Are any of these amendments contractual obligations that we already have or ordinances that are currently unfunded? Is that what these amendments are?

Yeah, so this is really a best effort in trying to prioritize how we take these amendments. So the idea is that if either this next one I think we have is around an increase in a lease cost for operating this particular office. So items like that, which honestly should have been included in the proposal, but in some cases maybe they missed that window, that that's what we're considering now. We do also have items, so there are two that are related to ordinances that this body has passed. One is around property tax relief. The other one is around the pre-K fund. So those are items that by ordinance this commission is committed to. Now, we're bringing these up now because of that reason. But we still can say no to them. We can amend them. We can do as we please with them. But it's important that we first consider the things that we have committed to in the past that were not in the proposal before we move on to additional discretionary asks. And I say discretionary in the sense that it is not contractually obligated, nor did this body by ordinance commit to the funding of that item.

Thank you. And I just wanted to make sure that the public hears that what's before us is an attempt to at least meet any obligations that we have before we, you know, go out and give our wish list of things, that it's important for us to think through that. And even with these items, there's not a funding source. This would be fund ballots unless we decide as a body to vote on a revenue source that at least helps us meet contractual obligations. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Chief Tipton, can you provide to the entire commission as of today for fiscal year 26, how many of the 52E budget amendments have not been expended?

R.D. Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I cannot provide that to you at this moment, but I can bring that back to you.

Okay, thank you. And just for my rationale here, so you started your layout of the budget process with you removing the one-time expenditures. So I'm assuming that these items... would have not passed that test and so they would have been parsed out. And so, you know, if they were made as budget amendments for fiscal year 26 and in this last month of getting them out the door, they have not been expended, then that would warrant them wanting to come back to figure out like inside circles how to get into fiscal year 27 because, you know, unless they've had favor with the mayor, they probably haven't been factored back in. So we would need to go back and figure out where those dollars are in the current budget and just how to decide if they need to be factored into these conversations as well. So as soon as you can, preferably before the next committee so I can bring questions in based on what you send. But if you would send that out to the entire body, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. I have a quick question for CFO Tipton. And I have met with Lynn, and this is on the list of things kind of that we discussed as well. Can you give us the numbers, if you know off the top of your head, the maintenance of effort we have for the mayor, sheriff, and education that's locked in?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration. I cannot give that to you.

Because I think that would be helpful knowing what we're locked in at to see what we're dealing with outside of the maintenance of efforts on those three. So that's my request to you, Ms. Tipton. Thank you.

Yeah, I agree. I think that's a good request for all three so that we understand if the budget as proposed maintains that maintenance of effort across the board, or if not, why, and then if any subsequent amendments will affect any of those maintenance of efforts. Okay. All right, so still haven't heard discussion around revenue, I think. It's still quite important. I will give you just my personal take as a commissioner on this so that, and again, commissioners, feel free to chime in. I think it's okay to say we've got media here, which is great, so they can hear it straight from the source. We are in a unique position this year with the recapture rate on the reappraisal rate from last year, insomuch that If we were to maintain the tax rate at 2.69, which is what it's currently at, that is an increase from the recapture rate, but it is not an increase in the actual rate that property owners pay. So that's unique, and I know the trustee can probably confirm that, which is not the case every year. So if we were to maintain the rate at 2.69, that will produce an additional $8.7 million over the proposed budget. But remember earlier I said we have coming before us over $10 million of requests, and this is before we get into the bulk of what we have in front of us. Personally, I think it's quite reasonable to say we'll keep the tax rate the same, which means everyone pays the same. It's not an increase in the amount that people pay. It is technically an increase from the recapture rate, but it is not like it would be in other years, an increase in the amount that people pay. That needs to be very clear because people might hear, oh, that's a tax increase. It is not. The taxes you pay will not increase. They will be to the penny exactly the same. So I just want to be clear that I think that is a reasonable solution that would allow us to do some of these contractual items. It will not allow us to do most of them. So it is going to require us to say no to many of the requests, but it allows us to have a balanced budget and allows us to commit in large part to the things that we have committed to as a body. So I put that out there. All right, Chairwoman Avant.

Thank you, Chair Wiley. I agree that because of the uniqueness of this year versus last year, it allows us to be mindful that times are definitely hard for people. I filled up my gas tank on my way down here. and almost had a heart attack. And I have a 20-year-old who keeps asking for money as well. So, you know, like... gosh let me stop she's 21 she just turned 21 but anyway the point is that we know that families are experiencing some financial burdens and so if we as a county and as this body are saying we understand those challenges but we also need to make sure that structurally the budget is whole I agree that at least doing the 2.69 gets us to a place of meeting some of the financial obligations we have as accounting.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Caswell. Thank you, Chair. And I'll probably say something different. I didn't agree last year because I knew that we were already talking about being in a hole. And then we went into a situation where a safe task force came in Now we're looking at the fact that the schools are being taken over by the state. We knew our children was reading 75% below proficiency of that, and many investments have failed. And I think going back to the juvenile court situation, and I hear you, Commissioner Thornton, when you talk about after the fact we react, it's the preventing things that we continue to fail to react to. This county has done this historically. We have just said, keep doing things the same. I guess it'll be safe politically for us to say, keep doing things the same. But we got to be in reality that we, before the task force came, we was known as the number one most poverty community per capita in the country. We was number one, number two, valid most per capita. And the cycle goes on and on with us not doing anything with a vision for how we move the county forward. Then to sit in my district or here from my constituents that lost a job at Nike, at Amazon, that many of them gonna be losing homes next. And we're going to have to deal with that effect on our community. And the fact that in that same community of Fraser where homes was $800 a month, they now have $1,500 a month. So it's like we're going to have to do something. And just being the legislator, either chair or vice chair of the last three years going in Nashville and D.C. and hearing no, no, no, no, no. We're going to hear more no's now because – Again, if this redistrict take place and we see all three of these districts now become federal, I mean Republican-ran state, Congressman Coyle was the only one given appropriation in this whole state. And if that change, we're not going to get nothing from the feds, so we just watch them take place. thirty million dollars out of prevention and intervention work. So our prevention and intervention people out there just working in the streets, don't have nothing to do, no resources to help them do the work, but they still out there. I see them. I'm in Fraysia every day. They are out there, but they're not getting no funding. And if this body, even though we got a joint office on the city and county side of neighborhood safety, but we're not even funding that joint office work, We got 2,500 people going to be in here in October from Cities United to say, oh, look, they got a joint office that's not funded. And that's embarrassment to us if we continue to go down that route. I know we have to do more. I wish we could have done something last year and we would have probably not be as bad as we are now, but to see that I came on this body and we were somewhere around $90 million in reserve, now we're at $70 million, if that number, and we're supposed to be at $110 million, the next administration, next commission, we can just give it up on doing anything for this county moving it forward. And we got to keep on just telling people no, because we weren't willing to say we have to do something different. I'm hurting in the pocket. We got in our hands with this, that we got a driving school. We're paying more on that. And we have to ask our people to pay a little bit more because we have to pay more for gas prices, right? And we have to cut people's jobs because we have to do some of these cuts. But that comes with it. You can't get more if you're not willing to invest more. And that's what we need. We need to invest more. And that means for everybody. Prices went up on everything, not just for our personal home, but for government, share of cars. I'm sure that gas went up. And they're going to keep asking for more because things are going up here in the county. And we're going to tell them why we can't answer that call for 911 because we can't pay the gas price. It's real, but we got to know that this is something that we as a county are going to have to come together collectively to address to move us forward or we're going to be still in the same boat, not moving the trajectory or trending in a different trajectory than where we are.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Thornton?

Thank you, Chair. I just, you know, like I'm in alignment with all the things that you're saying, Commissioner Castle. It's just the pathway to do so has just been lacking for me. I feel like a lot of taxpayers feel that we are not. using our dollars efficiently. And I feel like they are saying, before you ever come to me with a request for an increase, you have to show me how you've done your due diligence to get into the weeds of your item lines, to show where there is waste. People are explicitly saying that all that has happened with MSCS should happen to the County Commission. should happen to the city council. It should happen across the board. There are clear indicators that there is serious waste within local government. And so when I sit here in these budget conversations where we're only discussing what could be an add-on through the fund balance, I just am just so curious at what point do we receive what has been given to us as the commission that is going to have to approve this budget and we sit down and do our due diligence to get into the weeds on the item? we have struggled to receive information about item lines just with the commission budgets alone. So I just want to say to the public that, you know, I'm all for us, you know, keeping, not increasing, you know, the taxes that you pay, just for us to be able to add in these particular items. But then I'm also just like, to get to the point of us doing the preventative work, we're missing the mark right now. These are the moments, this month and truthfully, months prior, We should have been working in session to figure out how to receive the budget and workshop it to be able to make sure that it is a vetted and fiscally sound budget. We have yet to do that for the four years that I've been here. And I dare say it has not been a practice of Shelby County government. So that just leads me to just wonder what capacity do we need to do that? Because I've seen the moral budget plop, you know, a plan late in the budget season because we did not educate them on how to even work with us to even factor it in. So it's like and still today I have yet to see them on the agenda. So if they're going to come in a couple of weeks, it's going to be too late for us to actually do it. So it's like it's so many different things. And I just want to just stress to this budget chair, to previous to future budget chairs, somebody has to step up. to be able to work with the administration to get that budget soon enough so that we can sit down as a body to get into it and figure out how to parse out waste, plug in what are our obligations, and factor in a proactive plan that at least we can go to the public to say when we ask you for the increase this time, we can also say that we put in two months, 60 hours worth of deep dive to take out this waste so this is a better budget. I cannot support a budget that is going to do any type of increase without that level of due diligence because I know that there is waste within our budget and we as a commission are not doing our due diligence to find it.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Thornton. Commissioner Casale, back in.

Yes, sir. And again, I appreciate my colleague's response on that. And I say this to that. Often, I have a lot of stakeholder meetings in my district and also go over to Fraser Exchange Club every week into their meetings. And so I'm hearing from the constituents that What they do see is they see a brand new school being built in their community. I think we could have been building more schools if we would have made more than the $25 wheel tax investment. Initially, we could be having some other conversations. And again, I don't think wheel tax was just a way. The only way that we can get there, the other way is when you talk about property tax, but I think the community need to understand too, when we talk about a house that got $100,000 value, and I see the trustee here, she can help me if I'm wrong, but $100,000 value, and we asked for a two penny increase, that's $5 a year. That's $5 on a $100,000 house. Many of our communities, I know in Raleigh, we have some houses, two and $300,000, a little bit more. But many of our houses, when you talk about Frazier's around $100,000, you talk about a $5 on the two-penny type tax rate increase. And when they can see the dollars, when they see this new school, they see the new school being built. are also investing. Again, I know we haven't broke ground yet on the regional one, but we got a new regional one hospital coming. We got other school eventually in Cordova that's going to be built in that community. And so it's not like we haven't done, made the investments back. When it comes to the forensic audit, I think it was a waste of taxpayer dollars at the state level, because right now when you talk about what they came up with, and I think that was something, that you talk about $6 billion and they spent $6 million, and you're only saying right now possibly $1 million, and then when it came back, $600,000 was YMCA, a transfer of a contract. So, yes, I'm not saying that we're perfect, that things are perfect here, and those things need to be addressed, and we do need to look at those things. But last year, again, I voted against that budget, but things was cut then. And many of those items were cut and some things was added back in there. There was a time, from that time, that's why I spent nine months, three months off social media, really deep diving with my stakeholders, looking at some of that, a lot of that budget. And to my colleague, I think the budget conversation started then for us, because we started saying, where could we look at some investments and some things about to be rolled out in our district with just a little investment that we have. We got almost, and I can say it now, a half a billion dollar mixed retail development about to be announced in our community on 114 acres because we have been working intentionally on that project and with the investments that have been given to us through our wraparound District 6 initiative. So we can show that to our stakeholders. We're going to have that meeting Tuesday with our stakeholders. But it was because of this body making some seeds, sowing the seed into that community so that we can see some of those type of outcomes. So I just think that we got to do better to tell our story on where we are making those investments. And people can look in their community and see those investments. But we're not... Part of everything we do is perfect, so I'll leave it there. All right.

Thank you, Mr. Kessel. So I want to make sure we do get through the, we're going to do these remaining ones as discussion items, because remember, they do not at this moment have funding sources. Again, anyone, any sponsor of these items can bring an offsetting funding source, either a reduction of an item from the budget as you look at it, or it's going to have to be a consideration of additional revenue. Okay, and these are all, these are gonna run concurrently next Wednesday because we'll have the third reading of the tax rate ordinance and we'll have the budget resolution. So we're gonna want those items to match the best we can before the Monday meeting to make sure that the revenues match the expenditures. So just wanna make sure we're technically kind of looking at this in the right way. So the next discussion item is labeled 2B. If we can, Madam Parliamentarian, if we can read that.

Yes, sir. Item 2B is a discussion item. Item 2B is a motion amending the fiscal year 2027 operating budget to allocate funding to Register of Deeds Office in the amount of $21,920 from the general fund sponsored by Commissioner Matthew Shalai.

Okay, so Commissioner Shalai, do you want to move this item here so we can get it in front of us? Okay, moved by Commissioner Shalai, seconded by Commissioner Caswell. Oh, you're right, just a discussion item. Sorry, we do not need that. Okay. All right, yep, good morning. If you want to explain, my understanding is this is a lease increase request for the Register of Deeds Office.

Good morning. Cheryl Floyd, CAO, Register of Deeds Office. We're here to request an adjustment to the previously proposed FY27 budget for the Registrar's Office. Yes, it does include the lease for the Southbrook location. Previously, we came before you requesting for a $24,000 increase. We're adjusting that now. request and decreasing that amount from $24,000 to $17,920. And this is a result of the lease negotiations that we're doing with the Southbrook facility. We also removed a request in the amount of $2,850 for vehicle maintenance as it was included in our FY27 proposed budget. That was line item 6837. We are also requesting to keep the increase in the amount of $4,000 for the line item 6461, which is for outside printing. This is to support the additional printing and communications to customers on ID requirements for over-the-counter submission of quick claim deeds and affidavits of airships for capture and retention, and also the fraudulent brochures that we have printed, which is one of our stellar programs in the Register of Deeds Office. So our ask increase for the FY27 proposed budget is a total of $21,920. This includes that decrease for the line item 6714 Building and land rent, $17,920. And the $4,000 for the outside printing, which is 64 line item 6461. So the total request is the $21,920. Okay, thank you.

Sorry, just to clarify, the lease amount, so that's the contractual amount, is $17,920? No, sir. We currently have $13,920.

$13,000. Here it is. Page 2. Cheryl Floyd, CAO Registered Deeds Office. We currently have in that line item proposed for FY27 $13,640. $1,560 of that is for parking premium. So the difference between With the $17,920, we'll bring us up to $30,000 a year.

Yes, that's right. Yes, so the $17,920 is the additional increase for the lease. Correct, yes, sir. The additional $4,000, though, that is not a contractual requirement amount. No, sir. Okay, yes, we want to separate that out because there are other requests that... would also fall into that category for many, many divisions. So we'll need to amend this particular motion to be just the $17,920. So this is going to be, we're not going to vote on it. We're just going to take this as a discussion because we need to make sure we have offsetting revenue sources. So Commissioner Shalai, you're the sponsor of this amendment. So I just want to make sure when we bring that next week that we make the difference in the amount. Okay. Are there any questions for the Registrar of Deeds Office? I think it's a pretty straightforward one. Okay. All right. Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

All right. Next, we'll do 2C.

Item 2C is a discussion item. Item 2C is a motion amending the fiscal year 2027 operating budget to allocate funding to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office in the amount of $5,977,470.40.

All right. Thank you, Chief Lindsay. Good morning.

Good morning, Chairman Whaley and commissioners. First of all, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate us having this conversation this morning. I think it's important that we all understand what the contractual obligations are before adopting a budget. And I have with me today Chief Inspector Wayne Downing, Captain Jason Valentine, and our Manager of Information Technology, Mary Ross, and we have an intern who's also here, Kyle Pye. So I'm gonna start off with our overall request is $5.9 million, and with the one penny of the tax rate being the 3,314,000, our request is about 1.8 cents. And I wanted to start with Chief Downing, but I'll go ahead and start with The facility amount for securities says $458,149. This will be year three of a renewal agreement with intercon security. The item first came before you is item number 38 on December 16th, 2024. And in that resolution, it highlights the increases per year. So for year three is for 3,443,255. And the difference is what's in our current year budget. So that's the request for building security. Of course, they do parking lots, the various county offices and things of that nature. So security is a constitutional requirement of the sheriff's office that we hope that you will consider. The next item. The next item we're going to talk about is food service. We have issued an RFP for the new year. We went ahead and did a three-month extension because we're in the process of scoring that RFP, reviewing the pricing and all that. And so this request for the $2.1 million is basically the difference between what's in the general fund and what is in the grant fund for the current year. We don't yet know the amount of the new contract. So this amount may decrease or it may increase. But providing food to the detainees is a requirement of the sheriff's office. And finally, well, not finally, but the next item, $65,640 is for fiduciary services. Again, we've issued an RFP for this item, and we're waiting on the scores to come back. And so we've estimated that it may be a 5% increase of the current contract of $1.4 million. And now I'm going to defer you to Chief Inspector Downing to talk about our information technology needs. Thank you.

Wink Downing, Chief Inspector, Sheriff's Office. One of my areas I'm over is the information technologies areas. We do have a serious gap in proposed funding for just maintenance items, a couple of which I'd like to bring to your attention. We do not. We're short right now just in our maintenance effort about $1,216,000. The things that we're short on funding on is the edemia contract. which is up for renewal still for this year. We've negotiated a reduced cost paid on a fiscal year. It was over a million dollars this year. And that item will be coming for the commission hopefully before they close the fiscal year. Next year, it'll be right at $1 million. And that is, by the way, mandated by law in the state of Tennessee. We don't have an option. We have to submit our fingerprints electronically for inmates booked and housed in our jails. We also offset some support. The only thing I think the correction center buys is their equipment for that process. We've also seen an increase in our data driven, which we call our Watson system. That's where we do our criminal incident reports. That's how we document our investigations. It's also how we do our crash accident reports. It's also the electronic ticket system that we have implemented. That is also a mandated by state law feature. It's controlled by TBI. It was an unfunded mandate back in the 90s that requires us to maintain our records for both criminal and crash by state statute. And on crashes, that's a federal requirement. We have to do that under federal United States code. We implemented, since we're having trouble hiring jailers, we implemented a program called Jail Corps. That Corps is to, since we were produced on staff, it's to assure accountability of the staff we have there. It's a system where they have to go by and check on inmates that are on suicide watch Every hour, this system ensures that it's happening electronically by the use of a device to go by each cell that houses these type of individuals, click a button, and it registers that they did check on the process of them. That's not a mandatory by law item, but that's certainly, with our staffing requirements, a very serious need. Oh, and it is a contract, and that contract will be forthcoming too. It's a subscription-type contract. It itself alone is $119,000 a year. And then, of course, we have our motor oil CAD computer-aided dispatch system, which we share costs with the fire department for. We have the same system. It's interfaced. It's directly connected to our 911 system. The 9-1-1 system is mandated by law, and we could not do the CAD function without the 9-1-1 interface from the 9-1-1 calls. Without increasing time, it would take us to respond because we'd have to make manual entries into a separate system if it wouldn't get information from the 9-1-1 call. There are some other smaller contracts that are required that I won't get into, but those are the very big items. The CAD contract itself, it will go up because they're moving to a cloud-hosted solution. And whenever you move from an on-premise to a cloud-hosted solution, there's an additional cost for the cloud hosting. So the projected cost for the Sheriff's Office next year alone will be $350,000 for that effort and that the county corrections, not county corrections, the fire department cost for that will be a little over $200,000. Then the next item that we It's not mandated by law, but it's our license plate reader system. This year, we have not renewed the contract with Flock Public Safety. The license plate reader system started with this body. This body, several years ago, and I'm talking about maybe four or five years ago, approved neighborhood cameras. And they also gave us the option of doing either a I'm trying not to say sky cop because that's a vendor term, but neighborhood cameras, the sky cop type, not particularly that vendor, and then also the license plate readers, which there are several different ones out there. The license plate reader system is very critical to our investigations. It's been extensively used by the Memphis Task Force. What the system does, it does several things. It automatically queries license plates as they pass by a location to see if the car is stolen, to see if there is any orders of protections out. see if it's a sexual offender that might be going through an area that they shouldn't be in because of their conditions of release on a sexual offense. I'm sure I'm forgetting it does a lot of things. We have, in this system, I can't give you any numbers because it's very hard to track with our crime incident reports, and some of them don't produce crime incident reports, but we have literally, as a result of this system, solved many, many homicides, other violent crimes as well. And it's almost on a daily basis we get a hit where we are able to make an arrest based on that license plate read. And that system is shared, license plate read, and we can put a tag of interest in, like we have a robbery and someone sees a tag. And we can put that tag of interest in, and it'll give us a hit on that. It's connected to our communications function and dispatch. So as soon as a hit's received, it's broadcast out. Officers go into the area and try to locate the vehicle. And we're having very much success with that system. The only law that applies to the flock system is that we cannot keep the license plate read data for more than 60 days in the state of Tennessee. The only information, though, that is captured is the type of head it is, which I described previously. And the license plate number. It doesn't record any personal identifying information or anything like that. All right.

All right. Thank you, Don. And we're just we're going to pause right there because we have some commissioners that have specific questions. We want to make sure we we answer those. And we've got your summary here, Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. So it's been my observation that throughout the budget process, the Sheriff's Office comes with different amendment requests and just differing viewpoints of what needs to be budget, what is meeting requirements. And so I just wanted to just explicitly state over the course of these meetings, I would like to clearly know where there is a differing opinion and what is the fiscal note attached to that differing opinion. because when we have to make you guys whole after we think that we've balanced the budget or when there is a new update from the sheriff's office that has to be factored in, it really compromises our ability to come up over these next couple of weeks with a balanced budget plan from the commission that we will approve. So you've heard a lot. I hope that y'all can continue to come to all these meetings. And just as the sheriff's office differs in opinion, I'm just going to ask that you can be as upfront and forthcoming with that as possible so that we can know what we need to do on our end and what repercussions because it's my understanding that when we go against your will that there could be legal ramifications that come on the other side of that. Particularly when it comes to us going against the maintenance of effort. If we can just understand what is the requirement, how the administration has not met the requirement and it's on the commission to make you whole. Those are the figures that I'm looking for when we have these discussions. Thank you.

Do you want to respond to that, Chief Lindsay?

I just want to make sure I understand. So Commissioner Thornton, when you say difference of opinion, do you mean... what we presented and what was not included in the request? Or I'm just not understanding your...

I mean, really, it seems like our balance here is just around the maintenance of effort. And so just making sure that for fiscal year 27, what you are requesting, that it has been honored in the budget. And then as you are here presenting, you know... And a motion to amend the fiscal year 27 budget, is that because we have not met the maintenance of effort, that that is a necessity, or is this figure on top of your maintenance of effort?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Thornton, the maintenance of effort for the sheriff's office is specific to salaries. So the salary line is the sheriff's maintenance of effort. However, the sheriff is a constitutional officer of the state of Tennessee, and there are certain duties and responsibilities that are required of his office.

So it's my understanding that we, don't we do, you're doing, for your operations, aren't we moving, or is it possible for us to move salary dollars to be able to address your administrative costs? Because I, you know, it's kind of confusing to me that we have like the salary restrictions, they're set, they're reset, there are things that are moving around, like I understand that you're saying it's specific to salaries. Can you just clarify, are we able to use your salary dollars for the rest of your budget?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Thornton, in the past, when the Shelby County Sheriff's Office had a surplus, meaning that in our personnel budget, We had more savings than expenses in the past. We will come back to this body and ask that those funds be reallocated. In the fiscal year 2027 budget, there is a $50.8 million salary restriction, same as the current year. Based upon that, if all of our positions were filled, we would exceed the budget. But if we maintain some level of vacancies, then we will be within budget. So that's not a mechanism to balance the budget. Does that help answer your question? I'll get back in queue, Chair. Thank you.

Yeah, just on that point, and Director Tipton, if you can just confirm this, that it's, if you were to increase the salary restriction, you would, in a sense, free up funds in other parts of the budget, like in other parts of the overall budget. I'm sorry, right, yes. And that in turn could be sent to operations and maintenance. That is one way that you could accomplish that. Yep, okay.

Commissioner Caswell? Would that help, Chair? That's kind of the lane I was going to go in. Because I hear what Commissioner Thornton is saying. This was what my focus was, was we increasing maintenance effort, one. Then how do we get to that place, just like with the discussion the other day, because you said in meeting that it may be another request for overtime for next year and how we look at coming into that factor. So these things that's presented today, are this nothing that was being previous years in the budget? Are this new stuff?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. These items are currently in the fiscal year 2026 budget. However, there is a built-in increase. And for some of the information technology needs, they were only partially included in the budget. So last year we came before the body with an increase request specifically for our DMEA And that request was not approved. And so we've had to negotiate with the vendor to try to figure out, well, how can we continue this service until we can get sufficient funding? So the same thing has occurred this year. We've asked for additional funds due to either contractual or other obligations. And these items were not included in the countywide consolidated budget.

Okay. And I would say just be helpful to this body and the next administration that we can really have some better alignment because I think the last couple of years we have not seen so much the alignment that we need to and then things are coming up at us at the last minute and we have to make these decisions. Again, I say since I've been in this chair, I haven't seen where this body have not supported the sheriff's department, right? Whether it's new guns or what have you that you need. That's what I say. You may not like the way how it got worked out, you may want it done the way that you want it done, but when it came down to it, the votes that I sat on and voted on, let go back to mental health, Jay, that's another one, when we dealt with that. It's because, just to what you just said, the need for technology around those people on suicide watch. Many of these individuals are in there with mental health issues. They need to be getting addressed, not just sitting in a cell, right? And technology is not gonna help save so many of them, because they need to really begin service. So that's why I'm 100% behind the need for the mental health jail, and we need to really double down on some of that, more bias to that factor. But I just say that, you know, I want to be continually in support of the sheriff's department because I appreciate all the hard work that you all do. But we got to have a better alignment so when we get to this place, whether it's reducing the... not salary restriction, that we get to where you have what you need to do the job that you guys need to do. And, you know, it's not so much back and forth as if we don't support. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. My question is around the $857,000 for the flight cameras. Are those new or just to keep the existing leases with them?

No, ma'am. I'm going to defer to Captain Valentine. He's very much more knowledgeable in that area than I am. Let him speak to that. Thank you, Chief.

Commissioner, the 857,000 is broken up into two pools with flock. The 119 cameras are what we now call legacy cameras. That's what the commission approved many years ago, probably 2019, 2020. Previous commission approved those. We've been able to maintain contracts on those up until last year. When last year's FY26 contract came forward, it was $357,000. We only had $200,000 funded in the account. Because of that, we're not able to sign a contract with them. So it's a subscription this year. That resolution should be coming before you all in hopefully the next commission meeting to get that paid for this year. We do know that in the contract next year it will go up to 357. If we aren't funded in that, we have no choice but to reduce the camera count of 119 down to probably 60 or 70 cameras. Um, it's important to remember that these cameras are tied into a network nationwide and locally. So these cameras at the sheriff's office that y'all are funding for the sheriff's office that are used daily as chief explained earlier are tied into cameras that are in most, if not all of y'all's commission districts that we're able to use to fight crime. daily, whether the task force is here or not, with the Memphis Police Department, with Germantown, Carnival, and all the municipalities. The second pool of money I want to talk about is the $500,000 for the drones. In next year's contract, we're hoping to get that approved. That's going to be drone as first responder, which is a very new program that's come out nationally. We would be One of the first, if not the first, law enforcement agency to use that here. While it is largely for public safety, what it does, it takes a drone and puts it at a centralized location. You can fly the drone remotely, autonomously. It can respond to flock alerts of stolen cars, of sex offenders, of missing kids, of Amber Alerts and all that. That would give us four of those positioned throughout the county. Another thing it does is we've, in this DFR program, we've been in talks with Shelby County Fire and the Shelby County Division of EMA and Homeland Security about sharing that access with them. So it's going to give real-time situational awareness to Shelby County Fire when they pull up to a fire call in an apartment complex. They're not looking at an Esri map of where fire hydrants are and all that. They're actually seeing an overview aerial view of what that fire scene looks like. So they know where they can fit a ladder truck, where they can fit a pump or what fire hydrant they need to go to, to extinguish these fires and everything's like that. So while this is a sheriff's office ask, it's going to be this DFR, the 500,000 for DFR is going to be used by Shelby County fire as well as Shelby County EMA, Homeland Security and Office of Preparedness and their day-to-day functions as well. So hopefully that answers your question. It does.

And I chaired the ad hoc when we first did the cameras and, um, That was 2020, I think. Yes, ma'am.

It started with 90 cameras and went up to 19, 120 right after that.

Yeah. So that's important, especially when you're not at your full complement to have all the tools you have available to help you do your job. So that was my question, whether they were the existing cameras or not. So I appreciate that.

Thank you. Yes.

Thank you. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Thornton?

Thank you, Chair. Chief Lindsay, can you give some information to the commission as we are discussing just the sheriff's request for the budget amendment? So your local spend figure with your contracting as compared to non-local, what does that spend? And then today, can you all just educate me the footprint of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office serves Shelby County. I don't know through MOUs. Memphis serves itself or I've been trying to ask people within MPD, what is the overlay of the Sheriff's Office in terms of how the budget we pass comes into Memphis specifically? So can you just speak to that? And then I'm really just trying to get a figure in mind that lays out law enforcement in Shelby County. So I think the MPD has like a $500 million budget from Memphis City Council. And then you have other municipalities that have their own law enforcement agencies. So Memphis versus just the rest of Shelby County. Can you help me understand how much goes towards law enforcement within Shelby County? Does that make sense? So I just want to know the sheriff's office is contributing to law enforcement in Shelby County. The munis, can you just educate me today, which munis have their own law enforcement budgets? What is the total figure of dollars going towards law enforcement outside of Memphis versus in Memphis?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Thornton, I don't have an answer for you today, but I'm happy to get that information back to you. Right now, Arlington has their own, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry. Germantown, Collierville, Millington, Bartlett have their own MPDs, I mean police departments. Of course Memphis. But Lakeland does not, Arlington does not, and Millington does not. I'm sorry, Millington does. So Lakeland and Arlington do not.

So we're saying that, what is that? Four out of the seven munis have their own law enforcement budgets. I'm sorry about outside of Memphis if you follow my train of thought here Memphis I'm trying to Memphis versus the rest of the meetings because I'm trying to get a figure of what We collectively are putting towards law enforcement Understanding that I think the general perception if you watch the news is that the crime issue is stemming from Memphis so if we are investing more into law enforcement outside of Memphis and than we are in Memphis. And we're saying the other part of this question for me is just what is the overlay between the sheriff's office and the Memphis law enforcement? Like what an MOU, like because what stands out to me is that I don't see any type of footprint of the sheriff's office in my neighborhoods within District 10. So I don't see a police state, a sheriff's station or anything. I'm able to call on deputies to come in for programming, but I don't actually see patrolmen from the sheriff's office as much as I do MPD. And so I'm just curious if this body, when we think about the competing priorities between beefing up law enforcement investments and investing in pre-K, I do think Commissioner Caswell, it's time for us to correlate the two. When we have underperformance in the education system, and we have increased outcomes in criminal justice activity that necessitates law enforcement, then it's time for us to go to the root. We have to start to make a plan. I understand that the dollars aren't here, but at least at this crucial point, if I could hear what is the plan to reduce our need to increase law enforcement investments because or strategic investment into education. I'm going to put that back on this body to hold space for that and answer that because y'all are having to pick up the lack of our vision planning and just resource allocation towards the root issue. And I think that it's just time for us just to stop to figure out what we're doing this budget season to right that wrong. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Thornton. So just want to drill back down to, to this, these contractual items, two quick questions on, on the first line item. Uh, the, it looks like there's conflicting amounts here. So it's 1.216 and then the total, then you've got 2.48. So I'm trying to understand that, uh, it looks as if the total request should be less than what you've, what you've got here. So we need to clarify that piece. The last line item on the food service, this is, as you stated, an estimated cost increase. We won't know it until we get the RFP back, so I think you could argue that that's not actual contractual requirement. It, you know, may require a future amendment, but it's a, you know, it could come in under, right? And so I think, you know, again, you know, we're tight here. So I think that's something we need to look at, that particular last line item. But can you help explain the, just reconcile on the first line? I'm sorry. I apologize.

Captain Jason Valentine, Shelby County Sheriff's Office Information Systems. So if you notice in the comments, it's got the 1.216 million. The reoccurring budget amount of 2.484 million, that would be the increase needed in line item 6723 to what is currently there, causing a reoccurrence. If line item 6723 is increased 1.216 million to cover the cost laid out in that cell, the total reoccurring 6723 would be 2.4 million a year after that, assuming the contracted amounts, there's no raises or anything. Does that make sense?

Yeah, okay. So then in that case, this needs to be amended as well because what we're just looking at here is the increase over what's already budgeted.

Correct.

This is good news for us because we're significantly reducing the amount that's needed to offset this amendment. So I would add, and Commissioner Wright is not here, but Chief Lindsay, if you can just help us fix those two, you know, those two lines. And, you know, I understand you want to keep those in here, but it would be helpful. We can still add it back if we like, but to be able to look at it squarely at what's already been contracted, which, again, quite frankly, should have already been included in the proposal. But that's what we're looking at today.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So the $2,112,000 to date is what has been contracted for food services, the increase. So that's the variance between what we have in the general fund versus what's in the grant fund. And I understand, yes, we have an RFP, but I just wanted to be able to present something to this body today. And I understand it does require modification, depending on what the RFP says.

Right.

But in the current year, a portion of this is funded by a grant fund, not the general fund.

Okay. Then in that case, it would be a FY26 amendment, not a... 27.

So it would be... If the RFP comes back Similar to what's in the current year budget, the general fund will need an amendment because it's not sufficient funding in the general fund to cover it.

Okay, but you're saying in here it says FY26 estimated costs are up 2.25. Yes.

And that's covered by the grant fund. So the variance between the two is what we need, the 2.1.

Right, but assuming the...

RFP comes back at a lower amount, yes.

Chairwoman Avant.

Thank you, Chair. Your comments about the 610501 or the 6723 account, I have the same questions because there are It states there are other smaller contracts that may be paid, but it doesn't say what those are or the amounts. And so I think just for us to have clarity about what this amended number needs to be.

Chief Inspector went down. We don't have those numbers with us right now, but we'll get them to the commission. Also, I'd like to just note that the ones that I did mention, all of them except for the license plate reader are mandated by state law. They are all available renewals next year. To replace them would cost quite a bit of money to go to a new vendor. And that's certainly not a budget item we're seeking, but they are mandated by state law.

Yes, so Chief, I think it's helped. When you made your comments, you said there are other smaller contracts, right? So understanding those that are described in detail, those that are mandated by state law. I think when you're sending this information back to us, that would be helpful to know. if the other smaller contracts are not mandated by state law, but they are just contracts that you want renewed, and I think giving detail to that so that we can make the most informed decision. And the dollar, yes, that was the specificity I asked for was the dollar amount. of each of the contracts.

Chief Inspector, we'll certainly get that and get it back to you. A lot of it has to do with the increase in security of the network and technologies, and those are different, but we'll get it itemized.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much. So, again, we'll take this up again next week, so appreciate you all for coming by. All right. Next up, we'll do 2D.

2D is a discussion item. 2D is a motion amending the fiscal year 2027 operating budget to allocate funding of $3,900,000 for the county's property tax relief matching program handled by the trustee's office. This item to be partially funded by an additional budget amendment increasing FY 2027 trustee revenue commission's fees in the amount of $1 million, plus it requires the appropriation and expenditure of general fund balance in an amount not to exceed $2,900,000, sponsored by Commissioner McHale-Lowry, Commissioner Shante Avant, Commissioner Michael Whaley, Commissioner Henry Brooks, Commissioner Amber Mills, and Commissioner Erica Sugarman.

All right. Thank you. All right. Trustee Newman. So I think just a couple things to make sure you hit on in this is the commitment in the ordinance that this body passed, specifically I think it's Section 3 that talks about the minimum funding level. So the minimum is $2.5 million that should be allocated for a 100% match of the state program. So the variable is really the Minimum and then what the state what the match is to match the state to make sure those amounts are aligned Regine Newman Shelby County trustee the ordinance specifies a 100% match at that time.

It was 2.5 million the amount to be funded for the match because the state's amounts do change from year to year and we have more people becoming eligible, etc. So the amount to be funded for the match is to be determined based on a proposal from the trustee. at the beginning of the budget season. So we provided such a proposal at the beginning of this budget season. None of the funds, including the minimum from several years ago, were included in the mayor's budget. So the amount that the tax relief 100% match will cost for this year is $3.9 million. We provided a funding source of $1 million from a budget amendment increasing trustee revenue, trustee revenue being commissions and fees statutory that are attributed to the trustee's office, not taxes. And so that amount is... up for the present year, FY26, that will be recurring, so there is one million available there. There is also in that amount that is up for fiscal year 26, we anticipate ending the year at at least $1.7 million. above what was forecast for the trustee's office in the trustee revenue line. Therefore, there is $1.7 million that will roll to fund balance. That is part of the fund balance that we could you could use for funding this. So between the 1.7 million, I'll say excess, for FY26, the increase in revenue of 1 million for FY27, that would fund 2.7 of the 3.9. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Thornton?

Thank you, Trustee. Leave it to you to be able to find your own dollars to get your item across the finish line. At least some, thanks. I wish that everyone could figure out their own pathway forward. I just want to understand, from your understanding, why are your dollars consistently left outside of the proposed budgets? Because it is so, at this point, annoying to see that clearly the will of the body is to support your efforts and then we continue to be presented with this necessity to, you know, do this back and forth to put you back into the budget. So, from your conversations, why is this continuing to happen?

Regina Newman, Shelby County Trustee. I don't look upon these as my dollars. It wasn't part of my budget until the present year we are putting it in our budget. Number one, the auditor said something about it since it's being expended kind of from the trustee's office. It was always listed as grant money. And so... In 2022, the program started. It was funded. And every year since then, since I feel I represent these taxpayers and I have to deal with them on a daily basis, I am the one here begging for these dollars. And I appreciate all of your sponsorships of this budget amendment every year and all of your support and votes to help these taxpayers because as we discuss tax rates, These are our vulnerable taxpayers. The seniors of low income and the disabled of low income and our disabled veterans and whatever tax rate comes out of it, protecting these people for staying in their homes is very important to this program. So you will see me here. at least this year, and probably, you know, trustee-elect-ly next year. But I would hope that the Commission does what it has done since 1923, I mean, 2023, and that is please fund this program. We had an issue where it ran a little short a couple years ago, and there was difficulty moving the money around. So it being in the trustee's actual budget for the coming year is a better way, according to the auditors, and it is a better way so that if it runs short, the funds will be available, hopefully, from somewhere in the trustee's budget or the trustee can come back to you. I cannot say why it does not appear in the county's budget every year. It is an ordinance. We passed an ordinance for a reason, and it is very important to the taxpayers, and it helps keep them in their homes.

Okay. Thank you. All right.

Just as a point of information, Chair, I don't know how much of my time remains because I have additional questions.

I'll get back in queue. Yeah, we can get back in the queue. Yeah, that's fine. All right.

Commissioner Lowry. Thanks, Chair. Trustee, how are you doing?

Very good, Commissioner.

Good. Run down the criteria again for this program for people to be approved for the property tax relief.

I will be happy to. This is a state program. It's set up in the state constitution. It is a program where the state has a pool. of tax relief funds, and they are attributable to people 65 and up of a certain income threshold, which has run around $38,000 for the past few years, a little up, a little down, but around $38,000. That's set by a state every year. I don't think I've got it yet for this year, but 65 and up or 100% disabled, and these are homeowners. It's not commercial property. It's only on the home you live in. And then the second aspect of the program is disabled veterans, 100% service-related disabled veterans without an income limit. And so the state attributes money. We handle the application process by April 5th or so of every year. The applications go up to the state by May 5th. The state rules who's eligible, who's not. And then once they are determined eligible in May, the county has provided a 100% match up to the amount of the bill. So for a lot of people, it pays their whole bill, and we are not out of pocket in the county as much as the state is out of pocket because the top of the bill is hit. But those are the criteria.

Does the county have any wherewithal to... make any type of amendments to the criteria locally?

No, sir. The only option the counties get statewide in the statutes and the Constitution is that we can match. We don't have to match 100%, but we did pass an ordinance in Shelby for 100%, but some of the counties throw in an extra $50 or $75 or 300% or 200%. Our ordinance is for 100% match.

in theory, if the thought process is whether this the income requirement was low and needed to be increased. That needs to be at state? Yes.

And it is based on some poverty levels for each county set by the state. And so that's, yeah, that's within their purview and unfortunately not within ours.

Okay, thank you. You bet. All right, thank you, Commissioner Lowry. Commissioner Thornton?

Thank you, Chair. Can we get someone, Director Tipton, I do want to just know why it's not put in the budget. Trustee, you were starting to explain something about the auditors. Just help me understand why is it necessary for us to continue to do it this way. I would love to just see it baked into the proposed budget year after year. And it just seems like such a slippery slope that so many people could be caught in the crossfires of not being served. Thankfully, the temperament of my colleagues has been to support, but this is not the most stable position for this item moving forward. So can you just speak to why this way?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. It is at the Mayor's discretion to add this within the proposed budget, and I think the resolution or the ordinance states that if funds are available, so those things weighed. It could be or it could not be. I don't think it's against any rules why it's not.

So assuming that the mayor gets to construct the budget, the mayor could have ensured that this was put in the budget. You know, speaking to whoever is going to be our future mayor, I would love for us not to have our seniors put on You know such a slippery slope of just being able to have access to dollars It needs to be factored into the budgets is just a priority because our budget is our Bible and it's just it's given to us from the mayor's office I would just like to see a commitment to our Seniors come from what is presented by the mayor. I trust that we will be able to to make you whole I would like to be added as a sponsor and

All right. I think we can, well, we can't do that right now. Okay.

Because it's a discussion? We have the actual operating budget before us because we're discussing it, but we've opted to just take up the amendments as discussion.

Yeah, we'll make sure we get you on there when we do actually amend it.

Okay, awesome. And just in my 42 seconds that are left, can you provide us with the most recent totals for how many seniors are served by your program? And then I've asked this before in the past, if you could just add in that data that shows how many seniors should qualify for this program. I'm always curious about the gap and that it would just be helpful for us to just have in mind as we're thinking about serving the total need, if it ever applies and presents itself. And then lastly, can you just for public information, is this an online process? It's my understanding that they have to come to your office to be able to apply for the tax relief program. Is that true?

Regina Newman, County Trustee. It is available online. The applications are online. They are not yet PDF fillable. We are working on that. But most of our seniors are not doing it online. They choose to come in or they do it by mail. We will even take, you know, here we can email applications. They can sign them. They can take a picture. They can text them back to me. I don't care how they get them in. But we are over 10,000. Taxpayers at the moment so I will double check that number and make sure I get it back to you All right.

Thank you so much.

Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you chair and Commissioner Thornton. That was one the question So I appreciate getting that information. The other I was I might have been out of room you might have answered this So pretty much every year you've been depleting this fund Regine Newman County trustee the first year that the fund was included in the budget was 2022 and

for tax year 2022, I believe. And ever since then, it has not been included in the budget until you guys added it and amended it into the budget.

Yeah, so last year, it was in there, right?

And then all of that was spent. Correct. Regina Newman County Trustee, yeah, it goes into a restricted fund. So if there's a few pennies left or a couple of dollars, it rolls to the next year. We haven't had that issue yet. It's pretty much being spent. The state continues to work on applications. Sometimes it's a few run behind. So those funds are constantly being used, and we actually added some of our own budget this year to make sure everybody got paid.

And to that request from Commissioner Thornton, do you have it like district-wise or zip code?

No, sir, we don't.

Okay. Is that hard to get to?

Our system is not set up to do anything by district. In this case, it might be viable because the property owner is the property resident. But in many cases where the property is, the owner is somewhere different and our system has got the owner's address. So in this case, they are supposed to be the owner at the residence. So we might be able to pull that for this. Yeah. Or at least run it by zip code or something.

Yeah, I just want to make sure, like, we're doing everything we can within our district to make sure the seniors, they know about this program. I know you mailed it out to them, but just stay on them to get it done. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. All right, Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Picking up where Commissioner Caswell left off, so you can do it by zip code. You collect data by zip code.

Let me, Regina Newman County Trust, let me re-specify. So in our system, the zip codes in the system are not the property zip codes. They are the owner's zip codes. So in many cases, that is not going to give you adequate information. On this particular program, it may because the owners are supposed to be living in the properties. So that is the deal. Now, if we happen to have somebody's information and mailing going to their son in a different state, you know, that's a whole different matter.

But based on what you're saying, the owner is supposed to live in the house. For this program, yes. Can you represent to us data that shows zip code data for your 10,000 participants in the program?

I can attempt to do that.

Okay. I do think that we need to dig deeper, particularly for those of us that represent more disadvantaged constituents, because what I'm hearing from our constituents is that they are having barriers to be able to follow through the steps to get into this program. And what we know to be true is that they're way more than 10,000 seniors that will qualify for this program. So my concern is that the unspoken, I guess, voices in this conversation are coming from districts like mine and potentially Commissioner Caswell's. And an online process would help assisting caregivers. So though the seniors themselves might prefer in person. What I'm hearing is that the senior residing in the house has a go-to millennial or Gen Xer that they're going to who it's most convenient to be able to do this process online. So with that in mind, what would it take for us to get an online process on board to be able to increase applications for this?

Regine Newman, County Trustee. The applications are already on the website. All the information is there. What they can't do at the moment is have PDF fillable, which we are working on.

It's not going to take anything else except time. So I'm talking about an online submission process.

So the upload of documents, for example, they can do that via email with us because all anybody has to do is write in, and then we can do that by email now. But we're trying to set it up on the website. So that's just a matter of time.

Okay, so let's talk about concrete, because I want my colleagues that have sponsored this to now hear what is a disenfranchisement. I am telling my colleagues that have sponsored this that there are constituents in District 10, we'll use that as a point of reference, but I dare say across District 8, across District 6, across District 7, that you are in similar circumstances where we need an online submission process. And I would like to know, within fiscal year 27, Can that be completed? And if not, give us a timeline that we can communicate to our constituents of when a submission process will be a viable process. Not a multi-step, you know, if y'all have ever had to scan documents that take some time. I have a PDF filler that I have a subscription to. So it's like it's not as easy of a process to download documents, sign them, and then have to do that. That's a multi-step process. And we're saying that we have a literacy challenge in Shelby County. So an online process to submit, can you give us a definitive commitment from the trustee's office?

Regine Newman County, trustee, the next application deadline is next April. It will be done by then.

Thank you. All right, great. Thank you. Commissioner Lowry. Thank you, Chair. Trustee, how many people does this program benefit annually?

Regine Newman County, Trustee. It's over 10,000 at the moment. I'll get that data back to everyone.

Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, Trustee. I think we've got a good understanding of where we're at on this. Thank you for also helping with some of the revenue, which is always good. All right. The next one we've got is 2E. We can read that one.

Item 2E is a discussion item. Item 2E is a motion to amend the FY2027 budget in an amount not to exceed $1,400,000 to fund the county's portion of the Pre-K for All program, sponsored by Michael Whaley.

Okay. This is an amendment that I have sponsored, so this would maintain the level of Pre-K funding in the current budget. So it was... There was an additional, as you recall, last year we amended it by an additional $2 million. So that was stripped out of the budget proposal. And the reason why this amount is less than that is because of a different clause in the new contract that had required unexpended funds to be returned to the county. Well, the mayor has allowed for that. to be used and so some of the unexpended funds are used to close that gap, which makes this amendment less than what it would have been otherwise. So just to be clear, this maintains the level and so the classroom level that we have this year does not grow it, but it does not put us in a place where we're having to close classrooms that just opened. Sorry, I see Commissioner Lowry, were you first in the queue here? I'm using your time, I guess. No, I think that was from... From before? From the previous. So you were not in on this item? Not yet. Okay, all right. Commissioner Caswell?

And I appreciate... You bring in this item. So right now, what you're saying, this is already not in there. We're going to add this into the budget because I know they had leftover funds from last year. Is this saying just not to mess with the funds that that was already there or this is to put new funds for next year budget? And you may not have the answer, maybe they have to answer this first aid because I know just talking with her, some classes I think didn't open, some other things happened, the reason why they had that extra money, the money that was left over, and the need for them to still be able to keep that dollar so that classes, they can be able to say definitively to those schools, go ahead and operate because these dollars are there. I just don't see... I say amount fund to the count, not to exceed 1.4. I'm just like, where is this extra money that we're asking to add to the budget that's not already there? Or is it just the fact that we're using what they already got?

Yeah. So we increased the amount in the last year's budget by $2 million over what was in the proposal. And that was to put us on the track to pre-K for all. Remember, we had... A NEW ORDINANCE THAT WE REVISED LAST YEAR AHEAD OF THE BUDGET AND BY AMENDMENT ADDED TWO MILLION. THAT TWO MILLION DID NOT MAKE IT INTO THE BUDGET PROPOSAL. Okay, so it reverted back to the amount from the fiscal year 25. What this is doing is essentially restoring that funding commitment. The reason why it's less is because of unused rollover funds from prior fiscal years that have now been released to be able to apply toward these classrooms. So that's why the amount is not $2 million, that it's reduced by $600,000, because essentially we're more efficiently using funds that were allocated in prior years that had not been fully expended by the fiscal agent. So this bottom line is, if we accept this amendment, it will maintain our commitment to pre-K funding. It does not increase it. I think the long-term plan... anticipates an increase over time this does not do that right any increase above this would increase it this year but this is to maintain the commitment from the prior year all right thanks yep Commissioner Thornton all right so I'm hearing a couple of things that I just need clarity for is there anyone here from first state to speak on this item

And do we know this resolution, was it noticed to them that they would be a topic of discussion, Chair?

Yes, I did. Unfortunately, Dr. Thomas is ill and not able to to be here today. But this is what I mentioned, I think, in commission the other day was that I had spoken with her around the amounts. So there are two different amount. Right. One is to restore what was cut from the budget. That's what I'm presenting today. Now, if we wanted to increase it, by all means, we can do that. But but this is the amount that would maintain the current level of funding.

So because this is a discussion item, can we bring this back up as a discussion item so that we can have Director Thomas here? Because I want to get a very clear understanding of the camps of thought on this body. I guess they're the ones that can align themselves with what has been presented by the mayor's budget, which does not keep it on track or get us to a flat budget. There's the camp that wants to just make it a flat budget increase and not do any harm in taking them back. And then I'm hopeful that there's a crew that wants to stay on track and actually hit the figures that we need to be able to provide universal pre-K for our three and four year olds. And so I really hope that anyone that considers themselves to be a pre-K champion that we can coalesce here because there is a lot of noise around this conversation with pre-K. But what is very clear is that law enforcement is doing a hell of a job to be able to make sure that they present their figures and they go for theirs. We need a clear universal pre-K delegation on this body to fight for us to stay on track. The plan has been laid out. The figures are there. Flat is not the option. And so I need to hear from Director Thomas to be able to really dig deep into this particular item. And I want to use our time wisely to do so. So just for clarity, can we bring this back as a discussion item for our next meeting?

Okay. Commissioner Thornton, that's what we're doing with all of these items. This will be included. So we'll also bring this proposed amendment. So right now the budget contemplates a cut. So cuts $2 million. I'm hoping we don't do that. I'm hoping we increase it. So I'm all for doing more, but also I think what I've presented today is just sort of trying to practice what I preach, and we're trying to solve a complicated situation of evaluating the budget and making sure that we're landing on a balanced one. So I would certainly support an increase in the amount that we're committing to pre-K, but what I don't support is the cut that we've currently got within the fiscal year 27 budget. All right. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you. Director Tipton, can you just speak on I'm hearing people say that there were unspent funds from previous fiscal years. From the perspective of the administration, when you were making the choice not to, I guess, increase the figure to pre-K, what was y'all's observation in the numbers for why we needed to cut it by $2 million? Okay.

Thank you. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. The administration did not cut. The budget was amended in 26 by $2 million to pre-K. What the administration did was removed all one-time amendments, and we did not add back another grant award of $2 million to Pre-K. So we did not cut Pre-K. It was budgeted for First State for the 9 1⁄2, and then there was an amendment to add $2 million to the 9 1⁄2, which brought it up to the 11 1⁄2. In the proposed budget for FY27, That amendment was not added. We left the budget as it was at nine and a half. So we did not cut it.

So from the perspective of the administration, how is this getting us towards universal pre-K and the $50 million figure that they've rolled out over the five years? So if we do not have in the proposed budget, any type of increase, how are we entering towards the goal at hand from the perspective of the administration?

From a financial perspective, which is what I take, Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance, we are looking at a way to equitably balance the budget and apply the dollars in a way that the administration sees works better for the county. We're looking at it holistically. I know you're looking at pre-K right now. I have nothing against that. So if you choose to increase it, that's fine. But when we prepared the proposed budget, it was looking at the entire budget and we tried to balance the budget equitably and in a way that help the county as well as fund balance because we do have a serious fund balance issue.

Okay. So I can respect that from finance. I can't respect it from the mayor. And so I know I get the limitations here, but I just want to say to the public, these are moments where we need these rooms packed with constituents pulling public comment cards. If you believe that investments in pre-K are some of our best investments that we can make as compared to investments that we're making into law enforcement, not to pit the two against each other, But there has to be some type of delicate balance here. Us taking away the $2 million because we want to be able to present a balanced budget is just not an acceptable response. And I just need the commission to stay away from flat and to actually stay on track this particular budget cycle. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Chairwoman Avent.

Thank you, Chair. Just a clarification from the actual ordinance that this body received. passed last year, which was to increase pre-K. Because I understand, Director Tipton, from your point of view, I'm also thinking about it from the legislative point of view, which then dictates what we are asking the mayor to put in the budget. And so if Attorney Smith, you could just clarify what the ordinance that we passed last year, the high-level contents of that.

Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office. The original universal pre-K item defined students in a certain manner, and it was in concept an expanded student program to cover those pre-K children that didn't fall into a separately provided for program. The amendments that were made last year to the ordinance expanded the definition or expanded eligible children to include children who might even be participating in the Head Start program. So in large part, that was the primary change in the program. The reach is larger now.

Okay, and so I think part of that ordinance was also to increase the number. So if we're expanding who's eligible, then innately it increases the number of children that could be served, which could then be... you could ascertain that the increase in cost, right? So when we're saying that the ordinance says we've expanded who could be served by pre-K, means the number is greater. And if that was a part of the amended budget that we put in last year, I would assume that it would be a part of the budget moving forward. Am I wrong in that?

If I could clarify one point, I would say the pool of children who are eligible is now larger. I cannot confirm that that has increased the number of participants. So there are more fish that are eligible now in the pond, but that doesn't mean that participation... is in like kind increased.

I understood that point. But based on what we did allocate and the expansion of that, I would have assumed that the Mayor would have at least kept that amount based on the criteria and expansion in the ordinance. Why would I not assume that? Why should I not assume that?

Megan Smith County Attorney's Office. There are two different types of allocations happening here. And to CFO Tipton's point, there was a grant during the process last year. There is also a professional services agreement that governs the relationship between the county and the fiscal agent, those two are not necessarily the same, one being a grant, the other one being for our payment for services. And I'm happy to provide copies of that.

And I guess, Chair Whaley, I'll get back in queue, but I think maybe we just need to be mindful of how we, when we're making these budget amendments and then how we make sure that it's codified so that it's not seen as a one-time grant if this is part of what we want to see as funding of pre-K moving forward. And I think I appreciate you bringing this item. I'll ask to be added as a co-sponsor when the item is before us. But I think that we just have to be smarter now, right? and what this body is asking for the administration to do, and however we need to codify that. And I think we'll just have to have some support from the county attorney so that that is what happens.

Yes. I also agree with that. I think, you know, similarly with the tax relief ordinance, and if you read that ordinance, it does include a clause that it can be, it should and can be amended from time to time to clarify the legislative intent. And I think that's something we need to make sure that happens there if we, now's the time to do it. But also with the pre-K fund, I think the other component, and Attorney Smith brought this up, that I think has further, in my opinion, has further complicated this unnecessarily are some components of the PSA that are quite restrictive. One such component of it restricts the amount of county funding relative to the city funding. So should the county decide to accelerate our commitment to pre-K, which I think should be within our purview, we are limited contractually with the contract the mayor signed AS A PERCENTAGE OF WHAT THE CITY HAS CONTRIBUTED. SO, UNLESS THE CITY CONTRIBUTES MORE PROPORTIONALLY, IT SORT OF PUTS US IN A PLACE WHERE WE CANNOT DO IT, ACCORDING TO THE PSA THAT WAS SIGNED. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I KNOW MANY OF US HAVE BROUGHT UP OVER THE LAST YEAR THAT IS CAUSING SOME ISSUES FOR US LEGISLATIVELY. Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Chair. I'll just say this quickly, and I hear my colleagues when we talk about the need to increase that, and I think that the return on investment is there when we can talk about parents with three-year-olds able to get their children into a class that can go back to work, and those things help. the taxes of this county. At the same time, when we talk about what is the tax relief, what is this, that we got to ask ourselves last year where we didn't even put two pennies in, ask for two pennies. We went with the tax rate as it is. So if we would have gave the mayor $271, $272, and the chairwoman, I know you're going to say, child, I asked for two cents at the end. I think I left the room at that time because I was stuck on four cents. That That would have been what we come back. That's what we said to the administration. We so believe that pre-K need to be there that we're going to leave a penny, add a penny. Or we so believe in the tax relief for the seniors that we're going to add a penny. So when you go upstairs, those two pennies ain't for you to do nothing different than... to do these things we're asking for. So I think that we got, and I say that to the point that when I go back to say it was $90 million in the reserve fund balance or something when we came here, we're down to 70 million. We can't keep saying we're going to spend in the next administration and the next body is going to have less to work with, God forbid, or COVID or any other thing, pandemic happened to us again. we don't have the capacity. And to the bond rating, that is going to begin to look at y'all spending, spending, spending, but you don't have revenue coming in to bag up that spending. And so our bond, it should begin to get hit. So I'm with my colleagues, and I support this 100%, but we got to talk about some real problems behind these type of things that support it. And to my colleague's point that, yes, we have to look at what can be cut. And I've been putting it in, putting it in, trying to find where those cuts can come. And I know I've been a opponent of talking about how we use artificial intelligence in some capacity may give us that, but I don't know what that look like yet. And I don't want to be the one to say we got to cut people jobs to get there. I think we haven't been paying people enough money already for where they are. So to this body, again, if we talk about supporting these type of initiatives, we gotta put our money where our mouth is. And that means the whole county. I was talking with the sheriff outside the department. When you talk about the gas price and everything else, it's impacting everybody. And I don't want to be the one, as Commissioner Thornton said often, that support more money to the sheriff's department but don't support more money to education. But we're going to have to ask the county as a whole, because everything is going up, to put a penny or two behind these initiatives that we're asking for. Revenue needs to bag up what we're spending money on. So thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Caswell. I'm going to go to Commissioner Lowry first and come back to you, Commissioner Thornton. Commissioner Lowry. Thank you, Chair.

Just quickly, based on the ordinance, we were just talking about being more people eligible, students eligible. Do we know what that number is?

Megan Smith, I don't know that number. I suspect first aid might, but I'm happy to help coordinate getting that information.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Okay, so I just want some clarity because even down to what legal has just presented, we must have First State be present for these conversations so that we could really advance. It would be helpful even for the mayor to be here. I don't know. Open invitation, Mayor Harris, if you will come down for these conversations. so that we can know what we're setting up and what we're a part of, because there's going to be a lot of institutional memory that's going to roll off in advocating for this item. And I just want to be able to know what we can pass off as the baton to the commissioners that will come on board. So, I'm going to ask to the Chair, you just mentioned something about a contractual negotiation that I think as a legislative body we need to have clear understanding about. Is the best point of contact for that Director Thomas? Who can tell us about, you know, whatever has been contractually arranged since we did the amended ordinance?

Yep, great question. Yes, no, she, I mean, she was intricately involved in it, so I'm sure can answer that, and we would expect we can do that at Wednesday's committee meeting.

Okay, so to Director Thomas, as I trust that you and your team are listening in, I would love for you, your legal team, to come down to this conversation because we need to get these commitments, these arrangements, these figures down pat, because I do believe that this is an opportunity for us to get the general public more into this conversation, but they can't when it's so muddied. And we just need to clearly just distinguish who is a champion for universal pre-K, who is not. I think that out of everything that I've seen this budget cycle, this is the one thing that is like the hope piece for the budget. that we can actually say that by us being clear in our investment here, we know that we are investing in a more stable future for all of Shelby County. And so I would hope that the public is listening in and that next Wednesday, whatever time that is set, that people will tune in to be able to stand. on your opinion of how we should move forward and to get involved. Coming down to these committee meetings, they are publicly noticed meetings. You can come to these meetings. You can pull public comment cards. You can come to the commission meetings. We do need to see more input from persons, parents, community members, vendors, people who are a part of this process. We need to hear more from you. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I do have a comment card here, so I want to get you up for this one. Nehemiah Hardaway, if you want to just come up and give your name and zip code, and you'll have three minutes. Just make sure that you hit the microphone, the little button there.

Nehemiah Hardaway, SOUL, Serving Others Well, non-profit organization, 5442 Sundale Way, 38105. I just wanted to make a comment here on this section. This is very vital because we want to look at assessing the next five generations. So we definitely need to have the funding for the next five generations. And we also need to have recruitment for the next five generations, whether it be parents, grandparents that will raise these children, develop these children over the years. But it's also important to understand, and I'm pretty sure Commissioner Brittany Thornton will disagree, but this is where we've had discussions previously about the sheriff department, the police department. The biggest classroom that our pre-K children have is outdoors. So if our children can't go outside and play, they can't explore birds, they can't explore squirrels, the grass, trees, the sky. because it's not safe and parents don't want their kids to play outside, then we're already depriving their developmental psychology because the greatest classroom that children have is outdoor, outdoor play. Then you start to introduce them to other building blocks of education. And so that's where the funding for the police department and pre-K coincide. They both work together. So we have to understand that point. You know, it's not just about having children go in the classroom and then work with A's, B's and C's in building blocks, colors and shapes, that's important. The greatest classroom is outdoor play where kids work on their creativity. So they come up with games, make up their own games, right? My generation, we explored outdoors way more during my adolescent years than the kids today. The kids today focus more so on electronics and TV and YouTube. And so their critical thinking skills have been minimized due to that. And so we need to really be careful because there's still a generation of children that coincide with the same age bracket. These kids are still playing outdoors. So they're not gonna be able to keep up with these other nationalities of kids who are also able to play outdoors. We don't want certain demographic of children to get left behind. because the leadership of the city, of their families, like their grandparents, parents were unaware. And then five generations from now, we're gonna have adults that are gonna be essentially psychologically, spiritually handicapped. So we have to be responsible. with how we bring balance to this equation and to this discussion. But I definitely would like to also know the participant number as suggested by our other commissioner here. Mr. Lowry, I would like to know the recruitment, because if we're going to ask for more funds, we need to have kids in the queue, if you will, to add to the program. So we need to work on, and our work on that is recruitment, toddler recruitment, so we can increase those numbers, because I'm pretty sure that was a concern. Thank you all.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Hardaway. Yes, and we'll get that information next week at our budget committee. Yes, sir. Okay. So at this time, what we're going to do is move to refer item two to the June 10th committee. So I'm going to make that motion. Second. Okay. We'll say Chairwoman Avent made the motion, seconded by Commissioner Mills, without objection. Okay, item two will be referred to June 10th. So we will also make sure that we have updated accounting of all of the items that were discussed today, because some of them did get modified down, and then there were some additional funding sources that were brought. So we'll make sure that all of that is reconciled so that we can see that and take action on those items first before proceeding to other items. Okay, any other final questions? All right, seeing none, this will conclude committee number one and committee for today. Thanks all.

Nobody's voting.

Nobody's voting. Nobody's voting. Nobody's voting. Thank you. Thank you. What are your jobs?

One of them was done like early May. The other one, that's when we learned. So you're trying to get posted? Posted, yes. Okay. And you're not trying to hire anyone? We can even make that until at least two months. Okay. I can post it? Yes. Yeah, the deputy is important. I can go for both. OK. Oh, you got people saying that it's . Oh, yeah, right. We were getting it from your staff on down to like, you can't do a hiring freeze for like a month. But no one told us there was a hiring freeze. And then the mayor said, there's no hiring freeze. I'm going to tell you.

We're going. We're going. Oh, well, okay. Yeah, I'll tell you.

Okay.