County Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone. Thank you for coming. Uh today is December 30th, 2025. We are located at the county building on third floor in the council chambers. It is 12 noon. Um and we will be led by a pledge of allegiance by Councilman Hoffman. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and looking forward to the new year. With that, we'll have a roll call. Uh, we have our county attorney, Scott Broadhead, present. As far as councilman, we have Councilman Hoffman, Councilman Thomas, Councilman Strumberg, Councilman Hamner, Councilman Wardle, present. From the manager's office, uh, County Manager Welch, and assistant county manager, uh, Lopez, present, and our county clerk, Tracy, thank you for being here, taking keeping records. Now, it bring us down to public comment. Is there anybody in the audience that by raise of hand that would like to make public comment? Seeing none, we will go down to number five, resolution 2025-34, amending the section 3.13, nepotism of the Twilla County Personal Policy Manual. Nathan,

good afternoon, council. Um, in talking with uh the five of you uh over the past few weeks and many months about nepotism, um what is before you, I believe, is uh your guys' collective uh desire on how the county would like to move forward with uh nepotism and the contracting process um with regards to relatives and uh of employees in the county. Um so some of the changes that are happening in this policy is we are adding to the definition of what a relative would be um is businesses owned in whole or in part by any of the affformentioned individuals. Um we are also adding the reference to the state code about uh employment and nepotism as well. Um, one of the options in order to maintain compliance uh with this in the county, we are also giving you guys the option to uh terminate contracts that are in violation of this policy. Of course, with any contract and terminating a contract, we'll look at the legal ramifications of doing so. And then the biggest change is in 3.13.5. Um, and this has been renamed to contracts with relatives. And so the new policy states contracts may not be awarded to or entered into with any relative of an employee when that employee works in the department responsible for initiating, recommending, evaluating, approving, administering or overseeing the contract. Um, and just one thing that I do want to point out is this is interdep departmentally. This is in a department. Um, if uh I'll take my boss and and use the legal the attorney's office as an example. If uh Scott had a child who was doing 1099 contractor work and solicited for a bid

to do something for the roads department and that roads department awarded that bid to that individual, that would not be a violation of this. The only violation would be is if there was a bid and Scott awarded the contract to his child at that time. That we're not eliminating contracts with relatives of county employees throughout the whole county. The difference is is that this is in a department um when a department is trying to contract with a relative of an employee of that department. Okay. Any questions or comments? If not, uh, Mr. Chair,

turn time over to Councilman Wardle. Mr. Chairman, uh, I've been asked to make an amendment on this that we amend section 3.1 or 3.13.1 after the word words brother word brother-in-law and add daughter and son-in-laws. and then strike the last sentence of 313.5 which reads this is this includes but is not limited to 1099 contractors, vendors or seasonal employees within the county. Okay. Is that a motion? I make a motion that we adopt that amendment. I'll second it.

A motion. Council Ward will second from Councilman Hoffman. Any further discussions or comments? Seeing hearing none, call for a vote. All those in favor say I. I. All those may oppose say nay. It is adopted. Mr. Chairman, now I make a motion that we adopt resolution 202534 as amended. Hearing a motion, Councilman Wortle to adopt uh 2025-34 as amended previous uh vote. Is there a second? Second. Hear a second from Councilman Stroberg. All those in favor say I.

I. All those may oppose say nay. That is adopted 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Nathan. That's uh bring us down to resolution 2025-35 adopting the Tula County capital improvement plan for fiscal year of 2026 through 2030. I'll bring up our county manager Andy Welch.

Yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity to to talk about this. I know you you hear the word CIP. It's a capital improvement plan is what that stands for. And this is a common practice in government. And it's a best practice in government as we look at bigger projects or replacing equipment to have a a longer term plan. The state law actually requires us as part of our tenative budget to adopt a capital uh project for the current year plus three additional years. Um so that would be we should be doing four years just by state code just as we adopt the tenative budget. The having a capital improvement plan we I'd rather have five years that helps us cycle through equipment and kind of look at the life cycle of equipment. And so this is something we've been doing for a few years kind of informally with our departments. It's taken some time to get all of the equipment to make sure we get equipment that's we no longer have off the list and then that we have a good cycle for replacing equipment. So the capital improvement plan is a typically a five-year plan and then the current year is called your capital budget and that's something we typically bring to you as part of the budget process to approve capital projects which we did in the last month and that's kind of our work program for the year. these out years. It's just a plan. Some of those things we will do. Some of those things we won't do. Some of those things will shift around as we move from year to year. We, for example, we've included in roads that we won't do unless we get grants for Drew Bay being a prime example. Right now, we have a grant um that we hope to get within the next month. If we get that, we'll apply next year or or we'll apply within a few months for the next year and then again the following year. So those that type of a project is included in our capital improvement plan, but we don't know if we'll get the grant or not, but we put it in there and it's even with that one specifically that money we actually wouldn't get if if we received the money for for the Drew Bay project. It would actually go straight to UD do, but we have to have the match. And so we include it in there just so that we can keep track of the projects that we're doing. You can see that. And so it's important for us to have this plan so

that we we we can plan out future years so we can prioritize and that we're not surprised in one year where we have to replace $3 million worth of equipment. We've kind of cycled that out so that we have the funds to do that. Um there are different categories that you see in there. There's community development, there's general administration, health and human services, public safety, and and public works. And this is it's a it is just a plan. And this was just it was ironic. The day after we adopted the budget, one of our the roads department came in and they said, "Well, one of our motorgraders that we had in a couple years out just broke down. It's our oldest one. We we know we're going to need to replace it." It's like, "Well, do we need to switch things around?" They said, "No." Which was I was glad for them to say no because they said we have a different plan that we're looking at now. We don't think we need seven. We think we need six based on the way that we want to start doing this. So, let's just go with the plan that we currently have. we may end up taking that piece of equipment off if that works out well for us and the schedule that we have. And one of the benefits I think the biggest benefit this year I think was was in roads as well when we looked at their five-year plan and I and I talked to our roads director and I said you're starting to accumulate more money in your fund balance. We need to do something with that. And he said the same thing. And so we're now able probably for the next five years to spend about $2 million a year to do about 10 miles of resurfacing a year. absent this plan, we wouldn't have done that because we would have said, "Well, we've got too many other things coming up." But when we were able to plan it out, we could see that we had the funding to do that. And so, that's something we're starting this year. And uh road director did lay out some of those roads. And some of them that you've probably been on before, North and South Willow, I mean, they're in horrible shape. We can't put surface treatment on there anymore. We have to resurface them, not just the the typical pavement preservation. So this plan has allowed us to kind of think more strategically and how we're using the funds and not just accumulating funds. We're actually spending them where there's the highest priority. And so we would like for you to formally adopt

that uh the capital improvement plan. It'll change next year. We'll adopt it. It's not something that you you're stuck to doing those projects because it is just a plan. It's not the budget. It is separate from that. And so this plan gives us that those guidelines. And as we moved some money from our general fund fund balance to the capital projects fund recently, these types of projects would be what we would be using a lot of that money for. And so there's there's a plan for the money. It's not just moving money. There's actually a plan for that money. So I think formally adopting that would help us to to show that this is the plan that we formally have adopted and it would help with the external auditor when they look at that. They just they say, "Well, you're just sitting on a bunch of money." know there actually a purpose for the removing that money. There's a plan for that money. And so we like for your um consideration in adopting this capital improvement plan. And we'll update this typically mid year each year. We update it before we go into the budget cycle. And then we bring the projects that we think uh are most important for that year. We'll bring those before you as part of the annual budget. Any questions?

Questions or comments? I have one. So uh Andy, thank you for putting that together and thank your staff. This is something we've been pushing for uh a little while and thank you for bringing that to fruition that we can plan ahead and have maintenance that is guaranteed uh for roads and other things within a year's time. So as things depreciate uh certainly from weather or other things that we're on top of being able to get those repaired so that we have adequate tools to do the jobs that are at hand.

Yeah. and all it's really together when we've done all these plans. We did a master plan for the solid waste site for roads department for facilities for desert peak all of those things they work those are plans but then you have to have the funding and this is where we start to prioritize that funding is to help us do these projects now that we've identified within these other plans. So this is the kind of planning that brings uh businesses and in this case a county from good to great uh because you're way ahead of it and then you're looking in year three how you can then make another five-year plan. So thank you for doing that. Um if there's not any questions then chair to entertain a motion. So moved here a motion from Councilman Hoffman. Is there a second?

Second. Hear a second. Second from Councilman Stroberg on resolution 2025-35. All those in favor say I. I. All those may oppose say nay. That uh sounds unanimous. Adoption. Resolution 2025-36 readopting the Tilla County, excuse me, Tula County budget for the 2026 fiscal year. Andy,

thank you for allowing us to bring this back. There were a couple of items that we missed when we adopted the budget. um officially earlier this month and a couple of those we needed to um to make an amendment for and so some of them we're just cleaning up and so we appreciate the opportunity to come back and have a public hearing again and adopt these. If you look at the the budget um document that's on the agenda, the very last page shows the the the amendments that we're making. One of the things that we have to do for state reporting purposes is in our budget we had with each of the funds we had here's the beginning fund balance, here's the ending fund balance, and you could kind of see where we're at, which I think is really important to see. But part of the state requirements are that we have a a line item showing us spending that that fund balances. So the first items, if you look at the very last page, those that is just to account for that fund balance that we're using within each of those funds to make them equal the revenues and expenditures. The self- insurance, we had the money going out from one fund, but we didn't have it landing someplace. And so that's all this is is this is where the money would go on the GIS. That was one that I we created a spreadsheet for GIS and then we at some point added some columns in that department's budget, but when we pulled it into the to the um budget that we were looking at adopting, it had reference to the wrong cell that was blank. And so we we budgeted zero for GIS when we adopted the budget. So this is just to clean that up and bring in that funding that GIS was supposed to receive. Capital projects, that one was just a wrong account that we had in there. So that was just zeroing out something that we'd put in with the recreation special service district. That's another one that we just missed. It's one of those that we don't spend a lot of time on the sheriff's one. We had some for the carrying forward some money for the mobile command center grant which we just weren't going to spend out this year. So we have the revenue and the expenditures just moving forward into the next year. Then the last one was just a typo on the Desert Peak debt, the amount that that should have been. And so that was just to clarify that the only addition that we have made to the budget which there's a note at the

bottom is that the the contract that we have with our federal lobbyists they do so much lobbying for us at the state level that they had an amended contract that they were just in the process of sending to us and so I did amend that to include that as well. Um that's all of the the changes that we have so far in the budget. So, we should be good once these are adopted, but we do need to have a public hearing again on this to Is there any questions or comments on this first from the council? If not, chair to entertain a motion to open up public hearing. Salute. Hear a motion from Councilman Stroberg. Is there a second? Second.

Hear a second from Councilman Hoffman. All those in favor open up public hearing on resolution 2025-36, say I. I. I. All those may oppose say nay. Public hearing is now open. Is there anybody in the audience by raise of hand that would like to speak specifically to the resolution 2025-36? Seeing none, chair to entertain a motion to close public hearing. So moved. So moved. Second. Hearing a motion from Councilman Thomas, a second from Councilman Wardle to close public hearing on resolution 2025-36. Say I.

I. All those may oppose say nay. Public hearing is now closed. Uh chair to entertain a motion on resolution 2025-36. I'll make a motion to approve resolution 25-36. Hear a motion from Councilman Hoffman to approve resolution 2025-36. Is there a second? Second. And a second from Councilman Strumberg. Uh all those in favor say I. I. All those may oppose say nay. Resolution that sounds unanimous and resolution 2025-36 is now adopted. That'll bring us down to council updates. I'll forego mine. Uh Councilman Wardle,

I don't have one. Councilman Stroberg. Uh you know, I could see if I could come up with something for an hour, but I can't talk that long, so I I don't have Councilman Thomas. Council don't have anything. We'll turn some time over to man. Oh, okay. Managers would like to uh entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. A motion to adjurnn. Councilman Hoffman. All those in favor say I. I. We are adjourned at 1217. Is that recording stopped?