Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning, everybody. We'll get to be called a quarter.

We have a change in agenda, though.

We have to delete off payroll approval for new hire for veterans.

Or that would be all right.

Yeah, it was due to a misunderstanding of my purse. She had just retired the end of June. She has to have four months between. So she only has one.

So she.

Yeah. Yeah.

We have another individual. Okay. We'll get that one on the next.

Each.

We'll be left. We've improved the agenda with that. Justin.

Those in favor? Aye. Minutes to the July 8th, 26th board meeting. Move to approve. Second. Those in favor? Aye. Seth Hedlick here for August 25th at 9.30 a.m. approval of final plat. Hill with the subdivision. Sorry, that was too bad. This is Randy. Do you have anything else to add to it?

No, I just need to set the public hearing for the 25th. Okay. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to set the public hearing.

I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Recorders, Black Heights, Ice Tip, Bureau Renewal. Just your normal frame, right?

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Aye. Resolution 35-2026, overpayment of insurance premiums, Teamsters Local Union 238. It's all done and ready to go.

Yes, I'm going to make motion approved.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Memorandum of understanding with Teamsters Local 238, bicep and hip shift differential got left off. Add that back in.

I'm going to make motion approved.

I'll second. Those in favor? Okay. Data center discussion. The city's actively looking for a data center to come into their industrial park at the airport. I know Andy and I and Travis, Miranda, we all took a trip up to Waukee, almost at Milwaukee. And we took a tour of the U.S. Signal Center. And more security than our jails. Very top-notch, very secure, very fireproof, very quiet. They had three huge generators that were completely enclosed. They don't run them after 7 p.m. for the neighbors. They are right next to energy, of course. They also use basically antifreeze. They have a completely enclosed system that cools. They don't use very much outside water. And the antifreeze keeps everything cool. And they have suction vents over each individual water, basically. Our information is stored in. And you can talk normal voice. adding on also there. I thought that was a very nice center. Talking with Hans, I figured we already knew, but it was the cream of the crop as far as data centers. They are very near the top. They are very public oriented. They want to get along with the outside entities. I know we are taking a second tour.

August 27th in Altena.

August 27th in Altoona. And Kerry's going and Wren's going. We may see another couple department heads go with that also. Anyway, see if we can get one set up for a bad center for Brian. One of the bigger ones.

Because this center we went to covered about three and a half acres, I think.

And it was actually there before Waukee was there. It had been there for 13 years.

This is 2009, I think. 2009 is when I built it.

It was five acres.

They had five acres, but the facility was off three and a half. They're expanding. Like I said, the town swallowed them up. But it is ussignal.com And they do have videos on there of the whole center, just like we took through, that you can get on and watch. So that's my discussion. Anybody else have anything?

I did a little bit of looking at that. So I just kind of went on the Dallas County Beacon website and looked at what they had for everything there. Currently, it's about a 19,000 square foot facility that they're adding on to. And I don't recall, were they doubling the size? Yeah. Yeah.

With a different type of system.

Yeah. So the land... The land valuation they have up there is roughly $1.6 million. And then on the building, it's $3.1 for a total of almost $4.8 million assessed value on that. For the 25-26 payable taxes, it was $3.9 million. and their levy rates roughly $35 per thousand. So there was 140,104 in taxes that that facility paid for the 25, 26 payable year. I just thought you might like that information.

Yeah, you just remind me of another thing that, you know, when they told us they don't require tax abatements.

Yeah, there was, um, there was something a little funky in there, uh, in one of the years where they only paid a couple thousand dollars in taxes. And I don't know if that's a typo on there or if that's what actually happened or I really don't know. I didn't call to ask about that, but there was one year in there that looked really weird online. Um, But other than that, you're correct. There were no, didn't look like there were any tax abatements or anything on it.

Brian? Thank you, Travis. I had you trained. You answered my question. I am good, please. One of my thoughts on it is that we look at the Lynn County Ordinance on data centers, and it's good. It's a good example. But then the one that I saw on it is there's no decommissioning language. And I think that's a huge topic to deal with in an ordinance. So just to throw that out there, it's something to consider. And Miranda, have we talked to MSA at all about developing an ordinance? Is that in discussion at all?

Not at this time. You know, if that's a direction that the board wants to do, I can reach out and find out or if it's something, you know, that's kind of up to the three of you if you want to spend the money on having them develop one or if it's something as the board you want to work on as well.

Another option would be to just go to an attorney, but I guess the model that I like to proceed with would be the MSA do an ordinance and then an attorney looks at it. So we have two different groups looking at it. But

do you have any idea what they would charge for an ordinance and if not maybe that's the next step is just even asking um if we if we go sorry just kind of we spent roughly around 36 000 on the renewable energy ordinance so i can maybe look in that ballpark and i can reach out to them as well if you'd like as a board um I will say there are a number of counties that are working on an ordinance. A lot of counties have set up a moratorium just to give them a little bit of time to work on a data center ordinance. I hope to have some of that discussion next week up at ISAC. I know that's kind of a hot topic in Iowa and other surrounding states as well.

And that's what that director up there said, make sure you're ordinance is what you want. He said because the companies will work around what you don't put. So it should be complete, right? Just like them using antifreeze. He said you can put that in your ordinance so if you don't want to waste all your fresh water, they would have to follow suit. He said they will, but they will also go outside the lines, just like the ones that drill the wells in Cedar Rapids.

I guess it would be might that we proceed I can reach out to MSA if you'd like.

But certainly it's not just my decision.

Darren, I had a question. Yes. So I know when I'd asked you guys before about data centers, you really needed to do a lot of information gathering because you really didn't know. Did this trip kind of change any perspective that you guys had knowing what you said the city wants to get one developed? Because, I mean, this was a good one. Who knows what the one in Altoona is going to be like in two weeks? I think it's a Microsoft one, if I remember right, a Microsoft data center. No, it's independent. Oh, is it independent? Okay. Sorry about that.

Yeah, we haven't gotten into what the big one is like. Right. Microsoft actually had to build their own water tower.

What did this visit to Waukee kind of show you about data centers or at least initially?

If they were like that, nothing wrong with it. I mean, they were really outgoing. They had no problem sharing their information. Like I say, it's extremely clean, quiet. Every new construction, you can't even hear the construction.

Does anybody have a copy of their ordinance?

My keys? No, I do not yet. But I'm glad I'm getting it. Did you get one?

Okay. I would hate to spend a bunch of money on somebody to write an ordinance when we have all the information from all these other counties to do it ourselves. I would not be okay with spending $20,000 on another ordinance.

It's like I said, I talked to Hans and he said that was one of the top ones. He's supposed to get with us after the state compare here. He said he's been to see them all.

So, yeah, just knowledge and see what he thinks. Did you have a whole lot of knowledge about data centers going into this or?

Well, yeah, I was on Facebook.

Well, take that with you. Well, I guess. Yeah.

No, and they were very clear up there that there are multiple types of data centers. Now there's, they store information for, they can store your information if you want to store it there. It's a whole different deal than like Microsoft or Facebook or they're storing their own stuff. And that's how they make their money is they charge so much to keep your information there and so The one fact that I asked that really kind of shocked me was they're storing your information in their facility crash where it got blew up. There's no backup to the backup as well.

They do replicate to other centers. They got certain different ones. depending on the level. The level, yeah.

If you paid enough. If you want to pay enough, we'll put it in other places. But I think just that cage, what do you say, that cage is $1 million a year?

The big one that's locked up? Yeah, about that.

And it was only a third or a quarter full?

Mm-hmm.

So how many people did they actually have working in the data center, not including construction? Five. Five.

the administrators that took us, because they travel. They travel to all their different sites, and they're looking to add 12 to 18 more facilities. But they place theirs 100 to 200 miles from their clients. Unfortunately, they were pretty clear that down here is too far from their clients. But I do have the business manager's card up here if anybody wants to contact him, get his information. And I also have the, like I said, the website. I would strongly encourage everybody to get on there and look because it's a whole lot different than what you see on Facebook. Their fire retention system was all basically gas-based because they run off lithium batteries. And the rooms were completely airlocked if there was a fire. all the doors completely sealed. Big water tubes, we did come at them. It was kind of like Willy Wonka, but they needed big water tubes. Any other questions?

over to all air driven cooling so the usage that they have on the water right now is actually going to drop but like he said the Microsoft one had built their own water tower to have enough water for them so they're not all like that he said the ones that are solely water fan cooled are extremely loud

There's, of course, because they have a cooling system inside, and that's where they keep all the recycles back through. He said they never change your antifreeze. It'll stay there forever. They just have a clean system that cleans it, so it just reuses it. And it was 35% glycol. Remember? It wasn't a 50-50 measure like you have in the car, but I think it was 35%. Any other questions? We'll move on until we can hear from the board. Okay, Renewable Energy Ordinance Discussion. I threw this back on, so hopefully we just have some public hearings on it, get some public input, and so we can just move on out of that into the day there. I just kind of talked briefly with Brian this morning about it.

What do you think, Brian?

I have no problem with doing a public hearing. That's always smart to do to get public input. I guess the issue is we've made some progress on coming together on several things, but there's several issues that we probably are not there yet.

It would be appropriate, I think, to have... Yeah, those are the ones you were going to email me on after the meeting.

And vice versa. We've both done that, but I'd rather work through Miranda on some of this so that she collects the information for us. So we certainly could have another discussion, and I can email you some things that I haven't

And then we can put it back on in two weeks.

Okay.

Give your stuff to me. My suggestion was why don't we, we could use Miranda as the way. We're supposed to copy Travis and Miranda and email anyway.

So I'm a little sensitive to open meeting law in terms of corresponding like that. So we use Miranda that helps that.

Whether it should be no violation. Send that to Travis and Dawn because they were. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that's what I can do. And then they can board it on to me. So.

Yes.

Okay. Any other discussion? Acceptance of health insurance and transplant renewal. The next hour is yours.

I don't think anybody wants to be taught for an hour. Okay, so the county is basically self-insured and in that we purchased a stop-loss agreement as well as a transplant policy. Those are both up for renewal. On the stop-loss, the fixed cost increase is 8.65%. We did go out to the market to see if, currently it's with Sun Life, to see if there were other options available. We came back with a decline and it was basically due to the experience of, you know, they look at three years in arrears. The current year is great. We have not had any piercing of any claims of the stop-loss individual deductible, which is $150,000. However, last year we had four claims. And the three-year history, if I look at it, in three years the total paid premium was $1.538 million. The total claims paid out were $2.128 million. So actually your loss ratio was 138%, which means for every dollar they collected, they paid out $1.38. So that's the basic reason why we do not have any alternatives other than Sun Life currently. That being said, the increase was only 8.65%. We did have a cap on basically that they could not increase the rates over 15%. So that was a good thing. The renewal options, everything is the same. There are no new lasers. And a laser is when they look at the claims that they've incurred over the past two or three years and say, this individual, we are going to provide coverage for everyone, including at the $150,000 deductible, except for this individual. And if you remember right, a couple years ago, we had a $1.5 million laser on one individual that's no longer in our claims history. So that's just the basic. They did give us an option of increasing the deductible from $150,000 to $175,000. And I can tell you, so we would be increasing $25,000 risk level per individual that's on the current plan. The monthly premium savings would be $5,717.36. The annual would be a little over $68,608. However, last year, remember I mentioned we had four claims? It would take two and a half claims, and then you would be at a deficit. You would be paying more out in the additional for the deductible than you would be in the savings. It is an option. You know, Clint Eastwood said, do you feel lucky? I don't know if I would want to gamble with that and unknown because if we had four, you're going to pay out $100,000 more in deductible just for those four, and your savings is going to be $68,000. So that is an option. The other thing is the transplant policy, and that's basically no change, just an actual renewal that goes along with it. Now, this is also the time that you can, and I had given all of you that packet on the savings. One of the savings that they had identified is if you created a dental network through UMR. Currently, there's none. So any member can go to any dentist they want, and they're going to process the claims. If you designated the UMR dental network, you would have a 36% cost savings. which is roughly $37,000 a year. But if you looked at the list of dentists that, you know, your members have used over the past year, less than a third of those would actually be in that network. So it would be a constriction of who, you know, your members could go to. So, you know, convenient. Yeah, exactly. But it's just not important. It is an option.

Six month claims out. They don't cover too much.

Do you have any questions? I mean, there's a lot of claims history that we could go over, you know, without names, but this year has been really, really positive. So I anticipate that unless something catastrophic happens in the next three months, because there's always that trail of claims to catch up. We're doing very well.

We've got one more year and I think the big ladies will be on.

Yes.

We can stay healthy. Yes.

Well, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know if you read the article that was in the Iowa County Magazine for August that CRIMS placed in there. It has to do with the importance of a safety committee and prevention being of prime importance, and it's just like this. You know, as long as you have a program that, you know, for your employees about wellness and health and all of that, you can't really see up front and close what the savings are, but over a period of time, you do see that. That's the plug for the safety committee.

Thank you, ma'am. I did send you an email on my phone, and it didn't go, so I sent it again yesterday. Oh, okay. I didn't see it. The mobile transfer is not working. I sent us all text messages last week, and I got mine at 9.30 two nights ago. It took five days. So it's a good thing T-Mobile bottomed out. All right, jail expansion is next up. Oh yeah, motion. I'll second that. All those in favor?

Aye.

jail expenses on here for us to bring to a vote. If we want to put it on the ballot for option A or option B. Don, you want to explain about the options to the people here? I did bring the big votes. Yes, you got your, if anybody wants to look at them.

So the options, option A is adding basically a hundred and, uh, or 118 beds. Um, but, uh, cover the existing building roofing, re-roofing, some new parking lots, as well as support area renovations with the kitchen and security electronics upgrade. This would be a maximum of 284 beds. I just, I meant to say starting out that I think Samuel's group is on board here with us through team's meeting. So if you have any questions for them, you can ask them also. Option B is the new parking lot, salad board kitchen, 150 bed, jail addition. The overall capacity is 316 beds. Support areas will be redone, like the kitchen, the property room area, as well as just laundry area, storage, possibly metal core area, as well as security electronics. The security electronics and the existing rover, as you know, are original, so both are needing to be updated. So the one, option A is $37.5 million. Option B is $45 million. So basically option A would be 284 beds would be an addition of 136 beds with $37.5 million. The projected capacity would get us 2021 to 2046. Option B is 316 beds, $45 million. And we're looking at 2045 to 2049 as projected to get us through. The jail administrator and I discussing this morning how in this study that was conducted by Samuel's group, they had projected where we'd be at you know, year three, year four, year five, and on the average population, you know, this morning we had about 150 inmates, you know, 45 of which were harmed out. You know, that puts us in year four. You know, that's not an average population, but if you look at it, it puts us in year four projected out. So, you know, I guess my thoughts is option B gives us the long-term outlook. That's the one I guess I suggest that we go with.

Jason, about how many people would have a jail break to go to prison?

I'm not sure how many we have sentenced to prison as of right now. You have several in the halfway house. As far as getting people to prison, recently it's been pretty good about getting them fairly quickly.

But just getting the case to the result and on to that next step, whatever it may need is. And I would have been at what the issue is, I think. And I've seen the supervisor of the page that a lot of counties have similar issues and I'm going to talk to the state next week up at ISAC about having them imprisoned somewhere because they don't have no room. They don't have room. Piles back down. Just piles it all at the bottom.

And kind of like Don was saying with these projections, this study was done before the law changes on July 1st. And as the county attorney had previously mentioned, she believes that those numbers are going to spike as far as how many inmates we're going to be holding. And like Don said, we're sitting at 150 inmates today. And according to our projection, that's where we should be in four years. That's why we are kind of wanting that option D to get the more bed space because we're a month in to this new law change and we're seeing spikes in how many inmates we're having. So we don't know exactly what that's going to be in the future. The study showed 3.5% increase per year. We don't know how accurate that's going to be because of this new law change. Personally, I feel it's going to be increased. I've talked to other county jail administrators. They're seeing their numbers go up. I think at the three-week mark in July, we were up 20 inmates than what we were since prior to that law change. And I think it's just going to continue to rise. that's kind of why we're pushing for that option B to get some more bed space.

You know, the county attorney talking with her, she believes that there may be some legislative stuff come about. Obviously, there's no guarantees of that, but currently you can only hold in the jails and a sentenced inmate up to a year in the county jail. she looks at how the DOC may try to adjust that as getting that law changed to where you can hold them up to two years. It's just another something to think about. If that was to change to where we can hold them up to two years, I think we could see some increase of that since inmates also.

Let me go ahead and ask this. but I'm sounding negative to become positive in the end. If we do the 37.5 million project, the smaller project, option A, that might be easier to go to the public with that, since this is a public vote. How would you respond to that? Do you have some input, some thoughts on that? I know the difference between 37 and 45 million is not huge. It's not like option A is half of option B. So it's close, but still any difference, any lower amount is going to be more acceptable to public vote. We're going to make this happen. Of course.

I think that our concern is we'd hate to do option A and then get to a point where it's not big enough. It's just the way the projections in the original study were, and then with the policy changes July 1st, our concern is that option A may not be large enough. And I hate for any one of us, if we're still here, we should have something different. 10 years from now. That's my only concern. 10 years from now, maybe it's not big enough. And just think about it this way. If we were to open today, 50 of those beds were going to be occupied. Of the 150 in option B, of those 150 beds in option B, 15 of those are intakes. So now you're down to 135. So We just opened today. We're down to 85 beds that are remaining. Is that right? I don't know if I did my math correctly. So 85 beds remaining to get us through the next 25 years.

I think Don's right. I think it's the longevity of how long we're going to be able to sustain housing our own inmates before we get to a point where maybe it's 10 years down the road, we're after the farm mandates out to other counties again. Talking with the stimulus group, if we do choose option A, if that's what the board decides to go with, we're not gonna be able to add on to get to that option B level of beds if option A is the choice that's made. If that's what we go with, we're not gonna be able to add on in the future. And we're running out of real estate to where we're gonna be able to add beds We just don't want to see ourselves back in this boat again in another 10 years. Their projection has us 20 to 25 years with option B. And again, this was done before those July 1 changes. So I don't know exactly how accurate those are going to be. I feel like, you know, we're going to be, the numbers are going to get, they're going to increase a lot quicker than what we actually projected in the last year.

My concern is like, How are we going to pay wages for, because you guys said you're going to have double employees, which that's all the wages, benefits. Like, how are we going to pay for that? We're cutting budgets like crazy now. That's my concern. One of them.

How much of this burden is going to be followed upon by the taxpayer? employees if you double on the staff. That 45 million or 37 million, that's just the construction.

I can assure you that doubling the amount of staff that I supervise is not at the top of my list of things that I necessarily want to do.

And I understand that, but we need to look at the entire picture. We're struggling now to

I actually had some questions given to us by citizens. One of them was what happened in June 23 that sustained a 58% deviation from the previous eight years in the crime rate. First of all and foremost, obviously our cops and deputies are doing their jobs because we're making lots of arrests.

So they're saying, why didn't it go up in 23? Uh-huh. Why not 58%? Yeah, that's what, in talking with the supervisor about that, he was asking the same thing. Why was there a jump? Are we planning this on the last two years of data? I guess I can't you know, on average is about 3.5% over the last 10 years. So there's, I don't know why there was an increase. I can't put my own opinion on it. I mean, I think if we could answer that would be nice, but I can't say what the reason is.

The question was Where are all the inmates coming from? Is it a tunnel agency, Blakesburg, unincorporated areas? And are those areas sharing the cost of the jail and keeping up with their cost sharing agreements with the jail?

Well, I'd say that, you know, a majority of Marlboro residents, you know, I'd say that the cost of operating the jail is by taxpayer money. so whether you live in anyville or blakesburg or agency or rural area of lawful county or atumwa you're paying into property taxes for the county so i just they are covered would you have a caution agree with the city too correct yes that's not for inmates just for the building correct yes You know, to answer, I didn't get my answer completely out there last meeting. You know, the city pays a portion of the insurance, property insurance. They pay for the spaces they use as well as the shared space that they have with us. They also pay into the maintenance fund that we've just done this year. So, I mean, they are paying into it, you know, as to Is it enough? I guess it's hard to tell at this point. The one thing we talked about, Jason and I, this morning, because we are having some of those inmates that are being brought in on city charges, do we need to look at that and look at charging the city for holding that inmate because we're having to pay to have inmates farmed out. So that's what we've discussed this morning. You know, and I think anything over the initial appearance, once they see the judge, if they're not bonding out, they're staying, that's when the charges should be looked at, start to charge the city for that. So that's what we're looking at, you know, to try and offset some of this cost. You know, it's just the answer to the employees. I know it's a big one. You know, it's concerning for me, too, because I have to find the 25 or 30 employees. And it's hard to find somebody. But this direction we're headed, I think, is going to cost us more money in the long run. We're going to have to hire employees because as... as Darren said himself, talking to some of the supervisors, their jail capacity is starting to increase, and we're gonna have to start going out further to try and find beds to hold these folks. So that means we're gonna potentially have more people on the road. Those are the things we need to think about too. I agree with you, Kerry. It's gonna be a big expense. Hopefully there's some things that change with the state, with properties, tax stuff and things like that. It may not change. And it may be one of those things we figure out something that makes it work. But I don't have the answers to what that is currently today.

I think Lillian sent an email from the new jail. The cost to take the insurance is like right under $59,000.

There's two prices, right?

Yeah, at the $30,000 and then the $45,000.

That was option 45 or 60. That's insurance on the building. And then there was the construction, which she also asked that, and we have to insure them during construction. The builder's risk. Which is another cost, correct?

In talking with Billy, she says that some of that can be put into the contract. bidding process to help that figure out.

If I understood that correctly. Yeah, I'm sure they've just changed their bid amount.

To make them isolated so you know exactly what portion they're charging for that because then you can go out in the market and see if that's acceptable or not.

I'll just comment this way. I have no problem taking this to a public vote. I always like the idea of citizens deciding together as a group for decisions like this. And I think the citizens have the capacity to weigh in on the issue of the labor costs side of things also as they make that decision. So I don't see any problem taking it to a public vote.

And I can re-look at that staffing projection. My main focus is the safety and security of the facility, my staff, making sure they're able to do their job safely with enough people. When you're understaffed, that's when things like workman's comp issues come up as well. So we try to staff it adequately and appropriately. I can re-look at it. But those are my main focuses when I look at those staffing issues.

Well, you know, in talking with Sam's group, doing the study, they said, you know, what they typically use is, you know, we figure five people for each position. You know, our facility is not even manned currently for that, you know, that number. So, I mean, you know, at times, you know, up until the early morning hours, you know, we have three people that they're from. you know, 10 to 2, and then we're 2 staff, and they're from 2 to 6. So, I mean, you know, we're not even at adequate staffing now for what we need. So, I don't think we didn't inflate those numbers, I don't think. We just used what we, what the kind of going market is that we, Samuel's group was able to provide us, I think.

Initially, all our labor costs. That's a plus already. And I think the idea is we can manage the labor with the number of inmates in the system so that you're not just hiring a whole bunch of people. You're hiring to the size that you need at the time.

Well, in talking with Sam's group, we figured it's got to level out at some point, right? Because we can't hold... Our population is increasing, so why is our inmate population Part of it's, you know, we have a halfway house here that kind of contributes a little bit to that. You know, when talking about that, it's got to level out, but we're at. You know, it's a tough decision we all have here today, and I'm merely giving you my opinion, what I see.

Anybody else like to comment? Chad?

So my name is Micah Van Mersbergen. I'm not a county resident, so I appreciate you letting me speak. I live a half mile north of the county line. So we've got several farms in Wobblow. And so I'm coming into this a little bit late, so I apologize. I'm not trying to insult anybody's intelligence or any of the information that's already been discussed in work sessions and whatnot. But looking at the presentation from the Samuels group just begged a lot more questions in my mind than what it answered. So I was looking at the average daily population. I'm curious on their data and their assumptions that they used. Over the previous 10 years, they concluded a 5.2% average annual growth in the ADP. But they also stated 57.8% was the total growth for the period. So they divided by 11, not 10. It should be 5.8%. And then they assert that a 3.5% annual growth is likely. given the national average of 0.96 and the first eight years of the 10 year period was 1.9%. The last two years was 18 and a half percent. So how did we go from, which is why we're here, right? We're not here because of 2022. We're here because of what started in 2023. So if we're going to assume, you know, that projection 18 and a half percent, we'd be out of beds on the, on the option a, we'd be out of beds in 2029. And with option D, we'd be out of beds in 2030. So I'm curious how they looked at the last two years of 18.5% growth and then just assumed that we dropped down to 3.5% to get us out in the 2040s. The other question that... that I think the presentation just doesn't answer is the full cost analysis. You know, the construction cost is one thing, but then, I mean, should we just double that for all the other associated costs, maintenance personnel and whatnot? I think that question needs to be answered adequately before taking it to the public. And then the last question is, you know, I'm not familiar with all the 2080s that might be in place, but it seems like there should be a proportional amount of cost sharing between the entities specifically whose residents are occupying these beds. You know, I'm pretty confident that from where, you know, I'm paying taxes probably isn't contributing much of the population here. And with that, if 2080s could be put in place, you know, the city could do its own bond as well to pay their fair share. Any of the cities, I mean, depending on what the demographic breakdown actually ends up being. So those are just questions I had, comments that I had. Thank you.

Dennis Wilhoyt, I just have a quick question about the last time we had a bond referendum for, oh, excuse me, Dennis Wilhoyt, the last time we had this bond referendum for the current facility, there was a projection of how much money was gonna be made from farming out inmates. Do we know how much the current jail produced in revenue in terms of farming out inmates during its lifespan to make a comparison to this promise that we'll be now housing, taking others, you know, adjusted for inflation, if we can make some kind of prediction that way.

So you're asking, Dennis, how many, how much revenue have we made off previous years? I don't want to first vote on it, but I don't know how long it lasted. Yeah, I can't, I don't have that number as to what we brought in.

I think with the promise that all of a sudden we're going to start making money, that was our promise the last time.

I don't think I promised anything. I just said that we would have to do that. You know, I said I'm not promising anything. That's the point in talking with the three of you I've made is I don't want people talking about, well, they said we're going to make money off it before. We did.

We did have revenue. And I'm just simply asking that figure.

Yeah, I don't know what the figure is.

I think that would be a helpful figure to have. I'll see if I can find that. Yeah, and I don't know that we can make any revenue off this either. All the ones we release on our own would actually have to stay or bond out, so we'd actually probably fill it up quicker. Any other comments? Mayor?

Mayor?

only take a decision you want to put up today or either either one for the public vote me personally with my opinion i i can't push for the tax dollars i just don't know where we're going to get them like a two percent increase i just don't know how to put this on the public I know we need to do something. That's why I want to get on the state next week and see if they build a prison and not rush this. You know, we'll push for timeline. That's the problem. We have another month. That's my opinion.

We can't have a special election.

Correct. We're going to have to wait two years to be on the ballot again. And we all best in the years here in my crisis would go up again to two voting years, you know, not what's that?

Well, you said it couldn't be all about years, but he's talking about two years, you know, one in November than the next year. You couldn't do nothing until next year.

Yeah, I think the attorney told us.

I would vote with 60% of the full number of ballots cast.

In my opinion, putting it on this ballot keeps it in front of the public as an issue. and yeah, it might not pass, but if it doesn't, we've learned something in the process, and then we go to the next year with better information than we have now, because I tend to agree. I would have liked to have this report about six months ago or three months ago, and it kind of seemed like it all piled up here right at the end, and we'd have to deadline up the election.

We also have that additional cost. We want them to promote it to $36,000.

which my attitude towards that was perhaps we could go back to them and say, what can you accomplish for like 10,000 or 15,000? Because I do have a little bit of an issue spending that much money on the promotion side of it.

Yeah.

You know, put it on me.

It's not on you. We just expressed our opinion.

I do not have an issue right now putting it on the ballot, but the taxpayers would like... Again, I'm very concerned of how we're going to pay wages, benefits. We know we're capped at 2%. That's my thought. Thank you.

You two want it on a ballot, yeah. Signed option A or option B.

Does having it on a ballot and it failing put any time restrictions on when it can be brought up again?

No. No, I think you can put it right back on again the two years later. We talked about that with the CMS levy.

They were pushing that, so...

Dan, I really respect your opinion on this because this is your area, so I appreciate that. I'd like this decision to be unanimous, but it doesn't have to be. Could you share a little more on your thoughts? You did, but I mean, would you be willing to make this unanimous or do you

You know, I've always been I want the public to public to speak as their as their camp. But I just being in law enforcement, I know what's happening to us here isn't our fault. We're doing our job. I agree. Our guys are making their ass put them in court where there's no consequence for a crime. Murders are getting out years and it's supposed to be life. The state It's full. And without consequences, no room to go up. It's like having an ice cream cone with no right thing at the top of your cone. There's nothing at the top. We got nowhere to go. So no matter what we do, and as I said, I don't want to hold it for two years because there's nowhere to go. So where do we go? What happens in two years? Will it ever open up? You know, like we spoke before, this isn't something that would be built Now it can be three, four years down the road before it's even open for business. But the same way at the state, you know, if they build a new prison. You know, I've talked before that maybe we need to look at options like Ford and these other states that have dumped probation and parole. You guys just go to prison for the full term. You know, if they get 15 years, they do 15 years. And then when they're out, they're just done. I would say the state allowed money on wages on that.

And if one gets right down to it, I'd rather fix the problem, which I think there's several ways to do that, but none of those are going to be legal. None of those ways are going to be short-term solutions. And so I'm thinking... Offering this to the public is at least a way to keep it in front of everybody's attention in the short term. So I think that's kind of where I'm coming from. Yeah.

And I know where he's coming from. And when they pitched the jail the last time, we was going to make money. And we did it first.

Yeah.

But it didn't take long. The crime rate caught up and we filled up. Exactly. And one of the quotes was, you know, we're first in crime rate for the last four years. Yep. We are by FBI standards. But what people don't take into consideration is repeat offenders count as another arrest. And so when they repeat, I know Fuller can testify to this, we've arrested people and they might be arrested three, four, five, six times waiting on the first court because our court is full. So then that now instead of a one-time offender, he's a six-time offender. So our stats go up. And one of our projects we're working on is adding a courtroom to the courthouse. Now the state's short judges. So I don't know how that was even going to help us to add a courtroom with no judges. We're just losing a county attorney to be a judge. But that still doesn't catch us up. So I think he's not even going to be here. I don't know the answer, but the answer's got to come from somewhere above us because they're killing us. I mean, if a town was going to have city charges and nobody else in the county has federal charges, everybody goes by state charges, if we're going to house them in a jail, maybe we should have to pay a fee to house them in the jail. It doesn't have to be $65, but It should be some rate if the county's benefiting from charging by the city.

Well, I guess I would say if we're paying $65 for somebody to be somewhere else, then they can pay $65 for the cost of the state charges.

That's how we look at it. Do you have a... Because we get 9% of all fines by state charges, right? Is it 9%? Yes. So we get zero from state charges. So we get no income from state charges. I looked into that and

and uh talk to the chief about what their revenue is that they bring in and it was like i think he said it was around 80 000 you know so if you did nine percent i mean seventy two hundred dollars yeah it's not great but it's at least it's putting something somewhere else but i think 65 a day would benefit us more than nine percent so Well, I think you're going to have a, you know, it's going to be a tough conversation because I'm sure they're running into the same boat as the county is, you know. Sure.

And on top of that, you have prescriptions, you have medical expenses that the county has to pay for.

Yep.

Once again, my personal opinion, if we make a motion, I think we need to leave the promotion fee out of it until we can talk it over some more. I agree with that.

I think that with that amount up to that dollar amount, you know,

Jace Cohen? Yeah, he's on there. Jace, was that a set fee or was that a cop fee?

This is Samuels. That wasn't up to not to exceed fee because there's costs to print material. It's more than just pay. You're not just paying the Samuels group. We're paying for copy. We're paying for things outside of just our staff.

I think the one thing to point out that they bring to the table there is that the portion where a property owner can go online and see how it's going to affect their property, what the estimated tax is going to be.

So I think it's... And not to throw water on the fire, but the problem with that is it only I was talking before, I was talking, I want to see the total estimated. And I understand where he's coming from, so. Okay. Well, yeah.

Let me mention this. I think putting it on the ballot is the 26th. We're going to meet the 25th. Does that give them enough time to put it on the ballot?

I think we need to do that today. And I agree. The cost of something to deal with later. Yeah.

I think to the 26th. Yeah, so what if you were to win the options and move forward, I'd reach out to the attorney and they would draw up the resolution and language stuff for the ballot. And then I'd bring the resolution to be on there on the 25th. to vote on the ballot. And then also, there'd be some, Howard Street Company would have a service agreement also that would be placed on there with that resolution as to their cost.

Yeah, we don't know what that is yet, correct? Correct, I do not.

Before we make a motion, can I ask about option A or option B? I guess I'm thinking option B at this point. I would choose option B as well. Option B is fine.

With all that in mind,

And I think I have expressed my reservations, but I think it's the wisest thing to do is to keep this subject in front of the public. So that's the motion.

I'm going to second that motion.

The comment we made before, this is the public. So bring them out, hopefully, that vote yes or no on how they feel, because it might lead There's no doubt taxes will reduce on the cost of the building and it prevents itself. So we have no second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? None? If it be, we'll get the daughter and put her on the ballot for November.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I'll make a motion to approve this salary for the jail administration.

I'm going to second that.

Those in favor? Aye. FYI, on that, April or May, whenever we do amendments, we just have to do an amendment for that amount to those salaries according to the auditor. Thank you. Buffalo County Attorney. Oh, I thought you guys did. I'll make a motion to approve the Assistant General Administrator.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. 2200. And Buffalo County Attorney Gina Byrd. Stevie's put her or him at the same pay as the other assistant attorney since losing Elizabeth.

I'm going to make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. That was an increase of $3,600. That was already in the salary. I'm making a salary adjustment to office manager. Terry Short. with an increase of $5,000 also coming from Elizabeth's salary departure.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

So is the bill.

Okay.

Go ahead. If anybody left over, it will stay there for the period over. Thank you. Godley House Center. We have a new administrator, Jenna Stiles. She would become a full-time employee at 22.50 an hour.

I'd make most of the time.

No, second. All right. And she'll have an assistant at 20.38 part-time.

Would you check the hours? This 32 hours is full-time.

Yeah, they serve them part-time on the annual. We have the board meeting. That's why I asked.

I thought you were going to check on it.

I was, but then she had part-time circle on here, so I didn't worry about it. But we have a meeting on Thursday. Okay. So I'm approving what they turn in at part-time. Is it non-exams? That'd be up to $29. Correct. Yeah, up to $29.

She is supposed to work for me from therefore, 32 hours. So she will not be considered part time.

She won't be able to work 30 hours. Can we make our motion to be 29 or 30 or less? 30 or less. That way, they're going to result from there.

Yeah, so we'll

I would agree that several part-time on here would be 30 hours or less. Motion to three part-time, I have 30 hours or less. Yes, I'll make that motion.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Deputy Auditor Neva Donnickle. She's already deputy, but she's requested the job position as deputy auditor. Yes, I mean, that's like the chief deputy.

We'd basically be taking Danielle's spot. I'm going to make motion to approve.

No second. Those in favor? Aye. Daniel got moved up to auditor. Measure investment report. Move to accept the report as provided. All in favor? Aye. Any other business? Appreciate everybody's attention. Input. Okay.

Thanks for your input, Aaron. You've given me about all this. That was a pretty good one.

I appreciate everybody putting forth the effort here, so it's a good deal. So, like I say, if anybody wants to see these books, I'm glad to let you use them. So, if anybody has problems, All right. I'm going to have a call for motions again. Second. Hi.

Hi.