Quorum Court - Regular Meeting

Good decisions for the benefit of our county as a whole. Please watch over our first responders and law enforcement, firefighters, and medical personnel. And please keep an extra eye on all the people from Arkansas who are helping out in the firefighting out west and the forest fires. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, JP Ricker. Thank you. Item two is adoption of the agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda? J.P. Dennis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To Willie's comment, yes, I'd like to add or move that we add three ordinances to tonight's agenda. Do I need the numbers? No, just these three ordinances.

Just in general, just give a description.

Insert after number seven. Okay.

Okay. So we want to insert, go ahead. We want to insert the one regarding the circuit clerk as eight, the one for the sheriff as nine, and the one as the collector as item 10.

That will work with me.

Okay. Your second's still good. Okay, I have a motion by J.P. Dennis and a second by J.P. Koger to amend the agenda to add these three items as stated. Item eight becomes Circuit Court, the regrading of the Circuit Court. Item nine is the regrading of the Sheriff. And item 10 will be the regrading for the collector, making items eight, citizen comment, become 11. And the adjournment, item 12. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, so now we have an amended agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the amended agenda?

So moved. Second.

So I got a, JP Lemming has moved we approve the adopted agenda, seconded by JP Dennis. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. The amended agenda is adopted. Item four is the treasurer report. Mr. Hill. Treasurer Hill.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Court.

Good evening. 4.1, treasurer summary. As you can tell, June is not a stellar revenue month. First line, general fund, 1.7 in revenue and 4.3 in expenditures. Rob was brought in about what it spent. And down at 3017 jail, it was 1.8 came in and 2.2 went out. And at the end of this report, we began the month with $76.6 million in the bank and ended with $73.6. 4.2, the revenue expenditure comparison, First row of numbers, the revenue, which general, road, and jail have all had better or increased revenue the first six months of this year than last year. So that's good. But if you look at the bottom, road and jail are fine. They actually had more revenue and less expenses. But the general fund had a little over $3 million more in expenses the first six months of 2026 and 2025. 4.3, general property taxes. A little bit down this month, 595,000 came in compared to 647,000 last year. But so far for the year, we're almost 7% still up, and I expect that to continue. 4.4, the ARPA report. Not a whole lot of activity, about $250,000 spent on the COVID mitigation project. And we have $1,845,000 remaining in that fund. 4.5, the one cent sales tax. Still not where I want to be. We're down 0.33 in this same time last year. $930,000 came in. But overall, we're just about exactly where we were last year at this same time. 4.6, the quarter cent jail tax. It's up almost 1% for the year. 1,442,000 came in. And that's all I have. Any questions for Treasurer Hill?

I have one. How did the two sales tax, one being up almost 1%, the other being down, is it just?

They should be the same percentage, but. annexations on the one cent sales tax skews our numbers.

And that doesn't affect the quarter?

No, because they get, regardless of who's annexed or what, they get the entire quarter cent for the county.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Treasurer Hill? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Item five is the employee insurance report. Mr. Angel.

Good evening.

Good evening.

All right, I won't belabor it. We'll jump right into the cash flow. Our spend was down month over month, so not quite back down where we got used to it those first couple months of the year, but the previous month was $988,000 in spend, and we got down to $893,000. spend in May so still over our funding which was at seven hundred eighteen thousand but as you guys are aware you know the months that we have rebates that really bails us out in a month for we had a two hundred thousand dollar rebate and again I know I beat this dead horse a lot but we have specific stop-loss on these plans the first six months we don't see anything really come back from those specific stop-loss because we have to meet those deductibles on our employees and their dependents that are high utilizers on the plan. But once those deductibles get hit, then the second half of the year, we traditionally see quite a bit in rebates. We saw some huge numbers, frankly, last year in our stop loss insurance. So traditionally, when we start going over June and July numbers over the next couple of months, I think we'll start to see some of those rebates start coming back in. So, candidly, given what we've seen over the last two months, I'm pleased with May's numbers, even though we still ended up 174,000 in the overage. If you look at the entire year, though, we are, and I say only, I know that I say it with a grain of salt, but I'm looking at where we were last year at this time. We're only in the whole $223,000, and it's my hope that as the specific stop loss starts to kick in on our large claimants, that's the number that we can flip fairly quickly as we stop having to pay those large amounts for the folks that are our high utilizers, and quite candidly, We have 615 employees on the plan, plus their dependents, usually equals between 850 and 900 people on our plan at any given time. We're going to have some folks that have some large medical conditions. That's just kind of a law of large numbers. If we have enough people on the plan, someone's going to have to utilize it. So that's why we have the stop loss. And it's my hope that, like I said, in the next couple of months, we'll be able to put the plan back to the green as opposed to the red.

Any questions for Mr. Angel? Thank you, sir.

Thank you all.

Item six, the comptroller's report. Comptroller Sherman.

good evening uh first of all we have the statement of operations and i'll talk a little bit more about it this particular time because we're halfway through the year so basically 50 through our budget um everything's looking pretty good if you look at uh county general um so far we've spent uh 26 million and uh we budgeted uh 57 million so If you would calculate 50% of that $57 million, we're about almost $3 million under budget right now. So that's pretty good of what we appropriated. And I think we have probably more front-end expenses that we pay up front, like property tax, some of the softwares that are big expenses we pay in the first of the year or so. I think we're looking good on County General. If you look at the employee insurance you just heard from Mr. Angel, it did jump from a $10 million budget to a $12 million budget because we appropriated two more million last meeting in quorum court. We have not had to dig into that two million yet. The account got down to 150,000. Tomorrow we'll put in about $360,000. So hopefully once those stop losses start kicking in and we get them back, we can potentially build that account and not have to dig into that $2 million appropriation. And that would be a good thing. If you look at County Road, halfway through the year, they're looking about 1.1 million under budget, so they're doing good. I'll talk about labor a little bit, because I passed out a little after this, but the labor will jump a little bit in the second half just because of anniversary dates when people get their raises, but still no concern. We're really in good shape. If you look at the other big mission, which I consider the jail, it's about 6.25 million under budget right now, so halfway through the year. Once again, I'm not sure what the second half expenses are, but I think they'll come in under budget again. Everything's looking good there. So when you look at the total on the last page, so far that third column, we've spent $60.8 million on a $140 million budget. So we're about $9.3 million under budget right now. So pretty good. Some of that we'll spend out, too, as we finish the COVID mitigation project with the ARPA money. So that will be second half, but I think there's only like three million left in ARPA. Is there any questions on this particular report?

I don't see any, sir.

Okay, so the next one is the unappropriated reserve. You can see there we did the 506,000 last meeting, and that was the cap. Really, that was appropriated back in 25, and then it never rolled over. Started in May of 26, so that particular ordinance last month now is on there. And then, of course, the $2 million out of general reserve, the unappropriated reserve. So the unappropriated reserve on that, which really, that goes with the $1,000 general fund, too. But I went ahead and took that out of there. We have not transferred that money, and we have not dug into that money. The goal would be not to transfer the money, but it's nice that if we got too low, I have the ability, because you guys already appropriated it, to go ahead and move money with Treasurer Hill. We'd probably have the discussion to maybe move $500,000 at once. Is there any questions on that particular report? OK, if you look at labor, a lot of times this little handout that I handed out, halfway through the year I like to look and see where we are on labor. So everything looks pretty good. County general is at 46%. And so we're about 1.4% under budget right now. And I don't think that would be eaten up by raises in the second half of the year. And then on the last page there, the total labor that we have paid right now through 13 payrolls is $32 million down there on the last figure. We budgeted $70 million. So we're about $3 million under budget. And once again, I don't think that that'll be eaten up by second half raises. The other thing is if you look at our total expenses, which comes off the first form there, the operating, that 32 million is 52% of our total expenses so far. So that's pretty good. I think that's a pretty good figure. as far as labor. So right now, labor is accounting for 52% of all of our expenses that we have expended through June. Some of that, if you look at certain things, like county general's a little bit higher. It's a little bit over 60, but I would say that those missions are heavily labor-focused versus the missions like jail, roads that require a lot of equipment, require different stuff. That does not concern me at all.

Any questions for Comptroller Sherman? J.P. Lemming.

Thank you, Chair. The Drug Court Opioid Settlement, where's that money go?

Drug court, opiate settlement. I'm not exactly sure, but I think that they have caseworkers and stuff that work in the drug court. So that goes towards salaries.

But that is the money that the state got the settlement for, and then they give it to the drug court?

I believe that's what it is, yeah. It's opiate money that they got a settlement, and then they transfer it down. And then they pay for other things, too, out of that. But as far as labor goes, I believe that there's some caseworkers and stuff that get assigned to clients.

Thank you. JP Dennis. Thank you. Excuse me for not knowing this, but on the employees' raises, they're done by date of hire?

No, right now they're done by the anniversary date of hire, unless you get a promotion from one grade to the next grade. And then when you get a promotion to a new grade, then you got another 12 months to run in that grade, and then you would get your...

I know that we base things on what we experienced in our life and I always worked for a large corporation and they paid raises I mean you know you had your evaluation just like everyone else does but you know it was the first year and that way you knew what you were budgeted for for that year and it made sense to me and when we started doing this by the hire date I didn't understand why Yeah, definitely. I'd love to hear a reason why we do it that way.

Well, it definitely makes the math a little bit more difficult, and the original reasoning was once you got in that position, let's say that you got a promotion to the next two grades up, you applied for it and got it, and then the concept was you would have 12 months in that job to get an evaluation over 12 months because the evaluation is also supposed to go into the... a consideration for a raise. So that is the original concept. I know that HR would love it for it to go all back to January. Why don't we?

How about we go back?

Well, we'll see. We'll see how it works out.

Okay. There's something we should work on. I like the fairness of it better the other way. Thank you.

Any other questions for Comptroller Sherman? Thank you, sir.

Yep.

Item seven is an ordinance amending the sheriff's office and jail budget for 2026 and for other matters pertaining thereto. Sheriff Kendrell, do you want to speak to this, sir?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year, when we budgeted for vehicles, we put some money, most of the money in capital, and then the money in our parts and repairs to buy the pieces, the light bars, the cages, the equipment that goes on the vehicle. And we bid that process out after we got our budget, and we were able to get it done cheaper by combining as a package superior equipment Chevrolet got the bid for the vehicles and superior up fitting got the bid to up fit the vehicles So if they combine those together And you buy those parts and pieces as part of the vehicle Then the county is exempt from the sales taxes charge of those so we were able to combine those pay for it all out of capital But we need to move that ninety four thousand back from Those parts and repairs line item back down to capital so we can get that line item zeroed out and won't be in the hole with it. So it's not any new money. It's just moving the money from parts and repairs line item down to capital so we can be even with that.

Because it was bought with the vehicle, it becomes a capital expense versus another expense. Yes, it becomes a capital expenditure.

And then exempt from Arkansas sales tax based on that. So save just about $16,000 by doing it that way.

J.P. Ricker. I make a motion to move this to full quorum court with a due pass.

I have a motion by J.P. Ricker to move this on to the full quorum court with a due pass recommendation, seconded by J.P. Dean. Any other discussion? Citizen comment. I have a motion by JP Ricker to move item seven to the full quorum court to do pass recommendation, seconded by JP Dean. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Item eight, which is one of the new items we added, is an ordinance to adjust the grading in the circuit clerk's office. Mr. Sylvester, would you like to speak to this?

I'm not sure if that's the right one. Hi. While they're fixing that. So just kind of a real quick overview on this request. For the past 14 years, I've had the same amount of staff numbers. We've had 21 staff members and looking at the past history of the volume increase in our office, especially on the court side, it just keeps going up and up and up. So tonight I'm requesting that I need some help. Just to give you an example of what our office is doing, I just went back a few years. I didn't go all the way back to the time I got elected. because it's not really fair, but we've had the same amount of people in the office, 21 of us. So in 2022, we had 69,968 court filings in that year. That's filing into old cases, that's new cases and things to that effect. So we processed 96,000 or 69,968 Last year in 2025, we processed 160,833 filings for the year, which is an increase of over 56%. with the same amount of people. As far as court cases go, most of our volume is gonna be civil in the civil department, civil filings. But we also handle domestic, criminal, juvenile, and those types of things. But our biggest workhorse is the civil filings. In 2022, we opened 3,482 new cases in 2022. And I have 1.5 civil clerks. I have a clerk that plays a dual role as a civil clerk and a domestic clerk, so I have one full-time civil and one person who helps with the volume there. In 2025, we opened 5,919 new cases, which is an increase of almost 42% with the same amount of people. And so I have the most incredible staff. They work so hard every day. They love it. They want to stay busy. But I think we're at a break point where I need one more person. And I needed them like yesterday. So what I've done is I have drafted an ordinance for a new position. We wanna get that person hired as soon as possible. If this is approved, we'll be able to advertise and then do interviews and hopefully have somebody onboarded by maybe late August, September, which would be great, and then carry that on over into the 27 budget. But right now for us to, I already have, this will be coming out of the Recorder's Cost Fund, and so I already have the money budgeted in there in a part-time line item that would cover this full-time slot for the remainder of the year. So the money's already in there, If we don't do this, then at the end of the year, that money will just roll back into County General, but I can use it this year to go ahead and fund this new slot for the remainder of 2026, and then I have already looked at and compiled the numbers for my budget for 2027 to continue with this spot.

J.P. Koger.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a motion to pass, this is item eight, I believe, onto the full court with a due pass resolution. And thank you, Mr. Sylvester. Second. Your office does an amazing job, and I've never had anything but pleasant experiences there. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I will pass that on, because I know they will appreciate it in time, too.

Thank you, sir. Director Bennett, would you like to, anything you'd like to add? No? He did it, huh? Go ahead, JP Dennis.

Thank you. I just, I guess I'm reminiscing about old days gone by. I remember when your office gave us a million dollars to make payroll that year. I think it was a million that you gave. I'd have to check with Trevor Hill, but... I believe it was real close to it. May have been close to it. Way back.

That sounds good, though.

You deserve it.

Well, the county employees deserve not only all the accolades, but they deserve the best. Because not only in my office, if you guys spend any time at the courthouse or need the services of anything that the county has, these people are amazing. You know, I'm sure not all of them, you know, spend their Sundays dreading Monday. I know my staff really doesn't. They enjoy coming to work and spending time with their coworkers and doing a good job. But I think you'll find that very high percentage of the total employees for the county. They love it here. And I know you guys do your best to show your appreciation with the benefits packages that we have. And the pay is getting better and better all the time, which is great. But they're the ones that do the heavy lifting. I'm personally just blessed to have my name on the door and to be able to represent my office here in front of you folks.

J.P. Ricker.

Yes, sir. I know it says you have sufficient funds to cover this. Will we have to move any of these funds like we just did for the sheriff's office to different lines or reappropriate anything?

So the line item that I would be moving this out of is already in personal services. It would just go from the part-time line item to the full-time line item.

JP Rio Stafford.

Thank you, Chair. We met this afternoon, and I'll be supporting this. I think it's a good move and doesn't add anything to our county budget for this year, and it sounds like very little for next year going forward. And I just wanted to thank you and the staff in the Circuit Clerk's Office for all the hard work that everybody does for the folks of this county.

Well, thank you so much. And if kind of looking forward into this budget season, if my If my calculations are correct, we will be able to do this and make some other changes with my budget only going up about half a percent for 2027. It's about $15,000.

JP Massengill.

Thank you. So you said you had an increase in caseload, 60% since 2022. How have you guys been able to

absorb that increase so far my staff works their tails off all day every day and they really do they're very talented they know what they're doing um they work together if if somebody has so Let's look at my civil clerk. If my civil clerk is overloaded, I have one of my other court clerks jump in and help out. That also says the same thing for my criminal clerks. If somebody is, I know this is kind of a technical term, but I'll try and make it where it makes sense. If I've got somebody inputting data, then I have to have somebody to look at it and verifying the data and approving it. And if I've got a ton of volume of work that is coming in electronically and then stuff coming down from the courts, there's always another clerk that can work in data entry so that we can stay on top of it and get it in there by sometimes we can't get it in by the end of the day but it's always there waiting on us in the morning when we get there but we do our best to try and have an empty queue at the end of the day sometimes it doesn't always work because again all of our filings are electronic except for what comes directly down from the courts so it's 24 hours seven days a week of these documents coming into our office electronically but they They work really hard and they like being busy JP Massengill and so I Want to alleviate a little bit of pressure off of them because they're all cross-trained. We have to be Just in this example. I got I got some numbers from Benton County from circuit clerk the shields last week and we're We're at the same volume as Benton County. I have 21 employees. She's got 44. And she does a great job. Her team is awesome. But they may have downtime. I don't know. My folks don't have any downtime. And they don't want downtime. I want to make sure that that's very clear. If I was to ask for three people and bring those folks in, and then my people start having downtime, I'm going to hear about it. They love being busy. It makes the day go faster. They feel accomplished at the end of the day and tired, but that's what they like and I want to foster that environment if I can to make sure that they have plenty to do and that they feel like that they really have some skin in the game in that office because currently that's where we're at. I just need to give them a little bit of relief.

Have you all had to work overtime to keep pace with the increase?

Rarely. Just on our accounting part, because after the end of the day, when everybody closes out their cash session and things like that, one of my assistant chief deputies has to compile that for the day and make sure that the deposit is ready to go in the morning. And so sometimes she'll stay five, ten minutes after we close to make sure that that's all correct. But usually we're pretty much on time of everybody getting out of there.

Do you see this trend continuing, the 60% since 2022?

Right now, looking at the numbers, I looked at them this morning. We're on track to be there and a little bit higher next, you know, for 2026. Yeah. It's not going to go up. Let me check my numbers here. I can tell you. Is it criminal or civil or both? Civil's the biggest. as far as the number goes, but they're all going up. They really are. So like, just an example, 2025 was 160, 833 filings. 2024 was 154,000, no, I'm sorry, 156,797 filings. 2023 was 154,795. So the trend is going up. It's kind of tapered. I mean, I don't want to say it's, you know, If you think about an asymptotic curve, eventually it's climbing, climbing, climbing, and then it just goes straight up. We're not there yet. We're probably about in the middle of that curve. But with the population increase in Washington County, and the volume of not only civil filings, but criminal incidents, juvenile incidents, and I hate to say it, but domestic incidents, divorces, Orders of protection and things like that. I mean, my staff handles, on average, eight to ten protection orders a day during the week.

Wow.

And so, like I said, they're super busy. But what I don't want to do is, like I said, ask for three people. and have it to where it's kinda overkill. And I've expressed this to some of the JPs recently that I wouldn't wanna ask for three positions, get those three positions, and take a position away from another department that needs somebody where they get denied because we're all gonna need more folks. But I can start with one. And then I can look at it again this time next year and say, okay, where's our numbers, how are we doing? If I need another person, I'm gonna come ask. If I don't, maybe I can wait till 28. But I just don't want to have overkill of a staff and not be able to back up the reasoning for having those people.

Yes.

Okay, thank you. Yes.

Jay Piecki.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've come a long way from 2014, 15, 2016 when we were hemorrhaging and nobody was getting any relief, but what you did do that I remember this, is you set about cross-training all of your employees, and then your deputy assistant was making like $30,000 less than their Benton County cohort, and you were going, this is just not right, and she works harder, and she deserves that money, and it was, I guess it was almost begging. Where can we get this money, but I need relief? And it just feels good to hear your report and see the smile and people's faces aren't stressed out anymore because we just didn't have the revenue coming in. The positions, you've always been very diligent in managing the positions and like you said, no downtime. You've always said, come look at my office. We're efficient, we're this, we're that. We did look at it. But more than anything else, I'm so pleased to hear you say that the pay scale, that we're getting there, we're moving it up, and you're able to recruit better people. That was, I think, pulling teeth one year. Please, can we give them a raise? Let's come up with a structure. And then finally, we did come up with a structure. And I think all of that has finally paid off, at least for me, hearing what it was back then to what it is today. I'm very pleased. And I support what you're doing. You've always been efficient in your office. And you care about your employees. Yes, you do. You really do. So I'm going to be supporting this. And it's about time. Baby, we've come a long way. and may we continue to grow brighter and brighter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Any other discussion? Citizens comment. So I have a motion by J.P. Koger to pass item eight onto the full quorum court to do pass recommendation, seconded by J.P. Dennis. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Passes.

Thank you, committee.

Item nine is a new item nine is an ordinance for grade adjustments for positions in the sheriff's office. Director Bennett.

Good evening. So I'm gonna actually start with the accounts payable role. We evaluated that one. That has actually incorporated a significant amount of work and roles underneath it now that it's managing and it's, items that wouldn't typically fall underneath accounts payable. So it's very different complexity of work. So that's why I can support that we move it to a grade 13. They've already absorbed the work and that's why we're asking to go ahead and move forward and pay them out for the rest of this year at the higher level. The HR generalist role, We will be heavily involved in compensation starting at the end of this year. There's a lot of training that Cassie and I will be giving our teams to start working on market data. I kind of explained to you all before, we're pulling a lot of that market data ourselves to save money. It is a heavy lift. But I think because we've been very diligent about looking at the jobs and getting the regrades right, I think when we go to pull the market data, that makes that a lot easier. So there's going to be more expectations out of this role, and we need that work. and we wanna make sure that we're paying her the right amount. I also wanna let you all know that I asked to be added to the county services. I thought it'd be really good for you all to kind of see what goes into the job evaluation process. So I'm kind of doing a job evaluation comp 101 training in a couple weeks. I hope you really enjoy it. I'm actually going to walk you through, since the IT actually has a request for two new full-time employees for the budget, the 2027 budget, I'm actually going to use their 21 job descriptions that we created for them as an example, and then also the paralegals from the prosecuting attorneys, because we went through and evaluated them it's the easiest ones to kind of work with because they've got really clear competencies that build and are more matrix so i think i think you're really going to like it i hope you enjoy it and then that way when we come with the regrades i think it'll make more sense on how we arrived at the different levels one thing that we are doing differently is we look across all of washington county whenever we're regrading something so it's not just the circuit clerk or the county clerk or assessor's office it's very diligent in terms of is like work getting paid the same, and if not, how do we fix that? So I won't get into some of the other asks, but I hope you enjoy the training. So anyway, I say all that to say they will be very much a part of not only the compensation, but also the job evaluation process, which is a much higher level of expertise, It is very difficult work, so she will definitely feel every bit of this promotion, but I do believe that she has the capacity to fulfill it. So open to any questions you may have about the sheriffs.

J.P. Lopez.

Oh, I don't have a question. I do want to commend your work. It's work that I'm familiar with. And so, yes, always in the interest of trusting the people who are closest to it. I commend the work that you do to make sure that people who are doing the work are compensated for the scope of their work as their scope expands. And for that reason, I move to move item nine to the full quorum court with a do pass recommendation.

Motion to JP Lopez to move item 9 to the full quorum court to do pass recommendations seconded by JP Dean any additional discussion Seeing none citizen comment Seeing none I have a motion by JP Lopez to pass item 9 to the full quorum court to do pass recommendations seconded by JP Dean all those in favor say aye all those opposed That passes The new item 10 is also a great adjustment for the collector's office. Director Bennett?

I probably just should have stayed up here, sorry. So the collector's office, I have to give a shout out to Melissa. She worked very diligently to really look at workflow in the collector's office. They, because of kind of bank fraud and some of the things that the banks have changed their processes on, they've had to change their processes, so a lot of people are kind of taking on more work. This is a role that has really stepped up and taken on additional work, has really leaned into helping develop some of the processes. So we are asking to go ahead and recognize this person and be able to pay them. Actually, I think this one, we wanted to be able to possibly retro it back to January because she started taking on the work in January and has done a phenomenal job. So if that one actually, I don't know if there needs to be an amendment to that, but if we can retro that back to January, I don't know if it has to be on the ordinance or not. I don't know if there's any questions about the collector's office.

Questions for Director Bennett? J.P. Ecke?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This isn't a question for Director Bennett. I guess it's more for Comptroller Sherman, in that the collector has $662,437 in their automated fund. Can they use this money out of their automated fund like other elected officials do to pay for this position to retrograde it? I mean, I'm all in favor of it, it's just how to finance it.

It's certainly possible, but I think they have the, I'm not sure which one they're taking it out of. If they're taking it out of their regular budget, they already have the money in the budget.

So they have it even to retro it? Okay.

They actually, there was a role that they have not filled, and they're gonna use that money for this.

Okay.

Yeah. So they had, I forget how much extra they had in there. Melissa gave me the answer.

Okay, that's fine. The money's in.

But they do have automation fund, and I believe their intent for some of their regrades that you'll see in August, they're going to use some of that money to fund that. That's good to know. Because I think it's very, very little amount that would come out of general fund.

Okay, because if anything, we've got this money, they've got this money in their automated funds. For me, it only makes sense for them to use it for their department and for the employees that they manage instead of it coming out of general fund.

And I can give you the breakdown for the regrades that we're planning to present in August to show you how much of that will come out of general funds and how much of it will come out of automation. I think that would be helpful.

With that, I make a motion to pass item number 10 to the Fulcrum Court. Oh, excuse me. I'd like to make a motion that we amend this ordinance to include retro pay.

Okay, so you want to amend article one to strike immediately and add after two.

Correct.

Retroactive back to January 1st, 2026. So that will now read, article one will now read data processing clerk grade nine PCN 0104005 is hereby regarded to retroactive back to January 1st, 2026. data processing manager grade 12.

Correct.

Okay, I have a motion to amend by J.P. Ecke, seconded by J.P. Lopez. Any discussion on that motion to amend? You're keyed in. Do you want to talk? Okay. Okay. That's fine. So I have a motion to amend by J.P. Ackie, seconded by J.P. Lopez. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? So that is now amended, so.

Now therefore, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we pass item number 10 to the Fulcrum Court with a do pass recommendation.

I have a motion by J.P. Ecke to pass the amended ordinance to the full quorum court with the due pass recommendation seconded by J.P. Dean. Any additional discussion? J.P. Coker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My thing is I would like to see what some of my colleagues think, but it kind of worries me that we're giving somebody retro pay. I don't remember that we've ever done that. Are we setting a bad precedent to do that? I mean, is it common to do that? Is it common practice?

Yes. I don't know at Washington County. I think this is the first time I've ever requested it. I think, you know, from my perspective, this person really has taken on the work starting January 1 because they had to. Oh, I'm not, yeah. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not. Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. I mean, right? Because we have to think about things like that, right? Like, are we starting a precedent and what does that look like? Yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I... To me, if someone has taken on that additional work, and truly the leader had reached out to me in November and said, hey, we're going to have to make these changes. and then I was out and so I couldn't come before you in March because I was out. So I feel kind of obligated in the sense of part of it is my fault because I was out sick. So I think had I been here, we could have gotten it in front of all of you and all that. But it's a fair question and that's up to you all how you wanna handle that.

I'm not saying it's a bad, I'm saying I don't know if it's a bad thing. So that's why I would like to hear if anybody else has some concerns. Did you guys you know, I'm thinking what we opening here because we always have to yeah.

Yeah JP Lopez

And I do think that it's fair to be prudent about these things, you know, regarding whether or not we're giving license for more people to ask something like this. But I do agree, ultimately, if someone has been doing, you know, a role that was outside of the scope of their role and they weren't compensated for it, I do think it's my opinion that we should compensate them for fulfilling a role knowingly that was outside of the scope of their job description. So I will absolutely support this.

And that request is actually coming from the elected, and I kind of support my elected. I think she's right to make the request. But I also, I appreciate, you know, we don't want to kind of start a precedent, you know, if it's something that we don't want to decide on, that's fine. But I think this is a niche enough incidence that I feel like we could be fine with it. But it's totally up to you all.

JP Bruns.

Thank you, Chair. really like the idea of you bringing this up just simply because it gets us thinking personally I look at it as it's something that was warranted and we are doing what is right by the individual by giving them the pay raise they should have gotten had this come before us before. And the retroactive part I don't think comes into play here. I think retroactive is something that you've made a mistake. And I don't think this is a mistake, and I don't think it's a precedent. I think it's the right thing to do.

J.P. Massengill.

Yeah, I just want to thank J.P. Coker for bringing this up. I am concerned also that we might be setting a precedent and we're going to end up having to go back and keep doing this. I don't want to do that. Thanks. J.P. Lemming.

That's, I'll support it if we pay from the now on, but going the other way, we don't need to get in the retro business. That's just like Kyle was talking, he's cross-trained all of his other employees. I mean, a lot of them's doing extra work, so are we going to back pay all them too for other stuff? I mean, it just goes on and on and on. You can go down to the road department, there's guys that can drive a grader and drive a dump truck and fix a flat. So, you know, he's doing three jobs, so here we go. If you take off here, you... You can't stop, so I'll support it from this day forward, but going backwards, I ain't going to support it. Thank you.

J.P. Ria Stafford.

Thank you, Chair. I am going to go ahead and support this. And also, I think that precedent is not anything that we need to be worried about. My general concept of government is that the legislative branch, there is no such thing as precedent. We're not bound by anything that we've done before. And this decision isn't going to bind us for anything necessarily in the future. Legislative branch makes the rules. We have the ability to make a one-time exception here if we wanted to do so. So I'm supporting this, thank you.

So my opinion, and hopefully she won't smack me later for this, but I have 100% faith in Director Bennett. Since she has been here, how she has operated with the grading, the consistency, making sure that it's truly new work that they're doing and not just getting graded up to grade up. I've seen it and I think that's great work. Sorry, consider our grade, we can't be in that day-to-day stuff. She has to be. I trust in her judgment of what she brings to us if she's telling me that they're doing the work and we made a mistake, they've been doing the work for a year she thinks we should give it, then I support her in that and then have that faith in her to bring that to us as our voice, being she's in that day-to-day. So that's my opinion and kind of where I'm at. Any other discussion? Citizen comment? Seeing none, I have a motion by J.P. Ecke, seconded by J.P. Dean to pass this amended ordinance onto the full quorum court with a do pass recommendation. So all those in favor say aye. All those opposed. It passes. So the new item 11 was item eight is citizen comment. I'm sorry. JP I key.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to recognize that tomorrow is Justice Dean's birthday. And let everybody know that he's not doing anything special. He's just gonna have a birthday. You gonna sing? Am I gonna sing? You know, no. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday, J.P. Dean. Didn't know that. J.P. Rios Stafford.

Thank you, I'd like to move to put items seven, eight, and nine on the consent agenda.

Okay, hang on, seven, eight, nine, but not 10.

But not 10 because it wasn't unanimous.

Thank you for remembering that. So I have a motion by JP Rio Stafford for items eight and nine being on the consent agenda, seconded by JP Lopez. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Now we are at citizen comment. We have a 12-minute period, three minutes for each individual. Any citizen comment? All right. Thank you, everyone. This meeting is adjourned.