County Council - Regular Meeting

2026 York County Council workshop to order. We have a lot of things to discuss um in terms of budget development. And I do want to recognize a very special uh guest here tonight, Sheriff Reeden. he um is unable to make the meeting on Monday and wanted to um bring up some um comments for council before regarding the budget matter chair.

First of all, I want to thank the county management, HR, and especially the council. One of the things that we worked really hard to do really since starting last year was when we got our first 5% for our people and then and I know everybody talked about that, you know, we don't want to do this all the time. We don't want to be in an arms race or something like that, but you know, we've made a lot of strides at the sheriff's office and most people don't really understand what the culture there was the last few years and what we've overcome. And one of the things that we felt was important in looking at other things and what agencies are doing. A lot of agencies over time had not worried about their starting salary as much as their taking care of their people that was there. And a lot of times people just see starting salary and it it really put us behind the eightball because it wasn't really addressed for years. And so whenever you have a change it then all of a sudden there's things that people focus on. So we started looking at this year how important in comparisons to other agencies. We just didn't do it on a whim. We went and looked at what a lot of agencies comparable to us and we were averaging between$8 to $10,000 below for comparable time at the sheriff's office. Now when you're talking about $1,000, nobody's going to leave for $1,000. But when you're talking $8 to $9,000 to just change uniforms in a car to stay in the same county and be able to go, we were starting to lose people for that. And it was starting to be to where and what people don't understand is you can't just look at shortage numbers because even though we we just sent our largest academy class the countyy's ever had, we sent it to the academy. There's 12 people at the academy right now. We have a sword class right behind them that'll be about eight. And when we get both of those out, that'll put us on paper only three or four short, but you know, we had somebody resign um recently. So, and then so you're always going to have that, but um so some of that was money

and some other issues. So, we went to council, we started looking at it, and what we had this year and going forward, and thank goodness with the the millage increase and everything else, we proposed to give our people a 10% raise now. And with last year in this 10% and doing it before the the June evaluation period, that's going to put our people completely whole and on par where we're going to remain competitive. And it was a lot of work by our people, Heather Lee Stone Runner and the major put a lot of work in Beth, but then also the council, I mean county management and HR put a lot of work into that and helping us get there. And so that was what the proposal was. and we can do it without a tax increase and without putting a burden on our people. But the one thing I've told everybody from the beginning is and we told our people it's going to be harder to be a deputy than it ever has been from accountability to expectations to professionalism. If we're going to tell them that well what we're what we're compensating them has to match and we believe this is the first step in that. I also didn't promise I'm not doing it again whenever I have to. Um but cuz you know to me we have told everybody from day one we have one priority and that's to protect the county and everything else doesn't matter but the people that do it and the people that go out there night in night out and put their lives on the line that's the only people that matter to me. I will also tell you that the only thing that I've requested is if the only sworn person at the sheriff's office not receive this raise is me. I'm the only person at the sheriff's office that will not get an increase through this race because I thought it was important that I could defend it more if I'm not getting it. I don't need it, don't want it. It's for our people. So, I felt that was very important, too. Um, not necessarily to put out there, but so people understood where I was with it. I gained nothing from it. So, that was why I wanted to come see you. Unfortunately, we've got a trip planned this weekend. Um, this weekend's important. Saturday night's the the anniversary when we lost

Kobe. So, we kind of try and go out of town when that's happening. So, we'll be gone till Tuesday, so I can't make the meeting, but I just wanted to come talk to y'all tonight and have that opportunity to thank y'all for your support. Um, so any questions off that?

Sheriff, I I want to say um first of all, our prayers and thoughts are with you and Brooke. And though this is difficult time um we do um did talk about this issue at our retreat and uh it is on the agenda Monday night to to move forward. Certainly we have to be competitive um to keep our law enforcement officers um staffed and to keep our community safe and um to be and you being able to do that within your budget constraints obviously makes that an easy decision for me. Um and we appreciate the work that you do for our community. Yeah, I do want to second that. Excuse me. Um, Sheriff, again, thank you for what you do for the community and for for for the people across the board. Um, and again, full support on what you're asking for and my prayers are with you.

And you know, I know you know what you're talking about cuz I got two kids on the floor. So, I I wholeheartedly am behind it. I echo everything that's been said. I do have a question, though. So the detention center since I've joined council um I don't know we were 30 35 40 behind in the the detention center. So give us an update on that and how you're planning on dealing with

shortfall. One of the things that we talked about and I talked to Chief Hicks and we spent a lot of time with it and we've had some really in-depth conversations and you know and one of the things that we talked about and I've done one-on- ones with most of the tension all but about 13 people and it's they've had some turnover but one of the recurring themes was consistency wasn't fair across the board certain things differently and and we've had a lot of discussions about you know sometimes so many programs and such a burden put on our people And then also one of the things that I learned from all that is is we have a large group of people that are this 15 years above at the detention center. Then we have a large group of people that are below two years.

The problem is if we don't grow this middle group, we're going to be in trouble in the next 5 to 10 years because this group cannot run a detention center. So I've just had to make Hicks realize that that I understand before you had a sheriff that might not have cared about the detention center been involved. That's no longer the case. Um, we've made some promotions over there that put people in position that one of the times that I heard from everybody is, you know, everything would be better if it ran like so and so shift, so and so shift. And that's what heard across the board. Well, she was the one that made captain and put her over all the shifts and working on that continuity. And so, we tried to get everybody to understand how important it is. I told the chief, I said, "Look, if you've been 35, 36 short for 4 years, you have to change your mentality and ability to look at it a different way cuz what you're doing isn't working.

I'm not saying you're not passionate." And Chief Hicks, you can't replace what it is for somebody that loves coming to work in the jail. You can't. But we had to acknowledge that the way we were going about it was failing. So, we've made some different promotions. We've moved. We've changed some alignments. And we've also, one of the things I've told them is is we need to be very transparent to people about how hard the job is. You know, if you think that the first time you're going to get punched is when you get punched, you're not going to stay. You know, you have to tell people how hard it is. And the average person doesn't understand that that, you know, to have feces and urine and spit and this and this for that amount of money is you can't fathom that until it happens. So, we've tried to be very honest with people about what it is. But we've also tried to move people in around the facility in different positions because sometimes people feel like they're stuck in the housing unit with inmates and don't get to do something else. So, we've made some strides in it. I think that we've we've changed how how we're putting the thing out. We've kind of realized that the the job fair they do on that every other month or whatever it is, you know, they started putting it on different job sites and we got a lot more increase on that. So, one of the things that's also going to help is when we get this new, you know, we get the new nursing positions classified and get a full medical staff. That's going to make a difference because now you're going to take the medication from the inmates to medical staff because that is a huge burden off of them. It's a huge liability. And now inmates are not pushing meds, which all you are is one wrong pill from somebody and then it that's way worse than just an in custody bed. So, that's going to be another step. But we're constantly talking to them and making moves and listening to them to try and get that understanding. So we have made some strides over there and we're continuing to go in the right detention in the right direction in the detention center.

All right. And that's a real focus of ours. Thank you for answering that. Just one quick question. So when we voted on the 5% increase, we actually saw a scale of where we compared to our competitors. Will we have that on Monday night? Um I we did have a lot of printouts and we'll have we can pull that together. That'd be great. Yeah.

Yeah. We we have it and we are and this is and this between the five and the two June raises that we're going to get by June is going to put us very very comparable to everybody else. One of the things that really led to this is it was we think Lancaster is about to give either a 10 or 15% pay raise which they were already slightly above anyway. And that makes it, you know, that that like I said, if we can always stay, we don't need to be ahead of everybody. It's not what we're trying to do. But if you can stay within that $1,000, $2,000 range, you're not as apt to leave for that as you would 8 to 9. We had somebody leave us that had about seven seven or eight years and went to Rock Hill and got a $9,000 pay raise.

So, and he went over there. Now, he was also somebody that some turnover and bad turnover. Nobody had nobody cried or nobody had a a pity party when he left. But it's it's one of those things that he you know he goes over there and all of a sudden it's the greatest place in the world.

So there's there's that too. So but this will get us where we need to be. And we the reason I wanted to come talk to you tonight because it it put one of the somebody put it on their their page recently that they were at the workshop and heard we were looking at 10%. So they've already put it on Facebook. So, it was important that we and we had people asking about it this morning and and starting to talk about it. So, we went ahead and made a video explaining that and I didn't want to post it tonight if y'all were like, "You ain't getting it." So, I just wanted to come in here and make sure that. So, my truck doesn't get destroyed in the morning at the moss. So, I did want to make sure that we come in.

So, but that's that's where we are with that. And I want to thank, you know, David and Josh and everybody for all the work you did. It was a lot of work and there was a lot of back and forth. And so it it means a lot to our people. It really does. So, well, we appreciate the collaboration and those conversations and and we think a lot of our our sheriff's office and and we're we're supportive and want to be here to help make sure we can recruit the best and keep the best. I think what you'll see later in the presentation is are vacancy charts. And I think it really speaks to what the the sheriff is saying is we especially when it comes to detention, we need to make sure that we're a keeping the people we have, but also able to really recruit and be competitive. So,

let me say real quick, I know when when Sheriff Bryant was here, this has been an ongoing constant battle, you know, losing people. He he felt like this was a training ground for Mechburgg and other surrounding areas. and and part of the reason why council voted to give Sheriff Bryant his own budget because he said, "Let me use the money the best way I know how to use it." And so that was probably one of the the catalyst for the sheriff department getting its own budget, getting broke off in the manner that which is being run now. So, um, and when I heard that you could do it without a tax increase, I was like, check that box, we can move on. So,

it was a lot. I mean, it was a lot of work and we've made some sacrifices and, you know, we've just realized what it takes. So, You know, to me, I don't care about buildings, fences, and all that other, you know, none of that matters if you don't have the best people. And I also don't believe we're going to be a training ground for anybody anymore. I think the product we're putting out and the people we're bringing here is going to put us on par with and and if not better than anybody else regionally. I really believe that. So, um, so, anything else on that? I do want to just share some thoughts with the last and also this is probably not going to be the main thing talked about Monday night. I guarantee you that. But uh I will say this that that going last week and one of the things that I saw from a lot of state people and things like that. And I think that it, you know, I know political times make things hard, but I'm also somebody that believes that our county is in what is a constant struggle and a battle with the municipalities and things like that and and what we're trying to accomplish for each other. But I also believe that when we're in times like we are now with with with Sil Fab Data Center and things like that, I am a firm believer that us having calm leadership and being united I think will help the county more than anything else. And you know, one of the things that I've taken 100 calls over this thing is and I've just tried to tell everybody that there's a process and that the people that are responsible are looking into it. I'm not attacking anybody. I just see it and hear it on levels that you can't imagine. And I saw a lot of state officials and legislators that disappointed me to take an opportunity to jump on something that they really didn't know that what the reasonable outcome was. And I also don't think that these battles that we're having right now are going to be our last difficult times. I really don't. But I really believe that if we had good, calm leadership that sticks together, I think that we can weather everything. And I think that that's very

important. I do believe that when some people talk about making sure we are especially with these things and and all of that, the transparency is important, but us being unified and make sure that we can have whatever we have, but still not make ourselves vulnerable to other people that want to take advantage of the county, I think is important, too. Not talking about anything in particular, but you know, we we still don't I don't know if we've even faced our toughest days ahead. We haven't. But I do believe that the people here will get us through it. I I really believe that. I I've been excited about this and I believe in it and I think that if we all just do that, I think we're going to weather any storm that comes along. It's just my opinion. I don't know everything. Not as smart as anybody in here, but I do believe that a lot of people love this county and want us to thrive. So, um it's not critical anybody here. It's just what I've seen from a lot of outside people that took this opportunity to to lift themselves up and you know and I just I just seen a lot this week from a lot of people that just surprised me. So, but like I said, I hope that makes sense. Not attacking anybody, you know. I just think we've got whatever days are ahead of us. So, but I appreciate everybody in here. I really do. And thank y'all so much.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, we do have um a good bit to cover with the budget development. Instead of me reading these out individually, I'm just going to turn it over to you, Josh, to run us through what you want us to do.

Yes. Though we have five five bullets, trust me, that we'll be we could be done by seven. So, we want to respect y'all's time. Uh, first off, I do want to recognize our new interim assistant county manager over infrastructure, Eric Breenett. He's a familiar face. I've sent y'all an email. You know, during transitions, it's important you have leaders who can step up. And I've asked Eric to serve for a for a transitionary period as assistant county manager. Uh he's going to be over obviously public works and utilities. And he's going to help us navigate some of the capital projects we're working on amongst other things. Uh and a water rate study. Uh we've got a lot of big things coming to build our utilities and Eric's going to step up and help uh help with that. Uh so he's here. This is his first workshop, so I wanted to recognize him, but obviously a familiar face. Uh, if as we jump in, we're going to do a quick just highlight reel of of the of the retreat we had. I know Watts couldn't be there, so we wanted to just remind everybody what we talked about. It won't be long, but the important thing is we wanted to remind you all of the priorities y'all discussed, so you can hear that again and share any feedback you have on that. There's one quick revenue update based on what the state's up to. We're going to talk about thinking about the future and planning for the future as we have a number of plans y'all have discussed over the year and we're contemplating and needing to put some of those in the budget and we want to have that conversation. We did this last year. We'll do this every year, but we have a compensation benefits overview that our HR director, Lisa Davidson, will go over real quick. Uh and and then we wanted to give y'all the opportunity just to bring up any other questions you have about the budget that you want us to look into for the next workshop. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to our budget director, Trish Stardup, uh, and she will, uh, share about the budget workshop or the budget retreat.

Thank you. So, just starting with a highle overview about the retreat, we had an Olympic theme um, where we discussed the time is now. And so the county manager, well, actually the chairwoman kicked it off with a wonderful um segue into the to the retreat, the Olympic theme with how we're all from different districts and and facets of York County, but it's all we're all one York County in here for the best intention of the county. So, we kicked it off that way. And then the county manager spoke about how the time is now. And so he just brought up that York County has the opportunity to catch up where we're behind in some areas within the county and we have the strategic plan to guide us. And within this budget, we have the opportunity to be even more intentional on how we move forward to where we can strategize to be a proactive county more so than a reactive county. and the budget this year will be a great tool to to get us to where we need to be. He talked about setting the stage. We went through population, the population within York County, the population within South Carolina, how some changes in Charlotte and North Carolina. It looks like that we'll have more of a retiree population here in the future. So, he kind of just went over some population demographics and set the stage of as to where we're headed in York County. He also talked about how it looks like the state is going to give us or give to local municipalities some more roads and how we're already taking care of our roads. But to keep that on the forefront of your minds, we talked about the legislative changes. our auditor came and did a great job of talking about the revenue impacts of watercraft taxes, the heavy duty trucks, homestead exemption, and these are items that are moving every week within the legislation or the legislative bodies.

And he's doing a great job staying on top of it. So, I think every time we have a budget workshop, you'll probably hear some piece about this. and he's really keeping an eye and doing due diligence and keeping up with they're actually changing constantly. So, keeping up with it and providing management with here's how the revenue is going to be impacted at York County. They changed it to this, here's how it's going to be impacted this way. So, uh the county manager is going to update everyone about that tonight. the assistant county manager, Tom Couch, did a great job overviewing where we are with our capital projects, mostly with the 1420, which is our capital project fund, where we are with our parks within that fund. Um, and so he did a highle overview of each of the projects that were budgeted this year in the budget. And then I gave a preliminary overview of here's what we're looking at for 14 1420 the capital maintenance fund and FY27 and then 1422 which is our capital maintenance fund. And as I said those were very preliminary numbers. Then uh Mr. Couch came back and he spoke about the five-year road plan and what that looked like and showed several slides about that and where we're headed with using the strategic plan in um our five-year road plan. And then we also touched base about storm water because that's an important piece of the strategic plan as well. So he touched base on those items. After lunch, we came back and we spoke about service level demands. We first started where the assistant county manager David Garner spoke about public safety and within that he talked about how our p our PSC 911 renegotiated a contract with Motorola and we were able to save $8 million. But you'll also see this year in the FY27

budget that we absorbed um some of those items and you'll see that as well as an well you've seen the negotiated contract with Moldola. So he went over that. He also discussed the emergency management position that I mean excuse me the uh EMS position that was request that will be requested in the FY27 budget and that position is to ensure the mer the EMS ordinance that is coming before council that we continue to engage with our partners that we uphold that ordinance and that we're seeing that transition. And so you'll see that position requested in the FY27 budget. And you'll then he spoke about the fire services and how we're moving on the fire strategic plan that council saw and approved. But you'll also see positions for fire services being asked in FY27 and that's to create what Mr. Garner spoke about being a hybrid staffing model. So we went through all those items and then we talked about utilities. As you know, utilities is in its first year as being a department outside of public works.

We discussed the infrastructure needs within utilities, the staffing needs. There's three studies that are coming in right about this time. Um, and those will be our staff are going to review those and those are going to feed into the capital projects really probably FY28 more so than FY27. We hope to get some of those started in FY27, but those ask will probably come larger in FY28. And then he spoke about the rate study that is also going to be taking place in regards to our utilities department. We talked about Mr. Couch came back up and he spoke about parks, the service level demands. Kataba Bend opened up this weekend, had a great turnout, beautiful weather, and it's going to be open four days a week. We're also looking to get um wood wood in opened as well. And so we talked about that and the staffing needs for FR27 for our parks. At the well really at the beginning before lunch, we spoke with council about priorities. What do you all see as report priorities for this year? I wrote them up on the wall and now I've included them on this uh slide. And I think I'd like to just open it to see to the floor now that you've gone home, you've had time to really think about the retreat or any questions or anything that arose after the retreat. Do you still agree with these priorities or is there anything that council would like to add to these priorities going into the budget process? So we talked about the economic development strategy, address plan growth, the future of utilities, roads, infrastructure, partnership with our parks, committee and council communication, legislative partnerships and fire station and vehicles were um what we wrote on the wall.

Are these in are you saying these are in order of what we No, ma'am. These are just the order you shared. Yes, just the order that I wrote them down when they were shared at the meeting. I think there was also a request for um legal support. I don't know what that falls in a category that I'm not looking at. Um yeah, it might have been number eight. Legislative partnership, but we can add it if that's what council wants us to do. Yeah, that was added on. That was added on there. Josh, on the on the roads thing, have you heard differently yet? Is it still just what they're saying? Maybe a volunteer

they're they've gone back to voluntary. Uh, I know there there's the desire for counties and municipalities to take on more roads. I think they're trying to consider what that looks like if potentially they they fix a road and then they hand it off to us if if that would be something we would be interested in. I don't think there's a lot of takers right now. Uh, and I and so I think the state is considering what they might need to incentivize for others to take over their roads. I really don't see why we would want to. uh we're already doing quite a bit in the county even on interchanges and I77 and and so I think we really want to focus on what we got, but I think they'll probably get more creative in their incentives as time goes on as people potentially don't don't bite on it, but we'll see. I have two to consider. Um so we have we allocated money to the COG for affordable housing. Obviously, they're going to come back and give us a report, but it seems to me that we've invested in this and we ought to be thinking about what changes we need to make in our ordinances so that we could actually create affordable housing. I don't mean affordable housing with tax deductions and things of that nature. I mean physically, you know, change ordinances so that you could have a quadlex of four 500 square foot units. What do we need to do? But anyway,

we've already invested in that. So, I think that should be a priority. I agree with the legal support more so internally though that our internal staff needs more support. And then um this is probably in one of these nine that was already on here, but key staff positions that help us actively plan for our visionary opportunities and challenges in the future. We're overdue for those positions. Okay. Thank you.

Um so, so real quick, I want to respond to one thing. Uh, Council Member Huckabe brought up uh the COG study. We hope to have them present to y'all at sometime late in the spring, if not early summer. Uh, I know part of their presentation, so it's more of a workforce housing analysis is what I would call it. It's a housing inventory of the three area counties. We all partnered together to pay for that. We appreciate you all putting that in the budget this year. So, the consultant who's running that will eventually come and present their early findings to y'all and part of that will be a list of recommendations. Likely it won't be in time to really inform the budget process. But what I would say is it will be in time to inform the comp plan and all these other plans that we're working on next year, but there will be potential ordinance things to think about, I'm sure, as as far as the list of recommendations, but they're still working on that.

Yeah. Workforce housing is what I should have said instead of affordable housing. Agree 100%. Yeah. So, the only thing, you know, just looking, it's not necessarily something to add in here, but I think there was something that I thought of afterwards that I don't know if we touched upon, but um as far as, you know, we had we had looked at how we can maximize or look at opportunities both on the federal level and state level when it comes to grants. Mhm.

Um I I guess there Yeah, I just want to make sure that that is something that we're continuing to look at from an opportunity standpoint for the county when it comes to these grants that may be out there, you know, whether it's water sewer grants, whether it's road grants. Um again, that's something I know we've talked about in the past. Yeah, we're working hard on grants and I think that's one thing, you know, we talked about communication. And I'm happy to share more about some of our Yeah. I you know because those evolved from year to year. Mhm. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

I know um a while back um Habitat for Humanity, they came and did a presentation and called us out for not pursuing some money that was out there that other counties and areas were taking advantage of. Where I like for staff to look into those kind of things that have been brought to us. um by a local organization that says, "Hey, why aren't you putting your county's name in the hat for some of this money?" Because other counties, other areas are putting their name in the hat. There may be some um some reason why we maybe wouldn't qualify for it. I don't know. But I'd like to hear where we at on on some of those kind of issues

because it would help with workforce housing or affordable housing or that kind of thing. Um I I thought our retreat went well and I thought we we got a lot of good information. I am a I'm I feel like I need to say this. I'm a little bit concerned that if you have too many priorities that nothing gets done, but the main thing I mean that's a lot of stuff and some of these things are things that maybe,

you know, require some tweaks and policies and aren't necessarily um a funding issue. But I I do think it's critically important that we make sure that that what we hear from our community is taxes are are are a concern and we need to be conservative with that and be mindful of that. And I hope I hope y'all are sending letters to our delegation telling them how much these potential um taxation breaks which don't impact the state's budget, they impact the county budget.

How what those numbers are that that to me is a huge prior a huge concern of mine is just to be able to quantify that so that our delegation understands how if they follow through with what they're saying what the actual impact would be to York County. I think that's got to go out there because if if some of that happens this year, some of these it will throw some of these things out of whack. But right, the last thing I'll say is my recollection of the retreat was that the main thing that council was really interested in doing is is having and getting on paper long range planning for these things. something that when we when we have something that roads being at the top

having that plan to justify anything that we go to to to use those funds for that to me was the number one thing that I heard. So

yeah, well said, Madam Chair, and it's a great transition here to a later part of this presentation, but what I would say is these are big things. Yeah, no one budget is going to solve all these things. But just like why we have a strategic plan, what you're trying to do is to get to a certain point. And if you never start moving towards that certain point, you're never going to get there. And I think that's what we're saying here. Your priorities are all in the strategic plan. Like these are all things we're working on. We've made great progress in the first year and a half of our strategic plan. We got another year and a half to go. And so what I think this is is really recognition that y'all are still completely bought into our strategic plan and achieving what y'all shared a year and a half ago. Uh we wanted to give you and thanks Trish for for for that review. What we're trying to do here is remind all of y'all where we were at the at the retreat because I think it's important. I think last year potentially, you know, we had a really good retreat but then the workshops after we didn't connect back. So we want to make sure to do that intentionally this year. Uh when we looked at the revenue, one of the revenues we shared, as Trish mentioned, was uh the boat tax. The Senate has voted on this and it's heading back to the House and they did vote on exactly, you know, what Ryan said he thought was going to happen, which was spreading over the decrease from 10 12 to 6% over 3 years. So that chart on the right in the red uh we are going to have to factor in if the house passes this which we assume they will a loss of 1.6 6 million in revenue in next fiscal year or next calendar year I should say which makes it a little harder to account for but

yeah and so the other piece of this is you know there they they treated motors separately the reason why 27 is so much higher so that first year impact is higher is because they exempted motors so that impact happens year one uh year two and year three is a smaller uh smaller impact so it goes from 1.6 6 to 2.3, which is more of a $700,000 impact in combination, but that's because the motors have already been exempted in year one. Did they and when we talked through this, did they ever come back with the numbers of what they thought the offset would be for people actually registering their votes in South Carolina as opposed to I would call that.

Yeah, good good question. Uh, council member, I think that's more of a premonition. I don't think it's a reality. I shared that at the retreat where, you know, the thought is that people will change where they're registering their votes. U there's really no way to know. So there's no hard numbers. Everybody knows it's hard to to change that and you have to go through a process. I hope people do. I think this makes us competitive, but I don't think it's going to encourage people to go out and do it. Maybe I think we'll find out. Um maybe more people will buy boats and and then have them in York County. We we would love that. Uh but but I don't know if that's true.

Uh quick comment. So you look at our neighboring states, North Carolina and Georgia, and they're both showing us that they're cutting taxation. Yeah.

And so when I read through the retreat material that you all went over, I haven't been able to listen to the audio yet, but um I have read through this. It almost makes me think that we should plan ahead moving forward and we should anticipate continuing um I guess u tax reductions coming from the state to keep up with our neighboring states. So we almost have to factor this in moving forward in my opinion which makes it difficult when we have had a budget. We've touted ourselves as been being one of the leanest counties of 46 and we are going to be paying the price for that moving forward as we catch up with so many things we should have been funding while things like this are taking place. Now let me ask this question. Um airplanes do they get taxed at 10 and a half%. And do we have any control and do we have any control over taxation of planes here or is that a state issue? because on 1231 if your plane's not in the York County airport then it doesn't get taxed and that's an issue. So if we're going to lose money here, if this is an issue that's a state issue, I think we need to go to our delegation and make them aware of this and let's let's get this addressed on the state level. It's come up at the COG and we need to pick this up. But this is going to go into place. This needs to be discussed. Second thing, uh homestead exemption. Similar to Tom's question. So, I'm curious, how many of our 65 and older adults are taking advantage of the current $50,000 homestead exemption?

Yeah, we have that number. We don't have enough tonight, but we can get that for you. Concerning is that if it's 50%, if it's 25%, you increase it to 150,000. Now, how many other people are going to take advantage of the exemption? We need to factor that into our calculations. My concern is people are just going to move here. people will it will probably incentivize people in the in Gaston County and Meckllinburgg to move over here. So when you look at your numbers, we may need to re-evaluate these numbers because it could be actually higher. That was my takeaway from that. Okay. Any other questions on the revenue? All right. We're going to transition to what Madam Chair brought up in terms of planning for the future uh with assistant county manager Couch.

Thank you and good evening. And I hope uh you all don't mind if I speak with a little bit of passion about this. Not just because uh I started my career as a planner, but more more so it's uh my experience as a manager and why initiatives like like these are going to work. I did hear a recurring theme at the budget retreat about the importance of long range planning from se several of you. So, we introduced this cache of plans that that you see here. And obviously, the caption reads, "Data plus planning plus policy equals informed decisions." Now, I'm going to give you a little bit of a sports metaphor. And because I like football so much, even though I wasn't much of a football player, I'll use a football metaphor. Okay? You start preseason camp. You get fitted for your uniforms and your equipments. Then you have the first team meeting and what's the first thing that's going to happen when you get there?

Okay, try to keep it.

You're going to get you're going to get playbooks. One for offense, one for defense, one for special teams. You get them in place and and you hand them out and you're expected during the preseason to study them and play them. And then eventually when you start in the season, your your players, usually the second team squads, are going to have to have playbooks brought from the scouts on the opposition so that your first team can know what to expect in the next game. Well, that's kind of where we're at. We've got to plan for our next season. And I think uh these uh initiatives whether it's the small area corridor plans uh the comprehensive plan up update and so forth they're they're vitally important and I'm going to tell you two reasons why. One is a little bit of storytelling. The first reason is the Charlotte Regional Alliance, I think about a year ago when I arrived here did a study and said that York County was going to have a population by 2050 of 450,000 people. If you average that out or use the mean uh measure of central tendency, that's going to be about 6,000 people a year. And it's going to go go up and down in different kinds of growth spurts whether it's demographics or you know new jobs coming in and and things like that. But that in itself is a very powerful reckoning. And then from my own experience, the the county I left in Georgia with the Savannah region Hyundai project, Georgia Tech, forgive me, I know USC, Winthrop, and Clemson is more loved here, but they they they were the wonks in in Georgia for this kind of stuff. They said that in the county I left that 8,000 new housing units were going to be built in seven years because

of the impact of Hyundai. Now, that's huge. And what our governing body did is they immediately we we had good plans just like you all. They they value long range planning. But with an impact like that or an impact that we experience at even 6,000 people on a year on average, we updated a lot of our plans that very much emulate what we're proposing here. And they they had the courage of leadership to go ahead and do that because it's not cheap. you have to get consultants, but we're paying for speed, expertise, and unbiased information. And then when you build the foundation for the plans, it allows you uh leverage to build good stewardship, vision, and a quality of life. And it syncs up not only into three of our six ma major themes in the strategic plan, really. If you you take on all of these initiatives, uh it touch it touches everything right down to high performing organization because you don't buy these plans to let them sit in a on a shelf. You have to make them work. And I think I felt like anyway that we received positive feedback on all of the planning initiatives that that we put in place. But there's one more step because it the the expense wasn't quite as much. But once you have these plans in place and you really want to work them like your playbook for the season, we have to build capacity. And we we do have in the budget requests that have been vetted by management so far, although we we still have some further vetting to do, there's been a request by the planning department for a long range planner position. And I think that's very important especially if you follow

through with putting these plans together because that can be the point person who can monitor and coordinate the projects but in the meantime and going going forward they can help uh implement and maintain the framework that you have. But we touched on it very very briefly but I think um we we put aside some money in a request. I know that discussions about impact fees were were very challenging this year and we also went through an RFP process that didn't yield the kinds of uh results that we would have wanted for proposals. But a good alternative to impact fees is an adequate public facilities ordinance. And what it does directly is it links development approvals to infrastructure capacity. And that aid you in in making a decision. And it it probably is going to require developers to put up a little bit more upfront if they want to fund the infrastructure that meets the level of service demands. But uh after discussing it with planning and development and management, we we think that it's a fine and justifiable alternative to impact fees if everybody is has impact fee hangover right now. So ultimately uh we think that all of these different kind of playbooks will help your county be successful in it in its next season and it'll be it'll help you make datadriven decisions that you can feel comfortable with and then the plans themselves if you really work them they'll be generational in nature.

Thanks Tom. And as we said at the retreat we are trying to get out ahead and become more proactive. Best way to do that is to have good plans. So, I appreciate that, Tom. Uh, next up, uh, we wanted our HR director, Lisa Davidson, to provide an update. We've got some ideas in terms of the FY27 budget when it comes to compensation and benefits. Uh, but we also just wanted to provide some information we thought you'all would uh, find useful in terms of current vacancies. I think whenever you think of employee pay, whenever you think of things that we can do for our organization, um we have to remember that our employees are our number one asset. Uh we can't do anything, we can't serve our customers. We can't be there when people need us if we don't have amazing employees. So, we need to take care of our employees. So, with that, I'm going to hand it off to Lisa.

Okay. Several of these slides are just reminding you of information that we provided last year. Um, human resources department is doing our best to make help make our organization somewhere that people want to work. We do that with a three-prong approach of competitive compensation, attractive benefits, and a retirement benefit. Um, if you look at the vacancy averages, they have reduced in most areas. Our department is working very hard to help all of the departments hire their staff and keep them as best we can to train them and make sure that they feel valued as our employees and that includes our sheriff's department.

And and one thing I will share and we have a couple different perspectives of this slide. I am very proud of where we've gotten to and very thankful of the hard work of HR and our department directors is they've been recruiting as well and hiring managers throughout the organization. But you can see in terms of general fund operations, which are departments that report to me, we're do, you know, some of the departments that report to me, but we've gone from 9.6% vacancies in 2023 to 4.4% in 2025. So that that's something I'm proud of. I think it's it speaks to the commitment we have in our management team to taking care of our employees, but also making sure they know what we're trying to do and opening the lines of communication. Uh obviously, you know, we have work to do. One of the things that will likely be in my recommended budget is an additional position in HR for recruitment and filling positions focused entirely on that. We only have one person whose job that is right now all the time. And for a county our size, we we need more than that. And I'm I'm committed to to bringing that up later.

Quick question on this. So when I'm looking at them at this matrix um when we look at the uh the number of years that the employees have been in these roles right compared to what the needs are you know how when you look at it from say you have 500 or 50 employees but next year you probably have 10 that may be retiring you know based on age right so how do how are you approaching that from statistically that all of a sudden you may have 10 people walk out the for with a staff of seven. Not very well.

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's where I'm thinking that, you know, if we see those those pop possibility trends, maybe we ramp up the hiring a year before in expectation of possible retirement. Yes. And I think, you know, obviously length of service, that's something we look at. We do have an understanding of where people are in their career, but even if it's somebody that's been here a long time and not close to retirement, they might find another job elsewhere if we're not competitive. But but I definitely hear what you're saying and we're with our system that we have, we're able to pull analytics from that and we're trying to increase the the number of analytics we use uh from the from the uh HR perspective. That's something I think we're growing

and I think most departments do anticipate retirements. Okay. they know ahead of time on most people, not all, but most. Most. Yeah, sounds good.

Um, this just breaks it down in a different format as far as the vacancies for the general fund and the sheriff's department. The other funds um we like to remind you that this includes fire services, solid waste disposal, collection and recycling, utilities, um Bethlehe Park, Kataba Ben Park, economic development, and the public safety communication subscriber accounts. These are just different departments that are just budgeted differently and that's why we split them out separately. So if you go to July on this chart, one of the reasons that the other funds vacancy number jumped is because y'all did approve a number of Kataba Ben positions. You did you did uh approve a number of utilities fund positions as well. So when you approve positions, they are automatically in July one vacant, right? And we got to go fill them. So uh we do appreciate you all approving positions and then we work hard to fill them throughout the year.

Um and that just explains the solicitors department. um the compensation history real quickly. So, one thing I did want to note and and Sheriff Reeden said it well at the very beginning, but we wanted to provide you all these charts. You could look at later, the uh the sheriff's chart definitely shows,

yeah, that they are they have a number of vacancies and and and that's one of the big reasons I support uh their request. you know, a lot of those vacancies are in the detention center. We want to do all we can, not just pay, but also working to support those employees and help recruit more employees to to the detention center. I think part of the work we're doing at Moss Justice Center to improve it through the capital projects will help as well uh so we can meet the need in terms of pay, you know, infrastructure, resources, and taking care of our employees.

Okay, I'll let you get back to it. Um the compensation, this is a chart that shows you the history of the changes in compensation that we've done for employees. And what we're recommending for next year is a three to a 3 and a.5% pay for performance merit increase as well as increase in the salary ranges by at least 1%.

And and one of the things, you know, we see and it happened here in York County uh obviously during hard financial times. It happened in a lot of places uh in places where I've worked in the past too. You go a number of years without a raise. And so it causes a lot of compression challenges later because the folks that have worked here 20 years and didn't get raises for 5 years are now at all of a sudden compressing with the folks that you're hiring who are coming in at a higher rate. And so that's why it's so important to be consistent and to give annual raises. Uh we still believe that between the three and the three and a half, which is what we've done the last few years, is the right number. Uh but but it what's important is that we do that every year. So so we can continue to remain competitive so we're not out there in one year having to ask for a really big increase uh to remain competitive. But that's that's what we're trying to do here.

Okay. These are just the benefits that we described to me last year. I'm sorry, Lisa. What's what's the state doing? Y'all know what's what I don't know. I haven't. We can reach out and find out. Thanks. Or as awful as it sounds, I think I read it and I can't recall it right now. I apologize.

Um, the full-time benefits, these are the same benefits that we showed you last year, except for the two that we were grateful that you let us add this year, the three days of bereavement leave and the 30 days of parental leave. Um, the sheriff says he has a lot of officers really enjoying that parental leave and he does. Um, couple of benefits that we would like for you to at least consider in next year is when we added the bereavement leave, we realized that our policy allowed for a larger group of family members for an employee to use sick leave for if they needed to. And the bereavement leave, we had limited it to just a couple of different family members. So, what we're trying to do is take away a few out of the sick leave and add a few more to the bereavement so that they'll match as far as which family members you can use those types of leave for. So, that's what that's about. Um, we want to revisit the on call policy that right now provides four hours of regular straight pay for each week an employees assigned an on call status. Um, what we're going to recommend is a new policy that provides two hours of stipened equal to the employees hourly rate per on call shift. Um, it would only be put into place for departments that the county manager believes it's needed, which means it's critical positions that we do need to be on call to keep our services running as we need them to. Um, this is something that public safety communications put in place a couple years ago because of the critical nature that they were suffering with lack of staff and etc. Um, and it's worked well for them. So, we're hoping it's going to work better for some of the other departments. um public works if you Eric's gonna be chiming in on that one. He he's really requesting that he thinks it would help his staff to to be able to supply that need.

How does it Go ahead. Yeah. And this is something that, you know, we're bringing forward because we're listening to our employees and wanting to make sure that the people that are working extra hours are are fairly compensated for that time. Mhm. Under the under PEA, under the state pension, the ones that have retired from the county, but you know, they go retire for a year and they say, "Man, I got to get out of the house a couple days a week." Um, what are they impacted if they come back and work part-time on their PE on their PE PIA payments? Dependent upon how old they were when they retired. Yeah. Um, they can suffer a $10,000 earnings limitation. Oh, there is which probably doesn't hurt them if they decide to just come back part-time because they may not earn 10,000 anymore,

right? Yeah. But the ones that want to come back full-time, if they stay completely off the PEA system for a year, then they can come back and those types of benefits can be adjusted, they don't hurt them as badly. Gotcha. But if you retire and go straight back to work for PEA, then you're going to keep paying in. Is there an age limit where that doesn't get impacted at 70 or something along those lines? It depends on how old you were when you retire. Oh, okay. If you're at least social security age when you retire on regular retirement, then it that 10,000 limitation doesn't hurt you. Oh, okay. So, you're not impacted by it. Exactly. Gotcha. Okay. But we encourage employees who have questions to contact HR and we'll work through their individual. This is a good way to fill some part time. Yep.

We have a number of retired folks doing the parttime like and we're thankful for it. Uh, one thing I will remind y'all, this is something that I would like to see assigned to committee. We talked about it with y'all this past year, Michael Kendry and I and and Lisa. Uh but but we're very interested in pulling some of the the information that's in the HR ordinance, the personnel ordinance out uh and into a policy manual. This is a much more modern way in local government to handle it. Uh the fact that it's in ordinance really does tie our hands a little bit to be flexible and consider new things and changes. And so I would ask that council send that to committee now or or sometime in the next fiscal year. Uh we have a lot of ideas. We've worked with uh an outside council as as y'all directed us to work on this and and we think we've got some good ideas to share. So we think this would be a big benefit to employees and we'd love to talk more about that with you. Um, these are just the state retirement benefits, which I'm sure you guys are familiar with them and you had these last year. Um, one thing I didn't mention when I was talking about the U full-time benefits is that we have been told that people will not have an increase for 2027.

When I have a what? People will not have a an insurance increase for 2027. Okay. It hasn't been finally approved yet, but that's the recommendation and that's what we've been told to budget for. Good deal. budget for nothing. Yep. Pretty much. That's always an easy one. That's shocker. Is that the surplus money? Is that where it's going? They're cutting all our They're going to cut our taxes. Are they that they might get us on another side, but that's They're going to get you on the other side. Mhm. Prescription medication utilization's gone up close to 30% where it was about 10% a year ago because of the cost of medications. They're going to get us on the other side. Is another area we probably ought to do some planning. This happened during COVID. They didn't give us increases and then they sock it to us.

I wouldn't fall asleep to that. We should probably budget for that one next year. Go back and look at the history. You'll see. We're hoping they're just giving us a break this year. But like you say, you don't there's no break. Cost of healthare is going populations getting older. So the cost should be going up as well.

Yeah. Um these are just the eligibility requirements in order to draw a monthly benefit from state retirement which you guys have been provided at before. Um the retiry insurance who is eligible for an employer paid benefit from York County when they retire. This gives you all the different scenarios that makes you eligible or not. Um the York County retiree insurance rates for 2026. These are the rates that we're using for our retirees that are eligible for a paid benefit. Um, if you ever want to discuss any of those, please call me. But this gives you a basic information. There's no increase though, not for next year. That was just 2026 in amounts.

And then and then we this is the LA Yeah, this is the last slide of of the evening. Uh, we did want to share, you know, one of the conversations we had connecting it back to the retreat was, you know, currently I'm I'm working with our departments uh discussing about 34 different positions. We we had an original request of over 50 positions and we've brought it down to 34. We're still working hard at that, but I did want to share uh our the seven, you know, biggest counties, fastest growing counties in my in my opinion in South Carolina. I think it's important uh to recognize that York, yes, we have uh we have been pretty lean. uh Spartanberg and Greenville are more lean than us as this shows because what this this measure is it's a common local government measure but you're looking at number of full-time employees per thousand citizens. So you take the population and then you you you take the number of employees and you get the employee per thousand. So York County is at 4.26 in the FY26 budget. So you'll see that 1331 matches what's in our budget document. And these are comparative numbers uh from our peers. Uh, you know, we even if we added those 34 positions, we wouldn't change our position on this list. 34 is not going to move us up past Richland County by any means. I think, you know, 30 uh positions are is a reasonable request. If you look at what we've asked the last 5 years, it doesn't get us to the point where we need to be. It very much is trying to play catch-up. And I just wanted to make that point. you know, it's not 30 isn't going to solve the things that we need to solve to become the county we all want to be. It's going to help us address some of the immediate needs, but we're not yet at that point. So, we are trying to pull together and I'm trying to bring you a very reasonable budget uh that doesn't necessitate a tax increase. But I also need to be cognizant and share with y'all there's a lot of things we need to be doing and we can't necessarily do with the number of employees we have.

Um, but we do the best we can with what we got. Uh, and our staff is incredible. Uh, and that's why I'm recommending that three and a half% merit increase. Uh, but with that, any questions for for the for uh, for us? The only question I have is what does that 73 do for work? Yeah. So, it's not not every full-time employee is 1.0.

I get it. To your point, yeah, there there's there's plenty of employees we have that don't work 40 hours a week. They work a shorter portion of the week, but they are full-time. Anything else, questions, comments? This is We're on to the last item here, other budget items, and this is y'all's time to share any other questions, concerns, or things you want us to work on. Uh, as we continue on, just as a reminder, this is our first budget workshop. We have two more, one more each month. Then we've got three readings of the budget. So, our goal is really to hear y'all's questions and concerns on the front end so we can work that into the recommended budget that I'm going to present on April 20th. Is that right?

Uh so the more I hear before April 20th, the better uh uh the budget will be. The only question I had was was based on conversation we had in the in the workshop around the uh request for um uh like agencies that come to us and and getting those in early so we'll know on the up front. Yeah. Trish, you want to share when we'll have those for council? Yes. So we just received those before our workshop, right? or excuse me, our retreat, they came in that Friday. Um, there's a couple still coming in, but we are finalizing that information actually this week. So, that is something that we could talk about at the April workshop or even the the May one. Okay.

We'll have all that information. All right. Good. Thank you. I've asked for this. I would like to see um the list of reclassifications um that are being proposed and that are included in the budget when you get a chance. And I I certainly like hearing no tax increase. I know the community appreciates that. I think I are is is the budget do you anticipate the budget proposal that you're going to put forward to council is going to um does it assume um the reduction reductions that we talked about at the

we just learned that out this week. So we actually are still working on the budget. That's why there's a lot of things that I'm not going to be able to give you at this point. We're we're still working on de developing what we're going to approve in terms of departmental requests. We're still finalizing the revenues. And so, you know, you mentioned the reclasses. That's a process that we use a consultant for. Uh there's an actual, you know, compensation consultant that studies our positions and says whether a position needs to be reclassed or not. So, a reclass is based on the duties that a current person, live person or a vacant position is doing. that's not actually written in their job duties. So, they're things that have changed about their position. And so, if somebody is doing things that aren't in their position and their job duties, you got to pay them for those things. And so, you go through a professional process with a consultant to tell you what that person should be graded at, that position, not the person. So, that's what the reclass process is. So, we're still working with our consultant. Uh those reclasses, like the ones in FY26, will be in the recommended budget book. uh and we can talk about those, but I would I would warn council to get too involved in reclasses because it really is a consultant driven and HR driven process and it's about the position. And so if you have concerns about any of those, I'd I'd love to talk about it, but we're not at the position to share those with with y'all. Now, in terms of what was the second part of your question, Madam Chair,

I don't know. I don't like being told don't worry about it. I would like to see that, but I'm here when I have it. I can share with you. I don't like when I have a final list that I'm going to put in the recommended budget, I'm happy to share with you. But one of the things about the council manager system is it's my job to share what I think in the recommended and then y'all's job to change it however you want. So, yeah, I think being able to being able to quantify what each of these things are so that council can prioritize if there's a need to prioritize, you know, where that funding goes just makes it easier for us to understand that. So, um, the other question was in your in your proposed budget, as I understand it, which is going to be April 20th, that that'll be your proposed budget.

Are you making any assumptions or accounting for any of the potential revenue reductions that that the state is considering? And I'm asking, I really am. I know we say stuff in meetings and then we don't follow through. I think it is absolutely 100% critical that you guys identify the impact that it will have to the budget and put a number and send a letter and just at least let the delegation know what the impact is going to be. And I think it would also go a long way for you for that to be to the extent that the municipalities and the schools they're going to feel that too.

I don't know how they deal with that or if y'all help them with that. I just think that it's important that they understand the ramifications. I'm all for tax cuts, but I think it's it's it's a little bit it's a little bit problematic when that the taxes that you're cutting are the taxes that are gen that are over here. It's not your budget, right? That's the problem. It's not state taxes they're reducing. It's a real challenge. I I think it depends what the state ends up doing and all the the different ideas they're working through. So, if it is just simply boat taxes, potentially that's something that we can deal with in year one, right?

I I have to wait to see what they do in all of them because it's it's the combined effect, and I'll make sure to tell them this, it's the combined effect of all those changes. Uh the the heavy duty trucks would hit us obviously the hardest. Uh and I'm not quite sure how we could handle that without adjusting. Uh but if it's just the first year of boat taxes, you got to think that it's spread across all the different um millages. So, you know, the sheriff's is going to get, you know, going to get impacted, the solicitors, general fund operations, all of them. And so, you spread that impact across all those. Uh, and and that would be how we would deal with I just think letting them know that we all support tax cuts, letting them know that. But definitely

and are they going to share any of the surplus with us to make up those There's a there's a caveat that heavy truck. Now, if it's owned by a business, it stays at 10 and a half%. It's owned personally. it applies to the deduction, the proposed deduction.

Um, I I agree with what you just said wholeheartedly. We should make them aware. I do believe too, as I said a minute ago, that we should have contingency planning moving forward. A part of our budget should go in and take into consideration an increase on insurance next year and more cuts just like this. Now, what I'm going to say is just a statement. It's not an action item, but when you look at York County, you look at York County 10 years ago, York County was not talking about the things we're talking about now, the infrastructure, the things that we need to be doing from a proactive perspective to plan for the growth that is coming to unincorporated York County, South Carolina. Right. So, when I was reading through the Pardon me,

how you knew we weren't talking about it 10 years ago? Well, we hadn't planned for it. Well, cuz that's what we're having to do now. So, I'm guessing it wasn't talked about or action wasn't taken on it. Not Not I'm not being critical. I'm just cutting simply saying. So, here's my point, though. I I think most people in York County don't even understand how we collect taxes, right? They think we're collecting York County taxes for York County. So, the point that I'm getting at is this. Times have changed. We have a lot of responsibility on our plates. I mean, for the first time ever, this county helped pay for an interchange. I don't think that's happened in the past necessarily, right? Not at that. Yeah. Yeah. But not at that magnitude.

Point is, actually more acid things though are anyway.

Well, point the point is, and you're kind of making my point, times have changed and our financial obligations are increasing and we're limited like everybody else in how we create our revenue. And when you look at the revenue of what is split, especially with the municipalities, we get we're not getting much money out of 100% of the tax revenue collected. Like I represent Rock Hill, part of Rock Hill. 62% I think goes to Rock Hill. No, I'm sorry. 62% goes to school district. 24 I think goes might be 26 to um Rock Hill. And the balance 12% I think goes to York County. So, what I'm getting at is I'm not saying that we need to do anything with this right now, but there might come a point in time where we have to talk about how we split up the taxes. And I don't even know how that works. How you split up the tax revenue that's created from property taxes.

Increase our millage. If we want more every every So, it' be the same way for school districts and the submit their millage submit theirs. We just send the bills. I do have a one-page millage sheet that I could print for y'all at the next meeting being handed to you that shows everybody's millages. Yeah, I'd like to see that. And the county rolled back more than any of the entities in any of the entities, right? Any of Yeah, we rolled back 5%. We have a chart I could bring to that has everybody list. That's a good news story that we We're competing for the dollar is what I'm saying. Every dollar we're we got either three entities or two entities competing for the dollar that's collected. Did we increase?

Typically, when people get a bill and it's gone up, it's because of the school district and we get the call and we answer it and we we walk them through what led to their increase. But it's typically school districts. Yeah. I I like I'd like to see a figure that shows 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and now what York County was getting off a $300,000 house. Sure. That's a good question. You know, because when people get the bill, we always take the hit when taxes go up from the schools and municipalities.

We get the phone calls for school increases. We get the phone calls for because they look at the bottom line. They're not going through line by line breaking down that bill. York County sent me a bill for $3,500. It ain't that the schools went up the value of the mill $300 on this year and the city went up $200. It's your camera. It's the Robin Hood syndrome. So, I think that would be a helpful piece to work on that. Yeah. On a on on a typical 250 $300,000 house, what have we where we were 15 years ago, where we at now, it probably hadn't increase, but a split in Fort Mill has significantly. I'm talking about the county's portion.

I'm with you. Yeah, the county's portion. Well, that was kind of a one was those making kind of same buck. What percentage you're getting on how you going to work as far as on request stuff that we want to see?

Well, I I think the opportunity is for you all to bring those up and for for you to ask us questions and and let us know. I think the question is can is it something you're going to that that we're we're thinking about and it's going to be in the recommended budget or is it something that you're going to bring forward after you receive it and try to add it to the recommended budget. But anything I would say is please if you have ideas of things that you're going to talk about with your peers, really start talking about that now with each other, you know, and and have these conversations in our workshops because uh I really hope that by second reading, we we've addressed the changes so that when when the public sees third reading, there's not a lot of changes occurring at third reading in the budget.

When when you took your walkabout on the York Place project, Sure. Did you see any potential that York County could also use some of those?

So, so I I recently visited York Place similar to the Yag facility. I think they're going to be potentially a h might have an ask for counsel. Uh, you know, I think that there's an opportunity for organizations to do that, but it's something that I've got to work with council to set up. Uh, I think that the challenge with with York Place is they need help purchasing the property. Typically, as a county, we don't help purchase a property. We might help in invest in that property once it's owned. Uh, you know, we we might help move or, you know, invest in a facility on that property. That's what I was wondering.

But the purchase of a property is is tricky. So, you know, we're we're looking at how we might be able to help as a staff that we might be able to recommend to y'all. I'm not ready to talk about that. Uh, but if that's something that y'all want them to come to a future meeting to to share their their request, I mean, that's something that I would encourage, too. So, but I I haven't been able to work work through that with Madam Chair yet in terms of what meeting and how and when. But what I committed to York Place was that my team with, you know, Tom and I and Mitch um would come back in a month and talk about ideas we have with them. So that was my commitment to them. Yeah. So good deal. Anything else? Just anything in closing? Motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjourn. All in favor say I. I. Thanks all. Thank you. Have about 14 minutes. Okay.