April 15, 2025 A Reconvened CY 2025 Proposed Tax Rate Public Hearing of the Russell County Board of Supervisors was held on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM at the Russell County Government Center in Lebanon, Virginia. CALLTO ORDER & ROLL CALL The Clerk called the meeting to order. Roll Call by the Clerk: Present - Andrew Hensley Lou Ann Wallace Tara Dye Steve Breeding ac quorum Rebecca Dye Nate Kiser David Eaton Absent - None Also, Present - Lonzo Lester, Clerk INVOCATION & PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Invocation performed by David Eaton followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Motion made by Steve Breeding, second Lou Ann Wallace and duly approved by the Board of Supervisors to approve the Agenda as presented. The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Lou Ann Wallace, Tara Dye, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, Nate Kiser, and David Eaton Nay: None Abstain: None Absent: None PUBLIC HEARING 3. CY 2025 Proposed Tax Rate presented by Lonzo Lester, County Administrator. CITIZENS COMMENTS 1. Betsy Summerfield, Rosedale - - have a question about the school board increase. Does that include the Virginia Lottery money that the county's getting these days from the casino? 2. Madison Apeld, LPN Student - I am a first-year nursing student at the Russell County Career and Technical Center. My classmates and I are here to discuss the termination of the LPN program. There are many people in the county that are upset about the decision, not just us. The LPN program created many opportunities and jobs for the residents of Russell County. Today while at clinicals we heard many testimonies about how special that our program is. Many of the employees actually graduated from the program as licensed practical nurses. There was a very special lady that I spoke with today that graduated from the first class in 1994. 30 years later she is the ADON of the facility and has been an LPN nurse since graduating. At the last meeting that occurred on April 7th it was said that you all wanted jobs and people to come. Let the program be beneficial to this community. We were told the program was cut due to budgeting. So why was this just now decided? Why was the budget not a problem at the beginning of our school year? The majority of my classmates are lifelong residents and pay taxes in this county. The program was the last resort for most of us and community college is not an option due to finances or scheduling. We were told yesterday that we may get a $1,500 scholarship to Southwest Community College if they can somehow make it work for us. That is $15,000, SO why couldn't that amount go to next year sO we can finish the program? By not taking a new first) year class, you would no longer need three teachers, only two. The LPN program worked for us, and we were proud and love being students, but we were promised we would be able to graduate and sit for our boards. It has also been brought up that the county wanted 30 students for the class 26 people applied and was not accepted duet to the difficult interview process and test scores. 14 students were accepted nowi there are 10 of us left. We deserve an opportunityt to finish what was promised to us. hope that you all take into consideration how the decision will not only negatively affect our lives but our families and the communities. Thank you. 3. Oris Christian - In the last few months and a year or SO food, electricity and gas has gone up tremendously. And then we come along with this assessment increase. Then you also speak of the possibility of increasing the tax rate. hope you don't, because if you do then you don't seem to have any consideration in my opinion of the taxpayers. You have got your wants, you have got your needs, you have got your have to have. - think this board needs to consider what the departments have to have, not that wish listlspoke of. Think oft the burden that the taxpayers have had to go through these past few months with the costs of food, gas, and electricity. Let's strongly consider maybe a 36% rate instead of 63%. Let's give some consideration to the taxpayers. Thank you. 4. Mark Matney - praise the glory to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I heard you all talk about the elderly and disabled program and I guess all the supervisors here knowlwas the Commissioner of Revenue in Washington County. So, - I wanted to speak to try to help those elderly and disabled people. Right before I left office, I went to the supervisors and got our minimum rate at 44,000. The most important thing - wanted you to hear tonight is about the elderly and disabled. When I was commissioner, had a 93-year-old little lady come in there and didn't know nothing abouti the deadline. They didn't either open their mail or sometimes they were late paying their payments. Think about if you get hurt on a motorcycle, you're not going to get no compensation, SO all of a sudden, you're disabled and it's due..what are you going to do? You don't get no elderly and disabled discount. Ihadto deal with people like this all the time. So,lfinally did my research. The board sets the date, and I had my board move the date to November the 20th which is tax day. So, if they came in there on November the 20th, we did their elderly and disabled and then we backed it up you know gave them credit for it. You need to think about, you guys can change that. That's something) you have to do in the program, it's set by the board system and that is a big help. mean not only do you have these elderly that don't know how to get it in byl May or forget to do it like E - said you got people that get hurt there every year and they're just stuck. Think about it...if the little old lady doesn't get her discount or the guy that wrecked on the motorcycle won't gett the discount, when the fall payment comes and they can't make the payment then they're paying interest on that, SO it just keeps adding up. So, I really encourage you all to take a look at that and set the due date for the application as your tax date. As far as the budget, I haven't heard if you got any bonds or savings account or any extra money anymore. In Washington County, we call it reserves. If you have any of that money in order not to raise the taxes, can we move that money into revenue? The other thing is I haven't heard anything about the carryover here. don't know about Russell County, but Washington County has been running over 4 million every year. I haven't heard anybody say anything about any kind of project carryover. You may have some money there and just thought you might want to consider that. Thank you. 5. Peter Hicks - I'm here just basically to address a general thing. I'm going to share with you all a story and I'm hoping through doing this maybe we will all learn something. Everybody here not just you. This little story I'm going to tell you hopefully will put a seed of thought in your mind. It taught me a lot. I'm a beekeeper and it's a God-given gift. And for some reason He chose me to do it and I'm going to tell you it's taught me more in my life than my whole experience in it. There's a lot to be learned once you understand a honeybee colony. It's nature's model of life. It honestly is and I'm going to explain that to you as quickly as I can. Basically, what I'm going to try to explain to you is that a honeybee colonyis a unit. Russell County is a unit. Just like the state is a unit just like this state is tied to everything in the United States, but each individual entity would consider to be a beehive. Basically, in a beehive all the bees have to do are two main goals in their lives. I've learned this directly through watching them and working with them. They all live in one year, that's their existence. Their number one goal is to survive. Their number two goal is to prosper. Their third priority is to reproduce, they have to make more to ensure the colony's survival. So basically, it's kind of an order no matter what they're doing, their only goal is for that colony. That's all they do. Whatever they do, they don't step out on their own. If they plan to make a new home, they send out 100 or maybe 200 to search somewhere. One comes back and says this, another comes back and says that. Well then, they go research, they'll send a group of another 12 or sO to this location and that location. They don't argue and they don't fight. They come back together and then as a general consensus; the whole unit will make a decision. What I'm trying to get to here is, the decisions that we make needs to make us prosper and needs to make us survive. Any decision that we make affects our colony. We really need to consider that. Are we analyzing to see ifthis going to make everything better or is this going to do anything? 6. Michelle Vance - I am here not only for my family, but also because of my customers. We talk about everything at our auctions. Atthe beginning oft the auction, always make sure that I get up in front of them and I let them know what's going on in the county. Some of them don't understand budgets and property taxes. Some of them come to our auction because they are trying to make a couple extra dollars first because that's all the money they're going to get. They won't come here because they don't think you're listening; that's one of the biggest issues. They don't know they're in district one. As a district one resident, Thave total faith and absolute trust in you. Iknow where they stand. know where they're going, because they let me know. There are places I know there have to be cuts. I've worked for general contractors for the past 30 years. I've worked in accounting. know there are hard places that need to be cut. I - understand that we will probably have an increase in our property taxes. But our property taxes being increased along with the reassessment? did my due diligence, and I went and had it reassessed again. It still went up, but that increase along with a property tax increase from the county is going to be phenomenal for us. Ithink you guys really need to make sure thatyou're looking at every single item and making sure thaty you're looking at everything in there that needs to be in there. There's got to be something in there we can cut somewhere. This is also coming from my customers as well because like said they're pulling stuff out oft their homes to sell to our other customers just sO they can go out to the grocery store. have full faith in Andrew and Nate, SO I hope you follow suit with that. lappreciate it. BOARD DISCUSSIONS & REMINDERS Motion made by Steve Breeding, no second to set the tax rate at 56 cents per 100 with the understanding that if we get further reductions from the regional jail that we come back in the second half and adjust the rate down. Failed Motion Motion made by Andrew Hensley, second Tara Dye to set the tax rate at 47.5 cents per 100. The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Tara Dye, and Nate Kiser Nay: Lou Ann Wallace, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, and David Eaton Abstain: None Absent: None Failed Motion Motion made by Rebecca Dye, second Nate Kiser to set the tax rate at 50 cents per 100. The vote was: Aye: Rebecca Dye, and Lou Ann Wallace Nay: Steve Breeding, David Eaton, Tara Dye, Nate Kiser and Andrew Hensley Abstain: None Absent: None Failed Motion Motion made by Nate Kiser, second Tara Dye to set the tax rate at 48.23 cents per 100. The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Tara Dye, and Nate Kiser Nay: Lou Ann Wallace, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, and David Eaton Abstain: None Absent: None Failed Motion Motion made by Andrew Hensley, second Nate Kiser to set the tax rate at 48 cents per 100. The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Tara Dye, and Nate Kiser Nay: Lou Ann Wallace, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, and David Eaton Abstain: None Absent: None Failed Motion COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION RC Department of Social Services - Lynn Ramsey (Resigned) 4 Year-Term April 7, 2025 Motion made by Lou Ann Wallace, second Tara Dye, and duly agreed by the Board of Supervisors to appoint Georgia McCoy to the RC Department of Social Services Board for a 4 Year-Term ending April 15, 2029. The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Lou Ann Wallace, Tara Dye, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, Nate Kiser, and David Eaton Nay: None Abstain: None Absent: None ADIOURNMENT Motion made by Nate Kiser, second Tara Dye, and duly agreed by the Board of Supervisors to set the real estate tax due to June 13th adjourn at 8:09PM to reconvene on Monday May 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM, The vote was: Aye: Andrew Hensley, Lou Ann Wallace, Tara Dye, Steve Breeding, Rebecca Dye, Nate Kiser, and David Eaton Nay: None Abstain: None Absent: None The next regular monthly meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM. Clerk of the Board Chairperson