I'd like to welcome everybody to the Tuesday, May 14, 2019 meeting of the Ditton County Commissioner's Court and I'd like to remind everybody to turn off your cell phones and pages and our invocation this morning will be led by our tax assessor collector, Michelle Franch and our pledges will be led by Rowland and Subato with our emergency services. Please stand. Good morning. If you will, pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you that your mercies are new every day. We praise you and worship you. We are so grateful for another day that we can just be here, be alive, and be able to do the work that you've called us to do. I ask Father that today that there will be wisdom and knowledge and direction and guidance for our commissioners court as they deliberate the various things that they need to work on today. That you'll go with each and every one of us to our respective offices and you'll do the same. That we'll have direction and guidance, wisdom and knowledge and everything that we do. And that all that we do would be glory to you, and that most of all that we would be able to serve our constituents in the way in which you have called us to serve. We thank you for all these things, and Jesus' name we pray in. Thank you. Let's start our nation's fight. 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. Texas flag, I will identify our pledge allegiance to the Texas one state, under God, one, and indivisible. one stay. One God. One and then the visible. All right we do not have any public comments this morning. So I'd like to go to item 3a on our agenda and this is a presentation from the City of Dallas and I'd like to welcome our very own council member Sandy Grayson please Come forward miss Grayson and it is Commissioner Marchon's going to introduce the council member But I would just like to take a moment to say how pleased I am to have miss Grayson here with us this morning I first met the council member years ago and I worked at the town of Addison and and There's a long time ago and during her first Stent on the Dallas City Council and I would just like to say on behalf of the commissioners court Thank you for your service to the city of Dallas and thank you for your partnership to Ditton County on the regional Transportation Council. Yes, Sandy and I've been on the RTC for a long time, and she's been a strong and vocal advocate from mobility, not only in the city of Dallas, but across the region. And that's really what we strive to do is have a regional viewpoint. And so it's just been great to work with you. And she has term limited out. So she's got a few more weeks on the council and so we thank you for being here this morning Commissioner March It's a formal introduction. I Thank you for enduring the long trip Far far south as you and east you can go within Within Denton County Representing not only Dallas County, but Denton County representing not only Dallas County but Denton County as well. Councilmember Grayson is currently serving her ninth term? Eighth term. Eighth term and so she would have been with the city of Dallas as a councilmember for a total of 16 years and she's representing District 12, which is Far North Dallas. District 12 boundaries are Richardson on the east, Plano on the north, Carrollton on the west, and a rapper hoe road in Dallas is the southern boundary of the district. It's an area that I spend a lot of childhood days in that area. And she is currently, or has been the chair of the City Council Quality of Life Arts and Culture Committee, also serves as the Public Safety and Mobility Services Committee. She represents the City Dallas on the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Regional Transportation Council. She also represents the City of Dallas on the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, which is a Transportation Advocacy Organization, composed of elected officials from cities and counties on the eastern side of the region. Welcome to Denton County. Welcome to our wonderful courthouse and welcome to the greatest county in the state of Texas. No you don't have to comment on that. Okay it's one of three counties that is in my district and it's a wonderful county. Yeah, absolutely. Good answer. Good answer. Yeah. Well, welcome. Well, thank you so much for that warm welcome. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate the invitation to come here and talk to you this morning. It's a great idea. I'm thinking we ought to do something like that, maybe not in the city, but in Delos County. And the courthouse is beautiful. I was kind of looking around a little bit before I came into the room here. So did you all get my handouts? I did. Because it's sort of like a little cheat sheet so that you know kind of what I'm talking about although Ron gave me a nice introduction and kind of explained where district 12 is. And the very first page here is the picture of our city hall. And if you go to the next page and you look over on the right hand side, that is a map of the entire city and that little green dot in the middle is downtown Dallas where city hall is. But if you look way way up north That black area is district 12 and so if you look over to the left You can see that district 12 sits in three counties and that's unusual It's the only district in the city all the other districts sit in Dallas County but my my district district 12 sits in three counties so we have Dallas County, but my district district 12 sits in three counties. So we have Dallas County and in Dallas County, the kiddos go to Richardson Independent School District. We have Collin County, which makes up about half of my district. And those kiddos go to Plano School District. And then Denton County makes up about a quarter of my district. I'd say Dallas County makes up the other quarter. And those kiddos go to Carrollton Farmers Branch ISD. So I'm the only district that also sits in three school districts. So it is a lot of government and when people move into my district, especially from out of state, they're like, what? You know, it's like, I live in Dallas, but my kids go to Carrollton Farmers Branch and it's in Denton County. And so, you know, it's just, you know, they call and they say, this is kind of confusing, but then they get used to it. It's, I don't know if other states have those overlapping boundary lines as much as Texas does. So, and as Ron said, I'm surrounded by suburban cities except for on my south side which I share district lines with district 11. So we're kind of way up there. A lot of folks in the rest of the city think that we're not even really part of the city because we're so far north, we were once referred to by a columnist in the newspaper as Dale Homa. But it is, you know, it's a district and an area, our north Dallas that has really grown a lot since Ron was there. So we have beautiful neighborhoods in District 12. It's very stable. It's very residential. We have very little commercial other than along the Dallas, North, Tol Road. So a district that I represent is a district that values their neighborhoods, their quality of life, and they value their safety, and they value their schools. And so all of those things put together makes for a very attractive environment up there. And so houses are bought immediately. And I actually, I think surprisingly, do not have one single Dallas independent school district school in my district. And so the whole rest of the city is DISD, but I'm not. So a lot of times, I don't say a whole lot when we're talking about DISD. On the other hand, that's very important to the success of the city. And they're actually doing better. And so they're making great strides. And so we think that's good for the city as a whole, even if I don't have any DISD in my district. We have, as I said, a lot of residential, a lot of single family but most people would be surprised to know that we also until very recently had the largest number of apartments in the entire city. People don't think of that in terms of far North Dallas but we have just so many very very large apartment complexes that went in mainly in the 1990s kind of the early 1990s on land that was zoned already for multi-family so they didn't have to get these zoning changes and as Denton County portion was developing out west of the Delce North toll road, it was just amazing to see. You would have an apartment go in, it would be 300 units and then next door to put in 400 units and next door to that they put in 600 units and before we knew it we had thousands and thousands of apartment units. It's a little different now because downtown and close to downtown are really developing out rapidly and they're developing with apartments. Because we get a lot of folks moving in for the jobs, the economy, and Dallas is good. There's lots of diverse job opportunities. We get a lot of millennials, and they want to live close to downtown where the action is. And so they rent these apartments that are close to downtown. Don't know how they afford them, but they seem to be able to. So with all of those apartment complexes, we're very fortunate because they're not that old yet. You know, they're maybe 25 years old. And they're still in relatively good. You know, they're maybe 25 years old. And they're still in relatively good shape. So we don't have a lot of code problems. We do have a little bit higher crime stats in the Denton County portion, mainly because of the apartments. I think it's a function of so many people living so close together. You just have, I think, more opportunity for those kinds of parking or disputes and things like that. So we have a little bit higher crime stats in that part of the district. That part of the district also though has our, there's two rec centers in district 12. And one of them is in Denton County and then we have two libraries and one of them is in Denton County. On Timberglane. And Timberglane, excellence. Yes. I kind of had to fight a lot back in the early 2000, late 1990s to get those facilities put in, where there's actually nowhere at that time when I was first on council in 1997 to hold a meeting because there were no city of Dallas facilities that were available. So I kind of really argued with my colleagues who some of them, I don't think, believe that that was actually part of the city of Dallas. And so as a matter of fact, once I hold a town hall meeting at a local elementary school, Carrollton Farmers Branch Elementary School, and one of my staff members asked me why I was holding a meeting in Carrollton. So as time passes, they're getting more accepting of the fact that yes, we spread out into other areas. But those facilities, the rec center and the library were badly needed, especially with all those apartments. Another thing we don't have a lot of in my district is open space, green space. When the district was developed out, the developers thought the land was so valuable that they didn't want to use it for Parkland. So we're struggling to find green space, open space that we can put there so that all these folks that live there have somewhere to go to recreate and relax. One of the things that we did recently to try and get some more green spaces, we had a strip shopping center right by my house, actually. They had a lot of vacancies. It was about 40, 45 years old, and it was an out of state owner who left the, you know, kind of let the strip decline. Didn't really put money back into it. And so it was getting to a state where we were really wondering kind of it wasn't going to pull down the whole area. So what we did was we partnered with some developers who came in and took part of the shopping center where a lot of parking space was. And they're going to turn it into a park of a little less than two acres. And so we're going to have this green space open space. Everyone is so excited about this. They're kind of thinking it might be kind of a template for other strip shopping centers that are declining. So we're going to have the green space lined with restaurants. And we're going to have outdoor seating. There's going to be a play area for the kiddos toward the back. There's going to be a great big open lawn. There's going to be a pavilion where you can have some performances on the weekends if you want. We're excited and we think that this is something that's going to help revitalize the whole area. Absolutely. So it's supposed to open up next year. I won't be on council but I will be there because I work, you know, with the developers we've worked really hard to make this happen and so we're thinking that this is going to be a big success and crush your fingers for us because we think that, you know, we're very hopeful that everybody is going to really be using this and they said the leasing is going great. So I'm very, very hopeful. So as Ron said, and Andy said, I've been on council for 16 years, and that is ending. And I have mixed feelings about that. So everybody asks me what I'm going to do, and I'm going to remodel my bathrooms, because you can't do that on your own city council. But I will miss serving the people of this district because we really have wonderful, you know, just a wonderful number of people in this district that like I said they care about their community they participate in their community I've enjoyed working with them so that's that's kind of a description of I did I did want to mention though also that Denton County has some of my more moderately priced housing in the district so there are opportunities for people at all levels of income to be in the district. We have a wonderful organization called Metroprest Services. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but they only work in the city of Dallas, in the Denton County portion district, zip code 75287. And they serve mainly the seniors in our district there that need rental payments and that needs some assistance with transportation and things like that. So I did want to mention Metracrest Services because they're a wonderful organization. So that's, I didn't talk a whole lot about the City of Dallas. I mostly talked about District 12 because that is debt and coming. Absolutely. We're saying we thank you for being here just a personal question. What was your, what do you consider one of your biggest accomplishments that you're proud of as your tenure on the Dallas City Council? I'm really proud of that shopping center. I mean, you know, we worked really hard to revitalize that. Absolutely. That's great. And also in my first terms from 1997 to 2005, I was the council's transportation chair. And so I was working a lot on putting in the first rail. I was on dark. And so I was doing a lot with transportation. I was pleased about that too. Were you instrumental in getting the substation, the Dallas Police Department substation over there near Campbell? No, actually that's McCallum and Hillcrest. Yes, the North Central Police substation opened up in 1986. Oh, okay, so sad. And I was working in the neighborhood at that time. I was a non-counsel time I wasn't on council yet. Yeah, and we're so happy to have that substation there and because you know I They call it they call it kind of the How did they put this kind of like you're on holiday when you're up at the North Central Police Station because we really don't have the same Kind of crime and things that are going on in the rest of the city. So I think the officers like to be stationed there. And you also mentioned and you also mentioned the the issue of crime in that particular area of Hitton County. Some of the reasons, well not necessary the reason for the crime but some some of the issues that we have there is the jurisdictional issues at the police department because the lines are so skewed. Either farmers branch shows up, Plano shows up, City of Dallas shows up, Gowne Sheriff's Department shows up, and then they argue for the next hour or who has jurisdiction over what's going on there. I served as JP there, and there's over 34 apartment complexes in that particular area. I know, I know, and some of them are more problematic than others, but we're trying to work on that. And it is also a ways from the police station. It is. And the traffic is atrocious in far North Dallas. I mean, I can kind of go all over the city and get where I'm going. And then as soon as you hit LBJ as you're going north, you come to a screeching halt. And you just crawl along. And anybody who's ever been on the Dallas North toll road knows what I'm talking about. We pay to sit in that traffic. We pay to go five miles an hour. And so Andy, you may want to ask Michael Morris once I said, how do we move on the Dallas, North, toll road because I live from my front door to city hall 16 miles and it takes me sometimes an hour to get downtown because you just crawl south. You crawl north now too because there's so much growth up north and I said, how do we get this thing to move? And he says, well, you can make it managed lanes and you can pay more and he says, well, you can make it managed lanes and you can pay more and I said, that's going to get really expensive because if you pay according to the amount of congestion going downtown in the morning is going to get really expensive. So I didn't think that was actually a great solution or a great suggestion. So I need to go to NTTA and ask them how they're going to solve it. I never thought it was a good suggestion. I never going to solve it. No, I said I agree with you. I didn't think that was a good suggestion. I didn't agree with Michael Morris when he changed the managed lines. When he... So, yeah, I don't know how we're ever going to fix that, but... I can't say that's fine. I appreciate you being here. I really do and you have a big job not only working with your compadres on the council because it's so much bigger and so many personalities that you have to work for. I want you to when you see Mayor Rollins remind him of this ultra-altra conservative roots because he and I went to the same college together, Southern Nazarene University. He had ultra-altra conservative roots? Altra-altra conservative roots, as well as Lupi Maldez, went to the same college. Southern Nazarene University. We put out a lot of changeovers. They have changed. Yeah, they have changed. So Mayor Rollings is term limited also. Absolutely. So he's in his last few weeks also. And, tell him I said hello. I will. He knows how. How him you said hello. So we have 14 council members elected in single member districts and the mayor is elected at large and We still don't know who our mayor is going to be because there's going to be a runoff But we can have up to half of the new council the new council could be all new people Yeah, that's what happens when everybody runs at the same time I don't know how you guys do it, but we all run at the same time every two years and you have a possibility of a big change over and that creates opportunity. Are they turned to your terms or to your terms? You get four to your terms if you get elected every time you get four to your terms, but the mayor gets two for your terms. The idea is that somehow that gives him more opportunity and a little more control. I would tell you quite honestly, I don't think it works out that way, but that is the idea behind giving him two four-year terms, or her, him or her. Yeah, so. Well, again, thank you very, very much for that. Thank you for inviting me here. It was so nice of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so pleased that I had the council member here and it's so good to hear from all of our different cities. What's going on? And it's great progress is being made. I mean, all of our cities from small and large come in and have innovative ideas. I love the idea about redevelopment and how you're creating some more public space and open space. And so that's a great model. We'll have to look into that, maybe something we can use here in the future on expanded basis. So thank you, Councilmember. That's right. Members, next I'd like to go to item 3B, which is approval of a resolution recognizing the week of May 12 through the 18th, 2019 as National Police Week. In Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 as National Police Memorial Day. And we have Johnny Peters here. Welcome, Mr. Peters. Good morning. Good morning, sir. Thank you for your service and thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Our law enforcement community. I have a resolution. This is a resolution recognizing the week of May 12 through 18, 2019 as National Police Week and May 15, 2019 as National Police Memorial Day. And the Ditton County Commissioner's Court Ditton County, Texas during a regular session on the 14th day of May 2019, considered the following resolution. Whereas Congress and the President of the United States have designated May 15 as National Police Memorial Day and the week in which May 15th falls as National Police Week. Whereas the members of the law enforcement agencies throughout Ditton County play an essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of Ditton County, Texas. And whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties, responsibilities, hazards, and sacrifices of their law enforcement agency and that members of our law enforcement agency recognize their duty to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, by protecting them against violence and disorder, and by protecting the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression. Whereas the men and women of the law enforcement agencies throughout Ditton County unceicently provide a vital public service. Now therefore, it resolved the Ditton County Commissioners Court calls upon all citizens of Ditton County and all patriot, patriotic, civic, and educational organizations to observe the week of May 12th through 18th, 2019 as National Police Week with appropriate ceremonies and observances in which all of our people may join in commemorating law enforcement officers, past and present, who by their faithful and loyal devotion to the responsibilities have rendered a dedicated service to their communities and in so doing have established for themselves an enviable and enduring reputation for preserving the rights and security of all citizens. The Ditton County Commissioner's Court calls upon all citizens of Ditton County to observe May 15th as National Police Memorial Day in honor of those law enforcement officers who through their courageous deeds have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community or have become disabled in the performance of duty and let us recognize and pay respect to the survivors of our fallen heroes. Done an open court this 14th day of May 2019 upon a motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Marche in the discussion. All in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion carries unanimously And we have a service tomorrow And we have a service tomorrow. We'll get service tomorrow if you'd like to let the public know about that so they can join us. And then Mr. Robinson has a comment and we'll put a picture. Judge, thank you for letting me speak to this representative of our boys in blue, but I guess the sheriff's department gets phased. So I'd like to also recognize we have at least two people here in the audience who are married to policemen. And you know the families of policemen also sacrifice and not so many. We thank those who are here today who are married to policemen. I know we've got a couple. Don. Thank you so much for what you do. Thank you, Judge Commissioner for airing those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. And yes, tomorrow I would like you to invite you all and everyone to come out to attend the memorial. It'll be tomorrow at noon at Memorial Park right there behind 535 South Loop right there where the flag pull is at the pond. And we'll read the names. Unfortunately we have eight officers who have lost their lives in Ditton County. I pray that we do not lose anymore. But it is an honor to honor these guys. Thank you for your service and we'll take a photograph. Yeah. I'm going to go to the next room. Thank you. Very good. We will be there tomorrow. We invite everyone else to join us as well as that special occasion. Members, let's go to item number two is our consent agenda. Do we have any items that need to be pulled? We're not. Do we have a motion for approval? Motion to motion to motion to motion to motion to motion. Second about commission or comment. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We have no order maker appointments for item 2A to be no action. Item 2B is approval of Intra Departmental Transfers in the appropriate action. Item 2C is approval of payroll. Item 2D is approval of budget amendment request 101230 for public facilities to transfer $8,500. From Ditton County Courts Building audio sound system maintenance to precinct two government sitter water service in an appropriate action item two E's approval of budget at memory quest one zero one two four zero for facilities management to transfer 15,000 from air conditioner maintenance to electrical supplies and any appropriate action. appropriate action. Let's go to item 5A's, approval of the bill report, payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, TAIP, Sheriff's Training, Sheriff's Forperture, VIT, Interest, and DA Forperture Funds are presented for recording purposes only, Mr. May. I have five changes today. One of them is a deletion and this is to the Texas Department of State Health Services to the, it was to the wrong vendor and it's 18, uh, $18, $117 and 19 cents. I have an addition to ultimate training munitions for $3,639 and 93 cents. I also have an addition to title resources for $4,9,539 in Post Nance. This is for the purchase of the land next to the cheating range. And then I had additional two divisions that were even able to just before court today. And both of these are to JC commercial ink. One is for $27,26 dollars and 31 cents. And one's for 599 dollars. Okay. Do we have a thank you for that report and outlining those amendments and edits. Members, do we have a motion for approval? Also moved. Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Second by Commissioner Marchant. Any discussion? All in favour say aye. Aye, pose. Motion carries unanimously. Members like to go to item 13a. 13a is approval of the resolution by the Ditton County Commissioners Court to establish a limitation on county property tax increases. On the resident home steps for persons who are disabled or 65 years of age or older as authorized by Section 1BH, Article 8 of the Texas Constitution and Texas Tax Code Section 1, 1, 2, 6, 1, and any appropriate action. So members, what I'd like to do is we will go over some information from John Martin, our bond advisor, and then Mr. May has some information he would like to share. And then we also have our tax assessor collector, Michelle French, who will be here as a resource to answer any questions members may have. And then we have our chief appraiser of the didn't central appraisal district. Mr. Rudy Durham is here as well. And then we will read the court order. We have edits to our resolution from last week. We will go over this resolution and then we'll take official action. So I would like to give an update. Members, I told you all that I will visit with Mr. John Martin and I did have a great visit with him and he assures me after reviewing our financials and our tax roles and our liabilities in the upcoming years that we should not realize a penalty or a downgrade in our bond grading agencies if we take this action today. So things are very thoughtful that we explore all and any ramifications by taking this action today. And so having that conversation with him last week put my mind or rest and so so I wanted to convey that to the members. So at this time I'd like to have Mr. May give any analysis of the presentation that he has here as well. Thank you, Judge. I provided to you two charts. One of them, you'll see the blue one. I'm going to talk about that one first. This is, last week I know you talked about the ferves and I took that effect out of it and I'll talk about that in a minute. But if you look at the blue chart, you'll see the impact with the assumptions up at the top of 8% growth for 50% eligibility eligibility tax base for $65 and over and dislabeled. And I'll send a tax rate of .215 for 100. Just I just printed that down. I'm not assuming that you're going to adopt that right. But just with those assumptions, you see what the impact is. And you know, the first year, it's not as large as the next year. And what happens is when you have a tax freeze, it depends on how fast we grow or anything. But if we grow rapidly, it'll grow faster. But the impact of the freeze will become greater and greater until we kind of peak out once these people start disposing of their property. But if I hang on to it, of course, the larger impact they will have. peak out once these people start disclosing other properties. If I hang on to it, of course, the larger impact they will have. And you can see the first year is kind of minimal, especially when you compare it to our total budget, but it increases over time. And I expect it to probably level out around 15, 20 years with that effect. Now, the second chart, the one with the different colors on it. I put, this has the impact of the deferral that was discussed last week. And I was looking at that, the, the, the for all I talked to, I had a good meeting with Michelle Frances today. And the impact from the deferrals is about around $24 million and it can change a little bit. But what that does is that only impacts the calculation of the effective tax rate. It does not impact what you're going to adopt. So in an effect, what I think is going to to happen and you see in the blue, these numbers are probably closer to what I expected effective tax rate to be and you see it would be a lot higher than even the tax rate we adopted last year. I think in reality what's going to happen is this is going to have to cost me to have to do an additional analysis when I provide the revenue estimates. And I have to determine about how much money we're actually going to collect that were eligible to the far that did not and put that back into the budget. And so in effect, I don't think it'll have any, I guess, dollar effect on our tax rate, but it will only impact the effective tax rate. And what I think is gonna happen is we'll probably end up adopting a rate, close to rate, maybe even below the effective tax rate because of this impact. So also when I was talking to Michelle, she wanted me to mention that if you approve this, make sure you approve it for FY20-19, because if you did for 2018, we'd have to go back and make three funds. So you write. Mr. May. Yes. Did you, you and I visited about this a few minutes ago, and I believe you told me that in Collin County, where you came from, if they had adopted a measure similar to this and it had virtually no impact on the They adopted this early 2000s and it was very fast growing so it really didn't have a we didn't feel the impact The system's kind of gradually impacted in the citizens, but they never did really feel it. And we never had any complaints or anything like that. It looked pretty smooth. Thank you. Is there any other questions for Mr. May? So I want to have a question. So our court resolution, do we need to have a specific language in here that says for fiscal effective fiscal year 2019? I believe that would probably be the best way to do it because what we want to do, obviously the court wants to have this effective immediately. And so to do that, it's got to be reported to the appraisal district prior to July 1st. And so that means we're still in fiscal year 2019. So I think that would probably be the best way to do it to make it absolutely clear so we can go ahead and take this adjustment this year. I will add language into the last resolution I will add for immediate effect on the residents of homestead of persons. I will add that language. OK, so Commissioner Marchion has a question. Yeah. Let me understand this. I was going to ask Mr. Durham as well. This exemption is put in place, but it's not an automatic exemption unless you ask for it. Is that correct or incorrect? That is correct. So in other words, those persons who already are receiving the over 65 or the disabled person exemption currently, then this ceiling will automatically affect them. They will see the benefit of this beginning next year. For those persons who do not already have an exemption in place, when they do become eligible, then they would apply for that exemption at which point the ceiling would apply to them as well. So it's not something where you... It's not an automatic thing. You do have to apply for it, but you don't have to reapply for something that you already have. And if you're already in the program, this would just automatically apply. Correct. If you're already receiving the over 65 or the first in exemption, then this ceiling will automatically affect them anyway, because they're already receiving that exemption. Okay. So let me ask you that the original resolution that came forward had a 2020, excuse me, January 1st, 2020 adoption rate, I mean date. So are we saying that we're going to backtrack and those people that have already received their tax notices for 2019? We're going to revise those. So what will happen with the assumption that you want to make this effective for this year basically what would happen is the notice of the ceiling being enacted would be submitted to the appraisal district before July 1st then the appraisal district is going to add that information to their system so that for the 2019 certified appraisal district is going to add that information to their system so that for the 2019 certified appraisal role it will be in place. We will then do the calculation, the effective rate calculation, and then that ceiling would be effective for those persons for the 2019 tax year, beginning with the 2019 tax year, that ceiling would then go into place. If you made the resolution to where it did not go into effect until next year, then it would be a full year before we could actually take that adjustment, and it would affect persons on their 2020 tax bill. How do you let the people know to file for that exemption? I guess they would know based upon. So I'm 66. I know, I don't look that up. But I'm 66. So I have not filed for 65 and above application exemption. I don't know what she can put you up. So if you have not filed yet, you should. I should. Because that is so automatically by filing, I receive this exemption. Right. Plus the other exemptions. Plus the other benefits of filing for the exemption that you need. Correct. So as long as it's your residence homestead, then you're eligible to file for the over 65, or. Correct. So as long as it's your residence homestead, then you're eligible to file for the over 65, or 65 or over, technically. For that exemption, and then the ceiling will take place. Do you have an application on you? I don't, but I can get you one. I'll be happy to send you the link for us. Any other questions for Michelle? We have our chief apprais link for us. All right. Any other questions from Michelle? All right. We have our chief of prazer, Mr. Rudy Durham. Thank you for being here, Mr. Durham. Do we have any questions for Mr. Durham? Thank you for being here this morning, sir. Mr. Durham, I just wanted to know, do you know of any other government entity school district, a hospital district, we don't have that really are any municipality that currently has this in process within Denton County. City of Louisville one for one does have it all the school districts have it. Okay. All across the state. That's the biggest one. Okay. Michelle, I believe, had the counties or the counties that had it locally. Did you get that? I'm sorry. The counties that have the over 65 or local counties. There are quite a few counties that do have the over 65. I don't have the list with me. I know the county of Dallas does. Montgomery County does. Colin County does. So there are, there's quite a few counties that do have the over 65 exemption that has, it's been in place either for a few years or for many years. Yeah. And in fact, I did some research on some of the counties. In fact, some of the counties I think I mentioned this before had a income call of fire for receiving this exemption even after 65 that they could not make a combined income of X amount of dollars and if they did and exceeded that, if they couldn't go for the exemption. I thought it was a Hayes County. You might, I'm not suggesting what we do that but it seems that counties have really, the ones that have done it have customized it in some areas. As far as I know, there's still provision in the property tax code to allow that. We're not an income tax agency. We're purely just a yes or no on the homestead. And the qualification would be that the property owner would live at the property and own it. That's it. That's it. And then meet the age requirements. Thank you. Have a question. You know, one of the reasons we're required that we're kind of having to do this, or, you know, and I've already talked to y'all, I want to have us after July, consider doing just a regular home study exemption that county doesn't currently have one of those. And, you know, Mr. Durham, is there anything in the legislature or anything that you as a chief of praise are fixing to do? Because in Denton County, you all do a pretty good job of praising residential property. But you all do a very, you don't do a very good job of praising commercial property. So as a result, there's a huge disparity regarding the portion of people who are paying taxes. You have the commercial who is getting away with not disclosing their sales prices, having the property not appropriately appraised. And then you have the residential homeowner that therefore carrying the great burden of taxes. We need to do a better job of evaluating our commercial properties. As a result public policy wise the legislature allows us to do homestead for your residential to make up the difference. That's why I want to do an additional residential homestead. Are you aware of anything in the legislature or what are efforts are you making to, you know, bridge the gap in that disparity? Can you just let us know? Let's go on the other way. Commercial properties are getting more benefits to not pay full value on their properties. There's different techniques they use. One is equity appeals, which is not based on market value. It's based on being in the midpoint of a range of properties. If you have the best building in the county, as put into an array of other buildings, then it's a race to the bottom, it's what it ends up being. As they come in and price those, how the appraisal district has those valued per square foot and they put in order, then the best property could be put in at the middle of that range and that's their new value, that have anything to do with market value. And that's where the biggest loss has been. Correct me if I'm wrong, but y'all are supposed to truly and accurately appraise all property whether it be residential and commercial and allow us then to assess attacks on the value. If you have the residential accurately appraised and the commercial inappropriately appraised, it basically falls onto those people who are less prepared to pay the taxes. As somebody owns commercial property and residential property. I mean, it's, to me, I like making money. That's an American way, making money is good. But we need to make sure that the tax burden falls equally upon everyone. And that's why I think we need to, we need to also, besides doing this 65 prees, we need to consider doing one for residential for county. Because that way we hit all parties who need relief. My other concern is, in this regard, Mr. Durham, is that the cap that's going to be with the legislature at 3.5%. That's not going to realize any relief to your tax bill, but this will. This will. And if we pass a general home set exemption, that also will result in tax relief. Unlike the acts that are being done at the legislature. Yeah. While I appreciate your comments, Mr. Durham. Absolutely. And I believe the didn't central appraisal district and all the appraisal districts across the state work very hard to get those values as best as they can. And they are audited. I think it's important to realize that they are audited. There are practices and there are appraisal practices and methodologies and actual appraisals are audited. But annually, in each different classification, property classification. So those are audited, but annually, in each different classification, property classification, so those are audited. And so, without the disclosure of the commercial property sales, there is a limitation that we need to acknowledge. It's throughout the state. It's throughout the state. It's throughout the state. And there are limitations on their abilities to get the commercial data. I got a request from them when we purchased the Sally building. I got a request from the appraisal district of voluntarily, as a commercial property, and to voluntarily disclose that, which we did. It was a public purchase anyway, but we've done it. But I filled that out and it details how much was real property, how much was fixed assets that were part of the building, how much was personal property that conveyed with the property and you put all that in there. So they do try to reach those values although the property owner, the commercial, or not required to disclose that. I can't say now that there is no disclosure of single family either. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, everybody to pay their fair share, not one more than you. And one statement for, I'm going to support this. And the reason why Mr. Durrmido, I'm having more questions than unless anybody else does. I'm just going to pontificate here just a little bit. I was very, very hopeful in this last legislative session, which is not over yet, that, indeed, they would bring some form of tax relief to the citizens of the state of Texas. I don't believe they have brought relief of taxation to the citizens. I believe they brought tax reform that has to do more with placing caps on the amount of revenue that you can collect as well as transparency of the process. But in reality, even I believe, and I can be misquoted here even Abbott himself said that this was a tax reform bill they were going for rather than a tax relief and so that lays in our lap to me it lays in the local governmental laps if there's any relief that's going to come to our citizens that we represent that relief has to come from us. So I believe this is a good start of us taking the responsibility that we swore enough to to our constituents to help them have a better life and have less taxes and less government intruding their life. And that's why I'm going to support. Members, let me go ahead and read this resolution. We didn't edit here, we'll vision and then we'll go ahead and take a new, we'll have further discussion. So we'll take a vote. Thank you. Mr. Durham. We'll read this. We will, and then we can take action and then have further comments for we vote. This is a resolution in support of tax limitation for seniors and people with disabilities. Whereas the county of didn't Texas offers an ad-villorn property tax exemption for seniors and people with disabilities as authorized by the Texas Tax Code 1-1.13D. The current exemption or people 65 or older is 55,000 and 15,000 for people with disabilities. And whereas state law authorizes counties to adopt a property tax limitation for seniors and people with disabilities pursuant to sections 1BH, Article 8 of the Texas Constitution and Texas Tax Code section 11.261. And whereas the Ditton County Commission's Court seeks to adopt a property tax limitation for seniors and peoples with disabilities that could offset the burden of property tax increases. And it is therefore resolved that Ditton County Commission's Court hereby establishes a limitation on county property tax increases on the resident homesteads of persons who are disabled or are 65 years of age or older effective fiscal year 2019. as authorized by Section 1BH Article A of the Texas Constitution and the Texas Tax Code 11261. Done an open court this 14th day of May 2019 upon a motion by myself. Seconded by Commissioner Ebbetson. Any discussion? Anyone want to? Any further discussion? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. I want to thank Mr. Durham for being here and thank you for working with us on this this last year. And Michelle French, thank you so much. John Felt, thank you for working on this resolution and revising this and Mr. May, thank you as well. So I have all the court members. If you don't have to say we're not as bad as Colin can. This is the revised. All right, very good. Thank you, Mr. May. We closed the carol building yesterday because the air conditioning was out and he was over there sweating it out trying to get all this stuff done and I said come over to our office so he came over to spend the afternoon at the court also on the swearing got this all done so thank you for all your efforts thank you for all that as well okay members very good let's go to work we leave off itemA, the purchasing, is approval to reach in court order 190335 dated May 7, 2019, and approval of corrected order for approval of the exemption from bidding and selection of guidepost as most qualified for consulting services on access control and video systems. For the Ditton County administrative complex phase four, emergency service building, including the design construction documents and construction administration, according to the provisions of section 262-024A4, the local government code and any appropriate action. For a motion by Commissioner Marchant. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Under budget 7a approval of budgetment request 1012504 facilities management to transfer funds from operating equipment to vehicle equipment in the amount of $3,968. I move for approval. Motion by Commissioner Poman. Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. My favorite say aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Item 7b is approval of budgetment request 101260 for records management and preservation to transfer funds from microfilm expense to computer equipment for $5,432 and operating supplies from $7,859. For a total transfer of $13,291. Chair, I move for approval. Second. Second by Commissioner Marchett. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 8A is a report from human resources regarding hiring actions of elected officials. Mr. Hernandez. George commissioners, good morning. We have four hiring actions. One lateral transfer from the county clerk. One new hired in the county clerk. One promotion, county jail, and one new hired in the county jail. That's it for this week. Okay. Thank you for that report. Under public works 10 a's approval of the minor plat for Buck Ridge edition block a lot 1 6.051 acres and any appropriate actions is located in Commissioner precinct 1. Motion by Commissioner Solomon, second by Commissioner Marchin. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. I imposed motion carries. E-Dams land under the sheriff. 12A is approval of the 2019 affiliation agreement. Between the North Central Texas College and the Ditton County Sheriff's Office for students in the criminal justice associate degree program to utilize the Ditton County Sheriff's Office as a practice laboratory for educational purposes in any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Edmonton, second by Commissioner Coleman, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 12b is approval of the video visitation contract between home wave LLC in the Ditton County Sheriff's Office. Motion by Commissioner Edmonton, second. We have a second by Commissioner Marchin, we have a second by Commissioner Marchin and we have a question by Commissioner Marchin. This is totally different than what we approved a couple of weeks ago. That was telephone, right? Yes, the telephone contract was approved couple weeks ago. This is for a video visitation that we bid out. The Sheriff's Council is the one that prepared this contract. So she might be able to answer any questions that you have about that. Not about the contract. It is a different service. It is a different service. Here's this not the vendor that visited and gave us some information a couple weeks ago. We questioned them at that time. Yes, yes, yes, man. This is the same vendor home way that was deemed most qualified. Okay, any other questions? We have a motion and a second. All of the favors say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Namely, we are going to pull item 14A. There will be no action on item 14A, item 14B. Is approval of payment from Affiliated FM Insurance Company to Ditton County and the net amount of $1,066,000. $66,146,80 to settle claim number 473580 arising from smoke damage that occurred on December 26, 2017 at the Ditton County Courthouse on the square located at 110 West Hickory Street, Ditton, Texas, Gustavo. There are pecans sculptures fully cleaned and ready to be redisplayed. Actually the pecans sculptures are on location, off site at the Texas Pecan Museum down in Lagrange. Oh wow. I remember that. I remember this was my favorite. I moved here in 98 and I saw those of my gums. Actually they're one of our biggest. We put those up over the years when they weren't on display and people come in looking for them. So they actually do, so it was kind of disappointing people. So we usually try to keep some on hand. Some on hand at all times. Well, I think we're not damaged or they've been fully restored. All right, Gustavo, did you have any comments about this? Judge, commissioners. Yeah, please two announce that we finally got the reimbursement check. He was a long, long, tedious process. He was a big claim, many, many items. I want to thank the personnel in the museum, Peggy, Guide them all the way through. Too many artifacts. I don't know, thousands of them. Equipment books, pictures, you name it. Clean in the building, the Nibromly and his team. They came here same day, next day, and we got the building clean. I'm purchasing the apartment with all the POs that we have to create to do this. And I want to thank Michelle Brewery, my office, because that was the first claim as the his manager that she took on. And she learned a lot on this one. So she put all the pieces together and it was great and I'm glad that this is always. Yes. I want to echo your sentiments Gustavo on behalf of the court. That happened over the holidays and I want to thank Danny and his team for being up here. And again, Peggy, riddle in her team, and obviously our Michelle and HR for just jumping in, realizing it was time sensitive and working appropriately to minimize the damage and work diligently to prepare the damage. So it was just want to thank them for all their efforts as well diligently to prepare the damage. So it was just want to thank them for all their efforts as well on behalf of the court. So any comments? I thought you were going to do the commission or Edminton? It's such a pleasure to move to get money in instead of taking money out. So I'd love to move second. Absolutely. All right, a motion by Commissioner Edminton second about Commissioner Mitchell, any further comments? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. Let me see here. We're going to go to item 21a is our legislative agenda. And we do not have a formal legislative agenda this morning. Ms. Jawski is in Austin as we speak. She is testifying in a hearing regarding the pace program, members of you recall that we spent many months as a court and staff time with our Texas Hester Collector in my office and Gil Bragg, our Texas collection attorney and John Felt and his team to really work out the best practices for the PACE program, which for energy efficiency, financing that we worked out and there's a bill and the legislature moving forward that Shannon's testifying against that would make that a monopoly and a state run agency and some of the best practices that we availed ourself of here at the county would not be made available to us. And so, Mr. She's down there testifying on behalf of the county and our interest down there. I wanted to be here for court today. So she's down there on behalf of the members. Do y'all have any reports that bills that you're tracking? I do believe House bill 289 made it out of the house and is moving forward. I believe that was of importance to the transparency bill as well on the board. It's already passed out of the Senate. It's over to the House. Yes, so. Great. That is Bill. Yes, Commissioner Robinson. I understand that the bill legalizing fireworks all the time is dead. So we don't have to. That's good. That's good. Yeah, no. I believe that the bill that had moving the appeals to the JP Court for the property. Did he make it out of committee so it's dead as well as the DMV. I don't know what he moved. I mean the driver's license move to DMV. I think it did make it out of committee so I believe this did. Those are two things that would have major impact financially and logistically on our account. Okay, very good. All right, members, let's go to executive session. We have two items for executive session. One is 15A. This is under the Texas Governor Code 5510711A consultation with attorney in the closed meeting with the governmental body, 60 advice of its attorney about pending litigation and calls number S1969J19 styled color customs collision versus didn't county purchasing department, which is currently pending in the justice court precinct one and any appropriate action. And item 15B is under Texas government code 551087 Deliveration regarding economic development negotiations, closed meeting to deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to a business prospect regarding commercial or financial information that the government, governmental body has received from a business prospect that the governmental body seeks to have locate, stay or expand in or near the territory of a governmental body located in Ditton County Commissioner precinct one, and with which the governmental body is conducting economic development negotiations and appropriate action. It is 10-07 and we will recess. We are... It is 10-43. We're reconvened from executive session Under 15 a we do have a court order. This is to assign the didn't county district attorneys office civil division to represent didn't county purchasing department in Civil action number S19 6 9 j1 styled Color customs collision versus didn't county purchasing department which is currently pending in the Justice Court precinct one didn't county Texas and any appropriate action. So we have a motion for approval. Motion by Commissioner Epitzons, second by Commissioner Marchant, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries an amiss if there will be no action on item 15b there will be no action under item 18 future meetings I'd like to notify our staff and members of the public that we will have no commissioners court meeting on May 28 July 2nd and September 3rd there will be no commissioners court meetings due to the adjacency of the national holidays so we wanted to let everyone know that. And there is no further business. We are adjourned. Thank you.