I'm you you you Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Denton County Commissioner's Court for Tuesday, December 9th is now in session. This morning we have some special guests with us. Our prayer is going to be given by Teresa Robby, am I saying that correctly? And our pledges will be led by Bradley Swan, will you please stand? Thank you. Dear Lord, we thank you for gathering us all here together today. I pray that you will bless our county commissioners for all the work that they do for our county. I pray that you will bless our county for hrs as well as they strive to be better leaders and I pray that you will help us all get home safely and bless everything that we do here today. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag Warren State and the God. I know we have some folks that just moved here from another state so that Texas Pledge might have been a little challenging for you but you'll learn. Well good morning everyone and Merry Christmas. Item one is for public input for items not listed on the agenda. If there's any member of the public that would like to address commissioners court, we ask that you please complete a public comment form. They're available on the side table. Want to remind everyone to please turn off your cell phones and pages. Before we go to our first item, I just wanted to make a comment about holiday lighting last Friday night. If you weren't there, you missed a very good time. And you need to be sure and pay attention and come to it next year. I've been with the county 21 years and I do believe that's the biggest crowd we've ever had. Of course, the wonderful weather was conducive to a great turnout. But it was fantastic. We had lots of great music. We had some small children doing, we moved the tables back. They were doing a play in this room. We just had all kinds of good things going on. Blue lac was selling tamales on the square. And if you ever get an opportunity to have one of those, you need to do it. You'll be glad. It's wonderful. But of course we had Santa and the light in the Christmas tree with a little girl that won the coloring contest. And we had a lot of wonderful music, different groups, and organizations. We had two stages set up. We didn't, my husband and I didn't leave here till after 930 and there were still thousands of people all around the square. I never had an opportunity to try any of the wasle of any of the stores because it couldn't get in. The streets were packed, the sidewalks were packed. It was, it was really a fantastic time. The very, very family-oriented, bringing children and grandchildren, everybody will have a great time, community band played, there was a lot of seeing the Christmas carols, it was just super. And I also wanted to take a moment to particularly recognize our facilities department. My gosh, did they work hard? The wonderful volunteers certainly that that helped put on the whole thing and a lot of planning goes in for months prior to the event but Danford and Tim in particular you know all these different groups on the lawn they needed electrical power you know to keep hot dogs hot or chilly hot or you know, Tommally's hot or whatever or they needed certainly electricity to be able to light up the Christmas tree and for the music to be heard and that's a tremendous job and bless our heart. They were still here at 10 o'clock at night taking everything apart you know putting everything up so that nobody got hurt, walking across the lawn and stuff like that. But they work so hard. I witnessed it all day long. And the whole thing just really came off great this year. And so I would highly recommend everybody put that under calendar and take part in it. Bring your grandchildren down a belt. They have a wonderful time. Of course Santa was there. They could sit on Santa's lap and get pictures and all that stuff. But Tim and Danford, if you're listening, thank you very much for all your hard work. We appreciate you. OK. Today we have special guests with us. So we're going to first go to agenda item 3a. This is a presentation and interpretation of the Texas AgriLife Extension Departments 2014 Annual Report and volunteer hours checked to the County Judging Commissioners. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Judge and commissioners, for having us here today and also for all your ongoing support of extension programs throughout the year. I wanted to also point out a little thanks to the 4HU and leaders for our lovely breakfast, which they do for us. It was great. And also I'd like to acknowledge all the extension volunteers who were here in the audience, raise your hand if you're hearing a volunteer, just any kind of extension volunteer. We've had some staff changes this past year. We gained a better living for Texans assistant, Natalie Robles, and you'll hear from her. We have three new administrative assistants in Horticulture. We have Tammy Gilder-Sleeve and Family Consumer Sciences. We have Tammy McDaniel and 4H. We have Colleen Carpenter. And thankfully, we still have Pamela Hill and agriculture, so we really appreciate these lays because they make us look good all the time. So Dr. Maggie Jover, our family consumer science agent has been out on FMLA since mid-October. But we expect to back at the first of the year, full force, so that'll be good. And our agriculture agent resigned in November and that job should be posted this week, hopefully. So we've compiled our highlights of educational impacts for the year in our Making a Difference Book that I put up on your desk. So we hope that you will be able to look at what we have been doing a little more in Depth and please contact us if you have any questions. So that's our office update and so now I want to tell you some about highlights from Horticulture. We continue to have tremendous volunteer support from the master naturalist and the master gardeners. I tally thus far for the year and everybody kind of waits the last minutes put in their hours, but so far, the issue is that master naturalists have reached 4,333 people and the master gardeners have reached 6,618 individuals in our community. And that's a total of 17,972 hours of service. So it's a big impact they have in our community. And that's a total of 17,972 hours of service. So it's a big impact they have in our community. The master naturalist continue to provide support in education and parks and organizations throughout Ditton County, such as Lewisville, ISD, outdoor learning area, the Lake Lewisville environmental learning area, Ray Robert State Park, Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center, Bob Jones Nature Center, Elmfork Education Center, Louisville Aquatic Ecosystems Research Facility, and the trophy club Nature Preserve. And the master naturalists are also about to start collaborating with the Ditton County Facilities Department on some educational outreach. So they're excited about that. Master gardeners big events this year included the plant selling garden tour in the spring with over 1,000 people attending. And this year's fall garden fest was finally held indoors and we had over 500 people attend that. We usually got rained out or something on that. So Master Gardeners have been helping with school tours at the Bayless Selby House and also reach school children this year through Coolshape for Third Grade and Children's Arbor Day. A new program for horticulture this year has been to target small landowners who are operating horticulture farms. We had a few classes this year to kick it off, but the most unique one was the tractor class that we did at the Shiloh Field Community Garden. We focused on farm equipment that can be rented locally, and we had tractors out there, and ATVs, and all the implements that you can pull behind, pull behind like Harro's, disc, and sprayers. And that was all demonstrated by staff from Home Depot and Zimmerer, Kubota. So that was kind of a fun, like, active class. Great. So there are any questions? Nope. Question? You got a busy time. That's great. Okay, with that, I'll turn it over to Aaron Gray, our 4-H and Youth Development Agent. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Janet. Before I start, I just want to have you all keep you in my thoughts or keep you in your thoughts as we move forward. A lot of you know I graduated from A&M and my girlfriend graduated from West Virginia and we're gonna face each other in a liberty bowl kept here in a couple weeks so If I don't show up at work for a while because things got ugly there when we were watching the game so This past year for 4H, I honestly felt like I was running in place. I felt like I was just trying to grow things and move things forward and didn't feel like I was getting anywhere and I'm starting to see some of that labor now. If you could just scan in this really quickly, we had 174 members last year in-H. That was through the whole year. We already have 143 this year and so we're always getting new members and we're getting calls and emails constantly about how do I get my child involved in 4-H. And then when that happens we try to get their families, you know, the parents as volunteers as well. And you can see we already have more volunteers right now than we did throughout the entire year last year. And that's going to be hugely important as we grow our program because then with our volunteers in place, we can offer more programs and have better programs to offer for our kids. Some of the things that we are going to do, we're going to have an ag day this May. A lot of people think like educating our children on agriculture is a nice settlement, but for our society and our, especially here in North Texas, it's going to be hugely important. The average farmer in this country is 56 years old. We need to interest children and get into agriculture because that is where our food comes from. When I present to kids, I ask them, who's involved in agriculture and usually not many hands come up and I say, well, who ate today? So we're all involved in agriculture. And we're also going to focus on nutrition and we're going to focus specifically on sports nutrition. The athletic director for Denton ISD, his daughter actually passed out during a soccer game last year because she was dehydrated. And someone that knowledgeable about sports and sports nutrition has issues like that, there's going to be, there's a widespread problem of kids not preparing properly for athletic events, whether it's just recreationally or if it's competitively on a varsity level. So we're offering our curriculum to schools right now, it's called Winning with Nutrition, and we cover everything from nutrition to hydration to performance enhancing drugs, to drugs now, alcohol as well, and how that affects their performance and can impact their opportunities as well. So with that, I'll take a small break right here and have our four H's present each of the commissioners with the points that I always love this part. And they each hand picked who they got the deliver to. So if they're coming up to you, that means they picked you specifically. So with that I'll just end with kind of our high point or some things that we're really pleased with that we were able to succeed. Four students were awarded $48,000 in scholarships through the participation for H last year. They each one of those students is now attending one at A&M, one at UT Dallas, one at Toulton, one at UNT. So each one of them received at least a $10,000 scholarship from their careers and their hard work in 4-H. From a fundraising aspect, we've added two additional fundraisers that we didn't have last year and that's added $2,800 additional for us to do our trainings and our programs. So with that, we're just going to keep moving forward. We're just going to offer as many training and opportunities as we can for these children. And also a recent study from Tufts University came out that young people that are involved in 4-H are four times as likely to give back to their community. And twice as likely to have a career in science. So we're trying to build relationships with our large school districts. I make the joke a lot of times. I have a better chance of talking to Jerry Jones than I do a superintendent. But what's been great about that is they're coming to us for our programs now through teachers and individuals. And so it's kind of a trickle up effect that we're having right now. Louisville ISD is about to approve our adjunct packet, which they have never done that before. We actually had a sit down meeting with them. So we're just trying to build partnerships and build bridges and just trying to grow our program to offer as many opportunities as we can for the young people in Denton County. So I'll go ahead. All right, so I'll go ahead. Thank you for making good inroads. It's been long, but we're working at it and it feels great to actually see some of that finally come into a head now. So I'll go ahead and introduce Tammy McDaniel. She has our Family Consumer Science Administrative Assistant. Thank you very much. Good morning, Tammy. My name is Tammy McDaniel and I've had the pleasure of working with Dr. Maggie Joverford last two and a half months. Maggie is out on FMLA, and I can do the briefs and offices of her very busy year, so if you'll bear with me, I will reiterate this to you. Dr. Jover was taught the Head Start Mother's, the importance of it in nutritious late into exercise regularly in order to maintain a healthy weight. The mother's participated in the step up of the CL Don class, and as a result of this, it was an average weight loss of 10 pounds per person and increased energy. She also worked with Head Start Fathers in a program called Fathers Read Every Day, Literacy Program, which encouraged the fathers to read daily to their children. The participants indicated an increase in the father child bond and rise in a number of those that spread every month. Under Dr. Jover, she taught childcare providers several training courses. The courses provide the necessary clock hours that are required to maintain licensure. Dr. Jover reached over 200 childcare providers during these services. A gerontology faculty from Nigeria met with Dr. Jover and learned about educational programs targeting older adults. Family caregivers attended a guardianship program, denisisted to the care of older family members who can no longer care for themselves. Dr. Jover also conducted an elder care conference and those in attendance learned about the new Medicare laws. She passed out information to nutritional information to TWU, heater belt, success partners, Fall Garden Festival, and the City of Denton Health Fairs. The diabetes education program continues to be an important goal in the family consumer sciences program. Dr. Jevers conducted eight hour do well be well with diabetes classes, and in order to assist Denton County residents manage their diabetes, the support group had been organized. A cooking well with diabetes kicked off a series of classes and protectors with type two diabetes, learned ways to control their blood glucose levels through healthier eating. At a dinner tonight cooking school, over 200 individuals learned ways to prepare healthy meals, and the keynote speaker was Chef Daron McGrady, who was the royal Chef to Princess Diana. Foster parents participated in a parenting program which provided skills in the foster children. The parenting education class conducted in collaboration with child protective services, was recognized as the State of Texas Extension Association of Family Conservancy Sciences as an outstanding program. Denton-Colonid Dallas counties were involved. Over 300 families were involved in the program. The collaborative program was recognized in the national level in September and at the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. Dr. Jover provided education classes for master gardeners, as well as teaming up with the City of Denton and teaching the correct methods for preserving the harvest. Our 4-8 youth were also involved in cooking classes as well as quilting classes. 4-8's nutrition and food project members participated in the passport to dining. The youngsters learned about food preparation in Italy and in France and prepared French and Italian foods. Dr. Jover participated in the state 4-8's round ofities at Texas A&M, judging the state fashion show and judging the public speaking contest at the state for of Texas. There was over 150 kids revolve over the great state and it was an educational event for all who had participated. And finally this year, Dr. Jover attended both the state and national meetings of the Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. When at this national meeting, Agent Jeyver West recognizes the Extension Educator of the Year of Protects. So, if you have any questions, that I could possibly answer in question. Yes ma'am. Have you ever communicated with Judge Bonnie Robison? She's a probate judge, but she also does guardianships. And I wonder if maybe you couldn't be helpful to the people that she appoints as guardians, they could probably make use of some training from your office. That would be an excellent idea. I will pass it on to Dr. Jebber, it's my idea for spring training. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. If you have any other questions, I'd like to Dr. Jover, it's on a day of spring training. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. If you have another question, I'd like to introduce the better living for Texans assistant, Nelly Robles, and she will give you information on her program. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning. Hello, good morning. I've been the better living for Texans assistant since January. During this period, I conducted several nutrition series throughout Dantun County, such as back to the basics, pre-easy bites, don't get bugged from full-borne illness and step up and scale down. The series were conducted and completed in the following cities. Dantun, Louisville, the colony, Little Ellen, Sanger and Justin. More than 50 families were assisted through the VLT program, showing improvement in their diets by the end of each series. From the back to the basic series, participants learned the importance of meal planning, eating healthy, saving money at the grocery store, physical activity and food safety. A total of 35 people completed the lessons results from this series for satisfying most of the individuals that adapted better behaviors when it came to planning meals ahead of time, grocery shopping and avoiding cross-contamination. From the three ECB by series participants learned the importance of eating breakfast, snacking right and portion control. A total of nine people completed this series, 90% of the participants reported that they included new foods in their diets and eliminated some foods that were high in sugar, fat and sodium to maintain a healthy way. From the don't get bug from full-borne illness, participants learned the importance of buying and storing food safely, and how to avoid fullburn illness when eating out. A total of five individuals graduated from this series. After the series, all participants were able to minimize contamination in their kitchens. Finally, two people completed the weight loss program step-up and scale down. This series consists of 12 weeks' lesson about meal planning, my play physical activity and constant motivation. Participants were able to lose an average of 10 pounds and improvements in their diets were made. Aside from educating, I've been participating in meetings and health fair Supermoda BILT program. Also, I've been attending monthly events such as the Denton Information Network, the Denton Hunger Coalition, and Healthy Communities Coalition to Support Each Others Program and Agency by Sharing Resources in Forming Partnership. Out of these meetings, we were able to cross-market each others program and advance using social media. And lastly, Spanish BLT newsletter goes out every month to provide the Hispanic population with their relevant information regarding health and business. Fitness. And my future plans for 2015 will be to focus on five different lesson series and having more than 100 individuals graduated from the BLT program. Any questions? Any questions or members? I believe not. Thank you. Now I will leave you with the president of the leadership advisory board, Tommy Calburn. Good morning. Good morning, Judge Horn and commissioners. It's honor and a privilege to be here with you this morning. I'm trying to fill in the boots of an absence of an agriculture of county agent for Denton County. I service chairman of the Denton County AgriLife Leadership Advisory Board and I am the fourth generation farmer in Rancher and Dent County. Brandon Bowden, the CEA Ag Natural Resources, collaborated with Aaron Gray, CEA 4-H and used development to create a livestock coalition. This coalition sponsored the livestock Jimbery designed for you to become educated on show animal care and animal selection and an introduction to the show world. The event was successful. Several small landowners events took place throughout the year starting with so you want to be a farmer. And included backyard chicken, feral hog, pond management and pasture management programs. Demonstration plots and field days were conducted along with the annual low cost horse vaccination clinic and a horse parasite and fly control class in the spring for e-climbed producers of which we have a lot of in Denton County. Tiffany Dow and Wayne Hyinga were presenters on Ag Law and estate planning. Show live stock were validated in the summer and in the fall for all major shows. A new Heifer Vowellization program was implemented this year. The Denton County Extension Office served as a beef check-off referendum polling site. A cattle producer seminar was conducted to educate the producers on dehorning procedures, vaccinations, and general animal health. An open land use special use permit evaluation use class was conducted with the Ditten Central appraisal district to go over qualifications to obtain an AgTax exemption and how to maintain an existing exemption on a property. Branded collaborated with the Samuel Noble Foundation from Ardmore, Oklahoma to host the annual Ditten County Hay Show and Clinic. We also will be collaborating with them to conduct the private applicator's re-certification program at the end of this year. The North Texas Catalyst Conference was held in Denton County for the first time this year and the keynote speaker was Dr. Jude Kapper from Montana. The program was a huge success with much needed information on sustainability in this economy. The program included four other counties, Colin, Cook, Grayson, and Denton, with efforts from other county agents combined on this effort. I also have today for wheat in Denton County. We had 3,244 acres of corn. We had 11,386 acres of grain sardom. We had 3889 acres of sweet sardom or hay grazer. We had 73,238 acres of grass native pasture. We had 29,155 acres of improved grass given the total combined acreage reported at 166,649 acres that are in crop production. And also have the report on the dollar increments for these commodities and for our livestock. A total for the Fed beef, milk cows and other beef, we have a total of, in 2013, a $30 million generated in our county. That's down a little bit from 2012, 2011 and 2010 and that is basically related to the drought situation that we've all experienced as farmers and ranchers since 2010. However, we're pulling out of that a little bit and we see a little bit of an increase there this last year, hopefully this year at the end of this year. A total all livestock was generated was $30,244,060. And that is down somewhat from the previous year of 2012, which was $56,338,000 due to this drought situation that we've all been under. Ag related, which includes fishing, hunting, recreation, timber. We had generated $54,660,000. We had a $1,660,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a $1,6060,000. We had a have 11,392,000 dollars that is up substantially from 2012 that 6,750 because of the moisture that we have been receiving on our crops. In hay we had 2,952,000 dollars generated in revenue revenue. In Oats we had $522,000, $4,9,685,000. So I've had a total feed crops of $15,807,84. Under our millings and our vegetables we had around $16,030. In nursery we had $6,900,000 in revenue, giving us total for all crops at $34,544.64 cents. As we can see agriculture is a huge part of our county economy still today even though we see the growth rate that we see in urban areas. And now for my report for the Leadership Advisory Board, Chairman, from our 4-H youth and leaders, Master Gardener, Master Naturalists, Beef Crops and Forage Committee, Forest Committee, Leadership Advisory Committee, Master Wellness, Master Money Volunteers. Total hours thus far for 2014 are 27,180 hours of volunteer service. The independent sector estimates the value of a volunteer in Texas as $23.40 an hour. The total value of volunteer service to Denton County from Extension volunteers is $636,000 in 126. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. What an important component to the economic viability of a county. Janet. We have a special announcement by Aaron. by Aaron? I want to recognize Bradley Swanner. Bradley, you can stand up so we can stare at you for a little bit. Bradley, he was our state record book winner for his project area in 4H this past year and recently just got back from Washington, DC as he got to in D.C. for that award he received in Texas. He's wanted to make sure that we pointed out Bradley since he was here today. And we have a number of young people here that have been doing great things. We have a state shooting champion sitting over here. We have some young people over here. This one's a shooting champion. Stand up Eric, that's him. He's our state's pistol shooting champion in that area. shootings champion. Stand up Eric, that's him. Peace. He's our state's pistol shooting champion. Awesome. In that area. And we also have Theresa and Claire, they've been doing. I was actually able to go to Austin with both of these young people. They participated in our club Congress. They both operated as members of the House representatives in that mock session that we had. And we also have these other, there's Christian. Christian does everything. Christian is one of our new four H's. He's been excelling and a lot of things so far. He district winner in your record book. Yep, that's. He probably has just for being who'd be a senior this year for the first time. So a lot of his, his competition's going to have a lot larger impact on his career so far. And then we have the two younger members we have here, Aspen and Little Brother. Doing a lot with our foods and nutrition projects as well. And I believe they went to districts and competed in our food challenge and cooking as well. And I believe they went to districts, and competed in our food challenge and cooking as well. So we have a lot of variability in some of their project areas. Bradley does livestock as well. So anything we can possibly think of, we have going on right now. All in Christian and I later today will be at Lake Dallas Elementary School. They will be conducting a robotics tournament for their after school for a robotics program that they have going right now. So him and I will be doing that later and we're doing a record book training later tonight as well. So in fact, I thank you guys. I know a lot of us agents, you know, we're considered the odd balls in our county building because we smell weird a lot of times. We don't always wear ties to work and a lot of times we're working past five o'clock and on the weekends. So it's just good that these young people can experience the benefits of all of that that's taking place. So. Congratulations. We're very proud of you. That's awesome. We really appreciate Tommy for filling in for our Aghage of today and also for Tammy for stepping up and doing the SCS report for us. And we want to thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. If there's anything we can do to help you or help better serve the citizens of Denton County, please let us know. Thank you so much. We appreciate everybody being here today. Thank you so much for the lovely breakfast this morning. We're gonna take a couple minute break for some picture taking. Why don't you come around here with your camera and kids, I want you all right up here, front and center, members, let's go down and... Thank you. Mr. Court, for reconvened, we'll go to item 2 on the agenda, which is the consent agenda. Members, I need to pull item 2b as we do not have any introid department transfers today. But other than that, do we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Eads. seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. No. Motion does carry. Consent agenda today consists of two a, which is approval of the order making appointments. We have new hire in the district clerk's office, a new hire in the district attorney's office, a new hire, I'm sorry, a demotion in the tax office, a promotion in the tax office. Five new hires in the county jail, a promotion in the county jail, a rehire in the Sheriff's Department Communications, a new hire in Rodenbridge East, and a rehire in Public Health Plenical. 2C is approval of specifications and authority to advertise for bid number 1114-74 HVAC full service maintenance agreement juvenile facility. 2D is approval of specifications and authority to advertise this is RFP10142272 testing and balancing for the Louisville Government Center in Firearms Range, 2E is approval of renewal for temporary personnel services, RSP08132212, with ALBA staffing and consulting as primary agency, and on track staffing as the secondary agency. 2F is approval of renewal of workers' compensation insurance of Texas Association of Counties. 5A is approval of the bill report payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, TAP, Shares, Change Shares, Proporture, VIT, Interest, DA, Check V, NDA, Proporture Funds are presented for recording purposes only and we also have the auditors monthly financial report for the month of September, which is presented for recording purposes. Good morning, James Wells. Or is it Santa? Santa Wells? Santa Wells, okay. I'll ask approval of the bill to present with the two editions of the Intellectual page. I'll see the question. Thank you. Are there any questions or do we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sainine? Motion is carried. Seven a is approval of Budget Amendment quest 100370 for computer equipment and computer software, including the transfer of funds from justice and peace technology fund and appropriated contingency in the amount of $2,333. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. Hearing no questions, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Cine. Motion does carry. Seven V is approval of Budget Amendment Quest 100380. For loss of settlements, including the transfer of funds from non-departmental and appropriated lawsuit settlement contingency in the amount of $15,000. Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, Sen. Motion does carry. A day is approved of the replacification of the assistant records manager position and technology services to a pay grade 14. Are there questions on this item? Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Eid seconded by Commissioner Marchand. Hearing no questions on, I'm sorry, did you have a question? I didn't see any information on that. I was a little bit, a minute statement. I can't hear you. It's an increase of roughly $9,000 to the budget. I didn't see that. The budget is in the statement. And why are we doing it? Commissioner, I believe on page 120. There's an explanation on 122. Page 1, 20. There's an explanation on 122. There's a budget impact statement. That's not the budget impact. 125. The explanation was on page 122 and just to refresh your memory because it's been months. I believe Kevin made a presentation to Commissioner's Court. This was part of his appeal in the budget process. And one of the concerns at the time was that there was an employee in the position that was going to be retiring and this would be effective later. And so we agreed to look at this later to the more appropriate time of that transition. Those of $9,000. That's the pro-rated amount for the remainder of this fiscal year. The impact in next year is 10,000, 336. Any position that was already there, right? Yes. It actually, I'm sorry. It is a position that was there, but it's reclassification that's pretty dramatic. It's a position that was a grade 10, and it's going to be a grade 14. It's essentially been completely rewritten and updated with new requirements and new responsibilities to reflect the issues to be able to reflect management of the electronic records issues that we have county-wide as technology has changed. records issues that we have county-wide as technology has changed? We made sure that we had sufficient funds in contingency since it was a part of our budget discussion and we knew it would be coming back once that position was vacated and I believe there will be a second one at a later date to be considered as well. Okay, thank you. All right, we have a motion in a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, Cine? Aye. Motion carries four in favor, one opposed. 12A is approval of the Denton Police Department training center, member, and of understanding between Denton County on behalf of the Dent Dan County Council for a person to in the City of Dan Police Department. We have a motion by Commissioner Marchin. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Coleman, other questions? Hearing none, no in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed, aye. Motion does carry 12V as approval to accept the donation from AGL con structures for the use of a building for law enforcement training purposes prior to a building's destruction to approve the right away access authorization and notice waiver and release claims as provided. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Eans. Hearing no questions on favor, please say aye. Aye opposed in senene. Motion does carry. I want to jump to 14 C. So that the folks that are here from the tax office don't have to wait any longer and unless they want to of course. 14 C is approval of the interlookout agreement between Debt and County Texas and the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles for a Sky Floss Services. Sure it's going to move for approval. The second. And the second by Commissioner Coleman are there any questions? Any none all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sinead? Motion does carry. Yes, sir. Did NTTA sign in your agreement with Scott Fall yet? I don't believe so. We're not yet. We're working on it. We're close. Sure. I don't know where we're not yet. We're working on it. We're close In fact, I spoke to them about that just last Friday so yeah, it's getting very close. It's not quite done yet There's some tweaking of the contract that Michelle wanted to do and and I think we're almost there Okay We're gonna go back to 13 a on the agenda, which is a presentation regarding revenue caps and appraisal caps and opposition to lowering the caps during the 84th legislative session. Members got a little PowerPoint to do here today and Kate's going to run that for me while I talk, I guess. This is an issue that has come up several times before. It's coming up, boy, four or four this time. Yeah, it really is, and it concerns me greatly. There's already bills that have been filed concerning the Prasal Caps and Revenue Caps. There's already a bill that lowers the rollback rate from 8% to 4%. And in that legislation that lowers the rollback rate from 8% to 4% if a jurisdiction, any jurisdiction, the City County or school, the special district whoever it is, if they go over the rollback rate, the citizens prior to this legislation being passed had to petition for a rollback election. In this legislation, if a jurisdiction goes over 4% is an automatic election. Now, elections are very expensive. One issue ballot in Dallas County is over $1 million. For a very small jurisdiction, you know, if it's like an oak point or an argyle, they would have to establish whatever rate it would take to support what they wanted to do and make that rate even higher in order to pay for the election that is required by law. There's so many things wrong with us. Anyway, let's go to the next page if you would. I have sent this letter to our legislators before, and I want to send it again. My only question to the members of this body is, do you want it to be for me or do you want it to be for everybody? But one way or another, I'm going to send it. If you'll bear with me a little bit, I'd like to go over this. Good morning. Yes sir. I have some questions, but I'll ask you afterwards. Sure, that's fine. Obviously, this is addressed to Representative Mayer-Crowver, but it will go to each of them individually to the Denton County reps and senators. The subject of revenue caps and appraisal caps will be coming up again this next legislative session. Those that support this idea are as confidently proposed. The idea is saying that with adjustments for growth and inflation, this should be plenty of funds to run the county unless a higher amount is approved by the voters. There are four reasons this is a flawed formula. Know this is the measure of inflation correctly captures the growth in the cost of the kinds of services, kind of governments provide, kind of government does not and cannot control the demand for services. Counties cannot adapt to state and federal mandates without flexibility to generate revenue. And appraisal caps raise taxes on the poor. Remember that line, let's go the next one. Okay, attachment one shows the percentage growth in cost versus inflation in population in Denton County between 2000 and 2013. And there's a clear representation of why revenue caps would be devastating to county government in about 2003. And I can't remember if it was 03 or 5, I think it was 03. The city of Houston after probably imposing revenue caps on themselves was faced with an immediate reduction in their bond rating by standard and porous and moody. Estate law imposing revenue caps would cause a devastating reduction in bond rating on every jurisdiction in the state of Texas. And as we all know, we've done an awful lot of refinancing here lately and we've gotten really good rates because of our AAA bond rating. I don't want to lose that Tribal Aid Bond rating. Attachment two demonstrates the possible effect of a 3% cap on appraisal residential homesteads and demonstration. Home is owned by the same people for 10 years and home B is sold every other year and we'll get back to that. Attachment three demonstrates how appraisal caps for a higher tax rate and raised taxes on the poor. The Crazel caps and remnant caps adapt a one size fits all solution for all jurisdiction and does not work. County budgets should mirror the needs of the community and the county officials are best positioned to understand the community needs and should be given the flexibility to address those needs through the process already established in state law. This flexibility and choice of the voters through bond elections is the heart of the idea of in your notice, bold print, local control, which is an essential element of governing in Texas. Should you wish to communicate further on this or any other subject, please email, write, or call my office, thank you for your time. And let's go to the first Donna. Thank you very much. Oh, you know what, our dates are wrong. This is 2005 through 2014 and our dates in the letter for the years are wrong. We need to correct that. But it shows the percentage increase in population and the percentage increase in inflation. And then look at all the things that we, as accounting county are faced with that you know like fuel costs the 77.75% increase in fuel costs over that same percent time. Inflation and population is not going to help us much there or an adjustment for that. It's enough a lot to absorb there and I won't dwell on that, but it's in your backup material if you want to look at it closer. Let's go to the next page. OK, this demonstrates the possible effect of a 3% cap on a praise of a residential homestead in 10 years. Take two identical homes, both that value that $150,000 in year one. For 10 years, home B sales every other year and is correctly placed on the tax roll at market value however and years that it does not sell it is limited to the 3% and you can see at the end of 10 years the difference in the taxable value is $52,346. Obviously this is a hypothetical but it demonstrates what I'm trying to explain in the next page. Applying the Dentonized Detached Rate, the City of Denton Tax Rate, the Denton County Tax Rate, the owner of Home B would be billed $1,309.67. The more taxes than the owner of home A on an identical home. The owner of home B would protest the tax of a value of his home with a legitimate complaint that his home is identical to his neighbor in the owner of home A and his tax of a value should be the same. There would be an outcry to fire everyone at their prison district for being so foolish and what they'd actually be doing is following the law. The PRAZO CAHPS would also be devastating to the Texas real estate market. Nobody's going to want to sell their home if they can stay capped at 3%. Okay. The PRAZO CAHPS of course higher tax rates and raised taxes on the poor. The calculation of the effective tax rate, and we hear this every year from Donna when we go through budget. The calculation of the effective tax rate is required by state law of every taxing jurisdiction. It is a benchmark. The definition of calculated effective rate is the rate of which will raise the same amount of money that the jurisdiction had last year based on property that was taxable in both years. So it's a benchmark. This is before any taxing jurisdiction applies their budget at all. Every jurisdiction, Michelle, in this case, our tax successor calculates for all these jurisdictions. And she has to calculate the effective tax rate for every jurisdiction. The actual tax rate calculation is not difficult to scattering all the information that goes into it kind of like doing your income taxes. So an oversimplification of why appraisal tax rates taxes on the poor. Hypothetical City of Metropolis has two types of taxable homestays. They have 100 homes valued at $5 million, and they have 100 homes valued at $100,000. The taxable value of all property in the city of Metropolis in year 1, you multiply it out. 100 times 5 million and 100 times 100,000. So the taxable value in that jurisdiction in year 1 is $510 million. All right? Go to the next slide. The 10% cap under current law, in year two, the tax of a value of the $105 million homes would increase to $550 million. However, the $100,000 homes in a more economically depressed area have difficulty holding values. So for demonstration purposes, we'll continue to retain the $100,000 value. Taxable value of the $5 million homes in year two, based on a 10% cap, is $550 million. Taxable value of $100,000 homes in year two is still $10 million resulting in a total taxable value of the thriving city of Metropolis in year two of $560 million. Okay, let's go to the next slide. Should the appraisal cap be lowered to 3%, the total taxable value of the $5 million homes would only increase to $515 million. The total taxable value of $100,000 homes would remain at $10,000. So the total taxable value of Metropolis in year two based on a 3% cap is 525 million. The 3% cap removed $35 million from the taxable value of the City of Metropolis forcing a higher tax rate. The rate's gonna come out higher because of that value was removed from the role. That's not the city county school or special district reason the taxes. That's the cap that raised the taxes. Okay, next. I think that's it. That is it. Okay, so my question to you after I addressed Commissioner Coleman's question here, and I do plan on sending. I will tell you that I have sat down and visited with all of our legislators on this issue. I was certainly before around Simmons and Pat Fallon even took office the first time, but convinced that this is going to be a very uphill battle this time. Our new Lieutenant Governor is a bed set on the Paraisal Caps for Irvington Caps. We have new senators in the Texas Senate, one being Paul Benton Court who believe it or not is a former Texas senator and should certainly understand this but his mind is made up and so bills have already been filed and the battle begins. If there's good news to be had, the good news is there's only I figured it out. There's 175 days until the end of the legislative session. Not that I'm counting. Okay, Commissioner Coleman, go ahead. I was going to, I really like the letter. I'll support it. I like the analysis. I like your example. The only thing I would like for you to give possible to include is, you know, as a lawyer in my practice, I've seen a lot of commercial sales. And to me, I think a better example would be, I mean, everybody generally owns a home or rents a home, but we don't understand the fact that a lot of commercial entities when you see their sale or their real estate sale are very undervalued. And that's an even, I think, more extreme example that we have a lot of businesses that are not paying their share. And when they don't pay the full appraised value or if the appraisal is way low, that just pushes it off even further. Well, and there's legislation filed should not only cat homesteads, but to cat commercial value too. I mean, you can't keep tweaking the system and expect it to work. It's a balancing act. And you can't keep, just like you can't keep grinding the exemptions. If you grind the exemption for this, somebody else is going to pay. That's the way it is. Now if you want to throw the whole system out and start over again we can have that discussion. But I do not understand how these people think they can keep tweaking the system and it's not going to have an opposite effect someplace else. I'll tell you I mean even when we talk about when we get our tax values you have to list all the properties that are under protest. Ask majority of those are commercial properties. Which gets to be more and more challenging every year too, because the President District by law is required to have 95% of the tax role certified by July 20th. That's date specific in the law. And with the huge commercial values, it gets challenging to get 95% of the role sort of. They think they're going to lower taxes for everybody. Well, I haven't talked to some of those fellows. I think a lot of them say in Texas you can only, you never truly own something. You only rent it because you're always continually obligated to do property taxes. And we're going to pay one way or another. We're either going to have no property taxes in the high sales tax or something else that somebody would like to propose. My other question to you was I haven't seen it, but for you aware of any, I know during the last election some of our senators, I think even a new one from Dallas, they proposed a higher sales tax and then where they apportioned out of the sales tax. The legislature tells us how much we can spend. Are you aware of that being proposed? Yeah. And I don't know who's carrying it, but it doesn't surprise me. business of pricing. To me, I think a more appropriate example might be a piece of commercial property, particularly in light of a lot of the right away that we bet on 35 and on 377 when like, white horse communications and some of those buildings, you know, at tech.paid, then versus what they were appraised at by the appraisal district and stuff like that. I think those would be good examples because it shows that you know we are all pro business everybody here on this in the court we're all pro business but we need to make sure that everybody pays their portion and share and whether it's it shouldn't be completely born by the home owner but it also shouldn't be completely born by the business owner that there has to be an equal share for everyone and one party party should not be paying more than the other. We all... It's very distressing that all these people campaigned, because I heard it on local control, and then they turn around and do something like this, that's not logical. I reminded a couple of our state reps about that the other day, so... I'm sorry, you would? I state wraps about that the other day, so I Reminded them about that the other day, so to me, I've just mildly Suggestion would be applying some sort of commercial example because I think that might be You can show how the homeowner pays something and then what happens with the commercial business in the property down To me, it's just maybe a part of the in the system, because commercial entities are much more likely to blame myself to hire a lawyer to dispute the commercial value as opposed to a homeowner. I mean, it's a, I would say it's problematic to take a full time out of your day to run down to the appraisal district and dispute it. I mean, that can be, I mean, they've made, and they've done a lot better process of disputing your home, but it's much easier, it's the commercial business to hire somebody to go do it for you. And as a result, I think we have a lot higher commercial that properties that are in dispute. Those are my two concerns. Businesses now have to render the value of their business to the present district. They didn't used to have to do that. And that's helping that situation. Right. Years ago when the county, I made the agreement with a mayor source, Fergan, the agreement to give them, gosh, what was 75% abatement for 20 years when I first heard that, I nearly fell out of the chair. But that agreement was done by this body. Like, yeah it was. Yeah it was. Well I wasn't here yet. I was still there. Yeah. Oh wait, were you too? Oh wait, were you too? But anyway, the agreement was done with a Neurosource firm, but back then it was not law that a company had to render the value of their company to their president district or suffer a penalty. Now it's law. So when I joined Commissioner Court the contract was coming up for approval by this body and I met with this Mayor Souris Bergen. Now you have to understand this is a Canadian company. They were not real familiar with Texas property tax law and I said okay the county agreed to do this so I'm not going to renege on that. But I want to see something in the contract. I want a Mayor's Source Vergon to render to the appraiser district. The date specific is already in the tax code by Certified Mail, the value of the business, the land, and their inventory annually or you don't get your abatement. When they first heard that, they panic, but when I explained to them, you are still granted the same opportunity as every other citizen of the state of Texas to protest your value. So if a Merisaurus Burgundy or any other company says my value is here, and the pray of the district says, no, no, your value is here, what they rendered, what they already said is our value. That's what went on the certified role. The amount that was in dispute is the amount that they could go to the ARB with or go to district court or whatever. But they were such a huge value to our tax role into Northwest ISD and others that it was important to get the bulk of that value on the certified role. And once they understood, they still had the same rights as every other citizen. They could still protest their value and discuss the amount that was in dispute with the bulk of the value went on the role that prevented somebody from tying it up in district court for a long time and praise the district not being able to certify their values and every taxing jurisdiction being affected by it. So that worked out well, but I think it was like the next legislative session that they passed the law about every business in Texas has to render to the appraisal district their value. And that solves a lot of the commercial value problems. I'm not totally understand, but it did go a long way to helping. Anyway, so my question to you all is do you want to have this letter sent to all of our legislators with a copy of the court order and the letter from everybody or just for me? I'll put it. The government can, this is my identity. Right? The government here, and the government will be trying to make it a little more than that. I know Conference of Urban Counties is very concerned about it, Texas Association. The Counties is very concerned about it. The city's, I'm not trying to think of, TML is very concerned about it. Everybody is that about it. Everybody is that understands it. So, okay. Well, I thank you for your time. But there's a lot of these appraisal caps are means bear it because if you do the finances, they are incredibly regressive to the law's thing. They are. You know, just like everything else, if you don't have a catch everything else if you don't have a catchphrase, if you don't have a bumper sticker, it's not, it takes too long to explain this to somebody that doesn't understand Texas property tax law and it's kind of cumbersome to explain. So that's why I came up with appraisal catchphrase taxes on the poor. Just keep the hammering that every time you get the opportunity. So I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time and awesome this next legislative session. All right, well I appreciate your time and we'll get the letter put together for signature by the entire court. Okay, we don't know. This is just, yes, just presentation. I don't believe we really need a vote on that. Hopefully we'll be successful, but I know it's going to be a long fight. Okay, moving on to 13B. This is a proof of interlocal cooperation agreements for public safety application support and maintenance with Argo, Fire Department Argo, Police Department, Cornth Police Department, Double Oak Police Department, Double Oak Volunteer, Fire Department, Hickory Creek Police Department, Justin Community Volunteer, Fire Department, Incorporated, Chrome Fire Department, Chrome Police Department, Lake City Fire Department, Incorporated, Promfire Department, Promplace Department, Lake City, Department, Little Lown Police Department, Oak Point Department of Public Safety, Fire and Police, Ponder, Volunteer, Fire Department, Incorporated, Sanger Police Department, Trophy Club, Fire Department, and Trophy Club Police Department. Chair is going to move for approval, seconded by Commissioner Eads, are there questions? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. Aye. Motion does carry. 14 A is approval of reelected and elected judges, elected justices of the piece precinct, one precinct, two precinct, three precinct, four precinct, five and precinct, six bonds in the amount of $5,000 each with a premium of $178 each. Funding for the bond premium, shall come from Auditor line item 0155104040 General Funds, County official bonds. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Eads. All in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed to name. Motion carries. 14 views approval of ratification of the corrected real estate contract between John L. Davison, Carolyn Lee Davis and then kind of Texas or purchase of a point to 440 track. Afer track of land situated in the Patrick Rock survey abstract number 10 for 63, then kind of Texas. Motion by Commissioner Eads. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the aye. Motion does carry. 14D is approval of renewal of number two to the ATM placement agreement between that and county in point bank. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion does carry. We're going to pull 14 E. We have no action on that today. 14 F is approval of the 2014 in a local cooperation agreements for a property tax collection between them kind of Texas and the town of Ponder is recommended by the tax successor criteria. Motion by Commissioner Eads. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed to the need. Motion does carry 14 G as approval of the 2014 or local cooperation agreements for assessment collection between Denton County, Texas and the Town of Trophic Club. Public improvement district number one and the Town of Trophic Club, PID number one emergency for the assessment and collection of assessments is recommended by the tax successor collector. Motion by Commissioner Eads. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the need. Motion carries. We're going to do the executive session and then we'll come back for the workshop, Amy. We're going to do executive session and we'll come back for the workshop Amy. Item 15 is executive session 15A is under Texas Government Code 551.087. Dilbaration regarding economic development and negotiations close meeting to deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to a business prospect regarding commercial financial information that the governmental body has received from a business prospect, the governmental body seeks to have locates stay or expand in or near the territory of the governmental body located in Denver County Commissioner of Prison 4, and with which the governmental body is conducting economic negotiations. 15B is under the same section of the code and it reads identical I believe. So with that we are in executive session. Commissioners Court is reconvened from executive session under items 15 A and B there will be no formal action today. Before we go into our workshop item 21a, I'd like to go to 17, which is under future meetings, and ask Amy, next, let's see, we do meet next week, yes we do. To put back on the agenda to repost the item about inclement weather. I guess I had too much on my mind when this came through court the other day and I'm concerned with our policy change. You know, we call on people in facilities and road bridge to come out when the weather really, really, really gets bad. And under our revised policy, there's no incentive for them to do that. I don't think that's right. So I want us as a court to discuss that last policy change and what I'm going to recommend is that we go back to the way it was and we can discuss next week. I agree. Other items too. Oh, I'm holding up on that. Why would we put it down the agenda so we can discuss it? Okay, put it on the agenda, let's discuss it. That's my point. Okay. Now, item 21A was a workshop ADA compliance statement is posted and we'll call on Amy Phillips. We started the discussion last month about workforce strategies. And I wanted to just recap. I know Miss Sheri's was unable to be here that day. We talked, we saw a quick video about societal change and how rapidly that's happening today and how that's reflected in our workforce, that our workforce is more ethnically diverse than it used to be, that it's a lot younger than we even thought it was. And that our employees in those younger categories are more likely to leave for better opportunities. are more likely to lead for better opportunities. We may have policies and processes designed for our former workplace. We will be losing the competitive advantage that we have had in the benefits arena within the next few years. I think that's a given. We're unsure about how to engage our new workforce and as a result we wanted to continue this discussion. There were a lot of questions asked at the last meeting and I've tried to answer them on page two. There was a question asked about the changes that we made a couple of years ago to civil service. And it turns out that, well, we know that in the sheriff's office, all employees except for 10 are covered by civil service. Now, prior to that, every eight to 12 years, we get a new sheriff. And a lot of times they didn't reappoint large numbers of their employees. We know that going forward in the future, if and when we get a new sheriff, the sheriff will be reappointing everybody except maybe up to 10. We added coverage to our other civil service system of about 55 employees, but most of those work for department heads. So they weren't really being caught up in a lot of the political changes. There are only about 20 that we added to civil service who work for elected officials. And a lot of them are not the ones that we're having a lot of turnover with. One of the departments we talked about last time we talked about this was the tax office. And most of their turnover that they're seeing is in the lowest level of employee. And they have always been covered by civil service. Prior to, back in 2009 prior to civil service, we were averaging around 10.4, 10.8 years of service. Our average longevity now is about 7.8. So it seems to have gone down quite a bit. Our average longevity despite changes in civil service. Our turnover, you can see we have about 17% going to retirement. That's quite high. 19% in terminations. But 64% voluntarily resigning. The reasons given for leaving have been higher pay at 30 percent, 24 percent, going to other jobs for a variety of reasons. They didn't indicate higher pay. And then 30 percent of our employees have left for what they call personal reasons down. You know, we don't know what that means. There's, you know, some trainings will say, oh, they always say that when they hate their boss, but I believe there's a lot of different reasons that people don't want to share the details of why they're going to a new job. We did talk about that we're not really sure how many of our employees are engaged. The benchmark survey that I saw most recently said 47% of public sector employees are engaged. That is very concerning. And we talked about the possibility of doing an engagement survey. We didn't talk at length about what engagement means and what employee engagement means. So I put a definition that I borrowed on page three, the heightened emotional and intellectual connection that inspires your employees to make discretionary effort at work. On page four, there's kind of a graphic that shows you what that's worth. The difference between what people have to do and what people want to do or willing to do because they're motivated and engaged. Are these public entities surveyed or is it just generally? It's at the non-public entity. Public entity. Yes, this survey that was already done was conducted by the International Public Management Association for HR. And at the end of your handout, I believe I included or in your handout, I believe I included on page 9. A list of these cities and states that and counties that participated in that, you can see it as nationwide. Obviously if employees are more satisfied, they're more willing to stay. They're more likely to stay. They're more likely to recommend their employer as a good place to work, which saves a lot in recruiting. And they're less likely to leave their jobs, which saves in retention and recruiting costs as well. There are some numbers in here to kind of quantify that and show you some results. These are actually made up results just to kind of give you an idea of what a report would look like. their research objectives to show you the kinds of things that they would be looking for in the survey and the kind of information we would get back on the next two pages. There's a lot of information in here because I know that some of you will want to read it all and some of you would rather just have a brief overview. So I thought I'd provide a brief overview and give you some of the backup. The last time we talked about this, I said that I believed I could get it for $2,000 and I attached some email discussion that I had a couple of months ago with the organization. Today, I just happened to get this morning some marketing from that organization asking public entities if they wanted to have this survey done for themselves. One of the advantages besides the low cost to having this done is that there's a current benchmark to compare to. That's recent the 2014 survey. The cost for members that they quoted in their information was $3,500. So I asked them this morning, were they willing to the cost gone up? Or would they be able to honor the cost that they told me before an email? And they told me they would certainly honor what they had already told me in email. So we would be getting this survey a lot cheaper than other association member entities. And certainly much, much cheaper than non-members. Non-members would have to pay 5,000. So I don't know. I talked to Donna a little bit about possible funds because I had not included any funds in my budget. I didn't even know about this portion until September, October. And she recommended that there would be sufficient funds in personnel contingency. We usually only use that for people who are higher than the budgeted amount or sometimes, I don't know if we've ever transferred that to contract labor, but lastly we don't need to use it. We typically hold off until the end of the fiscal year to see how turnover develops within a department and only a man for those departments that are going to go totally over budget bottom line for their personal benefits. So you'll you see those amendments come through at the very end of the year and they're usually very small. We have $75,000 in that line item. So I feel confident that there would be $2,000 that could be used for this if the court so chooses. Good use of those funds. Members, what do you think? I think it's, I thought we could. Go ahead. I thought we had already given direction of spending that money, but I may be wrong. The last time we talked I didn't had an identified funds or anything for it, but I wanted to make sure give you a little more information of what we're looking at and make sure that everybody was comfortable. 2000 is what she was quoted and they will honor what they said initially if she didn't have that initial quote it would be 3,000 3,500 I think engagement as you're defining it here and the willingness of the employee to go above and beyond and look for creative ways to do their work and everything. We will not have a fully engaged workforce in my opinion without if we're using the same appraisal system that we currently use. So we reward our employees for being here. And everyone gets the same percentage year in year out. And you're rewarded for making it another year. And so we're not. For the most part, that is accurate commissioner, but when I was in charge of a larger department, there were people that did not pass their performance review and they did not get raises. That's a rare exception. That's for people that really use the system and. But that is a very rare exception that that happens. I'm just saying, the most high-tier record. If you look at the private sector approach, people get rewarded many times on their actual performance. How much money they save the organization, are they brought in, or so forth, and being in a public entity, it's just a little bit different. I'm just saying, and not all public sectors do what we do, which is a flatter right, they give each department an allocation and the supervisor rewards people according to their performance. I'm just saying, that's how you, that's a key element in re-engaging the employees is looking at a financial. And it ties into the discussion I requested for next week. I ask him people to go above and beyond the call it is. They could stay home and receive the same pay as those that come out on ice and ship ice out of parking lot. So. I understand. If I could add to that, there are, I will tell you that engagement right now in the private sector is low as well. That private sector is looking at these very same issues. That engagement surveys are being done all over the country for these reasons, and that there's a lot of concern that generation X and the millennials that we're not sure what will engage them. There are a lot of different factors that go into motivation and engagement. Performance appraisal may very well be one of them and pay systems, maybe another. And one of the things that I mentioned was that we might have some policies and procedures, systems in place that were designed for different workforce than we're going to have in future years. And so Commissioner Eath's point that our current pay system may not be ideal for the future is a good one. I think there are, and I think when you're talking about performance appraisal, if I think you're talking about linking it to pay, and that that is something that would be considered. I do wanna caution you that the biggest way to disengage employees is to do an engagement survey and then ignore it. So I think when I'm asking for commitment to do the survey, I'm asking for commitment to seriously consider the results and willingness to take action on those results. As you know, we all, it all comes down to money. It all comes down to money. But I think we're, I don't think everything that will engage our employees will be related to money. No, not money. It's not related. It's money for us in the budget. I didn't mean it as far as the employees. I understand what you're saying. Members, what's here? Pardon me? I said that the best way to disengage employees is to do a survey and ignore it, any kind of survey, including an engagement survey. And so I mean, basically what I said is there's no point in doing a survey unless we're serious about it. And we're going to consider the results. And we're going to do something about those results to try to increase engagement. Okay, so we don't know what are we committing in an interest to full disclosure if we do the study in your opinion as an HR professional and we're glad to have your guidance. What is that committing us to? It's committing you to look at the results to. But you're saying that we have to take it seriously. And so I would like to know, no fluff, what are we committing ourselves to? Are we committing ourselves to raises, flexible work hours? I mean, what are we committing ourselves to qualify as seriously considering? No, the results. You're asking me to predict the results of the survey and nobody can do that. Oh, no. Nobody in this. Yes, yes. Yeah, yes. Well, I disagree. I don't know what the service going to say. I can assure you that there aren't going to be results. First of all, there aren't going to be recommendations from the survey itself. They're going to be results. And we will be charged with looking at the results and making recommendations. It could be as simple as a policy change. Based on your, what you just said, and I think everyone heard it. But the linkage that you said to the initiation of the survey to a quasi-commitment, I'm not supporting it because I don't know what that end result's gonna be. Because you have not brought that. Our what those options could be. And so, and you're the one who made the linkage, we didn't, and based on your linkage, the survey and then the warning that if we don't, the engagement, I can't, for the face on your. Okay. I mean, that would be what I would recommend for any survey that we ever do. Because the worst thing you can do is ask people and ignore it. Well, I think we all know how that feels. I think we all know how that feels. I kind of catched 22 years ago, we did that, you know, salary surveys and there's all kinds of recommendations as to different positions where adjustments were needed. Because the budget constraints, some we could do, some we couldn't, some were done over a period of years. You know, we've tried to address them, and I don't know that we've done all of them to this date. I don't believe we have all the recommendations. So I think we did most of the ones that the court thought were appropriate. We always had that discretion, but we have a big responsibility there. Eric, I think we take everything seriously. I think everybody considers it. Here we do. But me, I don't know who's going to decide whether we've taken it seriously. Is it whether we comply with recommendations, whether we've taken it seriously? If we decide to act independently, have we not taken it seriously? So I'm with you, Andy. I can't be supportive. That's fine. This was an option that one of the options that we talked about at the last discussion, but it wasn't the only option that we discussed. And if it's all right with the court, I intend to bring different options in the future. I don't have a guide to tell me what will be effective and won't be, but we'll do the best we can. I think that I think most of this has to do with word smithing of what basically you've said. Any survey, let me ask this, if we participate in this survey, would we, as a commissioners court, have an opportunity to wordsmith, if I can use that term, the type of questions or the type of information we're trying to garner, or is it a boilerplate template kind of survey? It would be administering exactly the survey that all of these other entities responded to compare to, we're not paying for anybody to customize the survey. That would be. Seeing the survey. I have. Is it pretty inclusive of what we would want to know? I would think so. I think my support is for the survey. I think the asking us to commit to that, I think by committing to the survey, I'm talking for myself, by committing to the survey, then my ears and my head is open to what the survey may say. And then I would turn it to the professionals to make any recommendations based upon that. And I can turn a recommendation down with one vote if I, you know, of the commission. Certainly. So that, that, what you're asking for of a commitment, I mean, I can tell you that I will take into account every recommendation that ever it will come out of your office with respect and with seriousness. allow if you would just ask to allow us to allow you to do the survey and consider any recommendations that may come from your office based upon the survey. That's not a commitment to me to say that we're going to vote for it. And that's all I'm asking really. I certainly can't ask you to vote for something that hasn't been in front of you. I would never ask that. And I certainly wouldn't say just because I recommended it or a committee recommended it or whoever that you have to vote for. That is way beyond my authority. I'm just trying to say that we would want to look at where we are and if our engagement is low, which I don't have any reason to believe that it wouldn't be because most organizations today are low, then to look at what we could do to improve engagement. Otherwise, it's a waste of everybody's time. All right. What's your will, folks? You know, like the other green study I mean, affecting the dots, I said, since we didn't follow all those recommendations, perhaps we didn't take it seriously. Agree. So to me, I'm reluctant to, I would like to do a survey, but I'm not going to commit to anything after it. I don't know who's going to qualify whether or not we take it seriously. I think everything we do, we don't do frivolously, at least not me. So based on those conditions, I'm not supportive of doing an engagement survey. Is the survey identified specific areas of, is it more of a yes or no engagement? Is it great where engagement is any, or does it show? It grades it, but- If these areas engagement would be better. I think from your questions, it might be helpful to send you some pages from the survey and some sample report pages so that you have a better idea of what it is that would be asked and what kinds of results you would get back. Is that, would that be helpful? Okay. I think it'd be helpful before we address whether we funded or not. That would help. Okay. There's some pretty interesting stuff on my line. As soon as after the last workshop I looked into it and I even think I emailed commission remission and stuff I thought was fairly interesting. You know, is there anything within, is there anything within the University of North Texas or Texas Wins University with any courses study of where they do any type of surveying as part of course work or I could class assignment. I'm curious about, I think the engagement is low, but if the results of the survey could identify ways for us to improve specifically for this organization, I think that there may be a benefit there. But I'm still cautious based on the, what that outcomes could be. Yeah. And I've implied or we don't want to disengage them further but not implementing work to be a recommendation. I mean yeah I think that you wouldn't ask the employees. I don't even say I've got to get you wouldn't ask and survey the employees after every company picnic if they wanted to continue the picnic. And then the next year we said, we're gonna cut the picnic. We're gonna cut the picnic. Yeah. And so, I mean, it puts us in a kind of a weird position. And we may have cut the picnic not because, not because it was such a success, but because it inflated the cost became twice what it was supposed to be. We would rather put that back into salaries than into a picnic. I think that's a great analogy commissioner. We do survey them every year. We don't ask them. Do you want us to continue the picnic? But we ask them a lot of things about what was successful and what was not successful and their ideas of improvement. This survey isn't going to ask for ideas of improvement. That would be, the results would be collated together. And you'd get percentages on different things and those things would be evident in the results would be evident in the reports and then we would propose recommendations for what we might do about it. Sometimes there are several different approaches you can take to improve one low indicator. With the picnic, we don't implement every single recommendation that a person makes. What we do do is we have a committee meeting and we waive them and we talk about whether something would be cost prohibitive or whether there's a way that we could work that out or trade this for that. And I think that's more the kind of approach that we would be talking about. But what we don't do is do the survey and then ignore it. We try to take the part, the recommendations that are valuable. And if we can implement them and it's feasible, then that's what we do. And it doesn't necessarily have to be something big, kind of like doing the little onesies instead of sending flowers for an employee that has a baby here. No, no. That's right. Some of it may be training of our supervisors and managers. Some of it comes down to feeling valued. And there are things that managers and supervisors can do better to make employees feel valued that don't have to cost a lot of money There there could be a lot of different things I think our end result is We need to think about it some more Sure, and I'll Send you more in for more details on what will be asked If we go forward and also what the resulting reports would look. Okay, so anything else anyone wants to add? I believe not. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Without, we are adjourned. Everybody have a great day.