I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do it. you you you I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. this morning our invocation will be given by James Wells, our county auditor and our pledges will be led by Amy Phillips, our director of human resources. Will you please stand? be staying. How do you have any thoughts that we thank you for this day and thank you for the range you brought to us. But we also ask you to be with the fellow citizens of Texas on the Gulf Coast as the storm is hitting them far worse than it hits us. Thank you for allowing us the privilege of convening here and to conduct the business of this county. Watch over and give your grace and knowledge to our commissioners' core, kept them to make decisions that are for the best for the entire county and that do your will. Watch over each one of us as we do our rest of our week this week. Keep us safe. Keep us from harm and sin. Bring us back safely next week's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America into Republic, which it stands, one nation under God, invisible, the regime justice for all. I'm an obnoxious guy. I pledge allegiance to the Texas Wednesday under God, one in the business. Thank you. We need to first go to item 4a which is public hearing on Motion by Commissioner Eid, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed say aye. Motion goes carried. We have with us this morning at County Park. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. This is a formality. We are not collecting the archive fee any longer. We are continuing with a project that we began last year and are still funding and working on the records project, implementation and download and digitizing and indexing of all records, County Clerk. I do want to, you know, James has told me they're still quite a bit of money in the fund. And so I'd like to, with Under Ashley's direction, make the Commissioner's Court minutes more easily accessible. There's still a lot of research that's done in the old Commissioner's Court minutes, and so we'd like to begin digitizing and indexing those at some point this budget year. And you know, possibly take a look at some of our oldest books and restore some of our historical old books. Certainly not our entire collection, but some of the older books that we have in our records. Like I said, we're just continuing on with the same mission, getting as much information is easily accessible and in electronic format. Great. I realize this is a formality that's required for the part of the budget process. Are there any questions from members of the commissioners' court on this issue? No, I just want to say I really appreciate the fact that you're able to digitalize everything and make it accessible through the internet. I think that's a tremendous service to the public. It's a savings to the county and I'm glad that you're willing to set and do leadership by example. And we can commence the district clerk some point to do that. Let's traffic through our office to the more that's on available online. That's correct. Absolutely. Great. Donna. These funds are they part of the budget? Or I thought so, but I just want to have a pay for them. All right, we need a motion to close the public hearing. I'll move. But I got one quick question for Cindy. Oh, go ahead with your question first. So the money that you have left in that fund, that's what you'll use. Right, right. Yeah, we stopped collecting the fee. Two years ago. A few years. Stop yeah last year or two years. Something like that. So yeah I purchased there was just too much money to continue collecting a fee. All right. The close of public hearing. Thank you. We have a motion by commissioner Ian's second and back commission Mitchell on favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to name. Motion does carry carry now we need a motion to approve the fund plan Motion by commissioner Eads seconded by commissioner Mitchell here no questions on favor please say aye Opposed sitting motion is carried thank you. Thank you Hey Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We have quite a few guests with us this morning and trying to be considered of everyone's time. We're going to go to item 3A. Item 3A is presentation of one. The achievement of excellence and procurement award from the National Purchasing Institute and to the Universal Public Purchasing Certification Council, fully Certified Agency Award to the Denton County Purchasing Department. And before we start there, I'm gonna put these up here. Everybody with the name. Really nice. I want to read this letter from the National Purchasing Institute. It's addressed to me. It's the achievement of Excellence in Precurement Award is designed to recognize organizational excellence in procurement. The award is achieved by those organizations that demonstrate excellence in procurement by obtaining a high score on a rating of standardized criteria. The program is designed to measure innovation, professionalism, e-precurement, productivity and leadership attributes of the procurement function. The achievement of excellence in procurement is sponsored by the National Purchasing Institute, the California Association of Public Purchasingasing Institute, the California Association of Public Purchasing Officers, the Florida Association of Public Purchasing Officers, the Institute of Supply Management, the National Institute of Governor, I'm sorry, governmental purchasing, the National Association of State Precurement Officials, and the National Association of Educational Precurement and the Texas Public Purchasing Association. My pleasure to notify you that the Precurement, and the Texas Public Purchasing Association. My pleasure to notify you that the Precurement Department of Your Agency has earned the 15th annual Achievement of Excellence in Precurement Award for 2010. Moreover, Denton County is one of only 28 government agencies in Texas and one of only 34 counties in the United States to receive the award. Denton County is one of only six government agencies to receive the award for all 15 years since its inception and has achieved score in the top 5% of all government agencies. Your agency is fortunate to have the Flunning Represent your agency as Chair of this National Committee for the last three years. Beautiful trophy which has developed into the AEP icon that's achievement and excellence and procurement will be presented to your NADID of one of the conferences. Congratulations on the achievement of excellence and procurement award. Congratulations. We wish to say a few words. No, I do. First of all, I'd like to just point out this has been an honor for me to serve on this committee. The last served about 14 years on the committee in three years as chair. Denton County has benefited by all the benchmarks I've seen across the United States. We've been able to implement a lot of things that we've seen from other agencies and I believe we have a very efficient department. This is an agency award, it's not my award, it's not purchasing department without the policies that Commissioner's Court approves, the support that you give us for both our training for programs that we implement, it wouldn't be possible. I especially want to thank Kevin Carr, who in all of his staff, who has made both our intracite for internal customers and our website for all the suppliers. The most efficient of any that I've seen and we really appreciate that. Last but not least I do want to think my staff. We talk a lot about dedicated staff and staff who does more with less and I really believe I have a very dedicated staff. They take it very serious their jobs. We believe our job is to protect the taxpayers both legally and financially and all that we do and I want to thank them. They are here this morning and if I can just recognize them. You're right. It does take a whole team of people working together and, you know, obviously do a great job in the taxpayers of the county or reap the benefit of all that hard work. We appreciate you very much. Thank you. Welcome. Little treacherous driving out there this morning. Okay, we're going to go to item one which is 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 or want to also remind everyone to please turn off your cell phones and pages. We have one public comment for this morning. Mr. Wiley Hadsmith, Mr. Hadsmith, good morning. Judge and commissioners, my name is Wiley Hadsmith. I live at 623 Newton. And visiting with some people after, or doing this week in this break that we had, I was surprised that some of them watch this court and what's happening here. I was equally surprised at some of their comments, what they said. They didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about. And here I stand with all the passion you can muster, I can muster, and saying this in my beliefs. And I was very surprised I didn't know what I was talking about. Some of the comments came, where one comment came from my employee of yours, African American young man who'd been working for you for six years. He disagreed with what I had to say. He didn't think what I was saying was appropriate. He hurt me very deeply. Those are his thoughts. He didn't mean to hurt me. That's just those were his thoughts. It hurt me because I thought what I stood for, all African-Americans stand for. And it just knocked me back to hear this young man saying he didn't agree. Well he works for you and he wants his job. He wants to keep his job. He likes his job. But the things that he said that troubled me was that these Confederate monuments does not mean for him the same thing as this to me. So I asked him, well what does it mean? He said, it means where we came from and we're not going to go back to that. Now I can't for the life of me understand how we could draw that conclusion, but that was his conclusion. Another surprising person who talked to me was a young person who I drove on the school bus, who said they saw me, and then told my granddaughter what I was doing. Basically, they said he was talking about racism. And so I'm just finding out just because I stand here and I say every week what I say. I don't know what the people are hearing. I don't have a clue. Then there's some of your employees in this room today who have talked to me about certain things. One was it's a historical marker. You're spending too much time on that thing. There's some other things you ought to talk about. That one troubled me. Another one said, this is historical information. It's only dealing with the county of Denton. So these things you're talking about that have nothing to do with the county of Denton shouldn't be brought up. One of them is when they hang when they used to hang black people. I didn't know that they never hung them out here. I saw a picture but it was the other building down there where they hung them. She said, that's not Denton County Historical Information. So what I've taken from these weekend sessions and others from people commenting of what I say is that, you know, I have my own beliefs but hey, so does everyone else. They're own beliefs. And then then I thought, from the Black thread person who talked to me and the person who's worked here, persons who work here, who said, well, you spend too much time on this. You know, I don't know about them, but I'll see you next Tuesday. Okay also in consideration of people's time we want to jump on the agenda to item 12A. 12A is approval of requests to transfer position of civil attorney to Sheriff's Council from DA Civil Division to Sheriff's Budget Effective 10-1-20-10. Good morning, Sheriff Parkie. Good morning, commissioners. I'll be concise. I know I gave you a packet of information that I'm not going to go over and grate the sale. That's the reference material that y'all can look at at a later date and kind of explain my position and why I believe what I do believe. To frame this conversation back on August 27th, Friday, we could go. I received a phone call about four o'clock from the DA saying that my current council was going to be replaced with a new attorney that is considerably less experienced and that was the end of the story. I firmly understand that that position belonged to the DA I explained I respect his position and the fact that he's employed to do it as he wishes. I tried to make my case for what I've felt best for my office. It's fallen on deaf ears so I'm kind of in a position where I believe that I need to make this plea. If that's an else I can, I will say that no matter what happens here today, I'll be back every year, hereafter, and keep plugging. But the first thing that I'd like to say that we've got 600 employees, roughly 1300 inmates, a little over today, I believe. And the liability and the risk management legally in my office is quite great. It's very important that we have a tenured season experience attorney. And it's even more important that we have someone that is familiar with the operation of the office and that can work with the employees and with the situation that arise from the jail on a daily basis because they do occur on a daily basis. And a lot of the labor work on the front end puts out fires before they get to burning and become true issues. They're not really issues or just problems and we try to solve the problems before they become issues and become something that you all have to be aware of. The situation of this position is rather unique. It's not another one like this in the county. The person that is sitting at chair answers to two masters. If the sheriff's council and I'm the client, but they work for the district attorney. That in my mind, I would find that an untenable situation to try to work for two people at the same time. It's a client attorney's relationship. And because of that, 18 years ago, the court saw fit to assign a paralegal to my office, the sheriff's office, because of the nature of the job, which is obviously increased in the last 18 years. The paralegal does a tremendous amount of work because that's the kind of, the volume of legal responsibility and legal work that has to come that's the kind of the volume of legal responsibility and legal work that has to come from my office because of the exposure that we have. I think 18 years with a paralegal, I feel that perhaps it's time to consider the position to move over to my office. So we have the continuity and the experience of council that the office needs. That's why I'm here. There's just a few more things I want to make points on my life to make. The 1300 inmates, the sixth amendment, is the right to counsel. Now, this doesn't apply in this case, but I find it an interesting corollary because the right to counsel on the 6th amendment states that if with its retained counsel or pointed counsel, no one can remove that counsel without the consent of the client. I don't have that privilege that doesn't cover me. But what that means is that the 1300 inmates in my jail have more right the continuity of counsel than I did. And that's the problem that I'm seeing today. That's part of the issue. I understand the position as it stands today and I respect that but as the client I feel that being counseled and being advised goes a long way in that position and just removing an attorney at will is detrimental to my office and that's the reason I'm here today. The material that I provided you goes back this case reference material as well as Attorney of Generance Attorney AG opinion and it goes from 1993 all the way up to July of this year. There's some very recent Decisions that I think you're going to find interesting and what that I think you're going to find interesting. And what a non-lawyer is myself, what I got out of reading these opinions and these case references is that the court has the authority to appoint counsel. I think you'll get that as well when you read this. Again, we're not gonna go with that time short, they're all busy, and I appreciate the fact that I have this forum to come up here and express myself. I don't come up here very often. I try not to bring any issues that we can't resolve up here. We go on day-to-day basis and fight take care of our business. And I certainly appreciate your service. I appreciate you listening to me. And one thing I would like to say on the record is that the naming John Felt as the head of the civil section was a brilliant move. John Felt does a great job and I look forward to working with John. I think he does an outstanding job and has for many, many years of the county. So I'm not unhappy about all the decisions in all the movement. I'm just unhappy about how they have, how they will impact my office. Because again, continuity of counsel and experience counsel is very important to my office. Having someone will not nearly experience it, we had previously puts me at a deficit and puts my office at a deficit. And that's why I'm here today and I'd be willing to answer any questions or any discussion you have for me. I don't have a question, but I do have comments. With all due respect, Sheriff, this hasn't had an happen and the The person that you have in there, the attorney you have in there would have quit You still have to have somebody come in that was not familiar with the case of cases that you have So it's well, it's wonderful to have experience. I truly wonderful to have experience. I truly think you should have, but there are all situations that sometimes that we can't control that something happened and we do have to train somebody else. And that's why it's good for us to always have a backup to train somebody else. And as far as working for two masters, you all know how I feel about working for two masters, but you know, I look at James Wales down there who works for the commissioners, cool it in the district, cool it in. I don't have complete authority or control over what Mr. Wales do, but we make it work. And so I think we as elected officials, you know, we don't have control over your shop, but we make it work. And so I think I would have liked for you and Mr. Johnson to make it work. But y'all seem to want to do that. But I think we have to look at all the ramifications and of course, you know, I'm not in the turn so I hadn't had chance to let our attorneys look at it or me put my little head on and try to look at it. So I don't know what it says, but I want you to think about those things is that experience is wonderful. But sometimes something happens and we have to get a less experienced person. But what we do is that we work with that person to make sure they're doing. And sometimes it may be best because we can train them our way. So I just want to throw that up to you. And I certainly appreciate those comments and you're correct. And most of that except that I contacted Mr. Johnson again last Friday and spoke with him and try to mitigate this. And it's blame my position. And what I told him was if it had to happen, that's fine. But he's got several people in that office give me a choice. As a client, I'd like to at least have a choice to say, here two or three people pick the one that's best for your operation. And that hasn't happened either. So I have tried to mitigate this, and I have tried to work with it. So that's, and but that's why we're here, because this is a form for me. And again, I don't think I come up here too often, and I appreciate it. Again, I appreciate your comments. Thank you, thank you, committee. I have a couple of comments or questions. I am. So So are you satisfied with the current person in that position? I mean, you think Hardee's been doing a good job for you? I think he's done a good job for me, yes. I know when we had spoken that you'd said perhaps this was an opportunity for him to make more money. Is that one of the reasons that was kind of give-and-team? I'm sorry? An opportunity for Hardee to make more money I guess by changing slots was that one of the reasons Well, that's certainly Is a factor, but I spoke with him and and I wouldn't be here if this was something that he felt felt strongly about I wouldn't be here because I don't want to stand in anybody's way of Moving up the ladder making more money and if that was the issue I if I felt that that was the issue, I would not be here today. He's assured me that wasn't the issue with him. So I felt comfortable coming here today. Well, I guess my point is, is I know the DA's office is done. And by the way, I hope we have enough bandwidth, because I'm pretty sure everybody in the DA's office is watching this right now. Hopefully they're working now watching this. What I was going to tell you is I know that in the past they put people in a different slot but still kept them into sign to the different tasks. I think that's kind of a non-sequitor as to say that they want to sign them, you know, to get more money. And then in regards, you know, I was going to, we talked earlier, Sheriff, and I asked if any attempts that compromise had been made because, you know, when we do our patrol contracts, you know, sometimes some officers are preferred other than others. And even in the contracts that we do for patrol contract, the contract says the sheriff will provide a list of potential deputy deputies and the district or city will be allowed to pick out of that and you weren't given that opportunity where you know I mean the last Friday as well I spoke until two consecutive Fridays in regard to this issue and if this is something again I acquiesced your personnel I'm certainly not telling anybody what to do with their personnel I'm making a request and if it has to happen give me a choice I'm a client I. And if it has to happen, give me a choice. I'm a client. I'd like to have a choice of attorneys since you've got several in the office. So I've made an effort in my mind anyway. Perhaps I was too strong. I don't think I was. I guess my point is you did attempt to compromise at this point, right? In my mind, yeah, I've talked from the individual of why. And from what I've understand, Mr. Johnson said, no compromise, I'm doing it this way, you got to take it. Well, I was never able to get any acquiescence at all and far as hell how the transition is made. Well, I know I'm just trying to figure out what's going on because, you know, Commissioner Mitchell, like you said, Canada government is a series of compromises, right? And we're all supreme within our own grant of authority through the Constitution and through the legislature. But if we all agree not to compromise, government could grant to a halt. And everybody needs to compromise, as my point is, in my opinion. But you're right, I guess, but you're right. I mean, I can see where people would might want to make a principled stand. I'm just trying to figure out, you know, I don't know. Have you spoken to Mr. Johnson, Ms. Mitchell? Because I haven't spoke. He hasn't called me. I did call him. I called him. He didn't talk to me. He didn't talk to me. I told the sheriff that they need to work in it. And just for the record, I believe I've discussed this with each member of the court. This isn't something I've done arbitrarily or singularly. I've talked to each of you about this when it came up. So I just want that on the record that I'm not just, I'm not trying to play one end against the other. I'm just trying to accomplish what I feel best for my office. Any other thing I wanted to ask you is, are you aware of any other sheriff's departments that have their own attorney and have? I believe Dallas and I believe El Paso, I think some of the larger sheriff's office do. Yes, I also know I think Tarant County doesn't have two attorneys, doesn't have one, but they also have two attorneys. I believe they have two, I'm not sure what's other point. So I don't think what you're asking for is out of you know out of a lot. I just really wish we could you know reach some sort of compromise. You know being a student of county government you know when I moved out here from El Paso the previous DA made me interview twice with the sheriff before they agreed to hire me and I know and again I don't want to be taken to the position. I'm simply again, I'm up here to argue my point in favor of what I feel is best from my office and that's the extent of it and obviously this isn't going to affect the rotation of the earth and the sun will come up tomorrow. Well, if I don't get in my way I'm not going to hold my breath either but I will have the opportunity this form and I want to avail myself of it and I appreciate y'all's time and consideration. I haven't been a student of county government and you know I know you one judge where I'm happy at one point when somebody was appointed to be the attorney for the commission's court and voice your displeasure considerably. Right? And I know that. Go on deaf you were stupid. voice your displeasure considerably. Right. And I know that. Go on deaf ears too. But I took my shot too, Sheriff. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know, Mr. Felt, if you had the chance to study this stuff, that Sheriff Barkey brought before us? I'm sure I have not been a chance to look at the voluminous material that Sheriff brought today, but I will say this I Have a lot of respect for Sheriff Parkie and certainly for the Denton County Sheriff's office and for the men and women that work at the Denton County Sheriff's office and the important job that they do in protecting all of us and protecting the citizens of Denton County and because they dedicate their life to public safety each day. I think there's a lot of discussion about people being put in difficult positions over this issue and I would say that that would apply to me as well. Civil division of the district attorney's office as long as I have anything to do that will do everything within our control to see that Sheriff Parky is not only adequately represented but represented his satisfaction. And the attorney that has been designated to take Mr. Burke's position, you know, hasn't had an opportunity to show what they can do at this point. So, you know, I have personal feelings. I do believe that that attorney can do the job and can do a good job, but it's like anything else until you get an opportunity to do something in life, then, no nobody's going to know whether you're going to rise or fall or succeed or fail. Going back to your real question about whether I'd read all the materials, I did have the district attorney's office or the Civil Division research this question in a short amount of time. And my legal opinions to all the court members on different issues always come back to, does the Texas Constitution provide authority for this action to the statutes of the state of Texas, provide authority for this action. And I will say that it is my opinion that the Constitution of the state and the statute of the state do not provide for the Denton County Sheriff to have their own attorney that they employ. Now, obviously with the amount of material that's here with the attorney general opinions that are here, with the many different statutes that apply to county attorneys in the state, compromises that may have been made by commissioners courts and other counties and with county law in general and the local government code in general and the Texas government code. There are a lot of gray areas in county law that can be argued and debated and litigated for years and years and years. So, anybody can argue about my opinion today or any other legal opinion that this office gives. Now, it is true that Dallas County has their own legal advisor, the Dallas County Sheriff has their own legal advisor. It's my understanding that that's more confined to a person who conducts civil service hearings and public information requests. To my knowledge, they do not actually represent the Sheriff's office or the county in litigation. At the same time, this court does have authority to hire special counsel in civil matters as it considers appropriate. I interpret that to be more of a contractual matter where from time to time the court can hire attorneys to represent the county in civil matters rather than just a blanket that says we can appoint a special counsel to represent to sheriff at all times. So you know fate is fickle because you know I can tell you at one point I did a lot of research on whether or not the commissioners court get higher their own attorney or not. And you know, that question has been researched through the DA's office for probably the past 20 years. I know at one point in the early 90s or mid 90s there was a move to go back to the old system where upon we had our own in-house legal councils and then I think the previous DA hired legal council and then at that point I think we had hired the guy who wrote the book on county government us as a commissioners court and he had expressed the opinion that we could hire our own attorneys I think the DA at the time had hired somebody else to give another expert opinion, but I think a compromise had been reached at that point. I know other times, previous county judges had sought to eliminate the office and the DA's office to have a counsel to the Sheriff's Department under Sheriff Lucas. And they hadn't done that. office to have a counsel to the Sheriff's Department under Sheriff Lucas. And they hadn't done that. You know, so I just had looked at the stuff. I got it, I guess, when I came back from Houston last night. And you know, I think it's pretty clear. I mean, we're allowed, unless there's an explicit legislative assignment, like certain counties like Montgomery, Fort Bend, El Paso. Pretty much, we can hire our own attorney. There is, I mean, one two degree, there's no explicit legislative directive under the enabling act for the criminal district attorney and didn't, unlike El Paso and some of the other counties. And that's pretty much where those opinions come down and where those cases come down. Like the Cameron County case, I guess it came out a couple of weeks ago. They said, look, unlike these other counties, there's no explicit grant. So, I don't know, I mean, this is kind of esoteric at the moment, but I think it's that sort of thing that should help promote a healthy compromise. I would say, you know, everything that you've cited about the civil division and the existence of the civil division and whether the commissioner's court can hire their own attorney, that is that is truly an issue that has been on the radar of the civil division. Two decades. This returning office for many, many years and that is true and there are many of the attorney general opinions and cases that are in this file. I'm confident we are to press that issue. But just in speaking to the issue that we have here today with Sheriff Parkie wanting to get a determination on, I'm given my opinion on that. If we go to the larger discussion about the, whether there should be a civil division at a district attorney's office or not, I think that's a much larger well-shown that has been debated a lot. I'm a big believer in having assistance in DAs, and housed to all our litigation. I think we have the possibility to hire excellent people who can do that litigation and save a lot of money doing stuff in house. I think my problem is when we hire and get geared up to do, we hire a tremendous amount of people in the civil division, but then we also turn around and hire outside counsel. I mean, I think you can't have it both ways. You know, that's my point, but I'm a big believer in doing it turn around and hire outside council. I mean, I think you can't have it both ways. That's my point, but I'm a big believer in doing it in-house. I can see where there are people who have different political proclivities who may not think that their political interests are aligned with the person who are appointing their attorney representative and may want to have their own in-house attorney. I'm not saying that's any of the situations that are here currently, but I can see both sides of the issue. I just think, you know, I'm unfortunately, I mean as a former assistant DA, I always thought that, you know, that you should be required be the person representing the county. I just think unfortunately, the Attorney General opinions in the case law have stated that unless there's an explicit statutory directive, unfortunately, that's not the case. But that's all I got to say about that. Mr. Mitchell, that's the speaking. I'm just in the compromise with the DA's office. Sure, if I did ask him if this was going to happen, would he allow the attorney now to work with the attorney that he's appointing to get up to speed and he did tell me he would. So I want to say that for the record. I'd like to interject something here. First of all, Hardy, we won't talk about age, but it's going to be far and wide. You're going to have to search far and why I define somebody with more experience and hearty. That was a compliment. That was a compliment, hearty. Just glancing through the volume of documentation that you brought here, it may be the addresses, the point I'm going to bring up, but I don't think there's any dispute as far as on a case by case basis of a lawsuit, warrants it. You can request and report congruent hiring outside counsel to handle a particularly cumbersome or difficult case for whatever reason. And I think the majority of the material here that I've looked through anyway, substantiates that we have authority to do that. That's correct. So, that's not really what's in dispute. me is this is posted to essentially transfer the line item for that position from the Civil Division to the Sheriff's Department, which would certainly give them the opportunity to give advice and counsel on to be the person that you're requesting and stuff. But the way I understand it, and John Kirk me if I'm wrong, even though that budget line item is moved and you work with the person that you want to for advice and counsel and open records requests and all the other duties. When it actually comes to handling a lawsuit for the Sheriff's Department, that still would go through the DA's office or outside council. So if we transfer this line item and you have hearty or, remember you request there for advice and counsel, if the sheriff gets sued by an inmate that still goes through the DA's office so in essence it kind of sounds to me like Yes, you get the person that's there for advice and counsel, but when a lawsuit comes up We've just put additional workload on the DA unless they assign it to heartier whenever you got in your office. Am I interpreting that correctly? Still a DA's responsibility to handle that seat. I can help you on that, because I have intimately remembered, I don't know if you all remember, every time we come out, because I know Judge Rivera is on the bench now, but I can tell you remember every time we come out of executive session, how we assign it to somebody. The reason is because we get to choose our own council. Now procedurally why not not advocating this I'm only telling you all for a purpose of information that Mr. Felt feel free to jump in but when we come out of executive session when they for somebody presents a claim to us we could assign it to the DA's office. We could assign it to outside council. Or we could assign it to another attorney that is currently working for an entity. Now, I'm not recommending that, because like I said, I think it's a good idea for us to do everything in-house, including litigation, because I think it's cheaper. And more expensive. It's cheaper, less expensive, and allows employees to develop an expertise, namely, you know, representing county governments. But we could, you know, if you all remember, when we come out of executive, we assign it to a specific party. And that's the reason, because of this explicit grant of our authority to hire our own attorney. In essence, every time we come out of executive session and we assign it to the DA's office, we're hiring them to do that litigation for us, which I think is a good idea, because I like doing it in-house. I think it saves money, it's cost effective. And like I said, it allows people to develop an expertise. Oh, so I do not agree that if you if you gave the sheriff a legal advisor, yeah, and that person handled solely giving legal advice to the sheriff, I do not personally do not agree that that attorney would then be able to represent the county. When I'm- I do not, if the sheriff had legal advisor, I do not believe that that legal advisor could represent the county or advise the county or come into executive session and advise the commissioner's court of legal ramifications of whatever the legal issues happen to be, because that attorney is not going to be, it's not gonna be, when I say your attorney, it's not going to be the county's attorney, it's gonna be the sheriff's attorney. So, if for some reason the court did decide to give the sheriff a legal advisor, then I think that that representation that that individual could give to the sheriff a legal advisor and I think that that representation that that individual could give to the sheriff would be limited and and because and of course I maintain from the very beginning that but the sheriff you know can't employ legal counsel to represent his office because essentially this is legal counsel that's representing Denton County. And although you can appoint attorneys on, well, I'll say, case by case basis, nonetheless, the district attorney still has, well, the statute says the criminal district attorney has all the powers, duties and privileges in Denton County relating to criminal or civil matters involved in the county, or state that are conferred by law on county and district attorneys in the various counties and districts. So I would maintain that the need to go through the district attorney's office, even if you decide to appoint outside counsel in a case because the statute says that the district attorney shall represent the county and civil matters Okay, Commissioner Eads don't I don't think it's really says it doesn't say the district now represent you in civil matters does it? I'll read what it does say it says There's two different ones. 44.161 C says the criminal discreturny shall represent Ditton County. In any court in which the county has pending business, this subsection does not prevent the county from retaining other legal counsel in a civil matter as it considers appropriate. And subsection D, I'm sorry. The criminal disc attorney has all the powers, duties and privileges in Denton County related to criminal or civil matters involved in the county or state that are conferred by law on county and disc attorneys in the various counties and districts. Okay. And they're mainly talking about bill, bond for chairs and juvenile stuff like that. And like, you're finding somebody to link with. Okay. Commissioner Eads has been waiting patiently. Say that one of the privileges of my job is almost on a daily basis trying to explain how county government works in the public. And a lot of- You figured out, let us know. Yeah. it works in the public. And a lot of... You figured out, let us know. Yeah, I think it was all these different opinions. And one of the struggles that we all have is the different chain of commands. And the dotted lines, not the direct lines, but a lot of the dotted lines that are involved in the county government. And quite frankly, I will be quite honest on the record. I'm very sympathetic to the sheriff's calls here. I really am. It would be my desire, as Commissioner Mitchell said, and as Commissioner Coleman had alluded to earlier, about the compromise and compromises the nature of this business that we are in. It's a nature of life. And of life, correct, Sheriff. And so my personal desire would be for you and the Sheriff, to reach, I mean, you and the DA, to reach some kind of compromise that both of you feel comfortable with for the citizen of the city. That is my desire. I wish that happened. Obviously, it's not happening, but I'm going to be hard pressed to go against our legal counsel sitting right here, Sheriff, in all due respect, advising us one way. Obviously, you'll have some good backup here that we could look at, and if we want to explore the functions of the civil department and how that relates to Ditton County and who works for who later, I'm very open to that. But this morning it's going to be hard to go against the Advisory Legal Council. So but I will. Yes, if I told you what a good lawyer he is. Again. Yes, me after I told you what a good lawyer he is. Exactly. You validated. I shot myself in the foot, is. Again. Especially after I told you what a good lawyer is. Exactly. You validated. So I shot myself in the foot, John. You're being honest. So and I appreciate that. You can change his opinion now. Yeah. So but I am sympathetic to your calls. And I wish the compromise had been met because I know this court, since I've been on here four years, we have a long history of deferring on legal representation to our elected officials. To include the district attorney to include you to include our constables and other elected officials. We do have a customer that when it comes to litigation. I wish that had conveyed over to this, but I appreciate your, but I'm not going to support it. But thank you. I think it'd be an awful tough legal opinion to say that you're not needed. And by the way, the material that I gave you was produced by my paralegal. So it was, it was, and no attorneys were utilized in the preparation of the material, okay? Okay. Okay. Commissioner Martin. Yeah. And Sheriff, as you're probably hearing up here, I think we're all sympathetic with where you're at. And I just see, personally, I see a lot of red flags that immediately go up to me personally that I've had an opportunity since I've talked with you to think about and to mull over in my mind and You know, I I understand as you said 18 years ago There was a compromise that came to a position to allow there to be legal counsel That the sheriff had direct access to and that was a What I understand and I'm again, I may be wrong that the understanding was that that was a what I understand and I'm again I may be wrong that the understanding was that that was an opportunity for the sheriff it wasn't a mandate by law or a mandate it was it's almost a privilege you know I I can remember talking to teenagers in my Sunday school class and we are on the bench or whatever we talk about rights and privileges and what rights do you have and what privileges do you have. So it's been a privilege for the sheriff to have legal counsel for all these years. I'm a little concerned if we bring that back as a separate office under your position of what and then you perceive it or any future sheriff will perceive that now as a right that they have as in that position. And if that's the case then other elected officials, Cynthia Mitchell who was here in her position as elected official may think that she cannot get good legal counsel from our civil division or the DA's office and then they believe that it becomes their right not only a privilege but a right to have legal counsel directly under their department. So I have a question whether it's valid or not that there may be precedents set if we allow this to happen. And then you were talking about the new experience. I understand that we're talking specifically about personnel now. If this position was formed, let's say this position was formed and you were not able to have an experienced person come over. Then you're starting all over again by going out and trying to find someone to fill that position, either a person that is in that current position now in another sheriff's office or a brand new person that you're going to have to train all over again in that new position. So that's immediate to me a concern. But I still have a choice. Understand that. Nobody's denying that and we're as said before that we are all sympathetic to that. But the idea, then if that person becomes an employee of you, of your office, to me that person is not an employee of the DA's office any longer. What happens if something between the county and you know it happens all over the state, the county itself gets in a dispute with its elected officials. What position does that person take on defending the county as an employee of the county but an employee of your department are defending you? Now these are things that are out there. I'm not there. It's half. We got sued and it didn't feel good. Yeah, and so you know, those are just. You represent the sheriff. I didn't sue the county, Bobby. Yeah, and those are just big red flags that go up for me. Very well. And y'all almost fired. I didn't know if I was still talking or not, am I? Yeah. Am I? I found more. I mean, I was there. I thought I had the floor. Yes, it is. And so those are red flags, sir, that, and out of respect to you and the fantastic job that you do, I felt that you need to hear that from me. And I can't, I can't, in good conscious, represent the citizens here. I can't support the idea of a new position. And I appreciate, I appreciate your position, Commissioner, and I understand. Again, just to reiterate my point is that my position is a little different than some other elected officials because I have almost a third of the employees and a jail. If there's another related official that would like to take over the jail, I'll be off to office in about 20 minutes and come talk to me. I do understand that, sir. And I had the opportunity, Mr. Johnson called me and I know that there was a concern out there also that, you know, and I hate to rely back on my past, but when I was a J.P., we did not have direct access to counsel from the DA's office. We did not. I mean, we had to basically ask the question and then wait for a response. And the JPs and the Constables had that opportunity in the last few years to have direct access to Mr. Burke and his capacity to help them as well. And that was brought up. And my understanding is that if Mr. Burke is no longer in that position and a new position that he will still be the legal counsel to the JPs and the constables. I understand that and that came about after my initial conversation. Sometimes I claim my personal and my second one that happened and I understand that. I guess I'm the only person Mr. Johnson didn't call. Sorry for interrupting your on. I called him. Call him. Okay. Thank you Bobby. Do you do? Okay. Is anyone else that wants to speak to this issue? I don't believe I hear any motions of approval. So I appreciate your time and I appreciate you service and just read the material I'll see you next year. Okay you left us a lot of good reading material thank you. I think. Now I'd like to go to item 10a. 10a is to review considering the approval of the planning and engineering fees for special taxing districts and where's Bennett? He just stepped out. Barbara's going to give him. I'd like to get this done because we have guests here and trying to be considered of everybody's time. There he comes. of everybody's time. There it comes. Of course, right after you step out then I call on you. Morning. Morning, Judge. The commissioners. This was brought by request of the First Water Supply District and Commissioner Eads to discuss what fees or what planning and engineering fees are charged to the First Water Supply Districts. Went back and reviewed theC minutes to try to determine what variances and other issues were granted to the freshwater supply districts. There was nothing mentioned about fees. So in that case I had no other choice but to charge the fees less directed otherwise by the court. The argument has been not to charge that I heard not to charge the inspection fees because the county does not have maintenance responsibility for the roads. And that may be true. The one question is going to come up down the road is, do these meet standards? That kind of thing and you're going to come ask me that question. Or people are going to call and complain about a potholes. They're going to call my office, which they do all the time. My only response to them is, you have to talk to your freshwater supply district. So I just need some direction from the court. It's not a revenue stream that the county or the department depend on. As you can see in my backup total fees collected by playing an engineering in 2009, we're about 40, a little over $40,000 total. So it's not a big revenue stream, but just needs some direction. Unfortunately at the time when the variances were granted, we're still under the subdivision rules where staff could grant the variances. So there is no quarter order attached to any of those variances issued to the freshwater spot districts. Miss Reigns. Wait a minute. I have a question. So are you talking about not collecting any of these fees or just the inspection? I would recommend the inspection fees only because the freshwater spot is still have to go through my department to plant their properties. An engineering still needs to review the plant and the construction plans. So you don't want to collect any of the other ones, only this inspection. So what you're telling me? All these? Collect all the fees that are in the back-up except for the inspection. That's what, except for the inspection. Except for the inspection. Okay. Part of what we're doing today is cleaning up and clarifying things. And that's what we've done since I've been in office. We all do that since we were in office. As issues arise and they develop, you look back and see the paper trail and what was done by Preston's, what was done by action and the actually minutes of these minutes weren't clear. With the districts, for sure supply districts, they are their own local government entity. And some have road powers, some do not have road powers. And so those have road powers that district, those people would be, they may call Bennett, they may call me. I don't get calls on the roads out of my district. I bet you do. But the fact that would be collecting engineering fees and inspection fees and all these other fees on a development that has its own local government responsible for it is repetitive and it's it's So I would recommend that we collect the Planting fee collect the replanting fee collect the variance fee Collect the development permit and the flood plain as we are the flood plain administrator and not collect the variance fee, collect the development permit and the flood plain as we are the flood plain administrator and not collect the engineering and the road inspection fee. That's what I would, I think that's what has been consistent in the past and that's what I would recommend. Question, if we don't, what about those special districts that do not have road powers? If they do not have road powers, I think the only way out of those collections, those fees I just mentioned was that the, I think the birds should be on the district to prove to us that they have road powers. So they would come to, to Bennett staff, show their backup documents showing that they, they are responsible for their roads and their infrastructure. Those entity cell bonds based on those roads and they're inspected and go through their whole separate process. Kevin Mercer is here from Montana. He can speak to what they have their practice and what they've gone through in the past. But I think. Do you think if they don't have road powers? We should call it. We should. If they're not in the road business and if they're going to look to us. But if they do have road powers and they're in charge of the roads, I think that it'd be most appropriate to collect all the plating, replating the variance development and the floodplain and not the engineer review and not the... The drainage. If they're backed up to a sub division that's not in the district, you know, we have not collected that in the past. Oh, yes, we have. I don't think you've collected that from Lantana. In the maybe not Lantana, but we have, and I disagree with not having an engineering review because just as Commissioner Mitchell said, the first question is gonna come up. If we don't collect engineering fee, then are you saying don't review it as the engineering? And if we don't review it, and if some, if how are we going to know if that subdivision is going to impact the county negatively? I have a question. Mr. Motion. I have a plan review and I will admit I'm not too up on exactly what that plan review contains. I do know an municipality part of that is also through the Fire Marshal's Office. Does the county fire marshal are they any part of that plan review? They get copies of everything but traditionally they do not enforce residential issues. That isn't the underlying department responsible for fire protection, even in our water districts, even though they contract with another entity in the underlying responsibility of that fire safety to the fire marshal as well. I do have talk to Jody about that. And the only reason I'm asking that is if that's part of the plan review as well. And it sounds like it isn't. As part of the Development Support Committee, we are representative on there as well as planning and waste management and environmental health. So when those come in, we're not looking at the engineering study of how the road is necessarily built because we know that their road standards are going to be far above the standards that's going to be able to hold a fire truck that thing. What we're looking at is road width, fire hydrants and things like that in turn around so that we have that complete access to bring a fire truck in as far as ingress and egress from subdivision and then turn arounds are within the radius enough so that the fire truck can go to the end and then block link distances. So how long is a block link to end? Is it within the subdivision rules and regulations? So all that we review on the planning side before subdivision is put in the place is already within the subdivision rules and regulations. So really, where we get involved in is if they're outside those guidelines and they come to us with a variance, that's when would get involved with the variance and looking at any request that they want to go over a thousand foot block length for example they want to go to 1500 then we need to look at that and determine that from a variance through that are there any different in the subdivision rules and regs are the different rules and procedures or regulations that address commercial development with NA water supply district. And that's where I would see that. In our subdivision rules, we do not make any distinction with the brushwars supply districts. I had one question, Judge. Yes, sir. I worked together on these issues a lot, and we didn't have a chance to discuss this at length, but are we just talking about eliminating the fees, but not eliminating the engineering review that our public works engineering department would do? That's the way it's posted. That's the way I understood it. We know we got into a little discussion about whether we would continue to review it or not. I thought it was a good point that was made. Depending on, you know, without engineering review, from Bennett, then we could have, you know, impact on the adjoining landowners conceivably from drainage for one that could be a problem not only for the development, but also the county potentially. Fisheries. Well, one thing, this road inspection fee, a fresh water supply district that has road powers. They are selling bonds and going through their own process with their bond holders to install the public infrastructure. And so they are their own local government. Right or wrong if you like districts or not, that's neither here nor there. But they are their own local government that they're not incorporated but they're their own local government and that is part of their jurisdiction just like if the city of Louisville or the city of Ditton or saying any one of those they have their road powers within their their local government and we don't we don't we're not involved not involved in that process. This was about being consistent with practice and clarification. If you have questions, if Kevin Mercer, he can explain to you what has been the practice out there. And as they continue forward through this, I thought it's most appropriate that we clarify, because the minutes are those meetings years ago, are unclear about what are we collecting for, what are we not. So I think it's important to bring it to court. So if the court directs us to go ahead and do the engineering review, but not collect the fees, how is that consistent with other people that are outside of freshwater supply district? I can understand not I can understand collecting not collecting the inspection fees if we are not going to inspect. Right. But if we don't do the plan if we do the plan review but not collect the plan review fee, how is that? There would be any consistency there, but what I'm saying is what have we done with all the districts on the development inspection engineering plan review? Since I have been responsible for the, I have charged them and they have paid. Because we don't have anything, there's not a variance, there's not a court directive, there's nothing in the subdivision rules to say that I cannot charge that. So I've been charging them and they've been paying them. And Atlanta has been the first one to say, we're not going to pay them. That's what's brought all this up. I've got documents that show the other freshwater supply districts have been paying these fees. But we're trying to clarify this because they have not paid in the past. That doesn't necessarily mean it's right. No, I know that. That's why we're clarifying this because you're, you know, as minutes and you know, as department is unclear. Right. I've been charging fees that you're wearing even authorized through the process to begin with three y'all's own minutes. That's why we're, that's why we're clarifying this. Well, the minutes didn't have anything, didn't address fees. They had to wear a silent on it. They were, they talked about them, but there was no action taken out any variances issued to the freshwater supply districts at all. It was just disgust. There was never a formal action taken by the development support committee. Period on any other. And I have requested from Lantana if they received anything and writing. From the county saying that by various things I have yet to see that. Okay. I'm not clear what you're asking us to do here. I recommend we table this. Yeah. I would like because we had a conversation last week that is not. Okay. Let's table this and I'd like for you to come back with, I mean we've got background information and financial impact on those first up, but I want to see a recommendation. We are going to charge for these, we aren't going to charge for those and here's why. And also, I forget who said said it but we need to make sure that we're being consistent with what we do or don't do for special districts versus a developer that's just out in the county. That's why I put it on the agenda. Okay let's table this for today and I'm not ready to go forward. Commissioner Plumman did you have something you wanted to insert? Yes. You know, the area I currently represent is where both of the new ones are going in. I mean, y'all, two of us have them built out and Andy has a considerable amount of gas wells, that hamper development. I can just tell y'all, unless you get one of these who will legislate a process, you're not going to get one with road district authority. And I'm opposed to any new districts in our part of the county. We need to be able to swallow the ones we got before we can, you know, grain any new ones. There becomes administrative problems because they get them through the TCEQ without the road district authority. Start the development and then a third of the way through get road district authority, which puts it even in a further gray area because you start the roads right and they chose to maybe not go through the county process or begin to get them accepted as county roads and then they get road district authority and then we have the Quagmire. They get the road district authority through the legislature and then we have the Quagmire about who's able to enforce the laws they were never they were brought in they weren't brought in for the you know into the county for maintenance or enforcement you know the districts are entities of limited authority they only have their ability to provide water and sewage they don't have rules regarding you know the ability like a home rule they don't have home role ability to do traffic you know, other than being generally opposed to them, you know, I think we just need to clarify that these are all the fees we're going to be charged in regardless. Because I think we need to, I mean, there's like, you know, anybody been out to Providence or Savannah, all the roads are incredibly, you know, compact. I don't know how you could ever get a fire truck down there. I don't know how the plans ever got through. We're lucky we've never had a major fire out there. I've been to Savannah. It's a great it's a great place to live, nice wide roads, they've done a great job. Unfortunately, that's pretty much one of the few ones that's done a good job and didn't count. I mean the people who live out there I think are doing a good job trying to help themselves, but you know I'd like to have some more review of them, you know, make sure they have wider streets, you know, fire truck accessible, bigger lots, so that we don't have severe impacts that for police and fire. I guess we should call Sheriff Parky back up and ask him what it's like to have to be the main police department for a bunch of these entities. So, that's my direction, Venice. I want us to be heavily reviewing these plans for concerns regarding density, fire protection, police protection, road maintenance, law enforcement, who's going to be putting up the signs, all the signs up there and a bunch of the districts weren't put up by the county and they weren't put up by the district. They're just put up by the developer. I mean, there's a lot of things we need to have reviewed on these stuff. If we're going to engage in that much, I definitely think we need to be providing a charge enough to eat. So that's my direction. Mr. Martin? I mean, with his direction, I mean, what authority does the county have to tell those water supply districts all the things that he wants in those requirements as far as densities as far as with residential streets as arterial streets as collateral streets, I mean, what collective streets, I mean, what authority do you, through the plan for review, have to allow those things to happen and to set those standards? Basically, our authority comes from the sub-visual rules and regulations. We have that authority, actually, because they're especially based on past review and a plan and things like that. They were granted variances for like setbacks, lot sizes, things like that. Through this court? Or through? It was through staff. As at that time, it was a staff level. That's one reason why I had the subdivision rules changed was to have variances on a court level, because staff shouldn't be making policy decisions. And that's a policy decision. So everything that he said is enforceable through our subdivision rules and regs. Is that correct? Almost the sheriff law enforcement issues or not but everything else is. It definitely consideration. I think density is a consideration which hand in lead into long-force b this is subject that needs some more reviews so I believe we're not going to be taking the action of it. Let's go to our public hearing that we're a little late for. I'm going to go to item 4D on the agenda, which is public hearing of the proposed budget. We need motion to go under public hearing. Second. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Marchand, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. I'm policy knee. Motion does carry. We'll call on Donna. I'm technically challenged this morning. Okay. Of course, this is our public hearing on our budget. As you all know, we've had our public hearings on our proposed tax rate the last two weeks. Also have handouts available here for anybody that's interested in a copy of our slideshow and our provided copies to each of you earlier this morning. Several public notices are required for the adoption of the budget. We have posted a public hearing on the proposed budget in the newspaper and the generic or chronicle. According to the local government code on August the 20th, we also posted that same notice on the main page of our website. We filed a copy of the proposed budget with the county clerk, county auditor, and of course it's available in our office for public inspection on September 1st. This is a copy of the website, so you'll see all those postings were met according to the regulations in the law. Early on in the budget process, the commissioners court set the organizational goals for the county which involved being, developing economic and industrial growth, taking care of our workforce, providing for mobility regarding transportation needs, also providing an effective and efficient judicial system. We are actually adding a new district court this year, effective in January, retaining and expanding partnerships to improve the health of our citizens. We're fulfilling all of our legislative obligations. We are developing a long range plans. As you know, each year we adopt our capital improvement plan that has been very successful. We are also preserving an adequate fund balance and enhancing our government e-government solutions through technology. I truly feel that the proposed budget that we're presenting to you today fulfills all of the goals that this court set back in February. Speaking of back in February, we had our initial budget meeting with the court to talk about priorities as well as setting the calendar for the fiscal year. We had workshops with the departments about the budget process in March. All the departments were given opportunity to submit their budget request to us by April 23rd. And on July 13th, our office presented a recommended budget to the court. During July 20th workshop, we heard budget appeals from various departments. And I will say I believe that was probably a record low number of appeals. I think our department's understood the economic conditions and took your directive to heart. We also had workshops in the rest of July through August the 10th. We had our eyes. I mentioned earlier our two public hearings on our proposed tax rate on August the 24th and August 31st. We filed the budget for public inspection on September 1st and then we're here today to tax rate on August the 24th and August 31st. We followed the budget for public inspection on September 1st and then we're here today to have the public hearing on the proposed budget consider adoption immediately following and then also a follow-up to adopt the tax rate. Just as a quick reminder initial budget request that was submitted to our department total $200.4 million. That was an increase of $15.9 million. Would have required a tax rate of just about 28.5 cents or a tax rate increase of 8.63%. I think we're proposing a very conservative budget to share that includes reductions in most departments requests as well as reductions in their current budgets. As you know, we are experiencing all the problems that come with the economy, reduced revenues, fluctuating fuel costs. For the first time, we're seeing a lower property base, tax base here in Denton County. We have home foreclosures. Our financial market is still fairly volatile as well as just overall inflationary costs. I do believe we remain financially stable and we do have acceptable reserve funds in our budget this year and we anticipate services to remain at the current levels. at the current levels. Some of the budget priorities are to continue to work together to have a balanced budget. Take action to avoid bigger impacts later. Attempt to protect our employees. Retain public services as best we can and protect our ability to operate in the future. Our current budget is $184.5 million. The proposed budget that we're discussing today is $196.8 million, which is an increase of $12.3 million. $1.5 million, which is an increase of $12.3 million. This is a quick overall summary of our major funds here at the county. You'll see General Fund shows a slight increase, and then the debt service fund shows a significant increase as well. Our current tax rate that we're looking at in this proposed budget, or in the current budget is 0.2498. The effective rate was 0.263934. Our proposed rate that we're considering later today is 0.2739, which is a variance of 0.0241. The variance above the effective rate is just under opinion. And the proposed rate is 3.78% above the effective tax rate. Again, the effective tax rate is the rate that will provide the taxing unit with the same amount of revenue it received in the year before on properties taxed in both years. We also do experience each year some loss property on the role for first time exemptions. We had voter approved debt projects that were approved in November of 2008 by the citizens of the county. I include facility and technology projects totaling $185 million. County roads and bridges $75 million. County roads and bridges $75 million. Triple eight road projects $235 million. For a total of $495 million. That was issued in June of 2010, partially to take advantage of the economic situation. We're finding that most of our projects are coming in under budget. So I think it was a very prudent move on the commissioners part to go ahead and consider issuing that debt and moving forward with some of these projects. Facility and technology projects total $34.5 million includes government center in Louisville, juvenile probation detention and multipurpose facility, as well as some fiber optic construction. We have all the road projects listed here for the county judge, $9.1 million, Commissioner precinct 1, 18.6 million, Commissioner 2, 6.2 million, Commissioner Precinct 3, 6.5 million, Commissioner Precinct 4, 19.3 million, and Missilaneous Projects Antripo 4, totaling 45.1 million, for a total debt issue of $139.3 million. Back when the court proposed the bond election, the voters were informed that the impact on the tax rate to issue this amount of debt over four or five year period could increase the tax rate by approximately one penny for each issue. And based on the calculated effective rate, the proposed rate to fund the 2011 budget, including debt service, is just under that one penny. This is an example showing the current tax rate versus the proposed tax rate that will be considered today as well. You'll see the owner of a $200,000 home could pay $4.02 per month in addition. If you compare that to the effective rate, that same home would pay $1.66 per month increase. The house charts pretty much puts in perspective for someone who lives in the city of Denton just what their tax bill might look like. You'll see school district tax makes up 61% of the persons tax bill. City of Denton taxes comprise 28% where Denton County is at 11%. The average home value in Denton County this year actually decreased a little bit from around $212,000 to $211,379. This chart reflects the proposed rates for all those various entities. This shows again the monthly tax bill on that house showing that out of the $439 paid on that average home value of $48 is for Denton County $270 for school district tax and $122 for the City of Denton. This is a 10 year tax rate history chart that shows that I believe the court's been very consistent in keeping that rate at a minimal level over the past 10 years. This chart shows the top 10 counties in the state based on population because the Denton County falls well below all the other counties. Keep in mind that this is showing a county wide tax rate so in Denton County we only have our Denton County tax but in some of these other entities they may have a hospital district tax a community college tax drainage district tax etc so that's taking into account if you lived in Denton County versus any of these other counties, what your county wide tax bill would be. Next. This is a tax bill comparison on that same house, showing that your Denton County taxes would be $579. On that same home, Interant County would cost you $1,754. Dallas County would cost $1,262. And in Cullen County, $695. This is the top 10 counties comparing their tax rates versus employees per capita. And you will see on this chart that Denton County falls at the lowest level, not only in tax rate, but in the employees per capita. This chart compares Denton County's population to Denton County's per capita rate over the last 10 years. And you'll see that while our population increased some 41.7%, we have seen a 20% reduction in our per capita rate here in Denton County. So that shows to me that our employees are working harder and doing more work. Revenue changes included in the budget. We have an increase in taxes from the tax rate increase that's being proposed to $5 million 154,000. We have an increase in taxes from new property that was added to the role for the first time this year of $2.884 million. We also receive additional taxes that might be under protest during the year that total about $700,000. Intergovernmental revenues are up about $2.4 million. That's from either grants or contracts that we might have with other entities. Our auto registration fees are going up a little bit this year. As you know last year I think we saw an $850,000 reduction. So we're seeing that area in our revenue stream provide for a little relief and increase for us. We have miscellaneous and other transfers at 723,000 fees are increasing about $376,000. Interest earnings that's almost not enough to put on the sheet, but we are seeing a slight increase a little bit different than we've seen in the past. We've seen major reductions in interest earnings in years past. We are seeing a reduction, a decline in our fines, about $40,000. So that's our total revenue changes in our budget this year. This is showing that same information, just in a pie chart that shows that 71% of our revenue comes from property taxes and the others are broken down accordingly. It's always interesting to see too just how much of our tax revenue comes from residential which is at 75%, 21% is from commercial and 4% from mineral values. The following is just a list of functions provided by the county for public safety, roads, our judicial legal system, debt service, capital projects, health welfare, and financial and general administration, as well as facilities management. That all comes into play when we look at our expenditure changes here in just a few minutes. Our debt service payments are actually increasing 7.6 million dollars although we're only increasing the tax rate by that 5.2 million dollar increase we talked about before. We are required to put more funds into our employee health insurance plan approximately 1.3 million dollar increase is being projected for that. Again, we are proposing that that entire cost be absorbed by Denton County, so that employees are not having to take on that extra challenge, especially in light of the fact that we don't have raises included in this year's budget. We are transferring a million dollars from our reserve fund for capital replacement fund so that eventually we may be able to pay for some major projects without having to issue long-term debt. We're seeing an increase in juvenile grant funding. Indigent care expenses are increasing by about half a million dollars. And that's directly related to our economic conditions. We have a new district court, as I mentioned earlier, will be effective in January with six new position that comes to us with a cost of $476,000. We have retirement increases, as well as some some workers comp changes and other benefits that might include longevity pay and incentive pay that total $410,000. Repairs and maintenance have increased. We've also have funds for the first time in many years for the potential of having to house prisoners in other counties. So we have a contingency fund of $306,000 included in this budget. Prisoner medical expense as well as food expenses for our inmates increasing about $195,000. We do have three other new hires in the budget at a cost of $121,000. We just have some miscellaneous line item changes. Utility cost that are pretty much related to the expansion of the Loop 288 site. Fire calls volunteer fire department pledges are up $25,000. Library funding was reduced by $25,000. We're seeing a reduction in capital equipment by about $84,000. We have various supply cuts throughout the budget, totaling $122,000. We did delete three positions at a cost of $202,000. And we did see some rental and lease payment reductions as well, about $242,000. Some of that's with CPS moving to the loop 288 side, as well as just less in lease payments for other equipment. So that's a list of all of our expenditure changes. This is showing that information or our whole budget in an expense summary about function. So you'll see how much of our budget goes to each category. Most of our budget is pretty well split, almost 50-50 with personnel and maintenance and operation. Capital expenditures are very small portion of our budget. New employee requests that we received this year were for a total of 18. We included seven in the recommended budget. And the proposed budget today is listing nine positions. That's three for the new district court budget, which includes a judge, court reporter, and court administrator. One district clerk employee for the new district court. Criminal DA administrative specialist to position CPS family law attorney for the new district court Two employees for the sheriff that would include a bailiff for the new district court as well as the deputy sheriff from an expired grant And one district clerk records management deputy clerk. As we mentioned, there were three positions deleted in the budget that includes the planning manager in our county planning department, part time budget analyst in my department, as well as administrative specialist two in the DA hot check department. This is just a breakdown of all the employees by function here at the county. You'll see that out of our 1480 employees, 801 or 54% is for public safety. About 17% for judicial, which combines our legal and judicial section there below. That's our employee history report. We've seen like 17.7% growth over the last 10 years. And for the most part, I would say most of those employees were placed in the public safety division with regard to jail expansion and public safety needs. As I mentioned earlier, our population has grown some 41.7% over the last 10 years. That pretty much concludes the PowerPoint presentation I have today. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have or at this point we could invite the public to participate in the hearing. Thank you Donna. Is anyone in attendance who would like to address commissioners for concerning the proposed budget? Anyone in attendance who would like to address commissioners quite concerning the proposed budget. I believe not. We need a motion to close our public hearing. Motion by commission or e's. Seconded by commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, sitting. Motion does carry. Donna, did you want to finish up? Yes, please. I wanted to also make everyone aware that the 2011 budget once adopted will be available on our DIN County website at the address listed here. And you just click on the adopted budget link and you'll be able to see not only this year's budget that we're about to adopt as well as historical documents as well. I can touch on the rest of this after one. But that concludes the public hearing for B. I'm just going to say we've got 4c4d and 4e and this gets kind of repetitious and also the specific wording is specifically identified in state law so if it seems a little cumbersome to you and you're going why the world does she say it that way is because we have to. So we will now go to item 4c which is to approve the adoption of the fiscal year 2010-2011 dent county budget in the amount of $196,785,911 dollars. The chart will move for approval. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. Questions? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed, sitting. Aye. Motion carries, foreign favor, one, opposed. There are a few people that at this point, if you don't mind, I would like to acknowledge first off my staff. They all work tremendously hard, just like every other department, but my hat goes off to them this year for all the work that they had to put into this budget to come up with reductions that we did that we felt like departments could continue to operate. John and Maxis is here. She's the assistant budget officer. Sandra Camp is our budget system analyst back at the office working. LeDon Fitzgerald is budget analyst. Kathy Unger is our part-time budget analyst. And Donna Henrich's Center Financial Support Specialist. They all do an awesome job, and I couldn't do my job without each and every one of them Lot goes into the budget Preparation not only from our offices standpoint, but we get a lot of help from others including our county auditor He as he makes his entrance here and his staff they do as you know, we have to have revenue estimates early in the process. We don't have problems other counties have with their auditors. Yes, you're saying that. You're saying that really is that what you're saying? It's just a fact. TD provides them revenue estimates to his early. I've heard lots of budget officers complain that it might take several months for them to get those and it delays their process and makes their job harder. We don't have that here. We get lots of help from purchasing, Beth Fleming and her department. Help our department as well as all the departments when it comes time for coming up with quotes, pricing information that's necessary to assist them with their needs. Human resources, Amy Phillips in her department do a great job looking at all the job classifications and making recommendations to us. Information services, of course we couldn't do our job as well as we do without the help of Kevin Carr, Rudy, all the people in his application development team, they make this a much easier process for all of us. Texas sister Collector Steve Mossman and specifically Michelle French, they help us with all of our public notices. They calculate our rates as quickly as they can and I appreciate all the help that they put into this. Ashley, Whiten and Ron and Anderson, I appreciate all the work they do, all they review information with us regarding core orders throughout the process and help us with any means and I appreciate all their help. Of course Kim Gillis is no longer here, but I have to keep her name up there because she helped us significantly through the process with issues that come up from a legal standpoint as well as John Felt and others. We have committees such as vehicle assessment and social service committee that help us as well. as well. Yeah, we really have to thank our county staff this year. They continue to work so diligently and hard for Denton County and continue to provide quality services to our citizens. They continue to perform at a high level despite added workload, no salary increases, and salaries that lag behind the market. So I want to take my hat off to each employee and thank them personally for the job they do and for being so understanding during these tough economic times. And last but not least, I want to thank each of you for all the work that you put into the process. I know you've got a tough job to do as far as setting the budget, making all those final decisions, and coming up with a compromised budget that we can all work with and live with throughout this next fiscal year. And thank you all. I'm thank you to them. Donnie, wonderful job. Thank you. Thank you. OK, let's go to item 4D, which is approval of adoption of the didn't kind of tax, excuse me. Tax rate of 0.2739 per 100 dollars of the taxable value for tax year 2010. There's actually a court order on page 215 of your packet and I would recommend that we read the entire court order into the record prior to motion. All right. Let me get to that. Or as a part of your motion. 215, you said right? Yes ma'am. Great. Okay. I'm in that the property tax rate being increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 0.2739, which is effectively a 3.775944 percent increase in the tax rate. This tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operation than last year's tax rate. The tax rate will effectively be raised by 3.775944%. And we'll raise taxes for maintenance operations on $100,000 home by approximately $12.17. The adoption of the tax rate on $100 of taxable value for tax year, I'm sorry. Test of the evident kind of for tax year 2010 includes 0.199101 for a purpose of maintenance and operation in 0.73999 for the payment of principal and interest on debt service or a total county tax rate of 0.2739. That is my motion. Seconded by commission, Marchion. Questions or comments? Any none? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. Nene. carries, four in favor, one opposed. Okay. And four, aye. This doesn't have some special wording also or does it? It's pretty much as it stated on the agenda. This is the way it's posted. This may not. The proof ratifying the adoption of the fiscal year 2010-2011 didn't kind of budget will raise more total property taxes in last year's budget by $6,943,466 or 5.15% and of that amount $2,884,362 is tax revenue that will be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year with a total tax rate of .2739 per $100 of taxable value. Chero Salmoo. Seconded by Commissioner Eans. Questions or comments? Very none, all in favor. Please say aye. I'm a post in A. Okay. You can carry his foreign favor one opposed. Thank you, Don. Keep a great job again. Okay. We're all way up to item number two, which is the consent agenda. Members, are there any items on the consent agenda that you need to pull for consideration or discussion? Or do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Marchant. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opp? A. Motion does carry. Consent agenda today consists of two A, which is approval of the ordermaking appointments. We have one promotion within the county jail of the Sheriff's Department. 2B is approval of the Interrupt Departmental Transures 2 see as approval of budget amendment quest 102 050 for various line insurers shares reserve unit in the shares department in the amount of 13,255 dollars. 2D is approval of budget amendment request 102 060 for electrical water service for Dink County storage building in the amount of $3,500 to E is approval budget amendment quest 102, 070 for various line-ups for human resources in the amount of 1,750 to F is approval budget amendment quest 102, 080 for office furniture and equipment for a Sheriff's Communication Division in the amount of $2,000 2G is approval of budget member requests 102-110 for training and education and computer equipment for purchasing department in the amount of $1,078. 2H is approval of budget member requests 102-120 for various line-ins. For mud and bridge, pricing 1 in the amount of $28,865. 2I is approval of budget member requests 102 102, 130 for repair maintenance for a DINC County courts building in the amount of $10,730. 2J as approval of budget member requests, 102, 140 for postage and collections department, for the collections department in the amount of $3,000. 2K as approval of budget member requests, 102, 150 for steps to to co-report her for 393rd district court in the amount of $672 to L is approval budget amendment quest 102160 for operating equipment for law enforcement facility in the amount of $840 to M is approval budget amendment quest 102 170 for various line-outists County Jail and law enforcement facilitating the amount of $38,500 to IN is approval of budget and amount of requests, 102, 190, zero for training and education and operating supplies for child protective services in the amount of $2,150 to all those approval of budget and I'm sorry approval of building use requests from Shannon Gray for the use of court has on the square for a wedding ceremony on Sunday, October 10, 2010 from 11 to 12. 5A is approval of the bill report, paid from CSCD, Community Corrections, TAI, P-Shirts, Training Shirts, Forventure, VIP Interest, DA Checked Fee, and DA Forventure. Funds are all presented for reporting purposes only. James Wells. Judge, approval of bills that's presented with nine deletions that have all from the general fund that had various processing errors. It's all corrections I have. Do we have questions? Do we have a motion for approval? For approval? Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. I'm going to say aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Welcome Bethlehem. Good morning. On this item, we are recommending the award to Aremark. Aremark is our current provider, and they've given a satisfactory service. As you know, we interrupted their contract in midterm to comply with the Texas Department of Agriculture requirements for our National School Lunch Program. This is the only proposal we received. We did have five firms come to the pre-bid. The paperwork was very honoris and difficult to comply with, I believe. However, this proposal is approximately 4% less in our current contract for the exact same services. So it is still economical for us to renew and the service has been very satisfactory. We did send it to the state. The state has approved it. In addition, we will also get $100, dollar upgrade in our officer dining room Which needs some some upgrades the equipment in there was purchased by our previous Food service management company years ago and it needs to be upgraded So this is included at no cost to Denton County, so we're recommending approval. I would like to recognize the committee I think we spent a lot more time on the specifications and development of all the requirements than we did on valuation. However, Floyd Davenport, Hardy-Bert, Mike Ganser, Ken Metcalf, and Sherry Mulkey in office worked very hard on preparing that. And we are in compliance, so we're placed to recommend a Thank you other questions are kind of remember the quarter do we have a motion for approval? also Motion by commissioner Coleman seconded by commissioner Eads hearing the questions on favor please say aye I oppose and in motion carries. Thank you Thank you for the committee hard work 7a is approval budget member quest 102 is 090 for substitute core reporter including the transfer of funds I'm now departmental and appropriate court ordered contingency for a private court in the amount of $500 Thank you motion by commissioner Mitchell second by commissioner Coleman on favorably say aye aye Opposed to name motion is carried on favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed to name. Motion is carried. Seven B is approval, budget amendment quest 102-100 for court appointed attorneys including the transfer of funds from non-departmental and appropriated court or contingency for county criminal court number four in the amount of $30,000. Motion by commissioner Eads. Second by commissioner Marchin. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, sen. Motion to carry. Seventh C. It was approval of Budget Member Quests. 102 180 for offer to be an equipment and VCR and projection equipment for the 2008 Homeland Security Grant in the amount of $74,443. Motion to make Commissioner Mitchell. Chair, we'll second the motion questions or comments. Did you have a question commission needs? Okay, just reading. Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sen. Motion is carried. Seven D is approval, a budget, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sen. Motion is carried. 7D is approval, a budget move, a quest 102. And I need to correct this, this is 220. For office rental, including the transfer of funds from non-department, land-appropriated facilities, contingency. The child protective services, the amount of $24,704. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell. Seconded by Commissioner Marchant. Questions? Bring none on favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion does carry. 8A is approval of the recommended revisions to personnel policy 6.7. Didn't kind of benefit's benefits plan look on Amy Phillips. Thank you Judge and commissioners of the Court. You may remember that we had some discussion on this item last week. This was a proposal to revise the Denton County Benefit Plan to say that the to reflect that the county would not make contributions to retiree insurance for retirees who retired after January 1, 2011, if they had less than 10 years of service with the county. There was some discussion about why 10 years instead of eight years. there were some questions asked. And in the meantime, I've provided some information to you. I hope that answered your questions, at least somewhat, about what other systems do and how it relates to vesting requirements and that kind of thing. And we're looking for action today I'd prefer the questions of Amy. Do we have emotion? Oh, I have a comment if Some employees were planning on retiring This year and Don't have the ten year of service This year, and don't have the tenure of service, of any reason I'm in any room for being grandfathered. If they're planning on retiring this year, this would not be effective until January 1st. So if they were planning to retire in 2010, this would not impact them at all. But if it was after January 1st it would affect them. Any other questions? Group commission? After January 1st it would impact them. There was consideration commissioner of grandfathers and employees and it was decided not to recommend that. So again, Amy, do you mind? I'm rude. You mind restating that? Yes. There was consideration of grandfathering employees. We checked with other entities too to see what they did. And it was decided not to recommend grandfathering employees. Fisheries, did you have another question? Chris. Chris, did you have another question? For the statement, I just have a problem with hiring people under one set of facts and expectations and then changing that on our existing employees. I've a real problem with that. I don't think it's right. And as sure we do change provisions in the benefit plan annually. And it always affects everybody the first of the year. So it's consistent with that. And I can tell you that this is just the first of probably possibly several changes that we will be bringing in the next couple of years probably. You know, things change that the county doesn't have any control over either like gas be reporting and insurance costs and those are some of the things that are driving these recommendations that that helps to put it into perspective at all. The personnel committee review this and just... No this was not sent to personal policy. Can they don't have to? I don't agree with the 10 years. I didn't agree with it last week and I don't agree with it this week either. I don't either. I looked at that and I was trying to figure out if there was a savings or if some way we could quantify it to justify it. And I know you work well hard, Ms. Phillips, but you couldn't really quantify it. I think though if you look at the difference between the number of employees that are leaving between that eight and ten years, you'll see that there would be more than half of them. More than half of those 20 employees that left with less than 10 years were between the eight and 10 years. We're tiring. It looks significant but you're right you can't really quantify it. You can't tell what elections they're going to make when they leave. You don't know which plan they're going to choose and what their claims are going to be. I can only tell you that retirees are very, very expensive in our plan and we spent, I want to say, and James correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for over 65 retirees, we spent a million dollars last year. Is that what you said? Actually, all retirees and dependents that are covered by the county's plan cost the canters like 130 of those total. Also, in 2000, fiscal 2009 over a million dollars more than premiums were put in. They put in the premiums they paid in. $5000 fiscal 2009 over a million dollars more than Premims were put in they put in the premiums they pay in Correct me if I'm wrong what we're trying to do is avoid people who maybe work for O'Passal County for a long time And then come work here for a year and then we'd have to pick up the retirement We really want people who worked here for a period of time to enjoy the retirement benefits It's correct. I think that's how I was I I agree. It just don't know why we wouldn't. I mean, I don't know if anybody's watched the news recently, but Colin County, right, kind of been on dead self has made comments about retirement and they do it where it's if you're there for eight years you get insurance in eight years. But commissioners in Cullen County, the only people getting subsidy for their retirement after eight years are those that are over 65. They're Medicare, Medicare eligible employees. So it's a supplement to Medicare. Those people who are early retirees that are retiring prior to 65 are not getting any subsidy at all. So actually what we're proposing is much more generous than Colleen County. I think it's very good for you to look into the future. I mean, my only worry is correct if I'm wrong you guys, but you know there's going to be people who have eight years of service retire, but don't have 10 years. They're going to come to say why am I not getting the retiree insurance And I understand that concern we had that same concern and that's why we called Some of these other entities and asked them because you're right. There is a gap You can see a lot of these entities have a larger gap Then what we're proposing and they said it had not been a problem in their entity. Now that doesn't mean they didn't have an employee or two complaint. I mean we always have an employee or two complaint. But they implemented this several years ago and it's been working well for them. But if the court's uncomfortable with 10 years, certainly the court doesn't have to adopt 10 years. Like a day on it. I'd like to maybe get with Amy and just about this and see the exact numbers, how many people I just hate for someone to get near the year before they retire and have expectations and then change it to years someone's retiring. It's different if you're hired in with some expectation over its years out and you can plan for it. But I don't. We are reaching a point where if we don't make a decision on this it'll have to wait a year just so you know. Okay. Any other comments on this issue? I'll just remind you of one of the email that Amy sent on the second. The 63 employees retired in the last two years. 20 of them had less than 10 years of the Dent County service. 12 of the 20 had at least 8 but less than 10 years of Dent County service. 11 of the 20 that had less than 10 years of service enrolled in retiree insurance. I'm totally supportive of the recommendation but we can table it for another week if you want to think about it. Okay. Going on to item 10b which is approval of the road in the Lake Crest Meadow phase 2a and 2b subdivision. Is the commissioner in the position to move for approval? Motion by commissioner Coleman, seconded by commissioner Eads, other questions? Hearing none all in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed say aye. Motion is carried. 10C is approval of accepting Treat Road Bridge Project. This is also in Commissioner P. Aye for approval. Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Seconded by Commissioner Marchant. Questions or comments? Hearing none all in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to say aye. Motion is carried. I believe with the exception of executive session that's everything so we'll now go to item 15A Which is under Texas government code 551.072 Debaration regarding real property close meeting to deliberate the purchase of real property where deliberation and open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the governmental body and negotiations with the third person regarding the purchase of real property for county facilities located in kind of commissioner precinct one with that meeting executive session. I'm being from Executive Session. There'll be no action on 58 today. And with that, we are adjourned. Everybody have a great day.