Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Denton County Commissioner's Court for Tuesday July 28, 2009 is now in session. This morning, an invocation began by Adam Bell, Assistant Supervisor in the County Clerk's Office. And our pledges will be led by Beth Fleming, our Director of Purchasing, will you please stand? Please buy your heads with me. Heavenly Father, I pray your protection for this assembled body may the brightness of your countenance shine upon them. Keep them in your hand and give them the assurance of your walk with them as they go about the business of deliberating the affairs of our beloved county. May they find in you the strength to withstand those who criticize, give them the humility to accept aid when offered, and encourage to do the right thing. Holy Father, make them aware of your presence as they take part in that divinely appointed experiment we call human government, then at the end of the day let them know. All that is required of you is to love mercy, do justly, and to walk humbly with their God. And it's holy name we pray. Amen. Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which is the name of one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag, pledge allegiance to thee. Texas, one state under God, one in indivisible. We have two time to agenda items this morning. We'll go to our public hearings first. Item 4A is a public hearing consideration discussion and or approval of the reply of lot four of Pandorosa states precinct four. We need a motion to go into our public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Ead, second by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposite say aye. Aye. Post and aye. Motion does carry. First we'll hear from Kathy Alcorn. Good morning, Kathy. Good morning, Dr. Chisholm. Before you start, I think it's appropriate that we note that this is the first last time that Kathy is going to be before us for public hearings, because she's going to be retiring. Yes. I have heard last plan. I'm really, I'm very glad. And it's a privilege that I get to do one more. And just on a little side note, Bennett would have been here this morning. But he is working on that first grand baby. We haven't heard anything from him yet. I'm sure sometimes by this afternoon. Okay, on public hearing, this is a replant of law before of Pandarosa estates. It is currently a 50 plus acre lot. The owners desire to split it into a 10 acre and a 40 plus acre lot. They have met all the requirements of the subdivision rules and regulations. And we have taken it before development support committee and they do recommend approval as to planning and engineering. Has there been any comments from neighbors? We've had no comments either for or against from the property owners that were known for. Thank you. Any questions from members of court? They say or in his absence so Around a different name I'm sorry I am on the different item. I'm ahead. You're jumping the gun. Okay. I'm moving we close the public hearing. Second. Hold that motion. The second first let me first ask if there's any member of the public in the tenets would like to address the court on this issue either in favor of or opposed. Any member of the public in attendance that would like to address commissioners court either in favor or opposed to the reply of lot four ponderosa states piece four. Hearing none we now have a motion by commissioner Eid seconded by commissioner Marcheant to close the public hearing on favor please say say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to say aye. Motion does carry. Now we need a motion for approval. I move approval for the replay. Second. Second. Second. And by Commissioner Marchion. Hearing no comments, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to say aye. Motion does carry. All right, 4B is a public hearing to approve the revisions of the Ex officio road policy and the subdivision rules and regulations. First, we need a motion to go under public hearing. Motion by commissioner Eid, seconded by commissioner Mitchell. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Cine? Motion does carry. Who would like to start? I'm happy to go first. Members on our agenda this morning is revisions to our ex officio road policy and our subdivision roles and regulations. And this is something that I've been working on since taking office and I appreciate Commissioner Coleman working on this and partnering with me as well. This last six months since he's been in office. We've spent a lot of time in meetings and legal research, working with our internal legal staff and our county engineer, Bennett Howe, looking at methods in which to resolve a problem. And if you recall back in February, this court took action. Revising our current road and so division rules standards on the quality of roads that we will, the county will require developers to build and this is kind of a second part of that process which is to allow the court as a whole to have a process whereby they can accept existing roads that have been publicly dedicated to Ditton County to the public and accept those into our road maintenance inventory of roads. And it also provides provisions for roads that on how for private roads to become public roads through a legal process whereby they dedicate those to the public. So this is about the safety and welfare of the traveling public. There is an out and the unacorporated part of the county. Again, I want to thank everybody for their hard efforts. If there's any questions, we have details in the packet. Now we have an answering as a no commissioner come all as well. I'd just like to say that, you know, I'm really thank Andy for all his hard work. I know this was an extremely frustrating enterprise forum, but I really admire the fact that he had the intestinal fortitude to see it through the end instead of just kind of laying it aside. Frankly, this is very important. We, during our periods of great growth in the 90s and the early part of this decade, had some subdivisions that were put in in both precincts mainly four and one that weren't adopted for maintenance by the county. And there's been some severely unfortunate circumstances where there perhaps are some failed home owners associations or developers who didn't follow through. And we have people who pay their county property taxes but are unable to receive services. I know it's only anecdotal, but when I was the attorney for the Sheriff's Department, we would have a tremendous amount of calls asking people for service to prevent truckers, gas trucks, rock haulers going, taking shortcuts through their subdivisions, but there was no way for law enforcement to take any action because they weren't falling under the definition of a public road. I know it's a tremendous hardship on school buses, which I have children who I know Andy does. That's one of the most important things we need to be aware of is their safety in our community and There's really limited law enforcement that we can do regarding these So it's many aspects picking it up for law enforcement for maintenance for drainage These are all things that the county with its limited charge of authority is charged with doing I Feel it's very important that we adopt this policy. And I know it's like all things compromise is hard. But I think this is a well forged compromise. And I hope the policy will work on the future. I have really good hopes for this. Mr. Mitchell, did you have a question? I just on page, excuse me, I can't see. None of these glasses this morning on page 56. I can, okay. I've got new glasses. And under the definitions of County Judge, we need to add Hills slash Herer absence in their own citizens, just his absence. Number eight. That's the only. I'm not just saying it just her if you want. I was trying to be politically correct. That's all I have. Are there any other questions or comments? I'd just like to thank you. Thank you for all the hard work that everybody put into this. And thanks for the leadership of Commissioner Eads and Commissioner Coleman on getting this taken care of. And I know it's been a long process. And I remember getting a phone call from Commissioner Eads and him singing a hallelujah chorus when it was done Come in both you and and all that were a part of this and Thank you. Thank you so much and this would be a great asset for the county There any members of the public who would like to address commissioners court concerning the Revision to the exhibition or road policy and the subdivision rules regulations. Anyone anyone in attendance would like to address commissioners court on this issue. Hearing none do we have a motion to close the public hearing. Motion by commissioner Ead seconded by commissioner Mitchell. All in favor please say aye aye. Oppositing motion carries unanimously. now we need a motion to approve. I move for approval pushing by Commissioner Ead second by Commissioner Coleman hearing no comments all in favor please say aye Oppositing motion carries Got her done. Thank you very much gentlemen Thank you very much, gentlemen. Item 1 is for public input for items not listed in the agenda. If there is any member of the public that would like to address commissioners court, we ask that you please complete a public comment form available from the aid to the court. I want to also remind everyone to please turn off your cell phones and pagers. Item 2 is the consent agenda. Are there any items on the consent agenda that you need to pull for discussion or do we have a motion for approval? Proof. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Marchand. Second. Second. Second by Commissioner Coleman. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Ann Los Naine, motion does carry. Consent agenda today consists of 2A, which is approval of order making appointments. They're a new hire in the county clerk's office and new hire in the tax office, a rehiring the tax office, a new hire in public facilities and new hire in the county jail, a rehire, a constable precinct one, and a demotion in constable precinct furry. Item 2B is approval of the Intra-Departmental Transfers to see as approval of Budget Amendment request 101-570 for operating equipment for bond enforcement facility in the amount of $15,140. 2D is approval of Budget Amendment request 101-590 for contract labor for district clerk records management fund in the amount of $2,400 to ease approval budget amendment request 101 610 for computer software for shares, forfeiture funds in the amount of $7,000. This is for recording purposes only. In consideration of our employee Donna Alexander in the elections office would like to go to item 13B at this time. 13B is approval of the appointment of election judges for the election year 2009-2010, and I'm not going to say it in Spanish. You'll be glad Good morning, and your packet you had a listing of the judges nominated by the parties for the period 2007 through 2000 this chart's wrong 2009 through 2010 and these Judges would be used on the election probably just for the November 3rd constitutional amendment election, because we shouldn't have any other county elections that I anticipate between during that period of time other than the Constitution amendment election. But I noticed my table is wrong, I'll get you a new table sent back over here, it has 2007 through 2008 on the top, and I'll get you a new one that's got the right dates on it. I apologize for that. I guess it was cut off. I've got the polling places and I notice that was right now. I got that. They're at polling places, but... Please, Adam Judge. I don't have that sheet. I guess what I included. I've got it on some and I don't have it on all of them. It's what it is. And some of them it's there. The first two pages is not. And then the other pages there. Coach, why don't you go to another item. Let me go to my copies of it. No, you're fine. You're fine. I'm OK. These are the lists that are presented by everybody. They also have parties, correct? Yeah, the parties, I've sent out a letter of the parties in May. They made nominations and we take their nominations and put this chart together. So, whatever, when I pasted it into the agenda thing, it didn't do right. I don't know what happened there, but really I hope we found that program. You get a certain cleave list. I'll leave this copy with the clerk and then that way they'll have one and I'll change the dates that are on here and get you a clean copy that's at the top. Thank you. Are there any questions for Donald Alexander? Do we have a motion for approval? I'll move. Question by Commissioner Mitchell. Second. Second by Commissioner Marchand. Hearing no questions, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name. Motion carries. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Item 5A is approval of the bill. Report payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, T.A.I.P. Shares, training shares, forfeiture, VIT, Interest, D.A. Check B and D.A. Forfeiture funds are presented for recording purposes only. Good morning, James Wells. Morning, Judge Commissioners. As approval of the bill reports, as presented with the six editions that are noted on separate page as well as the five editions, two of which are from General Fund and three are from 2007 PI Bond Fund for right away purchases for a copper canyon road project. questions I have. Thank you. We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Marchand. Thank you. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. Are there any questions? No, no. In favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. Motion does carry. motion does carry. We'd like to now go to item 7E. 7E is to accept the submission of the Prasal Roe for Dent County for Taxer 2009 from the Tax Assessor Collector. We have with us this, Mr. Steve Mossman. Good morning, Steve. Fudge commissioners. All the weighted numbers. Are all these fun numbers to read? Yes, I don't think that thinking numbers this big. I'm so bad. All I can do is read them to you. Total appraised value for 2008 was 5959,576,050,100. For 2009, the total appraised value is $63,254,432,527. The total assessed value for 2008 was $50,269,846,608. For $2009, the total net taxable value is $53,289,641,412. The total new improvements for 2008 was 2 billion, 109 million, 189,456 dollars. For 2009, the total new improvement value is $1,723,310,836. The estimated tax collection rate for 2008 was 100% for 2009. The estimated tax collection rate is 100%. Property value under protest in 2008 was $2,353,866,476. For 2009, the property value under protest is $839,402,900. Thank you. Any questions or members of the court? Thank you. We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Marchand. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. Here are no questions. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to any? Motion does carry unanimously. We don't have the railroad rolling spot now you yet from the state. That comes in in time. I will be back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We didn't have the railroad rolling spot now, you get from the state. That comes in in time. I will be back. Oh, okay. So as of right now, there'll be no action on 7F. If those numbers come in, we can get it done today. We'll add it to the record. Thank you. Okay. We go to item 6A. 6A is a approval to declare a surplus. One, StenoCast X7 transmitter to use this trade-in towards the purchase of a new StenoCast X7 transmitter. Okay. I'm sorry. Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions? Any other questions?andr, are there any questions? In that on favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion carries. 7B is approval. Budget amendment request 101-600 for computer software for countywide technology. It amounted $825. 7-B is approval of budget amendment request 101-600 for computer software for countywide technology and amount of $825. Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Coleman, questions? On favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed, sinny. Motion does carry. 7-C is approval of budget amendment man request 101 620 for road maintenance equipment including the transfer of funds from road and bridge precinct 1 on appropriated contingency for road and bridge precinct 1 in the amount of 58,500 dollars. So I can push in by Commissioner Coleman, seconded by Commissioner Marchand are there any questions? Your none on favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the Senate? Motion carries. 7D is approval of Budget Amendment request 101630 for contract labor for justice of the peace pressing two. Any amount of $7,236. Donna, just a little bit explanation on that on number D. Okay. Yeah, 70 contract labor. Do they have a part-time person or? We're actually going to be using one of the existing clerks from the J.P. office to help with the Odyssey program and the implementation. And so they have requested to have contract labor to fill in for her position for the remainder of this fiscal year. And we may need some into next year, but if that's the case, an additional budget amendment will be processed. Are we going to see similar from the other J.P. offices? Now this should be only the one position that's going to be used to work directly with honesty for the great. Any other questions? Thank you. We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Marchand. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. Here you know further questions. I'll in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, sitting. Motion does carry. We'll come back to 7G. 9A is approval of the interlocal agreement between Denton County Health Department and Northwest Native Pinnett School District for Public Health Preparedness. This is a renewal agreement, isn't it, not? Other school districts as well. Here are a move for approval. Seconded by Commissioner Marchion, other questions? On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion carries. 9B is approval of the Renewal Contract with Texas DSHS, that's Department of State Health Services for Public Health Preparedness, funding 2010. Question on that? for public health preparedness funding 2010. Question on that right in. The financial impact is says there are no DIN county calls associated with this contract. But when then when you turn to page 331, additional county funding is $2,100. I'm not sure what that is. 331. in this $2,100. I'm not sure what that is. 331. Under the budget office memo from Donna. In the middle. I'm sorry, but tell me how much it says for additional 21. That's the current contract For 20 this 20-ton contract. It's the row We got a lot more money for money. So you don't know it was funded at 99 That's right. It was funded at 99.55 percent last year. It's funded 100 percent this year Any further questions? We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Eads. That's second and by Commissioner Mitchell. On favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to sitting. Motion to scary. Thank you, Bing. Thank you. Well, the A is approval of 2009, 2010. In our local agreement between Dint and County and Northwest Independent School District for absent student assistance program. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second and by Commissioner Eads. Are there any questions or comments? Any none? Your none. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, senene. Motionless carry. 13A is approval of the appointment of Mrs. Betty prior to the Dink County Child Protective Services Board. By Commissioner Collins, seconded by Commissioner Marchion. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, senene. Motionless carry. Do we have, Frank? Do we have a full complement of appointees on the CPS board? Are we? I have a, I have one that's. I don't know the one I need to make. I do too. I have one that's a person left. And I've got a point. One. I interviewed one yesterday who for reappointment that's due in August. So I'm full though. That board is full as we possibly can and they do a lot of work and they need all members there. Regardless of who they are. We've got a lot of work to do. Okay, we've got a 14A, which is approval of the Memist to 2006 Administrative Services Agreement between PayFlex Systems USA Incorporated and Denton County is a member of the Public Employees Benefits Cooperative of North Texas for a Cobra Retiree Direct Billing Administration. We're calling Amy. Thank you. These amendments really address two different issues. One is putting in language to comply with the ARA requirements. As you may remember in the stimulus package, there is a COBA subsidy. And since payflex administrators are a COBA billing. They sent out the communications and took care of everything that was required and they continue to do so, but language has to be submitted into the plan to comply with that. The other issue has to do with IRS requirements that debit cards in flex plans can be used for vendors only that have HSAs or health HASs. I'm sorry, health administration systems that's required by IIRS. That's the standard and that's what the language pertains to the rest of it is mostly just clerical. And we're recommending approval today. Thank you, other questions from members of the court. Do you have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Margin. The chair will second. Motion by Commissioner Margin. The chair will second. Hearing no questions. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion does carry. 14V is approval of the memorandum of understanding from aqua Texas incorporated for utility relocation of the Schleeder Old Stoney and Smith Roads Improvement Project in the amount of $31,337.30. The funds to come from the County Commissioner of Precinct 4, triple 4, Schleeder, Old Stony, and Smith Road Funds, Auditor Number 7673-889010, this is in Commissioner of Precinct 4. Approval. The motion by Commissioner Ead, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell, other questions. Here you none on favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion is carried. We'll be zipped right through that, Donna. She's still getting her. Yeah, let's take a five to ten minute break so she can get set up. There's reconvened, we're on item seven G, which is approval of any error. I'll get it out. Approval of any appropriate action related to the 2009-2010 Denton County budget. We'll call on Donna Stewart. Good morning Judge commissioners. We have a few things on our agenda today to look at. We've got some new items and some updates for you. If you want we can go ahead and start with our first agenda item which is the Groundwater Conservation District. Judge Warren called me last week and notified me that there was gonna be a savings in what we had included in the budget for this special district that's gonna be formed. And we would be able to reduce our allocation from $166,6667 to $150,000. So with that we are offering a reduction on our changes sheet today which is on page two in the area that's called appropriations about mid-ports. So inclined to have any questions or type action? Just for everybody's knowledge, going into this formation of the district, we didn't know if it was going to be a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 county district. talking to Senator Estes' office and also to people in existing districts about what it costs them to get up and running a fee-based district. It really takes them a couple years before the fees come in appropriately or adequately, I guess I should say, in order to support the district and start paying us back. So we came up with a ballpark figure estimated a little bit high in hopes of being able to reduce it and that's what we're doing today we ultimately ended up with a three county groundwater conservation district and off I've talked to the county judges of Cook and Colin and everybody is agreeable to the $150,000 this year and next year to get this district up and running and as the fees come in those dollars will be paid back over time. I just wanted everybody to understand what's going on there and how it all came about. So with that I'm going to move for approval of the reduction of $16,000. Second. Second. Second. Second from I think four members but credit commissioner Marchant. On favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion this carried. I'm not sure if the courts ready to take action on the new hires that we've included in the budget. There is information on page S61 of your packet. There are basically five new position bail expansion and one position on stable precinct six that would be moving from part time to full time. If the page number again please. S61 so it's under your recommended summary tab. It's really what it's just to balance out what we recommended. S61, yeah. I think what we recommended is 61. Yeah. Make a motion to approve those new hars. That's what you're asking. What do you prove the new? The recommended that are recommended in the. You have one that I think is playing from part time to full time. Correct. Can you pull, make this two motion, Pull that part time for the pull time. I'll make a motion to approve the hiring of five full time employees for the county jail. And a second of the discussion. And Donna again, this is, we anticipate the salary expenses and benefit expenses to be offset by revenue. That cost of this, just for the new hires, is $235,000. I believe overall with their operating money and utilities, jail expansion is somewhere in the $330,000 neighborhood. We have offset that with revenue over $600,000 over $400,000 in next year's budget. And you've got that revenue in hand? That revenue, James has discussed this, and I'll let him speak if he wants to with Lee Howell. And the money that we have included in the recommended budget would be for housing 20 US Marshall inmates for the entire year. That's a very conservative number. We budgeted as much as $2 plus million in revenue. We're about to be out of the jail business as far as renting space. I would expect this is the last year we'll see in your revenue budgeted for out of county inmates. I would expect by this time next year our jail will be full of our own inmates. The game you feel like will have that. The problem is... Yeah, the US Marshall contract is as dependable a contract for housing prisoners as we've ever had. a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of a they, you know, their supply of prisoners doesn't seem to go up and down. So, again, we've put in, we have an existing contract, we've put in a very, very conservative number based on the, you know, the professional input of the Sheriff's Office. We've always been very reliable in this. And that's really what their advice is if we open additional beds, they'll have some room, the house prisoners, we feel like actually the 20th is a brick. Again, it's also very conservative, but if we don't open, it's just catch 22th. We don't open beds in their advisances. They really don't think they'll be able to house any. So the revenues in there, if we add the additional expense, it offset it somewhat. But, and these are always, there's always an element of unknown with prisoner housing contracts. But again, we've got a long history with the Marshalls office and they've been the most reliable of any, we've had other contracts with other states or with the state of Texas or with other counties and marshals as far more reliable numbers. So as confidence can be that if we do the expansion we'll get the revenue. Okay, okay, on that with that, I can accept that. I'm hesitant about new hires when we're having problems in this economic condition, but if we're pretty sure that we're going to have the revenue there, then I'm okay with that. Fortunately with the economic times we're in, the number of prisoners is going up too. Our concern is if we don't include this, we may have to send up those inmates out of county and be paying $60 a day plus. And we've done that before. Friendly or done that, don't ever want to? That's very costly experience. So, okay. All right, we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion? Very no, my favorite, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, any motion? Does Any discussion? Any other favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion by commission march and second by commission or mental are there questions? You're none on favor please say aye aye aye the post and e motion is scary I'm on page s 63 of your packet is the list of the positions We've talked about in our workshops already, but these are the slots we transferred That includes the for full time and one part time positions from the county clerks budget to the county clerk records management budget as well as one position in the general fund records management department that is headed up by Theresa Rogers to that special records management fund as well. So this will actually provide significant relief to our general fund and these will be funded with fees and non-tax dollars. They're not near employees. They're just, they're not near employees. They're just transferred. That's exactly correct. They're transfers. We don't have to approve that, do we? I always like to get approval from you for any of the funding source or new employees. I'm mostly my commissioner needs second. from you for any of the source. Yeah, or new employees. We have a motion by Commissioner Eads. Second. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. Is there any further discussion? Give a question and we'll work on your face. Commissioner Cohen, you okay? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, opposed to any? Motion does carry. Also on page S64 of your packet. We did recommend Deletion of some slots, three slots in fact that are currently vacant. Road and bridge precinct one actually submitted a request to delete the quality control technician. Just to set the piece precinct five offered a court clerk position that has never been filled originally it was designated for crossroads and the activity that department has not actually shown a need for the employee and the criminal district attorney has offered a legal intern position for deletion this year. We accept these deletions? Mr. Mitchell? Okay. Seconded by Commissioner Marchean. Commissioner Coleman. Is your mic on? It needs to be up. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. I know it's a difficult financial year and I'm just happy that we had people who try to lead by example and volunteer to delete positions. I got some good advice from Commissioner Eads to find out whether or not we needed that position before we decided to delete it. But I think it's something we just didn't need. And rather than just keep it around, I figured that the best thing is to get rid of it. Now, I just wanted to remind y'all, if in case the North part of the county decided to have another construction boom, and we need somebody to go on. You're going to be back. Yeah, I need that position back, but you know, I'm not about building empires or anything like that, I think, you know, at this point we don't need it. So I think the best thing is to do rather than just hold it unfilled and return the money. I think the best thing to do is to get rid of it and then perhaps if it becomes a dire need in the future, free of pro-cho. So I'm glad. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. Any further discussion? No, no. In favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to the knee. Motion is carried. Item number five is discussion about the vehicle usage policies. I did provide an update and it was some communication back and forth with Commissioner Mitchell and about the vehicle assessment committee being called and it was Commissioner Mitchell's recommendation that we handle this during next year's budget process as far as looking at the specific request about off-duty miles and take all for the committee to take all that into consideration next year. But we're open for discussion. The reason I suggested that Donna, I visited with Commissioner Marchion also about this, is that since we're already so far into the budget session, the recommendations have already been made, I felt that it would be better if we took some time so we could really look at this and really do a good job at deciding what we want to do rather than just putting something on the table for us to vote out. Other questions? comments? I think they're ready to take the recommendation. I think they're ready to take the recommendation. I'm just going to give people time to assist with their doing and maybe they'll volunteer to change some things. Ready for the next item? I believe so. Thank you. I'm not excuse me. Just once again, I want to thank everybody for their quick response to Donna to pull this information together about what's presently going on in their office. It'll help the committee do an accurate assessment when they get into their meetings. Thank you. Okay. Item six is to talk about various salary scenarios that we provided to you last week. The main item that I really need action from the court today is for the setting of elected official salaries so that we can notify each official of what's being proposed. As you all know, there's an appeal process that they can go through if they're not satisfied with what you're recommending so we really need to take it. Okay and get those letters out so that that process can begin. The amount is not only required to get those letters out and there's the appeal process she mentioned but she's also required to publish it in the paper so it always bothers me that we have to take up elected official salaries before we talk about employees. But the law requires certain things to be done in certain time frames. So it's necessary to take it up early in the process. This year it's not such an issue. I'm not sure if you don't have any money to talk about. But... Of course, in any other year, if the county were able to provide an increase for employees, it would always be my recommendation that you pass that same raise along to everyone. But in this year, you know, in less funds become available later, I just... I'm not sure that we have it. She had a motion on that. Yes, we need a motion to make it official so that she can do all the necessary postings and make it official. The motion is no salary increase for elected officials. I'll second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second that. I second Next item on the agenda is an item Commissioner Coleman has requested and that's a reorganizational proposal for Rogen Bridge. I did email each of you his PowerPoint presentation afternoon and there's copies of the packet as well on page 847 in your notebooks. next. All right. Can you put that, my pet, or point up on the pitching is going out in the back. What a me. That's why one of the things I've strongly believed in is a better efficiency and economy of scale by combining our two ex officio rev proof districts. I kind of consider myself a student of county government having been involved in it for the past 12, 13 years and having worked in different counties and studying a lot of that in my country. Mr. Reckon, I'm sorry. Can you speak into your mind? Sorry. Can you speak into your mind? Sorry. Thank you. I was saying, I consider myself a student of county government having worked in various iterations of county government and seen the various systems for which they work under. And it's been my opinion that the best structure for a county of our size is to have a centralized road bridge. Having been to numerous TDCAA meetings and gone to some tack meetings in the recent past, we have a very unique system here in Denton County. It is, I think, we're probably the only system that has a bifurcated road system as opposed to four road districts or ex officio road commissioners or essential as road bridge. I know I share my road bridge with Ron Rashant but operationally has very little input. Additionally like that was noted last week by Commissioner Mitchell when y'all commented about purchasing putting me on the committee to evaluate engineers, I think that's a point that's well taken, that as commissioners, we really should be in charge of giving policy as opposed to, you know, affecting direct outcomes. We should really be dependent on staff. And as a former county employee, I've always been a big believer in staff. I'm having known several of the county engineers previously for Denton County and the county attorney, the county engineers out in El Paso. County I have a real respect for their judgment and their ability to interact with the people. What I've proposed and I know this is the proper time to do this is to merge the two road bridge districts. This would result in the loss of one administrative form and because we generally would only need one and also the loss of one part time and administrative assistant. Any decisions regarding layoffs would be made by the director of road and bridge if in fact we decided to hire one. I just use those slots in there for accounting purposes. So please don't consider any slides regarding that. The other thing is that I've included is a projects engineer which would be a new position. That person I think would be able to manage our bond projects also would be responsible for all text on NTTA projects as well as these other items like the CIP program. I really think even though we had a large discussion regarding our county transportation consultant, I really think at some point didn't county needs to mature grow up as a county. It's stuff that I used to tell Sheriff Lucas all the time that look, you know, we're no longer the small town, Sheriff's Department, we're going to become a Metroplex Sheriff's Department. You've got to run your department in a manner that is expected. Um, didn't county, we've got a good job of kind of maturing as a county, but I think we need to kind of take our final steps and move to a centralized run bridge. Along with that, instead of relying on consultants to have relationships with the other governmental entities that we talk to regarding our transportation projects, I think it's very important that we bring that in-house and I think it would be a considerable savings to the county. I think we can do that through this type of proposal. My notes are on this is that it would be under a central county engineer which would be a director of road and bridge. The road and bridge crews would work together and out of their existing facilities. I think that the game day decision of whether you consolidate the crumb and moss branch yards would be need to be made by the county engineer slash director of public works. The construction storm manager would inspect all the bridges and I list on there by after the various offices that they would occupy. This next slide would show this is the kind of positions that we would lose. The math is a little bit incorrect on the proposed slots because even though we would lose too I've already deleted one out of there so it's really we lose three but we're already going to lose one so that would be only two extra though we would lose two, I've already deleted one out of there, so it's really, we leased three, but we're already gonna lose one, so that would be only two extra that we would lose. I think I've already. We would have where the public works, county, road and bridge would be responsible for all the county maintain roads, and that would be under the sole direction of the county engineer. And I think some concern would be under the sole direction of the county engineer. And I think some concern would be that the commissioners would not have his direct input. But under the past system and under the system, I worked out in an Opasso County. Believe me, the county commissioners have tremendous input with the county engineer regarding to request for service and stuff like that. They work for the commissioners court and they would take direction from you. So I don't think we would have that hands off. We would not get hands off. We'd still have a hands-on approach to our roads. I think we could save money by having one administrative form. There'd be no change to existing job descriptions. We're not going to have a wholesale deal like we did when we switched over to Ex officia. I think the job descriptions that we have are good right now, and I think Miss Phillips has done a good job helping me with this project Like I said if we have our position the new position who would be a PE would be responsible for managing on the bond projects I really think instead of paying somebody else to build relationships with other governmental entities that can be then transferred, we really need to have that in house. That's an institutional knowledge that we need. We really should not become dependent on one firm or one person. I mean, we're a continuing entity. Whether we like it or not, all of us may not be here in the future. We did have project management would answer directly to the county engineer. I think that's very important on a lot of these projects. And public works and planning would remain the same as they are now. Let me see. It looks so much more efficient last night when I was putting this together, guys. Now, I would never suggest that we lay off people immediately, but I think because we would have economies of scale, we would need to consider future attrition. We have acquired less county roads rather than more as the municipalities greatly take over the county. One of the reasons I don't see, I mean I don't, I like having a job and I believe everybody should be employed. I'm all for gameful employment for everyone but as our county gets to where we have less county roads we should not be gaining more road and bridge employees. We should actually be shedding them. So I think what we could do is shed employees through attrition as we gain greater economies of scale through a centralized room bridge. We did some budget history and it's really interesting if you look at it. Look at this chart. We took the years of the four previous years to 2002, and the four years after 2004. 2002, 2003, and 2004, we kind of took out because they were as statistic anomalies, and that was that period of flux when we were changing to ex officio system. If you look, they did more work. The request for assistance grew and were answered in less proportion to the increase in budget than to the years of 2005 to 2008. The budget went up tremendously, but the amount of work workers that were answered was only about 3.8%. So if you look at this statistically, we're spending more money for only doing about the same amount of work. I think this lens credence to our argument that we would gain some economies of scale. Now this data was taken from the 1998-2004 Central Live Road and Bridge budget as well as the spreadsheet prepared by the budget office. I've let Donna look through my math. If you all have any questions, she'll probably be able to answer and tell you whether I was funded the numbers or I'm sure it will give you a good opinion one way or the other. That one year that I listed in there, there was no data available because I just didn't put what was done as requests for assistance that year. So that was one of the reasons we put that out. And that's why I left the preceding year in the next year because you don't know if they included them in that or not. And if we call Kent Tramble back in time and we really don't have anybody with the institutional memory to tell us exactly what happened. We all know that it was reorganized in 2004, and I think the request for assistance is a good measure of services that have been rendered to the public by the fact that you really can't find comparable data for roads paid or paved roads, due to repair due to different productivity reports used by each of the two separate road bridge precincts, as well as the centralized road bridge. It's hard to get in there. You'd be comparing apples to oranges to mangoes. And it's very difficult. So I really think the request for assistance is the good measure that you could use. It's something that's been used through all three different types of administration. The work orders completed is the same as the RFA under the Ex officious system, so that's why I use that as the productivity system. This is just the next point says, you know, in the four years of 1998 to 2001, while we were centralized, expenses only increased 26 percent, while work orders completed increased 74.5 percent. After we went to an ex officio system, the expenses for our road and bridge districts increased 52 percent, but we only answered and did 3.8 percent more work orders. The expenses for our road and bridge districts increased 52%. But we only answered and did 3.8% more work orders. So we're pouring a tremendous amount of more money, but we're really not doing more work. That's it. So anyway, I think this is something we need to think about. I know that it's, you know, this is the appropriate time to do it during budget is to think about. I know that this is the appropriate time to do it during budget is to consider these reorganizations of our departments. And I know that like single member districts that we have, that it's easy to fall into that kind of course where you know I'm going to do for my precinct and I'm not really going to think County or globally and a lot of people think that's what we have a County Judges to do that. But, you know, I think what's good for the citizens of precinct one is good for the precincts of precinct two and three and four and I think, you know, a rising tide raises all ships. I really think we could gain economies of scale. I believe that having professional engineers in charge of our road and bridge system would take a lot of kind of our lay opinions out of it and help ensure some of the safety. Well, at the same time, allowing us commissioners to have input. We have a unique system to Denton County. I'm pretty sure out of the other 254 counties, there is not a bifurcated system. So, that's why I think we should look at this and thank you for your time. Do you have any questions? Mr. Cohen, I'm going to administrative form and going to be managing all these road and bridge employees if he's offering that the foreign government is there. Well, I think that's just where I have his office at some base, but I think he'll probably be out at the different areas. He'll probably be out at the crime facility. He'll be down in the Argal area, and he'll be up in Aubrey. But you've got a base office. Well, I didn't really get a chance to look at this until early this morning. And I will tell you honestly, I tried to keep an open mind and look through here and find something I liked about it. One thing I do like is I think there's a good possibility that you're correct on consolidating the common mosh branch yards. Maybe sell that that crime property. That's something that actually was kicked around some time ago, and I can't honestly tell you what, I didn't go forward. From memory, I think somebody felt that both facilities were needed for whatever reason. I would have to go back and figure that out. But other questions or comments from other members. Oh, one other thing and that is on your road and bridge history, budget history. It would also be interesting to see how much, not only obviously we spent our money but expenses went up tremendously over that time too fuel expense and cost of material the road product I mean that went out of sight so that has an impact too. Commissioner Eans. Did you want to go first, Bob? I can go ahead. I want to thank Commissioner Coleman for taking a look at this. And I realize that even before he took office, this was a desire of his. And I appreciate him fulfilling that. I think he and I worked, you know, he worked great together on this policy. We just revised this morning and I've told you privately, you know, and said publicly, I'd love to work with you on ways that we could collaboratively be worked together, our two departments, the Rodenbridge East and West. I know that Commissioner White and I did that when we the county switched to the four day work week You know she Our crew the west I took Fridays off and the east I took Mondays off and just this that was a small change just by selecting which days and that allowed To additional work days in the week for the Jago which gets us are so much of our asphalt for them to dedicate just to one side of the county or another You know so that increases the number of trucks that are delivered to the onsite for the roads to be paved and it can pay Faster in the same amount of hours. So I know there are ways that we could work together. I want us to do that but but And I got this last night. Donas and this out around 630, so I was reading this late last night. But I think there's one thing that's important to know, and it's the definition of work orders. Okay, I think that's a very important thing for, we all have clarification in this. And when I worked at the town of Addison, one of the things I did was work on performance measures of all the city departments and I will disagree with you on one thing in particular and that is the request for assistance and you said that's a good benchmark or performance measure to look at. Actually it's a very opposite and. And I'll tell you why. That's a constituent generated complaint. And so the fact that during a consolidated period when you had very high request for assistance, that's because things were maybe not as efficient and the end of operations may be not as streamlined as they need to be. So you had more people calling, more people emailing their residents. The fact that they're down, it's quite the opposite, and demonstrates the fact that we're taking care of things and working proactively. People aren't calling. We had our road and bridge west meeting just the other day. And the staff said, because we always go over the RFAs, it's part of our agenda, the request for assistance. And we usually have a spreadsheet with a dozen or so on that that we just kind of work on. They come in and we work them off the list. And Diane said, this is the first time, and she's been working for this county for a long, long time. And she says, the first time I can ever remember, it's not having any request for assistance. And the fact that we have increased the budget over the last few years, you know, we've had a lot of gas exploration, especially in a precinct for. And because of that, you know, our roads were being destroyed. Our public infrastructure should be destroyed. And Donna over the last couple years, especially in the 2000 court, that we've added money to the road and bridge budget. So by adding more resources to that, again, and taking care of so proactively, the RFA has reduced. But I'm with you totally as far as let's get a standardized methodology because if you have an RFA for to trim some trees out there that's one performance measure. But what if the guys were driving down there and said you know when you trim those trees and they go out and do it in the morning and they trim those trees that's not being counted currently under RFA. But if you had RFA because they're what complained about it, they're getting credit for it, but they took it proactively and did it before the complaint was generated. The ambulance is coming. Cut. The conversation here. But I think we need to sit down this next year. And I would love to sit down with you. And our steps get together and let's work out some definite performance measures You know we can quantify and additionally just miles paved or roads converted and everything Let's sit down and and look at some definite performance measures that we can all agree on as we evaluate this in the future Mr. Mitchell in the future. Mr. Mitchell. Thank you for this. I don't think it's any secret. I feel about the exhibition road policy that we have now. I believe precinct 2 and precinct 3 got really just run over when they decided to do this policy with Commissioner. Neither one of you all were here precinct one and precinct four. I haven't liked it. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now and I probably will never like it. I believe, however, I believe that at this time, you know, until we get someone that which was the problem in the past, we never had a director of public works that could manage all four areas, and that was the problem then. And I think that's what we need to look at now before we decide that we're going to change it. We need to make sure that we've got someone that can come in and manage it. You know, I constantly hear problems. One commission is saying, well, I can't do what I want to do. I can't do this. I can't do that. And I disagreed with it because if you've got a problem with the manager that was in there, if it had been brought to commissioners court, it would have been taken care of. But that wasn't done. They decided that they wanted to strip, pre-seem to, and pre-seem three of all the authority that they had over the road in bridge. And not only did they strip, they stripped the money from us. And the only way that we got the money back is that we held up the budget and got the judge to vote with us because she was voting with one in four. So I've always had a bad taste in my mouth about this policy. It's been eased a little bit, but I think that you can still get your job done if you've got a manager to manage what you need to do. I don't buy that you've got the commissioner has to be over the precincts in order to get the job done. We have many counties that do the consolidated things. The commission is consolidated system and don't have any problem with it work. But we here in Den County didn't make it work and that's what the problem is. I'm not ready today to go back to the consolidated system because I think we've got lots of work to do but I am ready to look at it and see what can be done because I don't believe that didn't count is the only commissioners that can get their work done unless they're directly over that department. I don't believe that. We've got smart people in didn't count it and I think you can do it. We just have to have the correct manager to do it and you have to hold that manager's feet to the fire to get that done. I mean we all can say you know when you I came from a city and we had a city manager I can't get anything done out of the department he is but I had a city manager that I went to to get that done. That's just like directive public works would do. We'd go to the public works person and say, we need to get this done. If they didn't get it done, the commission's court need to hold their feet to the power on them. So this is a start, but I don't, I mean, I'm not ready to go today until we find out exactly how we're gonna have somebody to manage this department and that's the key issue is a manager for this department because I think if we have a manager for this department we can get everything done that needed to be done so that's my comments. I just wanted to let you all know that the spirit that this was brought is you know the county employee over as a former county employee I always thought it was an interesting deal that we kind of regressed backwards Exophysio systems are typically for more rural systems and we had a centralized road bridge and then we kind of went back If you look at it's population bracketed and we kind of went back you can always always go down but you can't always go up which is an interesting deal. I really bought this because I think we'd get more bang for our buck. I think it's extremely important to institutionalize things within the county as opposed to having it you know our water carried by outside consultants. I don't think we should ever have you know place all our bags or all of our eggs in Wind Basket. I think we would generate a savings and appreciate all the all's input in your consideration. Thank you. Unless comment you're right. We shouldn't place all our eggs in Wind Basket kind that was getting ready to be my point about the county engineer taking over County road and bridge and project management of bond projects too. I think A, that's too much work for one person, too much for one person to oversee. And we need to also keep in mind that over time, the kind of legislature meets. Re-kind the legislature meets, seems like the empower the state agencies to come up with more and more ideas that cost counties more and more money. In an example, that would be stormwater. Four or five years ago, we weren't even talking about stormwater, but we certainly are now, and there's all kinds of T.C.C.C. requirements there. So I'll just let it go at that. Thank you for your presentation. Is there any other questions or comments from any of any? I believe not. You're bringing it up again next year. I hope you will give us some time to work with you instead of just one person deciding let's sit down and work and decide what needs to be done as a commissioners go with. I understand I just thought it was a good way to get the ball out. And I started somewhere, don't we? Yeah. Okay, Donna. Number eight. If we could skip that for just a few minutes, we can come back to it in just a little bit. On item number nine, we did receive an email from Michelle French in the tax office and they're hopeful that we might have the final information today. They're just waiting on a fax from the comptroller's office. So we'll skip that if you don't mind and come back to it hopefully later. back to it, hopefully later. Good luck, we can, I'm sorry. Sure. Oh, in that tax rate discussion, will we take consideration? I'm just looking at the agenda. Is there anything in here? I want to make sure that we address the scenarios that were laid out last week when we were talking about employee raises and Commissioner Coleman had brought that up about the hiring freezes, but we also in that discussion, we discussed about addressing on page R9 different scenarios that have to do with SNARIA 1, 2 and 3. You know what I'm saying? Is there an opportunity in in this agenda for that discussion? Absolutely. As soon as we receive the information with a final tax rate, effective rate, and funding will have. We can recalculate that for that discussion. Your calculated effective rate is from lack of a better term, a benchmark. All jurisdictions are required to do that calculation. That rate is the rate that will raise the same amount of money as that jurisdiction had last year based on property that was taxable in both years. Clear's money. But everybody's required to come up with that calculation. And then from that, obviously, you have your rollback rate, which we aren't going to be approaching that, but it's necessary and required by law to calculate that and publish it in the paper. But once we have to get this final component from the comptroller's office of the railroad rolling stock value and until we get that number, the calculations can't be completed. We can guess the date, but I don't like to work with guessments. I'd like to know what the real deal is. Once we have that and we take a look at the recommended budget, the amount of money it's going to take to support the recommended budget and anything else that we may or may not want to do, then let me know if we've got any wiggle room in there. And that's when we can take a look at the things that we discussed last week to see if we can make any adjustments. Actually, didn't know where we were? We will get to that. We just aren't quite ready to do it. Do we have anybody else that wants to talk to us on appeals, Donna? I think we've actually discussed with all the departments that had an appeal. I think they've all been been here and and fled their case. If you want to look at that, we can. There's also a couple of other agenda items. If we could skip number 11, waiting on some information from Kim. On item number 12, I think we need to have some discussion. On page A50 of your packet, you'll see some information that's been provided by Amy Phillips and I'll let her discuss some salary anomalies that we are facing. A50. A50. A50. Thank you, Donna. In my letter that appears on page a 5 0. I Explain that we have a few positions that are currently Making less than the minimums that we approved That's because when we approve the minimums we hadn't yet sent all the pay grades to the departments to look at. I think I explained in court that day that we would be sending all the pay grades and getting feedback from the departments and considering any equity issues, for example, we had a situation in a department where the supervisor and the employee that would be supervised were in the same pay grade. And we didn't recognize that until it went out to the department and the department brought that up. And in correcting that kind of thing also in detention medical. The lieutenants in the sergeant were assigned to the same pay grade, the same kind of thing. So in correcting those things, we ended up with some sellers that were below the adjusted minimums. In addition to that, some people were hired according to our current guidelines that are in place until the end of September. And we found that our minimum for the chief deputy constable position, while it fit the people we had in place on the spreadsheet at the time when we identified those minimums, it wouldn't fit people who would be hired since then. So we have some anomalies there. If our positions are adjusted to minimum, that'll all be a moot point. If they're not adjusted to minimum, then we have to decide whether we're going to lower those minimums further or whether the court wants to adjust Just a few positions. Bring those positions. There are I mean four of them Which is the detention lieutenant the juvenile case manager and the chief deputy cost book if we adjust the minimums Those are that becomes a moot point. There's actually So if we adjust the minimums, those are, that becomes a moot point. There's actually more than that because since the time I wrote this letter, there's been some change in the chief deputy constable positions. What's the other one? A53 of your packet. You'll see a budget impact statement that our office has prepared with the cost to bring those employees to the minimum. Oops. Oh, okay, we got it off. So there are a total of five. There are the four that were in the letter and the one that has occurred since that time. Did it just any more? Bobby. He's, he's a computer is on the monitors. Thank you. Sorry. Oh, I want't get that. When everybody ringer, you know. Okay. So I budgeted impact if we were to address. We are able to address those. For all five positions, you'll see there are varying amounts from $437 for two employees up to $4,000 for one employee. The grand total is $11,870 on page A53. Okay. The other issue that's addressed in that letter is that you might remember the last several years I told the court that while our minimums were low our maximums were a little bit high and I think when Todd Osburn from Evergreen Solutions was here he talked to the court about that and how they had adjusted the size of the ranges. And our ranges used to be 54% from minimum to maximum. And now they're 50% from minimum to maximum. And there were three people whose salaries were at, I guess, the highest step. There's more than that at the highest step, but the way that the ranges were adjusted, there are three people who are slightly above maximum. That because the court decided to give them a raise even though they were maxed out. I don't know, honestly, me answer to that. But there would have been more than three people in that situation. I think it's really the way those particular ranges were adjusted. And I wanted to call that to your attention. They can be carried that way. I've checked with payroll and budget in our system and we can carry them that way but I wanted you to be aware of it. But we wouldn't have to change anything. We just keep them at that amount and they just be anomalies within those three positions. You could do that and And in the future, when we do have, say we were to have a pay raise, we have provisions that address employees who are at maximum. We don't have a provision for employees who are above maximum because that would only happen in this kind of case. You know, it's a very unusual case and we don't write policies for that. So the court would have to at that time decide whether they wanted to give that raise, give the same raise, treat them as though they were at maximum or what they wanted to do. And that would be if you were giving all employees pay raises. Give me a question. And this has to do with Evergreen. And I just, I'm gonna work this into a question about Evergreen. Could you tell me how we're doing on the job descriptions Could you tell me how we're doing on the job descriptions and the conflicts that we have with some of those job descriptions not matching up to some of the input from some of the offices and you and I and I'm sure and others on this court had discussion with you as well as those appropriate elected officials and hopefully you had that same kind of conversation with Evergreen to tell them, satisfied with what they had. Could you give me a little bit of, give us an update on where we're at with that? Sure. Evergreen is reviewing all of our job descriptions, about 285 job descriptions. They are reviewing all of them. We have forwarded input from some of our departments to them, and we've given them our own input on what things we would like them to specifically look at. We are awaiting input from the Sheriff's Department. Obviously, they have more employees and they are scheduled to give us their input. I believe tomorrow or shortly after tomorrow they have been, they just took longer to say more job descriptions and Evergreen is aware that that feedback will be coming from them also. They were surprised, they told us that they, you know, that's something they usually do a good job at and he was disappointed that they had made some of the mistakes that they made and that they were certainly going to look at all of them and give us what we need to have. I do want to say that they have been throughout the process very responsive, very easy to work with. I think their analysis and their recommendations were very good or I wouldn't have encouraged you to implement them. The job descriptions were a disappointment and I certainly communicated that and they're addressing that. Thank you. I could clarify on page A54 of the packet. This is a list of the employees that are currently over the maximum. And the impact of $3,052 would be that if the court were to recommend a 2% raise for all employees, these employees based on our current policy would get a 1% raise, which is a 1-tum adjustment. That's what the cost of that would be, a 1% raise, which is a 1-tum adjustment. That's what the cost of that would be, a 1% raise for those three positions with salary and benefits. And I don't think that's real clear on our worksheet, but I wanted to make sure that you understood that that scenario, again 1% based on current policy. And is there anything on the spreadsheet that we can take action on? Or you need us to take action on this sheet. If you would like, we can actually talk about a few of these that are going to offer some savings. The first three items on the changes sheet include an increase of revenue for the courthouse on the Square Museum Tourism Grant. As I mentioned last week we had not included enough revenue to offset that grant so we can actually increase revenues by 12,907 and also based on the recent renewal or grant award from the City of Denver Hot Funds, we will need to reduce the courthouse on the square bay. Let's sell the grant budget by $31,078 and increase the museum, regular museum budget, $55,753. This would actually, the grant was originally requested to pay more of the employees salary and they're not able to do that. And so we will be picking up that portion in the museum grant. So with this overall three items we're looking at savings of $38,232. It's proof. We can take it off. I make most to approve the recommendations of the budget office on these three items, which do I need to say what those are? The General Fund revenues of a decrease of $12,907, the Courthouse on the Museum Tourism, oh, I don't know, something grant, preservation grant of an increase of 5,753, a decrease in the Courthouse on the Square Bay of the Selby Grant of $31,078. I have a motion by Commissioner Marchin. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell, are the questions or comments. Any none on favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to the Senate? Motion carries. I can provide you an update on page two of four of your changes sheet. We talked about the district clerk records management department last week and her request to hire a part-time web application developer to work on their questionnaire for jurors. I did work with Kevin Carr and you'll see there are two options on the spreadsheet. Now one shows the employee that would be a part-time employee for one year only. Or the alternative would be to hire someone on a contract labor basis. The cost is very close. It's $45,029 to hire an employee or $44,642 to have a contract position. However overall I think it would be better to have someone in a contract position versus an employee that's here that's going to be terminated within a year. We just have to make sure that our contract that we have with that employee would allow us to retain the rights to what has been developed for us through their employment. He indicated to me and I'm not sure if he's here but that he doesn't have the sufficient staff. It's going to take at least six months on a full-time basis or a year on a part-time basis according to the information I received from him. Now they would be maintaining the position or maintaining the program after it's written after that first year. Who would this person report to the computer department? Kevin? I think Kevin Carr would oversee it. It would just be funded out of the District Clerk Records Management Budget. They'll be working closely with the District Clerk's Office in the development of that program. I think she mentioned last week. They're kind of on their second program that just hasn't been working and this would be an all. As for how many attempts have they made at this? I mean, it would just be the third attempt, I believe, to get what she's looking for. And I don't think there's a package out there that addresses what she would like to see and which is why she's requesting that it be developed in-house. All these office supplies and print and material and computer equipment. That's all a separate request from the employee. Yeah, that's not tied to the employee. Okay. You may not be ready to consider action, but I wanted just to go to the meeting. You may not be ready to consider action, but I wanted just to give you that update. If there's any additional information you would like to see from either her or Kevin Carr, we'll make sure we can get that sent to you. This, her request is to be funded out of the records management. It's not out of the journal fund. It's correct. That's correct. Is what those funds are collected for? I don't have any problem funding out of that fund. As a contract labor, I would not be in favor of a new hire for a web application developer. Yeah, and if you do contract labor, you're contracting, I mean, for a specific task, and that it's one that can be measured. And if at the end of that task, it's not completed. Then loan is just, to me, the contract labor and the contract that you have with them. So. We're guaranteeing, we're for sure, that Kevin's Department can't absorb that, work that in with their web guys. And they pay, who not do do that in an offset them? I did ask that question. How are expenses through the records? I did ask the question and based on the amount of time it would take to devote to this project, he said he did not have one available to do that. I can offer, I don't know exactly what all his applications development people are working on, but I can tell you that they're working on a major project for HR right now that will be a bet for human resources that will be a benefit to all of our county departments. They're working on a better application process that's a lot less paper, a lot faster all the way from when an order is received or were notified that there's going to be a vacancy through the posting vacancy, accepting applications, screening and order making appointment process should all be a lot more efficient. And I know that several of them have been involved with that because they've given us demos of what they've done so far and they've been pretty involved with that. I don't know what else they're working on. What are the jobs that we all have to do stretch us out. Well, we all receive weekly reports from Kevin as to what they're working on and what's been accomplished and what percent complete different projects are at things like that. I tend to think his vote's pretty loaded. This records management fee, this is precisely what it's designed to do, is to help the district clerk be able to manage those records. So I agree with you Commissioner Roshan that I'd only be interested in a contract labor position not a full-time employee because we look for this to take about a year. Which I like for me, just repost this for next week and ask Kevin to be here with some additional information for you. I for one and ready to go forward with it, but I'd like to think what the other here with the other members think. I'm going to go through lunch or after lunch. Probably. I would be a judge. I'm going to call Sherry. I've got a question for her. She's going to have to come over. I just want to let. We'll hold off taking action right now. Then I will tell you. Got an email from Michelle French in the tax office. And she just received the information from the comptroller's office so she's checking it out make sure the numbers work and so hopefully by this afternoon we'll have some rate calculations. We can get that by the noon hour and then if James and I can have a little bit of time to go over that and right. Air five plugged that into our spreadsheet we should be able to give a give the court with some actual data. I will take no action on the contract labor position right now we'll come back to it. And I'm looking at this as the ones that we easily take action. Can we take action on the road and bridge reduction of the 29,768? That's part of his reorganizational proposal that was submitted today. So, I thought was the other one that he was reducing anyway. We already did that on the delivery. If you want to reorganize it, we wouldn't have to go out for bid or on the ITS deal or anything. And you jumped all over the place. Nice try. Let's see. Okay. If you want, I can make a notation that there's no action to be taken on that item. Right. action to be taken on that item. I love the nails. We'd like to discuss before we bring for lunch on the third page The request from the public health Director where he was requesting health technician position, but also at the same time received notification that we're receiving additional grant revenues for immunization and TB services. The overall combined request is a savings of $46,585. I should approve. That's an acceptable. The decrease. Yes, and that would include proving the new health technician position requested. Page 3 or 4. This is a new TV person with a technician for the TV though, right? And it's funded to the grant to the state. That's correct. And this is, if I recall this is not a declining grant, correct? Correct. We're all the savings of 46,000 something. Well, we will actually be increasing their revenues by $46,000, $85,000 more than we'll be allocating funds for. And I did talk with him specifically about that to make sure there weren't any other needs for that revenue. And he indicated that he did not need that additional revenue allocated for an expense. On the action. On the, um, the grant was increased, but in order to, I mean, he's wanting to add an employee to take a part of the money that was allocated for the grant increase. Backly correct. Here's an emulter approval. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Coleman. We already have a motion on that. Oh, we did. I beg your pardon. Who did it? Seconded by commissioner Coleman. If we already have a motion on that. Oh, we did. I beg your pardon. Who did it? I'm marching Mary. I'm still second. I missed that one too. I'm going. I'll still second. Okay. It's already motion by commissioner Marchant and it was seconded by you. I did it. All right. Well, remember that. Okay. Any further discussion? Here none. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, any? Motion carries. Forward, favor, one, opposed. Um, how long do you think that's going to take? Um, James is ready on the financial forecast on item number eight. It'll probably take about 10 minutes if you'd like. The information is located in your packet on page S9. S9? Yes, ma'am. We're going to take about a two minute break here. Colin Eugings. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the We're reconvened. First, we're going to hear the financial forecast in County auditor James Wells and then I've got a couple questions for I think court maybe has questions for Danny Bromley concerning the Construction manager and probably by then it'll be time to bring for lunch. So we'll call on James Wells Good morning Judge and commissioners and this will make this judge and commissioners and this will make this fairly brief. Well, I want just to kind of take a break from considering this coming up budget to take a little, spend a few minutes looking at a little further horizon. One of the things that the bond rating companies really recommended for us was to do some be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if there's anyone qualified to do an economic forecast. But what we've got is a few pages. A few pages that show, again on page S9, this is our actual budgets for the last four years. And it shows the growth, the changes in our budgets and the different types of revenues, different types of expenditures. And from that, again, it shows on PGS9 that we've grown from my budget of slightly under 137 million in O6 to a budget of over 181 million in 2009. And these are just straight number, straight ever budget. It shows also the varying changes in the revenues that fund that budget. And that's, again, important thing is showing as our budget grows, are all the other kinds of revenues falling along with it? Are they going down? That's an important thing too. If we're growing and we're just funding everything out of taxes and nothing else is keeping up, that's probably a sign we may be growing faster than we need to. That is not the case with the county. It also shows in broad areas that are fairly self-defining where our money is going and you see again where certain areas may be growing faster than other areas too. So that's the what's on page S9 again and then on from that on page S10, we've just taken those trends and forecasted them out for current year and four more after that. So it's really from 2010 to 2014. All this is saying if the trends we've established in the last four years continue, this is what our budgets will look like in the next four years continue, this is what our budgets will look like in the next by five years. Obviously right, and what that shows would be that again if these trends continued we would actually continue to grow. I will next five years through 2014 by 74 million additional dollars to being a but of having a budget over quarter of a billion dollars in 2014. And the first thing that jumps out is that our 2010 budget is not going to be a 195 million. You know that the trends real this is a year 2010 is going to really change that trend some. The budgetary increase will not be anywhere near the average increase. Again, over, you know, we've seen budget increases of 10 to 20 million in the last four years. We're going to see a budget increase of about two million this year So that's going to change that that would affect that Just not to say we you know economy Smooth back out again. We might jump right back on that trend it really doesn't show that necessarily mean that By 2014 we won't be very close to that 10 to 53 million if the economy and the growth of the county go back to usual. So again you've got that same on page S10, you've got the same forecasted numbers and you can see that again where different elements of revenue and expenditures might be growing faster than one to other. And that's what, again, part of the real analysis in this is, and what we're trying to do is really just give you a message that if we stay on this trend, or you want to look at areas that might be causing a pitfall for the county or where this trend might be unsustainable in the future, which would show that we have to, that changes are necessary or to show that, and indeed, all things staying equal will be able, we would be able to keep this basic trends up. So under points to consider, first off, it shows that the forecasted increase would be nearly 44% as opposed to really what we've experienced over the last four years is really about 35%. So, again, this trend might be a little bit upward, I think, actually 2010 would probably, the actual 2010 budget would probably vary this out. We may not, we'll make that $253 as a budget number. Under item two, it shows a very important thing for the court is that revenues from property taxes would increase up to $ 171 million by 2014. Then under 2002 it does show that what our forecasted effective rates would be, what this forecast is. That shows number two. Really starting to see a fairly, even a $15 million shortage by 2011 up to $28 million by 2014, but our actual history is, even though we've had very low tax rate increases in some years now we actually have had in most years we have indeed had tax rate increases for various reasons. 2005-2008 we showed increases ranging from 4.5% in 2005 to nearly 8% in 2008. And again, on the second part of 2002, these numbers, these percentage numbers, it start with 7.416% to a 3.44. These actually are estimates of the tax rate increases that would be required to fund the type of budgets that's forecasted. Again, that's really with all things economy and there are things stands equal and the growth in the county stand equal. So what this does show is that forecasted tax increases would really be very much in line with what we've experienced over over last few years. Actually still very modest. Right increases. If again to fund this the kind of budgets we've been that we would have in the future based on what we've had in the past. You know show out basically a 3.44% back in 2014. So what this really shows isn't again not a prediction by any means or not hard numbers but does show at least on trend on everything considered we're not on a path that's totally unsustainable by our traditional methods of funding our government. Under number three, it does point out that a big part that the court has total control over is the debt service expenditures because we don't increase that without a court action. And this shows that the service expenditures are forecast to increase from 29 million currently to over 48 million by 2014. And then it actually shows the first set of numbers are actual, our debt service is really set right now. If we issue no more debt, we will be way under that in future years. Now we obviously have debt to issue that the plan is to issue that. But you can see that our actual currently scheduled debt instead of 48 million in 2014 is only 28 million. That's $20 million dollar gap. Back either can be used as a budget balancer to avoid tax increases or to fund the additional debt we really have already approved and in plans to issue. So again on page S11 at the very bottom of the page shows you the gaps in forecasted debt service versus already scheduled debt service. It shows you, well I've shown you those 65 million, 60 million, 90 million, 50 million, that's the approximate amount of that we could issue without a tax and without a further increase to make these budgets. It's really the amount of that we probably could work in by each year based on these schedules. So the point of this would be to show that we do have some working room with the budget. We're not on a path that demonstrates that we're not able to add the proof that we have from proof bonds for roads and buildings will be able to work, should be able to work those into the budget to a large degree. So in the bottom of the S11, yes, 65 million and over to 51, that's the amount of debt we could issue with what without hitting the rate, likely, actually without going, just staying within the forecast of amounts. 5 million could be funded by the anticipated. Anticipated $5 million of debt service increase in 2011. That's what those are showing. So this all would be within these, would be within the debt, probably the forecasted rate increases that are on part two. So that 4.5% would fund other budgetary growth as is forecasted, including, and if we include that debt, it would be about a, we could issue about 65 men. Again, these numbers are by no means should be taken as exact it just really that just shows that it looks like it The numbers look like we can add some we can't indeed add some dead end things in we're not On a path where all of a sudden that service increase are gonna be are gonna be a major unplanned hit on the budget. Okay. So again, give some options. Again, it looks like you have some options either with staying within the same tax rate, lowering these expected budget increases or adding this data that we have. Number four is just a looking at our ability within these forecasts to add new employees to various office, particularly as the county grows. Again, as we've taken on number four total employees is trained it out. It's really a very modest increase based on our current number of employees and the growth. We really haven't seen a big growth in employees the last four years. So this trend is necessarily going to show really low adding only about 60 employees over the next five years. Of course we're not adding but five or six this year. To me that, again that looks low given the kind of growth we've had but you know as every that passes we have more technical capabilities to indeed do more with the same number of people. So really that is our history of not adding very many employees, but empowering those and enabling those employees to do more with the kind of technology increases we have. And it does show that our budget personnel cost, which be salaries, benefits, retirement, insurance, unemployment would increase from about 99 million to 120 million. That's really a fairly low, being a much lower part of our total budget. Personal costs right now account for 52% of our budget, but under this, the way they're growing actually personnel costs would go down to about 47% of our budget. So even allowing for average cost of employees to increase. So again, there might again, this would be more, this one it really doesn't, this is an area that doesn't really follow what you'd expect. You'd think our history of the rate that our budgets grow on is not really matched by the rate employees grow. If we can maintain that, that will be great. And that would probably start showing probably start showing, again, these forecasts, the expenses might actually, in reality, start going down the course. If we're not adding the employees, we're not going to be adding, probably not be adding the expenses. That's just one to ponder on that one. See if that all makes sense within the, within the, just a, a round before we're going. What final thing is on page number five, just showing what our population might be based on the growth it's been, going up to, going up from estimated of about 644,000 now to maybe 735,000, that's fairly slow growth. It would show again, but if that population hailed, we would be lower in the number of employees hailed, we'd be lowering our number of employees per thousand from 2.23 to 2.02 county employees per thousand people. I mean that doesn't seem like much of that actually be a very significant drop in employees per thousand because you're really talking about about a 10 percent drop. Even though it's just 0.21 and if that's available to be done, if that's available to, even though it's just 0.21. And if that's available to be done, if we're able to do that and still get the job done, that's actually a very favorable kind of trend. County Spooning per capita would increase from $284 per capita to $332, given in play. And given the just the rising cost and stuff that doesn't seem out of line at all. So that's just a quick analysis of things that seem like are always major drivers in our budget. Again, it's not by any means a projection or a really, or really expectation of what's happened is just really purely looking at the numbers and using math to see how things will look that way if we stand on the exact same path in every area and we're cruel and no we won't. But it does, you know, to me the summary is that the budgetary growth is in line with the tax-based growth and expected growth in the county. We really should be able to fund, you know, everything's staying the same. We should be able to fund the budget with moderate tax rate increases. Very comparable to what we've done in the past. It's our budget should allow us to either increase outstanding long-term data as we planned, or to make the decision to avoid tax rate increases by maintaining something closer to the current debt levels if we choose to. We're on a budget path to continue to be able to support modest increases in new employees. Obviously for us, you know, the real, always the push on new employees come when you do a very sizable increase in the jail. That's, you know, we've done, that's really, you know, our history is we've had quantum leaves and number employees when we've gotten big jail increases jail capacity increases that opened all at once that goes back to 1987 To the early 90s and even the late 90s. You know this last in the last jail expansion Which I've kind of lost track on exactly when it was finished around 2000. I. We've done that very much in stages and really have avoided a big big increase. But there aren't many in our, in the county government, there aren't many other areas where you're going to look at adding a major, having to add a major number of employees all in one year. Most other offices, it's's very incremental if at all. And if our budget does grow this area, it shouldn't be totally, it should be pretty much in line with the population growth, which really means always for counties does mean increased need for services demand for service. We do know that more people in the county mean more vehicles are registered, more title transfers. They mean more people going through our court system, generally mean more people going through our jail and our criminal justice system and more document and violence for the county clerk, probably more bigger demand for health health department services. To me, it's always a thing to look for is to see if your growth of your governmental entity is matching growth of your county as an entity. That's the presentation. I'll try to give you an answer that's valuable. What we'll do with this, that we'll probably, we'll forward it on to our financial advisors and let the following agencies know we're following forth with this. Thank you, James. That's an interesting, yes, the bonded agencies. It's going to be glad to see this and Washington wishes they were in such a position for sure. Okay, are there any questions or James on this issue? We had some discussion last week on item 13 which is a construction manager update and on page A14 in your book. Vanna has provided some information and we have Danny Brumbley here also. This includes information. Commissioner Marchant had submitted a request to Danny and the committee asking for some additional information. We've included that correspondence as well as the job description for your review today as well. All that's on starting on page A14A through H. I just thought it was important for us to get a little bit more information on exactly what the job description would be, what the organizational chart would be, what expectations would be from Danny himself, what our expectation should be, and rather than just discussing something with that information. Also, when Ann looked at the job description for the facilities manager, which is Danny Brumley, and if we choose to do this, I think that we would have to address that job description a little bit to include this particular person, especially as it relates to some of the duties that he has laid out here in the description of those duties. And then also if we are going to approve this construction manager position, it should relieve the facilities manager of some of the day-to- day duties that he has, and if that's the case, then I would like to look at the job description to, of currently what the facilities manager is doing and a more proactive planning of facilities and a more interactive planning of facilities and I've talked with Danny about this before about a five year maintenance plan on revolving plan on the buildings and how do you address that and how do you address facilities when you paint them, that type of stuff. And I would like for that facility manager, if he's relieved to some of these duties. He's not relieved of the overall responsibility for the duty, but maybe the day-to-day of some of this, that some of the duties that he has in his job description now can be enhanced if not brought in. That's where I'm coming from. A-14. Do we want to take action? I'm going to opposed to, I'd like to, if we could, dolds me have another week to look at the review this as far as the placement and the organization and where it goes and look this over if you don't, if you don't mind, I don't know what the drivers of the court is. Bobby. Any kind of. I'm holding. I'm ready to go today on it, but. Commission east would like to wait and it's fine with me but for me the position would report to the commissioners court not to to Danny. Didn't we say initially that we wanted this person to make work or reports to commissioners court status reports so to speak yes but I think So to speak, yes. But I think so. Routine report of an audit accountability reporting. Is that what you're distinguishing? Object accountability, I think, is what we kind of wanted. I'm sorry, Commissioner, can you hear me? Project accountability, I thought what we were thinking of. That is the primary purpose of this position. Right. Projects plural. I like that. I mean, I think Commissioner Mershant flushed it out for me. I think, you know, I'm ready to make a decision, but I'm be willing to defer to. I just see this person working in off a lot with Danny because he's the one that the contractors, well in the future, they'll go through both Danny and this person. But I see him working hand in hand so much that I think for the day to day, the coordination needs to be with Danny and then should there be a necessity for a meeting with the other departments, of course, they'll do that and then regular updates to the court. That's what I envision. Somebody else seeing something different. That's not what I envision. I envision that person reporting the commission's could not to Danny. I want somebody that's overall project manager. I don't have a big problem with that. I mean, obviously he's going to coordinate with all these departments. That's the big one. Please do. On our U.K. If we hold off, are you totally good? I just asked for that information because I need to clarify. Let's leave on a clear. It is a new physician. For it to fit. I want to, if we could, hear from Danny and let's decide next week. I don't want to confuse things, but one of the reasons that this position is underneath the facilities department is one we do work very closely with other departments. And yes yes they would they would come and make routine reports to court. You know they would be the person that would come to court and if there was any issues they'd bring it to you at that time and also to if we create a new position and a new department then it won't you know I mean the reason we put it where we put it and we thought it was the best position was it it would have the ability to utilize my support staff. And now if you create a new position and a new department, I have some more. I have some different thoughts about that position. And I guess we can discuss them next week, but I have some different thoughts. Oh, sorry. Commissioner Cullen. My thoughts are as that, I mean, we needed a place to put it to position, because we don't want to create a new department. It would be proper to place it in facilities. I don't necessarily see him reporting to Dan, but he needs to be placed in an apartment. So that's why I thought we kind of, and that's why I like the questions that, you know, Commissioner Mershon fleshed out. We can create the position but we need to know who's going to be behind his pens and pencils and office and stuff like that. I envision him, my vision for this position is he's be within facilities, not necessarily reporting to Danny more so reporting to us but being placed in that area. Office, right? Office, yes. He's but being placed in that area. Office. Right. He's got to be in that org chart. I mean, to me when you have employees you aren't really placed anywhere. Right. No, I'm with you. I'm just got to sign his time sheets. Somebody's going to do the payroll. Anyway, I just thought, I don't mind if we wait. I don't know if we would do it today. I'm not voting for another employee to report to Danny or anybody else. If I'm going to vote for an employee, then employees are going to be at the department here. It's going to report to the commission school. This is possible to us. I'm not voting for employee to report today. I think we're defeating the purpose. I don't have a problem with reporting the commission's card but the physical location of this person needs to be in that department like they said to share staff. And just my concern is that if you're going to put a department within my department, but yet I have no control over it, who if he needs one of my employees, how do I, I mean, where do we draw the line there? That's my concern is that, you know, you're going to put a department head in the same department as me, but yet no one, I mean, how do I control what he does with my other staff and my department? That's a concern that I would have and I burned that up. I have a different view of this whole construction person and I guess then everybody else do. I don't care where you put it. I think this position is needed whether it's a department by itself, a standalone department, whether it's in my department, whether it's in Kevin's department, but the position is needed. I don't doubt that, but I think we were rushing the position and placing it under facilities. Well, let's hold off her. We can think about this. Let's think it through some more. I think this support is there to create the position. It's so fine tuning the logistics. Or as the tax rights concerned, Steve Mossman will be here at 130 to present to you the effective and rollback tax rate. We'll have handouts for you as well at that time. I don't know if there's anything else you want to cover prior to lunch or if you want to go ahead and go to lunch and break and come back and take care of some of the other items. Didn't we already take care of another 15 social service agency? Funding is recommended by the committee. I don't think the committee is a formal action by the court, but on the side that the I think we're ready to take action on both for 15 and 16 correct. I see head shaking yes. You have item 15 is the approval of the Social Service Agency. Funding is recommended by the committee. This is on S112. I'm not sure anything wrong from them, but I'm still with their status card. What they do, and I want to make sure that they happen contact them. Commissioner, I did encourage Dr. Burton to submit as soon as the committee made that recommendation what that was to each individual agency and he did do that and I did receive copies of the memos that he submitted. But I have not received any request for many social service agencies to address the court. Didn't the PM hear from any of them? They were all advised by being Dr. Burton shortly after the committee met and made this decision. So they've known about it for several weeks. I'm ready to move forward to other court members are. I'm going to make a motion to approve the recommendation of committee concerning funding for the 2009-2010 budget for the Den County Social Service agencies. Second. Seconded by Commissioner March. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. What do they do? It's getting the same as CCA. I do it and the building and cutting some of the elements. The planning is getting, I'm trying to be in the service a lot longer than I guess. It's pretty popular and I have to do better than this and I really do it. You know, I do it. Does disturbed children as well. Remember, I mean if- I don't health issues, we'll put it that way. Remember, we're constitutionally charged with care of widows, poppers and orphans. I would, you know, I'm sure this, the DA's office could advise you further, but, you know, if we don't have a hospital district, we're charged with providing some amount now. We have a discretionary, you know, we would only get into trouble if we provided it, none. But if we provide some, we mean that's That's where I'm at with. Yeah. Right. And my same notion for the PD place, you know, and that's what I was. I know. We cut them, but you know, CCA has a clinic. You know, I was just curious CCA's clinic is getting the same money as this Nelson residential. That was my, and I know, no, they're 37, oh, 36. That's what stood out to me was that I know exactly what CCA does as far as their clinic. And it does, you're exactly right commissioner, Coleman, it helps relieve the burden for our lack of a hospital district. And I was curious what does Nelson Children's Residential Center does. Let's do this. I'm going to remove my motion and hopefully remove your second and let's ask Dr. Burton for some clarification after lunch. I think the Nelson Center and my own personal views, they definitely fulfill a need that. Sure. But I want you to hear from Dr. Burton and we can come. At 130 when we come back, first first we'll hear from our Texas sister with calculated rates and then we'll hopefully be able to hear from Dr. Burton considering the Nelson Center with a little verification on exactly what they do. How about going forward to library funding? Make a motion on that. I think we. Library funding is recommended. Yeah, in fact there's been a response. I believe they were here one way at first. Recommended they were fine. If I make a motion to approve the recommended budget for a library funding. The motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? Here none on favor'm in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, sitting? Overly, just make a comment. You guys remember when Lee Howe was here and Lee Howe was talking to us about the funding of the new computer. This batch system and that he had gone to our goal and some of the responses of our goal city council was you know we're double taxing we need to he next time he talked with him he needs to bring to their attention how they've asked us for ten thousand dollars in library funding double taxes and we branded it and and asked the same question about double taxation or double on the screen. So we used a few years ago. He's singing my song. Yeah, we'll get there. You'll learn. Okay, done. Is there anything else? Are we ready to bring for lunch? I will get there. You'll learn. Okay, done. Is there anything else? Are we ready to bring for lunch? Oh, yeah, we did. Give me vote. We have a motion to second all in favor of approving the recommended library funding. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed to say any motion to scary. But we did I want to take a break we can also talk about the item number 11 I know you've already received information from Kim and we can talk about that after lunch as well if you'd like About the hiring freeze You know do it now you a little lunch just Okay, here's I think I hear some tummies growling so we're going to take a break and go to lunch. We will recess until 1.30. Make sure his court is reconvened and we're calling down a street. Thank you, Judge. If you'd like, we can go to our regular agenda item 7F. Yes, please. I saw Steve Mossman walk in. He has information and we've provided copies on your desk as well of the effective and rowback tax rate calculation sheets. Again Steve, thank you for being here. Opportunity is this microphone on? If the red button is up, it's on. Because usually I speak too softly anyway. Yeah, you do speak softly and need to put that right up to your mouth. Okay, just for the record, we're here on 7F. With an F, the document you have in front of you members of the court on page 13 is where we'll be looking at the actual effective and rollback rate calculations. Last year's total tax rate was 0.2357.7 dollars per hundred dollars of value. Last year's, excuse me, this year's adjusted tax rate is 0.242135 dollars per hundred dollars value. Thanks for you. Thank you, transposed that. Did I hear it wrong? My dyslexia worked overtime sometimes. Okay. Last year's adjusted operating taxes were, it was 97,265,545 dollars. This year's adjusted tax base is 51,436,062,000, this year's effective operating rate is $0.189099 per hundred dollars of value. Giving us a, and then the maximum rate, I think we've heard too normally as a rollback rate is of on operating is .204 2 2 6 dollars per hundred dollars value. The debt rate is .0.0.0.6268 dollars per hundred dollars. Giving us a rollback rate of .266294 dollars per hundred dollars of value. Hey, we need to take official action on this. So the chair will move for approval. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. On favor, please say aye. Aye opposed to nay. Motion to secure you. Thank you and thank Michelle for getting this together of course as quickly as possible. We appreciate her help. And yours too. 0.242153 is the calculated effective rate. We're all back, but we aren't going close to that. Pretty much your effective. Page 13 of 16. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Well, it's going to take down a little time to merge this into spreadsheets and stuff, but we wanted everybody to have the calculations as soon as possible, and we appreciate the tax office coming up with that. I will tell you from experience the comptroller's office will call you or years ago, they call this, now they email with an estimate of the railroad rolling stock value, but you better not calculate from that until you get it in written format and it's a certified document. Don't believe it because it changes and it can certainly make a difference in the calculations. So she finally did get the certified notification. So we should we are good with these numbers. Good news also is that the preliminary number we used for the recommended budget was 0.247 as an effective rate. So it's about a half penny less than we thought it was going to be. So that's actually good news. Our percentage increase will be less there are then questions on this there is one one more thing I could point out well as you all know during our presentation we mentioned that we had included a figure of 3.8 million million for new property in the county added to the roles for the first time The calculations we received show that number to be almost $4.2 million So it's about 373,000 more that will be receiving from new property than we had anticipated 373,000 and $50. The themes in Donna always do the job of being very conservative with their estimates so that that hurts less at this point. Always a scary time. We are always sweating bullets until this number comes out so I'll do a great job of estimating those things we appreciate it Okay We've got are we done on that issue? Okay, Donna can work that into her spreadsheets and We'll send you out some information Okay, Donna can work that into her spreadsheets and we're... I'll send you out some information probably tomorrow and give you the details of that and I will incorporate the information that Commissioner Marchin had requested with regard to the three salary scenarios and what that would mean as well. So I'll get something out to you first thing tomorrow. I'd like to talk about agenda item number 11. I did include some information in your packet on page R74 and what this is is an AG opinion that was actually submitted for Denton County with regard to a position that was created during the year or changed during the middle of that process. And when an order making appointment and budget amendment was presented, it was not approved. And AG opinion was requested and that information is in your packet. It pretty much says once the commissioners court has granted authority for that department to have a position, you have seeded that authority until the following budget year. You also have received an IMO from Kim Gillis earlier this morning with regard to that and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you have on that as well. Questions or comments on the issue? Would you pull your microphone? Just a moment Okay, I'll page three of six on email. Okay on the email, yeah. Oh no, that's not what I want. Oh, I guess I'm perfect. I guess so. You don't have five or six pages. Okay. Are you talking about the July 27th memo from Mariah? Uh-huh. Under what? Issues, analysis. Conclusion. It's what I'm. Conclusion. Okay. You don't have that? You paragraphs on your conclusion, which one? I had asked Kim about the hiring freeze, and I said it's kind of confusing because it says that we may institute hiring freeze. Where does it sit down? I guess I looked at it. Oh, I see. It's been suggested that Commissioner's Court means to to hiring fees by providing conditional approval of positions during the annual budget process. However, there is no such authority for the conditional approval of positions. And I find no authority to suggest that such action when unable to court to interfere with the officers' right to choose his employees. Further, it has been held that once the commission's court author's authorizes the appointment for soon to sections 151.001 and 151.002 of the local government code, it has seated authority over to that position to the appointing officer for the remainder of the budget year in question. And we are, we need that. Where's your question? Oh. Answered your own question, is that what I'm hearing? I mean, okay. And you have other questions or comments? That's it. I'm saying that's after the talk to the budget. We can't go back. Right. I hope that position opens through that budget year. I don't think you could do that commissioner. You either, everybody year stands on its own. You either authorize a position or you don't. If you can offer it, but this says that it's in the community that the commission is working for. The commission is working for the commission. But what I'm saying is, let's say that we took a floor, we voted on a final budget. We could take at the time that we're going to take the vote. You could take the positions that had not been filled at that time, you could budget $1 and that budget. I don't know if you can do that. You could get a year and they could not hire somebody. No, they could. They could. I bet you in a bad position. We can create the position. We can create the position. You might only put $1 in there, but you either created the position or not, if I'm thinking correctly, Kim. And then if they feel that position, then you'd have to go to your budget officer and say, help us figure out how we're going to pay for this person that we offer. You created the line item. You hire for it all. I don't think you create the position. If you don't want to hire anyone, feel it. The rank of the salary that's to it. That was the situation we were in when that AG opinion was rendered. I believe. Been down that road. I can tell you from experience, if you create the position, you've agreed to fund it. That's right. Yes, it does. We haven't. I think I've seen the request letter before. Yep, we've had a request on that issue before. But before the AG opinion came back, we eliminated the position. Don't go there. No, seriously though. Before the AG opinion came back, we eliminated the position in the next, for the next budget years. So by the time the AG opinion came back, say, well, you agreed to fund it when the position was created. It had already been eliminated. So we, the problem was eliminated. But, not, not, not, not, not, not in the next period. It's not that I think it would. My question is, I mean, and I'm just suggesting that because I'd like to review all contingencies just as, you know, I'm not ever saying that we do something, but I always think it's a good idea to review our options just in case. Based on your memo, are you saying that if we became into a financial crisis and we just cleared an emergency at that point, we could then eliminate positions? I think that's probably an oversimplification. I think that if you have line item transfers where there's not an emergency, that's one way of doing business where you can have line item transfers where there is an emergency, that's another way of doing business. I think that when you come to positions that you've approved and you're talking about an elected official's office, you're going to have a hard time freezing or eliminating or moving things from line item to line item whether it is or is not an emergency because of that whole line of cases and age opinions about the officials prerogative on how to use those things you have allocated. So I do not feel like even if you... How can about the Vondee cases? Well, and some of the ones, there's a couple cited in the AG opinion that is given to you today, Vondee and that line of cases. Yes sir. And I do not think that even if you declare an emergency that you have a right or that that would give you the authority to freeze an elected official's positions. Wouldn't those actions only be subject to a piece of discretion review by a district court to sell pretty much Even if we gave a little bit we could still do it Absolutely, you would discretion says if we just completely shut them out Absolutely that would be and that's why I was when we had taught I think that what you will have you will have seen other counties doing is putting out the call that there is a problem. Ordering a freeze for the county. With your own departments, I think that with non-elected departments, I think you have an easy way to move money around and therefore decrease positions possibly. I won't say eliminate or decrease, but control some of that, but with elected officials, you're going to have an issue if they come back to you and say, I can't do my job without these positions being filled. The standard would be abuse of discretion by a district judge if it got that far. Seems some counties have done what they've gone and done is given unpaid furloughs, which would result in a salary decrease as opposed to a laying off employees or hiring freeze. Are you saying that's permissible? as opposed to a laying off employees or hiring freeze? Are you saying that's permissible? I'd have to look at the definition of unpaid furlough. I don't know if you saw it in, and I don't know actually if it's cited in this, but there's an AGI opinion and it may be, where one of the commissioners courts had the idea of setting up a situation where they had wanted to, let's put it that way, wanted to put a policy in place that would require that the elected officials move up from within only because that cost less money than hiring from the outside and in the bottom position after all the moves that have been made was frozen. And that's been shot down by the AGG's office as being an impermissible way to control that situation. I don't know if that would be, and there was a time lag in between is what they were proposing. And I don't know if that would be analogous to that opinion or not. I'd be, you know, I'm not sure what you're envisioning. But if you're talking about like, let's hold everything for, tell our electives that they have to hold it for three weeks, three months. I don't know if that's what you mean when you say unpaid furlough. Then that I think would be analogous to that AGIAPing and I'd be worried about it. But there's nothing in this that, and I know it's at the last of that AGIAPing and that would prevent you all from requesting the assistance of elected officials as well as your own departments. And that's, I know that's been done on more than one occasion by more than one county. I know that the commission's court, you know, we're the supreme authority on the county budget. And that's our- Absolutely. And to me, we would be able to impose a unpaid furlough on all offices. I don't think that would be an abuse of our discretion. I'd have to think about the hiring freeze. I know that that's been implemented in other counties. Right. I know we can't affect a official's executive authority like in front of, or we definitely can't impose a hiring freeze because we don't like the way they're prosecuting cases we don't like the way they're fine. Or who they want to be. We don't like the way they're filing stuff in the Clark's office but I mean that's because that's their supreme authority that's their elected authority. But ours is to set the budget and it seems to me that those elected officials would be you know coming into our arena. I mean our main arena is budget matters. officials would be coming into our arena. I mean, our main arena is budget matters. We don't influence what they do. And I think that's where our authority is. And I guess, I mean, just little things. If you look at the agenda, the elected officials are required to bring employees before us to be appointed. I think, based on your memo, you're saying they don't have to do that. No, I don't think that a pinion at all and if it is, that's certainly not the intent. You know, we have specific statutes that require like the sheriff and law enforcement to bring before you, their appointments. It's clear that what you all can't do is say, I don't like that guy or I don't like that guy. I don't think there's a statutes. But it still has to come before you. I don't think there's a statute that says, I mean basically I know for sheriff's deputies and constables and well aware of those statutes. Sure. All it says is that we assign a certain amount of deputies and then they're appointed by that person. So to say anything about us, you know, bringing every deputy before the commissioners court. I've never think we'd do it out of- I've never thought we'd make it a point. I'd like to check them down. Ministerial or budget? Ministerial, you know, I've sure, you know, the circumstances in these jobs is the empowering guidelines, you know, the position is properly posted, and you know, we've got all But we do tell the elected officials, even though that a line item is set for a certain amount of money each year, that we can lower that salary if we think the person's qualifications don't meet that salary. And that's within our discretion. So if that's within our discretion, why couldn't we also use that discretion to impose a, you know, unpaid furlough or something? I'm just trying to flush out the legal issues for us in the future because you never know what might happen later this year or in the next budget here. What is your unpaid furlough? I don't know what that is. There's been other counties that have said look we're not freezing but we're going to give you days off without pay and the city analysis did that. Yes. It would not the county of Dallas but the city. But there's some been counties who've done that. And if you remember, we use a lot of our, I'd have to defer to miss them. Steward, but you know, we use a lot of our salary attrition to pay off our health insurance after the year. And I'm worried the way, you know, health insurance and everything has been getting out of control and the fact that we're having all our positions filled and not really much turnover that our salary attrition account may not be as big as it had been in the past and then we're going to get stuck in the hole with the health insurance. I mean that's one of my big concerns and how do we plan for the future is my point. I mean if we get to month eight in the budget and we have very little salary attrition and we realize oh my goodness we're going to be in the hole for our health insurance. You know we get we were scrambling. That's why I just want to rush all this out. We've actually had that happen here where but we always got the elected official signature and a permission to transfer many from their budget to the insurance fund. Based on our budget amendment policy. Right, I understand. I'm just saying, what happens if that there's nothing left in there and the official can't sign anything over to us? Because there are positions about been failed all year. And it's a good budget. I think the fact that we've been using the salary attrition money to cover our health insurance is a very good financial planning tool. That helps us budget our stuff and I think you all should be commended for that but I'm just trying to you know as a good steward of public funds make contingencies because if you read the media and look in the papers there's all sorts of government amenities in our area, the DFW area that are running shortfalls, and across the state. And I think we would be full-heartedly not to consider our options and at least plan for, you know, these circumstances could they arise. Where's case scenarios? Yeah. Yes. So I mess why I wanted to flush this out before we, you know, before we get to it. I don't like crisis management. I like to plan things way ahead of time and consider all possibilities. That's why I was asking Ms. Gillis to tell us, look, if we do a hiring freeze, how does that affect us? If we have the authority to approve people before they get into their positions or we have the authority to affect their salary. Wouldn't that also give us the authority to do an unpaid furlough? I mean, we can decide, look, we can tell Amy, everybody gets hired in at minimum regardless of qualifications as a budget-maning, saving manner. I'm just trying to flush that out before we get into some sort of problem. I'd like to know. I did some research just on the Internet searching for other counties and hiring freezes. And there are a couple of counties currently that are in the process of calling for voluntary freezes. And they're getting a lot of cooperation for most of their departments. Some of them have committees that meet and decide whether positions can be filled or should be filled if they're essential to the operation of that department. So, you know, counties are facing this this year. You know, fortunately, we're not in a position to necessarily have to do that this year, but we it may be something we have to face down the road. Healthcare costs are not something we can control. We are fortunate that our health insurance, we have been able to pretty much budget and fund our health insurance plan for the last couple years without having to go into our salary attrition. So over time, we've managed to get that a little bit more under control. But we certainly might have to have that opportunity again to do that. Gillis, are you saying we couldn't even impose an unpaid furlough? I got to be honest and tell you I'm not really understanding how an unpaid furlough would be different than a hiring freeze. Unless we wouldn't be interfering with the elected officials, ability to hire and fire their employees or their slots, we would just reduce the amount of money that was being expended out of that line item that could later be swept to. You're saying you'd take a current employee and put them on whatever time period I like like some west Texas County said look We're running out of money everybody gets four days off without pay You know I see I For one day off or something or you know like you got a weekend right so that Friday and Monday everybody's gonna get off But it's on pay You've done a lot of you could do that with elected officials because they're...that's why I wanted to ask the DA's off, except I mean they're basically, I'll tell you, I mean I've looked at this issue before and it's a great area. I think you know, it's like I said earlier, you know, our authority reigns supreme regarding the budget. Their authority reigns supreme regarding the execution of their offices and the employing of employees. You know, in between is where the rubber meets the road. I think that we would probably get in trouble for an abuse of discretion analysis if we just said, look, you know, we're going to probably do an involuntary hiring freeze. But I think we could probably impose an involuntary furlough because I think that we don't think you could on elected officials. I think it's a great area I think. Because we've got specific specific statute that requires us to notify them what the salary is going to be next year and publish it in the paper and then go through the grievance process and that sort of stuff and you start doing something outside of the budget. I don't think the elected officials, I think it would be staff. Just like. I think you have to be careful too with a one day or four day furlough like you're talking about with exempt employees. You could run a file of the furlough labor standards act. So you'd want to make sure it was a full week if you had exempt employees. I just would like to flush these questions out now during the budget process and make contingencies. I think it's you know this is what these workshops are for. We need to consider these questions and plan for and you know realize I'm to me it's a it's a great area and I think we just need to kind of be well informed legal consumers before we make our actions. Make sure. Eads. Button isn't working as usual. Okay. Okay. When you put money in the budget for new machines appear that don't that don't work. Money well spent. I think what I understand, Kim, to say we can't do any kind of hiring freeze or delay in the hiring process if they've gone through the functions. If it's another like to the official but we would be within our purview if it's one of our departments that HR, budget, etc., you might write. I mean what's the percentage of those employees that are under our versus the other officials? I don't know the exact percentage but it's a lot less than half of the county's employees. The departments that are under the purview of the commissioners quarter, typically your smaller departments, except for maybe the health department, your large departments like the sheriff, the county clerk, district clerk, adult probation, you know, obviously under other officials. I think it should be said at this point that, first of all, hopefully we don't have to face this situation, but I agree it's good to talk about it, Mr. Coleman. It's always been my experience that our elected officials have been very helpful and agreeable and if push really came to shove and we contacted them and said look we're in trouble here and this is what needs to be done. I feel really confident that they would come through and be as helpful as possible. I hope we don't ever have to make that request but I would certainly want to engage as many as possible in a conversation of the best way to approach a disaster like that, but I feel confident that just like when the call went out, Donna needed information about vehicle usage. They all responded really quickly now when you're talking people and their friends and yes they're employees but after years you end up like family and that makes it tough and you're talking somebody's income and if I understand that but it's always been my experience that they're agreeable and willing to help and would do what they could to make it all work. Maybe we could, if that's a concern, if there's Commissioner Coleman, since we use the attrition to pay for the health insurance at the end of the year, maybe that's something we could get a report on, to kind of know exactly where we're, how that's going. Because my suspicion was validated when I got one of the emails from y'all last week that, you the turnover was lower, it has been lower. You know that's what I had been suspecting, that's what I had been seeing in some of the departments and just kind of looking at the workflow come through here with the hiring work that the water makers and so maybe that's something we could look at monitors throughout the year to kind of see and then if we wanted to delay, put a temporary delay, maybe not a freeze, but a delay that the positions are held open longer or something that we could do with some of our departments. But it's something we're concerned about. The good news is that the county's revenues are predictable because they're very fee-based and property tax-based. Unlike a city, you can have an economic downturn and a city municipality is geared so much on the sales tax. You look at the sales tax because so much of sales tax is generated the hospitality industry and the restaurant industry and that's the first thing to go out of a household budget and travel and out to eat and so the cities are a lot more turbulent in their revenue stream than then I would suspect the county and I think the budget office would I'll think that Yes, sir Well, I just wanted to make it apparently clear. You know, I'm not proposing a higher infrease. I'm not proposing a furlough. My only concern is, is that I think when the city of Dallas originally did their budget last year, they didn't think they were gonna have to do any of that. And they probably didn't plan for the possibility. I mean, I know we do a lot of emergency planning with our bar marshal and, you know, God willing, in the Creek don't rise we don't have to use those plans and I'm thinking the same thing for this but we would still be full hearted just not to think about it but I wanted to clear I'm not in any way suggesting iron freeze or unpaid furloughs I just think we need to be well-informed legal consumers and be briefed upon our responsibilities if in case that situation ever does arise. if in case that situation ever does arise. I'm glad you said that because I don't want employees watching this. Oh, that's great. I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I just... I we're going to have to do that. They didn't think they were going to have to implement those measures when they were first doing their budget for that year. Judge, if I could just follow up, Commissioner Coman under the example you gave then, because I wasn't sure on the difference, but the example you gave with the days off, I do not believe that you could unilaterally make that decision. In other words, I think if you made that decision and you had an elected official that disagreed with you, you don't. I do not believe that this court automatically wins. I think that that's where you get into this and it is a great area. But I think that at that point, that is not simply a budget issue, that is a question of the elected official being able to have at his disposal, the employees he thinks he needs at his or her disposal at any given point in time, and that you would be back over into the District Court of Use of Disgression area. So if you ask me, is there a distinction between doing a furlough and a hiring freeze? No, I think you have the same problems. Okay. Anybody else? Let's move on. I have item 14 on the agenda to talk about the various building projects that were included in the recommended budget. I'm not sure if you've had an opportunity to look at that in great detail. But we will be requiring or would like to have some action from the court sometime within the next week or two. Page S 120. All of this is in the fashion say all of it. Most of it is in the recommended budget. I also see from this report facilities did rank the positions of the request in what they would consider to be our already order county wide. But out of the 38 or none projects requested I believe we recommended somewhere around 26. I'm sorry I couldn't hear the last thing that you said. Out of the total of 38 are actually 39 projects that were requested. We included 25 of those in the recommended budget. And again, we based it on the priority ranking for un-facilities. I'm sorry. Donna number 14. Is that for the time card? No, I will. I think it's. I don't think it's a time card. I think it's like access control card reader to buzz into their office without a key. Yeah, like the swipe thing. Which annexes the number 26? Elp probation, OJ, building on McKinney. That's the only one. I'm sorry. Number 15. Yes. That's one twenty-two twenty-one. Match something. The way it's reading is to match new tax office and JP office in the bill. Ron, you might know that one. Item 15, Ron on page 121. That's 121. I'm of that tax on the public. This is based. Yeah, that's when we changed the security. And yes, for security, we, we remember we moved the security in it. Yes, for security. We remember we moved them across the hall. They were at across the hall. We moved them into the community room. They have, that's probably that in the tax office or the two widely used in the entire building and for security reasons, you can't even have one door of ingress and egress out of that suite and they they need to have exposure to that hallway to see what's going on in there. Well I guess the reason I question a good one is because it just says include a storefront glass wall that match new tax office and JP office. Yeah we just finished that. It's just a match but it's the curative. No no it's for security. Just the matches you know wait on that. Yeah that's just a bad no it's to provide security to that. They have one door in and one door out and they add a door to the front area. We just installed those types of security devices at the tax office and the JP offices and their clear storefront. I don't know what's in the JP courtroomD. I don't know what that is. That's the J.P. courtroom if I'm not mistaken. I didn't even know they had a wireless speaker system in that courtroom. Guy and Johnson is the... I'm unaware of that. Is this there to be... I didn't even know... I didn't even know it had a speaker system in it. There's not a requirement or law that it'd be recorded because it's not a quarter record. The young I don't know. I can look into that. I can get the background on it. The Christmas lights. Back on 13. Is that for, is that to have a company install it? Is that new lighting? What is that Donna? It's the continuation of what we've been paying for several years to maintain the lights here on the screen. Recurring request each year. I'm going to have to finish those doors based on the weather. response on that wireless question hopefully And and don't know. We're 11. That's a we include our biggest ticket item here. It is and we actually included money that that funding in our capital replacement fund. We felt like it was a large enough project that it could be absorbed in that budget. They have major problems with their systems and recently even this last week had a major problem with that murder case going on where the audio system, video system all went down. So I think this is one of the top priorities. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. With you on that, I was just curious about the, the, it was going to remove it to the capital replacement and just fund it out of there. Out of the CIP this year. It's funded out of the capital replacement fund for next. Oh, just a capital replacement, okay. It's well proposing. And in those cases, that's where we actually do major projects and we draw down fund balance to pay for that. That's the one project. I've talked about that. Okay. We did include. And resummoned Klein to make a motion for approval of everything that's in her recommended budget at this time and Think some more about the other line the other items that were not recommended when we get a better feel for For where we are in our tax rate we get a better feel for where we are in our tax rate. I haven't made that motion yet. I'm discussing that. I got one more quick one, Donna. The HID on number nine, that's, is that the HR card or is it what, which one is that? That's vehicle maintenance facility. car there was what which one is that? That's vehicle maintenance facility. Probably it is it the time the payroll car reader what kind of car reader? It's for the guests. For the guests. Gas tanks or maybe the gate I'm not exactly sure. Frank do you know what that is? We can go pull the file or we can I think we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make sure that we're going to have to go back and make our items that are in the recommended budget and we'll come back to the other items when we are on a appeal that we haven't we've only gotten information we haven't made decisions on correct okay people didn't cheer this in okay the building project requested list. The item set, Donna's got in a recommended budget. I'm inclined to make a motion to approve those and come back to the items that are not recommended after we have time for Donna to work everything into a spreadsheet. That appeals to the elected officials. You know, maybe you're not interested in any of them. Maybe you're not recommended, I think we won't even go to. I think we just go for the ones that Donna has recommended. Well, at this point, that's what I was prepared to do the motion on. But I think there's some other things here that myself and other members might like to open for discussion. A little later along with the appeals that we've heard. I see one head going up and down. Are you okay with that? Oh, sure. All right. I'm going to make a motion then. The building projects requested for the 09 and 10 budget as recommended. I'm going to make a motion for approval of those with understanding that we'll come back again and revisit this issue for the items that were not recommended for discussion at a little later time. Thatended. Question. Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, sitting. Motion carries. Item, if you want to continue the discussion on social service agency funding, Dr. Bartons here. I know that some members had questions. Page S112 is where the information is located. Dr. Britton, we, Commissioner Coleman emailed us the Nelson Center website so that members could go to that and read up a little bit more about just what the Nelson Center does. Yes they are home for neglected and abused children. 24 hours a day, seven days a week those children are residents there. All of them court appointed. I was in County residents. Every one of them lives in Denton County. You do not hear anything on the eight services of North Texas. We cut them out completely. We did cut them out. I did not hear from them. And I'm in regular touch with them. You can mine their budget is $3.3 million. They got a little less than $5,000 from us last year. I don't think that was a major hit to them. They requested money. And there has been some issues with Spain. Each of the agencies that were recommended to receive funding, the recommendation was 7.41% less than they received last year. By cutting the 11 agencies and then recommending a decrease of 7.41 to the remaining agencies, the committee was able to bring you a recommendation that is in line with the projected revenues between the tobacco settlement and the interest in the fees that are anticipated. So that was the committee's struggle to get to a number that was in line with the projected revenues. I talked to my appointment to this committee at length and told them what my priorities were. I told them, I thought children, you know, custody are the words of the state and those were going to be my priorities and, you know, also to make sure that they fell within our financial restraints. And I'm real reluctant to, once I appointed those people to work really hard on this committee, then to substitute my judgment. Well, I'm sorry I'm not because I... Okay, I understand. No, I'm just telling you, Bob, that's my opinion. Yeah. I appointed those people and if they did something I didn't agree with, that's probably my fault. But when I go with the people I got on that committee because I know they worked and it was a difficult process. You know, Commissioner Coleman, I respect that, but we as commissioners I think when we do have committees and they make a recommendation to us, they may not have the same information that I have. It's a good point. My appointees realize that I may not vote the way they have voted and they accept that. And I do discuss it with them and some of the other appointees that we have on that board. I always have a discussion with them. But I don't believe that we as elected officials can say that whatever they say is okay. Now we can certainly, you wouldn't put them on there if they didn't have some of your beliefs. But I think we at the end of the day were the ones that have to make the decision as to what we're going to do because were the ones that are the voting members for the public. I agree with you. I guess my opinion is I'm going to give their work great difference. Yeah and they do they do a great job but you know I talk to you know of course being no such talk to my end because she was him too but you know or us M2. But sometimes they make decisions on just this budget and just these agencies. But we have to make the big decision on everybody and everything for DIN County. And they may not look at the big pictures that DIN County, because I know we've got serval owner that if it was up to them, they would scrap the whole social service agency. But we have to look at the pictures that didn't count as responsible for some of these agency services that we'd have to do out of the, I mean, we're obligated to do. We can't just say we're not going to do it because we're responsible for indigent health care and some of these agencies do provide that and we have to Free with you. We have to do something. We have to do something. It's just to what extent is the question? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm finished. I'm done. When I first came to the court, this was a list that was growing and growing and growing and growing as you can see by This was a list that was growing and growing and growing and growing as you can see by the district clerk's list That you brings over here for the juror pay donations There is an awful lot of social service agencies in the county and that list is getting longer every day My appointment to this committee I My appointment to this committee, I think I made it clear that my, I didn't want to just take somebody who had been getting X number of thousands of dollars for whatever, you know, time period, having any years, say, okay, next year we're going to give you zero. I asked my appointed person to be working on over a period of time making sure they understood that's going to be decreasing to finally getting zero about. My priority was those social service agencies that totally supplement something that we're doing there. Health department, if they didn't do their job and do it well, it puts extra burden on a county health department or jail health or whatever. So that was my priority and my instruction to my appointed person was to gradually be phasing out those ones that do not supplement an action that the county is responsible for and takes care of and it's going to be in our budget one way or another. It's either going to be a here or it's going to be in the general fund. So, in the same way, probably just in a different way. Okay, but anyway, I am inclined to approve their recommendation as presented. Is there anybody else that would like to address this issue or has any further questions for Dr. Burton? one of them down the wall. And the one that I know that we're amended, if you're not the service, I was totally giving it. But apparently they don't leave it. Because if they do, they will come and appeal to someone. Since I have not had anyone to appeal to this, you know, I'm okay, but I see what's I would share with you. I sent every one of these agencies a letter. I did not hear from one of them. All of them, most of them have been on a schedule of reduced funds for several years and I acknowledged in the letter to them that these are difficult financial times that county departments are experiencing cuts and that we anticipate some reductions in social service funding also. All of the organizations where their funding was eliminated got very little funding from the county anyway. It just was not a significant part of their budget. The only exception to that is family health care and they had got $10,000 last year. They did not request funding this year. The funding environment for them has changed substantially. Every patient that we were funding them for, they will now be funded through CHIP. And so they're not losing anything. The list next year, take that off on list. I mean, all the ones that are zeroed out, we need to take off the list for next year. Yes, your initial. Which is the one you wouldn't want to fund? I mean, I wouldn't cut any of them, but I would certainly decrease the services and have them come in and explain why they're providing less services to Spain. Oh, Spain? Oh, okay. Okay. I haven't had any complaints,, I've had several complaints about them Providing the services they've had some funding issues, and I know they decreased their service area they had problems getting out to far amount the colony That was a funny issue and that and the veterans yeah With the veterans office Yeah. Oh, they've put through at the veterans office. But we gave them more money last year. We gave them more money, but it seems to me I recall them going through Michael Burgess and getting some help that way too. I have gotten other assistance. But I would like them for them to continue to service in all those areas. And I haven't seen any indication that they're going to do that. I could request at least a letter from them informing us of the services that they're providing. I'd like to and plan to continue to provide. I'll be glad to request that. Okay. thank you, Van. Decluded except for Span. No, I want to include Span to you. I mean, that's an essential service for people. Yeah, I will be. Well, not just the unincorporated areas of the county, because they certainly serve people in the cities too, but that is an essential service. It's an essential service, but I just think that, you know, they cut service and don't tell us it and then the citizen nobody tells the citizen to call and tell us that you're a guarantee of the service. Yeah. I want to know what service. With that I'm going to make a motion to approve the social service agencies recommended, recommended list of funding as proposed by the committee. Seconded. Seconded by Commissioner Ease. Is there further discussion? I made a motion for approval as the committee recommended. And then he had a second. Is there further discussion? Yeah. I promise. Dr. Burton's gonna follow up on that for us. Okay, I'm okay with that. Okay, all in favor, the motion please say aye. Aye, opposed to any. Motion is carried. Thank you. Appreciate it. I think the last thing we have on the agenda that we haven't gone over in great details, the discussion of the appeals. I know you all did receive an email from Kevin Carr while we were on break about the quick record projects that he's currently working on and prioritization. If you want to go through this list for anything you might be inclined to take action on we can do that. I think I'd kind of like to wait another week down until we can take that tax rate information and see what we've got to work with and then prioritize from there. We can start with that. Just crazy that X number of dollars to spend it all but we may want to. We may decide these things are important we want to do them. But I think until we take that tax rate information and incorporate it into the spreadsheet, we're not going to do that. We did come up with about $100,000 worth of reductions earlier with the action that you took to reduce or to increase revenues and reduce expenditure. Just FYI. Just FYI. Just FYI. That's exactly. Put back in. But we can, if you don't mind, I can go through the list of items that we can repost for next week. And if you want to just be prepared to kind of have in your mind your prioritization of the items that you would like for us to consider, we can certainly do that next week. But for next week's agenda, we could repost item number six, which would be the various salary raise scenarios. I'm not sure if Commissioner Marchant wants to repost number five or is that something we'll deal with next year. Item number nine, of course. and she's going to repost item six, very salary raise scenarios. Number nine, 10. That's right, discussion of course. Number 10, discussion of appeals. And 12 of this. Yes. 13. Number 14. 12. Yes. 13. Number 14. That's the ones that we did not approve today. I know that Commissioner Marchant has NASCO is going to be here next week at 11 a.m. to make a presentation about the functions of their organization. He has also asked that we post and will bring a spreadsheet to you next week of all the county wide associations that we belong to so that there can be general discussion of whether we continue with those or not. Unless I've missed something that's what I have. Judge, do we need to go back to the building projects? Is there anything on there that the members are going to want to, that's not recommended that we want to add or do we just not? Well, I think we should be open to considering any of them depending on what we've got to work with. I think we've had money to buy the tax breakdown instead of adding more stuff. And we didn't receive any appeal from Danny Brumlin for any of the other projects. I'll tell you what page was that on. I'm trying to... Yeah, just turn it back. I was concerned about the... I'm page S-121 at the bottom of the page, in March 23, the exhaust fans in equipment bay to manage carbon monoxide fumes from equipment. I mean, I realize that's a 120-dense of S-121, number 23, something about carbon monoxide fumes that makes me nervous. Well, I guess our thoughts were... I'm sure you wanted cars running inside that bay area, but you could have the doors open or back them out rather than them be running inside the building. That was kind of our thought. If it was... If that has been a problem, why is it just now being brought up? I mean, that is a common. That's a common thing when you for fire stations that when are coming and going, coming and going. And I just don't know there's a number of starts in that service of a to justify that. Stick a hose to the exhaust and stick it up the door. If it is, why is it just not start happening? Oh, has it been happening for a year or more? So why hasn't, why haven't we got about it? I do know that this was requested last year and it was not recommended at the time. As well. But then it wasn't emergency because it's gone on all year and nothing has happened. I didn't appeal to Sherry either. I didn't appeal it. There you go, right? When you have multiple vehicles going in and out multiple times a day, I think there's obviously a real danger there. I don't know how many cars are going in and out of that. Those days every day to generate that. Arch the larger vehicles. I see if we can have Jody or whoever here to talk about that next week. I'd like a little more information on that and just concerns me. It sounds dangerous. The other item we're gonna wanna talk about is our health insurance program. The premiums that we've included in the budget next Monday, the county formed committee that talks about health insurance with the PEC members will be meeting to look at the plan and also look at what we've budgeted to make sure that that's sufficient to carry us through with what they're recommending. So we will want to post an item for that as well. Just FYI, our office is going to be moving back to our location next Monday morning. So if we should be moving at 8. So if you have anything you need us to be working on, if you could send it to us early this week, or especially not on Monday Monday we would certainly appreciate it or if you send us something maybe by Thursday early because we'll be shutting down Thursday afternoon about four o'clock for them to take our computers down and all. It's the situation mentioned that is there an opportunity to get an update on? I know we've been, we got a tentative calendar, but not only update on who's moving in, where, but where we are on expenses and where we are on insurance coverage. I would like to know where we are on how much we've expended in that whole bit. If you don't mind. You'd like a maybe a regular agenda out and posting next week? I'd just like to know where we're at. Okay. And one of those, one of the reasons for that, there may be some, some things that, that in the, in that building being finished out that we can take in consideration that the insurance may not be covering anyway. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think so. I think that pretty much wraps up what we had. I appreciate all your efforts and action today. Okay. with that, does anybody else say something they want to ask her and? We are adjourned. Have a great day.