Good afternoon. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Yes, I would like also to call the meeting of the Osama Community College Board of Trustees to order. In one comment I would like to make before we start is what I told you earlier in that in 1963 Judge Farrest Ivey Robertson, who was District Court Judge, was asked by this group, your predecessors, to determine with a committee if this was an area which could house one of those new, fangled community colleges. He came back within a few months with his committee and made a report and it was reported in the local newspaper that they had said this would be a great area for community college and even a university. And so within a year I was thermal and it was the help of the Board of Commissioners. There were two votes during that year and all kinds of things that happened, but about a year later, in 1964, we were created. I was a community college, was created as the, I think, 28th of the now 58th community colleges. So we have a long history with this group and we've always cooperated and we're going to continue to do that. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Commissioner, for you is the next item is agenda approval. What's the will of work? Motion may be a friend of the agenda. Second. We had a motion to second in discussion. You're not a call question. All in favor raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise, the agenda has been approved. next item is 4133. This is the joint budget meeting with the Rothkin Board of Commissioners, next item is 4133. This is a joint budget meeting with Ruth Kay board of commissioners and Izo-throme community college board trustees and I'd like to welcome all of you here. And I think your break presented to us, you're an airtiff and your budget requires for this upcoming season. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. We appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation about how we support continued education and specifically education with the focus on workforce development and family sustaining wages for all members of our community. This evening as we come together, I am pleased to share with you that we've seen increasing enrollment at the college. This is our second year of significant increase. Last year we saw approximately 10% increase in our full-time equivalency enrollment, which is certainly related to our state funding but obviously we serve those students in our facilities on campus and we're grateful to the commissioners for the support that you provide for our capital funding and for our facilities operations. As we serve those students we saw a second increase this year of an additional 5%. So we are making changes intentionally through the college programs and the ways in which we offer opportunities to our community members to give all members of the community the opportunity to seek out new skills or to return and upskill to continue to advance their careers. We recognize students who are currently enrolled in high school are expected to change careers, not just jobs, but to change careers between five and seven times over the course of their life. It's a little difficult for someone like me who is kind of focused on the same career, although in different places to imagine, but our job is to make sure that we're preparing those individuals for these careers. With that said, I present to you our budget for our facilities, this is for our physical plant services for the college at our Spindale campus. And as you'll note, looking through the requested items, you will see that there are some increases this year. Those increases are driven by four primary sources, repairs to facilities. With aging facilities, we certainly continue to see escalations in cost of repair and minor equipment that is related to those repairs. The third would be electricity. We're seeing continued uses of electricity as we're powering our buildings and experiencing the same increases that we're seeing in other areas of the community and insurance cost. And not unrelated to the work that we all do is this increasing cost of cybersecurity insurance to ensure that we are keeping our data secure, that we are protecting the data of the students and the community members that we serve. So those are the four primary drivers for our operational budget increase. And that increase does demonstrate 7.8% over last year's allocation. So we are requesting an increase of $236,000 roughly a total operational request for our fiscal plant services, a $3,263,017. That is related to our operations. I'd also like to share with you a couple of capital requests. This is specific to the Porter-Sent Sales Tax that was passed by the commissioners years ago specifically to support capital construction and renovation specific to public education that included both both Redford County Schools and Isothermal Community College. And we have been very intentional in trying to manage those costs as much as possible internally or through other fund sources. For example, we're currently constructing a new health and sciences center. I'm sure all of you are aware of that. We're very excited about that. What that will bring to our campus, but especially to our community in preparing a skilled workforce focused on healthcare fields. In securing that project, our first focus was on looking for funds not coming from Rutherford County. The reason for that is we recognize the tremendous needs that exist in Rutherford County and the obligations that you have in trying to address those needs. And so we started with asks to other entities. We were pleased to secure a $30 million appropriation from the General Assembly, the North Carolina General Assembly in 2023. They provided in the fiscal year 24, a $10 million appropriation and in the current fiscal year an additional $20 million appropriation to largely meet the need of that new facility. With increasing cost as everything does, we found that we needed additional funds. So we have engaged private donors and other funding sources and raised an additional nearly $2 million from those sources bringing us to $32 million for our project. And so as we look at the cost of the facility and the infrastructure, including the fixtures, furnishings and equipment to prepare those students with the skills they need in healthcare fields a shortfall of $4 million. So we do include this evening a request from the specific capital fund set aside by the Porter St. Sales Tax that you consider a $4 million appropriation for the Health and Sciences Center. Additionally, we had in fall of 24, a Facilities Comprehensive Assessment Program conducted by the State Construction Office. Because of our aging facilities, we felt it was appropriate to have state facility auditors to come in, their engineers, and able to look at the facilities themselves, including all of our systems, HVAC systems, electrical systems, all of our kind of required infrastructure to ensure that the buildings are both safe and efficient in meeting the needs of the community. And in doing so, they provided a report that indicated a need that was north of $49 million of repair and renovation. I'm happy to share with you that we are not asking you for that amount this evening. However, we would request consideration of the funding from the capital fund from the Protestant sales tax to support that need as well. We'd like to tackle about four million of that in the current fiscal year. If we break that out, obviously over time some things will get more expensive. Other things are going to need to be replaced before we get to that point. But we are trying to break that into reasonable and manageable approach. These would be non-recquering dollars because they're capital. So we recognize the demand over time on the county budget. I'd like to invite our finance chair, Dave Hunt, to share his thoughts as well. Yep. You can see a couple of the possibly glaring numbers would be salaries. Top of plant operations. So salaries, maintenance, slash operations. It went from 765,000 to 453,000. This is part in part that the janitorial services are moving forward. We're going with a third-party contractor to take care of the janitorial and those operations. This price tag looks a little hefty over there. 44,475,000 versus what we saved over there. But this goes back into insurance liability. And that by utilizing a third party janitorial team, we have a contract with them. They provide their own HR. They provide their own insurance and hiring and fire. So this is how we thought best move forward. This was a vote taken by the general trustees. So you've got that. Electricity, as you see, down here in plan operations, item 53, 33, 0, 0. Now it went from $505,000 last year to $550,000 this year. And that's even with, as we replace light fixtures, as we replace items within the campus, and all of the street lights in the campus are now LED, removing forward with the energy savings. It's just at the end of the day, electricity is going up and even the citizens of this counting goal that they've seen their private electricity bills go up. Therefore, it's inescapable, but we are doing the best we can to be as worthy of the stewardship that has been given us here. Let's see, an insurance to bottom, there's general institution that went from 200,000 to 241,608. And again, this is just a fact of life. This is a fact of the last, well, years of inflation and so on and so forth. We have made a plan a couple of years ago, two, three years ago. We took a look and had an FRP on our insurance policy for the ICC. And I found that business has always been a good thing to take a look back, every two, three or at worst four years to take a look at insurance policies. What can we get? What's our current coverage? Are we covered for cybersecurity, et cetera, et cetera, like that? And by putting it out for bid for proposal, this allows, well, allow us, forces, our potential insurance company as well. and so on and so forth. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. And so that's what we're doing. that is on one of the future agendas here as we move forward. So again, back to stewardship, the best use of our money and funding here at the college, I think you're in good hands. We've got a good finance committee. It's good to see that we have more people on the committee now. And as an FYI, I was kind of bullied into this only because I have a finance degree as well as an MBA and I was honored, frankly, I'm not a kid a little bit, but I was honored to take the chairmanship of the finance committee. That's pretty much all I have. If anybody has questions, please feel free. Any questions? Move forward. Members. Well, thank you. Okay. So the, some my understanding right now you have two critical capital needs that you're looking at, you're facing. You have four million dollars for the new health science building. But then the other item, you mentioned $4 million, and if that $4 million is that, how that listed must be, say, is $47 or $40 million? It was just north of $49 million. 49 million, so it's $49 million. It's $50 million. But this $4 million is that, like the most critical that you have in the list of. Those are level one priority items. Some of those are safety, life safety issues like fire systems, obviously some electrical repair replacement. So we've identified the most critical needs. That would get us through with additional state dollars that we have through state construction infrastructure funds. We would couple those to address the level one priorities in the current year. When you say level one, and you say fire, because they're like your fire alarm, not working in your sprayer system, being your repairers. Well, yes, so we have a couple of, well, we have one building that is grandfathered in without fire alarms or fire suppression. Obviously that's a concern. But we have additional buildings that have electrical issues related to the fire systems. So those are priority one items, obviously. Some of the items with our, so this is not addressing everything on the list because some of these items when we open our new building, the Health and Sciences Center next fall, our science labs will move from the administration building into the new Health and Sciences Center, which will be tremendously helpful to not have chemistry labs in a building without fire suppression. But we have kind of mitigation in place, but obviously there are concerns that we want to ensure that we're addressing and being as proactive as possible in dealing with these issues. Who sets priorities? They're set by our Director of Physical Plant in partnership with Dr. Smith, our Vice President's Operations and our Board of Trustees Facilities Committee. But when you say priority one, is that what the state said to you? Those are the ones that we've identified. I don't know how to do that. I'm out of head that we have for the last 30 years or so. In 1999, we finished the fine arts building and so forth. And each time that was about 10 or 15 years. That was the only thing that the board thought about was getting that building and the resources and so forth. And then we, the next item that we actually planned for long range was this building. And things happened in between such as reach, the school system, the cooperation there, the technology thing. So now we're getting finally to what we plan. And the point about that is we do not have a long range building. You know, we don't have another building that we're going to need anytime soon. We should be in good shape. So that will enable us to focus our attention on these things. So you mentioned the courts and sales tax. Next, I pulled it up. There was a resolution passed right before the voters voted in as a resolution. And it said where the Rothkaian Board commission has believed that education of the children and youth and Rothkaian have to all levels of available public education, including traditional and charter public schools, and through the community-collar system, is a critical mission in priority. And that was the purpose of that. And if you go down to where the where it has, or now therefore we can be resolved, that if the sales and tax use tax is approved, the Ruffer County Board of Commissioners are fully committed to invest all additional sales tax revenue received by passage of the public education sales tax referendum on. and this is the key, on critical public education capital facility needs. And it's for those three areas that I just mentioned. And that's why I wanted to be very clear that that is separate from our operations request, that because these would be funds that are specifically focused on even capital needs for the college. In the past we used those funds as that stream coming into build a new RS middle school. So that was before was back in 2018 the RS middle school and the building we're getting ready to do the replicating on the bus garage and for the school system, that facility next to it. So that was the driver for this to have a stream of funding available that would not require raising public property taxes to the people that pay property taxes. Yes, sir. And because of the priorities, obviously, for those buildings to support the RS Middle School and other capital projects, we have received support from the commissioners for capital projects in the past. But it's been in smaller amounts. Over time, we are pleased to share that because of the support that we've gotten and it's been roughly 300,000 a year over the past several years. That preceded my arrival. But we are pleased to share that we have initiated the renovation of our library to make that a fully renovated library and learning resource center Learning commons if you will to support student success To support their academic success and to make sure we're providing for their needs while they're enrolled in programs at the college That is through the support that the commission has provided so I am grateful for that support As the mission is aware where aware, we're aware that regarding the court of the sales tax, we are still financing debt service on other critical capital needs. So the capacity there is, I don't have that I've taught my head so we'll have to see whatever capital capacity is available. So we're still on our way, we're just starting our budget season. But I appreciate you bringing that to our attention. So thank you. And then also in bringing the information of what your budget request would be for this coming year. So this is any question? You said level one was roughly 4 million. What any levels do you have? So level one, four million will not fully address all of the most critical needs. But it will address, again, because of the number of items on the list, by grouping them, we would be able to address the most critical issues. There are three levels. Level one is the last year mode of thinking. This needed to be replaced before last year. Level two is this is imminent failure. We need to get to this very quickly. And level three is, you know, this is something that we have on our radar, but it's not going to get in the right instruction. Do you know what the division is between at what's in level two, what's in level three, fund wise, money wise? So, I'm gonna have on a few recalls. I'm gonna ask you to. Yes. It's not equal. No. Level one is probably the highest dollar amount. So I would say probably about 24 million in level one project. Okay. But again, some of those can be broken into pieces. And then I think through maybe, and this is roughly having gone through it 12, mm-hmm and then the additional 13 or so. Thank you. Thank you. It's textured to that. The prioritization was the highest prioritization which represents this 4 million here was concerned for the safety of our students, our faculty and staff, first and foremost. And so this was, these were the most egregious needs that we need to have addressed. I'm just gonna give you the questions. It should be noted as well that that $50 million does not include beautification efforts to any extent. So it simply does not include what? Beautification. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Claire, call. Why was you staring at me? We should sit down. Early in other questions the comments from the board. Would like to congratulate you for having your back-to-back increased in demand for your services. Yes, that's good. That's good to see. Thank you for your meeting in need. Seeking funds elsewhere too. A lot of people don't do that. They make it different when you go outside your box. Well, again, we take it very seriously being the college that serves our community, that we recognize the need and our responsibility in meeting that need. Our responsibility is to serve all members of the community and to help all members of the community in a way that is meaningful to them. The focus, if you've seen any social media recently, you may have seen some new campaigns rolling out. You'll see truck driver training, a new program that we're starting to be able to serve not just day but evening and weekend training opportunities to get people into careers that will immediately provide a family sustaining wage, but you'll see advertisements in lots of new places, including on the side of those trucks that focus on better skills, better jobs, and a focus on serving adults in our community also to ensure that everyone is able to demand the fullest potential for labor market value to bring the skills into the labor market so that they can earn as much as possible to support their families and to do so with skills that are in demand locally. We're even offering drone pilot training. You can become a licensed drone pilot through Austin Thur our Civil Community College. I think that's unique considering the time we live in and we've got a very bunch of stuff going on with AI. Well this is for discussion only we're not taking action today. We really appreciate the dialogue. We'd like to thank, like you've got your board of trustees, behalf of the county, and we appreciate the open dialogue that we've had over the last, we always had, but last three months, we've had conversations with the early-orship team over these challenges, we knew they were coming. Even back when we're doing the $30 million request, you guys did come to the Board of Commissioners, so you did come to us and say, we need this as for community force. We really want this to happen, but you're gonna be our last ask. I remember you guys saying that, you're gonna be our last ask, as in you're going out to try to see funding. And of course, we did a doing later to the legislators, which we were very grateful for all of us for that. So thank you for the teamwork. And thank you for bringing this to us. That's a part of our budget discussions in the next few weeks. Thank you. I do. There's anything else you guys can say. We actually have to have to do some business for your power line If you minutes but there's anything else you want to adjourn or trustees or you want hang out Will a germ Thank you Thank you everyone for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll rate it in the next time. Yeah. Our commissioners, next item is 4131. I'd like to recognize Paula Roach. Paula, this is a budget amendment for consideration to allocate funds for the Isle Thermal Community College, Capital Outline LA, and the signed fund balance for relocation of underground utilities. So we do explain that. The following budget amendment is here for your consideration. What this does is removes the brick wall and the transformer and gets some of the preliminary work that has to be done before the health sciences building can have their ground breaking. This will move the underground utilities to a temporary connection. And then the follow up, they'll likely be a budget amendment again in about two months for the balance of the project. They are currently getting a quote for it. Thank you. Are there any questions for the board? Does the amount include both operations just the first one? Includes phase one only. Phase two is likely to be around 300 to 3. to do the balance of project and that would move it to a permanent connection. And that wasn't in any of the budget items that were mentioned just a few minutes ago. It may have been on that larger list, we'll recognize. This is coming from our county capital reserve fund. So this is money that we have been putting aside specifically for. Okay. Project. Yes. So we are not asking for any money for this. Thank you for clarification. The budgeted money actually is in the reserve. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And in the reserve, there's 200,000 in sales talks, 500,000 of the quarter-sent sales talks, so there's a total of 700,000 budgeted in this fund each year. So this is you losing that money. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Commissioners, regarding the budget amendment, what's the will of the board? Make a motion to prove it. Second. I've got a motion second any discussion? We're going to call the question on favor. Raise your right hand. Any opposed? Likewise. Thank you 4134 NC Department Public Safety Designation of Applicants Agent Resolution And we have a fire marshal or somebody from that group here. How old is it? In the Department of Public Safety and Descarnation of Applicants Agent Resolution. Do we have a fire marshal or somebody from that group here? I will let it in. Thank you. My name is John at the minus tower for emergency. I'm in the firemorphs office. So the request was for a agent designation born to be completed part of our process for our building of resilient infrastructure communities grant. This will be for a joint EMS base emergency management Firemoreals office building as well as on that same campus building Fire station for Spindale fire and rescue the overall project Be somewhere in the area of 24.2 million for both buildings to be built And so basically that form just acknowledges an acknowledgement from the county saying that any project cost for construction Building plans and things like that fall on us regularly and then we'll be reversed from Thank you and appreciate I love love the effort that we're working together for the town of Spindale and jointly like this for this commission. It's before you as an action regarding the resolution, what's the will of the board? I make the motion, we approve the resolution. Thank you. Thank you very much. A second, any discussion? You're gonna call the question. All the favor, raise your right hand. Any it light wise. Gary, thank you. We'll get your fire house now. OK, next time it's 4135, this is regarding the PPDR. Mr. Garrison's not here. So this is a membrane of a green between Ruther County, North Carolina, and the state and North Carolina. And it's being presented to us for our consideration regarding PPDR. I'll recognize Richard. Any comments on them? No sir, other than there are still some terms that we have not settled on. It's entirely what their implications may mean, which is a reason why this is not a straight and I'm not recommending that this is a straight approval of the document having front of you, but instead the authorized county manager to continue to negotiate the terms with the MOA. Of course, the essential terms would be as presented here. There are some minor questions that we continue to have about the MOA. We have not yet gotten some answers. There is a suggestive action before it's already. Yes, sir. So this is a... My understanding is with this new program, we will not be fronting any funding on this. Yes sir that is our understanding. There are some terms in there as I say that we want to make sure that is the case. Before we sign on the dotted line. Well this gets the ball moving. Yes sir. At this point do you have any timeline requirements that for sign up is it going to be a limited time or the residence going to have time to request this before the program runs out is there a clock on this and unfortunately I don't know this the I don't I believe we're well within the timeline that's about as as much as I know on the details of the program itself. Unfortunately, I wish Steve were here. I think he has gained a lot more knowledge of what some of the specifics are. I'm looking to see if Paula, thank you. Paula is still here. She probably knows a lot more than I do about the answer to that one. We met with North Carolina emergency management Joe Stanton and his team about a week and a half ago. What we're doing with this agreement is the first step of the process to win instead of the contract being a direct contract with the vendor in the county and us having to pay the bills and float the money for the FEMA reimbursement process because we've basically reached a financial capacity that we're comfortable with. So with the PPDR program, then they will actually manage the financial piece, the state will be paying the invoices and paying. We will still be involved with some consideration as to is this vendor appropriate and there will also have to be some working in tandem with the vendor, what they'll do is secure probably this similar vendor that we're currently using because as we demobilize road, rhodaway and the waterway gets wrapped mid-June July then they'll be continuing to work some of the debris spots. So since the permits are under the county's name then there will have to be a coordinated effort between us. I have asked some questions similar to what's in the agreement as to how we'll monitoring that we pay for those trees that come from the road or from the waterway once it gets to the debris site and they're co-mingled with potentially their stuff that they're bringing from private property, then at what point and how will that tree be tracked and how will it be be billed. So we're not sure if you'll have to be segregated at the debris site or if at that point then to help with cash flow Then will this state begin that process those are the little details that we have to work through because it'll be a coordinated effort The state is calling this a smart Mission what they've done is come up with state mission assignment recovery task and they they're trying to do this as to what program fits with what Western North Carolina needs to finish our recovery. Do you know if this will be an online sign up or how will they get in line to have service? We're hopeful that it will be an online process as well as an in-person option available. Okay. I have requested, is there a potential of having one day, two days a week or in-person for somebody that's not tech savvy or if there's a series of documents you need to bring? Can we have that as an in-person help us filter through the program? We also will be working through our FEMA community laze ons. Evan Smith is here tonight as well as one of the supervisors with FEMA. We'll still take in all those people that have debris that's just outside of the road right away. And those that we have documented, there were several that had emailed into the debris email address that I had flagged as PPDR. So this state will be working those first and contacting those citizens to get them on the list and through the application process. But it will be a coordinated effort and there will, there has not been any deadlines or times given to us that one would hope at least a 45 to 60 day application process and then it may take 120 days to complete the process, depending on the application. That was my next question. But it will be a process. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? It's my understanding, though, that if you've got 100 acres or 500 acres or something, they don't go out there and try to fix that. They're literally around the property or you're around your homes. It is around your house and your maintain the areas. Yes. It makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. So it makes sense. into an open field of trees that you don't maintain, then those would not be considered. That makes great sense, thank you. But the teams that have been doing the intake and the monitoring company that to help with the intake with some of the other counties, they're well versed in what fits the parameters. Gotcha. Well, thank you. I mean, members, okay. Commissioners, there's a suggestive action before you. All right. Well, thank you. Members, board. Okay. Commissioners, there's a suggestive action before you. And I make a motion that we authorize the County Manager and the County Attorney to negotiate the terms of the memorandum of GreenMeter M.O.A. To authorize the County Manager, the Finance Officer, the County Attorney, the Clerk to the board, and other county officials to sign and execute all documents in support of this action. Second. Motion of second, any discussion? I call a question. I'll pay my raise your right hand. Any pose, light wise. Barry's. PPD was all the way. Okay. Commissioner's next item is 4132. I'd like to recognize Jay Daudi, our IT Director, as it's regarding eye work. In cooperation with Director Cersei over the Gourage, we are seeking approval for a multi-year agreement for a new inventory and maintenance tracking system for the garage. Companies name as I work you, I guess it's pronounced I work in a strange way. And they are a huge step above the current data collection software that we use now called. This is a four year agreement. prices roughly around what we've already been paying for maintenance for the current system that gives us time to be happy to answer any questions. I'll be honest with you. Keep track of one department, DSS has all dodge little care of answer something and it keeps track of the parts that they're most used and they were able to track down like that This are as well as for scheduled maintenance items. It has a schedule of when they need to be replaced and that alerts That's what I had read that it did so it's really a bigger pinpoint or a better pinpoint what we need need, but we had. It also has some geo location services built into it so we can start seeing where it is. We start losing tires or blowout tires. We can start tracking where certain things are happening. Also has tablet capability. So now instead of one worker having to manually enter records into the current system off a piece of paper that are jotted down all day, they can actually have a tablet beside of an accurately cracked up. I'm guessing this is something that Luke and those are guys at the garage have been able to play with and they're for it. Yes sir, we've got access to a test environment and they would help with going and playing and make sure that this was something that was going to be beneficial. Awesome. Okay. No, no, no. We've got access to a test environment and they would help with going and play and make sure that this was something that was going to be beneficial. Awesome. Any other questions? Commissioner, there is a suggestive action before you and look for the will of the board at this time. I make a motion that we authorize the county manager and the county attorney to negotiate terms of the agreement and authorize the County Manager, Finance, Officer, County Attorney, clerk to the board, and other County officials with the sign and execute all documents and support of this action. Thank you, Commissioner. We've got a motion. Need a second. Second. Got a motion. Second. Any discussion? You're going to call a question. All in favor raise your right hand. Thank need to put his light wise, okay? Yes. You got it. Thank you. Commissioner, you got one more item. It's to adjourn. What's the will of the board? Make a motion with adjourned. Second. I got motion second in discussion. If you're not called a question, all in favor raise your right hand. I need to put his light wise. We are adjourned. Thank you.