last month. Those distributions hit the primary months to the tune of a third. 8% increase when you add in the investments made from the same accounts. We're up 22.17% from the month previous. And that almost is dollar for dollar the amount or so of the property tax distribution. So solid financial position. The first page showing that property and income taxes up $160.

$31,000 plus over the previous month to date, $5.5 million from those limited sources of revenue.

And on the investment page, it was pretty quiet, only two mature, but still an extra almost $3,600 in interest. Only two are shown to mature next month. I did make several investments today, $2.8 million that will settle tomorrow. They're short-term. They're going to mature early in in October. So those are the changes there. Unless you have specific questions about the report, I think it speaks for itself, especially this month. All good? Okay. So, great. Moving on to distribution. We made the second distribution yesterday. It wasn't as large. That first one is always a big one. This one was 2.475 million across all All of the taxing bodies. As of that distribution, 59.64% of the levies have been put back to those districts, so they have a significant amount of their budgeted funds already. So if you look and see if the county received of the $2.475 million, this distribution across all 13 funds is almost $266,000.

Mill Ray's on its own, because it is, as you know, a separate taxing body, $61,708.

So next distribution is September the 10th.

I anticipate that to be a little larger because the second due date is quickly approaching on the 4th.

Other item of note, the annual auction of surplus properties that the county holds as trustee.

That catalog is out and about in the wild. We've had several people express an interest. We tried to direct them to the online auction site. Deadline for those bids is August 21st. I believe that is all I have, unless you have questions regarding the collection site. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All righty, let's jump down to 7.2, Cody Cook.

Thank you, Chairman. July was a busy month in our office. On the recorder side, we recorded 697 endocuments, busy time, drone properties in the county. As far as elections, the 2026 election early voting begins September 24th.

I've received a couple communications. People have been seeing signs in elections in other states. So I've been wondering when is voting. I've just made them aware. We don't have our list finalized yet. There's still time for filings with the county clerk as well as the state court elections. But September 24th is the day. We had a successful election judge training on August 4th.

We had two time periods, a 2 o'clock and a 6 o'clock class, and we had this hosted at Highland.

You'll see a little claim next month for some cookies and waters at the election judge's job for coming to the training.

The 2 p.m. class offered this image around.

and the room was completely full. I think there was a couple empty seats, but about 117 people attended that 2 p.m. class.

During screens up front, we've really tried to increase the training materials as far as whether you're alerted by words, visual, hearing.

so we had both the ADA, the accessible machine where we could show the judges as well as the tabulator and then all of the materials we have as far as the binder so the PowerPoint for the presentation has been revamped as well as if you were a first-time judge you could come up afterwards to look at those materials that way they can feel confident on election day.

Patron, Highland was just a perfect place to have it, I think, previously.

Yes.

You got a question?

I do. Do you know where the judges equally represented from both political parties, or is it just one side or the other?

It was representation from both parties. That was one of my goals, that we can try to comply the best we can with a state statute, do, whether it's for the general election, you have to have five judges for a precinct and then depending on the votes from the previous election, three Republicans, two Democrats or three Democrats, two Republicans. So I know a lot of counties trouble getting election judges and we always want people to continue to apply. So we have, I don't want to say the buttons, but people dropping out a couple days before, we're not scattering. So we're in good shape.

But it would be nice to continue to have election judges apply. Some of the rural precincts, election judges retire, so we need to continue to fill those spots.

Thank you. Any other questions?

Election judges, and then, even though we're on the 2026 election, 2027 election, it's beginning, primary petitions are being circulated for city in August 20.

25th Circulation begins for the other districts, municipal, park, college, library.

The only petitions that are picked up at our office is for the school board because the school board, those candidates file with our office.

All of the other positions they file with their local clerks, so we never even see those petitions.

It's just a list of names that is certified to us for the 2027 election.

We just see the petitions from the school board.

Any questions about the 2026 or 2027 election?

I sent an example out of the postcard that's going to be sitting in mailboxes soon.

There are about a little under 26,000 postcards that will be going out to all registered voters that are eligible to receive this postcard. If you have already opted to sign out of this postcard or you already signed up for a vote by mail, you will not receive it. This is required by state statute. You'll see on that postcard they have the option to say they're interested in being an election judge.

They can request a vote-by-mail ballot for the November election only They can sign up for permanent vote-by-mail or they can opt out So if you don't want to receive that postcard, give us a call and we can opt you out That will save future dollars, tax dollars If you want to vote in person, show up to the polls Don't really vote Jasmine, how many vote-by-mail in Stevenson County?

It depends on the election. It depends on the primaries. If they chose a party, it would depend on the election. I would say approximately 2,500-ish. We have about 2,800, 500 registered voters. And we sent out a little under. We sent out 25,735 postcards.

So that difference is made up of people that have opted out, which isn't a lot for people that are already signed up Thank you When did you say early voting begins?

September 24th Thank you All right, thank you Thank you Let's move on to 7.3 Mine's going to be really short So as I repeated in the last few meetings or whatever, we have seven townships, it's all hands on deck, but we have five completely and neverly done, the fieldwork's done, it's all entered, and I have everything valued, so we're working on number six, which is White Point, which encompasses Lena in that area, and that's the largest one besides Freeport, so the fieldworkers are almost done, and I'm working on valuing So, we are actually, I don't want to say this too loud, but we are ahead of schedule.

Look at stuff these while.

Look at stuff you smile.

It'll come in another year.

So unless I have a major, major hiccup, which hopefully not, we should be getting everything up and done so everybody else can do their part.

All right.

I see your question.

Is the Emory King Health Center?

No, trust me, that's what my whole office has been doing.

So everybody, it's, the new girl has fit in amazingly and everything is going very, very, very smoothly Okay, perfect All right Let's go to County Administrator, she was not able to attend tonight, so I have a report, I think you all got it But I'll kind of read off a few things for the YouTube here Stevenson Nursing Center, Court Continued, Continued to be contacted by vendors that are still owned, Hartley Land Bank, No Upcoming Meeting Scheduled, Sickits, Wrapping Up Audit, and Plan to Present to Finance and the County Board in September, TFP, No July Meeting, and Next Meeting is 8.26, UCCI Annual Summer Conference, That was at the end of July, Good Information on Data Centers at Educational Seminar, always been to network with other counties, Tegabee Financial, July 29th, have a workshop for all employees, good turnout, we'll host again by annually, MEPR Health, new program through Arts, MEPR, I think we talked about that, to be rolled out, two employees late August, and then Animal Control moved into the new facility, We'll be playing formal ribbon cutting and open house event.

Sounds like fun.

So that's what she had.

And let's go on to 7.5, manager.

There's always a lot going on.

Been dealing with a lot of health department's catalog moves going on.

They're readjusting a lot of stuff.

So I spent most of the last few weeks over there.

Getting stuff prepped. They moved like 10 offices, I think. We got moved, and they're preparing for the 9th floor here to move back to the health department, I believe, at the end of November or so. Some of where they moved, some of the people used to be old examination rooms that weren't live, internet-wise. They were old FHN stuff, so we had to get that configured and put a switch in on the back side of the building, and that's up and running.

I think I shared this already.

We pretty much have the Wi-Fi switched out across the board in the courthouse here.

We still have to do the health department yet and a few outliers, but for the most part, our wireless has been overhauled and has helped with the board meetings.

We haven't had anywhere near the issues that we once had, so I'm going to knock on wood as well because that was frustrating there for a while, but I think we got it stabilized.

Other than that, just a little bit of break-fix stuff, a lot of break-fix stuff, but we've had some calibration going on with the SQL 1 server. Since we put that in, it was kind of lagging a bit, so I had to get in there and reconfigure how much memory the SQL server was taking for the searches and stuff, and I think it stabilized it, as far as seemed to the last few days.

and then today we got a call from Arrow this morning that there was a fiber that was degraded that wasn't going to crash at any moment that carried 9-1-1 and everything else so we had to do an emergency shutdown today around noon to replace the fiber I was at the PSB they were at the police station we did it in a coordinated event we were down with 15-20 minutes 9-1-1 was kicked to Freeport PD and then everything was back so don't like to disrupt when people are here but it was necessary because we could either pick when we're down or it could just go down and we could have a bigger issue so we decided to do it over the launch hour all the department has were pretty workable with the time frame so we got that done today and avoided potential disaster there so that's been pretty much it I am going to Tennessee at the end of next month so I'm just trying to get a lot of stuff off off the plate so three rod can handle whatever comes in when I'm gone Brad is back from Three Rock he's still not like really lifting anything or whatever he's still on the neck brace and stuff but we did get a body back they can take some of the remote tickets while we're out on the desk level so um with that does anybody have any questions thank you there isn't any old business so we will jump down to let's go to 9.2 approval of intergovernmental agreement with Aaron Kent multi-township assessment district

before your period of assessments, speak to that. Sure, this is one that Sandy decided that she with her health issues and stuff like that and with them switching their township supervisor it sort of got lost in the shuffle or whatever so they finally just got the contract back to me so it's just like the last one that we did for Aaron or Jefferson and Lauren so same Same concept. We did the 440 that the county board approved, and it's just giving us more money back in our chips.

You've got the resources to do that all, right?

I do.

Are you right? It's always good.

It is. And like I said, no disrespect to Cindy or whatever, but having it all in-house since we've done it and stuff like that, That's, I really believe that that's why we're ahead of schedule just because we, you know, instead of waiting on her to bring it back or whatever and obviously she didn't, she did the work and then sometimes, you know, turned it in once a week or whatever. Now the field people, they go out daily and then come back. So that's why we're ahead of schedule. I'm, trust me, I'm not sad.

Okay, okay, okay, move to approve, okay, call second, and second, all right, all those are big to say aye, all right, so move, let's go down to the fun stuff, the budgets, ooh, I need that to the bottom, yep, so we will, that's not a main place, thank you, or something, okay, so we have, Some budgets they look over. The first one is administration budget. I looked at all these last night and so we've got to look at her contract and that's when that's empty.

Other than that, Platt, I don't know if anybody else can comment on that, and then there's a 3.5% in there for the administration assistant salary and the regular finance director salary, so I also have to do a review here coming up shortly, so more fun stuff.

Comments, or we'll just go on in the next one.

We can't approve it now, but we can't really approve it because we don't have that one in there, so we're just going to move on in here.

And the next one is IT budget.

Do you want to speak to that, Nate?

Oh, yeah, and it reminds me of something.

This budget is pretty much status quo.

It's got the 3.5% COLA in there, and whatever our increase was in the service contract.

you know what Microsoft just went up so I had to up that yeah but for the most part I tried to keep it about what it was so not much of a fluctuation other than the rise of cost to operate so but that does bring me to the point one of the other things that I've been spending the last week week and a half two weeks doing is moving like 18 terabytes worth of data that was on a NAS drive they maxed that NAS drive out they needed something bigger. So we spent $5,000 on an 80 terabyte NAS, which essentially I thought would last them two, two and a half years. At the rate they're putting data on there, I don't agree with how we're doing it, but I can't necessarily say that it's being done wrong.

I don't necessarily say that it's being done wrong. My fear with NASs are they're basically little toasters that are server file servers and they replicate like there's four drives but if that whole thing gets nuked or power blasted there's no backup to that whatsoever and that leaves some concern to me and we have a few of those around the county. I was asked what it would cost to go to the cloud and the part figure for the first year was like $5,000 additional, you know, to whatever their operating budget was. And going forward, I don't care if that comes out of my budget. You know, I don't know that I have access to do that. I still have some IT upgrades that we'll use for other stuff. But this is something we got to think about for the future. Because as we continue to add data, the cost is going to go up. There's just no way around that. Now, I think they were overestimating what they're going to put on.

I feel like they're putting on a lot now because it's the initial get rid of all paper, right? We're trying to get there. I think eventually it slows down and it tapers off, but they were ballparking that they would double every year. I don't think that's the case, and they were worried about like in 20 years it being 100 grand a year, and they like that's not feasible. I'm like, well, what we're We're doing now is not feasible because lightning hits it. Worst case scenario, you lose all of it.

Yeah. And I'm not comfortable with that. My professional opinion is to have it backed up online somewhere else that if courthouse blows up or, you know, fire or whatever it can be, we can restore it. I was basically told that wasn't an option. So who told you that?

is that who was that I'm not trying to yes yes yes who is it which department are we talking about the state's attorneys okay and again I'm not trying to throw them under the bus but I'm not comfortable with the current arrangement we have and I don't think five thousand dollars increase is a lot considering the data is backed up the sense of security that you have and then the other thing I have is like the chain of I forgot what you call it but I don't know custody chain of custody on what can go where that may be a coral question but I do know there's evidence.com that the county uses the sheriff does and Freeport PD uses and I think that's been ruled out I don't understand why I there are options out there better than what we're doing and I don't know if it's cost is there a general fund budget I don't know and again I'm not against paying that it's just I don't have an access either we have to game plan for that to grow continually going forward right now I'm carrying all the servers in my budget through Ninja and I can add that drive I can add things in but it's going to increase what we pay and I'm fine with doing that because eventually right now the other thing was is that I got everybody to get on Chanel server the imaging server because they all use PC gyms and then that could grow and they could split the cost. That became a thing. So now I think she's just paying it for now. People have to

understand that to store data online is not free. And I'm not saying you guys, but I mean department heads as well. Like if this is what they're doing, they've got to game plan or I have to have it in my budget and I'm willing to carry that in IT budget. It makes sense. But I'm just frustrated because if something were to happen the first finger that's going to get pointed is at the IT guy and we're not going to have the files when my preference would be that stuff is backed up and saved off site that's the safest way to go now and it's immutable it can't be changed like it the protections are there but as soon as something's gone they're going to be like why didn't you say something well I did numerous times I can't make you do it we don't have to get too deep wasn't it security concern or a cost It seemed like a cost concern to me. It really seemed like a cost concern to me, and I think, again, I think it was overestimated. You're not going to double every year. Obviously, if you're playing catch-up, you're doing a lot right now, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the 18 terabytes of stuff that they went through in not even a year. That's mind-blowing in itself, but I think they're putting videos, recordings, all this stuff out there, and that stuff eats up that quick.

so I say all that to say I have ninja in my budget and I've got it to where we're at and where we're growing but there's quite a few one-offs in this county that need to be added into that and I started having discussions with department heads and the courthouse turned into a who's paying for what type deal and that's not for me to determine.

Yes, Chairman So, regardless of where the final dollars come from, whether it's the general fund or not, when elected officials come to you, if they're asking for your input, that's one thing, and I think you should give it, and I think you should document it, at the end of the day, in this example, the elected official can do whatever they want, which is exactly why it needs to come out of their budget.

Now, again, if the dollars are moved out of the general fund, that's fine, but for clarity and transparency for future boards and anyone else that's looking at it, it should not come out of your budget Okay It needs to be a true cost for that department Again, they may pull the funds out of the general fund Maybe that's what this board decides to do But it definitely should not If it's not a directive or a plan that you have that you want to implement that doesn't come out of your budget, at least on the paper side.

Oh, I agree.

I do think this is a plan I want to implement, but you're right.

Elected officials, there's not much I can take.

So, and again, I don't know if his was just, it seemed to me like it was a cost thing.

And $5,000 this year didn't seem unreasonable.

I did think that the projections were way too much.

But I just want people to know I gave my professional opinion.

This is what I think should happen, and if it goes sideways, I don't want people saying, hey, you didn't try to warn us Should that conversation be brought up in the court services budget?

Well, we'll see if it's in the court services budget.

If it's an initiative that the state's attorney's office or the sheriff's office or whichever elected official wants to pursue, they need to include that expense in their budget.

this isn't necessarily you coming out saying the courthouse needs to move to this and this is how I'm going to pay for it they're going to do whatever they want to do regardless and I want you guys to understand that it's not just a data thing like they don't want to have multiples of these because they don't want to have to look in more than one place so when we got the bigger one we spent a week and a half moving everything and babysitting it and making sure that it's flowing and it's just not a great process whatsoever but it's done now and they're probably good for a couple of years I just think like an evidence.com or cloud source would be the most feasible way to go and probably the most cost-effective in the end if you figure time, possible potential loss of data and everything else but last night I could tell I hit a wall and I wasn't going to argue anymore I was like huh?

That's why you prepare that memo, an official memo, you send it out, you cc your oversight chair, we can send that out to the full committee, the board, whatever, but you've done your part at that point.

Okay.

In my opinion.

Can I ask a follow-up question?

So as far as servers go, I know like on our floor.

Every server we have is backed up on Ninja.

I know we share servers.

do we need to the department heads need to have their own server so it comes out of their own budget or because I think when we replaced it I think some of it came out of your budget does it really need to be coming out of our budget I think that's a conversation for future expense as it is now I don't know that we need to go back right now I have I have the expense of backing up all the servers and that's an expense that I've been calculating so it's in my budget so I don't think they that's a conversation for everybody else to have I don't think you go backwards unless you guys I'm saying forward, though, do we need to start budgeting in our own I think she's saying as the servers grow and the cost grows Is that money in your budget for a server upgrade now?

Because I think at one time the conversation was for IT to cover IT expenses, which in my mind this is So my thought process was that the IT budget would have to grow as the county grows and whatever they're doing. How we do that, I don't have the answer to that.

Well, maybe I wasn't clear, and what my preference would be is it still comes out of your budget, even if it is funded by the general fund. If we're just moving dollars out of the general fund into yours to cover it.

But I'd like to know what the true expense of operating your department is, including that server expense.

It doesn't mean you have to cut something else necessarily. I mean, maybe that's a good board.

Yeah, I just thought when we did the survey upgrade, we had covered it because you didn't have the money in your budget Well, and I'm not saying automatically the general fund covers it, I'm just saying if you don't have the money in your account, then that is a discussion with the oversight committee to say, I really can't cut anywhere else to say, I really can't cut anywhere else, but it should absolutely be by department if that's the expense that's being incurred by that department.

We used to have, we used to have, that's becoming a different conversation because our servers are shared and they're not all elected officials because we share data, we share applications, we can't divvy that high up because two are elected and some are not.

that doesn't work. You can't apply that cookie cutter process. I don't think it's relevant to the budget conversation tonight. Not this year, but I think that I think to separate amongst elected and non-elected, at least in this case, isn't advisable, right? It's not relevant now. Correct. But the reason I brought it up is if any of that goes towards the cloud, it's a cost that's going to be incurred as soon as we do it. Right. That is probably not reflected in and anybody's budget as of yet unless it's a supplemental I'm unaware of. I know Chanel's asking for a supplemental tonight for the imaging server to cover all the departments for that, but that may just get through for a year. We just bought that another terabyte. And what's nice about theirs is Goodens is able to tell us because there's a probation module, there's a state's attorney module, circuit clerk and public defender. So they were able to get the percentages of who was using what, but in a ST coil one world, you can't. I mean, there's just no way to do that.

so that's the only reason I brought it up we're covered as of now but we have data that's not hitting the cloud that I'm just not comfortable with and I don't know that it's urgent anywhere else so with that being the case I will draw up that memo and we can move forward I just wanted at some point somebody comes and asks for that I just wanted to advocate for them because it will be a cost going forward that we need So that's it. Otherwise, my budget is status quo for the most part. I still have the IT upgrades. I have $60,000 in that, in the 14 line item. And that will go down if I use any by the end of the year, but we're trying to save that for upgrades or special projects. So, or I guess as a contingency of something, go sideways.

so this is maybe just a dumb question but can we ever delete data the retention policies are state driven usually by statute like in a felonies case for Carl he has to hold it 20 years and that's like after probably the last appeal like not necessarily the first court date so there are retention policies and I do know we send as a circuit clerk back when I was we used to send and a request to destroy when things ran out of when we could and then they'd give us approval and we could destroy it or remove it from imaging or whatever else.

So there is data that's being taken off. The problem we're seeing the influx in is everybody's still trying to get rid of their paper.

You know, imaging started off slow and they're putting in case files and they're trying to get caught up.

And right now that's the influx. Eventually, I think that'll taper off and it'll just be our normal workflow.

But until you get caught up, it's going to race faster, and then eventually it'll tail off Sounds like you've got to keep it for a long time I would say in the state's case, yes, and probably the sheriff's as well It would be interesting to find out if any departments are requesting deletion of data after the retention period has ended I do know the, I do know the circuit clerk's office, yeah, I know there's offices doing it, so administration does it, Stephanie's a state's attorney That's my point I got you I know it's work to do it, it's not just flip and switch Is that a reminder that should be mentioned at the next department head meeting or something Or when they're asking for more data, for more money for data Yeah, I mean, my concern is, is that it's not bad, though. I mean, all this money that we're putting into purchasing this could be gone in a night, could be gone in a minute, if lightning struck the courthouse. We have to be more responsible.

And it's not like the next device is free either. Once you get through this 80 terabytes, you've got to buy something bigger.

So, I mean, this was five grand for an 80 terabyte when you only get to use about 70 of it by the time you get everything loaded on it.

So, I mean, that's a cost you've got going forward too. So it's the pros and cons, and I think it just needs to be discussed a lot more.

And maybe I just come to a department head meeting, but again, I can't make people do what they don't want to do or what they think is too much.

that's getting the conversation going.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, do you have everything in here that you need?

Or I thought you just said there might be something you need to add in here at some point?

Well, that's if we move any of this data into the cloud, like if that gets decided.

Okay.

It's going to go up in somebody's budget mind.

There's whoever's.

And then the $60,000 is just still there.

We've done pretty good. I still have to switch up the core router at the courthouse, but every other facility has gotten a new firewall put in place, and all of our servers are up to date, and, you know, we've made a lot of progress, even though some days I still feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but we're really, we've seen it in the state's ratings of how we handle things and all these things, so we've made a lot of progress, but unfortunately, IT's never flowing, so.

I do have a question, Nate, so looking at your 2026 budget of $501,000 basically, up to the end of July, you've used $167,000, are we going to have more of a surplus than we realize, or you've got some things coming later this year?

Well, I think all of those, well, it'll add up quick, I believe, because Oh, what?

Oh, yeah, there's 120, the Microsoft and Splash, so a lot of them haven't hit yet, because our renewals are in the middle of the year Yeah, I'm not sitting on a surplus Yeah, they're like, Splash, that was like July-ish, our Microsoft is This is September, October-ish, and you have to start the ball rolling on them a few months early to get the licenses prepared, so unfortunately, a lot of mine is right at the end of the year by the time you notice it, so.

Okay.

Well, it's a pleasure to come in.

It looks like you almost made me excited.

Don't be checking to see what we had going on here.

It looks like we're going to reduce this budget by $40,000 a year next year.

We should focus over now.

We can make a motion to hold it over.

And the motion for the reduction, the reason for the reduction is that lease payment.

That goes down every year because we pay on it.

And I think, as Adrian has noted here, it looks like the final payment will be in January of 27.

So that fine item will probably go away altogether.

Okay.

Well, I like the fact it's going down.

Unless you want to give me a whole new $300,000 lease.

No.

So is that a motion?

Can I make a motion that we hold this budget over until next month?

Okay.

In a second.

Okay.

I think that's up with me.

Yes, sir.

Can I ask why?

Why not voting on tonight?

Because Nate just said that there's some things that may not be completely done yet, figured out yet.

Did I miss that?

I think she's talking about the cloud stuff.

Yeah, that could still happen before we do the budget.

Scott said he wanted that to come out of the departmental budget.

My preference would be that would come, if we're talking about the state's attorney, my preference would be that they would put that in their budget.

I'm not telling you can't lay it over, it's up to you guys, but it's a pretty cut and dry budget, I guess, that's why I'm curious.

Do you think something's going to change between now and September?

Not as far as my stuff unless the decisions made that IT is going to pay for or whatever needs to be put on there, which I'm fine with, but that's a discussion for you guys to have.

Yeah, that's up to you guys to decide if you want to come out of that budget and you can do that now. But I don't know that there's any requests. I didn't see it in the court services.

I think it's a very good budget, but I'm okay with holding it over as well.

It just seems like it's still up in the air.

I mean, yeah, it's a great, it's a solid budget, but there's still conversations that need to be had Yeah, I, whatever you guys decide to do, that's fine, I mean Yeah, I think it's probably not going to change next month If I may, I agree, it's probably not going to change, it just seems oftentimes we just sit on it, kind of let it gestate a little bit Yep. And Abe, next month this is a 10-second conversation? Great. I'm all for that. So do we need two later? Probably not, but to lay it up, probably not, but I think it's a good safe check.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor to hold it over.

Any other comments before we go?

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

What if I vote now?

You can vote now if you want.

Yeah, I don't want to mess things up, but I have to, I guess we're out of discussion time, so I'll just hold it on.

Okay, so three to one, we're going to lay it over.

Who are we getting next here?

County Treasurer. Thank you. I think my budgets are fairly straightforward. If we look at the first one that I have for you, Department 906, this is, again, as a general fund department, this is expenditure only. You don't have the revenues yet for all of the general fund expenditures. So overall, increase in the total amount of last year's 3.664%. The salary lines are solely determined by budget policy.

in prior resolution, so that should be fairly straightforward. Stationary supplies, I left the same. I reduced computer supplies. The increases come in and they're slight given the magnitude of my budget for auto mileage because the IRS rate seems to go up every year. And then for us, we make daily bank runs, which is really convenient when your bank is located in the same building for the most part. That bank is closing October 5th, so we're going to have to physically run money daily during collection season so and we use our personal vehicles to do that so I expect that to be a little bit of an increase so that's why it's not much it's 150 months but I want to explain it the advertising publishing up a little bit we have been very lucky that Village Voices has been able to meet our publication needs I think we will have them for 27 I think that's the last year It is according to Dan So I don't his costs do continue to increase if for something were to happen between now and the end of next publication season statute requires us to publish in the nearest county with a daily weekly publication for us that would be incredibly expensive so trying to add to that amount is if we have to do that because the state isn't listening to us when we hire them, say that newspaper publication is a dinosaur that we need to let go of.

It's incredibly expensive.

You can speak to that.

So that line for a lot of us, maybe not next year, but that's going to be a very ugly budget conversation, budget wall that we're going to hit.

But that doesn't affect next year, hopefully.

Office equipment repairs are reduced.

Office equipment over 500 reduced.

Again, so the total is just a 3.664% increase.

I think that's fairly standard unless anybody has any questions.

By curiosity, I'm not sure it affects the budget directly, but what do you see as a solution to that publication issue?

Online.

I mean, we put our list on our website already, and this is where it's particularly bad.

We are forced.

I am forced.

I think you have to do assessment notices, too.

I have to send a certified delinquent notice to every person doesn't pay their taxes by a particular date and publish. So two different costs. The certified budget, certified delinquent notice between the publication, the postage, the certified notice, it's almost $10 per. And 60% of them come back unclaimed. So that's not working. We're not notifying the people.

You know, it's usually the same people, but electronic publication and then let me just send them first class because they don't have to go to the post office to pick them up. But we're lobbying and we're, you know, we're trying to have legislature understand that their goal is not being met by these means. So until that happens, we can continue to have to eat these crazy costs like that. So talk to your legislator.

The online publication, everybody's got one of these. You can see it online. All right. 906 budget. Okay. Can I move on to the treasure on vacation? Or do you want me to act on these separately?

We probably should talk about them or act on them separately here since we've all listed that way, I guess.

I guess this one we could probably approve, I don't think it's going to change I'll make a motion to approve, accept the county treasurer's office budget for fiscal year 27 I'll second down by 36 Any other conversation?

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

All right.

Okay, now we need to do that.

Okay, so the next page is Treasure Our Nation, and because this is not a general fund department, a standalone fund, you see both revenue and expense.

This one I have had to change once so far, and for reasons I can get into later with our final business item is impacted by some recent legislation on the fee income side.

so you'll see relative to previous years I've bumped up cash carry forward and decreased automation fees because I am anticipating within the calendar year a potential reduction in fees so I'm using I have the money I knew that I'm not spending there's approximately $97,000 in that account I don't ever use that so I'm just pushing more cash carry forward to cover the expense that I anticipate but I have tried to cut expenses. You can see my 13.5% cut revenue by 12.9% to try to kind of hedge my bets a little bit. Again, it's a small fund, totally small fund, not taxpayer dollars, fee-driven fund. So these are all the same line items I have every year. I've just tried to massage the numbers in a way that just me pushing cash carry forward ahead will fill the gap.

I don't know if anybody has any questions about that. So cash credit for it, I know people ask about a lot. It's basically just unspent money in my bank account. Unencumbered, it's not earmarked for anything.

Perfect. I can see a reduction.

Yeah, it's great.

I will confess, it would not have been had it not been for the impact of this legislation.

Right.

So I can make a motion to accept the treasurer automation budget for fiscal year 27.

Second.

Second.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other conversation?

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Order.

Thank you.

Yep.

Take a look at the 902.8.

I'm looking at the county clerk and recorder first. We'll see the two increases at the top for the salaries, which are set by the county board. And the only other increase is for IT equipment and contracts. A slight increase there. Overall, 3.59% increase for that budget.

You've got a reduction in your advertising and publishing, right?

I'm looking at the county open recorder one right now Yeah, I'm looking at line item 904, 62,000 I'm looking at 902 county open recorder Just the first Just the first Oh, that part Probably have it down there Okay Take my budget Okay, gotcha Make a motion to approve I'll second Do we take these? Separately. Separately? Yes, I know two is all expenses. I know two up here. I know four is expenses. I would jump in. The revenues that come from the County Revenue Quarterline, you'll see them in the internal revenue and also from GIS, that was completely funded by the documents that we recorded. Okay. You guys had a chance to preview it?

All right, we have a motion on the floor to approve budget 902 for the order.

Put the order, May 27th, all those in favor say hi, hi, hi, all right, now 904, 904, election expenses, fortunately, states actually, there's things that we have to do, and they don't fund them, you'll see by the postcards that we have to do, I heard that, vote by mail, increase expenses is there but the budget didn't increase too much actually decreased but we'll get into that the first one that increased was the salaries by a county board going down there was a decrease in advertising and publishing this number has been pretty high for since I've been here we haven't utilized it all so a decrease there 20 percent for the building in a room There's a 12.5% increase based on the estimate we were given for rent. Going down, there was a decrease in the voter registration grant. That's based on the, from, that we received from the state board of elections. And then the foreign place accessibility grant is just, you know, for this year because typically they will give us the amount in August and the grant cycle starts from July to June. They're changing it from a 12-month process to an 18-month process because it's a federal grant and that information will not come out until 2027. So it will go from 2027 halfway through 2028. So that will be in next year's budget. Any questions for that budget?

No, that's good We move to approve Second And second All those in favor say aye Aye All right Number four Approved One more budget Zero two for the mechanical document storage Slide increase in revenues from the title record fees Slide increase for the subscriptions Just the cost of the subscriptions have went up So you'll see an increase for the revenue And the expenses we have that occur with those subscriptions and then an increase in interest income there. So overall 15% increase for the revenue line there. As far as the expenses, an increase with those expenses as well for the subscriptions we have to pay for and the annual agreement. If you look at the bottom, revenue $69,000, expenses $60,000, typically the revenues are higher than the expenses. Eventually, since every year, I mean, the revenues are going

up, but the expenses are going down. We may utilize more of those expenses to start indexing more of our land records in the future. I do have one question, Jasmine. On the contingency line, I haven't used anything so far this year, but yet you're increasing it. That bill comes at the end of the year.

There you go.

That's the answer.

Thank you.

All right.

Appreciate that.

That's where, that's for our Fiddler that we use.

Oh, yeah.

Apex that we use for, on the counter clerk side and the recorder side.

We're bringing in all of our revenue as well.

Mr. Chairman.

Yes.

And you have that under the contingencies.

That, unless you would like to record it, that's the way it has.

Is that software? Is that what it is? Sometimes we utilize the contingencies for upgrades. It's not just our software. Did I misunderstand that you said there's a bill that comes in the fourth quarter? Yes, that is from Goodler. And that's paid through the contingency line? It is. Okay. Shouldn't that be it's online? I don't know if it needs to be.

its own line, but is that software itself? The mechanical documents for upgrades to the clerk and recorder's office. It's not mandated by the county board. Yeah, I just view contingencies as being something for an emergency and unplanned expense, I guess, and I'm not saying it can't be that, but it's ambiguous. Depends on what commercial is in there. Maybe we need to redeem it or abandon it or...

I personally would like to see if that is of an expense that comes every year that we know about. I would like to see that somewhere in the budget.

Well, it's more than one expense, correct?

More than one expense.

In that case, it would probably be better off to go up in the county clerks report if I did.

Remember, but I'm sorry.

Yep, no, you're fine.

So, I think Jasmine mentioned earlier, I'm not sure anybody caught it, so this is a mechanical document fund, this is an elected official directed account, just like my treasure automation fund is, so I'm not trying to be difficult or speak for her, but she can call it whatever she wants, because these are not taxpayer dollars, these are not property tax dollars, these are fee generated income dollars, that is not being paid by the general fund, and if you were to ship that to the general fund, and the semantics is costing you money.

Thank you, guys.

Then you do you.

Sorry, I didn't mean to stop for you.

I think that comment did help.

That did help.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's the closure of the committee.

We want to pass another letter.

I make a motion that we approve the mechanical document storage I will second the other conversation All those in favor say aye Aye All right Now we have the secret writer Comment on this one, Angie I was just waiting for everybody. So, the increases are, for me, they're just sort of necessary because my contract, the COLA, Stephanie did a very good job discussing the whole postage thing. And then the other two increases were the software, the DevNet contract that was signed for four years or whatever.

But anyway, so those are the only increases Angie, I have a question On 909-465-50, excess sick days There's nothing budgeted Nope, because we don't get paid sick days anymore It should just be removed We used to be able, at the end of the year They used to pay Oh, by that Yeah Okay So the line should be just deleted completely Okay. Can you do that? You can include it in a motion. Yep. If you choose. Okay. And the other one is GIS. Okay. So I can make a motion that we accept the supervisor of assessment's budget with the condition that 909-46550 be removed. Second that. That's good. More conversation.

All right, all of those who say aye The GIS is pretty much the same thing, the 3.5% COLA for the technician, and then in that budget is the rental agreement, so I talked to the person that's in charge of that, so then they projected that, and then we have I have a computer contract with. I think it's for the website that I think comes out of my budget. So that's for the website. And that was the amount that they gave us.

Do you think that 10% increase on the recording fees is legit on the top line, the income?

all didn't put in the revenue.

So you got two, I don't know who, I don't know who the revenue went.

Would that be Adrian or?

It could have been because I didn't, I didn't mess with any of the revenue part of it because I wouldn't have known what to put in there.

I'm guessing was it the revenue for GA?

Adrienne probably did it based on every month. At the beginning of the month, I deposit money into that account based on the recordings.

The more recordings we do, the more revenue that's going into that line.

I just want to make sure we're actually going to see that 10%.

Okay, I can go with that.

There seems to be a lot of blanks on this one.

A lot of the links.

What we don't, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, the excessive sick days.

Well, that one would be different.

But the transfer from general fund, the cash credit forward, miscellaneous.

Oh, on the revenue side?

On the revenue side.

Yeah.

And then there's three more in the HSA, software purchase contingencies.

The sick days obviously can be done because we don't do the sick days anymore.

You should leave the revenue lines in.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't mess with the revenue lines So, but we don't know how much the HSA contribution will be No For the software purchasing You won't know the HSA until you get the health care renewal information And that's up to the committee or the board, I should say, if they want to increase up the payment That we currently provide to the employees through the HSA Okay, so all of these, do we need to wait until we get the software purchase and stuff like that, that was all, that should have been transferred when we did all the, you know, yeah, that should have just been deleted and I don't know if I've ever had anything in the line of contingencies. And you won't know the HSA contributions until we get the renewal which will hopefully be in October and it needs to go to finance before then, and finance can amend any of these budgets and the county board after that in November.

Okay.

I just hate to approve something that has a lot of questions.

So those three, yeah, the other three, if you want to make a motion to remove them, that's fine.

Well, I think the software purchase, one I can...

Yes, we can get rid of that.

We can get rid of the SSS sick days.

I wouldn't do it as a software purchase.

You don't want to be adding and deleting every year because next year they may need one.

I thought that they came on a needs budget now. Any software updates? Software purchases.

That's probably why they left it in there.

In case you had something. Okay. I'm okay with that.

Okay, that's fine. I just want to clean documents.

We'll clean it up by getting rid of this big thing, so we'll have it.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

I don't know what that bottom number is, but it's not.

It sells just X down, so we don't really have an actual...

Shouldn't that $220 drop down there?

Should.

That's what I'm thinking.

So we got a $7,000 negative now.

So yeah, that number needs to go down here.

Uh-huh.

That one down there, $220 down the limit.

revenue line down there. $220,000. From the top. Jump down there. And then we got a $7,618 deficit. Okay. All right. I'm going to make a motion to approve this budget, remove the excess sick day line item under expenses and ask that the $220,000 number being brought down to the revenue line at the bottom there.

And that's my motion.

There wasn't any HSA contribution from this budget or from this department from this account, I should say, 426.

I can't put it in like, yeah, from last year.

Can we?

Probably didn't participate in an HSA.

Nobody did.

Nobody did?

GIS.

Oh, there's only one person, oh, okay, you do know who's in GIS, right? Is it Mike? Yeah. That's what I thought. Okay, then that's, that's fine.

So, motion on the floor, second it, or let it die. Second, and second my Mr. Monro. Okay. Any other conversation?

I have a question.

Yes, sir.

So you're passing on to finance an unbalanced budget.

You're expecting finance to solve that $7,618 deficit?

That kind of appears to be what we're doing.

That's not what we should be doing.

Okay.

Just clarifying.

Yep.

I don't know where to do it.

Well, because we don't have anything transferred from the general fund.

We don't have any cash carried forward.

So that's what I mean.

I don't feel this is, we're missing a lot of information here.

I mean, this is the budget that's being presented by GIS, so it's up to the oversight to decide if the budget is realistic or not.

For instance, have the oversight committees do the heavy lifting, not finance, which I think I've said before.

So you are all oversight. Finance will have Mr. Jogerst and Mr. Frick, two of the five. You can add revenue from the general fund. I think that's what we should do. Or you could wait and inquire from within. Adrian, you can talk to Mike.

She's already put her number in there, so I think I want to amend my motion to put in $7,618 in the transfer from the general fund line, and that's balanced, it's only $7,000, so I amended my motion, I need a second on that if somebody wants to do that, sure.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Bottas. Probably ought to be 7,600, no?

7,618.

7,618 is what I did, just to make it even.

Okay, so I don't know if we need to vote on my amendment or whatever.

We need to vote on my amendment to transfer to 7,618 to or from the different fund.

All those in favor, say aye on that one. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Now we're back to the full, the first motion to approve as stated, getting rid of the excess sick days with the transfer of the general funds and it will be balanced. So all those.

So, all those in favor of saying aye, bye-bye, so we're going to have a parade in the death of whatever it is to you.

The only thing I changed was the COLA for the increase of the salaries.

I'll make the motion to accept the Department of Board of Review Fiscal Year 27 budget I'll second it, otherwise I will I'll go ahead and second it All those in favor of approving Budget 9-10 Board of Review for 2027, say aye Aye Okay, we made it through that. Let's go to the discussion of collective surplus equity funds.

I'm sending something around for you that I believe you have. I don't know if you had a chance to take a look. This is the UCCI distillation of Public Act 104.0553, which dramatically changes the way the property tax sales happen throughout the state of Illinois. So I'm going to just give you, I think, mostly the basics. This is a discussion that's going to need to be continued later because there's probably some potentially very significant budgetary impact. And feel free to stop me at any time. The reason I want you, I'm begging you, actually, to read this is there on each section, there is this part that is county takeaway. So there's a, if you don't want to read all 13 right now, go to those county takeaways. Just so there you get the highlights of the highlights, basically, because this is an 84-page statue. I don't think any of you want to read. And there is actually a YouTube video of Will County. Their county board had a committee of the whole meeting directed by their state's attorney, our county trustee agent, and a few other parties to talk about the way things were, why the law has changed, and what's coming at us.

So I will send you the link so that you can watch it. It is two hours, but it's pretty important.

And I think it is a good representation of the way things really go instead of trying to read through statute.

So, what this is about is Illinois is the last of 14 states to finally address a Supreme Court decision that the way property tax sales are done is wrong. Illinois was the last. It's more than two years overdue. The remedy has some side effects. So the side effects basically have created a significant unfunded mandate.

It will affect the county probably for a couple of years It's hard to quantify exactly what that's going to look like The way it's going to affect the county is in terms of the final tax distribution But the good news on that side is that's only about half to seven-tenths of one percent of the levy It's not a lot of money and it is money that will ultimately come back at a later time The second way this impacts the county more than any other taxing district is in your general fund budget. There's a line called county treasurer fees. Those fees are just the late penalties. When people pay their tax, that's all that is. The county keeps all the late penalties. When we sell the taxes at the end of the year to private tax buyers or the county's trustee, the private tax buyers pay that. So I get to put that money in the general fund.

And you'll notice if you look at the budget in terms of revenue and expenditure report, the vast majority of those funds come after I hold the tax sale.

So the tax sale process is changing. So if things go the way they should, and we will discuss this further, those monies will not be coming in after the tax sale.

But as property tax sales are redeemed in subsequent months, that money will come back. It's just not at once.

So the time is changing. The amount received isn't. The reason that's a problem for the county is that we have a calendar fiscal year. Right. So our tax collections have never aligned to our budget year. So this is more, again, another way that this is problematic that we don't have the same budget year like the state does, because the legislation works on a state fiscal calendar.

so what that means like this year immediately is you know potentially a hundred thousand dollars in late fees that would not we're not going to go into this budget potentially we'll get it there'll be next year's budget it'll hit us not in the budget it'll hit us in that year so the finance director and I have been talking quite a bit I just began some initial conversations with the state's attorney today to talk about some different ways to to mitigate some of the So I'm a little bit of the pain. So the money's coming. It's just not going to come when we normally expect it to because this process has changed dramatically. Now to the very specific part of a collector surplus equity fund. This is a new required fund as part of the statute. I'm the trustee of the fund. I establish it. It does not require a county board resolution. It's $20. That $20 is levied at tax sale time.

but because I believe the path we are going to be taking is turning everything over to the trustee agent rather than utilizing private tax buyers, that fee is not going to be collected up front.

We'll start to collect that fee a little bit as current tax buyers purchase subsequent taxes for taxes they have already purchased.

However, the county is required to set aside funds in case someone comes to the county, to the court, and petitions for a claim against surplus equity And this is where it gets kind of, and there are a lot of moving pieces, I'm sorry this is confusing, that's why I want you to read this and watch the video Part of the damage done by this act is that there is a two-year look back so any action that happened from 7-10 of 24 we're on Illinois is the only state that as part of their remedy is requiring the counties to pick up the debt so here's what happens with the tax if someone doesn't pay their taxes doesn't pay them and the property has some value the tax buyer will petition for a tax deed to get the property so they are gaining the property in essence just for the cost of the taxes and the fees. That's it.

They'll turn around and sell that property for a lot more. The difference between what they paid and what they sell it for is surplus equity as defined by the Supreme Court in this act.

That owner who lost their property is legally entitled to that money.

that the private tax buyer got.

The law is making the county pay it.

That's crazy.

Yes.

So hopefully there may be some legal remedy and veto session.

I don't believe that there is.

There are some state attorneys who have indicated they are considering suing the state.

We can't count on that.

We have to plan for this.

so we have to set aside money in the budget next year.

That will be a discussion next month.

There haven't been a lot of deeds, and I talked with the county clerk about that.

I have 13 since January 24th current that have been sold and then resold.

Only six of them have equity that I can quantify.

Of the six, we're at $295,000 in potential claims.

that's not to say the claims will be made there is a statutory limit they can come they they have actually two years from the date of this law so they have two more years that they can file this claim we have the county the surplus equity fund not going to have hardly anything in it the county is required to find other funds to pay that claim should any be awarded within 12 months So, I'm a plan for the worst, hope for the best kind of person. We also have 234 current open tax sale certificates for which if people did not, again, worst case scenario, people don't redeem those taxes, could go through this process of a potential surplus equity situation. I think most of them will redeem, so I'm not really worried about that, but we have to to be concerned that already six, or almost $300,000.

So, we'll be talking about that later.

So, the surplus equity payout.

the surplus equity payout and then the surplus equity claims are kind of two different things but this is a fee that I can attach to tax sales you don't have to do anything about it I want you to know about it I want to be transparent the problem since the state puts the county on the hook for this potentially in a very painful way the reason I'm concerned is there is now all of a sudden a cottage industry of who have FOIA'd me and Jasmine for our tax sale records. They're looking for surplus equity that's potentially lost because they're going to call these people up and say, I'm so sorry that you lost your property. Let me help you get a surplus equity award for 15%. So that's already in process. So that's happening. So we're going to have to, the board is going to have to decide to put money aside.

to address that should it happen.

If no claims are made or if claims are made that are less than what that fund that we set up is, after an obvious amount of time has passed, at least two years, because of the amount of time that can come forward, that money can go back to wherever contingency general fund are, but wherever it may come from, it can go back.

So, it's one giant contingency called surplus equity.

But this will continue in the future, though.

Well, the thing is, so the legislation allowed for tax sales to continue as they are, sell them to private buyers, and what doesn't get sold goes to the trustee.

I don't, that is not advisable. Because the tax buyers are going to be losing money in this, so they're going to bid the highest rate of interest, 9%, right? And then in order to gain property now, this is more than I meant to tell you, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to get there eventually. They have to then ask the court for a judicial auction. They don't just get the deed.

so it's going to go to public auction and it may not be the tax buyer who is successful right so again that auction is setting the value and by setting that value you're determining potential equity between what is owed and what is sold for it may be less you know either there's no it this is such a new thing we don't really know the other option which most of the treasures and myself agree and they're up there There are a couple little pieces we have to jump through for the board to do is we send everything to the county as trustee that process is untouched by the statute and they do a great job already of handling property tax sales force we don't pay them for it it's a commission based on what they're doing so we're not out anything here they will run the auction that we do now like the surplus property auction after some few years whatever the auction price is that's the value it's almost always less than what's owed no equity due That's the reason, but by sending everything to the trustee instead of private buyers, that's where at the end of the year, that half percent, seven percent, seven tenths, and one percent final distribution, those dollars don't come back because when things are purchased by the county's trustee, no money changes hands.

The advantage also to this plan is that rate of interest, and this is where I come down by, this is why we need to do this. For the taxpayer who is unable to make their tax payment, the rate of interest drops to .75% per month. If you go with a private buyer, it's 9%, up to 9%. It will be 9% up front every six months. So in a year, you're at 18%. You're not helping anybody.

It's a little bit of pain initially until we see how this shakes out in potentially two years of we don't know yet.

But there will be some financial implications just because of the way we changed during the taxing.

So read this. I'll send you the link to the video.

It's probably it will make sense, I think, now hearing what I've told you.

but the problem that was fixed created several other problems and I don't know if they will be fixed but there's just one or two little things that require board action. They're basically housekeeping and I'll bring those to you next month but it has some financial, rather serious financial implications and I wanted you to be aware of how bad it could possibly be.

I do use an automated sale so yeah I will send that link to please I know it's too hard please do watch it it's very if you have any questions once you read this let me know we can have this conversation all individually or however you want to do it and I will bring you more information next month thank you for listening All righty. Sorry. No, you're fine. 10.0 comments from the committee. If not, you're doing a little good motion to adjourn. I make that motion to adjourn. And I'll second that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I'll move. All right. Well, thanks, everyone. Good to meet you.