and Personal Property Owners in Lena. This is mid-July numbers. $150,000 of that was approved. Now, that's not saying that the loans have been received or that these people have actually accepted the loans, but they did apply and they did get approval, so I don't have the numbers as far as what actually was sent out. That's an ongoing process.

On July 27th, we had a meeting with the Building Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Deco again, and they gave us, because of the governor's declaration for our county, there is an opportunity, perhaps for another $250,000 that could be let for the county.

I have a meeting either Thursday or Friday with Gustav and Tiffany Moe to try to proceed and pursue this grant if there is interest by the village of Lena, perhaps the county expenses that was made by both the county townships, the villages, and so forth. Now, they'll prioritize that at some point, and I think the village of Lena is probably going to take the lion's share of that with possibly sidewalk repair, curb and gut repair, stump removal, and replacement.

But these are things down the road that we want to pursue if there seems to be a desire, and I believe there will be, and we'll have, I believe, 10 months yet, so we have some time, so we'll be able to pursue that, and what else?

Office is busy this last week or last month working with both the Tunny Baker Days and the Steve's County Fair Safety Committees, weather warnings and so forth and so on. The fair was a great success as far as weather went and attendance. We had our LEPC Unified Command Meeting. That is a quarterly meeting that we have at the Sheriff at the Cal Courthouse. I can't say enough of how that meeting and that committee has grown. We had over 20 members present for that meeting.

I'm really happy with that Marquis stakeholders in the community with emergency planning I'm really happy with that other than that, that's really all I want to cover if you have any questions for me Scott, with Lena have you guys had any kind of post meeting to discuss what went well what needs to be improved no, we haven't, I talked with Lena Brad Strong Leader, Fire Chief, and I want to get with him, and it's probably going to be next week when we actually sit out and talk, because we're going to be pursuing these next funds with, I can't think of his name, Steve Busk, their president, and then I think we'll try to put together a day where we go and meet and do what they call a hot wash. We've had informal meetings, and there are things that obviously we can improve upon, but we have not had anything from us. We do want to have that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Paladin Corder. Our statistics for last month, we had 34 deaths in the county. We responded to four of those with one autopsy. We signed eight cases. The doctors signed 26. 33 of those were ruled natural and I still have one pending.

The other stuff I have, we found that the title and the plates to the coroner's vehicle were still coming back to Enterprise, so the title and the plates had now successfully been transferred over to the county, and also I found that the county overpaid Enterprise by $591.74, and Lynette has since been returned to the county, and I gave that to Georgia, and I believe, I don't know where she deposited that check, but I gave that check to her.

You said overpaid?

Overpaid for the truck, yeah.

Okay. Thanks for touching that. No problem. With the enterprise. How are we doing year to date? How many? I just want to make sure that the corner office does not run out of money before the end of the year. Yeah, we're on track for where we should be for the year. Okay. That's right. To stay within the budget, yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

No question. So stay healthy. I'm sorry? So stay healthy? Yeah, I don't want to be part of your report. Okay. There's no old business, so we'll move on to new business. Approval of RFP for Chevrolet Tahoe for the sheriff's doctor.

I don't know what you want me to say with this. We're going out for a request for a proposal for three new 2026 Chevy Tahoe Police Pursuit vehicles from the authorized Chevrolet dealers. Bids will be accepted, or I'm sorry, received until 3 p.m. Wednesday. September 16th. They will be opened on the 16th at 3 o'clock in the county boardroom, which will be the day before the county board meeting to get them approved with the county board if that works works for me if I can do that with the county board yeah normally the bits come back here but I don't see any reason I can't go straight to the board and that'll be 35 days I know that there's been talk in the past of like 31 33 days that's 35 days to be out for bid at that point okay um sure do we are we are you replacing other vehicles or are these just additional vehicles? These are from last year. This is from last year's supplemental. So, yes, we are replacing vehicles that are, we've actually lost two this year to no longer working at all. So, yes. Thank you. You know, of course. Yeah, how old are the vehicles that aren't working? Do they last so many years? Yes, we usually like to replace them by

by $130,000, but the Tahoes that we're replacing them, we should get up to $200,000, so we're going to add about two more years, if not three, to the new replacement vehicles.

I have that for my supplement when I get that put in.

Any other questions?

Do we have to make a motion on that?

Okay.

I make a motion to approve the RFP for the Sheriff's Department's three Tahoes.

It's been moved by Ms. Hayes.

I'll second that. Seconded by Ms. Lawfer. Any questions? Any questions? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Ayes have it. Okay. Now we'll get into the discussion of the fiscal year 27 budget. We'll start first with the emergency management. Okay. Thank you.

The budget's working straightforward, pretty simple in my opinion. I'll just kind of start at the top. The first line item here we're talking about is our Emergency Management Preparedness Grant Fund. You can see that it's been budgeted $22,400. That's an annual grant that I apply for. I think it's been going on for 10 years or more in a row. This is a 50-50 grant. The state comes from federal through the state.

and it's like a 50-50 shared cost. The thing I want to point out to you on this particular budget proposal is the $42.50 that was brought in this year. It was technically money from the previous grant and the previous grant is 2024's grant. If you look back on the 2025 actual at $18.114 and $42.50 comes up to $22.40. So that's money that we received this year. If you remember, we did not applied to that grant until about July 22nd, I think, when I set it down to state for submission.

I fully expect that we will get the full amount of the grant.

It might be a little later.

I just added before the first of the year.

So I'm anticipating another $22,400 from that grant that will be added into our budget.

Any questions about that?

I know it's confusing.

The grants run a year behind, and the state, they are very slow, had it been the last couple of years, and FEMA wasn't sure they were going to have this grant until mid-July, so.

I've been going to move on now, I kept at $1,000, you can see that we're well past that now, this year and previous years.

The transfer for public safety, I did not increase. That's been $82,800 every year since I've been here and probably before.

here and probably before that. My cash carry forward amount is a very conservative $65,000. We're a total of 171.20 for revenue. Getting to expenses, my salary, I'm under contract and my contract states that I will accept whatever the county board decides to get for a raise or not give a raise. So that's three and a half percent. The numbers do not jive mathematically because my I was negotiating a contract, so to speak, and I really didn't know what to put in, so that would be more mathematically, right, and in 2027, the request of $50,900 is just shy of what it has to be.

This is a part-time deputy director is mathematically correct. His is real simple, 3.5% add-on. I kept stationary supplies the same, I kept clothing the same, I kept voluntary support the same. Mileage, I've increased $1,000 because of potential dual process increase. I'm not sure you're going to see that diminish much. I usually stay well within that budget amount.

Telephones, I'm not sure if all of you are aware, but I pay for a number of cell phones and MiFi's, the MiFi that we're using here. There are, I believe, 10 income that I pay for. I pay for three county highway department phones, the shop foreman and his two site foreman. I pay for animal control, two for EMA, and the IT division.

and I pay for it. Then the my fives are located. I have one in my office that kind of roams around and it's kind of a catch-all if somebody needs it on my five that that goes with them, but I always know where it's at. SR-30 has two of them. The treasurer's office has one administration. Georgia has one.

This boardroom has one. And the county highway meeting room has one for helping broadcast meetings.

All these things are at my access. If we have an emergency and I need to get to them, I can get to We might as well use them. They're better than sitting in my office collecting dust. Starcom radios. I have two Starcom portable radios and two Starcom mobile radios. The mobiles are bases. They're old. I would like to replace the two portables. We're talking $7,000, $8,000 per radio. I'm not in a position to say that I need to do that right at this moment. These radios are older, but they still are fine. They're updated to the matrix.

I would like to think about doing that in the future, so that's where I keep that budgeted a little bit more than the $2,100 Starcom fee, annual fee that I pay in order to be a part of the motor roller organization.

My fees pay in comparison to the sheriff's because of a lot more radios, obviously, so I'm sure you can talk to this better than I can, but it just seems like it's the price of doing business if you want to be part of the Starcom system, and we need to be a part that's sold. Equipment repair, I'm keeping, I bump up just a little bit, tower rental, that is for our very high frequency radio for EMA, that is up on Mound Road, that's JC Wi-Fi owns that tower and we pay them $900 a month or a year in order to have our repeater stationed there and be utilized so we can have coverage throughout the county.

I kept that at $1,250 because I just don't know when that's going to increase.

Rent, this is, I know it's taken quite a bit of a jump, but let me see here.

In 2024, and I guess I'll explain this.

I paid rent to the County Highway Department.

I'm out of the County Highway Department's office.

In 2024, I paid $72.75 per year for my office rent.

and that covers utilities, heating, air conditioning, cleaning, just basic rent type stuff.

In 2025 that jumped up to $85.64 so this year I wasn't sure where it was going to be.

I just kind of got a gentleman's agreement that this year would probably stay right around $8,500 but he said the next year maybe predict a 10% increase so that takes me up to $9,500 basically so $10,000 is a pretty big chunk. I'm basically paying another county entity. Computer equipment I'm keeping at $6,000. I'd like to upgrade two of the portable workstations and the reason I want them portable is we have a radio room out of the highway department but I want to be able to move those workstations out of the EOC if we need to so we can have two up-to-date additional computers down there if we have something.

Doors and Membership is the same, Median Seminar is the same, Instruction and Schooling is the same, LEPC is the same, Homeland Preparedness, I kept that at $20,000, Emergency Fund, Blood Mitigation, and Emergency Equipment are all the same.

If you look the page, you see my expenses and revenues, you know, $2,400 in the amount there. I don't see that being a real point of contention. I have $74,000 in the ESDA fund right now, and with the EFPG money and transfer from emergency services, there's plenty of funds on hand to more than cover the rest of this year.

and make a supplemental purchase which I will talk about here in a little bit. I kind of went through it pretty fast. Like I say, it's pretty straight forward. It hasn't changed a whole lot. Is there any questions or concerns?

Do you know what I have a question? Yeah, go ahead.

Mr. Townsend, on the 3.5% COLA that you've added in, has that been approved by the County Board yet?

It's in your budget policy. Yes.

I always feel like I lose that. I thought it was coming around.

that may, Scott and I, we met and we went through it. The question I have with the rent, why is that?

Well, you have several departments operating out of one building that are usually divided by the tenants within the building.

Somebody's got to pay it. It's no different than the nursing home paying their expenses out of their building.

if you did not want to divide up the expenses among the tenants we would have to figure out a line item to pull all the expenses out of in the general fund if you didn't want the highway department to bear the entire cost so you've got EMA you have zoning you have animal well you did you don't any longer have animal control out there plus you have the highway department so they're all utilizing the space to the base. Similar to what we do here in the Stewards Center, the treasurer's office, the county clerk, the assessor, they all split the cost of the lease for this building, for the use of the building.

So since the animal control moved out, is everybody's expenses going up? Do they divide these across the board? I mean, how are they, how are you determining?

you can look at that in the budget for the highway departments that should be in there I would look to see how that's broken out in their budget but yes my assumption is it will be divided amongst three as opposed to four but I don't think it was equally split either yeah sure I can maybe help you can help me with this thank you for that explanation because I've been here six years and I've never really had anybody explain it that well my understanding is that we pay a cost for first That's how they come up with it, because that was my question I asked today with Wilson's, you know, we had environmental health out there at one time, now animal control, they're gone, are we going to have to absorb the additional costs, and Brian, don't we know, that's not how it works, it's basically a panel on a square foot percentage, so.

All right.

So the offices that are gone, are they being replaced with something else, or is that, I thought animal control.

was out there.

They were in the building.

They were out there.

Okay.

We're on Meadows Drive now.

Okay.

I entertain a motion for managing management.

Motion to move it on.

Motion to move it on.

It's been moved by Mr. Newton.

Do you need a second?

Yes, I do.

I'll do a second.

Okay.

It's been moved by Mr. Newton, seconded by Ms. Walker.

and Lawfer. Any questions? Any questions? I'll ask again. Any questions? No. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to law enforcement. Okay. All right.

All right, so I got the law enforcement. The top part of that is all contractual. Everything that you see there is contractual. Then we go into the operations, the things that stand out, our equipment and services. So when you go down, you can see the first thing, stationary and supplies, those deadline items have gone up a little bit.

and it's also due to the more supplies needed for all the new systems that we have put in place over the last two years.

So you've got that one, you've got the stationary supplies, TC's, they're up 60%, but in reality it's $1,500 total for nine people.

The next one, lubricants have gone, the price has gone up, the automotive tires price has gone up, and automotive accessories price has gone up.

all the rest of those are zero percent I'll skip down to equipment where it went up to 20 percent 20 percent because of a price increase ammunition is up 16 percent because of a price increase and just so you take a look at the right equipment went up fifteen hundred dollars the ammunition is going up five thousand dollars same thing that Scott said you're going to see radio and tower 23 percent that's Motorola for their license for their tower usage, for their repeaters and all of that. That's a total of $13,000 to use that radio system, which is basically the heart of our entire operation.

I'd like to direct you to instruction and schooling. That went down 42%, so that went down $15,000. And then emergency response equipment has gone up 33%, which is the $5,000 increase.

and then radios. Scott hit it right on the head. It's $8,000 per radio now. I've only increased that $5,000 so I didn't even add one more radio. So if you do the math with the $40,000 we're going to hopefully we don't need this many radios but that's only five radios. Any questions about the law enforcement part of this budget? That's one. Overall increases 5.32%.

Any question? I have a question. For the Department of Law Enforcement, your sheet says here it's an increase of 6, I don't know, I'm sorry, you're right, 5.38, let's read that right. Then what's the 6.45? Right below it. I'm not looking at the same sheet, I don't think. Or you have my sheet.

Oh, yeah, yours, this is the new one, right? Yep. All of the numbers that I'm looking at are what I put on the teams. This is the one that Ronnie and I discussed, and I believe my budget has actually gone down from what we discussed it. Okay. All right. It doesn't work. No, it doesn't work. Okay, that's mine. Okay.

Okay, next part is Merit Commission. Merit Commission is staying the same except for advertising and publishing. That's going up $1,000 for our app and our website. Those prices are going up also. So that's it. For $1,000, that's 6.35% increase in the Merit Commission.

any questions on that one or should I move on any questions okay courthouse building contractual for the the salary portion and this is where there's some probably the most significant increases there's a lot of things going on with the courthouse just handling updates and you know we did the HVAC two years ago and this is it's been kind of a nightmare that the connections and I've told this to several people. The new connection that goes into the old building connection, that's where we're having the failures with valves and pipes and things like that. So that's cost me a lot of money this year for a courthouse building. I'm hoping to not have that increase next year or that much use next year, but I did do some small increases here. The most significant is going to be electrical supplies, hardware, plumbing.

We've got four judges' chambered restrooms that are disgusting and well-outdated.

We can't get parts.

I've asked them, in particular, McLenathan, he's got a drip on his faucet that has some sort of scum that's just piling up.

We cannot get any parts for that.

I said, if you can just hang on until 2027, we'll get that taken care of.

as we look into it, it's the original toilets, it's the original fixtures and all that, so I have a budget to take care of their four restrooms this year because they're all about the same shape. All of the work is done by Tony, our maintenance guy, so we are saving all of the labor on that. If you go down through, you can see general maintenance, that's going up, $15,000, that's where all the fixtures are going to come from, tile and paint.

that's really all the significant parts so the expenses have gone up 10.36% in our courthouse building budget. Any questions about anything in particular? I have a question about the cleaning, the line for cleaning. Okay, cleaning is cleaning or cleaning supplies. Interior cleaning. What was $35,000? Or am I reading the wrong line again?

The courthouse building, something seemed to have gone up considerably in the building, the courthouse building General maintenance Is that what it was?

Yeah, $15,000 went up for my, oh, look, four restrooms, they're all going to be taken care of this year, or 2027 So that eventually then will go away?

Hopefully, but there's still, after those four, I have four jury room bathrooms, men and women and then I have two general bathrooms that are in the main hallway so there's still six to eight bathrooms after these next four. I did four this year on a skeleton budget and then I've added this into this budget.

And I will say bathrooms, they're needed. It's needed.

Any questions?

Interior cleaning going from 33 to 50.

No, you're looking at the estimated total for the area. It went from 2026 budget 50 to 50, so there's no increase on that.

The public safety building, nothing significant there. The contractual at the top. General maintenance went down $500, so overall budget went up 2.4%, and really the only increase on that was the part-time maintenance.

is raised by contract. Any questions with that one? Next is the courthouse security. This is where our courthouse deputies salaries come out of, the crime suppression salaries come out of, and their uniforms and equipment. If you take a look, the salaries for the courthouse deputies, which are a little bit experienced, so they have several years on, went up by contract, $46,000.

but because we have such new people here the crime suppression unit salaries actually went down $39,000. The only other significant increase is going which is only 4% is $2,250 for security equipment at the courthouse. So the overall budget for the So the overall budget for the courthouse security is up 1.23%, and for all those budgets I just went over, if I'm not mistaken in any way, the whole budget went up, including salaries, only 5%.

The only thing I have left are the two budgets for corrections, the general fund and the public safety. Any questions?

All right, corrections on the top one, so contractual, on the operations, the increase that you can see there with 27% is the phone, the phone usage is going, or the phone price has gone up about $7,500, the live scan increased $500, which is 6%, and the radio there is also up a thousand dollars at the at the jail it is a different radio so those are not eight thousand dollars a piece the entire budget for general the general fund for corrections is up 1.37 percent any questions about any particular line items there if not the new jail building which is the public safety fund the only significant increase there is 10% which is $500 for plumbing supplies out of the jail. Other than that, everything else is well within line. Overall budget increases 3.08%. Overall budget for the jail went up 1.64% total. Do you have any questions?

I just I guess I have a comment. We know that from our discussions in the spring, the 3.5% COLA is not sustainable. There's going to come a point where we just don't have money to keep increasing by that big amount. And as much as we want to compensate our employees, we're just because everything's going up, right?

there's going to have to be at some point a time that we may ask you to take your budget down 5% in order to compensate for things so just please keep that in mind for next year that this is not sustainable the way we're going and we don't want to bankrupt the county but we have to adhere to our contracts so just something to keep in the It may have to be a flat year or it may ask you to go down by 5% or something like that. That's all I want to say.

But you're just budgeting, so it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to use all of that. Am I correct?

Well, that's a double-edged sword. I'm using everything that we need. There's no wants on that. That's exactly what I need.

All right.

During the other course of Congress, when do we have to have things moved over to the finance?

Sooner than later. If you approve tonight, it won't go until, I mean, potentially, it could go Monday night, but I highly doubt finance will approve anything until October. It's got to go to the full board, and there's two meetings in November, and I believe it's the second Tuesday or Thursday of November. There has to be a 15-day layover.

on November 10th so you have time you don't have to approve anything tonight but you know I guess from my thought is if you've had this for a couple of days actually since Friday hopefully you have questions already hopefully they're being answered for you if you still have questions you want more time of course you can lay it over till next month in September but at the end of the day if you're comfortable with it I don't see a reason not to pass it or make recommendations for changes.

I'm going to let y'all make that.

I'm going to be honest.

I just haven't gone through it.

This is the biggest budget we have.

I believe it's great.

Just a couple more days to look at it would be good.

But if you all feel comfortable, I've got an old committee here.

So I'm not the only eyeball.

No, I'm not ready to pull the trigger on this yet.

I'm not bad.

Well, I'll entertain mostly laying over to the next 30 days.

I'll make a motion to leave 30 days and then it should fly.

It's a great presentation.

I don't see any problem, but I just want to look at it.

But that's my opinion.

Yeah, I'll second that.

I'll ask you a quick question.

Was that for all of the budgets the sheriff went through?

No.

Yes.

You said, yes, so I'm going to just go with her.

You know, since she seconded mine, it won't hurt.

They're going to go quickly.

So I don't have any objections, though, because I saw that they were good.

The largest one that I wanted, some of them I wanted to just go through a little bit deeper.

So that's my thought.

Well, let me ask you this.

We already approved the emergency management.

Do we want to do it for all?

They are all old until next month or what?

His is so good.

I mean, it's more straightforward.

I just think this is our largest budget.

A couple of extra looks at it for me.

Okay.

I'm just asking. No. Okay. They're not all equal. Okay. All those people? Aye. All opposed? Aye. All right. I'm sorry, I skipped over you. That's all right. We'll go with two now. Come on.

The first day I got there are salaries. I pulled mine off of the resolution that I was given by the county. The secretary was just a minor pay raise. And then the third one is the general pool that we have to pay all of our seven deputy coroners. Supplies went up. That's just office supplies. As you guys know, I'm spending more and more time in the office. I need paper, ink, toner, letters, envelopes, stuff of that nature.

like I explained to Mr. Bush that was kind of just getting the office back to a baseline photos and media storage stayed about the same that went up a little bit for just different supplies we need for that meals the reason why that one looks so big is because I didn't have a budget for meals in 26 so the number I pulled was off of the 25 budget and that is just to pay people when they're at different training conferences and stuff so that they can have a lunch Medical supplies didn't go up that much, gear, operational equipment, I have a lot of stuff that's aging that needs to be replaced, I also have maintenance items as we found out from previous meetings that weren't getting done, like our $1,500 air filter that needs to be purchased every year, so that was why that line item jumped up just to get all that stuff, keep it current or up to date, vehicle maintenance, I didn't change anything, autopsies, I raised that a little bit and that was because when I looked back at the 25 budget the county paid out just shy of $70,000 for autopsies so I just wanted to make sure that we weren't going over budget on that mileage and fuel I bumped up a little bit just because of the rising cost of fuel mailing and papers didn't go up at all the telephone bill went up slightly due to the rising cost of the fat bill and we added a couple more devices mobile radios

is the same thing where I operate on the Starcom system.

It's the licensing Starcom radios, and I would like to add a couple more licenses to that instead of getting actual radios due to the cost of the radios.

I know I met with the sheriff when we talked, they have an app that we can get, and we just have to pay the licensing fee for the app, and it's a lot less than what the licensing fee is for the radio, so I don't have the radio cost, and I don't have the full licensing fee for the radio, so I save some money in that perspective by using an app.

So, computer programs and licensing, that's just because before, like there was, like I said earlier, there wasn't a lot of use of our office. Now we're using it. I've given the deputies a workstation. I have different licensing and programming on all the computers that we have. I've also added a few computers in our office. And then our training budget is because I need to still attend a 40-hour corners class, and then I also need to get the rest of my deputies up to the state mandates for training for their hours and continuing education.

just to get everybody for, like I said, and I explained to Mr. Busker, we're in the office back at baseline.

Any questions?

I would say, you know, this time last year, we didn't know where we was at.

We didn't know where we was at with the corner budget.

We just had to do it anyway.

I really commend you for, I mean, even with that, we still kept close to what we came up with.

So I would entertain a motion that we approve this budget.

I will second that.

Moved by Ms. Hayes.

I'll second.

Second by Ms. Lawfer.

Any questions?

Any questions?

One question, Mr. Chairman, before we go forward. On the salary line item, I know we must approve it, but did it go up that much from $26,000 to the approved of $60,471 this year?

I have the resolution right here, can you hear it?

Okay, yeah, let me leave it at that. I just would like to see that. I should probably have a copy of it. I just wanted to see it over the board.

Yeah, no. There it is in black and white. So, I just didn't, it wasn't in my mind fresh. So, that's all I had.

I asked for that because I didn't know what the number was either. I knew there was one, but I had asked them to email me a copy of that. So, I had it for reference for my budget this year.

All is well, I just want to make sure that if somebody says something that I do, because I don't remember Yeah, that's where I got you, got you right off of there Gotcha, Chairman Okay, all in favor Aye All opposed Aye, sir Thank you I have so low requests, did we take care of those tonight?

We can discuss it, I don't think there's an action item for it No, there's not but I think Mr. Townsend would like to probably talk about it.

Yeah, yeah, okay, go ahead.

I have submitted you guys here before you walked in my request here for approval for some of the requests.

I guess I'll start off with my current vehicle is a 2020 Dodge Ram.

It's a classic crew cab 4x4.

It's got just a basic pickup truck with a 5.7 cubic inch engine, 5.7 bed.

it has 30,500 miles in six years. It is in excellent shape. I do not want to trade that in. I'd like to keep that vehicle and pass that down to the Deputy Director of EMA. Right now he's using his own vehicle and we ran into some troubles, obviously, with the Lena and Pearl City issues and other issues throughout the years. I know it's a bad time for the county in some respects as far as asking for this, but I have the ability and my budget and our Tesla fund to pay cash for a new vehicle.

And I'm requesting a 2026 or 2027 Dodge Ram treatment, 2,500 three-quarter ton, crew cab four-by-four with a long bed.

And I just feel that this vehicle is much more suited for me to be able to utilize towing.

We have a 100KW generator that is basically worthless sitting out at the county.

Highway Department. My plan is, and I want to get this set up so we can run the EOC and the courthouse and see if report loses power, but not just for that, for any other village, any other entity that needs that power. We have it, but we just have no way of abusing it, operating, towing it.

That's part of it. Other things are UTV, William, William. And then, again, I hate to keep going back to the incident, but that taught, I think, all of us a great lesson on how under-prepared we really are, equipment-wise. That truck would have came in handy on a number of different reasons as far as hauling equipment, barricades, personnel, it just, it could be utilized in a number of different ways, and that would free up the sheriff's office, free up other and other places, too, that would be utilized. I wrote out a nice justification for it. I'm asking politely. I mean, this is not necessarily a 100% need, but if we do need it, it's definitely going to be a tool. And it's going to be a resource and asset for the county for many years to come. My vision is that the 2020 truck will drive for another three, four, five years.

and replace that.

And then that truck can go to another county department, coroner's office, sheriff's office, county health department, highway department.

There's always need for utility trucks to run parts or whatever, training for officers.

I'm speaking out of turn here, but I know in the city we've always had that need.

That truck at that point will probably have 50,000 miles on it.

It'll be a good truck for another department for probably another five years.

So that's my thought process and why I want to maintain it And another thing is, you know, in a situation like we had in Newtown Pearl City It's kind of foolish for Rob and I to drive it around together And I don't want him to drive his personal vehicle We both have used our personal vehicles in the past with floods Back when Kevin Countryman was here before he had the truck We used our personal vehicles It's just not the way things are done So I'd just like you to look at it as a close is it's not another vehicle purchase for the county, but kind of an investment in our emergency response and our capabilities for the county.

I know you have to go out for bid, but what kind of prices have you already been doing your haul?

And again, this is premature because 2027s are really just starting to come out right now.

So getting back to the 2020 Dodge Ram, the trade-in value on that truck right now, because it is a classic, would be $21,000 to $23,000. I feel pretty confident with that. I don't want to do that. I'd rather keep the truck and utilize it as an asset. A 2026 MSRP is right around $55,000. A 2027 state bid, which is what we would go after, they're forecasting to be somewhere in the range of $53,000 to $55,000.

dollars. So I requested 58 because I'd like to put a hardcover top on the back. I got to put lights in it and I want to put a radio in it. So I think 58 would more than cover this. And understand the truck I'm having right now, the classic is a stripped down truck. I mean, it doesn't have any real bells and whistles. We have a radio in it. We have lights in it. We have a topper in it. That's about all there is. I'm going to do the same thing with this truck. But this is going to be what they call a tradesman because in a three quarter ton range pickup truck, they do not make a Classic. So I don't think it's going to be any more flesh here at Bells and Whistles. That's just what it is. That's the name of the brand of it. So I was actually pleasantly surprised thinking that it was going to be more than that. So I think the $58,000 projected cost is in line. And again, I want to reiterate that this is not something that's going to come from the budget. This is something that's sitting in my account right now that we can pay cash for and be an asset immediately.

Chairman, yeah, would this come as a supplemental request? Is this how it is being brought to us right now?

Capital projects, capital purchases, I should say, yes.

So I'll just say that, you know what, I would not necessarily, Chairman, consider it a, it is a need because, I don't know why, but it seemed like Illinois became the capital for, of the United States for tornadoes.

And, you know, I always tell people, if you fail the plan, I guess you plan to fail.

So I commend you for looking and having vision.

So I wouldn't project it as something you don't need.

You probably do need it.

And the sheriff's department and our department have done such a good job being prepared and responding.

Why not continue to have vision while you have a chance?

So I appreciate it.

I don't have a problem with us, you know, moving into, you know, making it a top priority for a supplemental. So, thank you. I would remove it.

I'd just like to add that if we did have the UGA generator today, hypothetically, for Dakota Fire Station, we would have to borrow county highway trucks.

Sure. I mean, that's just what it would be. My half ton, I think, could be safe pulling it from the county highway department downtown here, but I don't think I'd be comfortable taking it out on the highway going much faster than 40 miles an hour. So, again, I know it's a lot, but I just feel that my budget can handle it, and that money sitting in my budget isn't doing us any good, and Lena did teach us some lessons.

It would be nice to have that asset. It's a county asset. Obviously, if the highway department needs it, the sheriff's office needs it, the coroner, you know, it's a county asset. I view all of our stuff that way. We're managing our 10 services.

I have a question. That extra money, that $65,000, that's just in your budget, not doing anybody any good, where is that from?

That was just accumulated in my checkbook that they pay bills for.

in my checkbook that they pay bills from. I like to think it's from years of being good stewards with the money in the county. And I'm not taking credit for that. The previous directors before me told me it would be hard at building that up.

Ms. Wall?

I was just going to say, if that money's in that account, it doesn't have to be spent, right? It can carry over from year to year.

Yeah, I've been carrying a balance of around between $70,000 and $100,000 in that account for the four years I've been director, and I'm not sure prior to that and look back there, but it's been pretty steady. We have not dipped into it. It just kind of fluctuates that bills get paid.

Scott?

I'm assuming that's not the cash carried forward. You have any revenues on this. So where's the cash carried forward from the general fund?

And cash carry forward is part of that. Cash carry forward is my ESDA account of $74,000, my EMPG grant, which is $22,400, and emergency transfer, budget transfer of $82,800, which has not taken place yet. That'll take my account to $179,000. I have projected $80,000 or $70,000 in expenses between now and the end of the year, so I'll be approximately $100,000.

Are those on-book accounts or are they off-book accounts?

On-book accounts, yeah, I don't have any off-book, I'm not even sure what that is, to be honest with you, but no, everything is on my budget, everything is, yeah Can I continue?

The notch that you currently have, is that being driven every day?

I would not say, I would say five days a week Okay, so I guess what I'm asking, are you taking it home?

Yes, yes Okay, this truck, would you be taking this home?

I would say yes Okay, so you know the majority of the purpose is for hauling this Correct, correct And why would you be taking that home?

Because I want to give the current truck to the deputy director so he has a vehicle to respond Okay, but you're still having to go out to EMA to pick up the equipment for this truck to haul, correct?

It's all yes, yeah Okay You got a follow-up question to that if you don't mind Yeah, no, I, and believe me, my questions aren't pointed directly at you, just history with the department, and it's not fair to bring that back up, but it would be, I think, irresponsible for me not to consider that, because I don't know how many made directors ago, it doesn't really matter, but that individual had a county vehicle and drove, took it on vacation, took it everywhere.

it's always on call so that's my only concern especially with a three-quarter ton truck that is primarily for hauling it sounds like not necessarily quick response to a scene it would be my responsibility I mean the three-quarter ton half ton it's not a one ton obviously it's in the middle and I think it meets the load panel capacities what we want to do with it yeah it may be more expensive to operate I wouldn't say it'd be much.

And I guess to kind of justify our use of the current vehicle, I mean, the vehicle is six years old and we've got 30,000 miles on it.

That's, I mean, every two miles is 15.

And again, I'm good with three-quarters of a time.

You need a heavier duty to pull things.

I'm good with it.

I'm just trying to go through my mind to make sure that, you know, the purpose is to haul.

I could care less if it's a one-ton or three-quarter ton, just trying to figure out what the purpose is, daily driver, I guess.

Versus, I guess the point I tried to make was showing why I needed a three-quarter ton versus a half ton.

I agree, you do.

I agree.

Sam?

Yeah, no, those are good insights.

I think that, I mean, because it's emergency management, that in itself, it would be like the sheriff's to me if they didn't take them vehicles home. I'm assuming they take the vehicle. Because how can you respond quickly if you got to drive back to the new job to get the emergency vehicle? I know it's a waste. Maybe somebody thinks it's a waste of money, but the fact it's just part of the duty in my mind, in my mind, I'm trying to wade through it, too, is that if we're going to be quick response, then you need the vehicle with you, even if it's burning a little more gas.

I don't know, my follow-up question was going to be, how far do you drive?

To my office?

Yeah, to the office.

I mean, I don't know where you live.

I'm on the north side of Freeport.

Oh, yeah, it ain't, it ain't.

Robin is the same.

Robin lives in New Orleans.

Now, that just makes it even better to me.

But that's all. I mean, I think to be emergency management and respond as quickly as a sheriff could if there was a disaster, probably go with the territory. So that's my mindset, Chairman. I was just trying to see how far he had to drive that vehicle. So thanks.

I also have a question. Is it possible for an option of trading in the Dodge? I mean, that would make me vote yes on this because then we're not looking at a $60,000. You know, I want you to keep some of that in case you need it, some of that money. You know, it's in a rainy day fund because it goes from year to year, but it's going to rain someday. So you're going to might need that.

But if we could do a trade-in on it, that would make me more comfortable with the money up.

I understand, and I don't disagree with that at all, but the reason I don't want to is, again, I want to keep that truck because it's in such good shape, and I would like the deputy director to have a vehicle so we can go in separate directions at times.

Again, you know, we're an expense insurance. Insurance policy is how I kind of look at it. You know, we're, we may have multiple villages we need to respond to if a tornado starts in Pearl City and runs through, you know, Freeport or something. I mean, that's kind of how this business is. And Robin and I driving around together, it works, but it's not efficient. And, you know, he is very qualified deputy director. I mean, if something happened to me, he could step into my job tomorrow and work with Mississippi.

so I do think that having a second vehicle you know is is that that's the reason why and it's in such good shape and I that's that's the other reason I don't think the county is going to get you know the value in a trade-in other than the monetary value when we have a good vehicle and we know is good has been good for six years I know the service record on it we've taken great care of it that's that's my thought process for keeping both of them and you know down the road If something happens and it rains and you decide you only want one in our department or you downsize, you have an asset there that can be utilized in another department, it's a good treat, or you can sell them, too.

And trucks are a high-value vehicle, I get that, but they serve a great purpose, too.

Any other questions?

Well, I'm in favor of it.

I mean, after we met with Scott and we talked about it, I think it's a great opportunity to take advantage of it I mean, he got the money, it's not cost enough, the truck is in good shape I mean, I think we're both going to have a truck to be able to use I guess my question is, do you want this as a supplemental or do you want us to both No, we can't do nothing at night It's a supplemental request just because it's a capital purchase All right, if there's nothing else, do you guys have anything else you want to write up?

Committee? Any comment?

Uh-uh. Thank you, Scott.

One with the sheriff's budgets.

Yes.

Please utilize him, ask him questions, meet with him, go over it if you have questions or concerns.

Don't wait until September meeting, if you can.

At least come down with it at the restaurant.

I've got a question, Chair, what was that overall increase, just because I'm looking at the numbers I broke it down even farther for you, so anything not contractual, the law enforcement budget has $73,275 of wiggle room, I'm sorry, $76,025 of wiggle room, and the corrections has $60,245 with the room. That's operations. That's not wages.

Gotcha.

I'm sorry.

I said, do you have an updated one that you were saying that you had an updated one that you worked with?

It's on teams.

I can't get to teams.

That's all I can get to in here.

But I got to do it on my phone.

I'm not criticizing it. I just want to make sure we're utilizing the sheriff.

No, I know. I just can't access it.

Get a paper copy if you can.

Yeah, I can access, can you get a paper, paper, copy, is that what you said?

That's not what I said, go down to the administration office and get a paper copy of it, or I'm sure the sheriff would probably supply a good one, and everybody had a team runner for a copy for everyone, I thought I could get anything to be cleared, but I can't, I can't hear.

I can't get into here. I can't get into here. I can get it on my phone. And I admittedly did not look at it completely. And like I said, I think it was good. It was presented well. I just wanted to look. Extra look, extra eyeball just to make sure I did not do that. I did not answer your question on him either. Overall, law enforcement is 5%.

Okay. And it's including wages. And then the overall corrections budget, which I didn't have a, oh yeah, I did, 1.64%, which is really very good.

So it's the courthouse that's.

Yes. And when you say it's still only, that's the 10% and that one is, hold on a second, Glasses, 29,000 out of the 38,000 is operations, so that's going to be the updates on the restrooms and electric. Have you done any researching on grants to help with that? Because a couple of those bathrooms have to be ADA. I already did that. You already did the ADA. I did the two in the basement. I don't know if I showed you those before or not. Yep. We already have We've got two updated phenomenal PDA compliant bathrooms I will have to check those out next week I think it was $78,000 is what we ended up putting into those I mean one thing to think about that courthouse it was largely ignored for decades until Steve was elected utilized the ARPA funds and I really maximized those funds I mean the amount of work that's been done on there is just mind boggling Oh it's great but it's just going to take more to get it up to where it should have been all along.

I understand.

And if I just put in the more part, we are really narrowing down.

Right now, the bathrooms are probably the worst thing there.

All of the lighting, everything's been painted, not the back hallways and things, but those aren't utilized all the time.

Every level's been taken care of.

Every office space has been opened.

from what it was if you did squirt footage and if you remember signs years ago move everybody out of this building back there because there's plenty of space all of the offices have been open and every one of them is utilized anybody that wants to take a tour and I'll show you what it looked like before I've got the pictures of the boxes to the ceiling with the ceilings knocked out to what it is now and tell you what was in that room nothing and now it's an office so I'm more than happy to do that because I'm pretty proud of it.

And you should be. I agree. Okay, thank you. Can I make? Oh, I'm sorry. Where's all the evidence? I used to be upstairs back in the 80s. They had a for the Sheriff's Office. That's now with the Public Safety Bill that we utilize basically that. Because that was a big room, too. It's even bigger now because we have more evidence. Can I make a motion to adjourn? Yes. I'll second that. Thank you.

I've been moved by Ms. A. Seconds. I'm ready to vote for any questions. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.