Waldo County approves 2024 audit, new contract and finance advisory policies

[0:00] Chair: Agenda for October 15th, a welcoming call to order. Roll call. Commissioner Breed? Here. Commissioner Parker? Here. Commissioner Kelly? Here. Review, revise, and approval of the agenda. Is any revisions or approval to be changed to the agenda? So we have some documents we're going to review. Correct. I put under new business, I put contract policy, county advisory committee policy, and the AI policy. And then after public comment, I want to review the audit, our 2024 audit. Anything else to add? No? There will be none? Motion to edit. I'll do the first. I have a second. Let's call the question all in favor. Motion carries. Consent agenda. Approval of The minutes for 8.13, 9.17, and 8.15. We had a chance to review. Does anybody want to pull out any of those on the consent agenda? I'll go with them. You're good? Yeah. You're good? Yeah. Let's call the question then. All those in favor? Yeah. Motion carries. Unanimous. The next thing we've got is the proclamation honoring Evan Cottrell. Did I pronounce it right? Yeah. You can stand up. Come to the podium, please. So we're honoring Evan, attaining his rank of Eagle Scout today. And so I think this is the first proclamation that, under my watch, 2024, and Commissioner Parker's watch, too. When was the last, were you ever honored an Eagle Scout before? [1:41] Commissioner: Not in my time, that's all I know. [1:44] Chair: So that's 28 years? Yes. So you're the first one. So I'm going to read the proclamation. So this proclamation is honoring Evan W. Cottrell on the occasion of achieving the rank of Eagle Scout with two bronze ponds, one gold pond, and one silver pond. Whereas the rank of Eagle Scout represents the highest advancement attainable in scouts PSA and is a distinguished honor recognizing exceptional character, leadership, service, perseverance, and commitment. And whereas Evan W. Cottrell of Stockton Springs, Maine has demonstrated through the years of dedication to scouting the qualities of a true leader including responsibility self-reliance service to others and a steadfast commitment to the ideals of the scout code and the scout law and whereas Evan has earned the prestigious rank of eagle scout through the accomplishments leadership and service and continued personal growth within scouting america and whereas Evan's accomplishments did not end with attaining the Rank of Eagle Scout, and through continued participation, leadership, and service, he has distinguished himself by earning two Bronze Palms, one Gold, and one Silver Palm, honors that recognize additional advancement and achievement beyond Eagle Scout. And whereas these accomplishments reflect countless hours of effort, perseverance, learning, leadership, and service, as well as the encouragement and support of family, friends, fellow Scouts, adult leaders, and the community, and whereas Evan's achievement serves as an example to other young people of what can be accomplished through dedication, integrity, hard work, and a commitment to helping others. And whereas the community recognizes that the values developed through Scouting, honor, duty, service, leadership, and respect will continue to serve Evan through his life and all of his future endeavors. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that Evan W. Petrell is hereby recognized and congratulated upon the outstanding accomplishment of attaining the rank of Eagle Scout, together with two Bronze Stars, one Gold Palm, and one Silver Palm, through Scouting. Be it further proclaimed that Evan's exceptional dedication, leadership, and service, commitment to the principles of Scouting, are commended, and that his achievement is celebrated as a source of pride for his family, his fellow Scouts, his leaders, and the entire community. Be it therefore proclaimed that Evan W. Cottrell is encouraged to carry the ideals of the Scout Oath, Scout Law for throughout his life and continue to lead by example and to serve others with honor and distinction, presented this 17th day of September 2026 and signed by Commissioner Brianna Pinkham, Beth, Kevin, Kelly, and Commissioner Tim Parker, and also it's signed by our Treasurer Owen Smith. So myself, I'm class of 1971 Eagle Scout, and Owen Smith is class of 1959 Eagle Scout. And it's notarized by Barbara Arsenault, County Clerk. So congratulations. Thank you. Do you have any comments? Do you want to make any comments or anything? I just want to thank you. You're welcome. So it's not on the paper, but I want to congratulate your parents. You didn't do it alone, for sure. So I want to call for a recess, a 10-minute recess, and we'll come back in 10 minutes. So let us know when we're up or toward. [5:21] Commissioner: So, Kevin, where you're rather involved in scouting, are we going to be able to know when the other young people in Chief Eagles go? Oh, sure. Is someone going to let us know so that we can keep doing this? We have to sign the letters. Yeah. [6:02] Chair: All righty. I'm recommitting the Waldo County Commissioner's Court session for October 15, 2026. Next on the agenda is public comment. Is there anyone here for public comment? Yes, sir. Just approach the podium and state your name. [6:18] Tim Hughes: I'm Tim Hughes, and I've been a Welder County citizen for 44 years, and a family doctor for 42 of those years, retired now. And for the last 10 of those years, I was the director of the Regional Medication-Assisted Treatment Program here at Welder County. I would respectfully urge the commissioners to go through the community-based process that you, with the help of the Maine Opioid Settlement Support Center, set up to identify Waldo County's priority needs for spending opioid settlement funds, rather than using your legal prerogative to spend the money in ways you see fit. [7:06] Chair: Thank you, Doctor. Doctor. Anyone else for public comment? There are none moving on. Next on the agenda is the audit. Kevin, you can have a seat, Kevin. You don't have to, whichever. So we're reviewing the 2024 audit. I just want to make sure that I've got the right one. It was a number, I think three versions that came out. Yeah, I've got it. Okay, so it's this one here. And I gave a copy to you this morning. Alright, so welcome Kevin. Kevin, you're from the Ron Smith Rangers. Thank you. Alright, so I always ask the first questions is no material issues, no significant issues? No findings? No findings. There were some concerns in the management letter. Can you just walk us through what you found on that? [8:13] County Auditor/Accountant: Bank reconciliations not being done within 30 days of the end of the month. Same as general ledger reconciliations, making sure that all general ledger accounts reconcile 30 days after the end of the month, before the end of the month. And then there was just material adjusting entries for us on the bank. [8:40] Chair: Records in the issues. Do you have that figure for the adjustment entry? I do. So this is the fourth year that your firm has audited Waldo County, so I think the same issue has been in the 21, 22, 20, and now the 24 is about timely reconciliations. And I know in 23, there was at least five or six different finance directors at that point in time. So, one, thank you for doing the audit. I know there's a few auditors left in the state that are doing counties. Second, we recognize the fact that we need to reconcile on a timely basis. And we put in the budget again for this year a staff account to assist the finance director, it can't cannot be a one-person department, and so we recognize that back to, so all right, so questions. [9:41] Commissioner: What would constitute a finding? Because I think when people watch these meetings, you know, it's like there's what's legally required, there's what's good financial practices, there's oh no you went over budget under budget, so what would actually constitute a finding when we say there's no material findings? [10:07] County Auditor/Accountant: Technically finding would most of the time be found, I mean the management letter are technically some findings, but they're not to the stress level of an overall material adjustment being needed, okay, and findings you usually see in single audit, which if you're not doing things correctly in single audit, they get sent to the federal level, okay, and those are. [10:37] Commissioner: Federal, and can you remind me again what a single audit, single audit is over 750 000 spent in federal funds, so now it's... Right, so when you get congressionally directed spending or something like that, you have a single audit associated with it. [10:53] County Auditor/Accountant: Okay. And in 2025 and beyond, it's moved up to a million. Okay. [10:58] Chair: So let's go back, let's just stay on that point. What's a material weakness? [11:06] County Auditor/Accountant: Material weakness would be anything within internal controls. Say you don't have good internal controls, such as signing off on invoices or receipts, and they're not getting approved, that would be a material difference because there's no. [Chair: Approval process.] What I see an approval process would be. [11:40] Chair: Okay. And significant, what would be a significant? [11:47] County Auditor/Accountant: Probably the whole year not being signed off would be one. [11:50] Commissioner: That would be significant. [11:52] Chair: Okay, all right. [11:54] County Auditor/Accountant: You not reviewing invoices and such would be significant. [11:58] Chair: So you think, here's an example. It must have been last year sometime that I recused, and then since I'm an authorized signer on the checks, I signed the checks as a checks and balance against the invoices. Just as a change it up a little bit and make sure, one it makes me aware what we're spending money on to that make sure the invoice are matched up with a check and that's the reason I did it do you recommend we do that yes on a routine or non team basis unannounced or all the [12:35] County Auditor/Accountant: above? I would say routinely, basically. Okay, just ensuring that what you're cutting for a check is what it's paid out of that in. Okay, all right, thanks Kevin. [12:48] Chair: So I'm going to revert back to my, I guess, I think this might be version two. So on table two, page nine, I know I sent some of these questions to you early just so you could do some homework on it, but the jail apartment under table two was four man. And then $83,118, but it was $3,611,386. Any idea why the jump? [13:18] County Auditor/Accountant: The increase in expenses for that was contractual services. Contracted services. Those were a big jump that year. Housing? Inmate benefits. Okay. [13:33] Chair: Employee benefits. That was another one that, and this is a, we know we've got an issue with the medical benefits, but I suspect the answer on this one's going to be, we've got to change to a deductible plan, but it's $1,917,356, and we jumped from $843,000 to $742,000. Is that utilization right? [13:56] County Auditor/Accountant: So from the previous year, it was a transfer to the self-funded health insurance, so that's why it was $800,000. Oh, it was? Yeah. And then this year, it didn't get shown as a transfer. It just got shown as an expense. [14:07] Commissioner: Oh, so that was a line item that got moved. Okay, we did a whole bunch of that last year, so have fun with our 2025 audit. So it was just [14:16] County Auditor/Accountant: it was expense to the self-funded health insurance. Yeah, got it, thank you. And then [14:22] Chair: self-funded insurance claims, what was the source document on the two million two hundred seventy one thousand eight hundred eighty three dollars? This was all from the bank records. Okay. Because it jumped from $1.5 million, roughly. Yep. And we know that our claims are going through the roof. [14:41] County Auditor/Accountant: $700,000 increase. Yeah. Okay. [14:45] Chair: Table 3. Again, the jail fund. $24 million was $2.5 million versus $1.5 million in 2023. So it's almost an increase of $1 million. Yep. [15:00] County Auditor/Accountant: So you'll see that later on in the budget portion, you'll see it was underspent by $252,000. Underspent. And then there was an ARPA transfer to that fund, which was expenses being paid from ARPA out of the general fund, but then reclaiming that fund. [15:23] Commissioner: Which would have probably been for the body cans. Right. License plate. Got it. Okay. [15:32] Chair: So capital, same table, three on page 10, total capital projects fund, negative [15:41] County Auditor/Accountant: So this is, you do have cash in that fund, but there is a do-to-do-from for a million dollars, I believe, that is due to the general fund that hasn't been paid back to the general fund. The general fund is paying these expenses. [15:56] Commissioner: So that's when there's a big overage on health insurance claims, that's what happens there? No, this is capital projects. Oh, capital projects. [16:04] County Auditor/Accountant: So like anything capital-based is being paid out of the general fund, and then the capital project should pay it back. [16:13] Commissioner: And in this case, it didn't. [Speaker F (unidentified): Right. Makes] sense. Yep. I'm curious if it did the following year. Yes. [16:23] Chair: Statement A, page 13. Lease liabilities of $1.5 million. That's the tower leases. Accrued compensated absences. Absence. Boy, there we go. I'm starting already. So absences, $887,000. And what can you tell us about, tell me about that? [16:45] County Auditor/Accountant: So that is taking all the employees with time left at the end of the year. [16:50] Chair: That's comp. That's sick time. [16:53] Commissioner: So that's if everybody left on the same day, what we would owe? [16:58] Chair: That's our liability carryover. Have you seen an increase in that? Do you know off the top of your head? [17:05] County Auditor/Accountant: I think it went down from the previous year. Okay. So if somebody retires, it's going to reduce it? [17:12] Chair: Okay. All right. Jail and self-funded. Okay. On page 32, note two, self-funded health insurance [17:44] County Auditor/Accountant: fund payables due to, it was $456,000? Yep. So that is the general fund paying expenses for the self-funded health insurance again. Okay. And not getting paid back. And not getting paid back. [17:57] Commissioner: Which was a big issue with 2022, 2023, 2024. [18:05] Chair: And then we had a deficit, this is straightforward, but on page 38, note 14, self-funded health insurance fund. We had a balance of $293,558, that's pretty self-explanatory. And the highlighted areas, have you been able to, like on page- [18:29] Commissioner: Actually, can we go back to that for a second because when we're talking about the things that this group of commissioners and partnership with the staff and finance and HR are trying to do and trying to rectify, that 14 right there, that $842,000 deficit, that's really what we're talking about. That is an $842,000 can that got kicked down the road. In one year, yep, just want to make that pretty plain because that's it's just it's such a large [19:06] County Auditor/Accountant: amount of money and I believe in 24 there was no transfers to capital projects or anything like [19:12] Chair: that from the budget. Yeah, so the highlighted areas like on page 47 that 9 551 on note 17 you'll be able to pardon up those numbers that's still highlighted on the last graphic up this morning. It was reported as deferred outflows of resources to the OPMDB, OPEB. [19:45] Commissioner: Post-employment benefit, work-life insurance. [19:48] Chair: Those numbers would be hard enough, right? Yes. [19:52] County Auditor/Accountant: Okay. I think we're just waiting on the reports. I could check with Financial statements, prayers, and so on and so forth. [19:58] Chair: All right, page 54, schedule one, register of deeds. Yep. Says budget amounts was $249, but actual amounts was $1.8 million? [20:19] County Auditor/Accountant: Yep, but it was offset by the $1.8 million in charges for service, because that was the deeds revenue [20:25] Chair: that came in. Okay, all right. All right, just kind of caught my eye. That's all the questions I had, really. I think the last time I grilled you for about 42 minutes. [20:47] Commissioner: Can I ask a clarifying question? Because I just don't want any confusion. So in deeds, you say that's the total revenue collected. That's for state and for county as a whole, not just full revenue for the county. Can you collect just a portion of that? [21:06] Chair: So should that be a footnote on that, Kevin? Yes. So in case somebody sees that number. We can, yeah. Yeah. Put a footnote, please. Okay. How many drafts are we up to? Is this draft number three? Yes. So basically you've got the final version. Okay. And you put a note in on that? Yeah. All right. [21:27] Commissioner: May I ask another question? Sure, go ahead. The 9,551, you said that you're possibly waiting for reports. What reports do you think you're waiting for? [21:38] County Auditor/Accountant: I will have to ask the financial preparers on that one. [21:43] Chair: Okay. But it would be, it looks like it would be named first. [21:48] Commissioner: Which we're sent to. Okay. Near a while. Okay. I have a question about, we have a community member that has repeatedly asked us to have some kind of presentation for the community on our audits. Is that something that you have done for other communities? Yes there is, we do have a slideshow, a slideshow, yes. Okay, is it something we've already paid for when we pay for an audit? I mean it doesn't cost extra, I would say that's what I mean, but yes you can do a slideshow. And what kind of format has that been done in, like a live thing? Yeah it can be live or it can be in person, yeah either way I can give you [22:38] County Auditor/Accountant: the slideshow and you can put it up on, that is what we want, yeah we'll put it up on the [22:44] Chair: website. Yep we have Civic Plus and we're trying to get everything up on there as much as we can [22:50] Commissioner: in those requests, in those presentations do you answer questions from community members that attend or do you simply present? Usually just percent, okay. Because I mean that's the thing is we've wanted to, you know, if people have questions about the audit we want them to come to us, we certainly don't want them to be emailing RHR Smith, and so I'm just curious how that would, how that would go. Yeah because that's how it typically works is we work for the commission. Yeah I think a slideshow or like a narrated slideshow could be, could be something that would [23:30] Speaker F (unidentified): be helpful to the community, put it on the webpage, just because I like, I like the idea of the live thing but then people will say that they didn't make it, or if we put the slide show it's always [23:39] Chair: there. If you want to do something narrated with the slideshow that we can put up on our website, I don't want to pay extra because we're already strapped, yeah. So are you saying for 24 [23:54] Commissioner: or are you saying if we go to 25? What I think it would be good to do for 2024. I think let's start with our most recent one, I don't, I don't necessarily want to go backwards with other ones that were done this year, but let's, let's start on the right foot with the one we're currently [24:10] Chair: working on. Two commissioners here started in 20 25. Okay so but 24 that kind of puts to bed all the other audits, so 24. You know narrated and something that we can put up, your IT person can talk to our county IT person. I hear people call our people. Yeah, exactly. No problem. Overall, what do you think? Yes. [24:40] Speaker F (unidentified): Self-funded needs to be funded? No kidding. [24:43] County Auditor/Accountant: That would be the biggest concern? Yeah. [24:48] Chair: So here's kind of a, I'll say it's a loaded question, but what do you think of the state not funding, following their statute, funding the jails, you know, to the, to the appropriate funding levels they have a statute for, I [25:02] Speaker F (unidentified): Got an easier question. No, I don't think I have a comment on this. Yeah, okay. Yeah, thank you. Comparatively, compared to other counties, how do we set? [25:30] County Auditor/Accountant: I would say fairly well. Just some, you know, capital projects need to be funded in self-funded health insurance, but capital projects is based on what you guys have for projects that you want to envision in the next five to ten years. [25:50] Commissioner: And that planning is something that our new finance advisory committee is looking at, you know, reserve targets and things like that. We're asking for more out of our department heads around what is the next ten years look like. [26:02] Chair: So what do you think unassigned general fund balance, healthy for this size county, should be? [26:07] County Auditor/Accountant: Rough. You can bracket. So it should be through three months of your budget. Right. [26:17] Chair: So right now, Carrie, how much would that be? [26:21] County Auditor/Accountant: We don't have it. No, we don't have it. What was your budget in 25 years? [26:27] Commissioner: It should be about a million dollars a month. Yeah, so that would be about $3,000,000. About $3,000,000. [26:31] Chair: It really should be. So going back to the- [26:34] Commissioner: And then we ate $870,000 out of it in 2024, and I can't remember the years before, but- And because we're not properly funding our health fund, we're going to feed into that- Yeah. Year after year. Year after year. So is it financially responsible for a committee to say, use undesignated funds? It's it's not when you're not properly funding an account that is you can see that it's growing and so we do have a target for trying to be with a commercial product and the date that's been thrown around is 2029 which is not as soon as we would like it to be but based at where we're at with utilization and the changes that we're able to make that's kind of the path it's it's looking like but we have to fund 2027 and 2028 at least for self-funded health insurance are is there anything other county well other counties don't have self-funded health insurance [27:36] County Auditor/Accountant: so you can't even answer that but like that letter I sent you after the last meeting about looking at two to three years and averaging it off that and then making sure you have three months [27:48] Commissioner: of fund balance in that fund yeah the problem when we do that is that the county portion of people's tax bill goes up 20 plus percent understand yeah so if you take our [28:01] Chair: Budget it's 3.7 million this three months is what we should have on cash on unassigned get a fund balance and we don't have that we have one month right all right any other questions for the auditor my answer or any treasurer you're good just the [28:28] County Auditor/Accountant: Comment going back years and years we didn't I guess he didn't express it as a kind of concern, for years the concern of the auditors was comp time, just liability that went out there. I only got involved in it because the department had us called in to talk to the auditors about it. And the other thing was, let's beat a dead horse to death, but we know what the costs are, and that's the health insurance I was nervous 23 passed because of what was happening, but I've been here now 4 years. [29:35] Commissioner: Okay. I have an oddball question. Because one thing that we sometimes gets warned as a badge of honor is that the county doesn't have any long-term debt. Would you Would you see it as the county would be safer, better, stronger if it took on some debt to deal with some of these problems so that we actually did? [30:02] County Auditor/Accountant: I mean, you would have to have a project. Right. [30:06] Commissioner: They're not giving out loans for two years of self-funded health insurance claims. [30:09] County Auditor/Accountant: Right. Yeah. So you'd have to have a project. [30:12] Commissioner: Right. We can't afford projects. [30:16] County Auditor/Accountant: What you're doing with short-term borrowing is sufficient to keep you going? [30:24] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't think that's an oddball question at all, because that was the same question that led us to the spark of having a switch on our calendar fiscal year for budget. I don't think that's an oddball question at all. [30:34] Commissioner: This is one I put to the Finance Committee, because last year when I was serving on the Budget Committee, we first took a look at an 18-month budget. and then we said, oh, expenses are so terrible, we can't do that to our towns and put an extra six months on them. That's the short version. That was like, what, 18 meetings to get to that conclusion? [30:52] Speaker F (unidentified): That was a good time. [30:55] Commissioner: However, one thing I've asked a couple of the Finance Advisory Committee members about is what would you think about doing a 14-month budget and doing that three times? Is that something that a county could do to get to a fiscal year? [31:07] County Auditor/Accountant: We'd have to get back to you on that. Okay. [31:10] Commissioner: Rather than try and do it all at once, I mean, and I have seen more, yeah, I think asking a municipality to pay two months more rather than six months more is something that, you know, you could say over the course of the next three years we're gonna get on to the fiscal year, then we're gonna save ourselves tens to a hundred more in more in other years, it's been hundreds of thousand dollars. I'll keep the creative juice this morning. Any other questions? [31:46] Chair: All right. I'll put a motion on the table to accept, not approve, accept the audited financial statements and other financial information for our calendar year, December 31st, 2024. Second. I have a first. I have a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, call the question. All those in favor? It's unanimous, Kevin. You're off the hook. [32:10] Commissioner: We'll see you in 25. No, until we have the presentation. Mostly off the hook. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Kevin. [32:19] Chair: Next, financial reports. Amy Lawrence. [32:25] Commissioner: We have a finance advisory committee tomorrow. They will be meeting with the district attorney's office. Felicia will be coming down to make a presentation, and HR will be here to just talk about benefits. In that meeting, we'll also be talking about what we're going to work on next. And they want to get more information about why we have so many checking accounts, why that happened, and further consolidation. That brings me into, I sent the letter to the state auditors based on the motion that you made a few weeks ago for the account. I gave him a hard copy as well as emailed him. That was better to email my contact. He would come back with a handful of questions. Pretty much saying why our balance is much lower than our targets and why have some of our targets really increased. Lack of planning and budgeting. Usage in the reserves and just not replenishing those. I have not heard that since I made a reply to him. [33:27] Chair: How long did it take us before, Carrie, to receive a reply? [33:31] Commissioner: I sent the first letter in November of 25, and I think it was February or March of this year before we got approval. I sent the letter out on Friday, and I heard from him on Tuesday. [33:46] Chair: It's the same contact, right? Yep. Okay. [33:49] Commissioner: So we're much closer, and I'm just still waiting to hear what he has to, his final say. [33:56] Chair: Okay. What else? That's it. That's it. That is it. Always a pleasure. Yeah, thank you. So you didn't spend [34:03] Commissioner: any money? Well, Owen has the warrants. Owen spends the money now. Owen is good. We've relieved our long-suffering finance director of one responsibility. [34:16] County Auditor/Accountant: I never thought of it that way. I do not have access to the checkbooks. Opioid solvent funding. We had no income. We had no expenses. Very great change. [34:39] Chair: So there was no wire transfers or anything? [34:42] Speaker F (unidentified): If I don't know why, okay. [34:45] Chair: Motion to approve the opioid. Second. First, second. All those in favor? Motion carries. That was easy. [34:53] County Auditor/Accountant: I'm going to start with the bank. Let's get more people. Jail. We had total expenses of $33,987.05. Payroll was $63,542.76. That's 63542.76. six by twelve of ninety seven thousand five hundred twenty nine eighty one cents nine seven [35:36] Chair: five to nine point eight one we'll have a first or a second call the question all those in favor motion carries we're good yeah now the [36:08] County Auditor/Accountant: county warrants two hundred seventy one thousand two hundred fifty dollars and ninety three cents two seven one two five zero point nine three payroll is two hundred thirty three thousand one hundred forty five seventy nine cents that's two three one four five point seven nine sorry total of five hundred four $4,396.72, 504-396-172, motion. [36:44] Chair: And approved. Second. Second. Second. Discussion? Carrying on, all those in favor? Motion carries. Thank you all. [37:04] Speaker F (unidentified): Anything else, Owen? That's it? That's it. Say it. Say it. The county is what? [37:09] County Auditor/Accountant: The county is sovereign. There you go. Today. [37:14] Chair: today is point in time that's that's what you do when it's all i can speak to it's just moment in time dale hazard mitigation good morning [37:27] Speaker F (unidentified): good morning i believe you guys have received a copy very short nine pages there's a regional plan that i help community communities with and we just did one we finished seven towns were part of that And then, let me look at just one for the county government. We don't have property in the sense of, we're not supposed to fill roads and bridges, almost everything. It's pretty much just buildings and people, is what the county government's responsible for. So it's very short. Basically, it looks at the hazard that we're facing, and in our risk assessment for the [38:10] County Auditor/Accountant: for the county government people in buildings. [38:14] Speaker F (unidentified): Structure fire, hazardous materials release, cyber attack, this page six. Grid failure, physical attack, shooting or bombings like that are the primary hazards that we face that could impact our buildings and our people. We identified which ones under the consequence analysis on seven, what the impacts were for each one of those. Probably the most likely thing that could happen would be a structure fire, and then you would lose the last page. Nine is the mitigation strategy. It's basically identifying what we can put into place to safeguard some of those hazards, and it's a lot. A lot of it is just in-house training, and we'll work with HR at some point to see if we can incorporate that somehow into that. So that's the plan, if you just hope to [39:07] Commissioner: approve, we accept it and put it on the website. Approve? Yes, approve it. So do I have a motion [39:16] Chair: to approve so moved so at first i have a second any more discussion or questions no oh you're good motion carries thank you dale okay thank you direct them to the point just need dale's signature i think he's already run off next on the agenda we're gonna wait for buddy all right chief good morning all right going over budget on 4200 yes i was looking at 10 different 4200 accounts this morning and carry just consolidated for me so yeah it was the GL detail it but it was 10 it was actually under your department, so just give me a sec. Yeah, what [41:01] Commissioner: happened is the form that I printed off an email of Matt separated out 4200 like in 10 different areas. Okay, first [41:17] Chair: you know how much do you think you're going to go over? Yeah, well [41:22] County Auditor/Accountant: you know that is the magic question i'll just i'll point out that 's not the number that we asked for that we got last year okay so this year we requested [41:32] Chair: 61.20 and it got dropped down to 53.20. What was the, what was your requested amount last year? 61.20. 61.20, I'll take your word for that. Okay, you're at 71.87, so I can tell you what we [41:52] County Auditor/Accountant: We code it at our office, year to date. [41:55] Commissioner: No, can I make a correction? If you look at page four, it's 44,746. [42:01] Chair: Oh, got it, thank you. [42:03] County Auditor/Accountant: This is a preemptive strike when I send you the email. There's a lag, obviously. Lag time. Between, by the time we get invoices, we get them sent down, the checks get cut, and they get entered on the ledger. We track it in real time at our office, so I can try to be in front of this stuff and plan. As of today, we've coded out $53,435, so we're about $1,000 over right now. [42:35] Chair: Right, so you've got a couple months. [42:37] County Auditor/Accountant: And we have a couple months left. So if you look at like 17%, 18% of everything would stay the same. One of the big bills that came in, just so you know, we have started the winter tires. That's always a and that one has a little extra hitch in the giddy up because to get the state well of course everything's related to petroleum and we know that but the way we do that we purchase the tires under the state contract price and we have to get tires from a separate vendor than where we get them installed they have to get delivered so they get invoiced in Milwaukee that way sometimes it's a little extra lag time we just went through a big batch of that and that's reflected in there I'm sure there'll be another batch similar my best guess is we're probably going to land somewhere around what we're requesting does all of our vehicles have the same fire no sure we try I tried to do that when I was doing the fleet Tim excuse me Christian Parker I tried to I tried to do that different type of vehicles do you have now we're all trucks and SCVs now really Chevy's versus it's it's they're all over there yeah we're still we're still on the tail end they're trying to from some of Our people to get what you get purchases yeah I think it's going to be close to what we asked for I just you know when you know the budget committee made the moved to do that it was what it was you know I think if memory serves me I think when we came through we presented it like we normally would to you folks I think you guys concurred in the budget committee made there so that's just where we're at yeah it's as far as monitoring train the overall budget I have a few conversations about Kind of caring just to square up a few things to keep suit with what we've been asked by your board I think it's important to show a true representation and not try to like borrow it out of somewhere else at [44:57] Chair: This point no you need to code that yeah no I agree yeah we hopefully fixed that problem last [45:04] County Auditor/Accountant: Year yeah so I just wanted to bring it to your attention see anybody I [45:10] Commissioner: Appreciate that and it's you know good evidence for why you craft the budget that you craft when that conversation happens and I think you guys I can't [45:22] County Auditor/Accountant: Remember which one was your department. You won't see my shining face that day. No? Senior football games. Ah, good for you. [45:31] Chair: Sheriff's already. So, Matt, I know, you know, we're tax exempt and you submit the tax exempt certificates and everything. Do they give us a discount as a government entity like an AutoZone or Sears Porto or Sullivan Tire? Sullivan Tire, we're getting that government pricing on the tires. [45:52] County Auditor/Accountant: We are, yeah, so it's a contract. It's cheaper than you and I would go into the store and buy, like if you see our trucks running around with Good Gear, Wranglers, or whatever. Well, I don't pay for those on my own truck, yeah, but they, you know, Good Gear works out okay, so we're getting the government. [46:06] Chair: yeah wherever we can we're getting it where we can okay all right i noticed two charges on the on the county credit card what's it 's not much it's a couple hundred bucks [46:19] County Auditor/Accountant: But on the 4200 line? Yeah. Okay. Go for it. [46:23] Chair: Where are you at? 9603 and $125.80. I've asked that the detail from the credit cards be put in here so we can see what they are for the future, just so it saves questions and time. When would you use the county credit card? [46:39] County Auditor/Accountant: So I can tell you, like the one I'm looking at from January 23rd for 9603, excuse me. That was, that's an online vendor for lights, that's a lot of emergency vehicle up thing, they be real with you, we don't buy like the federal or the whaling stuff, we don't have to be a premium for that, yeah, these are, you know, I don't know what they'll be with tariffs, but these are so ordinary when you use the. [47:13] Chair: Company the county company county credit card do you get a tax exempt too I believe we're. [47:21] County Auditor/Accountant: Tax exempt with them with and that may be reflective of some kind of that's that's a wonky price my guess is they have some percentage whatever rate all right those are. [47:34] Chair: The questions I have obviously you're going to go over keep coding to this line sure I mean we're. [47:39] County Auditor/Accountant: Not you know obviously you know painful last year work with Cody too I mean we I mean it's vehicle maintenance defer you know it's like you got to do it 's safety it is safety. [47:51] Chair: You can't defer I agree absolutely so okay thank you any other questions for the chief. [47:56] County Auditor/Accountant: Thank you so much you're welcome thank you guys appreciate it all right next on the agenda. [48:01] Chair: Agenda. County Clerk. It. [48:07] Commissioner: Always goes so quickly. No pressure, Barb. I'm sorry. So much paper. I don't want to drop it. [48:19] Chair: It's all right. I know how it is. [48:23] Commissioner: Let's start off, if we could, please, with asset forfeiture. I did send a digital version of that to you so you could have a look at it. It appears this would be going strictly to Waldo County. It is in the case of Jeff David Diaz, the amount would be currency $5,580, if that is in fact seized. Five thousand what? Zero cents? Correct. Okay. As you know, you need to sign off saying that you are interested in this. You also need to take a vote. Whether or not it comes remains to be seen. [49:09] Chair: Okay. So we can get a motion? Motion. We have a motion. Second. A first, a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, motion carries as you now as you have [49:20] Commissioner: it. May I approach so you can sign it? Yes, certainly. [49:22] Speaker F (unidentified): Do we have an account that it goes into automatically? [49:26] Commissioner: Asset forfeiture. Asset forfeiture. How beautifully named. know. When we're doing budgets, I find myself. Thank you very much. I also submitted to you by email, so you could look at it, the postage meter contract. We all share that between Finance, HR, and the Commissioner's Office, and I know this was presented to you as part of the budget process. It renews. It's a 60-month lease. It is going up from the previous six months, excuse me, six D months. Back on our most current, it was $175.98 quarterly. It's now going up to $242.40 quarterly, and again, shared between those three budgets. So if you are willing to do that, it is very helpful for being accurate on the postage and what it goes through, especially from finance. And it's been updated in the 2027 budget. Yes. Okay, it would require a vote and signing if you're [50:57] Chair: willing to accept. A motion. Okay, I have a first. Second. I have a second. One more discussion. Hearing on both. There don't you care. Yes, thank you, it [51:08] Commissioner: really only requires one signature. That's yours right there, copy [51:19] Chair: to be maintained in the county clerk's office. Yes, thank you. Thank you. [51:31] Commissioner: Now, if we could, if you would take your folders that are on your desk, this is your copies of An Appeal of Decision of Board of Assessors for Abatement of Property Taxes, submitted by Petitioner Guy Sanderson, Town of Northport. Mr. Sanderson provided what he deemed to be comparables and other information, which I'm sure you have looked over it to some level. What you folks need to do is decide, and I double-checked the dates as did the office associate. It's falling within all the time criteria and you just need to determine whether you believe you should hold a hearing or not. Have the two of you done these before as commissioners? Oh yeah. How do you make [52:30] Chair: that decision whether or not to have the previous ones we've actually taken to a basement hearing? Yeah, and listen to both parties with the with the county attorney for real estate. I recommend that we probably go to a hearing on this with the county attorney president for real [52:50] Commissioner: estate and when you say both parties is it the homeowner and the assessor or the homeowner and [52:55] Speaker F (unidentified): Municipality, usually the town. Yeah, the homeowner will come with over there representing them. The town will come in here maybe with their assessor too, but yeah, okay, let's set a date. [53:10] Commissioner: What's the date? That would be up to you. We could try to set it for your next commissioner's court session. That's only two weeks notice, or I believe you have another, so the fifth. Yes. If you want to try that, if you think that's too short notice, you could go to the next. It's three weeks, actually, because it's a five. Oh, yeah. So that works out pretty well, I think. Yeah, that should give everybody enough time to clear there. [53:41] Chair: So you're saying the 19th or the 5th? No,, no, the 5th. [53:47] Commissioner: Okay. And what time would you like to do that? Because I need to correct me 12 30. Oh wait a minute, so can we do it as part of this meeting [53:57] Chair: Like at the beginning of it close? That's the regular commission's court you have to open up [54:01] Commissioner: The abatement right, but you can if you want to decide to take a five minute break. Yeah, could we Do this first, that way we know you're waiting hearing first? I don't think so, because we don't know how long our regular meeting will go. I just wouldn't want us to be in a position where our [54:17] County Auditor/Accountant: Regular dot it well if we were to do this I think that would be well can we start at eight [54:25] Speaker F (unidentified): I can start at 8 15. I think that's even if we start at 8 30, I mean 8 30, you know, 8 30 on the fifth notify [54:36] Chair: All the parties contact and reach out to the county attorney for real estate. Oh, who was [54:42] Commissioner: That was it a man don't you know Lee Woodward came in law yes he abused people so you want me to send all these documents over to him yes okay we need motions for this yes please [54:57] County Auditor/Accountant: I have a question, is the cabinet law office still open? That's a very good question. I don't, I don't think it is. I think after they retired. [55:11] Chair: At least semi-retired, last I knew. [Clerk: I can contact.] Oh, you still do it in a couple hours every day. Yeah, okay. [55:19] Commissioner: I'll check. You'll check? Would you like to have a backup just in case? Or do you know of a backup? [55:25] Chair: Not just yet. Let's go first there. Certainly. So I'll entertain a motion. Motion. Number first. Second. Second. All in question? It's unanimous. There you go, Barb. What [55:40] Commissioner: Else is on your list? Could we discuss, and this should be my last thing to bother you with, just because we're getting into that season. So doubt it. Because we're getting into the inclement weather season, could we go over, and you probably wanted to laugh at how detailed I am with the process, but you have to be or you forget somebody and they show up in the snow and then they're not happy with you. [56:10] Chair: So have you had a chance to review the procedure? [56:14] Speaker F (unidentified): On the snow stops? Yeah. No. [56:16] Commissioner: You should have copies there. [56:18] Chair: Yeah, let's table it until the 5th. Sure. And make sure everybody reads it because this does affect our services and closing and all that other stuff. So that's tabled. [56:38] Commissioner: The jail is making lunch for Saturday, which I really appreciate. I've heard it is lasagna. I'm going to find out for sure today. That's true. [56:49] Chair: Pardon? You said you had one more thing. I'm sorry. I was just giving you the news. So food. But you're talking food now. You've got my absolute attention. You need to decide on. [56:58] Commissioner: What are they cooking? I believe lasagna. That's what I heard. Great. But I will know today. [57:04] Chair: Vegetarian or meat? I have no idea. [57:06] Commissioner: Are we getting that within budget, or do we need donations? From what I understand, the goal from the jail administrator was for them to try to absorb in their budget as possible. Oh. Which I thought was really nice. Wow. Very nice of them. So it may be shared cost. I'm not sure. Okay. But at the very least, probably shared. Yep. Thanks, Barb. Appreciate it. All right. [57:31] Clerk: Moving on. HR. We had several policies that were presented the last time around. One of them was a revision, the technology policy revisions. Are there any further revisions or concerns on the technology? Oh, that's the AI? Yes. [57:47] Chair: No, I think we should approve. Okay. That's been tabled three times. Yes. So which is the social media policy? [58:00] County Auditor/Accountant: Are we approving what section? [58:02] Clerk: The social media? I think we're approving the entire thing. Technology. Because we were holding off on it until we were making some edits, and then we wanted to approve the whole technology policy, including the edits. [58:14] Chair: So this is called the technology policy, correct? [58:19] Commissioner: Which is? What was the date of the last update? [58:24] Clerk: The last update would have been on, I believe, October the 15th. So, [58:32] Commissioner: I move we approve the most recently updated draft of the Technology Policy for Inclusion in the Employee Handbook. Second. [58:43] Chair: First, second discussion. So, this will have page numbers on it, correct? Page one of five or whatever? [58:50] Clerk: Correct. This will also be integrated into the final handbook. Okay. [58:53] Chair: And it'll have the revision date in the bottom left-hand corner? [58:56] Clerk: Yes. I made a note here to make an adjustment on the revision date. [58:59] Chair: And the font's going to be Times Roman? [59:00] Clerk: Yep, it is. Ten. This is still pretty large. How are you kidding? Ten. Well, it's going to be consistent with the entire handbook. I'm clean. It's going to be consistent with the entire handbook. That's it. [59:10] Commissioner: I was like, I was asking about, like, do you actually know what the font size is? That's amazing. Yes. In full block. Those are my requirements. Okay. All right. I'll call the question. All those in favor? Motion carries. I like full block, too. Excellent. [59:24] Chair: Conserve county paper. Yes, indeed. Here's a bunch. We count, we don't count reams anymore, we count the pages in reams. Not an ounce of color. [59:33] Clerk: No. I presented the Contract Negotiation and Review Policy. I think there were some edits to that one. Are there any, do you have anything that you can submit to me that I can kind of go back and do any edits with? [59:47] Chair: I don't have any at this time. Okay. [59:49] Commissioner: Yeah, okay. [59:51] Clerk: So we'll just, we'll hold, do you want to table this one still for the Contract Negotiation? Yeah. Would you table it to the Contract Negotiation and Review Policy? [59:59] Commissioner: That's different than this? Yes. [1:00:02] Chair: Yeah. So let's table that to the fifth. Okay. And the title of that is? [1:00:08] Clerk: Contract Negotiation and Review Policy. [1:00:11] Chair: Oh, wait a minute. Let me see your copy real quick. [1:00:14] Commissioner: This is the one right here. [1:00:21] Chair: Oh, that's been replaced. It has. It has. You can take that off your list to do it. That comes under, that's actually, I think all the commissioners have a copy of the revision. In new business? Under new business, so we'll talk about it under new business. Okay. [1:00:38] Clerk: And then I presented the handbook sections one through five with edits. Are there any edits from the commissioners? I didn't have any. Okay. Do you want to go ahead and approve the handbook sections one through five? [1:00:50] Commissioner: I move the approved handbook sections one through five. Second. First, second. [1:00:54] Chair: Discussion? Times Roman, 10. [1:00:57] Clerk: I'm just doing text right now. We're going to go back and do the formatting at the end. [1:01:01] Commissioner: Okay. It will be so cute. [1:01:02] Chair: Call a question on all those, David. Motion carries, unanimous. I [1:01:09] Clerk: Have been, for the past several months, there's been a bunch of round and round looking at our workers' comp policy. We currently have a workers' comp policy through MMA. We do have a discount with them because of some of our safety policies that we've integrated earlier in the year, and I did just get a quote back yesterday. So this is hot off the presses after going round and round for months to get a quote back from Mimic. I've used Mimic before. It's very user-friendly, it's very accessible, they're really good about handling everything, being responsive on the claims, they're also local, and the Mimic quote came back as a $16,000 savings over what my current estimate is for MMA. I don't have a final estimate for MMA yet, but based on our salary increases, our proposed salary increases for 2027, and based on our percentages, if you look on page 2 of 3 in the quote that I gave you, can see there where there's rates for each of our class codes, these are considerably lower than the rates for the class codes that we have under MMA. So this would be a cost savings of $16,000 immediately right off the bat. Another interesting thing here that I see is that MUMIC has a dividend program where after three years with MUMIC we start getting sharing of their savings. So that would be an additional saving for us if we continue with MUMIC after a couple of years. So immediately off the bat, and then we could be getting money back. [1:02:47] Chair: So it's a $16,000 reduction based on our 25, what we paid in 25 or 26? What we paid in 26. [1:02:55] Clerk: Looking at, again, that's why I called out those rates. [1:02:59] Chair: And that $16,000, that's even with the increase in salaries or whatever? Correct. That they looked at, and there's a change in the classification rates. Correct. Okay. What do you recommend? [1:03:10] Clerk: I do recommend moving to MIMIC. Again, I've used them before. This is a savings here, and we would be getting dividends in the future. And they're much more user-friendly and much more accessible. [1:03:22] Commissioner: Do you have a motion? I move we switch to MIMIC for workers' health. [1:03:27] Chair: First, second discussion. So before we receive dividends, we have to maintain a contract with them for three years. [1:03:35] Clerk: Sure,. But if it's a savings every year. [1:03:38] Chair: And when did we get MMA's workers' comp quote last year? [1:03:44] Clerk: We didn't get it until December. December. Yes, correct. I think I was able to present it in January, our first budget meeting we had in January. [1:03:53] Commissioner: We're hoping not to do any January budget meetings. Exactly. [1:03:56] Speaker F (unidentified): But even if we get a quote, it's not going to go down, so it's not going to go down. Call or question? All those in favor? Motion carries. Thank you so much. [1:04:05] Commissioner: Thanks for the work. Appreciate it. Anything else? That's all that I have. Okay, we haven't gotten any additional updates from [1:04:14] Clerk: insurance carriers. We're hoping to have the final quotes. They say maybe by the end of this week. Realistically, it'll be the beginning of next week. Okay, so we'll have the final quote then. Okay, and we'll be able to send that out to all of the unions and make sure everyone knows all of our [1:04:28] Commissioner: final rates for all of our new benefits that we've been doing. So we'll have that updated chart of the people we went to and what their response was. That can be emailed out, so we're not waiting until [1:04:37] Clerk: November 5th meeting. We're still waiting to hear from some of those. This is the final quote from our current plan of what those rates are going to be. So this will impact the bottom line of our budget. Okay, so I'm waiting to hear the final line so we can finally update our budget based on the final rates. Great, and we have been doing educational meetings with everyone all week. We have another one scheduled this afternoon. It's been doing pretty well. I think there's a lot of pretty [1:05:01] Chair: positive feedback on the HSA. That's good. Thank you. Moving on, finance staffing. Yes, 2027 is [1:05:12] Commissioner: there anything? So that was based on the conversation at the budget committee meeting around whether or not it might be wise to begin 2027 with contracted staffing to support Carrie's office while we begin the search for a full-time staff member and have some, perhaps some overlap. Is that a good summary of it? Yeah. Where are you at on this? My mind has been well, my focus right now has been Edmonds, unfortunately. Yeah, I did talk to Tracy and I looked at a current staff accounting job description that I had not gotten back to since she emailed it to me. But I know in that discussion the budget committee wanted us to get a contractor in sooner than later to start, and I just haven't come back, really circled to it to put more thought into it right now with some other items up in the air. [1:06:15] Chair: Okay. So where would the money come from? If we don't have an approved budget, where are we going to pull this money from? [1:06:21] Commissioner: That's what's been kind of going through my head. Oh, you mean when they said sooner or later, they mean now? Yeah. Get you help with bank reconciliations essentially, since we're currently behind. There has been a Woman who has a financial background that has a few times offered to volunteer her time to reconcile. I want to sit down and have a conversation to see does she have the availability to be able to do it and what that might look like and so I'm having that conversation. It's a very kind offer. It is an extremely kind offer. Wow. I want to remind the [1:06:59] Chair: commissioners when you have a volunteer that's not there's no remuneration with or and remuneration associated with a contract we have no legal authority for volunteers. I know that for a [1:07:11] Commissioner: fact. I wonder if I mean I but I also don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth if everything else about it works I wonder if that could be like a stipend or something that we could do. I want at the end of the year before I present final I really want to have a conversation with her oh yeah to see what that could look like because I think there is more of a conversation that needs to be yeah because it probably to Kevin's point it should be more formal than just a volunteer I mean that's what this is 20 23 with too many people's hands it's [1:07:45] Chair: sensitive information and the office is small you're overhearing conversations. There has to be some sense of legal confidentiality. [1:07:54] Commissioner: I'm thinking contract and NDA needs to be signed, I think. I just think there needs to be more of a conversation. But again, I need to have that conversation with the person before I really start. [1:08:05] Chair: I don't want to bring in somebody that's a newbie. [1:08:08] Clerk: No, not a newbie. It's not going to help us out. No. [1:08:11] Commissioner: I need somebody that has a good financial background that can jump into it. And I think this person can do that, but again, a conversation needs to be had first. [1:08:22] Chair: Understood. Thank you. Okay. Bring it back on the 5th. I can, yes. All right. Thank you. All right. So moving on, new business. One is contract policy. I sent that to the commissioners, and I'll just start with this. There's been a number of occasions that we've asked managers to send contracts to the county clerk so if there's one file for MOAs, MOUs, and contracts, and we're still chasing them, I think we need to formalize this with a policy. So that's item number one. Item two is certainly when we have the authority to delegate to managers to negotiate contracts, but when it involves operations, I think a commissioner needs to be involved in that, piece of it, so there's from the beginning until the end so that we're not giving away county resources at a reduced rate or at a loss to the county. And so that's the reason I drafted the county contract policy. Can [1:09:25] Commissioner: I slow that down? I think what you're doing is making a distinction between a contract to get a new supplier for printer ink versus a contract to provide a staffing agreement. All contracts should come before the commissioners. [1:09:45] Chair: Certainly, yeah. Because you never know in that contract, one, the whole harmless clause, does it favor the contractor or us as the county? We need to make sure the county is protected. Two, termination of the contract. Case in point, we can't find the contract for the flock cameras. It was an MOA or MOU, I still haven't seen it. I don't think any of us have seen it, and we haven't passed a motion to terminate that contract, and how do you terminate a contract you don't have a copy yet? So that goes back to a number of things. One, a system put in place where the county clerk maintains the contracts, MOAs, and MOUs. Two, that negotiations for any contract or, and I think, you know, the managers do, you know, on a whole, a great job at negotiating contracts and saving money for the county. Case in point, LP gas, propane, we're locked in, and I think at all in 79 for a two-year contract. I know what everybody else is paying, more. Yep, so case in point, you know, it's it, who's that to give some authority to the, to the managers to keep us abreast of what the contracts are, but all contracts should come before us because I, one, I like to read them, and sometimes one word in a contract will totally change the ball game, and I've been down this road for three decades, so I agree with you for a [1:11:11] Speaker F (unidentified): different reason, and the reason why I agree with you is because even though the managers are in a way doing our business, because that's what they do, they're managing the operations, we're still ultimately the ones that hold the burden of the purse strings. That's correct. So that's like, I'll use my own personal, like I look at it this way, when my guys are going out and they're doing business for me in my business, I am 100 responsible for all of the mistakes and all of the good stuff, unfortunately. that's a hard that's a hard thing to bear and we do have a responsibility ability to be at least in the process so that 's just my kind of take on it so i know that you're a little bit more technical on it but i look at it differently for a philosophical reason of if we're going to be ultimately having pain i would like to have the pleasure of us all [1:12:09] Commissioner: being together in it understood. So the part of organizing and filing and keeping track, record-keeping is very clear to me. How does this look different during an actual contract negotiation than what the way things are now? Well, [1:12:30] Speaker F (unidentified): there's times where you have a lot of your managers that will just still renew their contracts, and that where they'll come talk to us about a contract that, oh, I don't want to take on a specific department, but I'm gonna have to. Let's look at the one where Tom's calm Center, okay, where they were having that contract that came to an end, but they're still like sending this stuff. I don't remember exactly [1:12:56] Chair: what it was. It was over a tower. Oh, yes, I know that sounds a tower contract, right? And they kept invoicing us for something two years prior, right? It was, it was crazy. It's crazy. [1:13:11] Commissioner: How are you talking about the SBA con tower that we're still in, still getting invoices? Still getting invoices. Oh, yeah, it's not settled. It is not settled. We're up to a total of $25,000. Just saying. And our legal has reached out to them multiple times. They're not, the SBA company is not getting back to us, and we're in a standstill with them. But we're not paying those invoices. Oh, no. Okay, great, I didn't think we were. No. So can you, can [1:13:51] Chair: you pull the package together so that the commissioners can review this? Because this is just, this has been lingering. I'm ready to pull the cord on this eight. And yeah, who do we go talk [1:14:01] Commissioner: to? Yeah, whose door do we knock on? I think, gosh, I think Matt was handling it. I can't remember what attorney, but I will give you a packet. All right. And this is the reason why most times they [1:14:15] Speaker F (unidentified): stay quiet, because then like you say something, well, this goes back to the reason that the [1:14:21] Chair: commission should review all contracts prior to signing, and the other thing is being pressurized to sign here on the bench, you know, the contract's doing in a week, and it's not something we can table to have the commissioners read the contract fine print. You know, for myself, I can read a contract pretty quick, you know, give me 72 hours and I'm done. There should be two commissioner [1:14:45] Commissioner: Meetings before a deadline. Exactly. Yeah, and so is there, I didn't, I didn't have time to dig fully into this, but was there a mention of timing in here? I can add it in there because I think that might be good, that commissioners will have a two meeting window. Yeah, if you say days then it could work out wrong, but that there should be, it should be presented before one meeting and that way it can be tabled and continue to be digested or edited. So the next one, that's very good point. [1:15:20] Chair: I'll add that. Another discussion on this one? I'll call, I'll put the motion on the table approve the county contract policy effective today 10 15 20 26 with the friendly edit of a two meeting window in there and I'll craft that word. Second. Per second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, call the question. Motion carries. It's unanimous. Thank you, commissioners. Next one is the county advisory. So I'll revise that and bring it back for signature on the 5th. The next one is the county finance advisory committee policy. I sent that one out to the commissioners. Commissioner Breed brought this up, that we should have some guardrails or some policies or procedures and some oversight of the committee and I agree with her, so I drafted this one up, so I'll open this one for discussion with commissioners. [1:16:26] Commissioner: One thing that I would like to see when we are appointing members to a committee like this is some kind of letter of interest or list of qualifications before we appoint them. We know the expertise that currently exists on our finance advisory committee, but I think [1:16:48] Chair: that it's important to have that, so the potential committee member submit a letter [1:16:54] Commissioner: of intent. Yeah, letter of interest, experience with experience noted. It doesn't have to be a full resume, but just, you know, let us know why you are a subject matter expert or have experience. Before me, two pages. Yeah, I would even just tell us why you're, why you're interested, why we should appoint you. The other thing is the item about, I agree that it could be beneficial in the, in the instance of a finance advisory committee to occasionally have outside County expertise. However, I didn't think that there was maybe enough limitations on that. And in general, I thought maybe we should have a term, like you're appointed to the committee for three years and you cannot be appointed more than twice continuously. So I thought term limits would be, I just, what I don't want is we have the same five group of five people advising the county on financial matters for the next 20 years. [1:17:54] Chair: How about two years? Because for somebody to commit to three years. [1:17:57] Commissioner: Three years, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. Two years, or two years, three two year terms maybe. [1:18:03] County Auditor/Accountant: Consecutive. Yeah. What do you think? Going, I guess, I guess I have to ask Carrie because I can't remember the conversation, but how many people did we have show an interest in coming on to that committee? Just the four that's on it. Yeah, that's that. I guess that, I guess, I think we're, I don't disagree with what you're saying. It shouldn't be there forever. But it's not like they're clamoring to do it. No, absolutely. [1:18:32] Commissioner: But also, we fell short on getting the word out about it. I had hoped that we would send a press release, that there would be more time before establishing the committee, and I think that 's something we can be better at in future years. [1:18:44] Speaker F (unidentified): In all fairness, they'll give us some slack. Oh, yeah. I mean. [1:18:48] Commissioner: Well, but it's something that I asked for, was to send a press release. [1:18:51] County Auditor/Accountant: It was a tough six months. Yeah. [1:18:53] Commissioner: Yeah, I agree. I'm kind of some slack, but I, you know, I'm just trying to make sure that we continue to do things better. And I think that, you know, you might have a system. [1:19:02] Chair: So I talked to Jason, the IT director, about the next one, the IT advisory committee. And some of the discussion was, you know, we don't want to lay people on there for a reason. You don't want to explain what the operating system for the servers is or how to connect computers. We want really subject matter expertise and who we could reach out to and say, hey, would you be interested? Actually, I came across somebody that lives just across the line outside the county, but actually it has about the same size network as the county in a different business situation. And I thought, geez, he's got the talent, he's got the depth of knowledge, he gets right to it. And I thought he'd be a great candidate, and I threw it out at him on the table so he'd be interested, because he said, yeah, let me talk to your I.T. person. So I said, so talk with our director about, you know, where can we get resources for subject matter experts for I.T. You know, in I.T. they're going to be difficult to get to the table, I'll tell you that right now. They're always busy, and they're always short staff. So but they could, that in that case that would be zooming it's probably rather than face-to-face time, but that's the reason for being outside the county, because you know if you look at the hub, really the hub is, you know, Belfast, and I think there's more expertise out there, and I don't want to limit ourselves to just, you know, the Belfast or you know a small sort of. So I guess the main [1:20:38] Commissioner: points are that some kind of letter of interest. Sure. That we have term limits. I think three two-year terms. Three twos, max? Yeah, I agree that two is a nice amount to commit to. Okay, two sounds better than three. Yeah, and then in terms of outside county expertise, I guess that would be covered by the term limit thing I came up with, because I didn't like the idea of having somebody who just got planted on the committee from outside the county that has a bunch of influence for a really long time. Right, in my mind I was thinking that would be like a more ad hoc subject matter, like oh the county is going through this specific financial challenge, for example, how do we move to a fiscal year, or how do we get self-funded health insurance, and that we would appoint somebody if we needed expertise outside the accounting, that would be specifically for that issue, not just general knowledge. So and we want to have a time of year where we annually review, not review, but we're like every two years in January we put out a press release that we're looking for finance advisory committee members, and then in February we make appointments. Yeah, it's [1:22:02] Chair: easy to schedule stuff like that. So sorry, you in January? Yeah, I would say [1:22:08] Commissioner: put an announcement out every January, receive letters of interest in the [1:22:12] Chair: structure membership in announcement. There you go. Yep, and then make our [1:22:19] Commissioner: Appointments in February, and I think that maybe we could, because that way the committee comes on formally at sort of the beginning of a new budget year, kind of watch how things are going. Yep, and then, and then they're kind of up and running before we get into another budget cycle. They've been reviewing how [1:22:38] Chair: our finances are doing. So review in January, structure members announcements in a point in February. [1:22:44] Commissioner: Okay, I can add that in. What do you think, Carrie? I think it's great. You mentioned budget, so I'm to express some concern from feedback we've got. Department heads meet with the commissioners to review budget, and then they go before the budget committee, and now they're also going before the finance advisory committee. I don't know why that's happening, and that was not our intention when we set this up. I don't know how to navigate from the department heads having to come before the finance advisory committee who has told them that they have to. We haven't. They've asked. The finance advisory committee has asked for them, and I'm not going to say no, you can't, but I think we kind of need to look at that and say what can we do moving forward. I've gotten feedback about it, and I feel like it's just another, it is, yeah, the process. So definitely more discussion, I think, needs to be had all that, because it is. I would, I would remove the bullet that says review proposed county budgets from this document. I don't think, I think that I like that they are reviewing the budgets, but proposed makes it sound like they're part of the budget process, and it's not part of the process. I don't, I've been disagreeing with this. I'm sorry, I'm a little bit, I'm a little heated about it, because I want to protect our staff. Our staff have limited time to do the, provide services to the county, and to your point, we put them through, come before the commissioners, come before the budget committee, and I would really like to empower staff that if they don't have the capacity to do things, and it's a request, that they can say no to things like that. I have liked the fact that the committee is reviewing the budget. They've asked lots of hard questions, they're learning about the county operations, and that's been very enlightening to them, which the general public typically doesn't see or [1:24:50] Chair: understand. Just as the review proposed county budgets under Section 8 responsibilities, it doesn't say that the departments have to present their [1:25:01] Commissioner: Budget to the advisory committee, and maybe we just make it clear that our department heads are, if they have questions, we can submit the questions, so questions, I would move to remove it. Because we say review revenues, expenditures, reserves, and debt, that's all elements of the budget, but when you put the very first bullet point on here is review proposed County budgets, that to me reads like an overlap with the budget committee and the process. I would take it off because a budget is revenues, expenditures, reserves, and debts, and that's already covered in the other places. I don't know, I sound probably mean about this, I'm grateful that the finance advisory committee is together and they're looking through all this, and they're, I think this is a unique time when people are really interested, the people who are interested are really interested in what our budget looks like and why we've had the challenges that we've had, so I do appreciate that oversight, but I do not want to drain our staff of their capacity in the process. Yeah, I mean, when we had the first budget committee organization meeting, and a comment was made by a department, a budget member, about recommendations from the finance committee, that honestly took me back. I was like, well, we haven't really had that conversation. So I think we're learning how this committee needs to form, and I think there's questions out there. I think we're trying to just tighten it up a little bit, but the feedback is from department heads is they feel like it is just another process on top of a very long process that is not necessarily needed because what is the purpose of the Finance Advisory Committee. I look at it as means to learn, educate, and then they can advocate to the public out there this is what's going on, not a, they're going to make recommendations. Understood, okay. Thank you. [1:27:02] County Auditor/Accountant: I've heard some of the other things that I could ask for a couple of times, but if there's an authority, the next thing, and all that, what they, what they discuss, we've worked back to the commissions with, but they have no real priority. Yep. But I am going to say this. I don't disagree that they in a couple of occasions, particular budgets, they were very really wanted to hear about the meat and potatoes of this question. I tell everyone I'm a little surprised how deep we get into it and add an extra layer. But on the same token, there some of the concerns were what needed to be addressed, I felt, by the department head. But I don't agree that we should be adding an extra bed to the cotton heads as a whole to the process. But I guess I don't know how to answer that. But they were very interested in a couple of the budgets and the points, and that's the only answer for the horses to hear it from us as well and [1:28:41] Speaker F (unidentified): the reason why that they're interested is because this committee was a response to what we dealt with a year ago. So even though employees might feel that it's an extra burden, we all need to keep in mind that we are here to serve the taxpayer. And those taxpayers were very upset a year ago, and this committee became a response to them. Just saying. I'm not saying yay, nay, one way or the other. I'm just saying this committee was a response. to how people were feeling a year ago. Those people that are on that committee now are people from all parts of the county that are heavily involved in their communities, and they are an advocate resource for us. So if I hear what we're saying about where the budget process is and how this is an extra, you know, hurdle, but you know, why is there a hurdle? There's a hurdle because at one point there was a problem. So this was a response to that problem. So just throwing it out there that we'd be mindful the reason why we're now having this hurdle [1:29:51] County Auditor/Accountant: Yeah, did we find another? Is that another county? [1:29:54] Commissioner: Yeah, I reached out and we're the only county that has, aside from the budget process from Title 30A, we're the only county that has a Finance Advisory Committee. [1:30:11] Chair: So I consider the Opioid Committee as advisory. Yep. What about other counties that have Opioid Committees? [1:30:19] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't know. I only ask about Finance. [1:30:23] Chair: So I think this is an effort to be transparent and get more inclusion and more input into how the county runs its business. And, you know, whether it's a two-year term or whether it's IT, I think, you know, last year it was pretty obvious that people were blindsided by the financial condition of the county, period. And by the conditions of the of the accounting package that we have period and of the health savings account reduction in the severance account I listen go on but it's in to Tim's point Commissioner Parker's point it's in response to the communities questioning everything in the transparency and besides releasing confidential personnel information and protected information I think we've got a lot of stuff on the table and so we're so maybe we're ahead of the game and now we're the leaders of all the counties of how to do business and how to change direction of where the county needs to go that's right so I think I think we need to keep doing it I would have because to Bree's point you know it was a complete turnover of all the commissioners It went from the oldest to the youngest, medium age, just like that overnight. And so there's more different ideas now on the table of how to run the county and what the county should be delivering the services and products to the customers, which are the voters. And I think if we're different, so be it. But I think we need to take advice from everybody. I think we all listen. [1:32:12] Commissioner: Well, we're also the only county without an administrator. We're the only county without one person, but what I'm saying is, some of this is, you know, we call, we give people the title of director, but they've got no one to direct. So your brain isn't allowing for you to be doing all of the big picture directing strategic thinking because you're stuck in the weeds of all the admin that comes along with the job because you don't have that support. So the finance advisory committee, I would like to, because people aren't looking at this document if we took off review provost county budgets and maybe it's the word proposed but that i don't like because it makes it sound like it's part of the process yeah other than that i'm very excited about what is bulleted here analyze financial trends and projections review revenues expenditures reserves and debt evaluate financial policies and procedures review major capital projects and their Financial impacts review, investment and fiscal management practices, identify financial risks and opportunities, review proposed contracts or financial commitments when requested, repeat, recommend improvements to financial controls and reporting, review independent audits, provide independent analysis of significant financial proposals, recommend policies or actions to improve the county's long-term financial stability, and those recommendations will come to the commissioners to reflect on and make decisions on. But there's a lot of really good things in there, and so what I'm asking the auditor questions about, well, what do you think about debt, or what do you think about a 12-month, sure, 14 months, three times to get to the fiscal year. This is stuff that committee can be looking at, and we'll have the expertise to look at, so our statutes clear of the 14 month versus [1:33:56] Chair: 18 month has to be one time, 18 months, one time, yeah, one time, statutes are [1:34:02] Commissioner: Yeah. Let's change the statute. [1:34:05] Chair: Title 38. [1:34:09] County Auditor/Accountant: May I make one more comment? Senator. I'm glad, proud of the fact that Lolita, in every committee, the only finance advisory committee, and it was mentioned several times last year during the public hearing, and I think that the budget committee, this budget committee, I think has some feeling for the legitimacy of the Finance Advisory Committee. So, I'm on the record of saying that I think we need to continue, and I think it's a great idea. I think that the committee's going to take this. And this legitimizes. Yeah. Formalize. Yeah. [1:34:58] Chair: So I'll entertain a motion to approve the County Financial Advisory Committee policy, if you want to call it that, with edits to list the adult intent letter, term limits of 2,, and 2, consecutive, in review in January, the structure, membership announcements, and then appoint in February. I have a first, I have a second. Any more discussion? [1:35:25] Commissioner: I have one question. Does it say how often they'll meet? No, it says as needed as the direction of the chair. [1:35:31] Chair: I think that, leave that to the advisory committee. [1:35:33] Commissioner: I think because there are times when I think, like right now, it's great that they're meeting weekly, but imagine a future where maybe they meet monthly because our financials are in such good shape. Call the question. All those in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you so much for this work. Great discussion. Interesting points. [1:35:53] Chair: Some enlightening. Any other new business? Motion to adjourn. I have a first, I have a second. Second. Call the question. We're adjourned. Have a great day. [1:36:07] Commissioner: Nice meeting you. I thought that would be a lively discussion. [1:36:13] Chair: That was a very good suggestion, too. [1:36:15] Commissioner: Well, thank you for drafting it. More to come. [1:36:27] County Auditor/Accountant: I think that proclamation was a great one. [1:36:31] Chair: You know, Commissioner Parker and Commissioner Bre had brought that up, that we ought to do more recognitions like that, and I agree.