Penobscot County Commissioners Cut Public Hours, Settle Tax Appeal, Review Audit

[6:35] David Marshall: we stop without being recorded i think we can you guys are good to go whenever oh i'm sorry you're good to go oh we're good to go okay good morning ladies and gentlemen i'd like to call the order of the commissioners meeting on the progress 7th to 2026. we'll stop with the roll call on commissioner cushion president commissioner trumbull here treasurer moore Here. Administrator? Here. And the chair is here. Next will be the Pledge of Allegiance and we 've led the Pledge of Allegiance by George. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. First thing to do, Chair, we'll address the approval of the minutes. The Chair is open to a motion so move to approve the minutes of September 16th 2026. It's been moved second and seconded to approve the minutes of September 16th. Any comments? No comments. The chair will call for a vote. All those in favor please say aye. All right, thank you. Next on the agenda is the register of deans, the honorable Susan Boulet. Good morning. Good morning, I [8:03] Unidentified department head (revenue report): just wanted to bring you up to date on how we're doing financially. The third quarter is over. [8:13] Speaker C (unidentified): September was a pretty [8:14] Unidentified department head (revenue report): average month as far as business went. Revenue was $153,000 for the month, which makes a total of $1.2 million for the year. My budget was $1.25. That means only another $50,000 for the year to make my revenue projection. Obviously we will make at so we will have some money from November and December to put into [8:37] Speaker D (unidentified): Mission Plus. Does the fourth quarter generally see a higher rate or average? [8:45] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Fourth quarter is about 27% of my total revenue. The first quarter is [8:52] Speaker D (unidentified): the highest, it's the lowest rather. Okay so we could potentially be looking at close to another $400,000 or better? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I always have no control. I understand. [9:07] Unidentified department head (revenue report): It has slowed down a little bit, but not substantially. Mr. Crowley, you have a call? [9:12] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, when we projected the year end, did we just look at savings of what we were spending, or did we also anticipate the surplus of deeds? You asking me? Yes. She wouldn't know. Well, I didn't know either, because I wasn't here. Oh, no,. When we said you, So was that just looking at what we're saving? [9:36] Speaker F (unidentified): That's just cash flow based on how our expenses are going. So it didn't look at revenue? No. [9:41] Speaker E (unidentified): So we're actually going to, if that was correct, well that should be even better. [9:49] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm not going to do that question. [9:55] Speaker E (unidentified): I didn't want to guarantee anything. If that estimation was correct, we could have another 3,000. [10:03] David Marshall: Okay. Year. And that changes from week to week. We didn't calculate that. Yeah, but that changes from week [10:08] Speaker D (unidentified): to week. I think the basis of what Ann is asking, which I would agree with, is we are going to end the year over what was the anticipated income budget for registered fees, which could flow to a more positive cash position for the year. [10:27] David Marshall: Yes. We can't look at things in the back, and we'd probably look at the other departments, but this is certainly good news. [10:35] Speaker E (unidentified): Thank you. We maintain that other estimate. [10:38] Speaker C (unidentified): Yes. Any further comments? Any further comments? There was another memo. I have another issue. I do have one more issue. [10:48] David Marshall: Yeah, that's coming up under administrative. Oh, you want me to do [10:54] Unidentified department head (revenue report): gonna wait to administrative. I would like to speak to it now if I could, because I'm here, or I could come back to administrative, whichever you want to do. [11:00] David Marshall: Well, we will modify the agenda and take up under item I registered deeds. Go [11:09] Unidentified department head (revenue report): ahead. Okay, so my issue is people coming into the registry of deeds late in the day. We do not report or we tell people we do not report after 415. We've been telling them that for many years. The problem becomes when the person who's manning the front door lets people in after 415. Those people are always people who have problems, who are argumentative, who will not leave. So, and my staff has to stay, obviously, if there's a person in the office. My staff is on time in the morning. They work during the day. I think it's our responsibility to make sure that when their day is done, they can leave. So because I'm asking for something that crosses departments, I'm asking for you folks to advise the person opening the door to not let anybody in after 415 if they want to come to the registry duties, and I will say that I did pull the other registers and they are all [12:16] Speaker C (unidentified): doing exactly the same thing. Thank you. I have no issue, actually, and I think the [12:21] Speaker E (unidentified): city of Amherst recently did that, but in the last couple years, for because of the clerk's office, they had to get things done at the end of the day, and well, the [12:31] David Marshall: The hours of operation are, right now, it's haphazard here, with different departments having different hours of operations. And to accommodate situations, I know the Registrar of Deeds has an issue with the Sheriff, they have different hours of operation. I think in order to uniform, provide uniformity for the public, hours of operation are currently 8 to 4 30. I think if we have the hours of operation for the open to the public eight hours, 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. Monday through Friday those days in those days it will be open to the public. The actual work hours for most of our staff is 8 to 4 30. That extra hour by closing to the doors to the public will afford all of these departments to come into sync so that they will have according to their various departments the time necessary to do the things that they need to be done. So it provides uniformity, it provides clarity, and it provides the means necessary for you to accommodate the work that you did so. I'm going to recommend that we have the day-to-day operational hours that county will be open from a.m. To 4 p.m. the 9-1-1 of course and the jail is separate because those are 24-hour operational. So we're speaking of the other departments, the hours of operation with 8 to 4 open to the public. The staff will maintain their hours of work from 8 to 4 30. I'll make that in the form of motion. Could I hear from the administrator any thoughts he has? Well let's let's come up. Okay I'll second. Okay now it's open for or comment. I would ask the administrator chime in. [14:26] Speaker F (unidentified): We concur with the chair and. [14:30] David Marshall: You have to be proud that makes sense. Okay the chair the floor is over promotion. Primary motion has been seconded and seconded. No further discussion. All those in favor of big not by saying hi. Those opposed names. Unanimous. Thank you very much. [14:46] Unidentified department head (revenue report): If you're all taking care of and I'm just so that you know I would still allow people in there doing research to stay until 430 that I would not be an. [14:55] David Marshall: Issue that's fine officially for the public so that they know with certainty when the county is open and when they can hear. So there's no there's no indecision no ambiguity on the part of public which is who we serve. Thank you. [15:11] Speaker D (unidentified): Very much and we'll arrange to get new postings on the doors and on the website. Yeah we'll we'll. [15:18] David Marshall: Take care of the administrator we'll handle those things accordingly. Thank you very much thank you. Okay let's see so that item on the eye next item on the agenda is the audit and Tim is here today is I don't see him here. [15:39] Speaker C (unidentified): He's, he's gonna do it via zoom. He's gonna do it by zoom. Yeah, okay, if you could. [15:47] Unidentified IT/access control staff: Are you online, Mr. Fortress? Don't currently have them in the waiting room. [16:00] David Marshall: Okay, well, we'll, we'll, we'll postpone that later on in the agenda, and when we get up and running, next item E, finance update, direct department, will you please come up and present your findings? Welcome. [16:27] Speaker C (unidentified): Thank you. [16:30] Unidentified department head (revenue report): So the first item was to give a brief update on the 27th budget and where we are. So we are currently still working through some of the details, but that A draft has been sent to the fiscal review committee. They're going to work through some more payroll and benefit issues over the next couple of days. And then I feel like we'll be in pretty good shape. Next week, we plan to meet with the department heads and get ourselves, the commissioners, to go over each department individually and hopefully get some level of agreement or approval on that. It has to go out to the Budget Committee, so you know our goal is to have this all approved by mid-November, so we can work on getting that T in place for January. So I don't know if there are any other. [17:43] Speaker D (unidentified): Just a couple of questions. [17:44] Speaker E (unidentified): You said next week, I think the 14th or 15th, we're going to go over the budget. Yeah. And you said department heads as well. So department heads are not seeing that over their final budget, not their final budget, but their proposed budget? Oh, yeah. [17:57] Speaker C (unidentified): We've been going back and forth. [17:59] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay. So they've got a pretty good idea. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [18:01] Unidentified department head (revenue report): They've had an opportunity to comment and add changes. Okay. [18:05] Speaker E (unidentified): The stuff that went out to the first iteration of the fiscal review committee, did that committee just get that? Did they get together at some point here? Did they actually have a meeting where they're going to come in here and have a discussion, give us some feedback? How's that committee structured? [18:24] Unidentified department head (revenue report): That's kind of a weird question. [18:25] Speaker F (unidentified): It is a weird question. So, as we move through the process, they get whatever we're working on. And so we're constantly getting immediate feedback from the fiscal department. So there's no set schedule to meet with them. We've met with them twice, and they have recommended that as long as we're getting the documents and we get plenty of advance notice to review them, their feedback is due to me on Friday, on the workbook that the youth read up and what they're reviewing. So, and they all are aware that it's a draft, so we're looking at, you know, the presentation by department, where the gross, where the gross areas of what's going to cause dissidence and what recommendations they're going to have for us, and we'll bring that, hopefully, to the Commission on the 1450. Right. [19:23] David Marshall: Let me reiterate for the public who may not be familiar how we do things, the Commissioners will be meeting with the department heads on it they're each department's budget and you go through that on the item line by line item we digest that information and it comes for the committee later on and we make the presentation that so is there any other clarification we need anything you'd [19:51] Speaker F (unidentified): like to add on that well I mean we've gotten feedback for the last three times will interact with the fiscal advisor we're providing a level of detail that they've never seen before and so the way we're presenting it and the way we're packaging it is getting all kinds of positive feedback from the fiscal advisor who are fiscal minded people they're not the normal personnel that would be interacting with when it comes to the budget these are the people that actually do it for a living so we're quite pleased with the way we're progressing obviously Brenda and her team are adjusting the document that Derrick has given us to make sure that we have the most accurate product for the commission on October 4th and [20:34] David Marshall: I thank the finance director administrator for keeping the fiscal committee involved in this process I know it's a great improvement over what we've done in the past Okay. Any questions or questions? Do you have a comment? [20:52] Speaker D (unidentified): Thank you. I do want to add my appreciation for what you've done to keep this committee involved, because I think we've got some substantial challenges that we're facing in the next few years, and it's important that there's some understanding and, frankly, some municipal involvement in this, and encouraging to see the response from those folks who have expressed concern in the past so that they understand what is going on here regarding the budget committee itself where do we stand with identifying the members of that 's [21:31] David Marshall: on my agenda that's the third item on the administrative agendas item that comes shortly okay any other questions and any comments no further the comments thank you your efforts are still there oh you have more okay I got more [21:48] Unidentified department head (revenue report): And again, just a quick update on the audit for 2025. So I have been preparing, getting documents scanned, which was the process we used for 24, which worked very well. So that is essentially done, maybe a few things haven't been done yet. Working on getting all of our reconciliations up to date. And then because we switched to Edmonds in December of 25, we're going to be using converted data. This may be more information than what you want to hear, but, and some of that, when that data came over, like the descriptions didn't come with Edmonds and there is a way to get at it, 's just going to be me merging some data. So that was actually really good news, I didn't want to have to go back to Trudeau. So the next step is to get with Jason and get that merge of data done so we can get a trial balance and then we can basically start the audit process or start the documentation for the audit. I don't have an ETA on this. We've been pretty focused on the budget lately, so we'll, I mean, the goal is still to try to get it done this year, but I don't know what his schedule is, but that's, that's where we are right now on that. Thank you. Anything else? Blair likes me to just go over the cash flow, which I think Marianne handed to you. So I mean, I spend quite a bit of time trying to make sure this is accurate, but it is, you know, it's actual data up through the end of September and then the rest is, you know, estimates, things I know that are coming, you know, based on budgets. We have been getting quite a bit of municipal tax money in, which has really helped with borrowing. We only ended up borrowing 12 million of these hands. How much will we [24:20] David Marshall: initially thought we got availability up to 15.8, so we're 12 instead of the 15.8. Yep. And we won't, I won't need it. Well, did we budget long in the interest? Where did we buy [24:33] Unidentified department head (revenue report): the pictures? So we budgeted like, I don't know, 35 000. I did a, you know, just rough calculation [24:42] Speaker C (unidentified): I figured about 107 000. Right. So that difference in interest rate is reflected in this. Yeah, that's [24:49] Unidentified department head (revenue report): in there. Get a payback, Arthur, and I've started to do that out of payback 1.5 million. I'll probably pay another million this week just to try to slowly get that all caught up, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's a work in progress. Yeah, we're just watching. I know it's something [25:12] Speaker E (unidentified): This is an issue this year. Have we accurately calculated the interest for next year? Because I'm thinking it's going to be double that, because we're going to need a larger TAN and we need an earlier, so it's probably going to be close to six or seven hundred pounds. Yeah, I [25:30] Speaker C (unidentified): actually haven't done that. Okay, but it's just to put it out there. Yeah, that's definitely, I agree, it doesn't [25:35] Unidentified department head (revenue report): need to be increased. And then the only other issue was the opioid funds, which I think I told you last time, we are slowly kind of drawing that down. We paid Discovery House, so we're taking that, but I want to get that cleaned up by the end of the year too, so it's all in one. Yeah, that would satisfy the feds. Yeah, it's in a special revenue account where [25:59] Speaker C (unidentified): it belongs. So I don't, do you have any questions? So let me clarify, I just want [26:05] David Marshall: to clarify, initially you reported a month or so ago you thought we might have to close out using some of the trios of this year, but now we're able to convert over, so that problem is no, or that situation. Oh, the tip money [26:20] Unidentified department head (revenue report): are, yeah, no, that's still okay, that's, yeah, I still have that and I'm really going to need it, right? So the current agreement that we updated with George was through June 27. We may not need it that long, but that's, we're definitely going to need it through the first of the year until we [26:41] Speaker C (unidentified): out of TAN, basically. Okay, thank you. I do not the old thing, administrator, you have any further [26:48] Speaker F (unidentified): comments? Well, I think if you look at that spreadsheet, I'll answer the Christian Tremble's question on are we tracking the revenue for deeds, because it's in there and all highlighted in yellow, third line down, the feeds, what we're projecting that she's going to bring into the fourth quarter. Yeah, and [27:11] Unidentified department head (revenue report): she's been trending really high this year, so as I [27:17] Speaker C (unidentified): told Blair, I tend to be a little conservative with projections. Yeah, that's 1.4, she was projected, budgeted from 1.25. Yeah, so she has, she told me the other day that it is slowing down for now, so that, I mean, so once I know you talked to up in our 25 [27:41] Speaker E (unidentified): modern, you're gonna get some other things ready for what is, do you know what, and Tim's gonna be on super, what's it tied, you know what the time frame is, and the 25 audit, and does that mean that what the anchors are going to be looking [27:54] Speaker C (unidentified): for over time frame? I think we're still hoping to get something to them early [28:01] Unidentified department head (revenue report): November, and then yeah, then we can't really attempt, but I know we're on their [28:11] Speaker C (unidentified): radar. I don't know exactly where. Any further [28:16] David Marshall: comments or questions, administrator? [28:19] Unidentified department head (revenue report): I just had one other issue, and that was with the Penquist ARPA money. I got an email from Kara Hayes. So they were given $2.2 million, and it was broken into three projects, all to do with housing. And two of them, the two lower amounts, I had them listed as low-income housing and then an A-home. Those projects are done according to PARA, and there's funds left over. So they wanted to take those funds and switch them over to the Millinocket Housing Project, where they said the costs have gone over budget and where they could really use it. So I know under ARPA you are allowed to move money within an already approved project. You can't create a new project at this point, but you can move money over to a new one, and if you look at the, to an existing one, sorry, and if you look at the wording in the agreement for the Villanova housing, is pretty vague. It's for low-income and workforce housing rental homes. So I think it meets the criteria that, so it ends up being around $615,000 that we would move from those two projects over to the housing. So I recommend that the commissioners approve that. I believe it's allowed under the rules, and otherwise, we have to send it back to the [30:03] Speaker C (unidentified): fence, and we don't want to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further comments? I [30:08] Speaker D (unidentified): was going to make a motion that we put in this Pen Quiz to reallocate the funds from projects [30:14] David Marshall: approved to a current project that is in the Millinocket area. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further comment, Administrator? No further questions. I'll call for a question. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed. It's unanimous, 3-0. Thank you very much, and thank you, we'll convey that to, yeah, she'll be happy. Yes, I'm happy. Okay, next on the agenda is Director Fox in the EMA update. Good morning, Director, and welcome. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. [31:01] Unidentified department representative (travel authorization request): I'm coming before you today to seek travel authorization in alignment with the new procurement policy to allow Thomas Barris, the deputy director of our office, to attend a training in Salem, New Hampshire later this month. The cost for the lodging, course registration, if there is one, and any applicable per diem will be covered by our Homeland Security grant funds. The only cost to the county will be Mr. Barrow's regular salary, anyway, whether he went to the training or not, and use of a department vehicle to travel to and from the course. Very good, thank you. [31:54] David Marshall: move approval of the request I would second that okay and one comment they did these type of things now this is this is something that I think is this required to come to only as a minister is this required to come to the Commission or is this something that you put in you feel you could handle in the course of your administrative duties these type of things seem rather perform form and should actually be accommodated through the administrator's office rather than having these things individually come to us each time. We agree with that assessment. I guess my only [32:33] Speaker F (unidentified): concern is my elected partners and what they choose to do and how that's fed. Well, yeah, so apparently we're falsely in place and the way we ordered it so that we do have the transferring checks and balances in place, but the elected department heads may feel different, so we may have to have a further on conversation. [33:02] David Marshall: Okay. Well, let me give you my initial position that all departments should go through the administrator on these types of procedures, whether they are appointed department heads or elected department heads. We need a uniformity of purpose and a uniformity of protocol, call and that would, that would be my inclination, but with that we'll take that up in a later manner. We'll call the question. All the other comments? No. The only reason I think this is good that it [33:33] Speaker E (unidentified): came across is particularly an issue where we've asked for restraint on travel. I mean, this is going to be by vehicle going New Hampshire. Some department said they want to go and it's being paid for not by the county. So some department wanted to go to a one-day conference in San Francisco and buy tickets and I mean we and the county was going to pay for it. We might have a different opinion and that's why I think it's good that it came. Well, I the difference [34:00] David Marshall: my view would be I think the administrator can make that, financial judgment in our behalf. He's fully capable of making that decision and I'll just put that out there. I don't think all of these things need to come to the commission. I think there needs to be a greater fluidity of the conduct of the county's business and it'd be a uniformity as well. So but that's related discussion. I'll call the question. Those in favor signify by saying aye. It's unanimous. [34:34] Speaker F (unidentified): Thank you, thank you. Before he leaves, I'd just like to make a public comment. And you see he's taking on the additional duties as the interim facility director, and we are truly appreciative of the actions that he's taken. I've been hearing a lot of positive remarks from the department heads on the things that we're addressing as the interim director. So I just want to thank them again publicly for taking on that. It's not an easy additional requirement and [35:02] David Marshall: just wanted to bring that thank you stole my thunder i was going to mention that in the commissioner's comments later on i thank you congratulate you i think congratulations of the dual head of ema and the our public services are and i appreciate what you're doing and i know you'll be great effort as you have done in the ema to that often as well thank you all right let's move on to the next one director Kenny IT good morning director again good morning so [35:53] Unidentified IT/access control staff: the request of the administrator and bringing the board and access control policy. So a little bit of history, the east and system that we currently use for access control was originally managed by RCC, and then HR took it over, and now it's in our hands. The system got kind of out of hand with the access that we provided to non-employees, and it hadn't been audited in a while. We had a lot of old employees I don't want to work here if you still had access to the building, so we're just bringing forward a policy to kind of outline on the process of requesting a card for vendors, agency partners, employees, and all of that. [36:41] David Marshall: Thank you. Open up to any questions? [36:45] Speaker E (unidentified): Does this make sense? So say I'm a vendor, if I have to be an electrician, and I need to come in here for a day and get into the basement, and I have a card that at the end of the day expires? That's the plan, yep. [36:57] Unidentified IT/access control staff: Yep. Yep. So if you're, if you say it's going to take you, know, three days, the card will expire after that time frame and will only set the time that you're allowed to scan into the building within business hours or if it needs to be external to that. [37:12] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay. Depending on where they're going, it will require escort. Yep. [37:18] David Marshall: I want to, yes, I want to thank the administration. I know when I looked at this, an awful lot of work went into this, my background in criminal justice and security. This is an excellent proposal you've done. It addresses some of the security deficiencies that we've had that have developed, and it plugs all the loopholes that I could detect. So you've done an excellent job on this, and I thank you very much. Any other comments? [37:46] Speaker D (unidentified): In the event that we have a nighttime situation where somebody needed to access the building, they do not have a card, what would the protocol or procedure be? [37:57] Unidentified department representative (travel authorization request): We'll turn that to the administrator. [37:59] Unidentified IT/access control staff: Yeah, I'm going to throw that over to him. I mean, as IT, I'm 24 hours on call, and I live right in Bangor, so worst case, somebody could call me. I could come in. RCC is here 24 hours. They can always buzz somebody in. They have a bond on their desk to buzz the I think it's the course report so I believe there's avenues to be able to facilitate that administrator any [38:22] David Marshall: additional comments concur with this statement concurs okay this is the motions been made second and seconded any further discussion no further discussion I'll call the question all those in favor see I'm saying aye unanimous thank you very much and thank you for the good work administrator this is just one of those things that just is improving the quality of life here thank you do we have one [38:49] Speaker F (unidentified): that all three commissioners are in this line yeah I mean I'm sorry so it's in here yeah I have not [38:57] David Marshall: yet so I think you guys have both signed both of these yes thank you very much I appreciate that. Let's move on. Next on the agenda, UT, Director Boswell. Do we still use director or former director? I guess citizen. No, it was never citizen, George. We've got you for the next five years. You can't get away. And Tina, welcome again. Short and sweet. Okay, we like it. Okay. [39:37] Speaker D (unidentified): The Burlington-Lowell Transfer Station, we have residents, full-time residents that live in a couple of our townships, Summit and Grand Falls, and we've had this agreement with, these residents are allowed to use that transfer station in Lowell and Burlington, and they've done some upgrades to it. They've done a great job. It's been a great working relationship. We have a new three-year contract in front of us to continue to use those services, and they've asked for a $2,500 increase to be spread over all three years. So to us, it's worth the effort, it's worth the expense, and it falls in line with all the new changes they made, capital [40:20] David Marshall: of investment they've made in that time. Yeah, right, moved to accept the new contract. It's been moved to accept. Is there a second? I would also say the tonnage is up almost 25 percent over [40:33] Speaker E (unidentified): 23 to 25, so yeah. Any reason, I mean, are there more residents up there? Yeah, a lot of them, people are [40:42] Speaker D (unidentified): continuing to move into the more rural area, fill up these homes that people have lived in years, and it's a lot. There's a lot more stuff being thrown away. If you can imagine, not everybody believes in a yard sale, so there's a lot more stuff being thrown away. So they're dealing with more and more product every year. We call it junk [41:11] David Marshall: in the, in the wintertime, but during quarters we call them antiques. Okay, yes, okay, thank you very much. Been moved and seconded, and we don't, did we already go on? I'll call the vote. All those in favor of the Burlington old transfer station contract renewal, please signify by saying hi. Unanimous, thank you very much. Thank you, George, for the good work. Tina, thank you, keeping George honest. Okay, next one, you are also asking for a new one-year contract [41:42] Speaker D (unidentified): with the town of Chester. We rent storage space for our sand and salt in their shed. We help maintain their shed if there's a breakdown or a problem. We pay a percentage of that based off the number of the ads we have in their shed. We're asking for a one-year contract this time. Normally it's a three to five-year contract, however it's a brand new plow contractor, new to plowing roads this big, this bigger project, and new to Chester, to work with them, and we were only comfortable with the one-year contract to see once it works well. That means we'll be back here next year at this same time, hopefully going for a [42:20] David Marshall: three-year contract. That would have been my question, is why the one year, you [42:23] Speaker D (unidentified): explained it. Yeah, thank you very much. The other thing is there was a slight increase in the cost per yard to sand, to see, you expect, and but the plow contracts are plowing remain the same as last year's contract. Who do accept [42:36] David Marshall: to do contract for one year? It's been moved to accept the contract. Second. Just a question. [42:44] Speaker E (unidentified): If I move in second open the common the fuel threshold, how's that affecting us and this one diesel prices and how's it going to affect other contracts from UT? That's a, that's a very valid [42:55] Speaker D (unidentified): question for the time. We've, we've already been every one of our contracts that have a fuel closet [43:01] Speaker E (unidentified): and every one of them is going to, they're planning on exercise actually all different. This is 550. [43:06] Speaker D (unidentified): They're all different levels, they're all different, they're from 450 to 550. Yeah, we're lucky that this one is at 550 this year and some of those that are four dollars or 450 like four dollars in Medley. Wow, you're going to see a big increase. These guys say you plow and you get [43:23] Speaker E (unidentified): say diesel's a six bucks just to make, I don't know what the estate has taxes. If they buy six dollars, do we have to pay that 50 cent difference? Do they, don't we can't get the credit on the gas tax [43:33] Speaker D (unidentified): no, they're paying the road tax. These are all diesel vehicles usually, right? Mostly, yeah, so we're talking the higher end. Yeah, we're lucky on that budget, in that particular budget, in our snow removal process budget we have a ten thousand dollar storm contingency just in case. We're probably going to use the whole thing. We also had fifteen hundred dollars in there for fuel adjustment clause. Now that was five thousand to be in addition to the ten. Yeah, okay, now that was five thousand dollars to fuel adjustment years ago, but we went two years without spending highly anything in it, so we thought we were comfortable dropping it. A big mistake. You should have stayed [44:10] David Marshall: with the five thousand in the budget. Yeah, so reintroduce that in the, we will then come to a new budget, we're going to reintroduce the five. We need to make sure we, anticipate those type of things not being dropped on us the last minute, right? Well, we're fortunate to have that [44:28] Speaker D (unidentified): storm contingency and otherwise we'd be, also a lot of our cloud contracts for this coming winter, we budgeted an increase and we didn't get an increase in two-year extension, so we've got a little bit of play there in that, but it's going to hurt. I mean, it's a lot and you have to, well [44:45] David Marshall: everything is predicated on the cost of fuel oil, it impacts every aspect of our economy. Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Oh, it's been moved and seconded, I'll follow the question. All those in favor of the one-year contract for the town of Chester, please signify by saying aye. Unanimous. There you go, thank you very much, director, deputy director, I appreciate it. [45:12] Speaker D (unidentified): And let's say we have one more, right? I just wanted to give you guys a heads up, an update on the Howland Fire District. There's a lot of, you've seen in the paper, I'm sure you've seen it in the local papers, at least in the Lincoln News, that one of the options in front of us, we currently have a five-year lease. The district has a five-year lease for the town of Howland for that new fire station. At the end of the five-year lease, there's a lot of concern that price could go much higher to the district. At least payment, so we're trying to stabilize what we believe future costs the next 20 years will be, and one of the biggest expenses is going to be our lease. So we're paying 280,000 a year now lease on that, and we could build a building into that, so we've offered to buy the building from Howland, and it's in negotiations whether [46:13] David Marshall: it happens or not is a really big question mark. Yeah, when do they, what is their, because they bonded that out, when is it, a 30-year bond, what does that come doing, it's been there three years, so we've got another 27 years. Yeah, but we would assume that, I take it we don't [46:33] Speaker D (unidentified): No, that's part of the negotiation is what's going to happen at the end of the bond. We can't assume the bond from what we know, but they're trying to get legal advice from a bond lawyer to figure out what our rights are, what the town of Howland's rights are. Purchase outright? Yeah. Does the lease include the utility costs for the building? Parts of it. We pay our own electricity estimated off square feet, square foot. Yeah, it includes snow plowing and so on and so forth, because that's what they do, they have them from the works department. Some things are in it, some are not. So currently, if I understand it, the town of Holland owns the building, is associated with the mortgage, takes care of certain utilities, I assume water and sewer are public there, yep, and then the question would be what's in the maintenance provisions to the building. Their bond payment is two hundred and seventeen thousand a year, we're paying 280. The difference between the two is supposed to help them put money aside for a capital expense, should you need something, a roof or a wall or a problem or a boiler. So it's on them for the, to those major repairs, based off that piece of pie that between what they pay and what they get. I just want you guys know because it's public information now and it's been out there. It was a long way from being resolved. We still got two years left on our lease, but by the end of two years we hope to have it resolved. So but it's good and bad with both situations. So far it's been very transparent and the town has been working wholeheartedly. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank [48:24] David Marshall: okay. Now we want to do, we want to go back to it's on its radio or what do you want to go [48:31] Speaker F (unidentified): to? Honestly. Okay, we have somebody that can call them to see if they forgot. Yeah, I didn't bring [48:37] Speaker C (unidentified): my phone. Okay, I sent Tim an email. We'll [48:43] David Marshall: go ahead to the next item. The agenda is administration and turn over to administrative member. Administrator. [48:55] Speaker F (unidentified): Yes. The decision on GCN 208 in your binder is the memorandum of agreement that we, HR, drafted for your review, pending your concurrence. We ask you to sign and we'll submit it through process to the union. [49:17] David Marshall: Okay. Do we need a motion on that or just our signatures? [49:21] Speaker F (unidentified): You just need your signatures and your concurrence. [49:24] David Marshall: Very good. And is that in this funder? Is that in this funder? So you don't sign this there? Yeah. So here it is here. I'm the last signator, I guess. Yes. Do you want us to date these ourselves, Administrator? Please. Yeah. Right there. That's really very cool. That's correct. Oh, that's 100. All right. Just dictate what it is. Okay. Okay. That's done. [50:14] Speaker F (unidentified): Next item? We need a decision on Mattis in the state of Maine from the previous commissioning meeting on 9-2 to activate the hearing. Right. Open [50:28] David Marshall: that up for... What do you recommend? Should we do that? Yes. Okay. Okay, well, the next one that we're going to talk about is, as the administrator just mentioned, is the tax evasion hearing for matters John v. the State of Maine. We held that on September 2nd, 2026. six we have we heard the testimony and now we are to render a decision. The analysis that we use as commissioners for these type of cases are three criteria, three prongs. One is market value accuracy. The second is equity or uniformity, and the third is procedural fairness and correctness. After hearing testimony, both of the state and the Mattises, we have listened to the, they presented their information. They answered the questions that we had as best they could, and it's now up to the commission to run to their vote on the matter. And if you'd like, I can either be here [52:30] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, my review of this, there appear to be some unique factors that affect the matter's property. And while I think the state has done a reasonable job in creating consistency and providing some discounts, I would see the preponderance of evidence, to me, indicates that we should perhaps reduce the state's valuation. I think looking at some of the percentages they used, if we used the appropriate discounts, that should come in somewhere around $75,000 for a valuation. [53:15] David Marshall: Yeah, from what I looked at, and this is the first prong, which is the market value accuracy, I think the state may have exceeded the market value. The advocates had offered comparables, and that were more representative of undeveloped waterfront, which is what the plaintiff's situation was. The state used improved camp property as a benchmark for improved lot, not a comparable unimproved. The plaintiff produced three comparable unimproved lot recommendations. The state did not take that into consideration. The second is procedural fairness, and that was no explanation provided by the statement of magnitude of the assessment increase. The I think that the this supports a reduced support argument for reduced assessment. The state assessed at 125,920. The plaintiff recommended 62,960. There was one other aspect I want to talk about, and that was the, well, in any event, we had 125,920 by the state. They requested 662 960. Commissioner in Cushing has indicated he believes that there is a valid argument for reducing it, and that the plaintiff has met his obligations under this. I also believe he's met it. The question for me then becomes what is the degree of relief and abatement we should come to. So at that point I'll turn it over to Commissioner I Tremble for his comments and evaluation. I think we're all in agreement that they should that was [55:27] Speaker E (unidentified): over assessed in 2025. It's just a matter of how much over assessed it was, and we're trying to come up with a figure that's not only fair to this taxpayer but the other ones in that area they looking at in 2026. The state reduced the evaluation of that when they put another a form, and I can't, I asked the state tax and the state tax revenue worth, they based the 26 figure why they reduced it that amount. I can't really remember what he said, but it made sense to me. And so I would propose that we reduce the 2025 tax to 98 000 evaluation which was a 26. It's substantially less. It's not as much as that. I don't think it should be as low as a 62 [56:14] David Marshall: 62. I think it was 62.9. Well, the 62.9, you know, the 62.9, when I asked him about that, he didn't, I don't think they really qualified how he really, how he came to that figure. It makes sense how he got to that. He's got to pull that out. So, it's hard to use that as a basis. It made sense in how they arrived at the 98,000. They did make sense in how they arrived at the 125,000. [56:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Commissioner Cushing, any further? I could concur with that. I think using a percentage [56:45] David Marshall: formula is more appropriate than a flat amount. Okay, and so with that we'll ask the commissioner [56:53] Speaker D (unidentified): Cushing to make the make the motion. So if we're looking at the state valuation and we reduce that by 30, it comes in just slightly over 98 000. I've not done that. Who's got the calculator? [57:10] David Marshall: What's 30% of $125,920? It's [57:21] Speaker D (unidentified): going to be somewhere around $98,000. Okay. I would make the motion to find in the property owner's favor [57:47] David Marshall: in reducing that to the set amount to the eighty thousand one hundred and forty four. Correct. Okay, Commissioner Tremble, second. Any further discussions? Administered any comments or observations? None. Chair will call for the vote. All those in favor of reducing the assessment to eighty thousand one hundred and forty four dollars, please signify by saying hi. Unanimous for you all. Thank you very much, and we'll relay that information to the appropriate parties involved. Okay, so they're still working on it is it is it a snafu or okay we're going to move back to the agenda and we're going to go to item d listen today's agenda the audits with tim hoytress from chest and kearney and this is for the audits of 23 and 24. Good morning. Are you with us, Tim? Good morning, Tim. Are you with us? Check the string between the two tin cans and see if you're sure. There [59:29] Blair Tinkham: we go. Okay. I should be in now. [59:32] David Marshall: We don't have you visually. Do you wish to join us visually? There you are. Well, good morning. Okay, thanks for your help. I'll turn it over to for you. Wait, did you send this out? [59:44] Speaker E (unidentified): I'm sorry, say that again. Did we get copies of the audit? [59:53] Blair Tinkham: I know Blair and Brenda got copies, so you can send more if you like, but I'll do you want me to share it on the screen for today? Yeah, okay, go ahead and proceed the administrator's [1:00:09] David Marshall: bond to retrieve the physical documents, but go ahead and proceed with your presentation. Okay. [1:00:15] Blair Tinkham: I will, I'll throw this up on screen so you can see that instead of me there, so we got all the technical stuff worked out, I think, and I'm here, so we are going over the financials for the year ended December 31, 2024. I'll scroll down through. Can you increase the yeah, how's that better? More, one more, one more. Okay, there we go, one more. Wonderful. Oh, that's perfect, there you go, thank you, perfect. Okay, so looking at our audited report for 12 31 24, I think I have explained this before, but I will explain it again. You do have what's called an adverse opinion with respect to your governmental activities funds. Every other fund is unmodified opinion, but the reason you get an adverse opinion on your governmental activities is because of a standard called Gatsby 75, and what Gatsby 75 requires you to do is like Gatsby 68 with your pension liabilities, it requires you to report your proportionate share of what they call other post-retirement benefits related to your health plan. This requires actuaries to come in and do this calculation because you use Anthem as your health insurer, they don't provide that for you. To get that done would be very expensive. [1:02:05] Speaker D (unidentified): We use Cigna, we do not use Anthem. [1:02:09] Blair Tinkham: Oh, Cigna, sorry. But so to back up, the only insurer that I know that provides this information for their clients is Maine Municipal Health Trust. Provides that as part of the package. Anthem doesn't, Cigna doesn't. So in order to meet the requirement, you would have to go out and hire an actuary, which would be very expensive. I honestly have no idea, but I'm told it would be tens of thousands of dollars to have this actuarial work done so that you could properly report this in your financial statement. So because the information is not available, you get the adverse opinion on your governmental activities. Really at the end of the day, it doesn't other than having the adverse opinion, it really has no bearing on Your on your statements, because while you report this liability, it's not a direct liability that you're ever going to write a check. You might recognize it through increased premiums or something like that, but it's not a true liability where the county has to has to write a check. So I always get a lot of questions on, you know, the adverse opinion. Bankers always ask. Once I explain it to them, they're generally understanding and fine with it when they realize that all the other information is correct and meets the standards. So Tim, ah, yep, does the liability fall on the insurer or the county in this case? Well, ultimately it's, it would fall on the county in terms of probably increase premiums, like, when I get down to when we get down to the statement in that position, I'll, I'll explain it better. Indeed. Because then I can compare it to Gatsby 68. So, a couple of pages away, I'll, I'll get in depth on that. But the rest of your rest of your financial statements, the rest report is what we call on modified report states that all your funds remaining funds are in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. down. So the next page, five starts a management discussion analysis, which is just a basically a summary of the financial statements, summarize data for the reader. And then we will get down to the actual financial statements, the statement in that position. You will see there we go statement net position so current assets 17.8 million dollars you had 15.6 million dollars in cash on hand 10 million 10.7 million in capital assets 850,000 in other assets essentially to do with leases and then when we get into the deferred inflows and outflows of resources, so divert up flows related to pension expense. This comes from main purse. That's 2.2Million. You do have 31,000 of deferred up flows related to that's the Gatsby 75. I talked about this portion comes from main purse. But again, there would be a portion to the signal as well. well. The total current liability is $13.6 million. Most of that's deferred revenue from various grants or funds that have come in that haven't been earned yet. And then we get into the long term liabilities, which is this pension liability. So on your books, you have a pension liability of $4,727,804. And then you have your OPEB liability related to the Maine PERS life insurance portion. That $4.7 million is a check you're never gonna have to write. It's essentially your share of Maine PERS unfunded liability. So Maine PERS is never gonna come to you and say, hey, you've got to write a check for $4.7 million for your retirees. It would essentially come through rate changes, you know, the market improves, you know, there are times where the pension is fully funded, so that would decrease that liability. But bottom line, with the pension, you're never gonna write that check. Same with the OPEB liability, if you had reported the OPEB related to health insurance, it would sit on your books. It's gonna change your year to year, but never are you obligated to actually cut a check. It's going to be made up, like I said, through increased premiums down the road or something like that. But so indirectly you're going to pay, but not where, not like you're paying a vendor bill. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, it's, it's not always the easiest thing to explain. It just, it's when they, when they implemented these standards and it's been 10 years on Gatsby, 68 and 75 was a couple of years behind. What they were really targeting was these municipalities, cities, governments that had their own pensions that were underwater, where someday the actual city would have to make up that deficit, and it made sense with them. But doing it through these cost-sharing pension plans and cost-sharing plans is really difficult to wrap your head around in terms of putting this liability on the book and recognizing that liability. [Unidentified department representative (travel authorization request): So that's] one reason, like, with the adverse opinion, a lot of people don't, you know, most people are fine with it once you explain it to it in terms of bankers and whatnot, because they know that you're never going to incur that liability directly. Correctly. So back to the statement, after assets, liabilities, you're left with net position of 11 million, 12 504. Most of that is capital assets, 10 million, 672. 86 000 is restricted, and at the end of the year you had 252 977 of unrestricted funds. Tim, [1:08:42] Speaker E (unidentified): when you look at cash on hand at the end of 2024. Are the ARPA funds part of this audit? They're not audited [1:08:49] Blair Tinkham: separately, are they? Yes, I believe that like a lot of that cash on hand is ARPA. And that's the offset in the liabilities of deferred revenue of almost 12 million. And we'll see that when we get into the individual funds here a few pages down. And actually, so page 14 is your statement of activities, which is your income and expenses as it relates to the net position. And then this is probably, this is what we're just talking about, the individual funds. So you have, as you know, you have several funds, the general fund, your main operating fund, then the jail fund, and then the ARPA fund had the bulkier cash, so 50 million 660 of cash on hand. 12 million of that was allocated to ARPA. And then few other smaller funds, the bond, PRCC bond, and then other non-major funds are just the smaller capital projects, special revenue funds and so forth. But you will see on the general fund side, general fund had total assets of 4,884,000, but liabilities of just over nine million, and as a result there was an unassigned deficit of five million dollars at the end of 2024 with the, with the general fund. A lot of that is attributable to the jail fund. As you know, over the last two or three years the jail fund has consumed a lot of resources and definitely put a hole in your, in your general fund, as the general fund has had to transfer money to the jail to absorb those, the costs there. One of the big liabilities on the general fund is due to other funds, 7.7 million. And most of that is like with your capital projects funds. So, you know, in theory, you could release some of those funds from capital projects if you wanted to strengthen your general fund, but then you would be depleting your reserves, so to speak. Questions on the individual funds? [1:11:20] Speaker D (unidentified): When you track these, where are you getting your data as to what funds are available and what is in the line items versus what's actually on hand for cash? [1:11:36] Blair Tinkham: That's from the individual fund ledgers that we get from Brenda and Bob provided those. So, essentially from your, from your accounting department, you're in your records questions. I don't move on to the next page, which is actually the two pages down. [1:12:01] David Marshall: Sorry. Go ahead. Page 17. [1:12:06] Blair Tinkham: Yes. Page 17. So page 17 is your statement of revenues and expenditures for each individual fund. Fund general fund revenues of 28 million dollars, expenditures of 19 million, but also transfers out of over 13 million, so that created a reduction in your fund balance on the general fund of four and a half million dollars. Most of those transfers out from the general fund went to the jail fund of 13.139 transferred out, 12.4 million went to the general fund or the jail fund, sorry, to resolve the deficit there. Because as you see, you got state funding on the jail side of 3.7 million, 68,000 of other various revenues, but total jail costs were just under five and a half million, so the general fund is making up 12 and a half million dollars to keep the jail going. So sorry, yep, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, that's basically the jail cap [1:13:20] Speaker C (unidentified): right, that 12 million. Yeah, okay, yeah, you gotta follow up on that same item, Tim, so [1:13:28] Speaker E (unidentified): we're in, obviously this is part of the 2024, so, and you look at controls and recommendations, so I think we've corrected things in 2026 going forward, but if we were back in 24 and this isn't an issue, there's nothing the jail did wrong in that department, but say we budgeted X for the jail and they go over by half a million dollars, then we never change the budget. I mean, who, does that need to be authorized? I mean, it's going to come out of fund balance, but procedurally, I mean, does an administrator just say, I'm going to slide that money from fund balance into the jail? Should that have come back to the commissioners to make a decision how that was going to be funded? And what's the process? [1:14:17] Blair Tinkham: So, with a question like that, I always say, refer to legal just because. I don't, I don't know, don't know all the legalities of the budgetary, you know, I mean, in my, in my world, and probably yours as well, you know, the bill's got to get paid. So it's coming from somewhere. You're not like you, do your budget is approved by the commissioners. So, any amendment probably should be approved by the commissioners. It's a good practice, but there's really no violation for you're overextending the budget. I mean, you're, you're billing out your taxes. You're getting what you get essentially here. In this case, you just rated your savings, but as we all know, the bill needed to be paid. Yes, it would be good in my mind to have the commissioners affirm that, but we'll see when we get into the budgetary comparison. I mean, I'm sure there was, I don't recall off the top of my head, but I'm sure there was significant overruns, which, as we all know, the cost goes up. And as you, one of the other things, if I recall from the jail, is you were, I believe, were boarding out a lot of prisoners, too. Yes. Increased the cost. So between personnel cost and boarding cost, you had some significant overruns there that were more or less unavoidable. You have sadly, you have no control over your population of the, of the [1:16:06] Speaker D (unidentified): over where our necessary revenues come from. We're captive, what we can get from the property [1:16:13] Blair Tinkham: taxpayer, and we're at the mercy of the state to backfill. Well, actually, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's definitely between being between a rock and a hard place because, I mean, I recall several years ago when the jail was doing well and actually taking in prisoners and making some money. But the pendulum has definitely swung the other way. Any questions on this page, 17, income and expense? I'll move on here. I'm not going through every page. I'm just kind of hitting the, hitting the high points, low points, whatever they may be. Page 19 is statement of fiduciary funds. These are just funds held by the county on behalf of other groups. Nothing really to get into detail there. The biggest portion of that is your, the private perfect, private purpose trust fund, which is your Voya account? Beginning with page 21 is the notes of the financial statements. That's just detail on accounting policies, further details on what's in the financial statements. So again, I won't get into great detail unless there's a specific question, but I wanted to jump down to the budgetary comparison because, as we were just talking about that, these pages I am on page 51 now [David Marshall: Okay.] Everybody there's okay. Page, 51 is your budget to actual by category. So you can see on the general fund you would slightly over on human relations payroll, so forth, 20,000. Emergence management was 49,000 to the good. Tele communications was very good in comparison with budget, budgeted 4.2 million, used 33.7, so that was very positive, mostly in payroll. District attorney's office was positive on the budget side, 76,000. Commissioners were slightly over budget, 17,000. Most of that was payroll. County. Treasure was favorable variance, 40,000. County buildings again, a favorable variance of 25,000. Deeds favorable 59,000, probate 21,000 for the, for the good. Sheriff was well over budget. Budget, what do you have, 485,000 again, mostly in payroll costs and service utility costs. That was a four and eighty five thousand dollar deficit. See continued favorable variances of a process, UT admin IT, 94,000 favorable variants, safety to 2900 favorable variants, variance and a few other ones. Capital outweigh that went to your sort of favorable variance, that was for reserves. These are all smaller programs, labor relations, interest, debt service, 570,000 to the good, and then again transfers out you would budgeted 8.2 million to go to the jail fund, and again as I mentioned earlier, you would actually had to contribute 12.4 million to the jail fund. So overall that was a negative variance of 3.7 million dollars on the general fund side. I'm going to go back up, sorry here, and find the, I'm going to find the jail. Yeah, most of that was the jail, right? That was, yes, I mean primarily due to the jail fund here. I'm trying to find over [Speaker D (unidentified): Yes.] The jail fund was approximately four minutes. Yeah, you transferred 4.7 more to the jail fund than you had budgeted again. [1:21:10] David Marshall: The jail, yeah, that was just [1:21:12] Blair Tinkham: caught costs, unforeseen costs I think in payroll and in boarding. Have you done any comparison [1:21:21] Speaker D (unidentified): comparison between 20 to 24 on where the jail numbers were? The that's the jail fund. [1:21:32] Blair Tinkham: Okay, like a comparison of the cost year to year? Yes, I can, I can pull that up here in a, yeah, let me, let me go through the state, the, let me finish this statement and then we can, we can take a look at, I can go back and get the prior years and then we can, we can see where that [1:21:51] David Marshall: that has gone yeah the 8.2 what page you on i'm on page 56 yeah jail right yeah the 8.263 is the actual jail cap that we assess taxpayers yeah okay that's the that's the original budget right so i just trapped that from the 12 and we transferred the jail had a four million dollar loss yeah we couldn't cover or 876 right and we couldn't cover that's what we're there that's where we are that's where we're getting into trouble yeah that 's where yeah [1:22:30] Blair Tinkham: Yeah, exactly, as I believe that was Glenn. Yeah, that was what you budgeted 8.2 million for the cat coming from, coming from the taxes, is the tax base, and it ended up being utilizing 12.4 from the general fund. So that does not [1:22:53] Speaker D (unidentified): include the revenue that or payments that we received from the state for jill funding, correct? [1:23:02] Blair Tinkham: Correct the state funding was what they say about 300,000 that was in the previous statement of activities. Yeah, I'll back up to that was, oh yeah, 3.7 million. Yeah, so you had 3.7 million in outside revenues, 15 and a half million expenditures, and go against the 4.1. Then no, the no, that deficit is in addition. So you had budgeted your state funding and then your cap, you, exceeded the cat, your, cap, your budget by, the $4 million. [1:23:49] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay. So the, if I'm following this correctly, the 8.263 is what we could raise from the property taxpayer of Penobscot County. Yeah. Then we received 3.7 from the state. [1:24:04] Speaker C (unidentified): Yep, right. [1:24:08] Blair Tinkham: Your actual your actual expenditures were 15 million 419,996 for the jail. 3.7 of that came from the state and there was like 68,000 from other sources, charges for services, miscellaneous revenues. So that left a 12 million 401,000 deficit that had to come from the general fund of what you had, but you had budgeted like 8.7 million tax paid out. Okay, so you ended up needing, you know, 50 more than what you had budgeted essentially. [1:24:55] Speaker D (unidentified): I guess I'm I'm still a little lost as to where the state share of jail funding contributed to the jail budget. [1:25:07] Blair Tinkham: What page is that? Let's back up to page 17. [Speaker E (unidentified): 17.] Yeah, page 17, second column, you'll see jail fund. So that shows your actual income and expense. So the intergovernment intergovernmental revenue of three million seven oh two six thirty eight is your state funding. Yeah, had 46092 of fees, 22,677 of miscellaneous. So total incoming revenues were three million 771,407. Total jail expenditures were 15 million 419,996. So by 2011 left the deficit of 11 million 648. The general fund transferred in 12 million 401, so that did increase the fund balance a little bit on the jail side. You had a the start of the year with a deficit in the jail fund of 245,000, so there was 507 left in the jail fund at the end of the year. Okay, so they probably so the probably transferred a little bit more than you actually needed to, I mean you could have could transfer that back technically, but at the end of the year that there was a small fund balance showing on the jail side. Okay, thank you. Okay, let's roll back down here. A lot of this I probably don't even get too in depth in. I'll just say, okay, so this is your page 57 now. So these are what we call your non-major funds. They're all smaller funds, your special revenue funds, which are a lot of small grants, and then your capital projects funds. So I mentioned that you do have a while, you have a deficit in your general fund at the end of 2024. You did have funds in your special revenue and your capital projects funds. So your capital projects funds are essentially your reserves that had a balance of 3.4 million at the end of 2024. No cash, all the cash is of course held by the general fund, and special revenue funds had a balance of four point four million two hundred eighty thousand at the end of 2024. Page 58 is your income an expense on that, those two, those various funds. The capital projects funds decreased slightly, 48 000. Special revenue funds grew by 1.2 million. So a lot of the cash you're sitting on is essentially allocable to those funds. Flip the page and that's what this is, just a summary of what comprises those various funds. A lot of different grant funds on the special revenue side. So there really isn't a whole lot you can move or use for general fund expenditures if you wanted to move those, as it's mostly restricted. Well, when we get down to the capital projects funds, again there's money sitting there. I'll be jumping, I'll be on page 75 here once I, once I get the pages turned and stop scrolling. So page 75, this is your various capital projects funds that you're holding money in or you're holding reserves, essentially the cash as I said is in the general fund. So buildings, motor vehicle, parking lot improvement, 703, 40,000, 446. Sheriff vehicles, public safety, lab equipment, those are all smaller. Restoration, deeds restoration surcharges, that's about 545,000. Deeds computer equipment, 77,000 in reserve. Dispatch reserve 417,000. PRCC console 129 construction 243. So again, just various Catholic probates are charged 185,000, property acquisition 235,984. [1:30:22] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Question for you, so if we wanted to move those reserves back to the general fund, you're saying [1:30:30] Blair Tinkham: That we can do that, the commissioners have the authority to do that. Okay, if they want to release those reserves to try and strengthen them, and it would make it okay, and it would make our general fund look better, that would beef up your general fund. You wouldn't actually have to move any cash because if you look at the capital projects funds, it's all due from the general fund anyway. So essentially the general fund sitting on the cash, this is just a promise from the general fund more or less to pay that as needed. So yes, I mean that would help your general fund to release some of these reserves. If you know, I know you, I'm sure there's a need for them, but I guess the more pressing need in my mind would be, you know, address the general [1:31:19] Speaker E (unidentified): fund deficit. Right, can I just add to that? I think it's also would be helpful for departments because even though we on paper they think, oh I've got a vehicle reserve with fifty thousand dollars in it, well it is not fifty thousand dollars. And so I think it would be helpful for the staff to transfer then. I think we keep the reserves and replenish them when we can on paper, but I think to zero them out so people know there's there's no money. We treat I guess for the most part you [1:31:51] Blair Tinkham: know the department heads kind of know these reserves are out there and have a capital replacement plan, so you know it might need mean you know pushing off some capital replacements for [1:32:02] Speaker F (unidentified): a few years, but what I'm saying is we explained it right. No, I mean [1:32:08] Speaker D (unidentified): I think there's certain funds here that are designated though that we can't [1:32:17] Blair Tinkham: transfer right most of like the special reserve funds are committed for various grant projects or grant functions that can't be transferred but the go the capital projects the bulk if not all those should be just funds that the commissioners have set aside over the years for these various projects so the a lot of the bigger ones are like deeds and probate surcharge at which i assume is restaurant one is like for example we have restoration surcharge deeds 545 000 which i don't know that 's for A particular project, but that, you know, there is there is there is funds there which, like I said, if you if you determine that could get pushed off and you could live without the reserve, you could move that back to general fund and make your general fund look stronger. Okay, we'll we'll take a look at that. Thank you. Yeah, no, I mean, at the end of the day, it's, you know what, it's, I know one of your larger issues over the years is what past couple years at least have been cash flow. This won't necessarily improve your cash flow, but it will make the fund balance [1:33:41] Unidentified department head (revenue report): look better. And like Commissioner Trumbull was saying, I think it would alleviate some confusion. [1:33:50] Blair Tinkham: Exactly. Yeah, because I mean, it's like for the average person, they can look at your financial statement and say, well, you know, how can you be sitting on 15 million dollars and say you don't have any money? And it's like, well, because we got it all tied up, you know, we're committed to other things. So if we release those commitments, we can help our main working fund. Okay, looking further down here. That's the bulk of the financial statements. There was one more page 87, which is just detail on your capital assets. And then we get into the federal compliance areas as you were with every year. year, any, federal expenditures that exceed 750,000, which is actually now a million going into 2025. You need to do a compliance audit, you're well over the threshold, you had $11 million in federal expenditures for 2024. So with that, we have to test the larger program for compliance. And for 2024, we tested ARPA and WIA. The WIA program is the fund you administer. You're the fiscal agent for the Northwest Development Board. So those funds are passing through the county. Those are two large programs and we have test programs. programs the large programs need to be tested at a minimum once every three years and we need to test 40 of your total. Yeah, just to correct your work, Eastern Maine development, not Northern Maine. Correct, that's right. Yeah, Eastern Maine development. Yeah, or Northwest development, isn't it? 's Northeastern, not Northwestern, right, sorry, it's the EMBC and there's a Northeastern Vegas, Northern Maine development, Northeastern. Okay. Yeah, right. Northeastern Maine. And then they pass the funds down through to. See, I believe so, but yes, that's so that program, like, we hadn't tested. We, had not tested that 1 in a couple of years. So, in the 3 year cycle that we have to test that, it was time to do it again. So that's how that one ended up on the testing. A few findings still had a few issues with the bank reconciliations not matching the general ledger. I know Bob's working on that. I will say Bob did a great job getting things in order for us. I know he's making progress. So we did have a couple issues where the bank reconciliation didn't match the books. So that's the reason for that finding, which is number zero one again. Number two, essentially the same thing, just make sure all your general ledger accounts reconcile to your subsidiary ledgers, whether it be receivables, payables, so forth. Then 003, same thing, essentially reconciling the books and making sure everything gets to the finance department. We see this with a lot of counties where the DA's office or the sheriff's office might get a grant and no one in the finance department knows about it. So it's just important to have that, everything kind of goes to the finance department so that it all shows up on the books. You know, you don't just have this straight grant that is getting administered by this by the by the office itself and no one has a clue that it's even theirs. And then as far as the compliance testing that we did with arpa and we no issues there. We did note one finding just where you're behind. These are due nine months after year end. So, there's a, it was late. So we just did a, finding to note that. And, hopefully you'll, you'll be caught up. I mean, we're, we're through 24, 25 is now basically due, but, and I know Jason's working on our, Bob and Jason are working on that. So with that, we had two additional reports, one on our report on internal controls that notes, the findings that I just went through. And then lastly, our report on compliance only noted that one finding, which was just late finding, and that's what we call an other matter. It's not an efficiency. And that is, yeah, page 101. That's the end. Any questions? Questions? [1:39:09] Speaker E (unidentified): Tim, I know just on the material weaknesses that you brought up, I know a lot of these have been recovering issues, and this, again, is from 2024. Knowing when we're in October 26th, I think mostly, if you would agree, that most of these have been addressed, and as we move forward, we're in a much better position on the material weakness. We're hoping that's the case, [1:39:34] Blair Tinkham: and yeah just as you said this is you know essentially this report is from august but for 2024 as i said even with bob coming on things were a lot better but we still had some discrepancies with the reconciliation so we've we've we talked to bob and brenda about that so crossing our fingers that for 2025 the findings will all be resolved so okay thank you yeah any questions any additional questions on 2024. [1:40:15] David Marshall: At this point, no, thank you very much. [1:40:18] Blair Tinkham: So I can go back here now that, get through that, we can look at the jail prior years. What [1:40:34] Speaker D (unidentified): page is the jail? What he's giving us is the historical look. It's not going to be [1:40:39] David Marshall: okay, pull [1:40:48] Blair Tinkham: up your old financials. Okay, so if I jump back to 2020, we'll go back a few years. I think this would be four years. Oh, in 2020 the jail received 2.2 million dollars of state funding. Total expenditures were 10 million 149 and the county contributed 8.1 million dollars. So you actually showed an increase in your fund balance that year of 268,000. Now if we look at 2021, and that was 22, correct him, that was 2020. Why, now 2021, you received just under three million dollars, 2.934 million of state funding, about 100,000 of other funding. How much was that? 21 was 2.934 from the state. Other miscellaneous revenues were about 105,000. So total revenue 3 million 39,492. Expenditures of 10 million 191, the general fund contributed 7.3 million and that increased your fund balance by 194,318. So those years were not terrible. Now 2022, state funding 3.552 million, other revenues again roughly 120,000. So total revenues of three million six seventy two 918. Total expenditures had increased to 11 million 812,000 and you had contributed from the general fund 7.6 million dollars. So the fund balance decreased by half a million that year and it ended up with a small deficit of 62,000. So 22 is where it kind of started to turn, but wasn't, wasn't terrible except we just had a small deficit in the fund balance. That was a year of a joke. [1:44:40] David Marshall: 2023 please, from there. Yeah, they said it began mid six, mid 2022, halfway through 2022 was a half a million and then it's urgent exponentially since then. Yeah, so 2020 [1:45:05] Blair Tinkham: 2023 your state funding was substantially less that year because they had, I believe that was the year they changed their payment cycle. Yeah, you know, essentially you only got half as much money within that calendar year because of the way the state changed their payment structure. So, because of that, state funding that year was only 1,645,000, another roughly 120,000 and 110,000 in various fees and other revenues. So, total revenue, 1,751,000. Expenditures, you can see, definitely climbing, 13,831,000. And you had contributed from the general fund, 11,896,000. Left you with a deficit of 183 which grew your jail fund deficit to 245 000 and then that led us into 2024 which we talked about but again you can see the state funding has gotten back to normal the 3.7 million dollars that you for a full year revenue expenditures increased of 15.5 million and that required 12 million coming in from the general fund so just quickly the state share in 24 was how much Jim 3 million 702 638. So we in essentially a timing difference I guess you would say because try it had it had to it had to do with the way the state paid I can't remember off the top of my head if they were paying quarterly or calendar year but essentially within your calendar year for 2023 you only got half the half of what you would normally get and then and then they resume their regular a payment schedule so essentially we have to prepare a spreadsheet through those years don't [1:47:38] David Marshall: Wait this video okay thank you yeah I know I've seen those figures before all right any comments or observations thank you for your time procedural question do we need to vote to [1:47:56] Speaker E (unidentified): Accept the item I would move we accept the audit as presented it's been moved in a second and [1:48:03] David Marshall: Second to accept the audit for the year 2024 any further discussion none those in favor please signify by saying aye it's unanimous three own thank you very much appreciate your [1:48:16] Speaker F (unidentified): Kind attention any comments administrator you're doing a week from the 23 on your need to accept that audit too but I don't think we're just gonna we schedule a 23 for today okay [1:48:30] Blair Tinkham: I couldn't remember if we were doing 23 or not. I now that you say that Blair, I thought we had to do 23 at some time, at some point, but up to you guys. In the very near future, I was going to say I can do it now, but I don't want to take any more of your time then. And I'm sure you've got a full agenda. So just reach out, but I'll just, I mean, just really quickly to wrap up, I'll say that, you know, things were better for 2024. I mean, you did have some findings, but I think with Bob coming on to help out, that was, that has worked well. Just when you get behind, when you get behind the way you guys were, it's hard to dig out of that hole to get caught up. So making progress on that and then the next step is to hopefully figure out the jail finances and fill the fill that deficit in the general fund because that does weigh down on the way weigh your books down and create some financial issues. So I just want to follow up on what you said about how [1:49:42] Speaker E (unidentified): we were behind and I just want to we appreciate the fact that you've got us caught up pretty much on the audience. I know this in the state, I think we've got half the audit firms we had just a few years ago. RV County's in the position where every municipality is mine, so you guys I'm sure [1:49:59] Blair Tinkham: are getting it from everybody so i appreciate it 's but we do the best we can it's i mean it's very difficult i mean not only for you guys to cover come out of the hole when you're behind But for us to try and schedule in multiple years, because we run a very full schedule all the time, like you said, there's just, there's no auditors out there anymore. They're all retiring. And, there are a lot of counties behind a lot of towns behind and they can't find auditors. It's right. It's just such a challenge for we, get calls weekly. From tablets and just wish we could help them all, but we can't. [1:50:37] David Marshall: So can you join the comments administrator none thank you Tim I appreciate you joining us today [1:50:45] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Oh so I can catch up with Tim later. I just wanted to touch me we need to start the UT audit too [1:50:51] David Marshall: right for 2025. Okay we have a few more things to do in the agenda so let's move along. Yeah we'll be in touch okay have a good day thanks. Okay we'll go back to [1:51:09] Speaker E (unidentified): Can I ask you a question? Brendan, you talked about the, we studied the workforce record and stuff. How are we paid? Is it this way? Do we get a percentage? [1:51:23] Unidentified department head (revenue report): We get an admin fee. [1:51:26] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, and that covers up the part of the audit that you were... [1:51:29] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Yeah, we do bill that. [1:51:31] David Marshall: NDWB is 15%, I think. Yeah. 15% and then we pass on 85. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Administrator, next on the budget statement, correct? Yes. [1:51:50] Speaker F (unidentified): For two districts, I'm waiting on the solidified list of the budget committee. [1:51:57] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Did you want Susan on there? Where's Susan? Sue Haas. [1:52:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, you got Susan Haas and you got Danielle. [1:52:05] Speaker F (unidentified): I do, and Danielle. [1:52:07] Speaker E (unidentified): Right, she's a state legislator. [1:52:09] Unidentified department head (revenue report): Did you confirm that Sue Haas should be on there? What's that? Did you confirm? Yeah, she's fine. Okay. You're all set. [1:52:16] David Marshall: I've got three. There's been a change. There's been a change in three of mine. I've got three on and two pending hearing. Hearing, you need the name right now. You've got me. Okay, I'll give it to you in a few minutes. And Andre, you're all set, right? Yeah, Andre's all set. Dan, you've got one remaining. You're all set. So I have the two remaining and I'm waiting to hear back. I'll resolve that within the next two days. Okay, next budget hearing date. Right now, gentlemen, with your concurrence, we have the [1:52:49] Speaker F (unidentified): October 14th and 15th as the days that we're going to go over the department head budgets with three, four of you. What hours? Starting at 10 o'clock on the 14th. Okay, that's what the department [1:53:04] David Marshall: has, right? Correct. And starting at 10 a.m., 10 a.m. on the 14th, Commissioner [1:53:18] Speaker F (unidentified): Christian, you have a commitment on the 15th in the afternoon that you need. Yeah, [1:53:27] Speaker D (unidentified): I do. I could do something till probably 12:30. [1:53:33] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, we're going to start on the 12:30 on the 15th. Yeah, okay. I was thinking your commitment was in the afternoon, so it would then be done by 12:30, so just, yeah, no, that's what [1:53:46] David Marshall: I mean, I'm good till 12:30. Yeah, so we're gonna, well, let me get clarifying again. I'll look at the 14th and 15th. What are we doing here now? 14, we're gonna do both days. Yeah, we're gonna get through a little bit 30 from the 14th, is that correct? So we're going to start at 10 o'clock on the 14th. [1:54:03] Speaker F (unidentified): 10 o'clock on the 14th, we're going to work through as many as we can get through, and then we're going to complete the rest on the 15th by 12:30. [1:54:16] David Marshall: And starting what time? I'm gonna come in the 15th, on the 15th, whatever time you'd like. Okay, and I'm hoping that's, and I have the problem, I could, I could start earlier on the 15th. Early is good. Push your crumble. Yeah, I can do that, 9 a.m. Yeah, 9 a.m. on the 15th. Thank you. Okay, until done, we're going to lock the doors and you'll only have water. We can't lock the doors, lock the exit doors. All right, thank you. Next budgeting retrograde, the state claims commission. Oh yeah, this is, yeah, I've already got That on my agenda there are two state claim commission hearings. I've got one I think on November [1:55:09] Speaker E (unidentified): a fifth. Yes, those are in this building. Yeah, yes. [1:55:15] Speaker D (unidentified): I have it on the third floor. Okay, well, [1:55:26] David Marshall: I've got it listed for Wednesday the fourth at one o'clock. I have the email in your packet. Okay, we'll settle that. Okay, we'll clarify that decision on the Together Place. That I don't think requires a vote. It's simply to acknowledge that Bangor City Council has met their obligation contribution, which triggers ours, and so that has passed. We authorize that the met the obligation doesn't require vote in our part. Doesn't and that's the security county. Excuse me, chair, my question is the opiate community. Do they have any input into that 7K? No. All right, good enough. That's just the RFP, the security county building, and that is, well, if you've had a chance to look at that, I looked it over. Excellent, a lot of work went into that. I want to commend you for that. You know, I have a interest in things like that, and did a great job in preparing that, and I'll turn it over to you, administrator. So we just, we have several other RFPs that we've discussed in the past that we're [1:56:43] Speaker F (unidentified): initiating now and so just so you're aware of that so there's no sticker shock in regards to what 's coming through the county. Director Fox is doing a bunch of RFPs based on our procurement policy based on the needs of our facilities and then obviously the environmental hazards RFP is going to go out in the near future so that you guys can have an understanding what that's been cost to address the issues of these old buildings that haven't been addressed [1:57:14] Speaker E (unidentified): Could you update us on the, I got, I would include an email chain because they thought I would have been treasurer at the time, but it was in between treasuring, but on the plow, where do we stand on the snowplow, because the person had a three-year contract, this is year three, but it sounds like [1:57:31] David Marshall: we can't find the contract. There is no contract. Okay, so we are meeting, I'm meeting with the contractor next week. Do we have a record of when it was approved by the commission? We have the last [1:57:44] Speaker F (unidentified): approved contract of 2024. There's no other contract. [1:57:49] Speaker E (unidentified): Wasn't that a three-year contract in 2024? [1:57:52] Speaker F (unidentified): No. That was for specific [1:57:53] David Marshall: time specific though, date specific. It's expired, so all bets are off, right? There's no all bets. I'm going to sit down with the contract. Okay, let's discuss 2027. And we're going to have snow again. I'll let the administrator to handle it and connect with your recommendations. Is that appropriate? So yes, okay. Anything, does this doesn't require any further action by the commission at this time? No, I just want to make you aware. They are okay, thank you. Okay, roll the warrants. Share open, move approval of warrants that published in the agenda. Second, seconded. Any further comments? No comments. All those in favor say aye. Unanimous, approved. Open up the public comment. Before we go to executive session, I didn't know what you're saying. Somebody's saying that we're asking if there's somebody online. Is there somebody online? There is not, thank you. Any comments? Okay, yes, good. [1:59:08] Unidentified public commenter: Morning commissioners, I want to address the recent Bangor Daily News article regarding spending by Penobscot County Department heads, elected officials, commissioners, and administration. Transparency and accountability are important. Taxpayers have every right to know how public money is spent, but accountability also requires context and fairness. The article itself reports that most department heads were not aware of the county's overspending until late 25. It also states that many could not have known the truth scale of the deficiency because an audit had not been completed since 21. Even though the county's Finance Director reportedly did not know about the multi-million dollar shortfall until it was publicly announced for the Bangor Daily News. That distinction matters. Department heads were operating their departments under the policies and budgets that existed at the time. Some expenses highlighted in the article were also reimbursed through grants or outside funding. The Sheriff's Office, for example, stated its credit card purchases stated that its credit card purchases were within its approved budget and included supplies necessary to operate the jail. Emergency management reported that it finished the year under budget and that many of its purchases were reimbursed through a Department of Homeland Security grant. Could stronger purchasing policies have been in place? Certainly, but when weaknesses are identified the responsible response is to correct them, and that is what the county has done. New purchasing controls have been implemented, credit card spending has dropped significantly, and the county is now reported on budget for 26. That is progress. We should expect accountability from county government, but accountability should never become an assumption that every department head, employee, commissioner, or elected official acted improperly simply because their name appears on a credit card report. These individuals continue to show up to work. They operated our jail, they coordinated emergency responses, they maintained our communication system, they administrated our courts and public offices, they attended required training, they pursued grant funding, they served the residents of Penobscot County, and many of them were doing so without knowing the full extent of the financial circumstances occurring at the county level. So today I want our department heads, our employees, and elected officials to know something as well: you, your work matters. I appreciate every one of you. When improvements are necessary, we should make them. When policies are weak, we should strengthen them. When questions are asked, we should answer them openly. But we should also defend our employees and elected officials with legitimate government expenses are presented without sufficient explanation for when responsibility for an organizational problem is placed too broadly on people who did not create it. An Obstruct County should learn from the past, improve its financial controls, and move forward. We can demand transparency without attacking public servants. We can correct problems without assigning blame, and we can support responsible journalism while also insisting that taxpayers receive the complete story, not simply the most attention-grabbing version of it. Our county has already made significant changes. Now our focus should be on continuing these reforms, rebuilding financial stability, supporting the employees who provide essential services, and working together to restore confidence in Penobscot County government. Thank you. Any other [2:03:05] David Marshall: comments? Any comments from the commissioners? I do, but in light of this [2:03:12] Speaker D (unidentified): and another article that inaccurately represented a community in our County and their financial status, I think we should send a letter to the editors of the newspaper outlining some of these important points that were just brought up in public comment and asking them to accurately correct some of the areas that they have [2:03:36] David Marshall: inaccurately published in their paper. Thank you, Commissioner Tremble. Any comments for the [2:03:47] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, I'm a little stunned. I don't know whether it was accurate. I mean, you've got to read the story. I mean, just because somebody used a credit card doesn't mean it was a bad thing. I think all the purchases by the department, when you read the story, it didn't look like anything was out of whack. It looked like some of the commissioners' spending was maybe inappropriate. But other than that, I think 90% of the story, it made it sound like it was bad because it wasn't, this is a discussion you already spoke, it just looked like it was, I didn't say any inaccurate that I read in the story. So I'd like more, maybe at another time we can discuss, but I don't see what we would say was inaccurate. Well, okay. [2:04:26] David Marshall: Any further? The Chair will comment. I do think there were inaccuracies. I do think... [2:04:32] Speaker E (unidentified): Could you just point out one inaccuracy that I read? [2:04:35] David Marshall: Yeah, I don't think this is the time for debate. I will make my comment and then I'm going to return to the administration today to the treasurer and to finally demonstrate. Yeah, I think we need to monitor these things more carefully. I think the changes we have made have been remarkable in the six months for the county and our finance and our operational of procedures are, it's been a remarkable transition and I don't think we've really gotten the recognition yet. I don't know if I, we need that. Recognition I think would be nice for the for our employees who work for the county to be recognized for all the positive contributions they have made toward this changeover and with that I'll leave it to Mr. President, do you have any comments to make? No. [2:05:31] Speaker E (unidentified): We'll get it done. Did you not get a credit card? [2:05:33] David Marshall: Mr. Administrator didn't get a credit card? No. Mr. Administrator, any comments? [2:05:39] Speaker F (unidentified): I think the research group did an exceptional job capturing the frustration of the full-time force in regards to the way certain material has been presented. It's demoralizing and has a second and tertiary effect on the entire workforce. Horse, but the mission doesn't get to hear that as often as I do and I think it's, I think it's great that she came forward today and articulated that in writing. I think we need to recognize it if we didn't defend it well enough and I sat for hours with the reporter trying to explain the changes so that's on me. [2:06:23] David Marshall: You know, and I'll fix that in the future. Thank you administrator. Next up we have a to schedule executive session, so we're going to fight, we're going to reschedule the second one with the administrator. And you asked the car, did you want [2:06:42] Speaker E (unidentified): closing comments on us? And you want to comment something public comment? No we [2:06:47] David Marshall: those are closing comments when the public was not yet, we're not here a lot [2:06:51] Speaker E (unidentified): the ones were county benefits, you said comments with us was this what you wanted or is that are those they haven't called your comments now? No those are not okay. I just want to bring up [2:07:03] David Marshall: yeah no we're all done. I want to go back we 've got that executive sessions are [2:07:09] Speaker E (unidentified): we doing closing comments Mr. Chairman? Well yes if you want to do yeah I had some comments I thought you we were talking about that. Oh no a lot I just wanted to congratulate Commissioner Pushing on a great state convention for the county commissioners. So it's your second year in a row. I mean, they've brought in tremendous revenue through the sponsorships, and they may be able to change the structure of the organization a little bit because the revenue that's been brought in, there was a lot of discussion about it, but I think, have you done it at the end of this year? [2:07:41] Speaker D (unidentified): At my term, we're in December 30th. [2:07:43] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, so it's been, you've made a lot of great strides in the organization. I also want to recognize Brenda left but we were notified either earlier this week or last week that we had a huge thing hanging over Andrew the IRS again preceded her about reporting she got strained out it could have been a huge penalty for the county that's gone away so just want to congratulate everybody and the staff was involved in that I [2:08:12] David Marshall: I would make some [2:08:13] Speaker D (unidentified): additional closing comments. Thank you for your recognition. It was really a team effort. We had a very successful convention with some good panel discussions on key issues related to buildings insurance benefits. We've got a lot of new folks in the last few years so it's been important to include those type of educational opportunities. I appreciate this strong representation we had from Foxtrot County there. I think it's it's helpful to engage with our colleagues and those are great opportunities to do so regarding some future things we're looking at. As you know, we were successful in securing a total of eight million dollars in the last fiscal year budget from the state for jail funding. However, we start this fiscal year July 1st still at the twenty point four million dollar funding level, which means we will be going to the legislature in a supplemental budget to request eight million to at least maintain the level of funding that we received in the 26 budget. We will then be asking for them to consider the legislation which was approved last year by criminal justice that did not get included in the supplemental budget to raise the level of jail funding from the state to 30 million dollars with a four percent cola annually, adjusting the amount of money that is allocated to community corrections because some counties find that clause hampers their ability to allocate funds for operations properly. And then finally, they also want to look at changing the manner in which we track payments from the state for the number of inmate nights. We have to go back to the prior year so that we know what our base number is when creating our budgets. So those four factors are going to be critical as we enter this session. Part of our agenda is going to be having meetings with legislative delegations, particularly key counties where there are legislative leaders of committees or presiding officers. That would include your Cumberland, Kennebec, Penobscot. Because of our size, we should certainly be looking to schedule something after the November election and we know who's going to be representing us and potentially where they will be serving on committees. We've made the error in the past of only looking at those issues when they're before the committee's, and I think we need to do our diligence beforehand, and I hope the organization does consider options to have better representation before the legislature. Not that is anything derogatory about our current lobby for, but we need somebody who is advocating directly for where county's not as a contract. So that's under discussion. In fact, I had a colleague yesterday to start evaluating where we want to be in the coming year. [2:11:36] Speaker E (unidentified): Yes? Was it just a decision by Medicaid? We get a waiver on jail? [2:11:42] Speaker D (unidentified): So we were approved for what is referred to as the 1155 waiver that affects. It will not take effect for a while, because they still have to craft a policy, but we have been approved, which means we're now setting up the framework in which Maine would qualify under that. It's anticipated it will be July 1st, 28th, before that comes into effect. [2:12:17] David Marshall: And that looks to save us here in Peralta, Ocala, you know, because we don't. Anyway, it's still an up-and-a-year figure between $400,000 and $600,000 a year. That's medical costs that we will not have to burden the Penobscot County Tax Payaway. Any other comments, questions? Okay. Well, next, we're going to accept a motion to... Executive session. For executive session one, executive session l on the on the section 405 contract matter, yeah, and that would be in administrative Tinkham's office. All those in favor? [2:12:56] Speaker F (unidentified): Can I just interject here? We obviously have Haley Ward here, the miscommunication on my part, 10 minutes, yes, I just, you have time available, I'm here, otherwise that's fine, I prefer to do an executive session under contract so you can give a back reach to the commission. [2:13:17] Speaker D (unidentified): So we would then have two contract matters in executive session. You're you're deleting m. [2:13:24] Speaker F (unidentified): It'll be rescheduled, reschedule, excuse me, and then so we afford him the opportunity so. [2:13:31] David Marshall: Yeah, okay, and we'll put that first on the agenda, then we'll do the second listed as executive item l, executive session, and then modify, yeah, we'll modify that to be Haley Ward will be l, will be m, and m will be rescheduled later, and can I have an alibi on public comment? You have a what, alibi? Oh, you like to say something? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, okay, budget. [2:14:02] Speaker F (unidentified): Committee process, so there's been a lot of questions and I have experienced the state and federal, it's been shocking, we do process, it's a little different than the county government, so as we move through this, I don't want to make assumptions if the county commissioners expect certain things, I need to have that input to me, because I'm moving in a different direction in order to meet the needs of this budget process. The intent is we're going to spend 14 to 15 for the commissioners, hopefully we. Come out with solidified cohesion cohesive budget with the Commission take before the budget take before the budget committee. We will then identify probably three departments send those departments those the budget committee those spreadsheets so that they can look at it give them a week to look at it so if I questions back to us and then meet with the commission and we're going to break that down trying to get that all done before mid-November you didn't watch me on the last [2:15:15] Speaker E (unidentified): Step we're going to meet the 1415 yeah look at the budget and then what we say once the [2:15:21] Speaker F (unidentified): Commission has approved it I'm going to take that budget separate it by departments and start sending it to the budget committee yeah but they'll get the whole thing eventually they'll [2:15:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Get the whole budget just a little at a time yes three departments at a time so they're going to [2:15:35] Speaker F (unidentified): Digest it ask us questions because the feedback was they got too much at one time and they want the opportunity to digest the material and give them the opportunity to ask us questions so this [2:15:47] David Marshall: Is the process that I just wanted to articulate that sounds good last year I think we had just [2:15:51] Speaker E (unidentified): A lot of the time was a lot on the weekend and we're going to meet three days later so I think [2:15:56] David Marshall: This yes but we will accommodate that time frame okay any other comments before we go into executive session chair would be open to a motion all right we'd make a motion that we [2:16:11] Speaker D (unidentified): Go into two executive sessions one that we've revised to include a representative from Haley Ward that we will take up first and then the second executive session as noted here with the commissioners of the administration. [2:16:24] David Marshall: Yeah, on this section 405 contract matters. Correct. And moved and seconded. All those in favor, aye. Aye.