##VIDEO ID:P0wJRH2SOHM## e e afternoon August 20th 2024 and I call this meeting of the Bel tramy County Board of Commissioners to order please rise for the pledge aliance 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 I have no General comments uh but I do see we have one citizen that would like to uh address the board and so I have to read this anyone wishing to address the County Board on an item not on the agenda may come forward at this time to be recognized by the board chair please state your name and address for the record comments are limited to five minutes a Personnel complaint against any individual County employee may not be heard initially at a board meeting Personnel complaints may be submitted to the board in writing through the county administrator's office a person addressing the board may not use profanity or vulgar language welcome CT thank you Mr chairman CT marula 4524 birchmont Drive Northeast number 10 piji and I won't come close to using my five minutes Mr chairman uh on last Monday uh that would be yesterday we we had a uh program at Rotary involving sexual uh trafficking and underage prostitution and it just made me think and this happened in Beltrami County about two years ago in the Pioneer an incident was reported and I and if you can say anything and I'm not asking you to discuss it here so Mr Barry can follow up if it's appropriate there there was was a uh incident let's just leave it at that and I'm just curious if it got prosecuted if it got investigated if it's still an open investigation and what the status of that incident is and that's my comments Mr chairman is there um is there I mean do we know what we're asking to investigate I'm just wondering this m Mr chairman just the status of it if they can even comment the Sher might say hey I it it's done of your business we can't comment on that or it's still underinvested or you know we can't comment on open cases which would tell me it's still open so uh David said um are you aware of I can talk with David offline or follow up that work CT no that's fine with me I appreciate your courtesy sure have a good meeting thanks yeah you're welcome thank you at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda Mr chair I'd um like to make uh one adjustment to the agenda adding item 9A that be for County Emergency declaration for the July 31st storm and make a motion that we approve the amend uh the agenda as amended is there a second second all uh any discussion all those in favor say I I oos osed motion passes uh I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda motion's been made and second seconded any discussion all those in favor say I I I oppos motion passes moving on to 2025 employee Insurance an you got that one welcome an Sher HR Director I have a PowerPoint all right hello everyone I'm here to talk about the employee health insurance rates for 2025 flicker all right so you'll see that the employee monthly Flex dollars is going to go up $50 and this is an increase that's pre-negotiated during the contract negotiations and we're currently in a contract that goes through 2025 so it's going from 1,440 to 1,490 for a full-time staff for the plan design changes there wasn't a lot happening this year with our medical benefits which is a good thing um but we are looking at just over a 3% average increase for our medical premiums uh and then with that for 2025 the IRS increased the high deductible plan minimum which will increase our contributions to the HSA VBA accounts and once we do that if we go up $50 for singles and $100 for families that in turn decreases the employee portion of the maximum out of pocket uh then there's no changes for the non HSA plans and there's no change for the maxim maximum outof pocket cost for those Viva and HSA plans for the family plan rates that are within so we have age bands so if you have a family planed your um family falls into an age band and so those rates have changed for 2025 and it's the first time that those have changed within three years so when they're making the determinations of those types of changes they're developed using like historical um claim experience for our current groups and by doing that it helps ensure that our our group of insurance so everyone that's in Prime Health that we have um low growth so it's not you don't see those steady hikes or those um random hikes over Insurance years where one year it's 2% the next year is 12% so by doing things slowly over years it helps maintain those averages so with that just looking at our medical insurance history over the years this is kind of a neat graph that shows when we were on a plan before Prime Health so before 2018 the average over the 12 years the increase was 7.93% since we've moved to Prime Health our seven-year average is at 5.21% and even though we're going I'm talking a lot of numbers but even though we're going that 3% we're still going down a 32% in our average over the 5 years so it's still a positive um reason for us to be with Prime Health just comparing talking about those rate hikes and everything that are hard it's difficult for employees and also difficult for budgeting going on to the rest of our benefits those are all held by Integrity they are our benefits consultant for our answer benefits none of those changes or there are no changes in 2025 so uh the only thing I did want to mention is there were some conversations about the dental tiers so right now we have two Dental tiers we have a single and then a family there are options to do single family plus one family plus two or single plus one single plus two and so on but when you do that that changes rates for everyone and since we are in our Dental two-year um guarantee with Delta Dental through 2025 we didn't want to make any of those changes this year or look into those changes because then it would we would lose our two-year guarantee and we could have seen an increase for that um that is something that we'll look into for future years um and we can discuss how or we can look at how that would change the rates for all parties involved the other thing on the ancillary benefits that I wanted to note was for short-term disability so in 2026 it'll start the Minnesota paid family leave and what that means is over the next year Minnesota is still working out the guidelines and um how the structure will work for that paid medical leave for employees and that's going to kind of affect short-term disability you can always run your short-term disability alongside of it but what you're seeing is a lot of companies are going to a fully volunteer short-term disability plan so since we'll already be paying for that paid medical they're not continue or the desire is not to continue paying for a portion of short-term disability we are self-insured plan so we'll have to look and see what our options are if we were to go that similar route but that's all stuff that can be worked out over the next year um as the guidelines and structures uh squared away for that paid medical leave all right so next steps um we met with the the labor management team which is a group of union members supervisors some uh payroll staff HR we had John and Richard there um Richard as part of the Personnel Board John since he is the Prime Health Board um representative there and we just discuss all everything that we kind of talked about tonight a little more detail get some feedback from them what they're having struggles with what there's some what are some things they want to look for in the future um and just having that convers ation but with that they did agree or they did a motion to move and agree to recommend the rates that I've presented to you tonight for the 3.3 average increase for the Prime Health rate uh and with that I'm just looking for any questions or the board's approval to move forward with that and we will have open enrollment as in years passed in the month of October any questions for an at this time Mr chair I just uh than thank you an for and you and for you and John Richard to for your work on this and it looks I mean that's pretty incredible to only have a 3.3% increase and and that so i' I'd make a motion that we approve the the 3.3% and the the resolution and rate increase okay motion's been made and seconded to approve the employee health insurance any further discussion chair yeah um I'm still concerned that uh the insurance costs are what they are especially for those that are on the family plan um I find it kind of ironic that uh some of our County employees are qualifying for some of the very owned services that they provide to the public um and that's because of the high cost of insurance so I'm wondering what our options are as far as um looking at other Prov ERS um when that time makes sense um you know Blue Cross boo Shield could be an option the service Cooperative peep um there are other providers out there that uh provide arguably um even better insurance at at lower rates so um I'm not sold on the on the numbers here um I do have concerns about um this health insurance company overall so uh I can't be supportive of this motion um but I would like to know what our options are as far as looking at other providers yeah yeah so we do have a contract with Prime Health through 2027 so we wouldn't be looking at ones this year uh so 2027 it would end so in the year of 2027 you could look at different providers and you could go out to market for an RFP um to get responses back the only thing about that is one thing to be cautious of a lot of those companies do have a great rate rate that first year and then you're tied into a commitment and th that's when you normally see those High spikes um that has become a repetitive problem when you go out to Market and get new contracts um so that would just be my only tidbit to share any other questions for an no just just to comment some of those spikes that you see on that chart that Ann shared um were years when it went up uh 18 or 20% and the the folks themselves really were concerned because that had that was a big bump to their paycheck you know that they had to take out and that's why when we went with prime West the that was probably one of our largest goals is to keep it somewhat equal throughout because we would know how much to put in as as a county towards that pay pay of the uh fees uh so I uh I'm a a real supporter of prime West for one two one of two reasons that one for one and the second one is the amount ofone money that uh they have provided to Beltrami County uh in the mental health area and in other areas the drug uh needs that we've we've got in our community so there have been rather than being a Blue Cross type company where whatever profits they make they keep they don't give to the community uh Prime West does give back to the to the community so when you do look at this down the pike keep those things in mind because uh that's uh been very helpful to to belamy County all right any other comments or questions and I'll call for the vote all those in favor say I I opposed no passes thank you an Chris you want to come up and talk about County Emergency de aration well good evening Commissioners um thank you for accommodating this uh on your agenda tonight otherwise I'd be asking you to declare and then we'd have to have a special meeting within 72 hours so I think this is a win-win for uh both the board and for uh my department as well uh I'm here tonight to uh request Beltrami County declare state of emergency in response to the July 31st uh 31st Windstorm uh that impacted Southern Beltrami County including the city of buiji in working with our I column our big three typically the city the county and then the Electric Co-op those are the ones that I really go for to get preliminary numbers to get an estimate as to where we're going to be at for damages uh because they're normally the uh the ones that carry us over and where we're at right now um is Beltrami County has a $6,350 40 State damage indicator uh to request a preliminary damage um assessment and currently we're at 99,5 and talking with um the city and Bruce um on Friday is uh late Friday I had another um invoice that was sent to the city and that kind of pushed them up worth we're within 5% of our threshold uh in our experience whenever we go after uh PDA prary damage assessment is they always come in more than we originally estimated so uh it behooves us to declare an emergency pursue the PDA see if we get declared potentially get 75% uh reimbursement if we fall short no harm we just throw the paperwork out till next time and move forward with our lives questions for Chris I do have one comment in particular for uh commissioner suar is I do want you to know that I did Advocate uh to try to get Northwestern Bel tramy County and for the flooding um the way that the state works is there's a disaster period and that um typically needs to be within 72 hours this one was four days so we missed it by uh one day but I did Lobby for that and uh Marshall Count's moving forward unfortunately uh it doesn't cross line so um the County's just going to have to eat that do this Mr chair uh this would essentially be a reimbursement to sheriff's department and and who else so not to the Sheriff's Office it would go directly to the county and the highway department as well as the city and Bill chy Electric Co-op where they're a co-op they're eligible for reur the city does qualify for this because there was a lot of damage to Diamond point and and elsewhere through the city correct their debris removal as well as any um public infrastructure damage is potentially eligible thank you any other questions for Chris then I'll entertain a motion to certify and approve the County Emergency declaration so move is there a second second any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed motion passes thank you Chris thank you for your work on that all right moving on to any other items all right legislative and lobbying issues start with Tim no Richard I'm good uh Craig we doing commissioner report yeah yeah had u a couple of Commissioners join me for a 4 tour of the fair and that was really fun to get uh had some for each members that actually um kind of pulled aside and and spoke to us about different Avenues or different pieces of the 4 program whether it be um you know the cleaning of you know the animals and the cleaning of of the cows and stuff and showing us that area or the Shooting Sports the 4 Shooting Sports had um one the gals the sage um spoke to us about that and Amber spoke to us about uh and walked we walked through the Barns and and kind of had a a nice Chau for tour of the fairs that was really neat and then last night we had our fair board meeting and the fair did really well this year even despite some of the colder Rainier weather um the numbers were up for the belamy electric night at the fair on Wednesday um had had another increase there so that was great um the um for each Booth was the um did real well with their their food booth and and everything everything went pretty well the ridership was up the attendance was up um and everything went real well uh um and then we had a solid waste committee meeting this morning and nothing terribly um urgent to report they had some people that are you know needing to pay more attention to the signs at our remote sites and not leave stuff that they're not supposed to at our remote sites and and so just remind people please uh be considerate of that uh we have you know good service by having those remote sites and we don't want to see that change so that's that's all for my report thank you Jo uh sure a couple of bcap related meetings board meeting and committee meeting um over the past couple weeks uh there was an opioids uh settlement uh executive committee meeting last Monday that I attended we're looking at uh different um uh ways to spend the money regarding uh um education and Outreach uh so um we're kind of in the brainstorming ideas uh phase right now so anyone from the public is uh listening or Commissioners uh you know please send those ideas to either myself or or uh Amy bus uh we uh we're looking at uh um options for for that um let's see what else here you want you want to talk about the mdh commissioner oh the mdh commissioner visit um that went really well that was last week or the week before and uh we had it was basically a listening session uh with different department heads um and and uh um it was the assistant commissioner um that was here and she did a really good job taking notes she was constantly uh uh you know writing stuff down or typing it actually on her laptop and and we just kind of shared our our uh concerns and and ideas as far as uh support from the State Department of Health um regarding our not just Health and Human Services but other departments that might have some overlap um on different topics of regarding uh County operations so that was that was a really good visit um commissioner gosig talked about the fair and 4 um then I went on a tour yesterday of the North request a um juvenile center as a new board member um for them and had a really good meeting with Mindy and and uh learned a lot and and still uh looking forward to serving on that board uh providing much needed Services uh to our youth couple of AMC uh committee meetings recently and then the only other thing I wanted to mention is that uh there's a Ridgeway picnic tonight um there fry bread so go and take part and and uh show your support there and also it's a beiji pride this weekend uh so if you're uh looking for something to do this weekend there's activities uh at the rail River Folk Festival school so that's it for my reports Mr okay thank you um I just want to piggyback on what you said about when the the assistant Commissioner of Minnesota Department of Health came every Department was was invited to come and every Department came and even nrm so there every Department we have had something that had to do with with health it was very interesting I it was educational for for me as a commissioner to go and and hear some of the concerns that some of the department heads had uh as they relate to the Department of Health so it was a great uh the department heads get a great job and we well prepared so it was nice um we had a jail uh design and operation committee meeting and basically we are uh tentatively uh looking at September 25th it's a Wednesday at noon for a ground breaking ground blessing ceremony um short very just a short maybe half hour um uh and that would be at the jail site which is uh eight oh I'm not going to remember the number8 something Pioneer Street 825 or 8 something 8 something Pioneer Street right next to the Eagles Club um so we're tentatively they're uh and we're checking with uh tribal personnel and and seeing if that going to work for for them as well um and then Tuesday oober 1st there'll be a jail pre-bid meeting here in the in the boardroom that's where all the folks that um are qualified biders as Tom was talking about before once they get their qualification to bid any questions that they have they all come in and hopefully hopefully all the questions get answered kind of at once where everybody all the qualified biders come then they go out and get their bids and then come back to us um the Tom already mentioned the newsletter committee we did that um and then Tom and I also met with car Anderson to refine the wording on the RFQ the request for qualification for the bids for the jail uh for those people and then I had a greater bidi meeting and they just the overall um process for the uh YMCA to come to town is really working nicely and uh going to be a great project uh they the board of the northern sky I believe it's called um for the YMC they do Fargo and in Alexandria um they're excited to incorporate uh buiji into that group uh their board unanimously um agreed to take ownership of the facility um and uh so it's going to be I think it's it's a great project for buiji for a lot of reasons um not the least of which is cleanup of a Brownfield um and getting that cleaned up is is amazing and then being able to have taxable folks in that area in the future for both the city's budget and the County's budget will be great um and not to mention just the healthiness of having a YMC there so that's that's going to be great so with that Mr chair I've been meaning to ask Dave is there child care in in the plan for the YMCA yes I believe there is that is correct yep and I don't know to what extent it is Joe but I know that there are plans for that yes in fact I know that they're they're already working in collaboration with the boys and girls club so it's a lot of that's a great question because a lot of times people think about well so YMCA are they competing with the boys and girls club but no they work in collaboration um and so it's awesome it's uh they've hit the ground running really well so it's exciting to see hopefully I mean we're still along with away 950 slot short make 900 yeah you're right so uh with that does anyone have anything else then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn it so moved is there a second second all those in favor say I I we are adjourned --------- ##VIDEO ID:-3ZuadGses0## e e August 20th and I call this work meeting of the Bel tramy County Board of Commissioners to order do we have any new employees to introduce seeing none is there uh future work meeting topics someone would like to bring forth seeing none let's move right on into Shane and the veteran service competitive Grant opportunity good afternoon afternoon welcome so um excuse me I'll just get right into it so um I'm pleased to provide an update on our key initiatives that we're currently working on with the Minnesota Department of Veteran Affairs um currently there is a fiscal year cvso 25 fiscal year 25 cvso competitive Grant available and we're going to seek that Grant uh with the board's approval and of course if you approve and a signature for the grant as well um seeking $180,000 for a mobile claims unit is what we're looking at and a mobile claims unit will allow us to go out on site help veterans in our underserved communities our tribal areas as well to reach our veterans that just aren't getting to beiji to work with the County veterans service officer and our office for veterans claims and uh benefits so the mobile unit itself um would be comprised of a 4x4 truck and a allseason trailer very similar to an ice house trailer um we chose that as an option because they come equipped they're often able to withstand the extreme cold temperatures as well and it has other uses that we can do Outreach with our veteran Community as well so Shane sorry to interrupt but can we go fishing in it too absolutely just check it if yes so you can go fishing I'll go catching so that absolutely we could use that for our Outreach or you know for our Winter Fest be able to put something actually on the ice um they make sense in in you're able to lower them you know we work with a lot of disabled veterans so put it right on the ground and we requesting one with a drop trailer or that drop door on the back so disabled veterans can come in much easier uh this unit would also be used year around so we're looking at as Summertime different events the parade moving things through working with our veterans um and just having another resource to get the beltram county veteran service office in the beltram county name out into Bel trammy County um do a little bit less formal type of claim processing or just Outreach in general rather than the office U but the main goal is to reach our veterans that are just underserved and unable to get to beiji based on soal social economic issues and transportation issues is a big one uh we looked at Transportation as an option but we can't support the TR transportation and the scheduling out of the office so the next best thing was to look at how can we get to the community and that's a mobile claims unit actually put us in that Community remain there for certain day out of the month and do claims do Outreach information how to get VA medical disability compensation education benefits housing benefits state and federal grants and things of that nature uh there's a lot of VA and veteran benefits that veterans just don't know exist and so we can do so much in the office they know where we're at but changing things a little bit improving our Outreach can really uh benefit our veterans and the family members of Veterans as well uh we're calling this program the northern Warriors Outreach so we're targeting our Northern area of beltram all beltram County but our northern region that just seems to have less veterans coming to the office because there are issues with Transportation um it's Innovative comprehensive initiative designed to uplift our veterans and their families and that we want to be there for them and we want to have more resources for them as well and and our veterans on tribal lands it's to go there and have a area where we can have a private conversation when a claim needs to be done in a setting that it's belr County comes in and we have everything we need already housed and contained in one unit um now this is a grant we don't know if this will be approved but we are certainly given our best effort to um explain to the state that the our community would benefit from this unit um currently we still have 289 unenrolled veterans in Bel tramy County this information just came from the Fargo VA that aren't enrolled in VA medical that's quite significant for our our region you know we have 2700 veterans over 2,700 veterans in our in our County and 289 are still unenrolled and being medical and that's life-changing if any of that is located in that Northern Area we'd be able to hopefully get those folks in role in VA medical and get them additional services and potentially leading to disability compensation plans as well so we're looking at a a tentative schedule right now we had to provide a schedule of the state on how we're going to execute this and we're looking at the first Thursday of every month working at Red Lake and working with our tribal members and our veterans up there um for information and just claim processing um there hasn't been a tribal veteran service officer in in nearly 3 years I believe to help our veterans um at Red Lake that's in the process right now whether or not that goes through I don't know but right now I know they are actively working on it but we can bridge that Gap and be there as a resource as well um on the second thirs day of every month we're looking at kellier black duck region you know we can move around and be mobile but we're looking at those areas we have veterans that that meet up and have group sessions you know in local coffee shops you can do Outreach and put out some information but if if you have your claims unit you can actually pull that veteran in at the end after discussing certain topics and maybe put that claim in right there um on the fourth Thursday we're looking at beiji events coffee with veterans a couple hour event just to have a discussion with veterans have some coffee talk with vets it's very common around some of the other counties um so it's not unique I didn't come up with the idea but this would be a way for us to implement that in a way that um we could support out of that unit as well and then as I mentioned earlier we'd also support you know our local events our fourth of July parade Winterfest if possible to you know participate in that in different events um across the county um another one would be a mobile unit would allow us if there's a disaster in any part of our County we could go on location with that unit and do mobile claims right there for state grants for support for that because the state offers them to Veterans um that are suffering from some type of event weather related event um if they exist at that time we able to do that right on site and move those along a lot faster we can also coordinate with our B Beni State University veterans and their services that they have and um just make that connection be a lot stronger voice for our veterans and just make that connection with them um so at this point I guess what I'm asking for is your support to pursue this and um it'll require signature in order to send it to the state I have to have it in by the 30th of this month to the State as well and if any questions i' be happy to answer those as well questions for Shane Joe um just wondering would would you guys still be able to have the office open if you were on the road with the trailer at the same time yes um the plan is just to have either the acbo or the cvso out on on location right now I'm looking at me being out for those events um to to be in the community and Luke the acso will be remaining in the office still doing claims and Darren will also be in the office so the office will be supported uh we looked at the schedule and we looked at the trends we've had because we keep data on everything we looked at our Trends so the Thursdays are typically the days that we have that are a little bit on the lighter side we can support more Walkins to the office so it allows me a little bit more room and maneuverability to do Outreach and that's what we want to do we're in that position now after three years a little over three years in the office to start doing more robust Outreach for our community and get out there um it's still very difficult to do all the evening things because you know young family that type of thing so this would allow us to do our Outreach during the day with veterans and you know come up with a schedule for them that they can meet with us Craig yeah Mr chair thank you Shane in order to do this stuff in the mobile unit you'd have to have some type of cellular service or whatever where where does the cost for that come into play the cost is is inside of that grant for that for the for the first 24 months then we would assume that after the 24 months okay and but that that is how you would get your connectivity I would assume for the um being able to do the claims while you're out and about that the 180,000 would be allcom for the vehicle the trailer the generator the advertising the decals and things of that nature to make it Bel tramy County and to support that for 24 months okay that sounds great sounds sounds like a no-brainer to me that's why I see it's on the consent agenda as a item 7 l so Richard and Shane uh and Luke uh we've been wanting to see this program Reach people that are not in the know of what's going on and so I think this is really a great great way to do that and I certainly appreciate your investigating and being ready being ready and able to follow up on that thank you anyone else all right good job thank you thank you uh was Lori here yet she was com well we're a little early well [Laughter] then conduct a marriage ceremony I don't see jod here I don't see Bru here I was going to ask you to do that Richard beloved m m Mr chair if you'd like I can I can text the staff and let them know that uh we're running ahead of schedule and in the interim I'll give you the administrator's update it won't take very long though that will be take as long as you'd like right now I'll very slowly and I'll use big words okay um magnanimous what oh yeah that one all right um I'll just if you're okay start with the administrator's update uh fill in a little time while we alert staff that we're running ahead of schedule uh so we'll talk a little bit about the jail project that continues to uh make good progress we are um at a point where the design has been finished and it has been submitted to both the state and the city for their reviews uh the state review we expect is going to take 5 to 6 months which is again some of the reason for why we're not really going to be able to break ground sooner uh than we had hoped uh Additionally the fee for that review is looking north of a couple hundred thousand so uh we're making preparations for that uh that uh expense as well uh which is covered in our budget of course uh the uh pre-qualification p package has been put together and uh we spent a couple weeks uh commissioner Carlson and I uh with uh K Anderson staff going through that and um I think it's in great shape it we're supposed to advertise it yesterday is going to be publicly advertised which means it'll go through the kind of the standard public uh advertising process and that means uh publishing in the newspaper a couple of times putting on certain websites and that sort of thing it'll be open for about a month or so and the object here objective I should say is to require all biders for the jail project to pre-qualify uh with the construction manager at risk in order to be eligible to then bid on the project so uh the prequalification process is something that's well established in Minnesota State Statute and allows for us to ensure on a project particularly of this size and scope and significance that we have um responsible uh and the the best responsible biders we can on the project and we don't run into any trouble so we're looking for things like uh fiduciary uh responsibility experience on projects of similar nature size and scope um project management capabilities uh the staff's capabilities those types of things uh just to ensure we don't have any issues once we get into the construction process once we get the pre-qualification um submitt back those will be evaluated and um uh the various vendors and contractors and subcontractors will be alerted as to whether they qualify or not and at some point shortly thereafter we will go through a formal bidding process with those that have been pre-qualified uh and then that uh will lead us to eventually the major Milestone of kind of finding out what the Project's officially going to cost and that's called the guaranteed maximum price so at some point here pretty soon we're hopeful that we'll get to the guaranteed maximum price well lock that in with the construction manager at risk and then uh we'll start teeing up orders and such uh some of these things have long lag lag times like ordering the cells ordering the HVAC equipment controls those types of things so that'll take a little bit of time um but we want to get those prices locked in and those vendors and such under contract uh okay moving on to the budget uh we have been finalizing the budget and it's moving just a little bit slightly uh here and there as we get refinements and La last minute updates from uh some of our vendors like insurance providers and such uh we did get uh an estimate that or an actual cost that came in that was above estimate which is unfortunate so we're working internally to try to resolve that uh the budget will be finalized this week and we'll be putting the budget packets together and then we'll be making I'll be making presentation to you at the September 3rd meeting will we unveil the budget and all that you'll have a couple of weeks until the the next meeting in September to then um make any suggestions or or work with staff or myself on any adjustments to the budget that you'd like for us to consider and then uh we hope that you will approve a budget of some kind with the proposed Levy at that second meeting in September um if you need more time however you should know that you you have that time we just can schedule a special meeting uh where you can have a a conversation if you want to continue that discussion uh we just need to have the preliminary budget and the preliminary level Levy finalized B by September 30th or state statute requires us to revert back to uh the existing budget which is the one we have pasted now and that would mean Levy amount as well so um we'll be making progress on that and uh hopefully be able to get that information out to here shortly uh it's time for the county newsletter and so uh we've put together the team to establish uh the content for the newsletter we got uh some exciting articles that'll be coming up uh more and more we're talking less and less about the jail which is kind of nice because there's a lot of other things that are going on in the county that are pretty exciting and interesting uh so you should expect this next Edition to maybe not include quite as much information about the jail uh but instead uh include information about other programs projects and services uh we expect the newsletter should be issued about early to midt we want to be looking for that here shortly uh just want to let you know because I know this was a topic of the city council uh Joint City Council um Board of Commissioners meeting was the Paul bunan uh joint Powers um agreement me uh meeting that we were all trying to kind of put together this is for the representatives of the county and the representatives of the city we did lock in a time of t or time in dat Tuesday August the 27th from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. uh that'll be held in the commissioner's conference room uh so uh that's that's helpful the beiji area of Area Chamber of Commerce ironically had and timing is really good here uh has also recently expressed an interest in route transportation I participated in a meeting last week uh where they were uh talking about maybe taking some action as a chamber and with chamber members businesses uh to Institute a pilot program uh to explore their concept a little bit further uh it is a separate Endeavor um and so we're not really sure how that endeavor May align with uh or otherwise with the work that we are participating in in in discussions with the uh Paul bunan Transit but uh I think more will come on that in the future and then lastly just want to remind everyone that Monday September 2nd uh the county is going to observe OB erve Labor Day uh and so offices will be closed that's all I have for you unless you have questions for me any questions for Tom okay Lori thank you the floor is yours let's hear about the county park system good afternoon everybody um probably all know me but I'll introduce myself my name is Lorie Clark um I Recreation resource manager for National or the natural resource um Management Department and I've got another um yearly update for you on our 2024 projects um a lot of them are going to seem like you've heard this before because we've had a lot of projects take a couple years um you know for Grant cycles and things like that so I always have to remember which button goes forward so we will start up in three Island um district one area so uh commissioner gig's area the biggest project that we have going on up there are still our vault toilets um we've actually complet completed um the project of replacing our cracked Vault so on the left hand side you can see the replaced one um The Vault underneath was cracked so we did have to remove that put a new one underneath and then we put the building on top of it um we Ed arpa funds for that it was about a $10,000 project uhu so we got that all fixed up and then we received another Grant um for arpa to replace three more of our our aging wooden structures they're all you know 15 to 20 years old um getting a lot of wood rot things like that so they they're going to need to be replaced and it looks like May of 2025 is when the new ones are going to be here so it's pretty exciting and you can see the one on the right that's what the new ones should look like um and if you've been been to any of the Minnesota state parks they've kind of gone through the same process where they've updated um and that actually is a picture from one of the state parks so uh and it's the same company that they've worked with so that's why we got pushed a little bit behind but um I'm excited to get new ones they're a lot easier to clean there's a lot less maintenance on them um so that's exciting in my world so so down at rogin Park this is District three so commissioner Anderson's area um we have a park host down there he's been there for two years um Mike hovda he's actually one of our our best hosts we have he loves being down there he's really good at cleaning up um and just absolutely loves doing it and all the people just Rave about him um so he's been doing a great job job one of the things we had happen earlier in the year out at Rin and it's not a great picture um but in the middle of the lake you can see one lone little booy out there for our swim area um those things have been in the lake for almost 20 years since we've gotten rlin from the state of Minnesota they've never been taken out over the winter um surprised they actually lasted this long but we've had two of them they must have cracked and sunk um so we're in the process of getting new buoys and then we're going to be working with the Sheriff's Department to actually take them out every year um and put them back in in the spring so we shouldn't have this issue hopefully coming up and then one of the other exciting things and this is not necessarily Park related it's just outside of the park um but the road that goes into rogin park um was fixed and paved this spring or actually early summer I was so excited I went through there one day and I saw it was all ripped up um the picture on the left is actually from a couple years ago before the holes got about a foot deep um yeah you could lose a small car and um so uh it looks like when they redid it they reshaped things so there shouldn't be water sitting on the road and we shouldn't have any more issues on there so it's a nice smooth ride now other than the other speed bumps that are on the road and then just a little fun here um my Park host could sent me a picture one day and it was this he about 1:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday um this little bear came and and decided to have lunch with them up by his deck um it was funny because on a on a Saturday afternoon you wouldn't expect Rin to be empty but probably good thing it was because this little bear just kind of moved in spent probably 20 30 minutes with them and just kind of took off so Mississippi High Banks this is again out District three um commission Anderson's area this has been another project long um in the running I think from what I heard about a 20 year long project perhaps um this has been an erosion issue for many many years out there you can see um what the bank looked like and if you've ever been out to the site itself it it's actually much steeper in person um so we actually got a grant the Environmental Services Department got a grant to fix this and they had it um engineered out you can see what the plans look like they're they look pretty complicated when you see them um but there's a whole set of stairs that's there there was a lot of landscaping things like that to prevent the erosion because it was getting pretty serious especially this spring with all the rain we were losing a couple feet every time it rained up on the top of it um so we did have to extend the project just a little bit to cover the areas that were roted out we actually when we were out there for the pre-work meeting we had somebody come up from the river and they stepped on the bank and they actually fell back down luckily it was sand they didn't go very far but I mean it just kind of shows the severity of the undercutting there but now when you go out there we have a nice set of stairs um and you can see it from both directions you can see all the Landscaping they put a lot of native plants in there um this was taken the pictures were just probably a week or so after it was completed so I'm sure that you know all the grass and all the other you know um plants have grown up quite a bit and it probably looks dramatically different um but there's a like said a large staircase going down to the bottom and then down at the bottom we've got a landing um you know for if you have a canoe or a kayak uh we got areas that you can tie it off we also have the steps going down um to a little Beach area of course this year the water's up a little bit higher so you can't really tell that there's a beach there um but you have good access to the water now um and you know we've had a lot of really good feedback about it um but yeah another long project that I'm very very excited that it's that it's actually here and done because it does look really nice Lori yes that high Banks one that is that the one that the missii headwaters board gave close to 30,000 towards you know I don't remember which which one if it was the east or west I just know that grants were gotten but we did have two high Banks projects going on we had an East and a West I want to say I believe it is the one I thought that there was yes I believe that's the one that actually yeah that they gave the money towards um and I don't know what the like the final cost was but I knew do know that they got bit from what we originally had planned yeah like everything else yeah but no it was a good project and it seemed to go pretty smoothly from you know what the what the contractor said it took a little bit longer putting in all those stairs by hand is not an easy project so also wondering about the the trees in that picture you know they're like some of those are almost all the rits are exposed like up on the upper left there and and even the one on the right and is there anything that is done to stabilize those or are we going to just hope they don't blow over or they have been like that for a really long time um they were it looks like in intentionally left I was not part of the that kind of planning um but those those roots do go down quite a ways we've had a couple of them that have tipped over but we've also had erosion happen in those areas so um you know it's always a possibility that they could go over but I'm hoping they stay they're they're really kind of a neat feature out there so okay thank you okay mobile maze Recreation Area this is District Five in commissioner Carlson's area and this is another one where we've had a grant for a couple years and we've been working on stages of projects the first one we had um was out in our challenge area it's for the mountain biking there's a lot of jumps there's a lot of things like that and the neelon foundation gave us about $166,000 to rework that area um do some improvements in it and one of the items was to put in a picnic table so now you can go out there and you know a lot of the kids can either have lunch there A lot of times the parents come with and and probably are scared to death watching do what they're doing out there but now there's a spot that they can take a a Break um and have lunch or whatever and then the other part of that was to install a work bike a bike workstation um so we've actually put the pad down um it's up by the shelter area so it's nice and you know secluded a little bit from you know snow plowing things like that so it's not going to get damaged um and we went to install it I had my crew ready to go and and of course they opened it and there was no Hardware included so uh we're in the process now of buying the hardware so we can get it installed but I would think in the next couple weeks we would have that finished and then we've got a place where people can work on their bikes out at mobile Maze and there is still going to be some money left over um for possible Trail improvements we don't know what else what else we can think of um for out there but yeah there might be a little bit left for a couple improvements that I'll have to tell you about next time and then Grant Creek horse came this is commissioner Anderson's area again um and this one it was a year ago that we had um an ordinance changed where we basically said that ATVs and and all off-road vehicles were not allowed in Grant Creek anymore um so this spring I went and put up the signs and you know we kind of see checked to see how it was going to go um I think one of the first or second weekends a lot of the campers were still telling in ATV or that they weren't allowed there which everything went well with that and I haven't heard any complaints since so I think that the word has gotten out and people um you know are just being respectful of each other's areas um and so it's been working out really good with that and then Wilton Hill Recreation Area this is again in District three um last I think it was last fall um the nrm department along with solid waste we were able to remove about 15 00 lbs of garbage out there which included pallets and couches and all sorts of things like that were that were just kind of littered around the Gravel Pit area um so that was all cleaned up um this was some of the in some of the stuff that I found this spring it turns out that when we don't have a lot of snow on the ground um it works good for being able to get back in there so we did see um a lot of garbage shotgun shells even some vandalism with you know putting profan and things on rocks but then of course the Rocks were stolen so I didn't have to worry about covering those up um but yeah we had a lot of dumping of carcasses and things like that over the winter after this spring it was all cleaned up it was kind of a lull it's been looking really good um I did go back in there today unfortunately and we did have a lot more garbage there's about 28 pallets stacked up out there for bonfires so um yeah we'll see what happens with that and how I can clean that up but so if anybody needs free pallets I know a good place for you can get them um one of the other things that we did notice last fall as well is that they were actually cutting down jackpine trees to create bonfires um and things like that and there was a lot of garbage involved but again cleaned up the area and it doesn't seem like it has occurred since um so hopefully it can stay that way but I've been trying to get in there at least every week to get things cleaned up because the cleaner they are usually um the better it is so and then one of the other issues we had during the Spring it doesn't seem like it's happened so much now um is a lot of our Rock barriers were moved and so ATVs and um by the tracks itself it looks like pickup trucks or cars or whatever we're going up on top of Wilton Hill um the ordinance does prohibit the motorized vehicles up on top of the hill um they're allowed in the Gravel Pit area but not up on the hill um so I'm going to install some new signs this fall just to kind of remind people um that they're not allowed up there and we'll see what happens happens with that hopefully it'll it'll slow down that traffic a little bit and this is kind of my yearly thing about funding just because I know that everybody's always curious about how the Parks get funded um so the parks are are basically rep portioned so with the nrm Department our net proceeds are portioned out to different different areas um so 30% you know go to Temp development and County Economic fund 20% stays to the park fund so that's how we get funded um and if I go to my next slide here you can see actually last year um we got a larger apportionment than that than actually we spent so that was a really good thing that kind of bolstered the budget quite a bit um and if you do look at I think the fiveyear average um it looks a lot better than it did a couple years ago um so that was that was good to get that kind of um bolstering to the budget and then I always like to end by giving a big thank you to everybody who um who I work with out in the Parks I'm just one person out there and can't do everything by myself um so my volunteers and my recreational clubs do a lot of work out there storm damage they're the ones who are cleaning up the trees and and doing all that stuff um so yeah they maintain and groom pretty much all the trails summer winter um and then they also gather a lot of the firewood that we use in the winter in our our shelters and then we have the mountain bike group that maintains all of those 8 nine miles of Trail by hand um so everybody out there who is a volunteer in Recreation pu I got to give a big thank you to because they're the really the ones who who keep the Parks really nice for us and with that if anybody has any additional questions questions for Lori Joe thanks Lori yeah um I too want to thank the volunteers that do a tremendous job we do uh keeping our parks and trails clean and organized and looking great um but I was wondering about about uh cameras have we ever put cameras out uh you know whether they're trail cameras or or more permanent ones um is there anything preventing us from doing that I know we run the risk of those getting vandalizer stolen too but of but you could still you know at least uh get the picture maybe a license plate a description um if somebody's um vandalizing or or dumping garbage yep and we have done that in the past we've got trail cameras we've got some um some more more high-tech except for I don't know how high-tech they are anymore because we bought them several years ago um but we have set those up we unfortunately we've had a lot of them vandalized and stolen um especially with the trail cameras you know what that big lens it's after dark and a light hits it you can see exactly where it's at so we have had quite a few of those stolen um or when I put them up they don't don't seem to take pictures which is always the problem um but I do have other ones um you know I don't really know it's been a little bit effective in the past um I know our previous park manager has able been able to get pictures of vehicles and been able to just track them down based on stickers in the windows and things like that um a lot of times what cameras we have don't do a great job of license plates um so that's been a difficult part because you can see it happening but you can't identify who it is so I don't know if there's any um better cameras that would have you know the ability to read license plates better than what ours can were they the cameras that send you a picture um to your email or phone immediately or soon after or were they the ones with the SD card where you'd have to go out there and get the pictures from the these were yeah these were on a SD card um they had a huge battery pack to them they're they're quite large but the camera itself is really tiny there a lot lot of wiring that goes with it um so you basically just put them out in the woods and you know put that pinpoint out there it's hard though because we found out too that you have to place the camera then go back out get this the SD card to see if you're actually you know pointing in the right direction just because it is difficult but you know we do have cameras whether they're good enough to capture anything I I don't know a lot of the newer ones have a built-in um cell phone antenna and we'll just immediately send you the picture I I use them for deer hunting you know and they come right to my phone immediately yeah and that might be something that we look into a little bit higher Tech than than what we had because yeah if we can get the immediate pictures that way we don't run into the issue of somebody stealing an SD card or something like that which has kind of been the problem in the past so yeah you any other questions for Lori thanks Lori thank you appreciate the update you're welcome Mr chair go ahead it's not a question for Lori but uh the sheriff's department has been pretty good with their deputies just every once in a while driving up especially the one in Wilton and driving through and I think that's a that's a deterant as well and and I know Lori has talked to them recently and they're willing to do that so awesome okay hi Leela hi I'm Leela I'm the license center division director I'm meeting with you guys to give you some information on marriage ceremonies it's a relatively new um service being offered by a lot of counties in the state I just was recently on a WebEx training where some of the counties that were already providing ceremonies provided information fee schedules how they do it a lot of resources and I'm part of the state vitals Advisory Board and I was just on another call today and there's two groups on there that are already doing two more the two more counties that are adding it and they're kind of interested that I was presenting today on it so it was kind of kind of fun to speak with them but in 2023 legislation um statute 54 51 17.04 allows for any individual aged 21 or older to register as a civil marriage officient by registering with the Minnesota county regist so that allows us to use our own employees that are aged over 21 to register as an officient so then we can use them to provide this service if we CH choose to do so um even before legislative change there some counties that obtained online ordination in order to provide this service like steel County they started in 2018 isan in 2020 and shis ago County in 2022 and that was really actually really nice during Co because a lot of the cour houses and judges were not doing any ceremonies at all there were close out Bel chy County wasn't offering them at all during that time so um just a couple statistics steel County repor reported that 25 of their marriage licenses that they sell is a civil ceremony that their office also does the ceremony for and then henpen County just started in April of this year and in the first two months they did 242 marriage ceremonies and then today she reported they're over 400 in four months which they're a lot larger than us um we only sell 250 licenses a year and average but also showing that if it was 25 % there is a need and then every week we have staff for like oh there's another one that could use this service because of what their circumstances are asking where they can you find someone to do the service and not always can the court administrator or judge just get them in right away or not so it's something that we could provide that service and have it done either same day or short shortly thereafter by appointment and I didn't push my button there so that's everything I just talked about to this um now we'll go through the five W's the who what where when why of weddings so who would be performing these marriages um licens Center employees that would register as an officient we have several of them that are I've talked about it to make sure people are on board if we went through with this process and that we've got majority of the staff that's actually pretty excited if we chose to do the service um the person that issues the license would not be the person that did the ceremony I want some segregation no duties there um so we'd have one person issue the license another clerk do the ceremony and then when they come back we'd have a different clerk issue the actual certificate because these are legal name change documents that we're working with so we want to have that segregation of Duties um what policies need to be developed ahead of this service being available um refund policy once they come in they ask for the service we do all their paperwork we collect the fees right before the ceremony no refunds you're married we're not giving you your money back so um officient registration policy we' allow our employees that want to register as an officient to do it at the no cost um we also do the registration in our office we can provide at no cost um as part of their job duties when talking with jod we determined it would be contingent on their employment or we renew it annually and we would not allow it them to do um marriages outside of work unless they wanted to register as officient and pay pay the officient filing fee so some some counties allow them to do it and do it outside of work as well and some counties don't but that's what jod and I kind of have spoke about um guest attendance policy it's not a big huge wedding where you're going to have a whole room full of people we most counties allow um six guests that married couple they're two guests or they're two witnesses and then four additional guests so then when when will these Services be offered and will you require couples to schedule appointments um I always think we do it by appointment only we do have half staff for about two hours during our lunch breaks and it'd be hard to pull someone off the line to go do a ceremony when people tend to get lined up during the lunches so we would do appointment 8: to 11: and then 1:30 to 4:00 in the afternoon and that way we have staff to cover lines and also staff to be able to go do the ceremonies um a ceremony only takes 5 to 10 minutes we have a template like I said when I was on that WebEx the different counties provided different resources to us um and they have the vows and that type of thing and you just put in their names and then it puts it right into the vows for you so it's everything's done just doing that we have an application that takes a couple minutes to and the ceremony itself takes 5 to 10 minutes so it's anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes between all the paperwork and by the time process is done and then where where would they take place um we have that records room it's got a locked door unless you use a key to get in there's not a lot of traffic through it I thought that'd be a good area can hold those eight people otherwise a lot of counties use their boardroom so they schedule our own a boardroom schedule otherwise we have a beautiful Park area right outside here too if it it was a nice day in the summer we could do it out there and then why why it makes sense to offer it um many C couples are looking for inexpensive option to get married there's a lot of people that want that Civil Service just being able to get married they can't afford um those big weddings so they are looking for something simple uh we've had several couples ask as they get their license do you guys do these ceremonies here what what's my next steps where can I go I'm not having a big wedding what can I do and so we've always handed them the court administrators number and they have to schedule with courts so we just give another option it's a very efficient process is they can get their license have their ceremony and get their certified copy of their marriage certificate all with in one office and then also it's a revenue generator for our County then under further um research of people that have destination weddings those 80% of destination weddings are just symbolic weddings where it's not actually a legal wedding in order to have a legal wedding outside the country you actually have to have a judge from that country marry you which gets to be very expensive to have them do that so 80% of them are symbolic wedding ceremonies so you actually have to get married prior to going to that country so they have a civil service ahead of time so it's another option for those individuals that want to do that questions and next steps so in order to add the service we'd actually we'd have to have board acceptance and we'd have to set a fee for the service and then we had those few policies I mentioned as far as the refund officient registration and guest um attendance policies um and also I just want to know if you guys have some questions for me about the service questions for Leela Greg will commissioner Carlson be doing his Elvis impersonation for the service know anybody over age 21 can register as an officient and they can have their own service thank you thank you very much and on here I also um some of the other counties their fees um Clay County charges 150 steel 75 Sago and isan 50 hanapin at 45 manan's at 30 and I just talked to the individual at Pok and they're he said currently at 25 but it's a fee that they're looking at increasing this year so um I used all the resources they had and I actually have forms processes training materials and everything else ready for our staff if it's something our County Board would like to add as a service to our license center Mr chair this isn't on our agenda for a deal for tonight is that something you still are working to get together to find out if we're if we're amendable to the idea or at this point we have everything set to go if you guys wanted to set it up on your agenda for the evening I we can most definitely get it going and just is there something that we would need need to actually sign or is it just a matter if you need a board board approval to approval of the the fee so so what's the wishes of the board do we want to add it to the agenda tonight or do you want to think about it or well I think maybe it would be appropriate we could add it to the next the next board meeting next board meeting and that way get we'll get it in our packets and have all the whatever the and all that I think that's if anyone hears about it has questions they can give us call perfect any other questions for Leo sounds good himim anything no sounds like we kind of looks like people are yeah okay bring it bring it forth okay get get it to Tom and Diana and get in the packet for maybe even the next I don't know why that couldn't go on a consent agenda as far as I'm concerned Mr chair uh you may have an opportunity because we'll be bringing another fee for the solid waste so it might be able to do the two together uh at the same time as well so do sounds good thanks Leela y thank you oh good the road tour date hey Bruce let's go good afternoon easy topic the first one here for you a road tour uh we have been taking the Commissioners out on a road tour in the fall we get to see the completed projects uh future projects bad roads good roads and just kind of take a tour of the system and so I I'm proposing that we do that again uh October is a good time for that um we have usually done it in a week between meetings so you have that open last year we did it on a Monday and so that is the date that I've proposed uh to start with here is Monday October 7th uh the tour would be all day it's a 8 AM start to a 3 pm roughly at 3M come back here to the admin Joe are you gonna have Mondays again like you had last year so you'd be able to make that yeah okay there is a MRC annual meeting um in Alexandria that day I was going to see if you wanted to go to that is that the day that that is thought I put that on my calendar there's a September one we talked about but there's also an October one oh okay so the September one is I the one I put on my calendar okay um I I won't be able to go but if we can't make one of the meetings it is the annual meeting so it's kind of an important one that's going to be an Alx also yep okay 21st we're getting but later might have snow I'm opened up before after the seventh we've got extension committee on the 21st 20 23rd of September well how about September 30th that would be one week earlier how would that would that work for you Bruce it works for me it was just the next day is the board meeting we've just up to you 30th is I'm fine on the 30th everybody good on the 30th September 30 that work for me then that way I could still go to the MRC okay okay 30th okay Bruce and then we'll just like the 8 o'clock meet here and yeah we'll uh I think Diane's helped uh publicize the the meeting and then uh we'll send out a reminder but it would be an 8 AM start here from the admin building um we'd have a we've gotten a bus the last couple years so hopefully we can do the same and uh be back here in the afternoon okay Mr chair I want to let um Scott and krie know that that um candidates are welcome on that tour as well yeah we'll stand that invite out to okay okay now the big one yes I hate to see all this time on the agenda might might need it the next topic uh Township road maintenance rates um the highway department is requesting that we change how we build townships moving from an hourly rate to a per mile rate so our request is uh that per mile rate structure we have multiple reasons why we would like to go to a per mile rate structure uh the first one is to reduce staff staff time um our right now when we do work for others for townships small cities our operators uh for each time they're doing work for a Township they need to fill out an accounts receivable slip for each Township they work for um so a plow route an operator might go do work on three different townships that's three different slips for each time they're out plowing so in the winter time we're doing uh plowing for 25 townships so that's at a minimum you know 25 slips that are being done each time um after that those go to the our office staff to enter them they're not our time card is separate from the accounts receivable so this is gets entered into we just are using QuickBooks for our accounts receivable part but uh so office staff puts them in uh supervisor is reviewing that and then it goes to our accountant to do monthly billing and collections um and so again there's quite a process there for the work that we do uh the biggest is in the the wintertime for the townships uh streamlining to a per mile it would be one invoice to each Township for each season uh you we're taking care of 12 miles so it's very simple to have an A per mile rate and send them one invoice and and do collections that way so it would streamline our staff time and then next reason would be to cover our actual costs this is the big reason um recently with our our tight budgets uh we've been recommended to look at the services that we provide for others and make sure that we're covering our costs uh we have um implemented permit fees making sure our permit fees are covering our costs uh like an entrance permit making sure that that fee is covering the staff time uh but the work that we do for townships the blading the plowing that is the largest service that we do for others and so um looking to make sure that we're covering our actual costs and having those um that benefit from it covering those costs um we've been good with our making sure that our equipment rates the operator rates are are covered uh every year part of our cost cing system we do look at our equipment rates so we know how much oil fuel Parts repairs go into our equipment each piece of equipment and how much it's been used and we can figure out our hourly rates that we should be charging for equipment and so we do that part of our cost accounting system and that's what we've been using for setting our our service for other rates you know a truck has a whatever 100 bucks an hour on it uh you put in the operator of the you know the 40 bucks you get the 140 we've been really good with covering our equipment operator rates over the years but we have been missing out on all the other costs and those are are unallocated costs uh so like my time my time has not put in a piece of equipment um managers accountant office staff that is not being accounted for on a direct piece of equipment um holiday vacation pay is not covered in the The Operators um the these unallocated costs um like facility you know there's no utilities no insurance no facility costs that are being directly charged to that piece of equipment and so we've been missing out on on covering those costs and those costs are substantial uh in the agenda bill um you can see on the the second page there there's um the cost that it takes us to maintain County Roads uh we have our direct costs again our equipment the labor materials uh anything that can be directly attributed to the road as our direct costs but all those other unactivated costs get spread across our our roads at the end of the year in our annual financial report and so you can see the the direct costs and then the unallocated costs and the unallocated costs are quite substantial and so we're missing out on quite a bit of cost that uh we would like to cover and it is a lot easier for us to track it on a per mile basis um everything that we do uh maintenance wise gets a Ed to our to our roads that's what we're there for we're maintaining constructing our roads so everything gets charged to a road um in our cost accounting system that we're required to do uh the state aid funding that we get our County state aid funding requires us to have that cost accounting system and to track our costs and attribute everything to the roads but those costs that are not again directly attributed to a road get spread out across our roads at the end of the year and with in our financial report every year um we have the costs for our roads and we can easily pull this information out on a per mile basis um on an average you know what it costs for a on a gravel road uh paved Road for plowing um and the examples I have here are for our County Roads so again we we are tracking it for our County state aid highways uh but these are our County Roads that just uh are the lower level lower traffic um roads so they would be more comparable to a Township road again our state aid routes get higher maintenance and have higher costs but these these ones would be closer to what a Township Road would get but again we really have those can easily get those costs on a per mile basis and so that is another reason why it is easier better for us to go to a per mile rate I just I'm sorry to interrupt I just had a quick question so I don't forget the unallocated costs on gravel versus paav seem really it's like how is there that much difference I I don't get that yeah and and there's and it's different by the type of service that we provide so we have our all of our unallocated costs and there's a complicated formula on how much gets put to gravel roads how much to paved roads how much to blading plowing um everything is kind of those costs are divvied out uh the easiest answer answer to that is our sand and salt is not uh tracked when we're going down the road and we're spreading our salt and sand in the winter time and that gets spread after the fact evenly across all of our paved roads so we have a fair amount of costs you know in our salt and sand that we would not have on a gravel road got and so that is a that is a big part of it there okay thanks just a followup with a followup with that so then if you have town ships that have paved roads do you automatically put them on assault or gravel on on those uh just like you would on ours we we have uh we would uh we actually we've changed that in the past we've had townships that had said we only want to Salt when we ask for it and we're like and we've we've changed that and we're going to we're going to treat a paved Road just like any other paved Road any County paved road if it's icy we're going to put some salt on it so we've changed that practice over the last couple of years we're not doing the allart or you know as as you request it it's as we feel that it's best to do it and so yes going forward we could continue that a paved Road would get maintained as any other County paved Road would uh the third reason um is the subsidizing the rates by not including these unallocated cost or our full costs um is unfair to the I'm going I say unfair to the taxpayers across the county we're subsidizing our rates for this Township over here but this town that is using our service but these other townships are not providing are not getting that service and so it's unfair to not charge our full costs and similarly unfair to the um contractors private contractors out there um when we're subsidizing our rates it's unfair on it's hard for them to uh to compete with us uh we're not covering our costs and they're out there trying to make a buck us they're trying to make some profit on it so just the unfair competition excuse me fourth reason Bruce just again with that um are the proposal that you have is that close to what um say a Township when they check with the folks that are doing their roads is that you know that if it's different than the county yeah are they similar rates per mile well they contractors doing it by the hour okay no one's I I guess I'm not aware of contractors doing it by the mile okay but I guess what I'm saying is if I'm if I'm the one doing it and it's by the hour is if you go a mile is that uh going to equate anywhere close to what you have down if I if I just look at it and say okay I'm going to do this Mile and it's going to be three hours uh is that close to what we're proposing for those that we're doing yeah I guess I'm not quite following the the question I mean hourly rates right now um yeah I don't I don't I don't believe our hourly rates right now are that far off from what a contractor around beiji is doing the trouble we have is there's not contractors enough contractors in the business there could be more um there are not contractors in the black duck kellier I'm going to say more remote areas the fourtown areas um where there could be but uh again I think that they with the rates that we're charging um you know we're we're out there with a nice piece of equipment that we need for you know blading maintaining our County Roads um and it's hard for them to private contractor to get in the business unless they're you know we I've seen some pretty um older pieces of equipment out there maintaining some roads and so it that's what it takes for a contractor to get in the business and um again Town work isn't the only work out there but but uh I do think that um we could be inhibiting some other contract work out there but I guess I'm not I don't know if I'm exactly answering your question yeah no you are you are it sounds to me like we're just as soon not have as much business uh perhaps uh with the townships and maybe that will grow uh outsite people being able to afford to uh get the blade and whatever yeah we're um we're not requiring them to use us you know that they're not forced to use use us they they they could be using a private contractor at their at their choice if they're available if they're available they're aren't always available my concern is the sh is just the the you know the lack of availability especially in a in a potential switch over time frame um and and then you know like last year there was such a huge delt in cost for the townships what they were used to paying and then you know March being their annual meetings when they set the levy so smaller townships that don't have a big budget and you know hopefully trying to ease them into this and not have it be such a WHL um and I see the the costs on on the chart are all across the board some of them are way less some are way more and and uh I don't know just a little concerned about some of the some of the townships I see some of them that I know are really you know low um are pretty close to the same but just wondering you know how how we compare and and if we you know I don't know it' be nice to see what which townships uh would be able to be serviced by Johnson or some of these other agencies or not and um get more detail on it yeah that was kind of my last point on that that reasoning there was in my opinion townships should be using contractors but the company should be there as a backup because yeah there might be a a remote Township where it just doesn't make sense for a contractor to to provide service for them they drive that far to do it it's gonna be kind prohibitive in time to for them to get up there and do in you know timely fashion and yeah you know if their Count's already nearby on County Roads and can can do their roads it just makes more sense yep no so I I still think we provide the service that's just uh we shouldn't be the I think we shouldn't be the um primary service provider so Bruce how does it work in the winter time uh last winter on a per mile basis they would have been way overcharged and then there's probably some winners where they're way undercharged um you just kind of take it an average and yeah and so the the cost that I provided um for the example cost for our County Roads that is a threeyear average um so yeah last year not as much snow um that actually would have been a good good year for us to been on the per mile basis um the high year would be the opposite but just looking at the average costs again we've got those costs for many years but uh I gave you the average here of the last three years of what it costs us on a per mile basis to blade or plow a paved Road or a gravel road but I'm going to say that's kind of covered in the in the averages just thank you John the the U the chart that you had on here the the blue is obviously the winter and the green is the summer and you've got the proposed rates um so how how many times is that that much per per time that wouldn't be that much per time that they would do the all the roads in the township as this is like how much would be for the entire year but it works out like I divided up just my Township and and U on the the summer one um dividing by 8 $50 that was exactly 15.46 miles so um just could you explain how this cart works yeah if I could in just a how many how many times would that be blading or is that just saying that you're going to charge that much regardless of how many times you blade and then how would how the township know that you're going to not just only blade it twice the whole summer yeah if I could I still I want to make the case that we make the change first the last the last reason I have is Staffing um winter is a crunch time for us summertime blading for townships not as bad um because we can fit that in our schedule whenever you can go blade a raid Road whenever conditions are right um but wintertime plowing snow it snows you plow and so that is kind of a crunch time for us um we have 18 operators on 18 routes and it takes when they're plowing everything that's a 12-hour day uh we have no backups no extra operators our back CS our a supervisor we're pulling a mechanic out of the shop um so we if someone's on vacation sick leave that's what we're doing um otherwise we're absolving the you know the the route by someone else we're expanding so we're going beyond the 12 hours to cover those routes um that's if we're full staffed uh we are having a hard time maintaining a full staff um and so we are constantly having a supervisor mechanic covering those others are covering those routes um and so from a staffing standpoint um I would be happy to see us do less Township miles um because it is significant uh is about a fourth of our time that we spend uh there's 250 miles that we do in the wintertime out of the roughly a th000 miles that we do so a fourth of what we're doing out there and we're plowing everything is a Township miles and so that is a significant out of our you know 18 operators that we have out there um so on Staffing side again uh it would be okay if we could reduce our workload uh budgets have been tight not been able to come and ask for more Staffing to help cover to give us that extra operator and so from a staffing standpoint that is kind of another reason why we would uh actually like to see a reduced workload um the recommended rates um so that spreadsheet that I gave you with the different townships on there the blue is the winter uh plowing uh townships that we do and the green is the summer blading um it is the number of road miles that we maintain uh the First Column there in blue or in green is the number of miles that we maintained for those townships then I took the largest invoice over the last three years so yeah last year uh I didn't use those numbers for plowing snow those were uh less a lot less and so you stick those in a three-year average and it really kind of reduced the three-year average too so I I did cherry pick I picked the the highest out of the the three years last three years for what how much we've build that Township and so again these are what we've build that Township that second column is what we've build them over the p in the past that's based on how much we've work we've done for them now then the next column is the actual proposed rate that I I am uh recommending uh it is for winter uh plowing uh it is at the top there it is $650 per mile for plowing gravel and it is $2,50 for plowing a paved Road So based on how many miles you've got it you know we can calculate out what that bill would be and so that is the proposed potential impact if we went to use that rate and uh did the per mile and then the last column um is that percent increase and uh and so now the reasons why I've recommended uh the rates um these rates aren't covering the costs uh initially when I uh first proposed going to a per mile uh rate I was looking to help cover all of the costs made that great big leap that uh we um did not do heard back from the townships um but again trying to cover the costs um of what we're doing out there covering those direct costs and if you look at the very bottom of those columns of the largest invoice from the last three years and then the proposed rate um those would be the dollars that we would bring in and so uh trying to make that those match or come close to each other on the summer blading they're they're $25 apart you they're they were right close um on the paved sorry on the plowing uh the the rate is a little bit uh sorry the revenue being brought in would be a little bit higher part of that is uh again going to that paved Road uh rate but again not wanting to go backwards and the revenue that we're bringing in don't want to reduce our recommend rates that we would actually go backwards on we do want to be covering costs and actually be um increasing um the cost over time and this is to me would be like uh the start that we at this rate and then slowly increase that rate over time um so that over uh say five years or so we are actually have increased our rat so we are now covering our costs that would allow the townships uh to um prepare for those increases prepare out to find a contractor to do the work instead but uh implement the the costs The increased costs over a time period um there are winners and losers uh like Craig pointed out commissioner gosig um there the work that we've done for the townships has uh the amount that we build them has has varied I mean these that's what these numbers come down to is it varies what we've the work that we've been doing doing for townships um and that is it's really comes down to the amount of time that we uh spend on that Township uh it could be different from a Township that's close to town short drive out to to take care of them versus a Township where we have to dead head you know an hour drive out there with that motor grader to to maintain those gravel roads um or the amount of time that we're spending on that road higher ADT maybe it's getting bladed more often um maybe they've got a road that blows in with snow and so it gets plowed more often there's just a wide variety of reasons or a wide variety of what we've been building these townships but it comes down to there's just a difference in in the maintenance that has been provided or charged to them um in the end uh our maintenance contract with them um spells out uh what that minimum maintenance would be we would provide um a service similar to the service we were providing them right now which is you know roughly blading you know summer blading um once a month as conditions allow winter plowing is again the the two inches of snow on a paved Road or 4 inches accumulated on a gravel road you know so we do have some um description of the service that we would provide but it would be the exact same service that we're providing them right now but it would be spelled out it's spelled out right now in the in the maintenance agreements that we have with it um Richard I think Bruce the thing that sometimes as you first look at this it looks like they're going to be charged $565 every time you go over it rather than that's the yearly cost for that road and as you look at all the work that you've done with this um like you say there's some winners and losers but overall it's probably the fairest way of covering the the county cig to to my point earlier just wondering how what is the um the guarantee of service for the township you know if you're just saying okay here's a flat fee basically you know and that what's the incentive to the county to come out and Blade the road when it gets waspy or or get the snow plowed more frequently or or whatever um just what's a incentive you know when it's on an hourly paid for on an hourly basis and on a per time they know exactly what they're getting for what they're paying for you know and if if they're just paying a flat fee the incentive is actually the opposite for the county to not do it and to do it as few times as as they can and so I would think that there'd be concern from the townships for that you know how how do we know what you're going to do for this what goes back to what he talked about the minimum the contract cont would have that we would do at least this okay and maybe you need to expound on that yeah so we we put the maintenance agreements in place last year um and in those maintenance agreements that the township and County have have signed or agreed to in there it spells out that those maintenance levels so for winter plowing we'll follow our snow plowing policy so that's the two inches of snow on a paved Road and four inches of snow on a gravel road will'll be out there and and plowing uh the summer blading it is as needed and it's I believe it I don't have it with me but it says like at a minimum we would do you know a monthly a monthly blading and so there are some you know requirements in there that on how we would provide or what services we provide and and if a Township um says hey this our road is because of the conditions whatever the it's all wash boardy and that we want you to come out and blade it again that would it' be just up to the County's discretion to not do that then well I'm not going to say that we're not going to do it because there are going to be Township roads just like County Roads uh we were talking about uh balam Road the other day that gets a lot more traffic and needs a lot more maintenance yeah and there's going to be Township roads of a similar similar situation that is going to have more traffic on it that would need more maintenance um and so yes we would be trying to maintain them properly so that they're not wash boardy um but there's also some in that maintenance agreement there's some uh onus on the township to make sure it's got gravel you know they need to have good gravel on the road because that's part of what leads to the washboarding too so um but we there it's on both both parties to help maintain that road but we would have I'm not going to say it's only once a month it's gonna there's some it's discretion on our part on making sure that we're providing that service and these numbers are based on on these increases like my Township for instance of seeing a you know in the winter time a pretty healthy increase in the in the summertime too but um they're U I'm just looking at that as an example because I'm really familiar with it um there is a you know just a you know that's going this is that's that big of an increase off of their highest billing in the last three years not an average or anything else so that just seems you know I me it's a pretty extreme thing to to jump into that much of an increase off of their highest billing you know so could be two or three times as much as what they had this last year for snow um and just wondering you know do we have to go that extreme in one year or can we say hey here's what we're going to be at eventually but do it over two or three years span or I don't know just wanted well he's already said they're spreading it out over five that would this isn't going to be the only no been signing those things yeah no so so the way I understand it bru is that we're not recovering all of our costs the first year but we're going to try to over the course of the next five years get up to that level of where we're recovering all of our costs is that right correct but the the initial rate is what's shown on this spreadsheet so the recommended rate that we start with would would be this amount right here proposed rate correct that's and that's that's what I'm saying it's a pretty healthy jump just to that out of the highest rate that they've been building the last three years um that's a pretty healthy jump I mean my you know like I say in my Township 41% increase for the op of their highest one in the last three years a 41% increase in one year and then a 22% in the summer you that's that's a pretty steep increase um some some townships would have maybe a tough time doing that when would this be implemented um if we were to approve it I mean because like we talked about the Town ships don't actually set their Levy until March that's the second second Tuesday in March um and so they wouldn't necessarily townships that are more a shoestring budget wouldn't have any extra money necessarily until after that Levy and then they get the the dispersement for it yeah and all that is I guess let going say open to open to discussion on the implementation because like it's been brought up they need to they need be prepared for it and set their Levy accordingly and if they're not getting that money until next year you know they're going to be halfway through a snow plowing season right now we do adjust our snow plowing rates in the middle of the winter because they're part of the the service or the the fee policy that the board sets and so they've been seeing a a rate uh change in the middle of winter but uh yeah this could be implemented uh so it's the start of next spring you know plowing and then the winter is the following season I mean that definitely can be um something that could be open to Mr chair I like that idea Bruce from the standpoint that townships not only they set their Levy in March but that's new money that's going to come in for that year so I think just that idea would be helpful plus I know that there's at least one if not two uh people that have the ability to become grading and and taking on snow plowing but they don't want to go to that expense or effort to do it if there's not a GU guaranteed job out there and uh so I see your point too that you're you're doing this but it's uh perhaps cheaper than what uh someone else uh would have to gear up to do and so it makes sense as I think about it so I think I think what I'm hearing from the board generally is well and it Le I I have to say I like the idea that it's more fair going forward that you're you're that one Township's not subsidizing another they're each paying their fair share um I like the idea of if we decide as a board to do this um that we start with the summer graveling that'd be our first part of it and then so that and we the policy relatively soon so that the townships can already start saying okay we know exactly what it's going to be come March and we can start looking for a private contractor so that it gives them a few months to talk to whatever contractors are out there and say are you willing to come and do this because this is what's going to happen to us starting with the gravel season in 2025 um does that does that seem reasonable yeah it does and not only that it would uh then it would just move into the plowing season for winter time correct and it but it it gives them that time to if they do decide to stay with the county then they can have their levies set and and plus they'll know exactly what it's going to be it's not going to be it's not going to bust a budget or go way under budget they'll they'll know exactly so I think um I'd like to see us pursue this I I think it's the right idea um and maybe come back to us Bruce with the exact proposal um soon Mr chair I just want you know Bruce I do respect and appreciate your efforts in this I just want to make sure that we are you know as prir to the townships as we can be in the process and make sure that we don't leave them high and dry if they can't afford to it or can't find another contractor to do it for locally for less money or to to do it as good of a job as the county does you know it's just a fine line there I think and and uh it's a it's a struggle I know my Township you know we've used the county forever for everything and it's um something I think they might struggle to find somebody else to do it as consistently and as good as the county has been doing it for them so um I I think we're financially situated to be able to absorb this without too much trouble but other count other townships may not be especially some of them in my Southeastern part of my district yeah I know there's an example of one of those townships out there that you can hire someone by the hour while if you're out there with a shovel or a snow two different things you know I can go out there shovel and make lots of money takes me a lot of time so there there's a little bit on you know how how a Township uh bids or receives those Services too so thanks for your efforts on it any other questions for Bruce or Bruce you I guess my question moving forward this would potentially be a uh a change to the fee structure that yeah that's January it would be a yeah it would be a change to the fee structure so there's a couple ways that you can handle this since the the fee will not be instituted in it sounds until next year you can include it in the rate structure uh and that'll get board approval in January you know conceivably however you probably want to notice the townships that this is coming and that I would advise doing after the board approves the structure and the preliminary rates because you could approve the rates at your next meeting effective uh at a time later so that way once the board takes that action you can put a notice to all the townships with that action that says there is a new structure and a new rate uh however that's not going to go into effect until you know whatever time they say uh summer of next year and they should plan accordingly that would be my recommendation so with the potential Solid Waste marriage fee I mean is this something that could come at the next meeting of of you know changing the fee you know with that with the in the future need to because we wouldn't be implementing it until after our normal fee change which would be the January of next year I'm just thinking of being able to provide that information to the townships you know that if I'd like to give them the exactly guess y I'd recommend bringing back bringing this back as its own separate item with those recommendations and then get the board's approval on it and then it'll then later be incorporated to the fee schedule which will then be approved again later uh in January but it gives you the opportunity to say the board's taking an action on this and then give the proper notice to the townships send that out to the townships yeah okay sounds good that sounds good implementation be like June of well whatever whenever the gravel season starts before the spring blading so you're May so it probably be like a April when they even though they they wouldn't actually receive that would be for the following years money but I think I think they can wor it it's not you know yeah it's not perfect but no but warning and they can definitely get it scheduled for the following year anyway right okay sounds good thank you thank you Bruce uh any final administrator updates or is that um one thing we didn't talk about Mr chair um is we do have an item um that U emergency declaration for the County Emergency declaration for the storm that happened on July 31st we kind of have a sense of urgency to get that done and so I'd like to add that to the regular uh agenda at as item 9A on the regular agenda for this evening uh the County Emergency declaration for the ju July 31st storm sounds good objections to that okay that sounds good Craig thank you um any last minute words Tom no sir I I don't have any for you any other business items we could do the could we do the the town the we had any comments for the from the past weeks you know I think we should wait yeah um we got time to wait now then with that we are adjourned until 5:00