##VIDEO ID:4srJeN6_RWM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good morning it's 8:30 and I'm going to call the Klay County Board of commissioner meeting for September 24th 2024 to to order first uh thing on the agenda is approval of the agenda move second have a motion to Second all in favor say I I oppose same sign next is citizens to be heard we have any citizens present uh who wish to address the commission on a topic that is not on the agenda Steve have we got anybody online we do not Mr chair okay next approval of payment of bills and vouchers move approval I'll second the motion motion to Second all in favor say I I Mo same sign motion passes and approve the minutes from September 10th move approval thank you motion the second all in favor say I I motion passes next we have the sheriff didn't bring Chris with you he in Colorado oh guess he thinks he needs a vacation every now and then well he's got a tough boss Sheriff's here to tell us about request approval for TCP software contract with Sheriff's Office yeah good morning and thanks for having me here this morning just request approval of sign a 5-year contract with TCP software they run our schedule anywhere which is our scheduling for the Sheriff's Office and the correctional center um by signing this contract it's 5 years we'd be locked into a price of 4158 for 5 years which is uh probably a good thing considering year one um if we just did an annual yearly contract with them would be 4573 and then after 5 years it would raise to uh 6696 so it would be a savings over the course of the 5 years and if we do have to have additional licenses that would be fine to do they would just charge us uh 3960 a year for the additional license any questions for the sherff Mr chair I'll make a motion to approve the fiveyear contract second have motion second all in favor of the motion say I hi post same sign thanks Sheriff that easy okay next we have Brian lunick the Morehead Public School Superintendent going to give us a uh we going to share information with us on the school Capital project Levy presentation morning superintendent morning can can you hear me all right yeah yep okay thanks thanks for having me I look forward to the opportunity uh to talk to you about our um referendum here that's on the ballot on November 5th um if you do have any questions uh feel free to ask them in the moment and uh we can take those as we go if you want to wait till the end I'm good with that too or if I do that good of a job you won't have any questions at the end I'll be happy with that as well uh without further Ado we'll get started I did uh I did have Bren to share with you the three-hour version of our presentation today so I hope that you're all right with that and comfortable sitting for uh three hours talking numbers and the actual why behind it but uh ultimately I think we did settle on sending you the 20 minute version so we'll we'll try to get through uh this a little bit uh quicker as well at the rapid speed if the meeting was going I might slow it down a little bit here so um anyway on November we have a capital projects Levy referendum on the ballot in November and uh just want to take you through the why uh behind where we are at and in schools were funded based on our property value and our per pupil uh units and you can see by this slide uh there's two there's two differing numbers on this slide one is the slide or one is the number that uh is escalating in blue and you can see how that number kind of moves uh upward and ticks Upward at quite an alarming rate uh starting in around uh 2021 and then you can see the dotted Orange Line uh which is the number we're currently at and this is our per pupil payment uh based on our uh student count and when you look at the number that's there based on inflation versus where we are in terms of actual numbers you can see that that equates to about a $9.5 million difference based on our 7100 uh which would be almost now 7,300 pupils based on our opening number so you see uh currently uh the formula is around $9.5 million uh behind uh based on inflation I'm sure uh just like uh our district is uh struggling that way I'm sure at the county and at the uh City level it's uh much the same trying to contain and trying to battle uh inflation as as well so this slide just shares where we're at in terms of our major source of Revenue which is from a state on a pruple basis so we look at our budget projections and we look three years out so we're in current year I'll always refer to the current year as fiscal year 25 which is the 2425 school year but it's actually for our terms fiscal year 25 and we run a July calendar to July 1 to June 30th calendar I'm not sure what the county runs here but sure it's pretty similar I don't think it's a calendar year uh maybe it is I'm I'm not honestly familiar uh but if you look at the bottom that's the key number that we want to uh be aware of we have an unassigned fund balance and that's uh at 2.23% uh if we do nothing and we have no new Revenue uh and we don't make any adjustments to our expenditures uh you look out to fiscal year 26 27 and 28 and by the time we would be at fiscal year 28 we would be in a uh deficit situation on our unassigned and just by policy our unassigned fund balance is supposed to be at 17% and uh just to let you folks know quietly over the last uh couple of years we've through attrition have eliminated roughly 30 positions within our district uh quietly as people have left uh however with with inflation at what it was and what it seem although it seems to be slowing down uh we're still a little behind um the eightball there so um we're trying to do something in terms of um a combination of increase of Revenue with a balance of our expenditures as well as we move forward looking just to give you an example and this isn't um anybody to blame this is just the situation we're in we'll take you through some pretty big examples of where the district um uh has a un unfunded uh Gap and it's just the the nature of what we're dealing with so when we talk about our special ed program we always often refer to as a special ed cross subsidy and the cross subsidy is when the general funds got to pick up the difference and uh when you look at it here um we run about uh $25 million in expenses to run our special ed programming and we collect a little over 15 million so there's about a $9.6 million gap that our general fund has to pick up every year because we can't roll uh a negative fund balance in our special head programming it's got to get balanced and so we use our general fund to balance that and that's why you also see that unassigned fund balance continuing to move uh in a direction that we don't want to see it uh transportation is another example we have roughly 7 A5 million of expens and we collect about 3.4 and so we have a transportation cross subsidy in our district of about 4 million and part of that is it's very difficult we've um I think about uh 2014 a little bit before I got here uh they went to a tiered transportation system to try to save uh some money and they have done that and that's the most effective way that we can run our transportation system uh where we have the elementary tier the high school tier in the Middle School tier and we take the same bus drivers and we run those routes out rather than having to hire um a bunch more drivers and do a bunch more routes to try to get everybody to school at the same time so we've done some things there and and I would give our uh Transportation uh Department some credit in the last contract negotiations as well as giving a shout out to our contractors uh they were willing to uh reduce their cost per hour in the next contract which is unheard of so they they were very good to us in terms of uh negotiating I think they went from a $93 an hour contract to $90 an hour so that's help that will help address uh this Gap that you see up here but again uh just to give you an example of what we're up against and then software everybody you just heard uh it's kind of fitting that you just had a software presentation here from Sheriff empting our district is no different in terms of our dependency on software and the expenses that have gone on with it you can see how uh we spend about 3.6 million on software and you can see how that is spent by department so our teaching and learning Department relies on software to the tune of about 2.4 million our media center about 48,000 our Communications Department at 32 technology a little over half a million our special ed relies on it for about 144 in our activities uh roughly about 14 and then operations is around 384 so we've become pretty reliant on technology and the software costs that go with it where are we at currently uh in Morehead and I just want to share there's two vote there's two types of levies that voters can vote on one is an operating Levy and the other is the capital projects Levy and we do currently have an oper ating Levy that uh was renewed in 2016 and it was renewed at $223 and66 cents and that started in uh taxes that were payable as of 2018 and that was then because of the successful vote was extended for 10 more years uh currently in the last legislative session there was a law pass that if we do not increase the $223 66 the board has the authority to renew it for another 10 years Beyond 2028 so uh but if we were to go out for 22367 we'd have to go to the voters to get that increase approved so if we don't do anything on the 22366 the board has the authority to extend it uh Beyond another 10 years this uh Levy at the 22366 amount generates about 1.7 in annual ual revenue and uh for districts our size uh this is significantly less and we'll have a couple graphs here to show you some comparable districts and where we sit in comparing them to us or US to them Mr Sher thank you superintendent Lun can you quickly just we understand but for the public to differentiate the huge Bond referendum that the community supported how this differs yeah because I think that's and maybe that's coming up so I apologize but just to it is but I'll address it now so that's a great question because a lot of times there is confusion on what we you know the comment is we just supported you in 2019 and our public did support us in 2019 they also supported us in 2015 uh those were bonds to address our building situation to address the growing population uh this Levy is operating or put into place to help us with our operating costs to keep those buildings moving so there's two different pots you have buildings and the there's a couple slides ahead here and basically our expression is uh bonds are for buildings and levies are for learning so bonds will help us build the buildings levies will help us operate and do the learning portion of it in those buildings so good question uh capital projects Levy uh is what we're we have on the ballot currently we don't have one in place and uh this Levy has the potential to generate additional revenue for any Capital type expenditures or technology type expenditures uh keep in mind because of the situation we're in and the high cost and the due to inflation our general fund is picking up a lot of the um overridge that our capital projects our operating Capital formula does not pick up so this would fill that Gap and allow us to have a stop before we would go to the unassigned fund balance which you see has taken a hit over the years because we have to cover that deficit any questions so far I did the teach I I taught in Climax Minnesota I don't know if you guys know where that's at for about eight years and I put kids to sleep with their eyes open for the first hour of every day and I have a feeling I might be doing it again I have a question how often does the state make a um adjustment to the Pu right yeah so your per P unit that's a good question uh because of this last legislative session there's finally a um 2% adjustment on there that we can build so those numbers that you saw earlier in the budget were with the Assumption of a 2% increase on the formula per year um however um those that 2% we don't necessarily budget for an in a lot or a large increase in our student population because that can fluctuate we do have um we do have projections that we use but we want to be conservative in the number of pupils we put into our budget because we don't want to overestimate that but yes the state has uh due to the last legislative session I think it's of 2021 um did add a 2% inflationary factor in there uh that we can budget into the future whereas before we were always putting zero after the bium because we didn't know so okay thank you question so where we compare to similar districts of our size you can see there's two shades of uh color here one is orange and one is green and the ones that are in orange are the operating levies and the ones that are in green are considered a capital projects Levy and uh districts that are of comparable size here just to let you know we we selected a distri dists here that range from 6,500 students all the way up to 8,300 and we selected the districts up to about 8,500 excuse me because our Dem our demographer who did a a study last year projects that we'll grow another thousand students over the next 10 years so we felt that to compare we went from 6,500 to about 8,300 in terms of the comparison so there's districts here that are a little bit bigger than us there's districts here that are a little bit small smaller than us but they they are comparable uh nonetheless and so you can see uh on here that um there's districts that have a small amount of orange uh medium amount of orange and a large amount of orange as well as a uh little to nothing in terms of green and a large amount of green and if the graph doesn't appeal to you in terms of um bouncing out the next slide will because that has numbers on it and it'll show you uh where we would be at comparable to this these same districts in terms of actual numbers so in this case you see that we have 7165 as the number that we used and we have an operating Levy of $233.6 currently in place but we have we don't have a capital projects Levy and our total then when you combine the two is still 22366 and you can see where that is in terms of Revenue uh with comparable districts and then you can look at Burnsville is probably the closest number in terms of ADM down at the bottom or four up from the bottom they have a $2,200 student operating Levy to our $223 and they also have a $525 capital projects for an additional 2 point uh $2,700 per student but that generates them almost $20 million a year versus our 1.6 so when we compare ourselves to other districts on an operating um on a levy type situation as this uh we are far below that um that District of that size or the average of these comparable districts which is about $1,800 per student just to show you that if our if our um uh referendum were to be successful in November you would see that we would uh just move the notch or move the um we'd move four down so we wouldn't really be uh generating Burnsville type money or Edina type money but uh for our community we we feel like uh based on the survey the amount that we're asking for is the amount that the community said that they would support so um that regard you can see that the total would move to 82 380 still uh well below the average of 1,800 and smack us right between Armington and Centennial as comparable districts Mr Brandon um so I I I see the difference between that is about 4.3 million just roughly MH is that would that does some of that are you able to leverage some of that with State money or is would that just all be money that would be collected from the district that would be a local collection okay similar to the operating Levy of 22366 okay so like commissioner Jenny's question was what's the difference between the two this is the slide that we were going to use to compare the two so um we've never asked for an operating Levy increase uh since that original one went in in 2009 and was extended in 2018 um but we have asked for buildings to address our growing student population and um we've we're coming back now to ask for the levy portion of it uh because we've added uh square footage and we've added some things for our student population but not any dollars to operate and now with uh where we're at and knowing that um the high school is in a good place with inflation as well and getting that Gap closed um now we want to come back and make sure that uh we can continue to operate them so this is the difference between a building Bond and an operating Levy and this is how we um want to portray that so so why now uh the big why behind it like I stated uh a little bit earlier was we know that from a from a building standpoint we've been able to stabilize the the the high school and we've gotten through that cost inflation and um because of our Levy calendar and how we would um um the money where the way the revenue is levied similar to way here at the county if we if we didn't put this on the November ballot and yes we can run multiple elections to try to get this to pass but if we didn't get it on the November ballot we wouldn't see the revenue in fiscal year 26 the early we could see it would be fiscal year 27 so it was critical that we get it on the ballot in November and uh try to get that on the revenue for uh fiscal year uh 26 so now was the reason uh November was the reason just for that just because of the how the levy Cycles through and if we missed this window uh we would have to go a whole another fiscal year without uh any enhancements uh to the revenue other than the additional 2% which is is dependent upon our student population as well so the other thing is uh this Revenue would be used to support and help cover gaps that we talked about from that earlier slide at the very beginning and then um this funding We Believe would just help stabilize the budget and help us turn the corner on our unassigned fund balance and continue to provide our programming for our students that they so desperately need and and we want to continue to provide for that without that having to uh take a hit so to speak so now is a critical component to that and our Levy cycle help contribute to the why now piece so when we talk about stewardship and tax impact uh this 4.3 million on a home valued at $250,000 uh would be roughly uh $15 a month we do have on our website the ability for you to go and uh put in your address and it would kick out your specific tax impact based on your address and then for the different property classifications you can go there as well so if you're a if you're an egg land owner you can go in and uh type in under that category uh your address or your parcel number and it would would uh talk about what you would need to do there as well and the same thing if you were a business owner and if this were to pass in November this would be uh in place for 10 years and this does not have the same uh impact that an operating Levy does in terms of legislation where this would based on current law today would have to be brought to the board again or brought to the voter again in 10 years uh this one does not have the same triggers that an operating Levy does where it can be extended by the board the board does not have that Authority to extend this by 10 years this has to be extended by the vote of the people unless something legislatively would change between now and that 10 year time no so the one that you we proposing now is limited without and the board doesn't have the authority to the board does not have the authority to extend it as we are talking today so Mr if I can add so going back to the difference between the capital Levy and the operational Levy um are you are you are you more restricted and what you can do with capital projects Levy dollars versus operational Levy dollars an operating Levy is is very um open there is no restrictions capital projects you do have restrictions but like we stated earlier um we do have about four well we can find about $8 million worth of capital expenditures that the budget is taking on right now okay but we settled on the 4. because that's what the community told us they would support um we'll still have to balance that uh budget with some expenditure reductions as we move forward and if there's some legislative things that change maybe that helps the budget Outlook which would reduce any types of uh expenditure reductions we would need to do but yeah it it is a little different but in an election year the ballot language was a little more detailed in terms of what you would use the dollars for and and everybody that I've talked to said in an election year it's pretty important that you have uh a ballot that has a little bit more specific language on what you would use the revenue for sure and so that was why the capital projects Levy was selected it would have the same impact though in terms of what it would do for the general fund which would free up those dollars which then are technically at that point unassigned and could go to anything we would need at that point so basically what's happening is you're using operational Levy dollars to fund uh capital projects we're funding a lot of capital out of our operating Levy right now and Technology expenses questions and just so te when you talk about technology what what's included there what what is so technology like the software that we just shared about the $3.8 million we we buy we buy device for students we buy devices for staff um those have a cost as well sure okay our technology staff it can be used for that as well um so all those things that also the capital projects Levy allows us mechanisms to do things with our facilities that we can't really do with current buckets like long-term facility maintenance it adds another dimension to our ability to maintain our facilities as well but in the meantime I would say for the the first portion of this uh Levy for sure we would need to use it to help us build back up more on assigned fund balance because of where it's at currently how long is your Capital Levy good for in how many 10 years 10 years yet worst case scenario doesn't pass what are we going to lose well worst casee scenario is we reserves we would we don't well I I would like to say that we could rely on our reserves but we don't have any yeah well um we're we're in that position to where we would have to make some reductions um those scenarios are in the process of being built now uh we did submit some things to the School Board Association uh just the other day that uh if we were allowed for instance to move um some restricted funds like let's say from ltfm to cover some of our Capital deficit that might help reduce some of the uh reductions we'd have to make because again there's another stop we can make before it has to get to the general fund so we're trying to do everything we can legislatively as well to support all the capital purchases we have to make without having to go into the general fund to to pay that and um that would have an impact but if that doesn't go through either then I think we're looking at approximately $8 million in reductions to start building that back up Mr chair commissioner Mojo thank you I I know that uh superintendent and I were part of a group as some of you have been in the past that lobbied at the capital for the needs of the area and you know I'll highlight a little bit while I'm sure you were grateful for the 2% inflation um if all of the issues that we were dealing with were cap at 2% I think we'd all be in a lot better situation so I think it highlights the need um for adjusting formulas to account for what real world INF inflations likely are and just looking at your widening Gap first couple slides uh you know I I think districts as well as counties and municipalities were hit with a lot of unfunded mandates uh after a global pandemic which we understand things changed and and how we learned changed and accessed information changed but um the reality is you're you're kind of maintaining a pretty consistent Gap in there and it really has hit the gas pedal so um certainly we will continue to advocate for legislative um changes to help ease those those pains because uh the district 152 is not the only District in the county that are facing these challenges um certainly I think your funding formulas that are State mandated are are tricky and I think you do the best to juggle it um I'll say from someone who lives in the country who has understood that there's some um transportation gaps we we understand and we will embrace the fact that our high schooler will will figure out the transportation to help ease that so you don't have to drive eight miles to only pick up one kid I do appreciate you picking up the littles at 6:45 but uh I think that um having you come here and raise the awareness of the challenges helps the community Embrace that as well I know there's been a lot of um different changes to to mitigate the funds in which you have so um thanks for coming here today and um I really I do think it will help with the knowledge of the community commissioner Campbell yeah thank you we done okay um Brandon the um one of the things that I'm always interested in is you know and we kind I had a discussion with our uh small cities this last week and and it's interesting to see what what each entity is doing from a levy standpoint because in a lot of instances CL well in all instances Clay County shares constituencies with all school districts Y and all municipalities and we always have an interest in in who's doing what in what given year uh because we we like to incorporate that into our thinking to less the burden on all taxpayers as best we can there needs to be there needs to be a priority at least in my mind there needs to be a priority what needs to supersede something else when you have limited dollars but my my question is um if this is approved in November when would it first show up on the property taxes for indiv would that be 2026 yeah it would be for us it would be the next fiscal year so it would be right away so like last night for instance we certified the levy at I believe like 2.89 or we certified the max but at that run that it went through was about 2 point um 2.88% uh the run that they did on the 23rd had us all the way down to 1.09% but if this were to pass uh we would be adding that 4.3% on this year's Levy okay so it would be show up then it would show up it would show up in this one but for us it's for you know we call it uh 2024 payable 2025 sure so it's it's for us it's it's in our fiscal year it'll it'll be in our fiscal year 26 budget because we'll let collections would start now in May of 2025 for people who pay correct right that's I just that's what I his fiscal year 26 starts July correct yeah y July to June yeah yeah okay thank you yep other questions comments I moved here in '06 a 17-year-old daughter who attended Morad high for the last year which was not Rosy but the the comparison of the schools that uh she had been into Morehead schools was remarkable I was very pleased and I was told at that point you there just been the capital u passing in the C capital budget to to build and that the school was that they were going to sustain the schools and meet the growth needs that the city had uh since then I've not been disappointed and again speaking as somebody who doesn't have children in the school district now there's some imperative things for a community to do and when I'm at the greater Fargo Morhead EDC there's a lot of crowing across the river there's a lot of State support for them over there but we have one of the cards we always have in our hand is the fact that we've got such a remarkable school district and that takes support and if you don't have kids in the school this is your future and this is stabilizing the the activities we have a lot of young families in this community and this stabilizes the environment for their children which makes it a better Community when I was police chief we saw that kids were engaged in the schools had fewer problems I regret that the police department isn't there now but that's a whole another discussion but I think that the Morehead school district has done a an excellent job in meeting the needs right up with the Career Academy and everything else certainly worth supporting and I appreciate you coming forward and shedding some light and making having some transparency and what this ask is about and how it impacts things um and once again we do this a lot in Clay County you look at other counties or in your case districts throughout the state people get a lot for their investment and uh it's good that we scrutinize these things it's also important to remember there are bills to pay for all of us in government and the taxes need to be met I think we're very aware of the property taxes as commissioner Campbell brings our attention every every year about this time are pretty regressive but even for those that don't have kids in the schools there are benefits to maintain a quality school district and I appreciate you uh you doing so anybody else thank you superintendent thank you Brandon okay public hearing Mr chair I'll make a motion to open the public hearing for the public input of our five-year Capital Improvement plan second motion all in favor of the motion say I I I oh same sign okay public hearing is open Dustin take it away can you get close to oh your mic's not even on I don't think sorry all right so the first year in the 5year plan is 20 24 and as of last week this construction season has been completed all with the exception of the 11 Street underpass I felt as though it was a very successful construction year with just over $6.6 million being spent we did utilize both state aid regular Municipal local funding as well as wheelage tax and Bridge bonding dollars highlights for the year include a 9 1 half mile overlay on cassa 26 and a Paving project on Broadway Street that was graded 2 years ago any questions overall on the 2024 year of construction have we paid that the 11 Street underpass has that money been paid yet or we have paid our portion and we have paid 1.5 million that was requested as soon as the project okay good was awarded and there was an agreement for that project too that we are capped at that 1.5 okay uh the second year of the 5-year plan is 2025 so the first project project number seven is a bridge replacement just south of comto so recently that Pro or that bridge was reduced to 8 tons so we are really excited that we did receive Bridge bonding for that project uh the second project is one that we bid this spring that we did not get a bid on I will be coming in the next week or two to start advertising that project it's the bridge replacement on casassa 14 just Southwest of Glendon just west of the Glendon piler so we did receive federal funding on that bridge bond funding and we do have some local state aid funding on there as well then the next project is one that we were able to receive some federal protect funds on so it is a CPR project concrete pavement repair which includes both a diamond grind and Joint repair and that is on Casa 11 from from Casa 18 to 26 so this will just help increase the longevity of the concrete pavement similar it's just something that you have to do to the concrete pavement and the protect funds are kind of as you dime and grind and do joint repairs it is shown that you reduce carbon so that's why we were able to receive those funds um the next couple projects and it'll be pretty consistent throughout the 5year plan as kind of the theme of it is pavement preservation we do have an in pavement infrastructure so there are lots of Mill and overlay projects project number 10 is on Casa 34 from Felton to trunk or to from Felton to Casa 11 7 miles and then we do have a small state AIDS Street in the city of Dilworth project number 11 Casa 45 that we will utilize some state aid M Municipal funding on Project number 12 is one that we have been working on for quite a while so it is the urban reconstructing comto diversion Authority is providing the funding for it we are running the project and then project number 13 is one that's been discussed throughout my budget cycle um it is a seal coat striping project and you will notice I did in the top right hand corner um Clay County Construction allotment I do have it at 725,000 utilizing 325,000 of that uh turnback payment that we used that we had we had paid 20 years on guess any questions on 2025 it is a big construction year for us just over $ 11.5 million Mr chair commission thank you I um you know I I know throughout the years we I being a rural commissioner hear a lot of well there's there's so much happening in the western part of the county why aren't there things happening on the eastern part and blah blah blah and I I think there are valid concerns I do want to highlight though that several of these very large projects that we have have to do with commodities leaving the eastern part of the county and keeping roads safe for those commuters into the metro and you know it it if you've driven on 26 during the day during gravel season it's very dangerous and I'm really excited about uh wrapping that up in the next couple years we've done a really great job of reallocating some things and then I'll say even even farther south on that bridge replacement there were several farmers down there that were very verbal about that needing to um go back to the tonnage in which it was so I'm really excited to see that but um I I think I I do want to highlight the the need for preservation in a time when you have a big project like 26 and we've seen how much that costs to completely redo the road um I'm really hopeful that that doing some unique preservation pieces might really help us with the longevity of that so just my random comments but thank you any other question for grabbing off yeah uh follow up to that if I may so the reservation because you made a comment about I believe it was the one the uh the funds that you got received or a reduction for the use and tell tell me a little more about that what that entails so project number nine the diamond grind joint repair so couple years ago mindock came out with what's called protect funds and there's a big long list of projects that are eligible for it one of them being if it's called your iri but it's when mot drives the road if it showed that it's really rough or has chatter in it you are eligible to apply for diamond grinding to help reduce that iri and in doing so you're reducing the carbon foot footprint by reducing the amount of fuel that Vehicles use and just wear and tear on vehicles okay and then if you remember the past luckily we didn't have it this year but past two years we've had some major major blowouts on Casa 11 with pavement buckling and part of the reason that that is happening is when this project or when that road was first constructed the joints weren't sealed so those joints get full of gravel salt and they don't have the ability to open and close so when it gets really hot it has nowhere to go but pop thank you that's helpful all right so we will move to 2026 so this is going to be another busy year with a couple of really exciting projects projects 14 and 15 are up by Georgetown these are bridge Replacements box culverts and then there project number 16 is down just west of Barnesville it is a bridge currently will be replaced with a box Culvert we were able to receive federal funding on this in a joint application um project number 17 is a Mill and overlay on Casa 9 is from trunk Highway 10 to Casa 18 project number 18 is one that we're really excited to wrap up so it's Casa 26 from trunk Highway 75 to the Red River so that'll complete our casa 26 project there is a small piece that's not shown on the estimate there we're kind of working through details on it with the diversion Authority there is some Road raises that have to happen in that area and until they're scoped it wouldn't be any local funding being spent on on it but I didn't feel comfortable putting a number towards it and then project number 19 is one that has been discussed quite a bit at this board and one that we are really excited about it's the roundabout at CASA 12 and CA 52 so we were able to receive hsip funding and local Road Improvement funding for this project project number 20 is on the Eastern end of the county Northeast part of the county it goes from the East limits of uland to the East County Line This is one that we have every sugar beat meeting we go to we do hear a lot about this and one that does need to definitely needs some attention on it and then project number 21 is like I discussed previously that's a seal coating striping project any questions on 2026 here's not all right 2027 so the first three three project shown our Bridge Replacements two in Hagen Township and one in flowing Township one thing I will kind of mention there is a footnote on the bottom of the fiveyear plan on every sheet but this is just kind of our best guess at when Bridges will be eligible for funding so as I do more of these Five-Year Plan presentations you might see these Bridges slide from year to year that just means that they're not they aren't deteriorating as fast as we thought or they're not eligible for funding yet um um project number 25 is a Millan overlay on casat 2 so this will kind of wrap up our project on casat 2 which went from Barnesville all the way to the Red River so we are waiting on this project until the southern embankment comes through and then we'll be finishing the overlay from the southern embankment to the Red River um project number 26 I know you've gotten asked about this one a lot Frank this is a Millan overlay in the city limits of Ulin we will be working with the city as we start to scope this project just to ensure that they don't have any infrastructure that needs to be replaced as we're coming through project number 27 is Casa 21 from Casa 2 to Casa 10 so this is one that we're currently we're doing a lot of testing on it this summer trying to scope it correctly so there's two different sections one with a gravel base one without so I do have it shown as a cold in place Reclamation and a state iiz fold that Reclamation just because of the different roadway designs on that then project number 28 is the seal coding and striping again any questions on 2027 all right and then the final year of The Five-Year Plan it's 2028 project number 29 is one that has been discussed many different times at this board I currently show North Broadway Bridge and it is listed as unfunded project number 30 is a bridge replacement in Glendon Township 31 and 32 are bridge Replacements in Elmwood project number 33 is a Mill and overlay CA 3 from Casa 18 to Casa 22 so this project Also may move a year or two depending on we are working with metrocog and the City of Morehead just the way the federal funding works now through the team Ma we're just trying to figure that process out and then 34 and 35 I think is probably one of the more important projects on this 5-year plan as well so it's Casa 11 from trunk Highway 336 to sabbin so it's 4.1 miles so this is currently the only Road in the county that's paved that does have 11t Lanes it's narrow shoulders definitely a lot of safety concerns in this project will be the focal point of future funding application if the legislature does approve local Road Improvement funds in the future it's definitely going to be what we apply for and then project number 36 is just steel coding and striping again any questions on 2028 or overall on the fiveyear plan Mr I have a a comment on 2028 and just some overall comments on the fiveyear plan in general uh and I guess my comment on Project 29 the North Broadway Bridge replacement uh from the Minnesota side you know our our stance has always been on that that any funding that would come from Minnesota for that would have to come out of state bridge bonding dollars correct and you know so even though we're showing that project as a potential 20 I as far as I know they could choose a $50 million project and on the nor toot but from whatever whatever Minnesota elects to participate financially it's going to be from the state of Minnesota mhm and there's there you know there's not going to be any special taxing district or anything like that to cover that bridge so just a you know that's just kind of a more of a commentary than anything else and then on overall on The Five-Year Plan I serving on the highway tracking committee there you know Justin you know you guys have done an awful lot of an awful lot of work on this and and I know uh commissioner Mojo did mention about East versus West and those types of things and and something that's really important that that when these projects are brought before highway tracking committee um Frank and I serve on that neither one of us are Engineers you know that's the first thing we need to point out and so we need to have the full faith and confidence in our Engineers that they're bringing forward the projects that are of prop top priority to them and and a lot of what they do and include is you know that when you have limited dollars you have to take a look at where is the most traffic going too I mean that's a key Factory so if you on on every one of those pages you'll see the ADT which is your you know daily traffic numbers and and you know I mean it's not like we're ignoring some of the areas either we've got a couple of bridges on here where it's average of two two cars a day but we're spending $150,000 replacing a bridge but it needs to be done and and a lot of that goes to the egg you know those might be egg important egg uh Bridges and so we need to deal with those so overall but then and then I just want to point out that that Justin has also been uh very conservative with anticipation of what money is coming in which is I think is very appropriate to do but for example in the 2024 if you look on the very top the very first page the state allotment for uh from the state was $4,375 th000 that's probably more likely to continue but if you look at all the next Pages moving forward he's back at anticipating 3.9 million so you know so we're not we're not you know we're we're trying to be somewhat safe in that regard in terms of our financial planning so even under a reduced allotment you know we're we're being able to cover these projects now if those if those numbers continue to go up then maybe we can fit something else in but he's also you got to remember by the time you're looking at years three four and five you know there might be an inflationary Factor but that's just a guess at this point in time we don't know what oil prices are going to be in three years you know so so all that is very you know everything that's being done here is somewhat um projected absolutely but I but I you know I I just want to give hats off to you guys and and you know Frank and I we've also attended Ed these uh Township meetings on all of our the township contracts and things that we have there and when we have those meetings there's an awful lot of Township officers present and if anything I think the most of them are very very positive in the cooperation that's that's being done between the counties and the Township roads as well you got to remember about half of our rural roads in this County or Township roads MH and you know so I think there's a really good blend that that goes on and I think I think you're responsible for maintaining what 26 27 of the townships 27 27 of the townships you know so that's 1,600 miles of Roads roughly MH that that's being worked on or dealt with every year so My hats off to you guys for for this um presentation and the projects you've selected you know better than I do on on what those projects should be so that's my commentary motion um well we we're in public yeah we can't do and I I will just make one comment kind of on that projecting Out Future years and using that 3.9 million so one thing that we do like to do obviously in 2025 I'm showing a positive balance of 775,000 so I'm trying not to borrow against the allotment but if all of a sudden projects come in cheaper than I'm anticipating plus that we're at 4.4 million I do like to bid early just in case there is one extra project from the following year that we can slide in we also like to have one of those projects in the hopper that if that does present itself we can be flexible and move it that's a very good point and maybe probably more for for Paul and you know years ago uh when we did these fiveyear plans almost every year we were borrowing almost a full Year's allotment into the future to do these projects and as you look now I think it isn't until year five it's showing the potential for for being a million dollars um you know having o over above the allotments yep you know so U but that and that and that is allowed by um mot to do that MH um but I I think I think what we were able to the last time we did I don't know maybe commissioner Moo can remember this to where Frank can remember this but when we did the when we did a a bonding bill for for Trans you know for our projects MH we incorporated five years worth of work into a into a bond right yep and then you use the state aid allotment each year use the state a allotment to pay that back but I think that also really helped catch up uh so that we didn't have to uh have such a high U borrowing from year to year so it really it really was beneficial and it's something that once this next once that five-year bond is up it it it should be looked at again as a potential to and what what that would do is would just speed up the ability to do some of these projects that we were talking about here today that you reduce the risk of the inflationary cost when is a five-year Bond up uh I'd have we'd have to get that from it's been up oh it is it's been up okay okay I want to say either 19 or 20 was the last payment I don't know for sure time flies when you're having fun all right anyway Mr crabing off thank you for that um Jess you know as we talked about the fiveyear plan it's pretty much all on existing Roads Maintenance and updating that type of thing um just going back to our City's meeting you know on on uh Thursday there was that conversation about you know and I'm thinking about communities that as they grow like Dorth Holly and how do you how do how do you look forward on anticipating traffic that may as was mentioned on a Dorth going north you know to catch on 15th Avenue create that get more access to um the bridge to the you know to the firew side yep how do you anticipate how does that type thing ever work into a a plan um so thinking about Holly also on yeah so on those particular roads 15th for example is a Township Road so we don't we are a partner in the corridor study so as part of the corridor study traffic counts were taken and you try to anticipate what future land use is going to be and that all goes into future projections so that's not shown anywhere on here just because it's not a county road as far as County Roads go we are so mot does all of our traffic counts occasionally we'll have Metro Cog do some but we are given a projection Factor through this state county each county has given their own projection Factor just based on growth and what traffic counts have done but you can transform a Township Road into a county road if you if you would be able to get state aid for is that how that works or do do they never um so we don't have any Casa miles in the bank so we wouldn't be able to take over a Township Road and turn it into a CA currently there'd have to be some sort of turn back it has and to be a casa it either has to meet on one end a casa or a trunk Highway and on the other end has to meet a casa or trunk highway so if that would ever exist where they want to pave that that would be on the township or more the city yep yep okay thank you so for example like city of Dilworth when they got that local Road Improvement grant for 7th so we were the project sponsored just because the funding had to come through us and it had to be a state aid project but the county itself other than time didn't have a financial contribution to it okay great good know thank you commissioner Mojo thank you I think um making sure that we have representation at the Metro Cog table with those Transportation technical committees is really important as we look forward and similar to how commissioner Campbell reiterated to the school district making sure that we're all aware of the projects that are happening so we can phase or tiar things you the I will say a large reason for us needing to do a huge chunk of 26 was because of a large project that went in on the North Dakota side and and the amount of product that were was coming out of Klay County pits and the truck traffic led to deterioration at a rate that we just I don't think could have anticipated that that fell apart as fast as it did and uh making sure that we do have projects in the Cofer and and are are um able to switch to a different one if different funding comes up I I look at the 52 roundabout do people love roundabouts no did I almost get blasted driving into town at that intersection today absolutely and so it's it's taking the public safety component which is a huge part of this plan the public safety concerns and and what we're seeing Trends with the Sheriff's Office calls and and new projects coming in is how we can kind of quickly shift I I know Metro Cog had a reduction of 30 ,000 for planning dollars for us this year and and well I I get it because there's not a lot of projects that they're planning on this side I I caution us a little bit about that just because I think as a growing County next to a big uh U metro area we we really do always have to have plans and the works for projects but I think you've done a really good job of encapsulating where we think those growth areas and um commuter high traffic volume areas are the comments do I have a motion to move at a public hearing move to close the hearing second have a motion to Second all in favor say I I those same sign Mr I move that we approve the fiveyear capital Improvement plan for years 2024 through 2028 second okay motion a second any further discussion if not all in favor of the motion say I I I oppose same sign motion passes thank you just thank you both I do have one more item you're up next yeah so the second item I have is just the request approval to hire a maintenance worker due due to an upcoming retirement so this individual is going to be done probably in the next Once mowing is done I think he's going to burn some vacation and be done once he gets probably first part of the year but just with how it has been trying to hire CDL drivers I would like to move forward with requesting approval to hire this before winter I'll make a motion to approve second have motion second any further discussion if not all in favor say I I post same sign motion passes thank you Justin thank you good work on that plan thank you Darren I might have a question for Darren or um Justin before he leaves I know we're talking about the referral plan but that CDL plan do we could we get a report on that at some point the how successful that's been in recruitment I mean I don't want to put you on the spot but since you mentioned the CDL so it it has actually been really good so we've had three people come in without a CDL that have utilized the the plan so it's been a huge asset for our department okay great um this current go around we did have some interviews yesterday luckily we were able to find two people that did have class A so all right thank you just going to that so did I can't recall did we did we put a an ending date to that or is that just open-ended with what we put a I don't think we put an ending date proba want to it would continue until yeah our board would yep but no I've been very happy with it and it's been working well great thank you thank you um while Justin's here I we had interviews for uh maintenance workers and motor grader operators as you know Justin came to the board um earlier saying that we were having a lot of retirements in uh his Department right before winter which was never fun um but we interviewed what five people yesterday and we got some great candidates I think uh we're ready to make some offers probably pretty soon so that uh I was I was very impressed with the uh interview uh people that we interviewed yesterday and what's nice is that uh hopefully we can get them on board and a couple of them had CDLs already and I would have to say that there was several of them that they one of the reasons they applied was they heard that Klay County was a great place to work and especially the highway department so um that was always good to hear um that they were they were excited to come here because they had heard that this is a great place to work so thought I'd just put that out there since Justin's sitting next to me right now he gets so few C Kudos I had to had to give him one while we were while he was here all right well um thank you for having me uh to to update you on the referral program I was kind of amazed uh that when I looked at this and when we had it effective I I hadn't realized it was going on as long as it was um it became effective July 15th of 2022 so about 26 months um and you have an information sheet there but I will read some of this for the uh the citizens that may be watching so part of our referral program we have full-time and part-time and what happens is we we uh give a employee current employee uh $500 if they refer somebody to come and we hire them on and then a if that person remains here for 6 months uh well after six months they get the $500 and then after one year they get another $500 so I think the program has been extremely successful we've really filled up uh our departments we haven't had the the huge problems of recruiting that some of these other counties and cities are having and I think this is is part of the reason why so going through the uh stats on this um since July of July 15th of 2022 we have had 51 full-time and part-time employees uh recruited from our current employees uh 12 of those were hired as variable hour and then moved on to become full-time in part-time 46 of our employees have been recruiters so we've had 46 people that have recruited people to come work for Clay County uh of those 51 33 employees have been paid out the first payment which totaled $13,750 and 21 employees have been paid out the second payment and that totaled of $88,500 so the pay total payout so far in the last 26 months for the full-time and part-time employees has been 22,25 um seven have left employment so far but that gives us about an 86.2% retention rate so that's pretty good um for sure uh the variable hour they get the employee that uh recruits a new employee they get $250 after that new variable hour completes 400 hours of of work and then uh they get another $250 after that variable hour completes 800 hours of work as you know variable hours we they they turn over a lot more than our full-time and part-time but since uh July 15th we have recruited 77 employees uh 65 employees have been recruiters uh most of those have been in the juvenile detention uh facility 22 employees have been paid out their first payment that equals $5,500 10 employees have been paid out their second payment and that equals $2,500 for a total payment payout date of uh $88,000 um since the the program has started uh of those SE 77 31 of left employment which turns out to be a 59.7% retention rate as you know variable hours turn over quite a bit I gave a little bit of a breakdown of who the who is hiring those varable hours uh those 77 employees General Revenue was 14 Public Health was 14 most of that would be in detox uh three for solid waste one for facilities and 45 of those have been uh Juvenile Detention workers so the total payout to date has been $3,250 for the referral program this was taken to the pck meeting last week and it is re it was recommended to bring it to to the full board to continue this program into uh into 2025 um I did run some numbers I I used a new report just recently and I ran the turnover rate for Clay County for 2023 and for our full-time part-time employees our turnover rate was 6.8% and for our variable hour employees it was 11.9% so that's that's pretty good um stats when you're looking at the workforce the the flexibility of the workforce that we have out there now um with that being said I am opening it up to questions questions for Darren commiss kraban off yes hey Darren um just wanted to ask always curious about the variable hour people and uh I know they tend to be uh especially for juvenile a little younger group you know with flexibility they like right is there a trend with those variable people that eventually they try to get on to the county fulltime um I think there is as you can see there was out of the 51 that were hired 12 of those went from variable hour to full-time and part-time so that's okay and that's always a nice stepping stone um in the juvenile detention center we have a lot of uh employees that are still going to school and then once they um graduate they may go to find another job somewhere or uh if they if we have openings and you've now detention for variable Hour part I mean for full-time or part-time they may bring them on as well so we do use variable hours that come on to be full-time yeah thank you Mr Campbell yeah I you know since we put put this into place I know when we put into place there was a you know our market conditions were really it was difficult to there was strong competition for just about every position that we'd have available uh I'm not so sure that that that those market conditions are the same as when we put this into place but there are still um there are still significant areas where there's an awful lot of competition that's out there but I I want to I want to point out that I don't I don't think there is a a better Advocate to go to work for a entity public or private than when your own employees are suggesting to others that they should come and work for you totally I think that that's a strong statement in itself and I think you just earlier on you mentioned something to Justin as he was walking out the door about um the applicants they heard that clay count is a good place to work for absolutely uh I you know I think everything that we that we try to do uh represents that and um you know and and I and I think we're bringing in top quality um people to at the same point in time that that really help us to uh implement the services that that our citizens want and expect from us so um I think I think this is an overall good plan I think you know I I think it's something that we have to continue to look at from a market standpoint uh based on demand but as of right now I see no reason why we'd want to change that okay thank you Frank uh at the meeting we did discuss as far as continuing the program and we felt through that it's been successful and since it is successful why not continue it I mean even though it is proven to take care of what our shortage was I mean we don't have that shortage anymore but the reason we don't is because of this program so we too uh it was we should continue it and I make a motion that we continue this program I'll second the motion okay motion the second as Frank indicated at pick uh we discussed this at length even if the market improves the point to where it's an add-on this is bringing people in who already know employees and have already had uh a positive positive image put to them and that helps with retention that helps with people that stay long and move up the ranks and become supervisors and those are things that we need so again pick pick endorse this okay going forward any other comments or questions if not all in favor of the motion say I I oppose same sign thank you Daren okay thank you okay we're going to have committee reports and we'll start with commissioner Mojo thank you Mr chair last week I attended the Planning Commission meeting there were a number of hearings that we went through the first was a request for public input on our Clay County Land Development code we did not have any public um speak on that but certainly there's many opportunities to get in touch with the planning office if there's an issue that you wanted to highlight or provide your Insight on the second was a request for a conditional use permit in uh Park Township a after the fact conditional use permit for an equin Center certainly um the land owners were unaware that that one was needed they um worked to get in compliance quickly and that's a facility that offers ecoin therapy and um horse camps for kiddos so that did um not have any um negative public comment we did approve that permit the next was an after the fact permit in Spring Prairie Township for a home occupation um Saddlery teac business uh that did also uh get approved um I think it's important to not both of those prior ones did not offer any um uh negative influence in regards to uh roads and access and certainly fit within the rural character that we are hoping those businesses um fill so they both were approved the next was a request for a platted subdivision in Elmwood Township uh the steenerson had worked on a um change to the code which we'd worked with them so they're um uh seeking a plat to Plat a one lot commercial subdivision to fulfill that storage business and that also uh was we approve that or that was a recommendation to this board a recommendation to this board for later and then I attended the metr Cog meeting they were short at Quorum so while we were all at the small cities meeting I had called in to provide Insight on that they had a couple just uh draft amendments and then tomorrow there is a two meetings one is at the yums from 11: to 1 the second is from 5: to 7:00 p.m. to provide Insight on the Metro Transportation um 2050 study certainly if anyone has the opportunity to go there and provide input that would be um really helpful or if you have questions of Metro Cog staff certainly you can do that online as well and then I had the opportunity to attend the small cities meeting with all of you I always um really look forward to that meeting it's it's a great meeting to get the um the pulse of what's going on in our smaller communities in regards to um open Lots or um buildings so that we can help um facilitate and and work together on how best to fit the needs of our um citizens in those communities thank you very much to the um city of Glendon for hosting it's always great to go out to those towns and then yesterday I attended the Lakeland Mental Health Center board meeting in Detroit Lakes we had the opportunity to hear from supervisors on all of the great programs happening at Lakeland there uh we did um approve a donation in the amount of almost $600 from a church to go to Fergus programs we are having some issues in regards to um I think one thing for Lakeland is their their staff ing pattern is really or the success in regards to revenues is really contingent on um having um full Staffing patterns and so the clinics in which there are a lot of openings or difficulty filling um schedules we're seeing some negative pieces the Morehead Clinic is um just doing great work in regards to uh psychi Psychiatry appointments and their margins um last or in August were almost 43 $30,000 so uh for the entire organization do have a margin of $718,000 in August and the Morhead Clinic being uh what it was it really speaks to that so they're doing great work want to invite you um there will be an invitation forthcoming at the end of uh October for a ribbon cutting for the Morehead Clinic if you've able to been able to drive by there north of the belly Boulevard area they're really expanding um which speaks to the needs of for services there so U great work um for Donna and her team and that concludes my report thank you commissioner Campbell thank you um Thursday uh the 19th I attended the cities County meeting which I think all of us attended uh it was um a lot of good reports from and it was good to hear from all the small cities that were present and um learning what they again going back to what we talked about when Brandon was here this morning uh what their anticipated levies would be and and how we incorporate that with with uh what we do and then I just want to also um give a thank you to all of our um department heads who were who were there that were able to either give reports or answer questions on Whatever May pertain to their individual areas on behalf of the questions of the Cities uh then yesterday I attended the um kickoff meeting for the pre-design of the predesign work on our non-secure SL um prtf project that we've been talking about uh there was an awful lot of discussions in terms of where would it where might this go and how it would look and and um you know getting into uh on the prtf side uh how how that facility might need to be remodeled uh and then how and when we had an awful lot of conversation regarding the non-secure and trying to see if we can incorporate that to fall below um a project that would require an awful lot of extra B3 um stuff that that really kind of raises the cost of projects so we had some really good conversations there was a lengthy meeting but we covered an awful lot and um at this point in time um because you know this board has authorized Klein McCarthy to move forward with um with the proposed plan of a an a separate non uh non-secure facility and the prtf uh I believe it's time for us to transition this over to the finance committee uh partly because a lot of the discussions that we're talking about uh also include uh how we're going to pay for it and by going to the transitioning to the finance committee uh that now that would then put um commissioner mojo on there like it's been with the others and what's EXT extra important about that is as we've had both commissioner Mojo and commissioner kravinoff really involved with the legislative uh ask that we're trying to do on this project and I think it's important for at least one of those two to be to be at these meetings where we get into the Weeds on on all of these things so that that certainly as The Advocates at the state level they know all the underlying issues that are going on and talked about so to be able to answer those questions and I think we're ready to do that and the finance committee now is um uh from that stand point we're I think we're going to have our last meeting on the um detox um buildings that that's going to be concluded and I believe we have one or two more on the DMV and those will be done so that committee will be be freed up and it's going to probably be time for Lori to also have some involvement on this so I um if it's appropriate this time I would I would like to make a motion that that this move um to the uh finance committee for its meetings and and there and there are we have already there were a total of six meetings that uh were involved with kle McCarthy as part of the contract we had our first one yesterday and there's five more and those dates have been set and so I think it's important to um you know if it's going to go to the finance committee that commissioner M will be aware of those dates and compl plan for those so that I'd make a motion to move it to finance committee I'll second that and I truly think that's a a very good next step and appropriate at this time you have a motion to Second any further discussion not all in favor of the motion say I I I post same sign motion passes and then and then um Steve I you know I think if you were going to be sending out those calendar invites on those meetings so so I think I think the makeup of that committee is slightly different I I know Lori is more involved with that too I think so um yeah all the same people that we've had we still want Solutions and those people okay that concludes my report thank you commissioner gross oh the first meeting had was the pick committee which uh we had part of the our regular meeting today so no use going over that stuff again uh the last part of the meeting was the discussion of a having a full-time assistant County Administrator you know it's something that uh haven't talked about too much yet but it's been in the I mean we've been riding along with Darren being the sort of the assistant Min administrator County Administrator and I think it's time that we start looking at it's not I think I mean the committee thought that was time to start looking at hiring a a county I mean assistant County Administrator and move ahead uh anticipating U and say Darren's retirement uh if that ever happens I don't think it'll ever go but no it's just something that we need probably in this County uh on a regular basis so it's just something that we're going to start looking at and we're going to put it um I don't know if we'll put it on the next agenda or not but we're looking at it probably next year sometime looking at getting that position in there so that's just on the board and those are my two meetings I mean the rural city meetings also okay thank you commissioner kraban off thank you um last Tuesday uh the public health committee which included uh staff and uh commissioner evur and I uh we started looking at a uh review uh to do updates to the uh tobacco ordinance and we'll keep looking at that and moving forward to anything that may need to come to the board at a later date um ALS also I uh after that had the adult mental health um annual meeting or I'm sorry monthly meeting and it was uh we didn't have a highlight uh this month but we did have a great sharing of reports uh from our nonprofits that are all part of this Lac and it was a healthy discussion uh among each other and and networking uh after that I had the uh caplp uh finance committee overall the budgets running is projected like many of these places like cap and HRA that are kind of there's Federal funding and state funding budgets or grants come in at different times so there's a little variations but overall the long-term projection let uh on track um W they I had the uh historical and Cultural Society finance committee same way as cap LP uh in in good order it's in a Range um and again it's a lot to do when the grants come in and um that have been approved when that money arises on Thursday um had suicide and substance prevention a big highlight on the uh Family healthc Care Community Center uh the work they do uh throughout our area um uh I I learned a lot and uh how big they are five locations Mobile Dental unit out and about and of course we have the I have the Clay County Dental office here and and and then yesterday out at the Morad academy uh a new Clinic is being set up and they had that um Grand Opening there uh uh so that was good information also uh through the Minnesota Department of Health and uh they received a substance mute and prevention Grant which they've received the money for uh the the this money will be utilized to expand a program that's being successful successful in the school districts of strength uh strength sources of strength and they're going to take this money and uh try to develop the program throughout the community and uh so with that they'll start building a CO Coalition for greater community outreach and again it just uh um just gives people those assets they need to have a better me mental health and also uh develop more information about where they can get help and uh uh the referral Network that goes along with um Suicide Prevention and and uh substance abuse uh then I had a meeting um right after that our HRA uh um monthly meeting a big thanks to this group for uh approving their Levy um and so then as with that knowing where they're going ahead uh working on their 2025 uh budget as they're moving ahead uh knowing they have the funding uh to move forward to make the uh budget U um viable and balanced um then that afternoon I too was at that rural cities and County uh meeting we all had it's been well discussed I do I too enjoy being with the group and hearing from the cities um the different things they have going on right after that I had the cap LP uh uh board of directors meeting uh good news on that one um it was a lengthy meeting we had an overall audit presentation uh this would be a state audit and we've had a deep dive um Federal audit earlier in the air any anyway everything looks uh very good and um uh overall and we'll next month we'll have the final there's a um something uh re uh fuse me repossession of some of the uh monies that they had their budget they're going to move those around well approve that next month uh also during that meeting we had uh we elected in three new board members uh James Hammer uh uh a consumer Gian briy a consumer and then Sheila CAD in the private sector so this the first we have a 15 member board and this the first time it's full in quite some time so it's good to be um getting a full membership on our board also of the 15 three of them are from wilon County which is a goal we've been trying to achieve for quite a while and it's good to see their presence again um I was elected uh chairman of the group that'll be through 2026 and we have two candidates that will be doing a a v on uh for vice president or vice chair I should say Okay Friday uh caplp I attended a cap LP open house the next day at Bley location there was quite a group there went from uh I think it was 11 to1 or something like that vendors were out there full tour their operations on Bel Bley of which they have a lot of administration and three classrooms so they have three classrooms here uh at the um service center and then three class rooms down there at Bley service over 180 kids in the Head Start program um then yesterday I had the C Food commission steering committee uh again with budget cuts over in um in uh fire going on there was a pretty big healthy cut taken out of farro Public Health kind of changes up a little bit um how maybe affects some of the um uh in particular one person person uh who who did leave uh that was our co-chair to that uh anyway the operate our our our steering committee will and food commission will continue on and um and then we'll work with fireal public health to keep them uh or I'm sorry FAL commission keeping them to understand the the benefits having um uh nutrition and the work that the food commission does in the uh Public Health um Arena also we had a review of a couple of events we had lately had such as the one at MJ part and um with the food forest and I think that's yeah oh and then the last thing we've been working on a a strategic plan for about 6 months and we'll have the final results of that for the next casca Food commission meeting November that concludes my report thank you on the 24th I attended the pck committee meeting which commission gross discussed uh the committee decided to move forward we had the referral program covered today uh committee decided to move forward with the full-time assistant County Administrator uh issue uh I think that it is uh necessary I think it's it's an important thing that we need to discuss as a board and like to see it on the agenda at at the nearest opportuni Dave um following that uh later that day I attended with with public health uh staff we had a discussion on flavored tobacco ordinance and that'll be brought forward to the whole board um in the coming weeks on the 19th I attended the greater Fargo moead EDC meeting there was a lot of discussion about innovate 28 um C county is 2.5 million to give for the project um as long as they can get matching funds on it the the goals I understand it with private donations they's still about a million and a half out uh they talked about about the Workforce program that the state of North Dakota is uh directing towards the EDC to work on uh they have their livein Fargo and work in Fargo project part component of that completed and it looks like now they're going to have razor family in Fargo coming up um they also discussed a company culture program they have and 11 companies involved in it there are collocations with three of those companies in Minnesota with John Deere Sanford and RDO they also discussed an alumni recruitment to bring college students back into the community that they're working with NDSU on and that completed that meeting um I attended fall uh fall rural cities meeting it's already been reported on but as always it's really good to be able to get in and hear how these communities are growing and there's a lot of growth in Clay County and to see how our staff responds to the needs that that we can we can provide for the rural cities so it was a good meeting and then last night into the night I was at the Lake agasse Regional Library Union negotiations and we came up with a proposal for salary and contract changes that'll be voted on by the union membership but it was a long night of interesting discourse and sharing of ideas and that completes my report Steve uh thank you Mr chair uh last Tuesday I participated in the pick uh pick program that's been covered I would I would just note uh when it comes to the assistant administrator piece be with the with the board's action of setting the preliminary Levy you know there was basically two ways that that that would be able to be paid for is uh one uh you'd we'd be looking at making requests to pay out of reserves for next year or number two and and what I'd like more time to do would be uh we can't we can't raise the levy we can only lower it and or adjust uh and maybe between now and the end of the year another option may be is if we have retirements or funding that uh that we're able to to uh change or address in other areas or revenues of expenditures revenues ere expenditures uh that that that may address that so um the 17 participated in the tobacco ordinance review I think part of that is as commissioner krainov mentioned is just looking at our fee schedule as we move with cannabis and alcohol to have a that hasn't been addressed since 2012 and so have something that's consistent across the board uh we have more more to that in the future um on the 18th Troy alanson and I presented at the mor Business Association let's talk business to talk a little bit about the county and specifically uh about our withdra management uh and that was well received I think we had a couple different examples this week of of uh of groups of people that just really didn't know one that we had that we had the program and two of the complexity of of the the situations that people are facing uh that utilize that facility and so that was uh it was great to great to be there we appreciate the opportunity anytime uh we can be uh be let's talk business um you had a meeting on cannabis registration uh delegation discussion with with Mr Melton Matt Jacobson Kathy McCay and Jason McCoy in conjunction with a meeting coming up with our small cities uh we didn't have a whole lot of discussion on that from our rural cities or questions from that standpoint but wanted to be prepared on the 18th I met with uh sheriff ampine on a series of issues on the 19th I met with Darren and Anna also on a series of HR issues uh on the 19th uh met with Joe uh if you're at the government center uh the election the election process isn't just a few weeks uh that uh that our our staff prepare it's actually months of preparation uh at our government center we we have uh various areas that get taken over uh and uh Joe and and the under Treasurer staff worked in establishing a kind of an election room uh that better serves our staff U so when you're over there you might want to take a peek uh over there uh at that nice area um participated on the 19th in the fall rural cities uh thanks again to Glendon uh for hosting and for our staff and and attending on the 20th I participated in the Land Development code meeting with Matt Jacobson uh at our last Land Development code meeting we had discussions we had as it was mentioned we had quite a lengthy meeting uh at towards the end we ran through a few different things and so one of the areas that our commissioners talked about was rural residential development and the importance of that and so I think that Matt and I will probably be asking our two Commissioners on that committee to have some additional discussion just to make sure that uh everything was fully covered and understood on 20th participated in my weekly ni leadership uh webinar meeting uh also participated in the regional ma meeting in Fergus Falls uh we talked about budgets cannabis uh impact of ESS uh changes and legislation that we'll have to look at address addressing our County policy again and also upcoming Paid Family Leave Act uh and so lots of different things happening in in our region on 23rd had a department head evaluation uh that morning I also had a took the the FM extra on a tour of our withdrawal management uh and DMV uh facilities in preparation of the open house on the 1 um it was great to see the the withdraw Management Facility is uh is really coming together uh it's it's a facility that uh that this community can Community can be proud of and again uh with the FM extra just one of those examples of not understanding or knowing about the program and understanding all the services that are provided and so uh we're continuing to work through some door strike issues uh at the withdrawal management that uh we're anticipating may cause some delays in the actual opening uh but as far as the tour we should be ready uh the DMV uh the DMV uh is scheduled open on the 21st um I will uh completely trust gir's construction and telling me that it's going to open then uh but there's a lot of work to be done between uh between now and then but exciting and on both fronts and then yesterday I participated uh in the building committee uh meeting for the non-secure detention in prtf just to two notes uh again uh commissioner moo mentioned earlier the importance of Metro Cog there's a public input meeting tomorrow at the mcom center both at 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7: p.m. uh it's it's metr crog 2050 uh which again this public input will guide the transportation Investments not just uh not just in in the Morehead area but also our region so and then just of of note um on October 28th there's going to be a Clay County leader Round Table to discuss some legislative priorities um and so um well if we have a great interest in that we would have to have that one posted that concludes my report thank you ran Darren Sarah okay uh we're Canna take a break here e e e e e e e e e e e okay we're back in session and at this time I had entertain a motion to go into close session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d 05 subdivision 3D Mo to approve second a motion and a second all in favor say I I oppose same sign okay we'll be in closed session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e there we go we're back in session go ahead perfect uh thank you Commissioners um I guess our our request our request formally to the commission today would be to uh request approval to form a team or a committee uh I certainly would recommend myself Rory um and anyone else we would request a commissioner be on there as well to really look at the security compliance needs not only specific to Hippa but for the county overall when it comes to our cyber security Mr chair I would I would move that we move forward with adopting a committee uh as has U been recommended uh with and that committee should be determined by administrator Larson and um Rory schmidtz and Quinn Jagger uh to do that and my motion would also include our tech savvy commissioner uh commissioner moo to serve on that committee on behalf of the board second that and motion a second further discussion I'm going to be really embarrassed when I have to go over to your office and get help changing my password after well that's different any further discussion if not all in favor say I I I oose same sign thanks gentlemen thank you thank you any other business come for the committee or commission if not we're adjourned for --------- ##VIDEO ID:ytSjXIWd2AM## good morning it's 8:30 and I'm going to call the Clay County Board of commissioner meeting for September 24th 2024 to to order first uh thing on the agenda is approval of the agenda second have a motion to Second all in favor say I I oppose same sign next is citizens to be heard do we have any citizens present uh who wish to address the commission on a topic that is not on the agenda Steve have we got anybody online we do not Mr chair okay next approval of payment of bills and vouchers move approval I'll second the motion motion to Second all in favor say I I oh same sign motion passes and approval of the minutes from September 10th approval than motion to Second all in favor say I I motion passes next we have the sheriff didn't bring Chris with you he's in Colorado oh guess he thinks he needs a vacation every now and then well he's got a tough boss Sheriff's here to tell us about request approval for TCP software contract with Sheriff's Office yeah good morning and thanks for having me here this morning just request approval of sign a 5-year contract with the TCP software they run our schedule anywhere which is our scheduling for the Sheriff's Office and the correctional center um by signing this contract it's 5 years we'd be locked in to a price of 4158 for 5 years which is uh probably a good thing considering year one um if we just did an annual yearly contract with them would be 4573 and then after 5 years it would raise to uh 6696 so it would be a savings over the course of the 5 years and if we do have to have additional licenses that would be fine to do they would just charge us uh 3960 a year for the additional license any questions for the sherff Mr chair I'll make a motion to approve the five-year contract second have motion a second all in favor of the motion say I I I I post same sign thanks Sheriff that was easy okay next we have Brian lunick the Morehead Public School Superintendent going to give us a uh well going to share information with us on the school Capital project Levy presentation good morning superintendent morning can can you hear me all yeah yep okay thanks thanks for having me I look forward to the opportunity uh to talk to you about our um referendum here that's on the ballot on November 5th um if you do have any questions uh feel free to ask them in the moment and uh we can take those as we go if you want to wait till the end I'm good with that too or if I do that good of a job where you won't have any questions at the end I'll be happy with that as well uh without further Ado we'll get started I did uh I did have Brenda share with you the three-hour version of our presentation today so I hope that you're all right with that and comfortable sitting for uh three hours talking numbers and the actual why behind it but uh ultimately I think we did settle on sending you the 20 minute version so we'll we'll try to get through uh this a little bit uh quicker as well at the rapid speed that the meeting was going might slow it down a little bit here so um anyway on November we have a uh capital projects Levy referendum on the ballot in November and uh just want to take you through the why uh behind where we are at and in schools were're funded based on our property value and our per pupil uh units and you can see by this slide uh there's two there's two differing numbers on this slide one is the slide or one is the number that uh is escalating in blue and you can see how that number kind of moves upward and ticks Upward at quite an alarming rate uh starting in around 2021 and then you can see the dotted Orange Line uh which is the number we're currently at and this is our per pupil payment uh based on our uh student count and when you look at the number that's there based on inflation versus where we are in terms of actual numbers you can see that that equates to about A9 A5 million dollar difference based on our 7100 uh which would be almost now 7,300 uh pupils based on our opening number so you see uh currently uh the formula is around $9.5 million uh behind uh based on inflation I'm sure uh just like uh our district is uh struggling that way I'm sure at the county and at the uh City level it's uh much the same trying to contain and trying to battle uh inflation as well so this slide just shares where we're at in terms of our major source of Revenue which is from a state on a per puple basis so we look at our budget projections and we look three years out so we're in current year I'll always refer to the current year as fiscal year 25 which is the 2425 school year but it's actually for our terms fiscal year 25 and we run a July calendar to July 1 to June 30th calendar I'm not sure what the county runs here but I'm sure it's pretty similar I don't think it's a calendar year uh maybe it is I'm I'm not honestly familiar uh but if you look at the bottom that's the key number that we want to uh be aware of we have an unassigned fund balance and that's uh at 2.23% uh if we do nothing and we have no new Revenue uh and we don't make any adjustments to our expenditures uh you look out to fiscal year 26 27 and 28 and by the time we would be at fiscal year 28 we would be in a uh deficit situation on our un assigned and just by policy our unassigned fund balance is supposed to be at 177% and uh just to let you folks know quietly over the last uh couple of years we've through attrition have eliminated roughly 30 positions within our district uh quietly as people have left uh however with with inflation at what it was and what it seem it although it seems to be slowing down uh we're still a little behind um the eightball there so um we're trying to do something in terms of um a combination of increase of Revenue with a balance of our expenditures as well as we move forward looking just to give you an example and this isn't um anybody to blame this is just the situation we're in we'll take you through some pretty big examples of where the district um uh has a un unfunded uh Gap and it's just the the nature of what we're dealing with so when we talk about our special ed program we always often refer to as a special ed cross subsidy and a cross subsidy is when the general funds got to pick up the difference and uh when you look at it here um we run about two uh $25 million in expenses to run our special ed programming and we collect a little over 15 million so there's about a $9.6 million gap that our general fund has to pick up every year because we can't roll uh a negative fund balance in our special head programming it's got to get balanced and so we use our general fund to balance that and that's why you also see that unassigned fund balance continuing to move uh in a direction that we don't want to see it uh transportation is another example we have roughly 7 A5 million of expenses and we collect about 3.4 and so we have a transportation cross subsidy in our district of about 4 million and part of that is it's very difficult we've um I think about uh 2014 a little bit before I got here uh they went to a tiered transportation system to try to save uh some money and they have done that and that's the most effective way that we can run our transportation system uh where we have the elementary tier the high school tier and the Middle School tier and we take the same bus drivers and we run those routes out rather than having to hire um a bunch more drivers and do a bunch more routes to try to get everybody to school at the same time so we've done some things there and and I would give our uh Transportation uh Department some credit in the last contract negotiations as well as giving a shout out to our contractors uh they were willing to uh reduce their cost per hour in the next contract which is unheard of so they they were very good to us in terms of uh negotiating I think they went from a $93 an hour contract to $90 an hour so that's help that will help address uh this Gap that you see up here but again uh just to give you an example of what we're up against and then software everybody you just heard uh it's kind of fitting that you just had a software presentation here from Sheriff empting our district is no different in terms of our dependenc on software and the expenses that have gone on with it you can see how uh we spend about 3.6 million on software and you can see how that is spent by department so our teaching and learning Department relies on software to the tune of about 2.4 million our media center about 48,000 our Communications Department at 32 technology a little over half a million our special ed relies on it for about 144 in our activities uh roughly about 14 and then operations is around 384 so we've become pretty reliant on technology and the software costs that go with it where are we at currently uh in Morehead and I just want to share there's two vote there's two types of levies that voters can vote on one is an operating Levy and the other is the capital projects Levy and we do currently have an operating Levy that uh was renewed in 2016 and it was renewed at $223 66 and that started in uh taxes that were payable as of 2018 and that was then because of the successful vote was extended for 10 more years uh currently in the last legislative session there was a law passed that if we do not increase the $223 66 the board has the authority to renew it for another 10 years Beyond 2028 so uh but if we were to go out for 22367 we'd have to go to the voters to get that increase approved so if we don't do anything on the 22366 the board has the authority to extend it uh Beyond another 10 years this uh Levy at the 22366 amount generates about 1.7 in annual revenue and uh for districts our size uh this is significantly less and we'll have a couple graphs here to show you some comparable districts and where we sit in comparing them to us or US to them Mr chair thank you superintendent Lun can you quickly just we understand but for the public to differentiate the huge Bond referendum that the community supported how this differs yeah because I think that's and maybe that's coming up so I apologize but just to it is but I'll address it now so that's a great question because a lot of times there is confusion on what we you know the comment is we just supported you in 2019 and our public did support us in 2019 they also supported us in 2015 uh those were bonds to address our building situation to address the growing population uh this Levy is operating or put into place to help us with our operating costs to keep those buildings moving so there's two different pots you have buildings and the there's a couple slides ahead here and basically our expression is uh bonds are for buildings and levies are for learning so bonds will help us build the buildings levies will help us operate and do the learning portion of it in those buildings so good question uh capital projects Levy uh is what we're we have on the ballot currently we don't have one in place and uh this Levy has has the potential to generate additional revenue for any Capital type expenditures or technology type expenditures uh keep in mind because of the situation we're in and the high cost and the due to inflation our general fund is picking up a lot of the um overridge that our capital projects our operating Capital formula does not pick up so this would fill that Gap and allow us to have a stop before we would go to the unassigned fund balance which you see has taken a hit over the years because we have to cover that deficit any questions so far I did the teach I I taught in Climax Minnesota I don't know if you guys know where that's at for about eight years and I put kids to sleep with their eyes open for the first hour of every day and I have a feeling I might be doing it again I have a question how often does the state make a um adjustment to the Pu rate yeah so you're per pup unit that's a good question uh because of this last legislative session there's finally a um 2% adjustment on there that we can build so those numbers that you saw earlier in the budget were with the Assumption of a 2% increase on the formula per year um however um those that 2% we don't necessarily budget for an in a lot or a large increase in our student population because that can fluctuate we do have um we do have projections that we use but we want to be conservative in the number of pupils we put into our budget because we don't want to overestimate that but yes the state has uh due to the last legislative session I think it's of 2021 um did add a 2% inflationary factor in there uh that we can budget into the future whereas before we were always putting zeros after the Buy because we didn't know so okay thank you question so where we compare to similar districts of our size you can see there's two shades of uh color here one is orange and one is green and the ones that are in orange are the operating levies and the ones that are in green are considered a capital projects Levy and uh districts that are of comparable size here just to let you know we we selected uh districts here that range from 6,500 students all the way up to 8,300 and we selected the districts up to about 8,500 excuse me because our Dem our demographer who did a a study last year projects that we'll grow another thousand students over the next 10 years so we felt that to compare we went from 6,500 to about 8,300 in terms of the comparison so there's districts here that are a little bit bigger than us there's districts here that are a little bit smaller than us but they they are comparable uh nonetheless and so you can see uh on here that um there's districts that have a small amount of orange uh medium amount of orange and a large amount of orange as well as a uh little to nothing in terms of green and a large amount of green and if the graph doesn't appeal to you in terms of um bouncing out the next slide will because that has numbers on it and it'll show you uh where we would be at comparable to these same districts in terms of actual numbers so in this case you see that we have 7165 as the number that we used and we have an operating Levy of $233.6 currently in place but we have we don't have a capital projects Levy and our total then when you combine the two is still 22366 and you can see where that is in terms of Revenue uh with comparable districts and then you can look at Burnsville is probably the closest number in terms of ADM down at the bottom or four up from the bottom they have a $2,200 student operating Lev to our $223 and they also have a $525 capital projects for an additional 2 uh $2,700 per student but that generates them almost $20 million a year versus are 1.6 so when we compare ourselves to other districts on an operating um on a levy type situation as this uh we are far below that um that District of that size or the average of these comparable districts which is about $1800 per student just to show you that if our if our um uh referendum were to be successful in November you would see that we would uh just move the notch or move the um we'd move four down so we wouldn't really be uh generating Burnsville type money or ad type money but uh for our community we we feel like uh based on the survey the amount that we're asking for is the amount that the community said that they would support so um that regard you can see that the total would move to 82 380 still uh well below the average of 1,800 and smack us right between Armington and Centennial as comparable districts Mr Brandon um so I I I see the difference between that is about 4.3 million just roughly MH is that would that does some of that are you able to leverage some of that with State money or would that just all be money that would be collected from the district that would be a local collection similar to the operating Levy of 22366 okay so like commissioner Jenny's question was what's the difference between the two this is the slide that we were going to use to compare the two so um we've never asked for an operating Levy increase uh since that original one went in at 2009 and was extended in 2018 um but we have asked for buildings to address our growing student population and um we've we're coming back now to ask for the levy portion of it uh because we've added uh square footage and we've added some things for our student population but not any dollars to operate and now with uh where we're at and knowing that um the high school is in a good place with inflation as well and getting that Gap closed um now we want to come back and make sure that uh we can continue to operate them so this is the difference between a building Bond and an operating Levy and this is how we um want to portray that so so why now uh the big why behind it like I stated uh a little bit earlier was we know that from a from a building standpoint we've been able to stabilize the the high school we've gotten through that cost inflation and um because of our Levy calendar and how we would um um the money where the way the revenue is levied similar to way here at the county if we if we didn't put this on the November ballot and yes we can run multiple elections to try to get this to pass but if we didn't get it on the November ballot we wouldn't see the revenue in fiscal year 26 the earliest we could see it was be fiscal year 27 so it was critical that we get it on the ballot in November and uh try to get that on the revenue for uh fiscal year uh 26 so now was the reason uh November was the reason just for that just because of the how the levy Cycles through and if we missed this window uh we would have to go a whole another fiscal year without uh any enhancements uh to the revenue other than the additional 2% which is dependent upon our student population as well so the other thing is uh this Revenue would be used to support and help cover gaps that we talked about from that earlier slide at the very beginning and then um this funding We Believe would just help stabilize the budget and help us turn the corner on our unassigned fund balance and continue to provide our programming for our students that they so desperately need and we want to continue to provide for that without that having to uh take a hit so to speak so now is a critical component to that and our Levy cycle help contribute to the why now piece so when we talk about stewardship and tax impact uh this 4.3 million on a home valued at $250,000 uh would be roughly uh $15 a month we do have on website the ability for you to go and uh put in your address and it would kick out your specific tax impact based on your address and then for the different property classifications you can go there as well so if you're a if you're an egg land owner you can go in and uh type in under that category uh your address or your parcel number and it would would uh talk about what you would need to do there as well and same thing if you were a business owner and if this were to pass in November this would be uh in place for 10 years and this does not have the same uh impact that an operating Levy does in terms of legislation where this would based on current law today would have to be brought to the board again or brought to the voter again in 10 years uh this one does not have the same triggers that an operating Levy does where it can be extended by the board the board does not have that authority to extend this by 10 years this has to be extended by the vote of the people unless something legislatively would change between now and that 10year time no so the one that you we proposing now is limited without and the board doesn't have the authority to the board does not have the authority to extend it as we are talking today so Mr if I can add so going back to the difference between the capital Levy and the operational Levy um are you are you are you more restricted in what you can do with capital projects Levy dollars versus operational Levy dollars an operating Levy is is very um open there is no restrictions capital projects you do have restrictions but like we stated earlier um we do have about four well we can find about $8 million worth of capital expenditures that the budget is taking on right now okay but we settled on the 4.3 because that's what the Community told us they would support um we'll still have to balance that uh budget with some expenditure reductions as we move forward and if there's some legislative things that change maybe that helps the budget Outlook which would reduce any types of uh expenditure reductions we would need to do but yeah it it is a little different but in an election year the ballot language was a little more detailed in terms of what you would use the dollars for and and everybody that I've talked to said in an election year it's it's pretty important that you have uh a ballot that has a little bit more specific language on what you would use the revenue for sure and so that was why the capital projects Levy was selected that would have the same impact though in terms of what it would do for the general fund which would free up those dollars which then are technically at that point unassigned and could go to anything we would need at that point so basically what's happening is you're using operational Levy dollars to fund uh capital projects we're funding a lot of capital out of our operating Levy right now and Technology expenses other question and just so te when you talk about technology what what's included there what what is so technology like the software that we just shared about the $3.8 million we we buy we buy devices for students we bu devices for staff um those have a cost as well sure okay our technology staff it can be used for that as well um so all those things that also the capital projects Levy allows us mechanisms to do things with our facilities that we can't really do with current buckets like long-term facility maintenance it adds another dimension to our ability to maintain our facilities as well but in the meantime I would say for the first port portion of this uh Levy for sure we would need to use it to help us build back up our unassigned fund balance because of where it's at currently how long is your Capital Levy good for you in I mean 10 years 10 years yeah worst case scenario doesn't pass what are we going to lose well worst case scenario is we reserves we would we don't well I I would like to say that we could rely on our reserves but we don't have any yeah well um we're we're in that position to where we would have to make some reductions um those scenarios are in the process of being built now uh we did submit some things to the school boards Association uh just the other day that uh if we were allowed for instance to move um some restricted funds like let's say from ltfm to cover some of our Capital deficit that might help reduce some of the uh reductions we'd have to make because again there's another stop we can make before it has to get to the general fund so we're trying to do everything we can legislatively as well to support all the capital purchases we have to make without having to go into the general fund to to pay that and um that would have an impact but if that doesn't go through either then I think I think we're looking at approximately $8 million in reductions to start building that back up Mr chair commissioner Mojo thank you I I know that uh superintendent and I were part of a group as some of you have been in the past that lobbied at the capital for the needs of the area and you know I'll highlight a little bit while I'm sure you were grateful for the 2% inflation um if all of the issues that we were dealing with were capped at 2% I think we'd all be in a lot better situation so I think it highlights the need um for adjusting formulas to account for what real world INF inflations likely are and just looking at your widening Gap first couple slides uh you know I I think districts as well as counties and municipalities were hit with a lot of unfunded mandates uh after a global pandemic which we understand things changed and and how we learned changed and accessed information changed but um the reality is you're you're kind of maintaining a pretty consistent Gap in there and it really has hit the gas pedal so um certainly we will continue to advocate for legislative um changes to help ease those those pains because uh the district 152 is not the only District in the county that are facing these challenges um certainly I think your funding formulas that are State mandated are are trick tricky and I think you do the best to juggle it um I'll say from someone who lives in the country who has understood that there's some um transportation gaps we we understand and we will embrace the fact that our high schooler will will figure out the transportation to help ease that so you don't have to drive eight miles to only pick up one kid I do appreciate you picking up the littles at 6:45 but uh I think that um having you come here and raise the awareness of the challenges helps the community Embrace that as well I know there's been a lot of um different changes to to mitigate the funds in which you have so um thanks for coming here today and um I really I do think it will help with the knowledge of the community commission gble yeah thank you we done okay um Brandon the um one of the things that I'm always interested in is you know and we kind of had a discussion with our uh small cities this last week and and it's interesting to see what what each entity is doing from a levy standpoint because in a lot of instances well in all instances Clay County shares constituencies with all school districts yep and all municipalities and we always have an interest in in who's doing what in what given year uh because we we like to incorporate that into our thinking to lessen the burden on all taxpayers as best we can there needs to be there needs to be a priority at least in my mind there needs to be a priority what needs to supersede something else when you have limited dollars but my my question is um if this is approved in November when would it first show up on the property taxes for indiv would that be 2026 yeah it would be for us it would be the next fiscal year so it would be right away so like last night for instance we certified the levy at I believe like 2.89 or we certified the max but at that run that it went through was about 2 um 2.88% uh the run that they did on the 23rd had us all the way down to 1.09% but if this were to pass uh we would be adding that 4.3% on this year's Levy okay so it would be show up then it would show up it would show up in this one but for us it's for you know we call it uh 2024 payable 2025 sure so it's it's for us it's it's in our fiscal year it'll it'll be in our fiscal year 26 budget because we'll L collections would start now in May of 2025 for the people who pay correct right that's I just that's what I his fiscal year 26 starts July of correct yeah July to June yeah yeah okay thank you yep other questions comments I moved here in ' 06 a 17-year-old daughter who atted Mor had high for the last year which was not Rosy but the the comparison of the schools that uh she had been into Morehead schools was remarkable I was very pleased and I was told at that point you there had just been the capital passing in the capital budget to to build and that the school was that they were going to sustain the schools and meet the growth needs that the city had uh since then I've not been disappointed and again speaking as somebody who doesn't have children in the school district now there's some imperative things for a community to do and when I'm at the greater Fargo Morhead EDC there's a lot of crowing across the river there's a lot of State support for them over there but we have one of the we always have in our hand is the fact that we've got such a remarkable school district and that takes support and if you don't have kids in the school this is your future and this is stabilizing the the activities we have a lot of young families in this community and this stabilizes the environment for their children which makes it a better Community when I was police chief we saw that kids who were engaged in the schools had fewer problems I regret that the the police department isn't there now but that's a whole another discussion but I think that the Morehead school district has done a an excellent job in meeting the needs right up with the Career Academy and everything else certainly worth supporting and I appreciate you coming forward and shedding some light and making having some transparency in what this ask is about and how it impacts things um and once again we do this a lot in Clay County you look at other counties or in your case districts throughout the state people get a lot for their investment and uh it's good that we scrutinize these things it's also important to remember there are bills to pay for all of us in government and the taxes need to be met I think we're very aware the property taxes as commissioner Campbell brings to our attention every every year about this time are pretty regressive but even for those that don't have kids in the schools there are benefits to maintain a quality school district and I appreciate you uh you doing so anybody else thank you superintendent thank you Brandon okay public hearing Mr chair I'll make a motion to open the public hearing for the public input of our five-year Capital Improvement plan second motion he all in favor of the motion say I I oh same sign okay public hearing is open Justin take it away can you get close to oh your mic's not even on I don't think sorry all right so the first year in The Five-Year Plan is 2024 and as of last week this construction season has been completed all with the exception of the 11 Street underpass I felt as though it was a very successful construction year with just over $6.6 million being spent we did utilize both state aid regular Municipal local funding as well as wheelage tax and Bridge bonding dollars highlights for the year include a 9 half mile overlay on CA 26 and a Paving project on Broadway Street that was graded two years ago any questions overall on the 2024 year of construction have we paid that uh 11 Street underpass has that money been paid yet or we have paid our portion and we have paid 1.5 million that was requested as soon as the project okay was awarded and there was an agreement for that project to that we are capped at that 1.5 okay uh the second year of the 5-year plan is 2025 so the first project project number seven is a bridge replacement just south of comto so recently that Pro or that bridge was reduced to 8 tons so we are really excited that we did receive Bridge bonding for that project uh the second project is one that we bid this spring that we did not get a bid on I will be coming in the next week or two to start advertising that project it's the bridge replacement on Casa 14 just Southwest of Glendon just west of the Glendon piler so we did receive federal funding on that bridge bond funding and we do have some local state aid funding on there as well then the next project is one that we were able to receive some federal protect funds on so it is a CPR project concrete pavement repair which includes both a diamond grind and Joint repair and that is on Casa 11 from Casa 18 to 26 so this will just help increase the longevity of the concrete pavement similar it's just something that you have to do to the concrete pavement and the protect funds are kind of as you dime and grind and do joint repairs it is shown that you reduce carbon so that's why we were able to receive those funds um the next couple projects and it'll be pretty consistent throughout the 5-year plan is kind of the theme of it is pavement preservation we do have an aging pavement INF structure so there are lots of Mill and overlay projects project number 10 is on Casa 34 from Felton to trunk or to from Felton to Casa 11 7 miles and then we do have a small state aid Street in the city of Dilworth project number 11 Casa 45 that we will utilize some state aid M Municipal funding on Project number 12 is one that we have been working on for quite a while so it is the Urban reconstructing Comstock diversion Authority is providing the funding for it we are running the project and then project number 13 is one that's been discussed throughout my budget cycle um it is a seal coat striping project and you will notice I did in the top right hand corner um Clay County Construction allotment I do have it at 725,000 utilizing 325,000 of that uh turn back pay payment that we used that we had we had paid 20 years on guess any questions on 2025 it is a big construction year for us just over $ 11.5 million just Mr commission thank you I um you know I know throughout the years we I being a rural commissioner hear a lot of well there's there's so much happening in the western part of the county why aren't there things happening on the eastern part and blah blah blah and I I think there are valid concerns I do want to highlight though that several of these very large projects that we have have to do with commodities leaving the eastern part of the county and keeping roads safe for those commuters into the metro and you know it it if you've driven on 26 during the day during gravel season it's very dangerous and I'm really excited about uh wrapping that up in the next couple years we've done a really great job of reallocating some things and then I'll say even even farther south on that bridge replacement there were several farmers down there that were very verbal about that needing to um go back to the tonnage in which it was so I'm really excited to see that but but um I I think I I do want to highlight the the need for preservation in a time when you have a big project like 26 and we've seen how much that costs to completely redo the road um I'm really hopeful that that doing some unique preservation pieces might really help us with the longevity of that so just my random comments but thank you any other questions for grabbing yeah uh follow up to that if I may so's reservation because you made a comment about I believe it was the one the uh the funds that you got received or reduction for the use and tell tell me a little more about that what that entailed so project number nine the diamond grind joint repair so a couple years ago mindock came out with what's called protect funds and there's a big long list of projects that are eligible for it one of them being if it's called your iri but it's when mot drives the road if it showed that it's really rough or has chatter in it you are eligible to apply for diamond grinding to help reduce that iri and in doing so you're reducing the carbon fo footprint by reducing the amount of fuel that Vehicles use and just wear and tear on vehicles okay and then if you remember the past luckily we didn't have it this year but past two years we've had some major blowouts on C saw 11 with pavement buckling and part of the reason that that is happening is when this project or when that road was first constructed the joints weren't sealed so those joints get full of gravel salt and they don't have the ability to open and close so when it gets really hot it has nowhere to go but pop thank you that's helpful all right so we will move to 2026 so this is going to another busy year with a couple of really exciting projects projects 14 and 15 are up by Georgetown these are bridge Replacements box culverts and then there project number 16 is down just west of Barnesville it is a bridge currently will be replaced with a box Culvert we were able to receive federal funding on this in a joint application um project number 17 is a Mill and overlay on cassan n is from trunk Highway 10 to Casa 18 project number 18 is one that we're really excited to wrap up so it's Casa 26 from trunk Highway 75 to the Red River so that'll complete our casa 26 project there is a small piece that's not shown on the estimate there we're kind of working through details on it with the diversion Authority there is some Road raises that have to happen in that area and until they're scoped it wouldn't be any local funding being spent on it but I didn't feel comfortable putting a number towards it and then project number 19 is one that has been discussed quite a bit at this board and one that we are really excited about it's the roundabout at CASA 12 and Casa 52 so we were able to receive HP funding and local Road Improvement funding for this project project number 20 is on the Eastern end of the county Northeast part of the county it goes from the East limits of Ulan to the East County Line This is one that we have every sugar beat meeting we go to we do hear a lot about this and one that does need to definitely needs some attention on it and then project number 21 is like I discussed previously that's the seal coding striping project any questions on 2026 here's not all right 2027 so the first three projects shown or Bridge Replacements two in Hagen Township and one in flowing Township one thing I will kind of mention there is a footnote on the bottom of the 5year plan on every sheet but this is just kind of our best guess at when Bridges will be eligible for funding so as I do more of these Five-Year Plan presentations you might see these Bridges slide from year to year that just means that they're not they aren't deteriorating as fast as we thought or they're not eligible for funding yet um project number 25 is a Mill and overlay on casat 2 so this will kind of wrap up our project on Cassat 2 which went from Barnesville all the way to the Red River so we are waiting on this project until the southern embankment comes through and then we'll be finishing the overlay from the southern embankment to the Red River um project number 26 I know you've gotten asked about this one a lot Frank this is a Millan overlay in the city limits of Ulin we will be working with the city as we start to scope this project just to ensure that they don't have any infrastructure that needs to be replaced as we're coming through project number 27 is Casa 21 from Casa 2 to Casa 10 so this is one that we're currently we're doing a lot of testing on it this summer trying to scope it correctly so there's two different sections one with a gravel base one without so I do have it shown as a cold in place Reclamation and a stabilized fold that Reclamation just because of the different roadway designs on that then project number 28 is the seal coating and striping again any questions on 2027 all right and then the final year of The Five-Year Plan is 2028 project number 29 is one that has been discussed many different times at this board I currently show North Broadway Bridge and it is listed as unfunded project number 30 is a bridge replacement in Glendon Township 31 and 32 are bridge Replacements in Elmwood project number 33 is a Mill and overlay in cassa 3 from Casa 18 to Casa 22 so this project Also may move a year or two depending on we are working with metrocog and the City of Morehead just the way that Federal funding works now through the TMA we're just trying to f figure that process out and then 34 and 35 I think is probably one of the more important projects on this 5year plan as well so it's Casa 11 from trunk Highway 336 to Sabin so it's 4.1 miles so this is currently the only Road in the county that's paved that does have 11t Lanes it's narrow shoulders definitely a lot of safety concerns in this project will be the focal point of future funding applications if the leg does approve local Road Improvement funds in the future it's definitely going to be what we apply for and then project number 36 is Just DE coding and striping again any questions on 2028 or overall on the 5year plan Mr I have a a comment on 2028 and just some overall comments on the fiveyear plan in general uh and I guess my comment on Project 29 the North Broadway Bridge replacement uh from the Minnesota side you know our our stance has always been on that that any funding that would come from Minnesota for that would have to come out of state bridge bonding dollars correct and you know so even though we're showing that project as a potential 20 I as far as I know they could choose a $50 million project and on the nor toot but from whatever whatever Minnesota elects to participate financially it's going to be from the state of Minnesota and there's there you know there's not going to be any special taxing district or anything like that to cover that bridge so just to you know that's just kind of a more of a commentary than anything else and then on overall on The Five-Year Plan I serving on the highway tracking committee there you know Justin you know you guys have done an awful lot of an awful lot of work on this and and I know uh commissioner Mojo did mention about East versus West and those types of things and and something that's really important that that when these projects are brought before highway tracking committee um Frank and I serve on that neither one of us are Engineers you know that's the first thing we need to point out and so we need to have the full faith and confidence in our Engineers that they're bringing forward the projects that are of prop top priority to them and and a lot of what they do and include is you know that when you have limited dollars you have to take a look at where is the most traffic going too I mean that's a key Factory so if you on on every one of those pages you'll see the ADT which is your you know daily traffic numbers and and you know I mean it's not like we're ignoring some of the areas either we've got a couple of bridges on here where it's average of two two cars a day but we're spending $150,000 replacing a bridge but it needs to be done and and a lot of that goes to the egg you know those might be egg important egg uh Bridges and so need to deal with those so overall but then and then I just want to point out that that Justin has also been uh very conservative with anticipation of what money is coming in which is I think is very appropriate to do but for example in the 20204 if you look on the very top the very first page the state allotment for um from the state was 4, 376,000 that's probably more likely to continue but if you look at all the next Pages moving forward he's back at anticipating 3.9 million so you know so we're not we're not you know we're we're trying to be somewhat safe in that regard in terms of our financial planning so even under a reduced allotment you know we're we're being able to cover these projects now if those if those numbers continue to go up then maybe we can fit something else in but he's also you got to remember by the time you're looking at years three four and five you know there might be an inflationary Factor but that's just a guess at this point in time we don't know what oil prices are going to be in three years you know so so all that is very you know everything that's being done here is somewhat um projected M absolutely but but I you know I I just want to give hats off to you guys and and you know Frank and I we've also attended these uh Township meetings on all of our the township contracts and things that we have there and when we have those meetings there's an awful lot of Township officers present and if anything I think the most of them are very very positive in the cooperation that's that's being done between the counties and the Township roads as well you got to remember about half of our rural roads in this County are Township roads MH and you know so I think there's a really good blend that that goes on there and I think I think you're responsible for maintaining what 26 27 of the townships 27 27 of the townships you know so that's 1,600 miles of Roads roughly MH that that's being worked on or dealt with every year so My hats off to you guys for for this um presentation and the projects you've selected you know better than I do on on what those project should be so that's my commentary motion um well we we're in public yeah we can't do and I I will just make one comment kind of on that projecting Out Future years and using that 3.9 million so one thing that we do like to do obviously in 2025 I'm showing a positive balance of 775,000 so I'm trying not to borrow against the allotment but if all of a sudden projects come in cheaper than I'm anticipating plus that we're at 4.4 million I do like to bid early just in case there is one extra project from the following year that we can slide in we also like to have one of those projects in the hopper that if that does present itself we can be flexible and move it that's a very good point and maybe probably more for for Paul and you know years ago uh when we did these five-year plans almost every year we were borrowing almost a full Year's allotment into the future to do these projects and as you look now I think it isn't until year five it's showing the potential for for being a million dollars um you know having o over above the allotments yep you know so uh but that and that and that is allowed by um mot to do that um but I I think I think what we were able to the last time we did I don't know maybe commissioner Moo can remember this to Frank can remember this but when we did the when we did a a bonding bill for for Trans you know for our projects we incorporated five years worth of work into a into a bond right yep and then you used the state aid allotment each year use a state a allotment to pay that back but I think that also really helped catch up uh so that we didn't have to uh have such a high uh borrowing from year to year so it really it really was beneficial and it's something that once this next once that 5year bond is up it it it should be looked at again as a potential to and what what that would do is would just speed up the ability to do some of these projects that we we're talking about here today that you reduce the risk of the inflationary cost when is a fiveyear pond up uh I'd have we'd have to get that from it's been up oh it is it's been up okay okay I want to say either 19 or 20 was the last payment I don't know for sure time flies when you're having [Laughter] fun all right anyway M grabing off thank you for that um Justin you know as we talk about the 5-year plan it's pretty much all on existing Roads Maintenance and updating that type of thing um just going back to our cities meeting you know on on uh Thursday there was that conversation about you know and I'm thinking about communities that as they grow like Dorth Holly and how do you how do how do you look forward on anticipating traffic that may as was mentioned on a Dorth going north the in catch on 15th Avenue you create that get more access to uh the bridge to the you know to the firew side yep how do you anticipate how does that type thing ever work into a a plan um so thinking about Holly also on yeah so on those particular roads 15th for example is a Township Road so we don't we are a partner in the corridor study so as part of the corridor study traffic counts were taken and you try to anticipate what future land use is going to be and that all goes into future projections so that's not shown anywhere on here just CU it's not a county road as far as County Roads go we are so mot does all of our traffic counts occasionally we'll have Metro Cog do some but we are given a projection Factor through the state each county has given their own projection Factor just based on growth and what traffic counts have done but you can transform a Township Road into a county road if you if you would be able to get state aid for it is that how that works or do do they never um so we don't have any Casa miles in the bank so we wouldn't be able to take over a Township Road and turn it into a CA currently there'd have to be some sort of turn back it has and to be a CAD either has to meet on one end a casa or a trunk Highway and on the other end has to meet a casa or trunk highway so if that would ever exist where they want to pay that that would be on the township or more the city yep yep okay thank you so for example like city of Dilworth when they got that local Road Improvement grant for 7th so we were the project sponsor just because the funding had to come through us and it had to be a state aid project but the county itself other than time didn't have a financial contribution to it okay great good to know thank you commissioner moo thank you I think um making sure that we have representation at the Metro Cog table with those Transportation technical committees is really important as we look forward and similar to how commissioner Campbell reiterated to the school district making sure that we're all aware of the projects that are happening so we can phase or tear things the I will say a large reason for us needing to do a huge chunk of 26 was because of a large project that went in on the North Dakota side and and the amount of product that were was coming out of Clay County pits and the truck traffic led to deterioration at a rate that we just I don't think could have anticipated that that fell apart as fast as it did and uh making sure that we do have projects in the Coffer and and are are um able to switch to a different one if different funding comes up I I look at the 52 roundabout do people love roundabouts no did I almost get blasted driving into town at that intersection today absolutely and so it's it's taking the public safety component which is a huge part of this plan the public safety concerns and and what we're seeing Trends with the Sheriff's Office calls and and new projects coming in is how we can kind of quickly shift I I know Metro Cog had a reduction of $30,000 for planning dollars for us this year and and well I I get it cuz there's not a lot of projects that they're planning on this side I I caution us a little bit about that just because I think as a growing County next to a big uh metro area we we really do always have to have plans in the works for projects but I think you've done a really good job of encapsulating where we think those growth areas and um commuter hight traffic volume areas are other comments do I have motion to move at a public hearing move to close the hearing second have a motion to Second all in favor say I I oh same sign Mr I move that we approve the fiveyear capital Improvement plan for years 2024 through 2028 a second okay motion a second any further discussion if if not all in favor of the motion say I I I oppose same sign motion passes thank you Justin thank you both I do have one more item you're up next yeah so the second item I have is just the request approval to hire a maintenance worker due due to an upcoming retirement so this individual is going to be done probably in the next Once mowing is done I think he's going to burn some vacation and be done once he gets probably first part of the year but just with how it has been trying to hire CDL drivers I would like to move forward with requesting approval to hire this before winter I'll make a motion to approve second have motion second any further discussion if not all in favor say I I oppose same sign motion passes thank you Justin thank you good work on that plan thank you Darren I might have a question for Darren or um Justin before he leaves I know we're talking about the referral plan but that CDL plan do we could we get a report on that at some point the how successful that's been in recruitment I mean I don't want to put you on the spot but since you mentioned the CDL so it has actually been really good so we've had three people come in without a CDL that have utilized the plan so it's been a huge asset for our department okay great um this current go around we did have some interviews yesterday luckily we were able to find two people that did have class A so all right thank you just going to that so did I can't recall did we did we put it in ending date to that or is that just open-ended with what we put a I don't think we put an ending date no so I think it would continue until yeah our board would yep but no I've been very happy with it and it's been working well great thank you thank you um while Justin's here I we had interviews for uh maintenance workers and motor grader operators as you know Justin came to the board um earlier saying that we were having a lot of retirements in uh his Department right before winter which was never fun um but we interviewed what five people yesterday and we got some great candidates I think uh we're ready to make some offers probably pretty soon so that uh I was I was very impressed with the uh interview uh people that we interviewed yesterday and what's nice is that uh hopefully we can get them on board and a couple of them had CDLs already and I would have to say that there was several of them that they one of the reasons they applied was they heard that Klay County was a great place to work and especially the highway department so um that was always good to hear um that they were they were excited to come here because they had heard that this is a great place to work so thought I'd just put that out there since Justin sitting next to me right now he get so few C Kudos I had to had to give him one while we were while he was here all right well um thank you for having me uh to to update you on the referral program I was kind of amazed uh that when I looked at this and when we had it effective I I hadn't realized it was going on as long as it was um it became effective July 15th of 20122 so about 26 months um and you have a information sheet there but I will read some of this for the uh the citizens that may be watching so part of our referral program we have full-time and part-time and what happens is we we uh give a employee current employee uh 5 $0000 if they refer somebody to come and we hire them on and then a if that person remains here for 6 months uh well after six months they get the $500 and then after one year they get another $500 so I think the program has been extremely successful we've really filled up uh our departments we haven't had the the huge problems of recruiting that some of these other counties and cities are having and I think this is is part of the reason why so going through the uh stats on this um since July of July 15th of 2022 we have had 51 full-time and part-time employees uh recruited from our current employees uh 12 of those were hired as variable hour and then moved on to become full-time and part-time 46 of our employees have been recruiters so we've had 46 people that have recruited people to come work for Clay County uh of those 51 33 employees have been paid out the first payment which totaled $13,750 and 21 employees have been paid out the second payment and that total of $8,500 so the pay total payout so far in the last 26 months for the full-time and part-time employees has been 22250 um seven have left employment so far but that gives us about an 86.2% retention rate so that's pretty good um for sure uh the variable hour they get the employee that uh recruits a new employee they get $250 after that new variable hour completes 400 hours of of work and then uh they get another $250 after that variable hour completes 800 hours of of work as you know variable hours we they they turn over a lot more than our full-time and part-time but since uh July 15th we have recruited 77 employees uh 65 employees have been recruiters uh most of those have been in the juvenile detention uh facility 22 employees have been paid out their first payment that equals $5,500 10 employees have been paid out their second payment and that equals $2,500 for a total payment payout date of uh $8,000 um since the the program has started uh of those 77 31 of left employment which turns out to be a 59.7% retention rate as you know variable hours turn over quite a bit I gave a little bit of a breakdown of who the who is hiring those variable hours uh those 77 employees General Revenue was 14 Public Health was 14 most of that would be in detox uh three for solid waste one for facilities and 45 of those have been uh Juvenile Detention workers so the total payout to date has been $3,250 for the referral program this was taken to the pck meeting last week and it is re it was recommended to bring it to the full board to continue this program into uh into 2025 um I did run some numbers I I used a new report just recently and I ran the turnover rate for Clay County for 2023 and for our full-time part-time employees our turnover rate was 6.8% and for our variable hour employees it was 11.9% so that's that's pretty good um stats when you're looking at the Workforce the the flexibility of the workforce that we have out there now um with that being said I am opening it up to questions questions for Darren commissioner kraban off yes hey Darren um just wanted to ask always curious about the variable hour people and uh I know they tend to be uh especially for juvenile a little younger group you know with flexibility they like right is there a trend with those variable people that eventually they try to get on to the county fulltime um I think there is as you can see there was out of the 51 that were hired 12 of those went from variable hour to full-time and part-time so that's okay and that's that's always a nice stepping stone um in the juvenile detention center we have a lot of uh employees that are still going to school and then once they um graduate they may go to find another job somewhere or uh if they if we have openings and you've now detention for variable Hour part I mean for full-time parttime they may bring them on as well so we do use variable hours that come on to be full-time yeah thank you Mr Campbell yeah I you know since we put put this into place I know when we put into place there was you know our market conditions were really it was difficult to there was strong competition for just about every position that we'd have available uh I'm not so sure that that that those market conditions are the same as when we put this into place but there are still um there are still significant areas where there's an awful lot of competition that's out there but I I want to I want to point out that I don't I don't think there is a a better Advocate to go to work for a entity public or private than when your own employees are suggesting to others that they should come and work for you totally I think that that's a strong statement in itself and I think you just earlier on you mentioned something to Justin as he was walking out the door about um the applicants they heard that Klay count is a good place to work for absolutely I you know I think everything that we that we try to do represents that and um you know and and I and I think we're bringing in top quality um people too at the same point in time that that really help us to uh implement the services that that our citizens want and expect from us so um I think I think this is an overall good plan I think you know I I think it's something that we have to continue to look at from a market standpoint uh based on demand but as of right now I see no reason why we'd want to change that okay thank you Frank uh at the meeting we did discuss as far as continuing the program and we felt through that it's been successful and since it is successful why not continue it I mean even though it is proven to Tak care of what our shortage was I mean we don't have that shortage anymore but the reason we don't is because of this program so we too uh it was we should continue it and I make a motion that we continue this program I'll second the motion okay motion a second as Frank indicated at pick uh we discuss this at length even if the market improves to the point to where it's an add-on this is bringing people in who already know employees and have already had uh a positive image put to them and that helps with retention that helps with people that stay long and move up the ranks and become supervisors and those are things that we need so again pick pick endorse this okay going forward any other comments or questions if not all in favor of the motion say I I oppose same sign thank you Daren okay thank you okay we're going to have committee reports and we'll start with commissioner Mojo thank you Mr chair last week I attended the Planning Commission meeting there were a number of hearings that we went through the first was a request for public input on our Clay County Land Development code we did not have any public um speak on that but certainly there's many opportunities to get in touch with the planning office if there's an issue that you wanted to highlight or provide your Insight on the second was a request for a conditional use permit in uh Park Township a after the fact conditional use permit for an equin Center certainly um the land owners were unaware that that one was needed they um worked to get in compliance quickly and that's a facility that offers ecoin therapy and um horse camps for kiddos so that did um not have any um negative public comment we did approve that permit the next was an after Thea permit in Spring Prairie Township for a home occupation um Saddlery Tac business uh that did also uh get approved um I think it's important to not both of those prior ones did not offer any um a negative influence in regards to uh roads and access and certainly fit within the rural character that we are hoping those businesses um fill so they both were approved the next was a request for a platted subdivision in Elmwood Township uh the steenerson had worked on a um change to the code which we'd worked with them so they're um uh seeking a plat to Plat a one lot commercial subdivision to fulfill that storage business and that also uh was we approve that or that was a recommendation to this board a recommendation to this board for later and then I attended the metrocog meeting they were short at Quorum so while we were all at the small cities meeting I had called in to provide Insight on that they had a couple just uh draft amendments and then tomorrow there is a two meetings one is at the yums from 11: to 1 the second is from 5: to 700 p.m. to provide Insight on the Metro Transportation um 2050 study certainly if anyone has the opportunity to go there and provide input that would be um really helpful or if you have questions of Metro Cog staff certainly you can do that online as well and then I had the opportunity to attend the small City meeting with all of you I always um really look forward to that meeting it's it's a great meeting to get the um the pulse of what's going on in our smaller communities in regards to um open Lots or um buildings so that we can help um facilitate and and work together on how best to fit the needs of our uh citizens in those communities thank you very much to the um city of Glendon for hosting it's always great to go out to the towns and then yesterday I attended the Lakeland Mental Health Center board meeting in Detroit Lakes we had the opportunity to hear from supervisors on all of the great programs happening at Lakeland there uh we did um approve a donation in the amount of almost $600 from a church to go to Fergus programs we are having some issues in regards to um I think one thing for Lakeland is their their Staffing pattern is really or the success in regards to revenues is really contingent on um having um full Staffing patterns and so the clinics in which there are a lot of openings or difficulty filling um schedules we're seeing some negative pieces the Morehead Clinic is um just doing great work in regards to uh psychi Psychiatry appointments and their margins um last or in August were almost $430,000 so uh for the entire organization do have a margin of $718,000 in August and the Morehead Clinic being uh what it was it it really speaks to that so they're doing great work want to invite you um there will be an invitation forth coming at the end of uh October for a ribbon cutting for the Morehead Clinic if you've able to been able to drive by there north of the belly Boulevard area they're really expanding U which speaks to the needs of for services there so U great work um for Donna and her team and that concludes my report thank you commissioner Campbell thank you um Thursday uh the 19th I attended theal City's County meeting which I think all of us attended uh it was um a lot of good reports from and it was good to hear from all the small cities that were present and um learning what they're again going going back to what we talked about when Brandon was here this morning uh what their anticipated levies would be and and how we incorporate that with with uh what we do and and I just want to also um give a thank you to all of our um department heads who were who were there that were able to either give reports or answer questions on Whatever May pertain to their individual areas on behalf of the questions of the Cities uh then yesterday I attended the um kickoff meeting for the pre-design of the pre-design work on our non-secure slash um prtf project that we've been talking about uh there was an awful lot of discussions in terms of where would it where might this go and how it would look and and um you know getting into uh on the prtf side uh how how that facility might need to be remodeled uh and then how and when we had an awful lot of conversation regarding the non-secure and trying to see if we can incorporate that to fall below um a project that would require an awful lot of extra B3 um stuff that that really kind of raises the cost of projects so we had some really good conversations there it was a lengthy meeting but we we covered an awful lot and um at this point in time um because you know this board has authorized Klein McCarthy to move forward with um with the proposed plan of a an separate non uh non-secure facility and the prtf uh I believe it's time for us to transition this over to the finance committee uh partly because a lot of the discussions that we're talking about uh also include uh how we're going to pay for it and by going to the transitioning to the finance committee U that now that would then put um commissioner mojo on there like it's been with the others and what's ex extra important about that is as we've had both commissioner Mojo and commissioner kravinoff really involved with the legislative uh aspect that we're trying to do on this project and I think it's important for at least one of those two to be to be at these meetings where we get into the Weeds on on all of these things so that that certainly as The Advocates at the state level they know all the underlying issues that are going on and talked about so to be able to answer those questions and I think we're ready to do that and the finance committee now is um uh from that standpoint we're I think we're going to have our last meeting on the um detox um buildings that that's going to be concluded and I believe we have one or two more on the DMV and those will be done so that committee will be be freed up and it's going to probably be time for Lori to also have some involvement on this so I um if it's appropriate this time I would I would like to make a motion that that this move um to the uh finance committee for um its meetings and and there and there are we have already there were a total of six meetings that uh were involved with Klein McCarthy as part of the contract we had our first one yesterday and there's five more and those dates have been set and so I think it's important to um you know if it's going to go to the finance committee that commissioner M will be aware of those dates and can plan for those so that I'd make a motion to move it to finance committee I'll second that and I truly think that's a a very good next step and appropriate at this time have a motion to Second any further discussion not all in favor with the motion say I I I post same sign motion passes and then and then um Steve I you know I think if you were going to be sending out those calendar invites on those meetings so I think I think the makeup of that committee is slightly different I I know Lori is more involved with that too I think so um yeah all the same people that we've had we still want Solutions and those people okay that concludes my report thank you commissioner gross oh the first meeting was the pck committee which uh we had part of the our regular meeting today so no use going over that stuff again uh the last part of the meeting was the discussion of a having a full-time assistant County Administrator you know it's something that uh haven't talked about too much yet but it's been in the I mean we've been riding along with Darren being the uh sort of the assistant men administrator County Administrator and I think it's time that we start looking at it's not I think I mean the committee thought that was time to start looking at hiring a a county I mean assistant County Administrator and move ahead uh anticipating U and say Darren's retirement uh if that ever happens I don't think it'll ever go but uh no it's just something that we need probably in this County uh on a regular basis so it's just something that we're going to start looking at and we're going to put it um I don't know if we'll put it on the next agenda or not but we're looking at it probably next year sometime looking at getting that position and there so that's just on the board those are my two meetings I mean I rural city meetings also okay thank you commissioner kraban off thank you um last Tuesday uh the public health committee which included U staff and uh commissioner evur and I uh we started looking at a uh review uh to do updates to the uh tobacco ordinance and we'll keep looking at that and moving forward to anything that may need to come to the board at a later date um ALS also I uh after that had the adult mental health um annual meeting or I'm sorry monthly meeting and it was uh we didn't have a highlight uh this month but we did have a great sharing of reports uh from our nonprofits then are all parted this Lac and it was a healthy discussion uh among each other and and networking uh after that I had the uh caplp uh finance committee over all the budgets running is projected like many of these places like cap and HRA that are kind of there f Federal funding and state funding budgets or grants come in at different times so there's a little variations but overall the long-term projection let uh on track um once they had the uh historical and Cultural Society finance committee same way as cap LP uh in in good order it's in a Range um and again it's a lot to do when the grants come in and um that have been approved when that money arises on Thursday um had suicide and substance prevention a big highlight on the uh Family healthc Care Community Center uh the work they do uh throughout our area um uh I I learned a lot and uh how big they are five locations Mobile Dental unit out and about and of course we have the uh I have the County Dental office here and and uh and then yesterday uh out at the Morad academy uh a new Clinic is being set up and they had that U grand opening there uh uh so that was good information also uh through the Minnesota Department of Health and uh they received a substance mute and prevention Grant which they've received the money for uh the the this money will be utilized Iz to expand a program that's being successful successful in the school districts help strength uh strength sources of strength and they're going to take this money and uh try to develop the program throughout the community and uh so with that they'll start building a CO Coalition for greater community outreach and again it just uh um just gives people those assets they need to have a better me mental health and also uh develop more information about where they can get help and uh uh the referral Network that goes along with um Suicide Prevention and and substance abuse uh then I had a meeting um right after that our HRA uh um monthly meeting a big thanks to this group for uh approving their Levy um and so then as with that knowing where they're going ahead working on their 2025 uh budget as they're moving ahead uh knowing they have the funding uh to move forward to make the uh budget um um viable and balanced um then that afternoon I too was at that rural cities and County uh meeting we all had it's been well discussed and I do I too enjoy being with the group and hearing from the cities um the different things they have going on right after that I had the cap LP uh uh board of directors meeting uh good news on that one um it was a lengthy meeting we had an overall audit presentation uh um this would be a state audit and we've had a deep dive um Federal audit earlier in the year any anyway everything looks uh very good and um uh overall and we'll next month we'll have the final there's a um something uh re uh excuse me repossession of some of the uh monies that they had their budget they're going to move those around we'll approve that next month uh also during that meeting we had uh we elected in three new board members uh James Hammer uh uh a consumer Gian briy consumer and then Sheila sad in the private sector so this the first we have a 15 member board and this the first time it's full in quite some time so it's good to be um getting a full membership on our board also of the 15th three of them are from wilon County which is uh a goal we've been trying to achieve for quite a while and it's good to see their presence again um I was elected uh chairman of the group that'll be through 2020 six and we have two candidates that will be doing a a v on uh for vice president or vice chair I should say Okay Friday uh cap LP I attended a cap LP open house the next day at Bley location there was quite a group there went from I think it was 11 to1 or something like that venders were out there full tour their operations on Bel Bley of which they have a lot of administration and three classrooms so they have three classrooms here um at the um service center and then three class rooms down there at Bley serving over 180 kids in the Head Start program um then yesterday I had the casa food commission steering committee uh again with budget cuts over and um in uh fire going on there was a pretty big healthy cut taken out of FAL Public Health kind of changes up a little bit um how maybe affects some of the um uh in particular one person uh who who did leave uh that was our co-chair to that uh anyway the operate our our our steering committee will and food commission will continue on and um and then we'll work with fireal public health to keep them uh or I'm sorry FAL commission keeping them to understand the the benefits having um uh nutrition and the work that the food commission does in the uh Public Health um Arena also we had a review of a couple of events we had lately had such as the one MJ part and um with the frood forest and I think that's yeah oh and then the last thing we've been working on a a strategic plan for about six months and we'll have the final results of that for the next casca Food commission meeting in November that concludes my report thank you on the 24th I attended the pck committee meeting which commissioner gross discussed uh the committee decided to move forward we had the referral program covered today uh committee decided to move forward with the full-time assistant County Administrator uh issue uh I think that it is uh necessary I think it's it's an important thing that we need need discuss as a board and like to see it on the agenda at at uh the nearest opportunities stve um following that uh later that day I attended with with public health uh staff we had a discussion on flavored tobacco ordinance and that'll be brought forward to the whole board um in the coming weeks on the 19th I attended the greater Fargo moead EDC meeting there was a lot of discussion about innovate 28 um C county is 2.5 million to give for the project um as long as they can get matching funds on it the the goals I understand it with private donations they're still about a million and a half out uh they talked about the workforce program that the state of North Dakota is uh directing towards the EDC to work on uh they have their livein Fargo and work in Fargo project part component of that completed and it looks like now they're going to have razor family in Fargo coming up um they also discussed a company culture program they have and 11 companies involved in it there are collocations with three of those companies in Minnesota with John Deere Sanford and RDO they also discussed an alumni recruitment to bring college students back into the community that they're working with NDSU on and that completed that meeting um I attended fall uh fall rural cities meeting it's already been reported on but as always it's really good to be able to get in and hear how these communities are growing and there's a lot of growth in Clay County and to see how our staff responds to the needs that that we can we can provide for the rural cities so it was a good meeting and then last night into the night I was at the Lake agasse Regional Library Union negotiations and we came up with a proposal for salary and contract changes that'll be voted on by the union membership but it was a long night of interesting discourse and sharing of ideas and that completes my report Steve uh thank you Mr chair uh last Tuesday I participated in the pick uh pick program that's been covered I would I would just note uh when it comes to the assistant administrator piece be with the with the board's action of setting the preliminary Levy you know there was basically two ways that that that would be able to be paid for is uh one uh you'd we'd be looking at making requests to pay out of Reserve for next year or number two and and what I'd like more time to do would be uh we can't we can't raise the levy we can only lower it and or adjust uh and maybe between now and the end of the year another option may be is if we have retirements or funding that uh that we're able to to uh change or address in other areas or revenues over expenditures or revenues over expenditures uh that that that may address that so um the 17th participation in the tobacco ordinance review I think part of that is as commissioner krainov mentioned is just looking at our fee schedule as we move with cannabis and alcohol to have a that hasn't been addressed since 2012 and so have something that's consistent uh across the board uh we have more more to that in the future um on the 18th Troy alanson and I presented at the Morad Business Association let's talk business to talk a little bit about the county and specifically uh about our withdrawal management uh and that was well received I think we had a couple different examples this week of of uh of groups of people that just really didn't know one that we had that we had the program and two of the complexity of of the the situations that people are facing uh that utilize that facility and so that was uh it was great to great to be there we appreciate the opportunity anytime uh we can be uh be at let's talk business um you had a meeting on cannabis registration uh delegation discussion with with Mr Melton Matt Jacobson Kathy McCay and Jason McCoy in conjunction with a meeting coming up with our small cities uh we didn't have a whole lot of discussion on that from our rural cities or questions from that standpoint but wanted to be prepared on the 18th I met with the sheriff ampine on a series of issues on the 19th I met with Darren and Anna also on a series of HR issues uh on the 19th met with Joe if you're at the Government Center uh the election the election process isn't just a few weeks uh that uh that our our staff prepare it's actually months of preparation uh at our government center we we have uh various areas that get taken over uh and uh Joe and and the under Treasurer staff worked in establishing a kind of an election room uh that better serves our staff U so when you're over there you might want to take a peek uh over there uh at that nice area um participated on the 19th in the fall rural cities thanks again to Glendon uh for hosting and for our staff and in attending on the 20th I participated in the Land Development code meeting with Matt Jacobson uh at our last Land Development code meeting we had discussions we had as it was mentioned we had quite a lengthy meeting us at towards the end we ran through a few different things and so one of the areas that our commissioners talked about was rural residential development and the importance of that and so I think that Matt and I will probably be asking our two Commissioners on that committee to have some additional discussion just to make sure that uh everything was fully covered and understood on 20th participated in my weekly n leadership uh webinar meeting uh also participated in the regional ma meeting in Fergus Falls uh we talked about budgets cannabis uh imp impact of ESS uh changes in legislation we'll have to look at address addressing our County policy again uh and also upcoming Paid Family Leave Act uh and so lots of different things happening in in our region on 23rd had a department head evaluation uh that morning I also had a uh took the the FM extra on a tour of our withdrawal management uh and DMV uh facilities and preparation of the open house on the 1 um it was great to see the the withdrawal Management Facility is uh is really coming together uh it's it's a facility that uh that this community can Community can be proud of and again uh with the FM extra just one of those examples of of not understanding or knowing about the program and understanding all the services that are provided and so uh we're continuing to work through some door strike issues uh at the withdrawal management that uh we're anticipating may cause some delays in the actual opening uh but as far as the tour we should be ready uh the DMV uh the DMV uh is scheduled open on the 21st um I will uh completely trust gir's construction and telling me that it's going to open then uh but there's a lot of work to be done between uh between now and then but exciting on both fronts and then yesterday I participated uh in the building committee uh meeting for the non-scar detention in prtf just to two notes uh again uh commissioner moo mentioned earlier the importance of Metro Cog there's a public input meeting tomorrow at the mcom center both at 11:00 a.m. to 1: p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. uh it's uh it's metr crog 2050 uh which again this public input will guide the transportation Investments not just uh not just in in the Morhead area but also our region so and then just of of note um on October 28th there's going to be a a Clay County leaders Round Table to discuss some legislative priorities um and so um well if we have a great interest in that we would have to have that one posted that concludes my report thank you Brian Daren Sarah okay uh we're GNA take a break here okay we're back in session and at this time I had to entertain a motion to go into Clos session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d 05 subdivision 3D Mo approve second a motion and a second all in favor say I I oppose same sign okay we'll be in closed session here we go we're back in session go ahead perfect uh thank you Commissioners um I guess our our request our request formally to the commission today would be to uh request approval to form a team or a committee uh I certainly would recommend myself Rory um and anyone else we would request a commissioner be on there as well to really look at the security compliance needs not only specific to Hippa but for the county overall when it comes to our cyber security Mr chair I would I would move that we move forward with adopting a committee uh as as um been recommended uh with and that committee should be determined by administrator Larson and um Rory schmidtz and Quinn Jagger uh to do that and my motion would also include our techsavvy commissioner uh commissioner Mojo to serve on that committee on behalf of the board second that and motion to Second further discussion I'm going to be really embarrassed when I have to go over to your office and get help changing my password after well that's different any further discussion not all in favor say I I I oose same sign thanks gentlemen thank you thank you any other business come for the committee or commissioner if not we're Jed