00:00:06,930	Five o’clock, Sir. Chaplain, please. Let’s pray, Father. God, We. Just. Thank you for the this day we, uh, celebrate, Uh today Being that Monday after, uh, the resurrection and we look at so many things that, uh, clearly from the weather and the temperature and everything, Spring has sprung and, uh, God, I pray that, uh, we can, uh,

00:00:32,770	look at everything that needs to be done. We’re probably feel like we’re behind on things in our county to get things ready for people to be out and about, and, uh, that always happens. It always S. Up on us, but I pray that you’ll be with, uh, everyone out there that are that are working.

00:00:49,300	Uh, especially our first responders, protect them and everything. And, Uh, be with, uh, this meeting tonight, and, uh, we do this all in your son’s name. Jesus. Amen.

00:01:11,770	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United states of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh, Thank you. OK. I’ll call the April 1st meeting of the Burle County Commission to order first item on the agenda is roll call, please. Comm. Bakken here. Comm. schwab Comm. Woodcock here. Comm. munson Chair Bittner. Next item is approval of agenda.

00:01:38,930	Um, we do have a request to add one item to the agenda and that would be This is Mark, Manda and chamber. DC is mark Manda in chamber E DC, and we’ll put that in under Telecommunications Week Proclamation. Um Is a change Anybody else had any changes or anything. We get a motion to approve the agenda.

00:02:02,830	Please move to approve second motion to approve the agenda in the second. Any further discussion. Call the roll, please. Mr schwab, Mr Woodcock Comm. Munson Comm. Bakken Chair. Bitner motion approves. Next consideration and approval of the march 18th 2024 meeting minutes and bills and the February 27th 2024 special meeting minutes. Commissioners.

00:02:24,900	I reviewed the bills and found them to be in order and would ask for a motion to approve. So moved second. Motion seconded. Further discussion. See? None called the roll, please. Yes. Yes? Yes yes. Motion carries consent agenda. You have abatements applications for license Raffles game you site authorization and special event permits. Any commissioners want to pull anything for discussion. Want to approve the consent agenda.

00:02:54,870	Second motion to approve the consent agenda. Any other discussion. See None Call role, please Comm. Schwab Comm. Woodcox Comm. munson, Comm. Bakken, Sharon Bittner. Next item. Telecommunications Week Proclamation Um Mike Dannenfelser, please. It was a little rundown on what that is. You, Mr Chair commissioners, Um, National Telecommunications Week is a nationally recognized weak Since 1994.

00:03:27,330	We’ve had proclamation signs since 2000 and burly county and city of Bismarck and then since 2016 in the city of Mandan to celebrate the people who work behind the scenes in public safety, some of the most important people you’ll never know.

00:03:44,830	Um, the answer to 911 calls and the non emergency calls and dispatch and manage law enforcement fire and EMS response throughout this throughout the jurisdiction, making sure that we’re saving lives and saving property. Um Kind of the first line of defense and security of our community. So, uh we celebrate them the second full week of April every year, Um, with a little bit of an internal, uh, party stuff.

00:04:03,630	Let them dress up once in a while and have a few meals catered and that kind of thing, But, um We do do some special things again this this year and, uh, hopefully it’ll be another success. Well, thank you, Comm..

00:04:27,570	I would ask for a resolution motion to approve this movie Pro In a second motion in a second to approve the resolution any further discussion seeing uncalled roll, please Comm. schwab, Comm. Woodcox Comm. Munson Comm. Bakken Chair Bittner. Yes motion carries next Item County Human resource Director binder. We have employee turnover report chamber. My bus. Sorry.

00:04:57,900	I put somebody in between and that fast OK, Bismarck and Dan chamber E DC regarding to invite Brendan Nel. Sorry about that. I right on by it. No worries I. I forget things, too, if it doesn’t happen, right right away Chair, Bittner Commissioners, Um, thank you for allowing the chamber E DC to have just a few moments of your time on your agenda this evening, um, to celebrate with you, actually, and to present

00:05:19,300	you with a plaque, um, for 25 years of membership. Um, as you know, the chamber E DC is we represent well over 1200 businesses in the community of Bismarck and Mandan. Um and Know your specifically very interested in those in, um Bismarck and and burly county.

00:05:41,770	We can’t do the work that we do in economic development and supporting, um and advocating for businesses. Um, without your support, um, financially as well as support around the table when we, um have projects and things that will help to literally move business forward. And so thank you for all of that, But thank you. For 25 years of support.

00:06:02,030	We Appreciate You, um, being at in this Public role is never easy. Um, and we applaud you for, um, standing up and and doing that for our our community, so I would have a request of you that if we could take a photo, uh, with all of you with this That would be great.

00:06:24,600	You got your You got your filter on there, but but they left the ugly filter out. We got married. He’s, uh, email this morning while I call. Yeah. Look at all that blue blue blue. Just, just there’s a reason for everybody wearing blue. Right? This is blue debut. Yeah, I know. Like 32 Mhm. Mhm.

00:07:07,770	Far, the that you got your own C. I promise you a jury. Good side, Jerry, have a good song. So let’s just, uh, hope that that photo Covers that picture of the blue Thank you for that. Mm. And Since you started? You should probably let everybody know we we in blue. OK, um Or. Pam’s coming up.

00:07:45,830	Yeah, Pam, You know she’s wearing blue. Damn! Why. Are you wearing blue Chair Bittner commissioners. We are wearing blue today as part of the Prevent child abuse. Day and month April is prevent child abuse. We are wearing blue, Um For our support.

00:08:09,870	For, the preventing child abuse and also we want everybody to wear blue because we’re in competition with Morton County, and we want to keep the trophy that is in the HR office. Ok, thank you. So. Now you know why we’re wearing blue? We. Don’t stop child abuse. OK Pam, uh, employer employee turnover report. OK, um I do this every year, so this is manually calculated.

00:08:33,700	And you’ll see on the first page. Is the chart and we have nine years in now, Um, you’ll see that it’s cyclical. So 2015. We were at 20% turnover. 2016. It was 17%. 2017 was 16%. Then.

00:08:59,230	We went back and up in 2018 to 19% back down in 2019 to 15% Covid happened We were at 16% in 2020 18% in 2021 18% in 2022, and it would appear that the great resignation happened for burly county last year at 22%.

00:09:20,930	Um So when we turn the page, and we kind of drill down into the numbers, it’s important to let you guys know that not All of the turnover is bad Turnover I mean we do have retirements that happen? We. Do let people retire. Um we also have people that are a good culture fit or a good job fit and those people aren’t going to be staying in their jobs. So. It’s not all just people leaving us. It’s some of it is planned Turnover.

00:09:36,030	Some of it is turnover because it was just a poor fit. Um so in 2020, I’ve kind of broken out the different openings from 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. And these percentages Here are the percentages to the whole Countywide. So in 2020. We had 52 employees that turned over throughout the whole county. One was at the auditors.

00:09:56,900	One was at the building and grounds 22 are at detention extension at one high. We had highway had three human resources had one sheriff had three human Stone had 13 and state’s attorney had six. So of that Those are what those percentages are, and that’s how we came up to the total percentage of 15.

00:10:16,130	85 because at the end of the year we had 328 employees, so that’s how to read those charts. I would put that on a pie chart, but that’s a lot of wording to put on a pie chart.

00:10:35,830	So then I go in and kind of explain the different Departments where the turnover is happening, Um, Auditor treasurer Tax Equalization that’s had some turnover in the past two years. Um some of it had to do with a new auditor and others are just staff turning over getting different opportunities. Um, I’d like to say that we are fully staffed. And, the auditors department, um, effective January 2024.

00:10:56,100	I knock on wood because that can change at any minute. I hope not, but it can. Um, the burly county detention center has been For several reasons. The first reason is this is a 24 7 facility. Um, so they are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week Holidays as well.

00:11:15,470	Um It’s also a high burnout rate, uh, with everything that’s going on, and I Sheriff Le has talked about the the fentanyl crisis and and more of what they’re seeing, with inmates being more combative, Um, that takes a toll on the detention officers.

00:11:39,030	And so we do have some turnover there, uh, the quality Has been Reduced a little bit because we we used to require it, Uh, education beyond high school for detention officers, and we rolled that back. So. Now we have educate, uh Detention officers right out of high school. So, I. I. Don’t wanna say the quality? I just want to say the experience level of our recruits is getting less.

00:11:58,730	And with that comes more, uh, training, so there’s more training costs and we will go into the the W SI claims after a bit here. Um The sheriff’s department. We’re seeing that trend of some long time officers that are just they’re quitting or retiring and going into a completely different Career path.

00:12:21,130	Um, and that’s the national trend is is that way as well? I think it’s just the way America views law enforcement. In certain areas, uh and and certain people’s view of law enforcement as the bad guy when it’s not So we are having a little bit of a hard time recruiting for sheriffs, deputy as well. Uh, state’s attorney.

00:12:44,030	I think we’ve already talked about state’s attorney throughout the year here, Uh, it. It’s kind of hard because our state’s attorneys do have a larger case load than other counties, and it’s hard to get attorneys because if if someone is going to go to that amount of schooling and have that amount invested, they’re gonna go for the highest paying job they can find.

00:13:02,630	And unfortunately, that’s not gonna be a state’s attorney job. A lot of them will go into private practice. Um so we’re working with Julie to try and Competitive and and try and do some Some out of the box things to where we can get state’s attorneys. Um, the highway Department.

00:13:21,970	There’s some turnover there due to retirement. Uh, we do actually have one position open. We were filled, but we do have one position open now, and we’re actively recruiting for that position. What makes this position a little bit harder to recruit for than in the past is the CD L requirements now for that license. Uh, the human Service zone.

00:13:40,730	They’ve experienced some turnover throughout the years they had a new director that came on, uh, I think Chelsea is doing an awesome job. But. We’re still cleaning up and changing a culture. Chelsea is changing a culture and not everybody wants to change is that culture change changes.

00:14:00,300	So there are some people that go willingly and other people that not so willingly so there are some turnover there. Not all bad turnover. We’ve got some great new people. We’ve got some other people that are stepping up, so it’s just it’s a matter of time on that one.

00:14:18,670	Um, suffice it to say that retention should be key for us because it costs a lot to recruit employees, so we need to try and retain our employees as much as we can, Um So. We want to try and do what’s the best for our employees? And some of that salary and some of its benefits, and some of it’s just flexible working conditions as much as we can. Um or are able to do So.

00:14:40,470	According to our breezy HR the applicant tracking system that we use at Burle County, uh, the human resources department process 533 applications for 2023 for our open positions We hired 99 candidates. And. We actually had 46,948 position views in 2023. So that’s the hits to our our positions, So we’re doing pretty good there.

00:15:03,530	Uh, we just qualified 206 candidates for various reasons in 2023. Some of them just aren’t making it through the screening processes. They they have skeletons in the closet and we find them before we hire, which is more cost effective for us. Um, and some people just aren’t good fits.

00:15:23,300	And, the position the positions that were the most challenging to recruit and fill in 2023 due to industry availability and highly competitive salaries were the following state’s attorney 12 and senior, um and then jail nurse LP, N or RN.

00:15:41,770	Those are the two that we’re really having a hard time with and I think everybody knows the industry and the in our market and everybody is having a hard time. Um, the positions that were that were struggling to get qualified candidates to fill in 2023, where sheriff’s deputy the highway maintenance worker, two in detention officer Um, we’re sitting a little better on the detention officer and the highway maintenance worker, too in 2024.

00:16:01,300	Uh, in here, it says currently we have 21 positions open. Actually. We have 23 positions open now. Um, that’s a fluid number. Changes every day. Uh, that does not include any of our temps. We also have six temporary highway worker positions open that we’re trying to recruit for. So those are our mowers and our flags.

00:16:21,000	So if anybody wants a temporary highway maintenance worker position for the summer, um, contact HR. So we’re kind of looking for creative ways. We do the CD L training. Um, we’re trying to look at career Pathing so out of the detention center and the Sheriff’s department. They’re perfect example of that If.

00:16:40,700	Someone doesn’t have the experience to be a sheriff’s deputy, um they can be hired on as a detention officer and work their way into the sheriff’s position is a possibility. Um, also, uh, We do that with the attorneys where we’ll hire him as an attorney one and they’ll work their way up to an attorney, too. So.

00:17:00,870	It’s different things that we’re trying like that, Um, this year. I did something different. I did the Democrat demographics of burly county and I got our overall age. They were actually getting younger when I first was hired in 2020 are overall average age was in the 50 to 59 category. The highest percentage was in the 50 to 59. Now.

00:17:20,100	It’s in the 40 to 49 and are under 26 is actually higher than it was prior. So we’re we’re becoming Not quite as old. Of a workforce.

00:17:41,900	Um, the 40 to 49 is the highest and you’ll have the 30 to 39 and 50 to 59 on either side at right around 22% what I did highlight in red is our employees that are 60 to 64 and employs 65. Plus, because if we have a hard time recruiting for these positions, these are more positions we’re gonna have to recruit for when these people retire, so we need to plan For the recruiting.

00:18:02,700	Um, the male to female ratio surprised me because we are actually, uh, pretty balanced. And. We have some traditionally male dominated careers in the county. Um, so this surprised me that we were at 45 to 55%. We also have some traditionally female dominated departments and careers. Um, my department being one of them. We don’t get a lot of male HR people. Uh, but that’s changing.

00:18:26,770	I think when I first went into HR 25 years ago, it was rare to find a male when you went to the national conferences, it was mostly females, and now it’s beginning to have quite a balance, and that’s good to see.

00:18:47,130	Um, I do wanna backtrack on to the W SI as part of the, uh additional cost when we turn over employees I attached our 2024 W SI premium billing the apportioning So what goes to each department? And up on the top corner. Is the actual premium, so our premium for 2024 are estimated premium was $200,131.65.

00:19:15,300	And, then we get experience rating tacked on and our experience rating is 100 and 19.6%. That’s astronomical. For claims. That’s our claims our three year claims rating and What hits us on these claims are the little claims we get. Um Broken fingers.

00:19:39,900	Fingers being locked in a door slip strips falls that kind of thing or the big claims like heart attacks for sheriff’s department or injuries that we have that are broken Bones backs. Um And, the detention center, sheriff and highway. Specifically are some of our more hazardous occupations where we’re seeing injuries. Um, so we do need to do training and the turnover is what gets us on there.

00:19:59,100	Because then we don’t have the the training that’s needed, and there just seems to be more accidents when you have new people. So. We’re looking at a premium cost of $439,489.10 for 2024 with our experience rating and our estimated premium we do get some of that back because we’re in the county employer group, which is part of the the North Dakota Association of counties,

00:20:22,130	So the whole pool will get a discount and then we’ll get allocated back our share of that, Um, also the L MS trainings that we do because we get all of our employees to do those L MS trainings Quarterly.

00:20:40,230	We get a Count and we get some premium back based on that, and we also have another discount that we get back, um, based on credits. So. This will be our bill. It’ll probably go down last year. I think it went down 50 to 60,000. But. This is what blows the HR budget.

00:21:02,730	Every year because all those listed in green at the end those departments listed in Green are the general fund and they hit my budget line item. For W SI. So. My budget’s blown within the first month. What I want to do for 2025 is to carve out a risk management budget away from my HR department budget so that we can better track what’s going on with this budget and also put some training.

00:21:24,600	Um, resources in there so that we can offset some of these costs. So that is the heads up that I wanna give, um to try and carve that out to get a better picture of our risk. Um That is all I have on turnover. Are there any questions? Wh any questions? I see. OK.

00:21:48,170	I’m not asking for action on that, Um, the second item I have is the RFP request for proposal for a timekeeping system and payroll system. Um, I believe One of the meetings. I don’t know if it was January December, the commission requested that I find out or do some research on a time universal timekeeping system and a payroll system.

00:22:12,500	Um, we’re having issues with our payroll system. It hasn’t been updated in a long time. It’s a server based system and we I thought we were a module onto the General ledger.

00:22:30,230	But we’re just a feature, So when they update us, they have to update The General Ledger as well and sometimes it gets quirky and what we found was all the updates that they did still don’t fix our payroll problem. That we’re having when When.

00:22:49,570	They went to this payroll system This was designed for school districts, and so we had to kind of do some workarounds on our position controls to get it to work how burly county needs it to work, and I think that’s breaking So. That is why I’m looking at Payroll system along with our timekeeping system. Um, I have a draft RFP. This is the question side. I have the language that I used for the life insurance RFP that will go out with it. I am recommending.

00:23:10,170	Are requesting that the commission give me the go ahead to do the request for proposals for the Timekeeping payroll system. And. I will run that in the HR department. Um, take the RFPS responses, rank them and then bring a recommendation to the commission. Move to approve. Second No motion second to approve any further discussion. Call the Comm. Schwab Comm. Woodcock Comm. munson Comm.

00:23:44,430	Bakken Chair Bittner. Yes, motion carries And. The. Last thing I have is the IT position. The System administrator position and we did have a second IT position budgeted for the 2024 budget. Um we’re looking kind of more at a tech role.

00:24:08,070	Um, but with the the needs that we’ve discovered We need something more than a tech, So we’re looking at a systems administrator. We did put that out there because it was part of the budget. Um, we did recruit we found The unicorn. Um, candidate. However, this person that the applicant has 20 plus years of systems administrator experience and he has worked with our systems, the county systems as well. So.

00:24:31,470	We are looking for a variance to do like a A. Grade 11. Step nine, which is a variant of Let me get my Stuff together here. I think it is roughly 9000 annually. For this year. And. It is within the budget. The department budget. Um it was just Not The position that we had budgeted for originally.

00:25:00,230	Commissioners. I’ve been briefed on this ahead of time. And I would I would ask for a motion to approve. That Mood proof. Second motion to second any further questions. Discussion. See none. The only question I had was whether or not the the The change in the position fell into budget.

00:25:19,430	And, you answered that so it does fall into the overall I budget. The line item for the employee expenses may go into the negative, but the overall budget will cover it, and we’re not even sure if it will just because we’ve got kind of a late start here in January. OK, thank you. Comm. Schwab Comm. Woodcock Yes Comm. Munson Comm. Bakken Chair Bittner.

00:25:43,500	Yes motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. County Finance Director Jacobs got an update on the detention center sales tax and then 2023 year end budget information that we’ve been waiting on. Lee welcome Good. Evening chair and commissioners. Um, I’ve got some A Handout for item number 2. May I? Yes. Thank you.

00:26:18,330	Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. This is for the second half. So Set that aside for a minute. Uh, item number one is update on the detention center sales tax.

00:26:55,570	Um Auditor Bonkowski and I talked to the Morton County Auditor Don Roan shortly after our last meeting and Basically briefed her on what we had talked about here. Um, the different options we identified. Um and she She assured us that she was going to get That item on the Morton County agenda for April 11th. And.

00:27:19,030	So I I forward forwarded her the information that I that I provided here a couple weeks ago and so we’ll We’re kind of in a in a wait and see mode. Any questions on that item for me. Questions Comm.. Don’t see any All. Right. So item number two is the sort of the year end. Uh, financial review. Um We We are Closing the books.

00:27:45,270	I think we’re still we still have some entries that are trickling in. But for all intents and purposes, um 2023 is closed. I. I don’t anticipate a lot of changes to come in. After today, at least not until we get through the audit. Uh, for tonight what I had prepared mostly I wanted to to talk about the General fund.

00:28:09,170	Uh, and the General fund balance reserves and, uh, the the budget variance. Uh, items from From last year. So, uh, So this so just just to reiterate this information is strictly general funds. There are some.

00:28:32,630	I think there’s going to be a few changes? Um, to the special revenue funds in the audit, So I just We can we can touch on that later. But. Frankly, I just didn’t have time to get to them. Um, just just with the the timing of when this was closed when the books were closed off and so forth, so as far as the General fund is concerned, uh, our our fund balance. For the year, which is a K A reserves.

00:28:54,630	Um Closed out at 16,618,931. So that is very, very close to the prior year. Fund balance. Um, meaning we did not in any appreciable way dip into reserves during the year. Um, now last year we we did dip into reserves last year, meaning 2022, and there was also a transfer I have noted on here. A transfer from the Miss.

00:29:25,570	Valley fund. So, Uh, even though the the deficiency Was 2 million in 2022 when you consider the transfer was really 2.5 million of reserves that we used to fund that that year. But during 2023. We did not have to dip into reserves. Um Our Reserves as a percentage are sitting at about 47% 47.63%.

00:29:52,370	And by state law. We have to keep that under 75%, and our policy is to keep it above 25% so 25 to 75% were were pretty much right in the middle. Um So. Anybody have any questions on the fund balance portion before I move on? No.

00:30:19,770	The second page Here is a A budget variance summary. Um, and that’s just kind of rolled up into Yeah I. I. Call it the department. It’s not really This is just a way of organizing our, uh, our information in the accounting system, But, uh, this is kind of rolled up into a summary level with sort of one line item.

00:30:43,070	Um, for everybody and The, the total variance from the budget is that number at the very bottom of the page about four point uh about 4.5 million, So. We budgeted basically 4.5 million more than we ended up spending. Um Now. We also budgeted some revenues. I didn’t include that here, but we we budgeted some revenues that we didn’t.

00:31:07,500	We didn’t hit those numbers either. So really when you when you add it all up, it’s about 4 million. Um, because if we if we come in under our revenues, we’re going to need more tax.

00:31:23,530	You know money to make up for that, of course, so, but in terms of just just strictly in terms of expenditure, which we can control to to, for the most part, we can’t control. Um Control revenues. We came in pretty far under budget. Um, the the the It’s kind of the usual suspects there. Those are the the the, uh, public safety. Um Parts of the budget.

00:31:48,100	States attorney Sheriff, uh, detention center that we’ve been struggling with for several years in terms of, uh, reaching our staffing goals. Um State’s attorney came in pretty far under budget about 11.5 million under budget that was almost almost entirely salaries and fringe benefits. Um, similar story with the detention center. Um I think net revenues on the detention center actually improved this year.

00:32:13,870	I don’t have that number here, but, um, there was a there was an improvement there, sheriff. Similar story now. You know, I think when it comes to well go back up to the state’s attorney. Those are some when we do fill those positions. Those are some pretty high, you know, cost position, so even a small number.

00:32:34,570	So, for example, if we lost, say three attorneys that could be nearly a half million dollars in in, uh, salary and benefits, So that’s part of why that the number is so big, but the underlying units staff units Could be very small to cause a big, uh, a big variance like that.

00:32:55,830	Any questions on on that page before him, Mr Woodcock when you get to the bottom line, 4.4 million. Now that goes to the General fund balance. And. Is that correct, That’s correct. OK, that’s that’s part of the other 16 million, or whatever 18 million. No, it will add to that it’ll be beyond that figure.

00:33:14,570	Well, you’re You’re correct that if we have, you know if we have some some money left At the end of the year. It rolls into the General fund. In this case we just it just didn’t go to our reserves. We just didn’t spend that money. If.

00:33:28,730	That makes sense because how do we spent every every dime here, you know, we would have spent about 4.5 million in reserves. So that’s sitting in what account that it’s sitting in the reserves. It’s sitting in the reserves, So. You just said it doesn’t go to the result. I misspoke. What I meant to say was we We did not spend $4.5 million that that’s correct.

00:33:49,930	Um, but we also didn’t get $4.5 billion. We just didn’t spend it. So, meaning our reserves didn’t had we had We spent everything in the budget, we would have spent 4 4.5 million out of our reserves. Um, but in this case we just broke even if that makes sense.

00:34:06,900	No, it doesn’t to me because when you say we didn’t have, didn’t we tax? Didn’t we budget and tax 4.4 million. We did Tax 4.4 million. Yes, Yes, yeah. So. That’s gotta be coming in someplace and it’s sitting it it it even though we didn’t spend it, We got it. We budgeted 30. 30. Do. I have it on here.

00:34:31,000	I think 30 3 million Was the amount that we budgeted for. Last year and we spent about 29 million or or so which is essentially, yes, all tax money.

00:34:57,100	OK, but we did when you say we budget for 33 million we tax the taxpayer for 33 million I think I think we taxed the taxpayer? I’d have to go back and look it I think last year was about 14.5 million in property tax, and then we have all these other sources of revenue that that come in. But. I mean to your point. It’s. It’s basically tax money. I mean if it’s if it’s funding the county. It’s basically tax money.

00:35:12,500	That’s the way that I look at it anyway. One of the thoughts I had in regards to if there’s over collections and whatnot, Obviously we would be wanting to apply that to any other things you may recall at budget time.

00:35:31,300	Last year we held off on a on a on a boiler replacement at the courthouse because we didn’t have have the money and we’ve been trying to build up our emergency reserves, you know, Ever since the flood and some other things that’s been a slow process to build up, so there are things To put that money to good. County use, you know that we don’t want to.

00:35:53,700	Just, uh Uh, let it become something that we’re wasting somewhere else, You know. Keep in mind. We have some legitimate things that we have not funded. Thank you. Gladly. And the the following two pages are are a, uh, just kind of a more detailed look at that summary page. Um, I would consider these items to be significant items.

00:36:16,770	I didn’t put every single item with a variance on this list because it would just be too long. But. What I did here is if there was a difference of at least $10,000. And. That difference was 10% of the budget. So 10,010% of that particular line item.

00:36:38,570	I called it significant so that could go in either direction over under. And if you scan down the list, I mean it’s It really is a lot of salaries and benefits. Just those big those big ticket items that just most of the budget, um And come budget time. I’m sure there’s plenty of items on this list that we could we could sort of trim.

00:36:57,230	That budget a little bit and maybe get rid of some of the stuff we don’t need and we can have that discussion. Um Also to budget time unless somebody wants to get into it tonight. Not tonight. Mr Chair, Comm. Woodcox we? We just got these figures right now, So.

00:37:19,570	I’ve got lots of questions, but can I just come in and sit down and visit with you directly and great? One of his county board. That’s US the very first one. We’re over budget by almost 14%. What we No, we’re under budget. Tony board salary is over Budget 13.8%, You know, I think well, Yeah, so it’s not We’re under 35 on the next line.

00:37:47,370	Right out at 20. Under budget. Yeah and that that’s one that honestly doesn’t make. Yeah, because it’s a salaries. We’re over budget and fringe benefits were under. That was my question. How, can we build up with sellers and down with so now you’re thinking like we need We need more benefits than to balance that out. Right.

00:38:06,600	You know I. I. See that I see that stuff too, and and never mind. I’ll I’ll come and go for it right. Just want to get that the whole The whole point is to get this information out there so that we can understand it.

00:38:31,170	Does anybody have any any other questions for me? No, thank you for putting this together really appreciate that. I’m sure you can look forward to additional questions. Thanks. The. Good news is that we’re not The other way. County Engineer Hall County Highway 10 mill and overlay and then a bunch of other things. Good evening commissioners. The first item I have on the agenda is called a concurrence letter.

00:38:58,400	Uh, that goes from, uh, burly county to the DOT. This is our highway 10 project. This is the federal portion of it. Um, And as part of that the DOT basically handles the letting of the project and and most of the contract work involved in that, Uh, so on March 15th, the DOT opened the bids for our

00:39:17,700	highway 10 project. Uh, the bids are listed in the board letter in your packet. Border states. Paving is the The firm that got that it was below the engineer’s estimate. If you look at the second page of our, uh, board letter. You can get the breakdown of that How.

00:39:32,500	Much of that was federal money and how much was county funds associated with that? Uh and then I also listed what we budgeted for that particular project at that, Um At the beginning of the year. Uh, that project did come in under budget I would recommend going forward. There’s a tax resolution that needs to be signed and returned to the DOT.

00:39:52,870	So. I would, uh, recommend the proposed resolution in your packet, which is go ahead and sign that resolution and basically acknowledge that border states, paving is the low bidder on that particular project. The commissioners. The resolution is in the packet. Motion in a second to approve the resolution. Any discussion called Roll, Please Comm.

00:40:20,200	Munson Comm. Comm. schwab Comm. woodcox Chair Bener Yes motion carries Marcus The next item I have on the agenda is under the North Dakota century code, the county Board of commissioners can close a section line as long as that the request for the closure meets certain criteria.

00:40:39,770	Um, and that we have a public hearing before that process takes place and assess the damages associated with closing that, uh, particular section line. Uh, Tony. Fick, uh, has filed a petition to vacate a section line. Uh, that location of that section line is down in wild Rose Township.

00:40:59,130	Are you included the maps in your packet, so you can see where that is at as well as the application for closure of that. At this point All I’m requesting is that we set a public hearing for May 6th at the five o’clock At.

00:41:15,600	That time we’ll have the public hearing and then we’ll review the validity of closing that sex line and make a decision if two too close or not to close at that point, So there is a proposed resolution in your packet. I’d recommend approval and Go from there. We move to approve second motion and a second to approve any further discussion. Mr. Chair Mr Woodcock when we When. We do these section line closings. And.

00:41:35,400	We really stretch the rubber band to get public. Benefit and a lot of them. This will be one of them, too. But where do we ever get any objections to that when we close the section, Anybody object to what the state or the feds or they say, Hey. You didn’t have a public benefit there.

00:41:51,470	Do we ever get challenged. Well. Um I’m, not an attorney. But the way I read the law and the way we’ve been told that the law is supposed to be interpreted as the, uh, the value of closing a section and the public benefit is your determination What. That is so However You Wanna Look at that That’s up to you.

00:42:08,500	There’s a public benefit. Generally speaking. We have not gotten any pushback from any other entity, and that’s not a public benefit that is a public benefit. We haven’t had any push back on that a particular thing. You may get some pushback or, uh, discussion from a neighbor or something later on down the road.

00:42:26,770	Um and what I think The important thing is to keep in mind that you’re really representing all the people of the county and is there a benefit or is it detrimental to close that particular section line? So Thank you. This. One does look like it has different.

00:42:49,570	Uh, It’s a whole different story than some of those The question is to the motion for scheduling a public hearing. We already did, didn’t we that any other discussion? All the role, please Comm. Schwab. Yes.

00:43:11,530	Mr Woodcock? Yes Mr munson Commission Bakken Chair bitner Yes, motion carries the next item I have is enter into a contract for the low bidder on our chip Seal project this year on January 4th, the county board authorized the auditor in the county engineer to bid our chip seal projects. We open those bids on April 25th this year. Uh, we got two bids. Uh, they’re listed in your packet. Uh, there’s the engineer’s estimate and the budget amount for the county portion of that particular project.

00:43:30,170	Uh, as you See that is beyond underneath our, uh, budgeted amount. We have worked with this particular company past. Uh, they’ve done good performance for us. I’d recommend moving forward with the post resolution in your packet to accept that bid. So move! Second. I have a motion a second to approve any discussion. Follow the role please Comm. woodcock consume.

00:43:54,730	Munson Comm. Bakken Comm. Schwab. Yes Chair Bittner. Yes, motion carries next. The. Next item Having. The agenda is entering into a contract with the low bidder for S AD number 76 on February 5th. The County board authorized the county auditor and the county engineer to advertise for bids for this particular project.

00:44:13,570	Uh, we opened bids on March 25th Northern Improvement came in at the low bid of that particular project. I have listed the, um the engineer’s estimate for that project and the budgeted amount slash the petition amount.

00:44:33,300	This is the amount that the, uh the champion of that particular S AD took around and asked the people if they were would accept that that value or that high a price on going forward with this project. Uh, the This particular case really indicates on how hard it’s been over the last year or so to to Lack of a better word Guess on what Puma prices are going to be out there.

00:44:55,230	Um, the engineers estimate was based on a highway 10 bids that we got, which was a real really a recent bid, and it was really good numbers, and we bumped those numbers up even from that bid, and that was still well, low. Well below. Uh, what the the contractor came in at. Uh, However, Um, last year.

00:45:11,600	The numbers we were seeing were much higher. And, So that’s the petition I put together for the individuals out. There was much higher for that. I did Um, give this information to the the, uh Individual in charge of this particular. Um S AD, Uh, they were happy with the numbers.

00:45:29,370	They did want us to go forward with that. So. There is a proposed resolution in your packet. I’d recommend approval, but I’m happy to answer any questions. Move to approve. Take it motion of a second to approve any further discussion. Called role, please Comm. Schwab Comm. woodcox Comm. Munson Comm. bakn Chair Bittner yes, motion carries The.

00:45:52,770	Next item I have on the agenda is approval of the selection of Bartlett and West to perform construction engineering services on the highway 10 Port project. Now. This is just the federal portion the locally funded portion County highway forces will take care of the engineering services on that portion.

00:46:14,030	Um, the engineering services for this particular portion of The way it the way it plays out is once we accept federal dollars to move forward on a on a project, then we’re required to be obligated to do all the federal, uh, hoops jumping through and so a lot of those require certificates and certifications that our inspectors currently don’t have.

00:46:32,230	So it really requires us to go with the consulting firm to go ahead and move forward. We are funding this particular, um, payment of a consultant 80% Federal fund and a 20% local, uh, on January, 3rd, the Be board authorized us to seek this engineering. Uh, construction services on March 19th. We opened the proposals.

00:46:54,100	We did receive three proposals from engineering firms out there. Uh, we did conduct interviews on March 26th, and then we rank those, uh, three firms. Bartle West was the most qualified firm. Uh, through that ranking process. Uh, at this point, um, there’s no dollars associated with that, because what happens is the DOT takes over at this point, um, and negotiate.

00:47:15,970	With, the contractor, the engineering firm, uh, and works with us, and they’ll negotiate the price of that firm. But. It’s going to be around 350,000 the total for that, Uh, there is a proposed resolution in your packet. I would recommend approval, but I’d be happy to answer any questions. You may Hale.

00:47:34,570	Any questions? I would move to approve the selection of Bartlett and West perform the construction engineer services for the county highway, 10 Mill and Overlay Project second motion in a second, any further discussion. So uncalled, role Police Comm. schwab Comm. Woodcox. Yes Comm. munson. Yes. Comm. Bakken Chair. Bitner Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr Chair Comm.

00:48:00,770	would another question similar to what we had before and other departments now these were When we estimate The project. And. It comes in under budget. In other words, we estimate a million dollars and it comes in at 800,000 that $200,000 that we’ve already budgeted for, And.

00:48:22,130	I think we’ve already collected taxes on that? Where does that 200,000 sit At the end of the day. Commissioners, at least for the highway department. I’ll speak about the Highway Department. I’ll speak to the highway department that that just stays in our fund. Um, we have a general A General Highway Department fund.

00:48:41,330	OK So that just stays in that particular it goes up by that amount of money, too, And, and what’s the strings attached to that fund, then? Are there any or is that what we’re using? The only string is I have to come back here and ask you to be able to spend the money to the project to move forward with whatever needs to be done so Other questions. Thank you, Marcus. Next, Sheriff Liebman.

00:49:03,770	Traffic safety grant and update on detention Center lawsuit. Thank you, sir. Good evening, Mr Chair commissioners. Um before you. The first item is the traffic safety Grant. This is, uh, I. I come back every year, uh, in two parts one for the traffic safety Grant. And then, like tonight, the addendum for the, uh, equipment.

00:49:25,700	Part of that grant, so basically The issue of the overtime, money and mileage money first and then depending where the programs at they make a decision on equipment requested. So Tonight. I’m here to ask for your authorization, Uh, to basically execute that second part of the grant.

00:49:50,230	We would be basically purchasing two in car camera systems for a total of $8000. That’s 100% match or 100%. Funding by The Department of Transportation. The second piece of equipment would be for one radar.

00:50:20,500	That’s a 75 25% match 25% on our part for burly county and that’s in our budget under the equipment line item, so So it’s covered correct. Move to approve second motion second to approve any further discussion. Our role, please Comm. Comm. Schwab Comm. woodcox Yes Comm. munson Comm. Bakken Yes Chair bitner. Yes motion carries. Thank you one last little point, Um, Chair Bittner and auditors Binkowski will have to execute that electronically.

00:50:45,230	We’ll Make Sure You get that email if you haven’t gotten it already. I think I already did. I think I already? Docusigned? Yes, Correct. Perfect. Thank you? Thank you? Um Next item is the, uh, jail pain. Uh, You had a premonition. Right the, uh, jail paint lawsuit? Um, I won’t go too deep into this. Obviously, A.

00:51:08,170	Lot of this is, um, handled in executive session, but I just want to make you aware. Um sorry I didn’t get to you before it actually hit the news. Um, but we have progressed to the point in that jail paint issue where we now have filed a lawsuit. Against, the contractors and architect on that project, So that’s proceeding along.

00:51:31,400	Um, we didn’t think it would necessarily get to this, but it’s not abnormal that it did. So Any questions without us going too far into the details. No I. I only had one question. There’s not a What. Do you call it statute of limitations on the time on that or anything, we Mr Chair Comm.

00:51:59,430	is actually that there is but we’re within that and our attorney has been working knowing what that deadline is and everything so More in good situation. So what’s the possible resolution on that thing? Um, you know, I mean. I mean not? I know everybody’s gonna say Well. Somebody else is responsible and whatnot.

00:52:21,370	But at the end of the day, What do we need to do to fix it? And and so again without trying and Mr Chair, I’ll I’ll tap dance around this a little bit. Maybe. You don’t want to answer it at all. Yeah. I would just say we’re we’re on a good footing, um, moving forward. If. That kind of helps.

00:52:44,300	Yeah and and at some point we can, you know, probably schedule an executive session again. Um, and get more into the details, But. Basically, Um Attorney King has been with us on this project. I’ll Call it a project. I don’t know what else to call it since 2019. So. It has been a process. OK, hope that helps. Thank you, Comm.

00:53:08,500	Munson and and to kind of help Kelly a little bit so a year ago, Uh, the sheriff asked the the jail Committee to Asked Mr King to start the process and in that process We now have had to file a lawsuit because we don’t have a choice. OK? Very good. Thank you for the update. Thank you any other questions? Thanks. Thank you.

00:53:41,970	OK that brings us to Comm. munson. Home Rule Charter measured discussion. Thank you chair. Part of the reason I wanted this back on the agenda was our last meeting. Uh, the audio was disconnected. Uh, while we were having the conversation about the home rule charter. Uh Comm.

00:54:01,300	woodcox had asked a couple of questions and we had a very nice discussion here at the table about the benefits and what was happening, and all of that did not get out to the residents, so I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about that as well. Uh, as Comm.. Woodcock asked last, uh, meeting you know where we at? Where? Where we at with the process.

00:54:18,800	Uh, the first thing that we’re gonna do and, uh, audit Spons Kowski is hooking up his, uh Um, laptop to a YouTube. Commercial that the chamber the Bismarck mandate and chamber, C has taken all the information from the home rule charter, and they’ve created an advertisement that they would like to use, uh, to help educate the public, so we’ll

00:54:41,300	watch this first. OK, so, um, with regard to this do we have options to change things here at this point, if there’s a need Yep. OK, thank you. Because. Everyone hates paying them. Some people want to eliminate them completely.

00:55:09,500	However, let’s talk about an opportunity that Burle County and the city of Denmark residents will have to reform and reduce property taxes this year as we approach the 2024 primary election in June, you have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact on your and the county’s finances to ensure a safer and more secure future for all back in 2014. The County voters made a crucial decision by passing the burly county home rule charter.

00:55:33,230	This Charter was instrumental in finding the bond for the construction of the burly Morton detention center through a half cent sales tax. For the next 10 years, burly county sales tax receipts remained strong and as we near the end 2024 the original sales tax assessment has served its purpose by fully paying off the

00:55:54,430	original facility bond for the detention center in accordance with the original home rule Charter the original half cent sales tax will expire at the end of 2024 this June.

00:56:16,930	You haven’t have an opportunity to be instrumental in ushering in meaningful Property tax reform in burly county, burly county voters, we are asking you to consider approving a one cent sales tax. When you go to the polls during the upcoming primary election, this one cent sales tax will replace the existing half cent sales tax. When.

00:56:39,230	Those collections cease the collections from the one cent sales tax will be crucial in paying for burly county property tax reform by replacing the funding mechanism for some law enforcement functions. At, the county level. Currently, some of the largest expenditures on the tax rolls for burly county serve law enforcement needs. This includes the detention center operations, Sheriff’s office and state’s attorney’s office with annual budgets totaling just below 20,000,020 million that is currently being funded through your property taxes.

00:57:03,700	Here’s the good news of one cent sales tax would bring burly county sales tax revenue slightly above the 20 million. By approving this one cent sales tax. We are making a strategic investment in the safety and well being of our community.

00:57:27,230	It’s a chance to ensure that our law enforcement detention facilities and legal services have the resources they need to keep burly county safe and secure while providing a local solution to the problem of runway property taxes. Burling County and city of Bismarck. Let’s come together once again and make a positive choice for our future votes to approve the one cent sales tax during the 2024 primary election.

00:57:51,370	Together we can build a stronger, safer and more prosperous community for generations to come and start to solve the property tax problem at the local level with local solutions. Yeah. Well. Um I, I. I’m impressed with that. I Wanna thank the chamber. I mean the the the Bismarck Man and Chamber of Commerce E DC. They took the bull by the horn.

00:58:19,070	They lined up the speaker. Uh, they had one of the members on the home rule charter. Kind of come up with the language. Uh, we had another member of the home rule charter create the video found a group to create the video. We put it all together, I should say the chamber put it all.

00:58:37,630	And now at this point once we’re all good with it, Uh, this will be played on public access or not public access. I should say yeah, the public access channel um before and after our meetings, it’ll be on the front page of Dakota media access between now and the election. OK? Oh, You know II. I.

00:58:56,500	Just wanna make sure and point out that I think there’s some rules that you know the county can’t get involved in that particular advertising, and I think it’s really Kind of amazing that the chamber Um, came up and and and initiated that on their own not to say that I.

00:59:14,500	I mean I kind of like the idea, right? It’s kind of right that they gave us this award this today, too? Yeah. Funny. How that works funny how that works. Um, but this Yeah this This all goes to the to the chambers. Um Dedication to this project.

00:59:34,870	They believe in it as much as we do individually, and, uh so they’ve they’ve taken this Pretty serious. That’s. That’s welcome news. Um, really as listening to that I might have only changed one word. And and that wouldn’t really I don’t think materially affected anything. Technically. We’re not actually replacing budget. I mean it’s having that effect. But.

00:59:59,830	We’re supplementing, supplementing because you know we may not be able to, like totally eliminate some right because you know things change in the future, right that that’s that’s like splitting hairs. And. I’m not sure that that’s I don’t think we need to do that. But I. I think it was just a pretty good presentation. Thank you for doing that.

01:00:14,770	Thank you, uh, if I can add a couple more things, some of the items that we talked about, uh, at our last meeting that, uh Didn’t get aired. Uh, you know the the average homeowner homeowner will save approximately two thirds of their burly county. Property tax. If. This measure is is approved.

01:00:38,330	Uh, so if you look at, uh for every $100,000 of your, uh, value of your home, uh, according to our finance director, it will eliminate about 100 and $50 of your property tax. So $300,000 home $450 savings. That will be paid for by this one cent sales tax.

01:01:00,470	The other piece that I think that we need to keep reminding our residents is, according to the state tax department, approximately 40% of all tax sales tax revenue collected in burly county comes from residents that don’t live here. So, you know, bypassing this. Not only are we helping our residents reduce their property tax, but we are asking non residents to help pay for that. And.

01:01:23,870	I think that is a huge win for our residents by doing something like this. Keep in mind just for clarification. That’s the percentage of the county portion of your sale of your property tax. We are not responsible.

01:01:46,730	I just want to make sure we we talk about this every year at budget time, but burly County commission is responsible for the county portion of your property taxes, not the schools, parks, C or any of that other stuff, so Um Thank you for that. Anything else you want to add on this subject, Comm. Buck. Um Comm.. I did have a couple people reach out to me concerning, uh, noticing.

01:02:08,570	Um With, the home rule charter as far as notification with Getting the This out there, Um And you kind of walk through that process as far as noticing the language with Potential voters. And the person I really need to answer. This just walked out the door. But, if if you’ll accept my explanation, uh, because I had the other response. G. He brought this up to me.

01:02:31,030	He and I spent some time within the, uh I shouldn’t say he and I audited Spons. Kowski spent a lot of time with the the century code. Uh, I brought that up to, uh, our state’s attorney, uh, last week. The time where it would need to be noticed.

01:02:51,430	Is if we created a home rule to amend the home rule, we didn’t have to have a Special meeting. We We always allow people to come here and visit all of the meetings for the home rule charter were publicized and and advertised and anybody was allowed to come and speak. Uh, chair.

01:03:10,570	Bittner has been very gracious to allow anybody to come and speak at this meeting. If there was ever a concern. And. So, the state’s attorney lawyer, confirmed that for me last week that there was no Meeting that had to happen specifically to adjust the language. And. So. Uh, yeah, I did confirm that with her, OK.

01:03:31,670	I just wanted some clarification on walking through that process just so those that are our home. Can, Uh, be aware of that. So thank you. OK, Well. I. Thank you for that, Um, that brings us up to Auditor, Treasurer splonskowski and a Missouri Valley complex land lease discussion. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And the the so they just handed out.

01:04:03,500	Is the, uh, contract that we had that just Lapsed that just went ahead and expired. The reason I didn’t put this in the pack is because it does contain some terms and conditions that I thought would be Uh, Risky to put in the packet. I just didn’t think it was very good to put in packets. So just for your consideration.

01:04:21,600	Uh, this lease, uh, is now Expired. And. So. What I’m looking for is direction from the commission on your desires on leasing this property out If. You wanna continually see it if you if you want to have new terms if you wanna advertise it, Uh, whatever the commission wants to do.

01:04:41,970	I want to get direction before moving forward. My recommendation on this would be to do nothing. OK? That, Mr Chair is the property that was put into sorghum or something like that. And, uh, for the last few years, it has been a cornfield. OK. It’s not connected with the area.

01:05:04,230	That the, uh Equine group is looking at right. It would be connected. It would be connected. Yeah, the the current area that the equine, Uh, building has been proposed to be placed. It has been somewhat the last few years. Part of this, OK, right, Well, I’ll give you a little more information on why I would say We. Just do nothing.

01:05:19,930	Um, I did have a conversation with Sarah Audie Coleman. Um Regarding some proposed ordinances we’re doing for agri tourism, and at that time she told me that They.

01:05:39,730	They likely not gonna be planting corn there because you can’t continually farm corn on one piece of ground at the same time, so it’s it’s not actually gonna be Corn, So that’s where we’re at with that. Yeah. So. There’s really no action required. On this at this point other than You know possible lease for a crop or something else.

01:06:01,370	So, and that’s and that’s kind of where we bring it up is Do you want to renew this lease? Do you want to have an annual lease? Do you wanna have, you know, I would know. No action. No, no action. No Action. OK, all right, The lease is expiring. And until they come to us with a request for a lease. There’s no action required. Not expired, so OK, and that’s is that consensus among the commission, correct.

01:06:23,500	Yes, OK. Very good. Thank you. OK, that brings us up to other business. Um, I guess about the only other thing that I would have is just a little bit of an update on where we’re at concerning the carbon dioxide pipeline. Um We’ve We.

01:06:57,500	We’re we’re in the process of trying to adjust the schedule the Public Service Commission put out a a scheduled date for the next public meeting on that, and it’s something here in April at over Mandan. And.

01:07:15,570	Our attorneys are all Heavily booked up and I know that’s a fact that they’re booked because I know that our state’s attorney is in a jury trial at the time, and I do know that the attorney That’s handling the public service thing will be in a trial. Near that time and it’s a pretty big deal takes a lot of time. But, so there’s a discussion now at at, uh, between the interveners and the lawyers and whatnot about what that date will actually be.

01:07:36,500	Some Carbon solution is arguing against any change in the meeting times. And. Our attorney is putting in some sort of a brief either today or or in the morning, um, backing up the request, and we’re going to see about that actual date.

01:07:58,270	So at this point, we don’t have Notice of a change in that meeting, so you might want to pay attention to that coming up. And. That’s. In a nutshell. The The update on the Pipeline issue anybody have any questions on that? Is that an April fool type of, uh, Joke or anything like that. No, I wish it actually was. Maybe. This.

01:08:19,100	Whole thing is a It’s like a cool thing is a joke, huh? Yeah. No, I wish Anybody else? Anything for the good of burly county. Commissioners. We are