00:00:07,400	Clock chaplain, please. Thank you, commissioners.com. We’ll pray and then we’ll do the pledge. Please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much. For the county workers that serve you and serve this county and we just pray your protection upon them and your blessing upon them.

00:00:37,330	Thank you for our commissioners, God, and we pray tonight that You you would give them wisdom for your word says that anyone who lacks wisdom, they should ask you, and you will give it to them generously. Father, I’m asking tonight for wisdom throughout this entire meeting for the participants, uh, the commissioners, the, the public, God, I pray that you will show them.

00:00:58,670	Each how to govern this community during the times that we live, so that you will gain the glory and that our county will be the best county in North Dakota. Father, guide us in the way we should go.

00:01:16,430	Help us to find creative ways to handle the problems that we face and fill each and every one of us in this place with hope and excitement for what awaits us today and awaits us in the future. Father, we depend upon your grace throughout these days as we come and go about our duties, we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Please stand.

00:01:40,470	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, commissioners. Bill called September 16th meeting of the Burleigh County Commission to order first item is roll call on members, Comm. Schwab, Comm. Woodcox here, Comm. Munsen here, Comm. Bakken. Karen Bittner. Next is the approval of the agenda.

00:02:18,800	Commissioners, any addition subtractions, anything that concerns you? Um, I’m thinking that we can kind of go through the. The agenda pretty rapidly because otherwise I wanted to have the. county finance kind of discussion about the property taxes so we’d make sure we had time for it before we moved into the thing, but it looks like we can probably um.

00:02:38,170	You could probably get there with ample time, so we’ll keep it as is. Um, entertain a motion to approve the agenda, so I moved. The motion to second any further discussion, seeing none call the roll, Comm. Bakken. Yes. Mrs. Schwab, Comm. Woodcox, Comm. Munsen, Chair Bentner, yes, motion carries. Next is consideration of September 4th meeting minutes and bills Comm.

00:03:03,670	, I reviewed the bills and found them to be in order and would ask for a motion to approve. So moved. take it in motion a second to approve any further discussion. Call the roll. Ker Schwab, Comm. Woodcox, Comm. Munsen, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Karenner. Yes, carries. Next I consent agenda.

00:03:24,930	Anything in particular you want to pull out of there for discussion? Otherwise we have to approve the consent agenda in its entirety. Is there a second motion is second to approve. Any further discussion, seeing no call. Comm. Woodcox. Yes, Comm. Munsen. Yes, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Mr Schwab, Chair Bittner, yes, motion carries. Next, Comm.

00:03:55,470	Munsen, you have a Provident building remodel project discussion on the agenda. Yes, thank you. And again, this is real quick, um, when we were looking at the preliminary budget uh for the remodel in our closed session a couple of weeks ago. I was a little shocked about the price that the engineer’s estimate. Um, I did a quick Google search, found a building.

00:04:18,930	Close, and I’m not saying that’s suggested the one to buy, um, but I think our committee should look at once we get the Estimates back. From the contractors and if it does come into that dollar amount, I think we need to take another look at something different.

00:04:40,270	I am not in favor of spending more than we had set aside, um, yeah, our original conversations was 8, maybe 9 million. I was OK with that, but the numbers I saw the other day were higher and so all I’m doing is suggesting that we should uh We could take another look. Once we get the engineers, the bids back. That’s it. OK, no action required. Nope.

00:05:02,770	OK, County planner Flanagan, consideration of fireworks ordinance, Mitch, welcome. Commissioners, Mr. Chair. Uh, this is brought to you tonight with um this is for discussion purposes, only no action is needed for this. It’s just to open a discussion on the, the current status of fireworks in Burley County.

00:05:30,470	This is brought to to me through a complaint about the, the actual size and noise of these um fireworks that are going off and then the length of time that they’re going off. Far into the night past midnight. And uh It’s trying to look for some guidance and some understanding of this and see what there are options for us to do.

00:05:54,430	Um, The uh Complain, uh, the complaint was Mr. uh Strothman today. He might want to come up, he might ask Kelly Len to to come up, um, one of my suggestion is to if there is incentive for this is to open a uh Uh, stakeholders meeting and invite public to come if they do have concerns

00:06:16,400	or complaints or, you know, that’s the they’ve had enough these, you know, late night fireworks, we can open up that for a discussion and maybe create an ordinance for that, it would be a countywide ordinance, uh from the ETA on out, so. Uh, that’s what we’re here for. OK.

00:06:37,800	First of all, I don’t want you to call it a stakeholder meeting anymore and that conversation maybe a focus group or something like that, but that stakeholder thing hasn’t been working out for us. Uh, Comm., no, uh, it, it hasn’t, but I mean, I’m looking for public input that I think is appropriate.

00:06:57,730	Um, does anybody want to speak to this issue at this point? Yes. I’m Berks Hoffman and uh I live in Burley County. My Burley County resident, and I live in Southwest Bismarck down on England Street. And uh This last Week of the 4th of July.

00:07:35,430	We just got blasted down there with these big heavy hitters that just Shatter, yeah, it just shock you when they go off. And what has happened to us down there is everything on the west side of England Street is in the county. I’m across the way. I’m in the county. But People down there are inviting everybody to come down. They’re in the county and they have the right to issue fireworks there.

00:07:57,730	Whereas the Bismarck apparently has an ordinances. Because you can’t shoot fireworks. So these people are invited down. Uh, about 3 years ago we had the same thing happen to us, but it was just one night, just the night of, of the 4th of July, but they started out at 7:30 and and there must have been 15

00:08:21,800	people down there and I think every one of them brought fireworks or or uh pickups in the ditches and what have you, but anyway, They, uh, they started shooting fireworks and they went to clear after 11 o’clock and finally I just had to go over and ask him to quit and they just ignored me

00:08:40,430	because they have a right. To shoot fireworks in the county. Well, this year, about 2 doors down. Uh Apparently, they invited a bunch of people because there was about 4 or 5 campers that came in there on Tuesday evening.

00:09:04,470	Um, I didn’t know come in on Tuesday, but But anyway, the fireworks started and it wasn’t too bad on Tuesday, but started Wednesday. Thursday, the 4th of July. I went to 11:30, 12 o’clock. Uh, Friday the same evening, they went to Way after midnight. And Saturday, I’ll get to Saturday here, but anyway, um, even on Monday. After the 4th of July.

00:09:33,370	I went to bed about 9 or 10, 9, between 9 and 10 o’clock. And I was in bed about an hour and boom. A Guy sat up in bed. I looked at my lock. It was 11:53. Pretty soon, boom. It was 12:08 with another one.

00:09:55,730	So what do you do? You lay there and you think, when’s the next one coming? So you lose a lot of sleep and you’re angry and it’s frustrating. But anyway, on Saturday, Two days after the 4th of July I’m thinking it’s gonna be pretty quiet. So I have a, I have a pet. He’s, he’s an elderly cat. I spoiled on the boot. But anyway, during the forest, I generally take him inside.

00:10:20,930	I have been the last few years so that he doesn’t. Yeah run away. But uh he was out on the patio with me and having a, a drink out I gave him a drink of water. And I thought, well, he’ll, he’ll, I’ll go in the house and he’ll come around and let me in.

00:10:39,800	I know Moore got in and boom, boom. And I said, well, I gotta go find him because he needs medication. He has to be medicated twice a day. And so I went out there and he’s gone. And so I went out. I, I spent time looking for him and calling. I did that twice, but any way around 8:30, 9 o’clock.

00:11:02,000	I decided, you know, there was more these big, and I said I’ve had enough. So I went over and I confronted these people and I said, I asked them if they had any respect for their neighbors, and he said, what do you mean? I said, this has been going on for 4 consecutive nights just

00:11:20,030	constant. And he said, well, I called in and they said I could shoot fireworks. I’m in the county and I could shoot fireworks. But I’m thinking. What we’ve got here is people bringing their fireworks or they’ve been invited in. And so we’re getting a blunt of it all. I know more than get home.

00:11:42,470	And my neighbor comes over. He’s Across the street She knocks at my door and I opened the door. She’s just frantic. She says, my cats are gone. I said, so is mine. You know, and I found out from the other neighbors that their animals are really been affected.

00:12:02,400	I went down the street to South Bay, which is south of just where we live. Talking with the friend of mine there, and I said, well, did you have any fireworks? Oh my gosh, yes, he said we had fireworks.

00:12:22,670	But he said, my son came up with his dog to visit and we were going up to the Capitol building to uh To uh take in the fireworks and the orchestra up there when we got back, he brought his dog along and he had shut him in the house. He had ruined the door and, and And uh trim. Around the door I knew a couple over in Manden that had cats.

00:12:40,670	And I just stopped by there probably 2 weeks ago. And I said, well, how are your cats? They’re gone. When did they disappear? Well, I think it was around the 4th of July. I talked to some people down on 43rd Street. Well, how are your cats? Well, our cats were good. We had them locked in.

00:12:57,730	But our two of our neighbors come over and said, Have you seen our cats? And then she said, well, one of the neighbors had got a dog, and he asked to medicate every 4th of July because of fireworks. So it’s not only us that suffer. Our, our pets are suffering too there’s no doubt about it.

00:13:16,530	Oh I’m, I would just like to have you fellas, uh, take time and kind of sort it out, but enact some kind of an ordinance that’s can stipulate that these Big fireworks and I don’t have the nomenclature, the commercial reading and what they are. But, uh, to, uh, just ban them from the sale.

00:13:39,730	That’s gonna be the easiest fix if we can get it done. And uh I could tell you some other stories, but I’m not going to take all your time, so what? I would certainly ask if you consider some kind of an ordinance and I’d be glad to, to help with that.

00:13:56,630	So anybody got any questions for me? Mrs. um. I know I’ve I I’ve been with Burke several times. Um, And when Mitch and Mitch has been down there and so I and uh so it it’s a real problem, but I would like Mitch to review the Ordinance process of how do you create owners, you just can’t

00:14:18,400	just punk them in here. You have to have a lot of input. So can, can I get a A bit of uh information from Mitch on how we do this if we want to.

00:14:32,930	Well, I visited with Mitch, and I think he’s got a pretty good handle on it, but it’s On how to do it. Well, I don’t know how to do it, but what they What they’re asking about a powder, limits of powder in these things that are so Well, we’ve talked about limiting the hours and we’ve talked about limiting the sale and it’s it’s a real difficult problem, and I visited with the sheriff, uh,

00:14:54,670	as far as enforcement because enforcement is very difficult or will be very difficult, and if we want to have an input from the sheriff as to the consequences of this, uh, we certainly can if he’s available. Anybody else? Of course, the sheriff’s right behind you. Come. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioners, As Comm. Woodcock has attested.

00:15:30,530	Burke came and met with me and uh basically we had a discussion and I went over state law with him, um, and then from there, I basically told them really the only option, um, if there’s going to be any change from the existing century code would either meet with area legislators and attempt to do something legislatively or to

00:15:54,570	meet with a member of the commission with the intent of at least having a discussion. On an ordinance, so to kind of give you an overview, this is not a new problem. This ranks right up there with the ATVs, only the ATVs are year round or at least.

00:16:18,100	Most mostly year round, um, fireworks primarily is centered around the 4th of July holiday. So kind of to give you a brief overview, um, I would say at best entry code is lacking in this area, uh, basically it covers roughly about 4 areas. It covers the sale. It covers the uh classifications of fireworks.

00:16:41,670	It covers the public display and uh maybe it’s 3 I’d have to look at the log in, but that’s really the, the big areas is, you know, what are the fireworks, um, when can they be sold? And then what are the classifications of them and um. The public display.

00:17:02,800	So when you, if you’re gonna have a public display such as this, the city or Driscoll or any place. It’s clearly spelled out the parameters in there. Um, one thing the law does not say is when fireworks can be shot off. Um, so on one, it says specifically when they can be sold, but not when they can be lit and shot off.

00:17:24,130	So on one hand you’d have a strict interpretation of the law that says fireworks can never be shot off because the law doesn’t say it, um, but kind of like we’ve talked about, you know, uh, I’ve spoke with some of you, you know, zoning law according to this board says what you can do criminal law

00:17:43,930	says what you can’t do. And so I think it would be wrong to take a strict approach and say you can never fire these off, so the liberal approach.

00:18:05,330	Is basically you can fire them off whenever, but now we have entry code for disorderly conduct, which kind of conflicts with that because under the entry code it says makes unreasonable noise. And so that’s really our enforcement vehicle when it comes to fireworks, um, based on, you know, the, the, uh, The briefness of the law on what can be done for a private display or private use and so.

00:18:28,800	What we tried to do, and I’ve explained this to a lot of people and our deputies have explained this over the years. So when we look at what is reasonable based on disorderly conduct, um, basically what we’re gonna look at is what’s the time of day, what is the day of the week, and is it the 4th of July holiday because and I had this conversation with

00:18:49,800	Burke, you know, we would look and say at 11 o’clock at night on the 4th of July would we have a lot of opposition if we said 11 o’clock, it wasn’t reasonable to celebrate the nation’s independence. Now if it’s 11 o’clock on July 30th, that’s probably a different story.

00:19:14,730	So, um, you know, in speaking with Comm. Woodcox on this in speaking with Mitch. My concern is if we try to limit and I and I had this conversation with Burke, we can only create an or this board can only create an ordinance for Burleigh County, but that will apply to all of Burleigh County, um, So if you try to

00:19:34,470	limit the size of fireworks, what we’re gonna run into is, um, and again, this, we haven’t heard from the fireworks industry, and you know, the supporters, but if you limit the size, um, basically somebody can still purchase those in Morin County and drive into Burleigh County with those fireworks, so unless there was an illegal possession of them,

00:20:00,100	um, and not just a, uh, lighting them off, that would. We like what we would have to look at with that law. I think the only thing this board could, um, probably reasonably do, um, you know, like Comm.

00:20:20,970	Woodcock said is look at the hours, um, you know, you could look at limiting the days, you know, the law says when they can be sold in Burleigh County, um, you know, I don’t know how big of a problem this is statewide. Um, judging by what we have happened, I would say.

00:20:42,270	Um, it, I would imagine it’s probably a statewide issue, you know, so that’s something I would, you know, caution this board maybe legislatively is where this problem should go, um, But if that doesn’t, if that’s not the way to do it, then I think, uh, like Mitch said, I think getting a focus group or a group of citizens, but I, I would strongly suggest we would have to have the fireworks industry represented, um, from the start because they’re going

00:21:06,100	to be a big player in this discussion, but I, I, I would sum it up by saying it’s not a problem that just developed. This is Going on for a lot of years whether it’s litter or noise. Right, thanks for clarification on that. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

00:21:29,570	Anybody else want to offer anything on this? point well taken. Mr. Comm., Mr. Chair, so thought we would ask for Jerry’s, uh, Comm. Woodcock’s questions, we’d follow the uh the uh Our home room charter, um, procedures under Home Rule charter, which is basically two.

00:21:58,070	To public hearings and resolution at at this board and then we had to publish it in the paper and wait 30 days for any appeals and that sort of thing, so it’s same thing with the OHV ordinance. We had to have 22 hearings. Now for a home rule charter ordinance versus a zoning ordinance Mr.

00:22:21,600	Chair, would we have the citizen groups that we might Want to get involved with this along with the industry. Uh, would that be before a public hearing, or would that be at the first public hearing? Well, that would have to be before because you’d have to develop something that resembles an ordinance before you could ever have a public hearing on it. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of legwork involved in.

00:22:39,670	Developing an ordinance you would develop a draft and I would send it to you guys to see if your comments on it if you have anything to suggest, and then we could have a focus group, um, much less than the stakeholders group we’re gonna have just 7 or 8 or 10 people with both industry uh uh

00:22:58,530	representatives and, and local representation. Just the, the hammer this out and see, and also maybe bring us like uh uh Sheriff Liebman was saying is bring us up to the legislature. The representative for Burleigh County.

00:23:19,730	See if we can go to the state level, um, We don’t wanna You know, cherry picked the the century code on this. I think it’s just for, you know. Follow what Sheriff Leben was suggesting. OK, well, I imagine that um you should be able to, there’s a list someplace of fireworks, um. Permits, you know, uh. Commercial applications. I’m sure we have and.

00:23:43,730	And you can probably get a list together of Um, you know, people in the industry and then probably based on this, people will contact you if they have an interest in in being involved in a focus group that um considers an ordinance and we’ll see where it goes. But I’d start with making a call to um. Permit holders for fireworks. I’m sure that’ll. A good place to start.

00:24:04,300	Fisher Woodcocks. Do we think Mitch needs some direction as to like a vote saying go ahead and do this project or start on the start on the process of, of creating an ordinance. Do we need to have a motion to do that or just see why that would make a difference, OK. Thank you, Comm..

00:24:25,530	OK, next on the agenda, Burley, uh, public health director Renee Mack Bismarck Burley Public Health update. Welcome. Thank you, Chair Bittner and commissioners, I just have um some presentation slides here to share with you.

00:24:59,070	I wanted to provide an update for you on the work that we’re doing, um, with our community health needs assessment and provide some information um regarding some of the priorities that, um, we are looking to address, uh, more of an informational type of sharing presentation for you tonight. Um, every 3 years we complete a community health needs assessment and its collaborative effort with the local hospitals and West.

00:25:17,800	Plains Public Health, um, in Mandan and the survey is, is done every 3 years. Um, we had the survey open from October through December of 23 that was available online and we did some additional, um, outreach to some of the underserved populations to get a total of 1,118 responses that were submitted, um, during that time period.

00:25:39,770	We had an increase, um, this time around from the last time we completed the assessment and, um, that was 900. 33 last time. So our process, um, this lays out the process that we do, um, we have a survey, look at our secondary supportive data when it comes to um the demographics and the type of health information, um, for the community we have a stakeholder meeting and then

00:26:03,730	identify the health needs, and now we’re at that last block where we want to address some plans to develop, um, some strategies to address the needs that were brought forward. In 24, um, you can see that compares to 2021, a lot of the same priorities were listed, um, maybe just in different order this time around.

00:26:24,100	Our number one need that came out was affordable housing, uh, followed by mental health, uh, lack of public transportation, uh, quality child care, long-term senior care, access to health care providers and then access to affordable health care. Uh, we did have a meeting on June 10th at the Dream Center.

00:26:46,930	We had about 70 community partners gather together and reviewed, uh, the survey results we had facilitated discussion to look at the health needs and our stakeholders that were present prioritized those needs in order of importance that they felt um it should be addressed.

00:27:06,130	So I know this might be a little difficult to read, but I’ll, I’ll name the top 5 there, uh, mental and behavioral health they felt was most important, followed by affordable, safe, accessible housing, access to affordable and quality health care, um, quality childcare and then access to public transportation. And in meeting with the, uh, local hospitals, Stanford and CHI and Western Plains Public Health.

00:27:28,670	Uh, we agreed that we collaboratively work together to address mental and behavioral health and access to affordable health care, even though um affordable housing is important and we know it’s important.

00:27:46,130	We did not feel as healthcare providers, we would be necessarily the lead for that, um, but we would be, uh, a partner, um, if, if someone else would like to take the lead to address housing issues and concerns. So following that, we had a meeting that was co-hosted with our community development department and that was on June 19th at the Dream Center as well.

00:28:09,070	We had 60 stakeholders that participated in discussion about housing and homelessness and the ideas that um were brought forward would then be included in the community developments consolidated plan, so we partnered, um, it was a public health partnership to host the meeting because a lot of the same priorities were identified um for housing and homeless as In our community health needs assessment.

00:28:30,570	They also prioritized their needs, um, of course, number one came out as the no low barrier 24/7 emergency access to shelter, um, the overall lack of affordable housing stock, lack of emergency support services for people with mental health and addiction issues. And then lack of uh housing for individuals with a criminal history. We’re in the top rank. So when you look at the two separate uh groups that we had come together.

00:28:52,900	We had these 4 consistent issues that came up, lack of affordable housing, lack of transportation, no low barrier emergency shelter and then lack of emergency support services for individuals with addiction and mental health issues. And this is not a new issue.

00:29:12,600	We’ve seen this, um, over the years, um, back in 2017 when efforts were started to address some of these concerns. Um, there really are 3 stages that we can categor categorize the individuals that we’re serving, um, in levels of care and levels of need for resources, um, we have individuals that might be stable, they’re functioning, uh, but they need some community support.

00:29:34,100	We have individuals that are in transition trying to get help, and then we have the lower level of crisis, um, for individuals that would be, um. Actively experiencing behavioral health, mental health or addiction issues.

00:29:55,800	They’re just trying to survive day to day and really are unable to meet their basic needs, and these have the biggest impact on law enforcement, emergency rooms, hospitals, our emergency responders and then local businesses. And you can see in the, in the triangle too that the resources are Really, um Limited when it comes to dealing with individuals in this, um, tier. So, um, that is something that we’re hoping to address, uh, moving forward, um, in some of our plans. So right now, just to identify that. Yep.

00:30:17,330	Excuse me, I, I, I raised my hand. I don’t know if it’s working on the other end, but um for those that don’t know in the community, could you explain what a low barrier shelter is.

00:30:36,670	Sure, so, um, a low barrier shelter would be, um, an emergency shelter that would take in individuals regardless of, um, if they would be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, so, um, for example, if they’re drug testing at night, they’re screening individuals out, um, that would be more of a high barrier shelter versus low barrier shelter. Come as you are and you can have a place to be out of the elements.

00:30:55,800	Does that help? Thank you. Yes. Um, so we’re looking at, um, identifying some potential solutions to the problems. Basically the individuals are in crisis, um, they have the fewest resources, but the really the largest impact on community, uh, law enforcement, hospitals, and emergency rooms, and, um, hoping to see what we can do to come up with a potential

00:31:21,330	solution. If you think about all the interactions that one individual might have, um, with the different responders in the community being passed between the emergency rooms. Law enforcement, um, getting calls from local businesses having mental health crisis unit response. Um, it’s multiple partners, um, but they’re spread all over town.

00:31:43,300	And so we’re looking at potentially seeing what we could do to have one location under a triage facility where, um, we could have individuals that would be in this tier, come and be assessed and be given the appropriate resources based on their level of need.

00:32:04,600	Um, so the status right now, the city commission I had presented it to them at the last city commission meeting. Um, they granted approval for um me to get conversations started with, um, some of the partners such as law enforcement, our detention center, so Sheriff Lieben. And his team at the detention center and then Western Plains Public Health and, um, the hospitals.

00:32:27,630	We’ve had some conversations starting already, um, just to hear about the issues they’re having and now it is just the beginning. But before we went any further, um, I had presented to the combined commissions group, and they suggested coming here to the full commission to share the information with you for your awareness and then just any, um, given opportunity for you to ask questions if you

00:32:43,300	have any. The law enforcement is here to, um, Deputy Chief Stugelmeyer is present and, um, Sheriff Leeben as well is aware of the work. So that’s all I have. Chair Bitner Rene not necessarily a question but a thank you, um, at least for myself, uh, I appreciate the work that you’re doing in this.

00:33:07,630	This is something that our community needs. We need to pay attention to it and we need to help and so I appreciate the work that you’re doing. Thank you. Any questions for Renee? OK, thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. County Engineer Hall second approach permits. Welcome workers. Good evening, Comm..

00:33:33,200	Just a quick update at the last commission meeting, we had a second approach permit that was appealed, a decision from the highway department that was appealed uh in Misty Water subdivision. The board asked me to contact the, uh, um, individuals out there in charge of their association and see if they had any input. I did contact them.

00:33:52,930	I had two of their officers contact me back and state that they needed a little more time to talk about this particular issue and wanted to check with a couple of locations. So at this time, um, I think it’s probably just as well to wait until next meeting to address this particular issue, but I just want to update you on that.

00:34:11,670	Thanks. Um, if you do get feedback on that, you’ll go ahead and follow up as far as putting it on the agenda when it when it’s appropriate. OK, thank you. Sheriff Liebman, 2024, 2025 North Dakota Department of Transportation Traffic Safety grant. Mr. Chair, Comm.

00:34:35,170	, this is the same grant every year I come before you, um, this time of year, uh, the North Dakota Department of Transportation, Traffic Safety grant. Basically the grant is uh in 4 areas, impaired driving, distracted driving, speed enforcement and occupant protection, uh, basically we put in a request to the state for OT hours mileage, and um equipment requests, uh.

00:35:02,370	As far as like radars and in car cameras, uh, they always award the overtime hours and the mileage first. And then I come back to you at a later time, uh, with whatever they have awarded us for equipment.

00:35:29,070	So basically, uh,, $18,200 is what we were awarded in combination of mileage and overtime hours, obviously the majority is overtime hours, um, and this money is in the budget we do budget overtime hours for these traffic safety programs, so I would request authorization for us to enter in. To that contract so. So A motion is second to enter into the contract. Any further discussion? Yeah, you should see my computer screen.

00:35:53,070	There was a there was an email from DocuSign email. And it came in a few days ago and it, and it, and it was kind of a high priority for Burke County. And so I naturally just said, well, they’re not even talking to us. And so then there was another email today about signing that contract. Mr. Chair, Comm.

00:36:12,270	, I was going to explain, um, so the chair, the vice chair, and the auditor will all electronically sign that document if approved. OK, we have a motion to second further discussion. Call the roll please, Comm. Munsen. Yes, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Schwab, Comm. Woodcox, yes, Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carries. she signed.

00:36:43,970	What’s that What’s that County auditor Sploskowski Crossroads bar liquor license application. Yes, uh, Chair and Comm., uh, We have a new application. With the looks appears to be new owners and new new agreement and all that kind of stuff, uh, for the Crossroads Tavern, the, uh, application is included in the packet. Uh, I did notice that the approval from the township, it was in fact approved.

00:37:07,430	Uh, however, the, the she is barely legible, the sheet that they sent us, there was a very poor scan and so I was uh my one of my employees was able to darken it so if you want to see that, I’ll give you I’ll hand that out.

00:37:34,530	guilt So it was approved by a Hay Creek Township, uh, for your consideration, and I just wanted to bring that forward and see if you have any questions about it. I don’t see any questions on that, uh, on that. Chair. Um, So. Well, I am. In favor of supporting this, my question is.

00:38:05,170	Or does the applicants, is the applicant addressing some of the concerns or some of the reasons why we. uh to renew the previous liquor license. Good question. The applicant applicant here? Yes, yes. Uh, I would ask that uh he explained some of the alterations that were made to improve. The issues that were of concern out there.

00:38:35,800	OK, he’s at the podium, so Chair, commissioners, thanks for allowing me to come and speak. My name is Ryan Dykert, uh, one of the, the team members uh looking to open crossroads back up, uh, yes, back in June, uh, Jake and Jocelyn were uh Miller were found to not be fit to hold the license, um, we have completely bought them out, uh, of all the tangible and

00:38:56,670	intangible assets in in July, a few of the items that that we’ve done already and some that are. coming, uh, we have, if any of you guys have driven up that way in the past week, uh, we’ve put all new lighting on the outside in the parking lot and I was up there, uh, a

00:39:12,900	couple of days ago and, and checking it out and we were adjusting where they were sitting and, and I think we lit it up pretty good, um, we were getting new can not new cameras, additional cameras, uh, that are going to be out, uh, facing in the parking lot along with cameras inside, um, we’re gonna

00:39:31,330	be utilizing ID. scanners for people coming in, um, something they didn’t do before. Uh, we’re also on, on the nights that we needed that that we’re gonna be busy, uh, we’re looking at train security, um, these are, these are people that that would be able to handle an incident, um, uh, if, if there was an incident.

00:39:54,900	So, uh, we have, uh, you know, this is our 6th, uh, store our 6th bar restaurant type property. Uh, we have a fair track record of taking care of problems before they become problems, uh, so I, I hope that plays, but, but we’re also putting all these uh things into, uh, yeah, uh, fruition as well, so, so we

00:40:17,330	can hopefully catch problems before they are problems. If we have problems, then we can take care of the problems. Any questions? Comm. Woodcock, one of the problems we had was the 2 o’clock opening on the weekends.

00:40:32,730	So are you going to change that? Are you gonna keep that or made a decision on that plans as of right now is to keep the 2 o’clock closing if we run into problems, um, that we can’t handle. We can discuss that at a later date, um, but as of right now we’re looking at keeping that 2 o’clock closing.

00:40:49,600	I, um, I explained that I have, I have an issue with that. You know, the fact that all the other bars around the area are closing at one o’clock, and you have one bar that’s open till 2 that seems to automatically increase the problem with. DUI and and and whatnot, and I think we’ll have the sheriff weigh in on that.

00:41:05,930	Um, the other concern I had is just based on what you said that, um, you’ll have security. Kind of when you’re busy. Um, but you didn’t indicate that it’d be at other times, and I’m not sure that problems are. Or only when you’re busy, but like. Mr.

00:41:35,270	Chair, Commissioners, um, so when the auditor when this application came in, um, we reviewed it like we always review liquor applications, uh, did not see any issues with it, so send it back to the auditor, um, with our recommendation for approval. Um, I also did speak with the building owner, um, today, um, and he’s comfortable, uh, I had spoke with the township supervisor.

00:42:01,470	Because like she had explained in the previous situation, you know, they’re kind of out there as a township without resources, you know, to, to investigate or look into stuff so, you know, they don’t wanna do something contrary to this board, you know, so she had reached out for kind of advice, and I said in reviewing the application, uh, we were comfortable moving

00:42:22,930	forward. Uh, one thing Ryan didn’t say that we talked about today With their management team is, it was a business decision to keep the name Crossroads, so it’s a fresh start, but a decision just to go with that name.

00:42:47,870	Um, our plan was to meet with the leadership team, depending what the board decided here tonight, um, but we had the opportunity to meet today before the meeting, uh, this meeting, I thought that meeting was very productive and uh established Good communication, and again, um, I think all of us have echoed to Ryan and his team, the 2 o’clock is a concern.

00:43:09,930	Um, it’s in the law at this point, um, but that is something we will monitor very closely. So, um, you know, and we’ve talked about just some optics and different things, you know, and things they could do, um, but also, you know, our goal to work closely with them to ensure they have a good successful business.

00:43:31,700	OK, so is there anything in particular that you have concerns about that we haven’t addressed or? No, Mr. Chair, Commissioners, Um, in fact, at that meeting today, we talked about, you know, the parking lot and Ryan said they did that before we even had a chance to talk to him, you know, making sure that parking lot’s lit up, um, also,

00:43:49,200	you know, we express some of the things we tried to work through with the previous owners and couldn’t get it done, but I think those um ID scanners are a great move on their part. They were already gonna do that.

00:44:07,330	We brought that up in the meeting, but, um, I, I think they’re, they’re doing what. They can um to start out on a good foot with, um, you know, not only the community, this board, law enforcement, so I, I, I feel comfortable where we’re at moving forward. OK. Thank Comm. Schwab Uh, sure When you get these call we’re getting these calls up there.

00:44:32,530	What times of the days were most of the calls? Uh, Mr. Chair, Comm., Comm. Schwab, you know, the later it goes without a doubt, um, that becomes an issue, you know, unfortunately, um, I do think though, what I would say in their defense is, I think the environment um that we had up there cause it basically we saw like a crowd

00:44:58,200	um that would be there early in the evening and then that crowd would dissipate and a new crowd would come in. And we’re not talking that 1 a.m. to 2 a.m.

00:45:16,970	that crowd came in, you know, like mid evening and stayed and then you got more people up there, so I, I think if, if they’re on top of it from the start, um, and they set some rules and, you know, enforce it and and Ryan shared that they had gone up there while it was still under the previous owners and had observed practices that they weren’t comfortable with and.

00:45:40,370	People that were allowed in there, um, you know, and, and working with the business, so I, I think if they say what they’re doing, if they say, if they do what they said they were gonna do, I, I think we should be able to work with this. I mean, obviously other towns have this 20 a.m.

00:45:58,530	closing, I believe Grand Forks does and some of the other places, but it does create a new dynamic. Is this the only uh Um, bar in in the Rural area in the county that stays open till 2 o’clock. Mr. Chair, Comm., that I’m aware of, yes, we have all the other uh bars have chosen to close down.

00:46:25,770	What I would say, uh, again to that though is like I’m thinking like our bars, um, other than Lincoln, you’re talking some remote bars, and I would, a lot of those bars are closed down long before 1 a.m. on certain nights just because the lack of crowd. I’m I won’t approve The licensing if they’re open to. Past one.

00:46:54,070	I, I mean, that’s, that’s out there was a big problem and We discussed it with the previous owners and then they came in and they said, well, it’s the big problem and did nothing about it. And if we’re gonna relicense. I think we need conformity. And uh. You know, I have no control.

00:47:17,030	They have no control of who’s going to be coming in there. But when there’s shots fired. At 2 a.m. along highways is. That’s just getting a little too wild for me, so I, I would move to approve, but they have to close at one. I don’t Don’t have a license yet. Pardon me. They don’t have a license yet, so.

00:47:42,000	Well, I, well, I believe they’re asking for one, aren’t they, you, you, your motion was to approve the license if they moved it to one o’clock. They have to close at one or else I cannot support it. I have a motion.

00:48:04,430	Do I have a second? I have a motion So I have a second 3rd call. The motion 2. Ocean dies for lack of a second. OK, Mr. Chair. Comm. Cameman Bittner, yeah, uh, wait a second, uh, Comm. Bakken, uh, Comm. Munsen is on first. Uh, so this is a question for the sheriff or for the state’s attorney. State law allows them to stay open until 2.

00:48:34,470	But we can create as an ordinance or is it just by a Vote here To close at one. How does that work legally? Mr. Chair, Comm., Comm. Munsen, um, I just met with state’s attorney lawyer on this. I do believe, um, I’m just gonna let Julie speak because it’s obviously a legal question.

00:49:03,930	So you can go through the ordinance or the resolution procedures to set hours for bars in the county, um, but that would be following that whole procedure, so it’s not anything you could do tonight. OK That’s what I thought, Mr. Chair. Mr. Wood, can I ask the same hang on a second. No. Oh yeah, I’m sorry, Comm.

00:49:22,630	Boggs and they’re up. Uh, yeah, um, for Sheriff Leeben, um, so. You did a great job of compiling. A lot of information which uh played into our decision previously. Um, and I would. Be assured that uh you would monitor that situation. One of the concerns that you had and I had as well is You questioned.

00:49:56,000	Number of calls you may or may not have been getting with incidences out there because. The previous owner kind of figured out, well, we don’t need to be bringing the police out here because that’s detrimental to our business when it comes to licensing side. Have you had a conversation with. Um, Mr. Dykert on.

00:50:17,930	Um, The relationship with the establishment and the sheriff’s department, uh, surrounding any potential incidences? Mr. Chair, Comm., Comm. Bakken, um, I just smiled at uh Ryan, uh, we had that very conversation today, um, and Ryan expressed his desire not to trouble us. They want to handle their problems and take care of it.

00:50:45,730	I expressed our concerns that um when we’re not notified and we don’t know what’s going on, it’s hard for us to monitor, so I think there has to be a balance to that. I, I don’t expect they call us for every.

00:51:01,130	thing, but I think as long as the relationship is good and, and that’s what I think was pretty evident in the last, uh, set of meetings was the relationship had deteriorated, um, and there was distrust and, and I think going in all we can do is give them the the benefit of the doubt that they’re gonna do what they say they do and we’re going to work with them and, and ensure that.

00:51:23,070	And it would be my hope that that relationship would continue and working with the sheriff’s department, uh. As a business that I think is something that they would have the ability to address if um there isn’t a handle on some of the incidents that are taking place out there or working with the sheriff’s department that uh um.

00:51:46,030	The 2 o’clock closing time is untenable or at least. Temporarily untenable that that would be a business decision in the best interest of the business and the best interest of protecting that license for the future. To address whether or not that they would close at 1 o’clock rather 2 o’clock.

00:52:09,170	Um, I’m comfortable right now leaving it as a business decision as long as they’re working with the sheriff’s department to mitigate some of those issues. OK, Comm. Woodcox. Mr. Chair, that’ll yield to Comm. Woodcock’s.

00:52:29,800	OK, I, I know we, I’m pretty sure we had, we discussed that we have the ability to pull a license if there’s problems, he can come, the sheriff can come to us and we can pull a license at any time we feel there’s a need for it.

00:52:45,270	So, uh, if, if we go for 3 or 4 or 5 months and find out it’s going to be a big problem, we can resend the licenses that I correct in that? There’s a procedure to follow with that too, Comm., but yes, there is a process to suspend or remove a license, yes. Thank you. That is what we essentially did or did we just not approve a new Mr. Chair, Comm.

00:53:09,000	, what we did last time was the renewal because we didn’t have time to put that into the motion with an actual revocation hearing, and so it was easiest to deal with it at renewal. Um, I’m, I’m OK with giving these guys a chance, you know, they do own other bars and whatnot, the, the hours of operation does concern me just because of the location, but that’s not a reason for me to, um, um, oppose it at this point, but

00:53:28,530	I’m pretty sure that if this moves forward, this is gonna be like a microscope up there. Mr. Chair, I would move to approve the uh the license uh as presented. Again, my Reasons for that is, is they do have fairly successful bars already in operation. They have a good team in place, I believe.

00:53:51,500	Not that I visit all of them, but nothing, nothing after 8 o’clock because then I gotta go to bed. But uh I’ve eaten at most of these facilities and they, they, they, they run a pretty good place, so. Second, we have a motion to second a further discussion. See no. Comm. Bakken.

00:54:14,500	Yes, Mr Schwab, No, Comm. Woodcox. Yes, Comm. Munsen, Chair Bittner. Yes, motion carries and the concerns are certainly noted. Well, I thought we were gonna have time. Um, probably not much time to have a continuation of property tax estimates discussion. Um, because in about 4 minutes we’re going to move into the final budget. Public hearing.

00:54:43,300	Lee, um, take your time. And whatever we don’t, whatever we don’t get through we’ll, we’ll establish the public hearing and then we can still have these discussions as part of the public hearing anyway Chair and commissioners, when we had the preliminary budget discussions, the commission was clear there were to be no tax increases.

00:55:03,800	We had another meeting after that where the commission was extra clear that there were to be no tax increases. Uh, so when we heard that there were people were calling about tax increases.

00:55:22,870	We naturally tried to explain these tax increases on the basis of the market, because that’s the only thing that’s left to to explain them if there’s no increase to the levy. In that process we learned some interesting facts such as the, that the wind towers went down by 20%. The railroads went down by 10%, uh, but Chair Bittner, you were very persistent that the market forces didn’t fully explain the tax increases.

00:55:42,700	We had conversations about that, um, you just saw some inconsistencies between what you were hearing from, uh, constituents and what, uh, what we were seeing in, in our, in the market. And so basically it just didn’t pass the smell test, so.

00:56:00,130	My office went back we researched the issue further and we learned that there was an error or a mistake in the estimated tax bills that were sent out from the county auditor’s office, and that, uh, rather than keep the taxes flat, the county raised taxes in a handful of below the line funds.

00:56:19,530	These included veterans services, senior citizens, Water Resource county agent, weed board and county library, and there were some increases in some funds that are not under the control of the county commission. But these funds do roll up to the county line. On the, on the final tax bill, and one of those is the garrison diversion. Another is the soil conservation.

00:56:35,970	I do believe that they have that they set their own levy, uh, so in total on the final looking at your final county tax bill, including the garrison diversion and soil conservation, that increased by approximately $1000. Uh, you’re excluding the garrison diversion and soil conservation $725,000 increase.

00:56:57,300	So the reason for the errors, the same issues that were raised by the state auditor’s office in our financial statement audit and that This breakdown of internal controls, policies, procedures, or a lack of internal controls, policies and procedures. Uh, my office is working on drafting controls and policies in response to the audit report, but we have to go in order of risk, which is basically dollar amount, and so we’ve started with investments, but obviously, um we will need to pay very close attention to the budget through the final tax bill, uh,

00:57:15,970	with the, the date that those are sent. Basically, the one thing I wanted to say is the preliminary budget process is working. Because this error in estimated notices was discovered and, and now it can be corrected. So this is a, it’s a good thing that that we’re having these hearings.

00:57:33,530	Um, the solution obviously is to lower the level levy down to the prior year numbers. And um, We estimate that we estimate that right now on the on the estimated bill, we think about 65% of residential, uh, Uh, property owners are seeing an increase, any increase could be $1. We didn’t, you know, we didn’t.

00:57:55,400	Put a dollar amount on it. Any increase. We think if we make some of these, these changes that we just discussed, we can get that number down to about 40 to 45% and the the rest of that, those increases are really they those are explainable by market forces at that point.

00:58:12,000	That’s reduction in egg land, reduction in the wind and the railroad, and then the churn in the property value. So you know if you have something, if if the property values are flat.

00:58:25,870	Um, you could easily have a case where half the people go up, half the people go down, or rather if the levee is flat, the, the market values can change and uh some can go up, some can go down. That’s what we, that what I wanted to follow up with tonight. I could stand for any questions or not good quick, uh, you got about. No time like. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, thankfully At this point, it’ll open a public hearing.

00:58:51,070	As per entry code, um, final budget public hearing. Um This is the final budget for the year ending December 31, 2025, any taxpayer who may be a who may appear shall be heard in favor of or against any proposed expenditures or tax levies. When the hearing shall be concluded, the board shall adopt such estimate as finally is determined.

00:59:14,470	All taxes shall be levied in specific amounts and shall not exceed the amount specified in the published estimates, and by that, We mean, um, the preliminary budget that was approved, we approved knowing that there may be some changes moving forward.

00:59:33,930	Um, we left some placeholders in there, um, just for discussion and things like that, and I anticipate that this board. is going to go through additional budget items, um, and, and look for places to make corrections yet, um, the estimated tax levies that went out, um, after today’s meetings it’s probably not going to be.

00:59:56,270	Um, much of a conversation anymore because I’m certain that county commission is going to make some changes of some sort. So this is a public hearing, um. If anybody wishes to speak on this item before we go into considerations of the specific issues, I’d be happy to entertain that.

01:00:17,700	Um, come on up, uh, if you want to speak about the budget in general, um, please feel free to give us your name and have about it. Mr. Chair, and Comm., pardon me, sir. I didn’t know what you said, Mr. Chair. I said, Well, I don’t know you, Terry. Mr. Chair and Commissioners, good evening. For the record, my name is Terry Fleck. And I live in Bismarck, and Mr.

01:00:38,970	Chair, I have Like mine, mine is is clarity as it relates to the budget. had the opportunity to listen to you, Mr. Chair, on the radio the other day with Trent Luce. And I’m looking for, I’m, I’m guessing there are a lot of citizens who live in Burley County as it relates to the Tutorial and was what just centrally assessed property is.

01:00:55,430	And what and what that means and, and I, I, I won’t, I, I just like to continue if I may, because there’s a part of that rhetoric, there’s a, there’s a ballot measure. Uh, that’s on the. That we’ll be voting on and the rhetoric tends to be Local control, local control, local control.

01:01:16,670	We’re gonna lose local control. So with your permission, I’d like to read a letter to the editor from January 11, 2023. It’s brief, brief that was written by the retired Burley County auditor. And then you can correct me on any of this if you think I’m wrong.

01:01:35,870	We’ve all heard it, property taxes are a local issue. If property taxes are a local issue, why is it that the North Dakota state law dictates how and when property is assessed. And equalized Why does it why does state law mandate when local budgets are deliberated. And the format and content of the budget hearing.

01:01:58,000	Notices and I’ll I’ll restate that and the format and content of the budget hearing notices, they dictate that. Why is it that state law sets mill levies? How much can be taxed and dictates how the money can be spent. Why does state law prescribe what is on the county property tax statement. When it is to be sent. And the deadlines for payment.

01:02:19,400	How come state law establishes which property is exempt from property taxation. So legislators are quick to point out that property taxes are the number one complaint of their constituents. They may very well be the number one complaint here this evening. Maybe the constituents understand property taxes. are not local And so I would, I would ask you, Mr.

01:02:40,370	Chair, if you would, and then I have a question for Comm. Munson as, as well as it relates to the one cent sales tax, but let’s, uh, let’s talk about centrally assessed because in all fairness, I mean when, when, when the tax when when he starts talking about how all this stuff is going down.

01:02:56,100	I’m thanking God I don’t live in Oliver County as it relates to the depreciation of wind towers, um, I, I, I really appreciate you asking that question because I had a conversation kind of at length with um our tax director today. And he, and he was going to provide some information.

01:03:12,230	We had about an hour and a half special Burley County Commission meeting where we discuss these, these topics that we get a better understanding of that.

01:03:27,830	Um, and, and I said at that meeting that we’re going to rerun some of those comments and some of that information here, um, because this is a more, more of a, uh, more of a public venue. And so I, I think with that, if you wouldn’t mind, I’m gonna give the floor to Al Vietmeyer or Burleigh County tax director, and he’s going to provide some of those, um, Answers that we were looking for in regards to that central assessing. Yeah, sure, no problem.

01:03:48,570	Chair of the Commissioners. B M. Um, I do have some information. Um, we’re just, it’s just kind of a quick summary of what we went over on Wednesday, um, I could belabor this point for hours.

01:04:05,100	I, I kind of love this kind of work, so, um, one thing I want to read, and this is for the crowd, um, I did get a statement from the state supervisor of assessments for the North Dakota Office of Tax Comm.. Um, this is the division that sets the central assessments. Central assessments are derived based on information provided by companies, OK? Um.

01:04:25,070	As a whole, the adviorum wind assessed under North Dakota Century Code 5706 has decreased approximately 24%. Mainly due to the reduction from lower wind resources in 2023. And just so we’re clear for everybody in the crowd and everybody listening, that is them saying that the wind blew less. They are saying they produce less energy based on wind. That could mean the wind blew more.

01:04:45,830	And they couldn’t turn, but they are telling us that the wind blew less. Um, additionally, in 2023, we saw 5% depreciation on our wind farms. Our wind farms are on a straight line depreciation. This is the last year of the wind farm under Avalorum taxation, Advilorum stands for according to value.

01:05:04,470	Um, they will be switching over to a production tax. Starting in 2025. Uh, at least some of the wind farm. Florida Light and Power wind decreased 60% over 2022 and has reached its 100% appreciation and a significant decrease in generation as older wind farms struggle to find buyers for their generated electricity. Now I can understand.

01:05:26,770	stating that there’s a struggle to find a buyer if your if your resource is not. Consistent Um, if you’re not able to meet the load. Um, but when those wind towers are turning, that power’s going onto the grid and somebody’s buying it somewhere. Um, so I, I, I find a little bit of, I find a little heartburn. In having wind farms drop drastically.

01:05:51,930	Year over year, um, we’ve, we were accustomed to a 5% reduction annually going down based on. A straight line appreciation. Um, what’s happened in previous years when the wind blows. Optimally, I guess, um, that we, they have an enhancement, so they add to the tax base.

01:06:18,100	Um, and so we’ve, we’ve based our estimates for The taxation on the previous year’s wind. That’s That’s all we can really do and take away 5%. Um, but when we see this drastic drop, and we don’t get the explanation at the county level other than, well, they didn’t produce as much wind as they were anticipating.

01:06:35,100	We don’t know if that’s because the wind farm was shut down for maintenance. We don’t, we’re not told any of this stuff because it’s not assessed by the local level. Um, so we did see, um, for your guys’ information. And almost $13,000 reduction in the taxes. That wind wind is peeing. It’s $13,463 actually.

01:07:00,700	Um, that’s wind is paying and that’s just on the levees that made up that line that says Burley County on your tax bill that doesn’t include soil conservation, water resource district because those ones were lines by themselves. I mean, it’s, it’s a similar situation with rail, if I can go into that quick while I’m up here before Terry comes back up, um.

01:07:20,270	Uh, the my information from the same lady said that. This year they have a new type of obsolescence. So I guess The railroad companies determined a new type of obsolescence that they use for their formula. And the size adjustment for the railroad companies that are smaller, smaller and therefore typically less financially sound. The main line through Burley County is ran by BNSF.

01:07:40,800	It’s a large railroad in the entire United States. But yet the NSF says they had a significant revenue drop and therefore they had a 10% reduction in their value. My Big concern with the central assessments is this information is Given to the state tax commissioner’s office by the company. Now, the electric, the electricity side.

01:08:04,970	They have to file federally regulated electrical reports. It’s called FEC reports, and the railroad, I’m sure, has some sort of report to do that too. But it, it’s a self-reporting thing. I’m sure everybody that I have to be in charge of setting their assessment, would love to be able to just tell me how much their assessment should be.

01:08:20,930	Um, the reason we don’t use that is because. Values change every year and nobody would ever have us come to their house or tell us a change, so what was that amount of a decrease that they for the railroad, yeah. Uh, the railroad had a decrease of $11,676.45. With the value went down 20%.

01:08:46,430	And Right, their value went down from 100 and their tax, their taxes were 110,000 last year to 98,000 this year. Those are two things that we have zero control over at the local level other than we get to collect those taxes after the state tells us the value.

01:09:08,430	Did you also look into the, um, egg land values, um, and so Eggland is based on production. Eggland is assessed locally. They tell us, right? Um, and we do, we apply those numbers they give us, but just so everybody’s aware, those numbers are derived from the economics department at NDSU using national Agg Statistical surveys that are filled out by producers.

01:09:30,170	Given to the state tax commissioner’s office and then they tell us what our. Crop, non-crop and average of all egg land needs to be, and then we have to plug it into a formula and, and we can’t be over that number. So because they use a 10 year Olympic average.

01:09:48,070	They throw out the high and they throw out the low, which is a standard Olympic average. We threw out a high year that had been traditionally thrown out. It now fell off of the 10 year cycle. So now we had to throw out another high year which caused a 3% reduction in egg land. Which makes up a fairly large portion of our taxes, especially outside of the city.

01:10:04,900	And so we had a total reduction in egg land taxes of $38,200.40. So we’re, we’re talking, we’re now up to almost $60,000. Of taxes that we based our estimated budgets around that we typically would have had in the past that’s gone. We, we can’t get that back, so.

01:10:30,100	OK, well, I appreciate you, um, compiling all that Comm., any questions for Alan and I’ll be here and talk about Mr. Chair, Comm., how do we correct that problem? Go to the legislature, right? We have no control and we just have to work with our legislators and is there any passion for them to do anything? Has there been any, um, not

01:10:48,130	that I’ve seen, no, I mean that just for for the general benefit of everybody, I can tell you that a railroad line is valued. Probably around $650,000 maybe a little lower than that per mile and that stuff costs you between $60.10 million dollars a mile to put in to build new. That’s correct.

01:11:08,600	I don’t know if you have any comment on this. But from a citizen, from a text is my most significant problem is that of my $4800 in change 2024 property tax assessments, 3,052, which she says that’s a huge majority of his tax bill goes to Bismarck Public Schools and he lives outside of the city

01:11:29,870	limits, and he says he has no vote in Bismarck’s school board elections, so he’s in taxation without representation and it absolutely stinks. Do you have any comment on that? I mean, if he lives in the Bismarck school district, he certainly has a vote on the Bismarck.

01:11:48,070	School, OK, but if he doesn’t live in the Bismarck school district but owns property in the Bismarck school district. He doesn’t have a vote. That is, so it depends there’s some caveats that could very well be the situation don’t have votes on school board elections either.

01:12:02,900	It’s gotta be, you got to vote there, but um that he is correct in town it’s 400 to 50% of your tax bill. OK, Comm.. E, you know, the, the state. Giving the wind farms and green energy and the railroad. These tax breaks. Uh They could be actually construed, especially the wind farm. As Hm More than a tax break, there could be a.

01:12:40,330	Kind of like a gift, wouldn’t it be? Subsidy Because if they do an audit. If How in the hell do they know? These guys are telling the truth. Comm., they take their word. Well, like I said, they use federally regulated reports that are filed by these companies. So there is some audit on the backside like FEC reports for the electrical.

01:13:06,470	There’s gas reports for the gas pipelines, like, like I, we don’t get any of that information. Um, I wish that we could have a chance to audit those with them as an option, but it’s not, it’s illegal. So private income information of a private company is is protected by law.

01:13:23,530	So with all the all the wind we’ve had this year, they should go up. I, I don’t, I don’t disagree with you that the enhancement factor could potentially come back on for next year. Um, I, but the one that bothers me probably more than anything is.

01:13:40,500	Is the railroad worse than wind? Because what’s, what are they going to do to us when the bridge is down? They’re gonna say they didn’t make any money. Hm. Get some money back, huh? I guess I don’t. I mean, I don’t I don’t have that answer, but um, that I, I have always had heartburn for centrally assessed property and how it’s assessed. Um, everybody at the state knows that. They’ve all heard me say it.

01:13:55,500	Um, we have went to the legislature on different items over the years, um, We’ve went to a legislature against certain exemptions, and those exemptions get. Bolstered even more, not corrected in the in the manner that we feel it should happen. So we take a cautious approach when we approach our legislators.

01:14:14,800	I think from, from your boards standpoint and your table standpoint you guys reaching out to them probably means just as much as us reaching out to them, but we’ll certainly work with them in any way we can to try and.

01:14:30,800	Solve these problems because those what a comment you made, 60,000 isn’t doesn’t seem like a lot in Burleigh County, but take Oliver County or McKenzie County where 400 to 50% of their assessment is central. Mhm. If you have a 10% reduction in 40% of your value, we’re having a whole different conversation at this table. Sure.

01:14:49,500	Oh, it’s, it’s my hope and I think we had this conversation that you’ll be working with the Association of Counties and, and hopefully we can get something resolved. So before I forget, I wanted to clarify. Which of these, um, and, and it’s along with the kind of long lines of the letter that Terry read, but um, On this estimated property tax letter.

01:15:11,370	You got the soil conservation District garrison diversion, water resource district and state of North Dakota. And I, I, I think about the only one I’m not sure about is the water resource district. If, if they have their own statutory mill levy. Oh, they do not. The, the water resource district budget is approved by the county commission at this table, we have the ability to adjust. That one.

01:15:30,670	The only reason that they’re on here separately. It is because I think of the amount that it’s a levy, so they just, it’s just listed separately, but if you notice down in the bottom water resource district does not have a hearing because this is their hearing.

01:15:46,200	OK, and, and, and I’m leading up to say something else, um, so anyway, the soil conservation district, garrison diversion, and the state of North Dakota, those are, Set by entry code just in trying to clarify that, so. We can’t do anything with that.

01:16:15,370	Then, uh, um, The other thing, it was a good catch that the finance director Jacobs, uh, Uh, did that Those are listed on on this estimated tax notice. But apparently when we get to the actual property tax bill, those things. Um, get rolled into the Burleigh County portion of the thing.

01:16:36,370	I that that is 100% correct, uh, finance Director Jacobs and I had this conversation today, and that’s because there’s not enough real estate left on the on the tax bill, because if you take your estimated tax notice, it looks like a lot of real estate. Remember, on the bill, we have a section you can rip off. That consolidates those again, so we’re told which ones have to be combined on there. By the as prescribed by the state tax commissioner’s office.

01:16:52,170	OK, so we don’t have an option of, of having that on their separate whether we had room or not is that if we had room, I think we might be able to. I just, we run out of room. That’s the, um, they prescribe how the layout is for that form. I’m that part’s outside of my wheelhouse.

01:17:07,370	I’m thinking back to when I worked for former auditor Glatz as a deputy and then as the auditor in 2020, the the state is pretty rigid on what needs to be on that form and how it needs to be on that. Now, how we consolidate those numbers.

01:17:26,370	I’m not 100% sure without, without checking, but that’s how it they those numbers do get consolidated and it’s just the county line item. Right, and so. Because those individual categories have A statutory mill levy.

01:17:52,500	When property valuation increases in Burleigh County like it does normally with new construction of residential and new construction of commercial that automatically gives them a property tax increase regardless of the budget they need. For that and so it’ll automatically in every case, result in a budget increase no matter what this commission decides to do.

01:18:12,300	Especially on The state of North Dakota cause they’re guaranteed one mil and the garrison diversion, they’re guaranteed 1 mil on the, the, the soil conservation can go up to a mill. I don’t think they’re at a mill yet. I think they’re at like 0.55 so um they like. The, the state of North Dakota never changes. There’s not even a budget hearing, that’s just one meal, it’s in the Constitution.

01:18:29,070	Um, so every time there’s a value increase, The state of North Dakota gets more money. Funny how that works, Comm. Schwab. I believe that the garrison diversion can go up to 2 mL, yeah, that very well could be, but I think they’re at one and they’re at one, but they can just come in anytime they want and say 2 mLs when they shouldn’t get any milks, in my opinion.

01:18:51,170	Right, OK, well, it’s a good conversation, yes we do, we do have to swallow that in when we get send that bill out in December. That’s all consolidated as of now, that’s how it is, is, I’m just curious of a different size font or different things or the law actually, Comm.

01:19:09,430	Woodcock, before we leave the uh wind farms and the railroads alone, let’s go to the Agland. Agland did not go down 3%. I don’t care what you say, where you read it or what what you’re hiding under, it does not go down. Down 3%. It’s up everybody that you hear about any transactions or any auctions or anything like that.

01:19:26,970	Aglan has not gone down 3%, but that’s set by NDSU and Fargo on a production value and if they got a bad wheat crop, then the then they pay less tax, which which makes Some sense, but also if you have a bed if you own a pizza parlor in your business goes down, uh, your

01:19:45,870	taxes don’t go down accordingly, according to production. That if we’re gonna work with the legislature, let’s work with the Agland too. I mean, I challenged the legislature years ago to, uh, go to production tax on all property. They won’t they didn’t want that because houses are zero, they produce no income.

01:20:06,070	But that that was more just a tongue in cheek joke to them and they knew that, but, um, you know, yes, you’re correct, uh, Comm. Woodcox, it just on the average. With the changes we had to make for eggland and we keep eggland right at 100% of true and full value because it’s not market value, it’s production.

01:20:23,770	We’re at 16% of market. So on a $1000 valued piece of egg land through our production model, that lands worth $6250. That’s where we’re at on eggland and that. That used to be actually worse when they had that arbitrary.

01:20:48,630	Cap on the floor, if you remember one year we had to raise egg land and it was like 2013, I think, 33% because the session left that they had a cap rate that they designed. To keep the values low. The state supervisor didn’t inform the legislature and it expired. She did, I think she maybe did that on purpose, she’s now.

01:21:08,600	Deceased, um, but it went up 33% and we had a room full of people until we started explaining while you’re, your value went from 11 to 15%, and then they were, everybody was like, oh, I guess that’s not really a big deal.

01:21:26,270	Um, but it, it, it is a problem when you use a sub a significant model for one class of property that that varies from the other two classes of property, commercial and residential, are carrying way more of the weight. That’s just how, that’s just how it works. OK, well, I appreciate the clarification. I think that’s very beneficial to the citizens. OK OK, thank you so. Let me know if you need. We’ll do.

01:21:45,370	Um, Terry, you had asked if uh you could have another shot at the apple. With your permission, Absolutely, go ahead. So I’m looking for some clarity. As it relates to the one cent sales tax. And maybe Wayne, you can do that. When does it start? Now 2 weeks, so it starts October 1st.

01:22:12,570	So correct me if I’m wrong, as I looked at the budget, we’ll have 500,000 collections over and above the bonded indebtedness. Is that correct? That’s correct, but you’re not bringing that into the budget. We, we can’t. Because it’s still tied up at the Bank of North Dakota. It’s not in our coffers. Well, as a follow up, Mr.

01:22:31,170	Chair, if I may, to, to Wayne, you don’t have the property tax collections either. You’re carrying that in your budget. So there isn’t any reason why you couldn’t carry the 500,000 in the budget knowing you’re going to get it. Because they’re not gonna, the Bank of North Dakota doesn’t need your money. They have plenty. Uh, and so what we’re, what I’m asking is.

01:22:58,500	Why, why To clarify what 500,000 we’re talking about. I didn’t catch that. Actually I think it’s 50, not 500,000, right? I thought it was 500,000, but I may have, I may have looked there, I, I’m, I’m just a little German from a little don’t throw around numbers.

01:23:13,970	There have been a lot more than I’m accustomed to, and I was hoping my taxes might go down on my home because my income went down this year as well, so good luck. And I, and I, and I think we’ll actually have to ask uh the finance director to explain that because in our meetings a month or two ago, we asked the same question, can we bring that money, that extra money that we

01:23:34,170	have available from the half cent sales tax. Can we bring it in? And Financetructor Jacobs. There is, that’s all tied up into. The defeasance of the bond for the jail and until that defeance is done. That’s correct. I get what you’re referring to.

01:23:58,700	Go ahead and try to shed a little money that we’ve collected above what we need for the bonded indebtedness is tied up at Bank of North Dakota until we have a legal defeasance, which we’re working on, but it’s it’s a time consuming process and then the October 1 collections, we will not receive that until.

01:24:22,370	I think December Uh So the I, I can offer a little more clarification as well, so any of those amounts because we, we believe that we’re actually overcollecting now. I think, I think everybody agrees on that, Mr. Chair, you know, we, we understand that that is also going to get applied to property taxes when it’s able to. You know that’s we’ve said that at this table. That is the commitment, you know, we’re.

01:24:45,200	We’re utilizing the sales tax for what I think is a very good reason for property tax reform here in Burleigh County regardless of what the legislature does, whatever the results of the measure for, it makes no difference to me, but we are moving forward with something on the order of a property tax reform in Burleigh

01:25:01,300	County. So any of these over collections. are going to go to the exact needs of Burley County. Uh, we don’t have anything that’s Um, you know, some pie in the sky pipe dream or anything else, so, um, that’s the focus of this board and it has been from day one.

01:25:18,370	So Mr. Chair, if I may, so as a follow up to that at the meeting at the chamber office. I asked the question philosophical and ideologically, it makes sense. Just exactly what you described, Mr. Chair, but the downside is We don’t, it’s not recession proof.

01:25:39,970	So even though our intentions are good, we don’t know just exactly what’s going to happen in her office or in Kelly’s office as it relates to expenses. So our intentions are good as it relates to property tax relief and and we’re taking money out of our left side of our pocket paying sales tax, hopefully it’s gonna come back to us.

01:25:53,630	And it’s gonna go to the right side of her pocket, but one of the things that was said at that meeting, and I think it’s important to have this discussion because I want to make sure that when, when he, when, when Al Al is working with the Association of Colonies, we talk about this.

01:26:07,770	So We’re going to raise our our sales tax 1 cent. Correct. And the suggestion at the meeting was that 40% of that sales tax in the year for the year comes from non-residents. However, we weren’t able to identify just exactly who those non-residents are and where they come from. So I’d ask a favor of this board and you, Mr.

01:26:24,570	Monkson, along with Al. Would you be kind enough to carry a message from the folks in Burley County. We have no understanding, nor do we understand why or will we ever understand why Montanans don’t pay sales tax in North Dakota. And somebody said, well, they don’t have sales tax.

01:26:44,830	Well, we don’t have the Rocky Mountains that’s, that’s a good point. So my response to that is, is that I don’t, I have lots of friends and relatives who live in Montana. When I go over there, I just feel good. Uh, I don’t save a penny.

01:26:59,830	And so I think it’s incumbent upon us to if you’re gonna ask us to pay more, ask somebody else to share in that in that expense because this to me is just. Unconscionable And if I may, Mr. Mr. Mr. Bentner is Jerry, you asked a question. Does the, does the, does the legislature have a passion? For what you described.

01:27:20,170	I said there’s a legislature have a passion to change these dictates that come down to the counties about the, the railroads and the ag land and the uh what’s the other one, the wind towers they tell us exactly what we’re gonna get, but we don’t get that until like a month ago, so when we do our, our property tax estimates back and we started in March

01:27:40,300	with building our preliminary budget. We, we build it on what we collected from last year. Now, when they when they come in and they’ve got a big reduction.

01:27:55,830	That means that we don’t get as much tax money from those companies, but we still have our same expenses, so who picks it up? The rest of the population I’d ask you, Mr. Woodcox if you would just an an addendum to my my request to Comm.

01:28:13,430	Munsen, would you include all the exemptions? Pardon me, would you include all the exemptions? Well, I agree with I agree with I’ve said this if I’ve said this once I’ve said it 100 times, we don’t have a property tax problem in North Dakota. They got you do we have a property tax exemption problem. And so government picks the winners. The government picks the losers and you’re going to hear tonight from a lot of people I suspect who are feeling like losers.

01:28:30,600	Right now, and so I, I just want to say thank you Chair Venter and commissioners to reiterates appreciated, Mr. Chair, just to reiterate, Worley County is the only county in the state that took action on its own to to reduce property tax, and they did that because the citizens would rather pay a one cent sales tax, then then nothing and then our, our property tax would keep on

01:28:50,230	going up. So Burley County is the only one that did that, so we got to remember that and all these programs you hear on the radio and all that talking about property. Nobody ever mentions the fact that Bertie County reduced will reduce their property tax.

01:29:05,230	I’m on the radio, I’d be happy to mention that I I get I get that you know want to blow my own Horn here, but I think it’s a *** good idea, you you know, um, and Terry just as a side note from your comment at the chamber, I did take that to the state level to ask the question.

01:29:22,230	And guess what? I don’t have a response yet. Does that mean crickets, isn’t that how they say that’s how they say it seems like the more we learn, the more we need to learn here. You know Chair Venter, I couldn’t have said that better myself.

01:29:43,730	There’s just an awful lot that we don’t know and unfortunately we expect, we expect Too much, I think sometimes of our elected officials. We have a responsibility as citizens and taxpayers to get involved in the process. Well, I, I thank you for that because I can piggyback a little bit, Terry, you know, I’m, I’m coming up, I’m over 15 years in one of these seats.

01:30:02,430	And this is honestly a revelation to me as well. This, this centrally assessed thing has never come up before. I mean, you know, we’ve talked about it, but we never had a problem like this where we’re in the middle of what seems like pretty prosperous or increasing property values and everything else and suddenly you’re getting a reduced property values from some of the key

01:30:19,430	industries in our in our state. That doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don’t think it makes sense to anybody else. So imagine if you will, Mr. Chair and commissioners, if, if you feel that way, imagine how the everyday resident. Burleigh County feels the everyday North Dakotan fields.

01:30:34,870	I got involved in this issue 6 years ago. We had a plan, we laid it out, we brought it. The legislators, several of them. And not unlike yourself, Mr. Bunsen, uh, crickets. And so what I find challenging is that. I don’t necessarily want to be a politician, no offense to any of you.

01:30:53,570	That doesn’t mean that I want to advocate on behalf. Of the people if I thought I could be a politician, get away with it, my, my lifestyle prevents it cause you can’t call in from Cancun or Hawaii. It’s not a good idea. And so it, it’s just important for us to be involved in the process. The West Fargo City Council.

01:31:10,770	Had their budget meeting and one person showed up. Look at the good people of Burley County. They’re here tonight. I’m guessing you’ll hear from when I, I just want to say thank you very much for the opportunity for this public hearing and for me to share my thoughts. Thanks. Thanks, Terry.

01:31:24,530	Um, anybody else up? Please state your name for the record. I won’t be, uh, as eloquent as Terry. Uh, my name is Dwight Hinkle. I live, uh, on Apple Creek Drive south of Bismarck. It’s a rural area. Semi-rural, um, And uh hello Chair and commissioners. Um, I just have questions here about my assessments. My tax assessment went up 45%.

01:31:56,500	After the legislative tax relief, my tax burden went up 35%. What the hell is going on? My property hasn’t gone up in value. I’ve had it listed for 2 years. I haven’t had one offer.

01:32:18,570	So something is wrong with the assessor, or he got his decimal points in the wrong place or something, but this is unattainable. I mean, I’m on Social Security. There’s 1/5 of my yearly income I’ll have to pay in taxes. So there’s something wrong here. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people have the same issue.

01:32:37,630	So who do I go to to rectify this? You came to the right place, right? Um, yeah, the, the Burleigh County tax tax director, OK, is, um, he is certainly going to work with you on that because I think this board has been very clear.

01:32:55,770	Our goal has been to not have property tax increase, you know, understanding that, you know, somebody’s valuation like in my case, I added on some property, right? And so mine went up, so I didn’t question mine because my evaluation did increase because I. I did that for myself, but if you’ve done nothing and nothing, yeah, so we, we would expect that, well, we know that the tax department, the tax assessing will work with you to figure that out, you know, we’ll Comm.

01:33:16,230	Woodcocks, we do have a tax equalization meeting in early June, I think it is, where you can come, anybody can come in and look at their assessment and if it’s too high or too low or never too low, but if it’s too high, invariable.

01:33:34,830	we go out to that your particular place or anybody else that’s here that wants to have us review their assessment and invariably I bet. A lot of them sometimes you add it on, I don’t know the exact circumstances, but you may be remodeled or whatever it might be the, the reasoning.

01:33:51,900	Sometimes there is no good reason, so then they’ll look at that and reduce it, and they have that ability so that you need to meet with our, our, our assessor, and they’ll send the assessor out there and review the property and review the size and everything else, and, and then go from there, then you’ll certainly understand a lot more of how your assessment is made and why it’s set at a

01:34:08,770	certain time. Yeah, right, well, he, he was telling us that his value didn’t go up though, right? No No No, or did No, or did No, or did it when No, or did it when No, or did it when No, or did it when. There you go. That’s you’re on your 45. There you go.

01:34:21,870	That’s, then that, yeah, that, that is directly relative to what. Now can help you with. OK. Big letters And I’ll hand it around. Well, yeah, we think it’s important that people make that contact and and ask, um. For verification on that because we don’t want there to be any mistakes.

01:34:54,370	Well, we Well, we and I hired a Appraiser to come out. And they appraised it, and they appraised it like 30% less than the assessor’s office, so they had to go by the appraisers because he’s a licensed appraiser, so I’m not gonna do that this time. I’m hoping that there’s a different way of relief. So thank you very much. You’re welcome.

01:35:15,700	Thanks for coming in. OK. Anybody else? Floor’s open. All we ask is they state your name for the record. Love the dress. Thank you. My kids said I should dress in something that blends in. I said I don’t think so.

01:35:37,370	I’m Christy Rose and my comments are really, I understand that I’m probably preaching to the choir more than anything, and you gentlemen probably understand and might even agree with what I have to say, but there’s a lot of people listening who. For lack of a better word, or just ignorant about how all of this tax stuff works and they don’t understand like Terry said why they need to get involved.

01:35:55,230	And so the first thing I’d like to say is what I’m hearing tonight is that we as property owners don’t get to assess our own value, which obviously I understand. I would tell you my house is worth a lot less than it is.

01:36:13,100	However, I also heard that the railroads and Ag and the wind companies are telling us what their value is and what they’re going to pay. That sounds a little bit fishy. Corrupt Yeah, again, I know I’m preaching to the choir, you guys get it, but some other people might not understand that, and our legislature does very little to help us.

01:36:35,970	The second thing is like, listen to last Wednesday’s meeting about property taxes, and what I heard was a lot of, well, I don’t really understand how or why your property taxes went up or why your market value went up or whatever, till it got to the point where it said, well, You haven’t had an increase in 10 years, so we had to go ahead and catch you up.

01:36:52,530	So basically what that translates to boys and girls, is there was money left on the table that we felt we needed to have. Cause that’s what that’s saying. There’s no other, you had no there was no other reason brought forth for why homes were suddenly going up 45%. I can tell you why.

01:37:10,000	He probably lives in a neighborhood that has 3 new homes and somebody went, oh, that means that neighborhood’s worth more money. That’s baloney. That’s corrupt also. Now, tonight, um, earlier, We heard from public health. And she told us that the number one concern of our community is affordable housing.

01:37:37,030	That is directly related to the artificially inflated property values and the ever-increasing property taxes. The hikes affect homeowners and renters alike. I know a lot of people think I’m renting, so I’m immune to this. No, you’re not. Because when you raise property tax, you pay more in your monthly mortgage, right? We all know this. Those of us who have mortgages.

01:37:56,930	And that expense has to be passed on to someone, right? It’s a trickle down, just like you have more expenses, so you have to take it from us, the taxpayers. The landlords have to take it from someone too. So there’s one thing affecting affordable housing. Secondly, When you tell somebody that their $200,000 home is now worth $360,000.

01:38:21,070	That’s going to increase their rent by $360 because the general rule of thumb is you charge 1%. Rent of what that home value is. So there’s where all of your affordable housing is going. The government Is taking it. So the preliminary way, we can provide more affordable housing for our community, which I don’t disagree.

01:38:41,800	My in-laws are trying to find a place to rent, and good lord, they can’t afford it. They’re on a fixed income. They’re gonna have to live in their motor home. In the winter. Because of property values and property taxes. So we can provide more affordable housing without building a single thing.

01:39:03,200	By stopping the artificial inflation of values, that means stop listening to realtors who want bigger commission checks, and Stop raising tax. Just because there’s money left on the table. So again, I do appreciate you guys. I know I’m preaching to the choir. I don’t have a question. I just wanted those things to be heard. And Wayne, my husband thinks you’re a good Guy. Oh, that’s good.

01:39:22,830	I got one vote today. You can fool some of the people. Thank you, ma’am. OK, anybody else wish to speak? Podium’s open. Don’t be shy. Comm. Schwab won’t bite. My name’s Karen Wolfer, and I also live on Apple Creek Drive.

01:39:54,370	And uh I own some other properties in Bismarck, and Every single one of them has gone up, but my home on Apple Creek has gone up 10%. And I’d like to know why. And this question is for you, and I’m hoping that you don’t have the same people working there when we built our home in 2006.

01:40:14,630	Now, when you build a home here, obviously the tax people know how much you paid for the house. Can I get you to talk towards us to the microphone picks it up. I want him to hear it too. OK. OK. You’ll hear. OK So in 2006 when you built your home, everybody knows how much you paid for it.

01:40:32,830	I mean, your builder tells you, you, so that should be what you’re taxed on if you spent 600,000. Then that’s what your home is worth because that’s what you just paid for it, right, including your land, OK? So the assessor at that time wanted to come in.

01:40:56,230	And see the house, but her questions were mainly, oh, so like, um, and she asked my builder this, like, well, what kind of furniture is she gonna put in the house? Like, is she gonna have like antiques and things like that, yeah, so.

01:41:14,100	So now when people assessors call me and want to come to my house, I’m really not too concerned about them seeing what I personally brought in because if I sold that house, those are all going with me. So yeah, I’d like to know why mine went up now, is it because a new house built across the street from me and two doors down, so now the tax Guy was there and said, oh well, her house, or is it because my peonies look so nice this year?

01:41:30,530	I don’t know, but my value went up and it shouldn’t, if anything. It should go down because You know, houses, I mean, it is what it is, and I have a whole list of city houses, but I can come next week for those. OK, um, and we’ll take a look at it.

01:41:51,900	OK, I would suggest that um just contact he’ll he’ll. I wasn’t here in 200 Mr. Chair, Comm. Woodcox, this is a point of information to everybody who’s listening here and on television, um, Uh, the county only collects 15% of your property tax.

01:42:16,530	The city, the, the Part Bismarck Man and Park District clicks 15 or 16, almost the same as we do. Then the city collects like 25, but then the remainder is a school district of 40-45%, and so we would appreciate, we, we get in trouble cause it always says Bertie County State tax tax statement.

01:42:36,230	We’re on, we can, we compile these other three entities and send out the statement which is required by law, but please show up with these other three. I’ll have public hearings with the exactly the same problem.

01:42:52,770	So here, I shouldn’t say this, but hit on them just as well as you do us because we’re the focal point and unfortunately, but we do listen to it, we try to do everything we everything we can to the best of our ability, but those others are taxing entities also, so they need to hear that same message that you’re giving us tonight. OK. And to piggyback that the Bismarck Public School District ends each of their fiscal years with only almost $200 million in reserve.

01:43:14,100	So when they’re screaming that they need money for whatever, remember that. Well it’s a good thing you mentioned reserves. That’s a, that’s something we’ll be talking about also. Anybody else wish to speak? Yes I’m Joel Andrews. I’m 80/80 years old and still working.

01:43:45,600	Do you know why? And if I don’t keep working, they’ll take my home from me. It’s already all paid for and everything, but the taxes have just gone up $500 every year this last two years and oh we got a $500 rebate, but that didn’t cover the $1000 that it went up. And uh isn’t there in a constitution, you cannot put taxes on top of taxes, cannot tax double taxing.

01:44:07,600	When I look at, I make I make my income. And I get taxed on it, that’s fine because you need to run a government. Then I go out and buy some lumber and put, put a garage up. And I get tax sales tax on that.

01:44:26,630	And then for the rest of my life until I die, I will be taxed on that two car garage they built extra. Am I correct? Now isn’t that taxes on top of taxes, on top of taxes? It sure looks that way, the worst one is you get your Social Security taxed also. That’s really a rip off. You paid money in all your life.

01:44:48,030	Now you go to take it out and they tax you for it, so that’s a that’s ridiculous it’s, it’s very difficult when you, when you worked hard all your life and you finally got everything paid off and a nice house, now you got struggle to hang on to it.

01:45:06,230	Even though it’s paid for because of the taxes. And if your health goes down, Now, I can’t pay the taxes, so now I gotta move down to a smaller house and or whatever else. Well, um, may maybe it’d be beneficial to have a little bit of an explanation about the homestead tax credit.

01:45:25,200	Are you aware of the homestead tax credit for Hey, E, you wanna, um. We might be might be of interest to you because there’s, there’s a, you can get a tax break, you know, for. Anyway, he’s gonna he’s, he’ll explain it. Oh, OK, yes.

01:45:45,170	Oh yes, for, for those of you that are out there in the crowd listening in for on TV, um, there is a. It’s called the Homestead tax credit. It is a property tax relief credit that is for people over the age of 65 that have an income after medical expenses of $70,000 or less, um, from 40, I think it’s 40,000 and under, you get $200,000 off your value

01:46:03,330	or $9000 in taxable and from 4 or $40,0001 to $70,000 I believe it’s 100,000 or $4500 off your taxes. So in, in town, you’re looking at about $2000 for if you’re at the bottom end and a $1000 if you’re at the top end and that’s an application you can file every year.

01:46:26,830	Um, it, it’s pretty simple to fill out if you have any questions, you can call our office. We’ll help you fill it out. We do that every day, so.

01:46:42,230	Other question I have is how about when do we get quit paying for the schools, our kids have been out of school for 50 years, you know, um, glad to pay when they were going. And uh our homeschooling is outshined public schools and learning in that, so public schools are falling down. On their teaching abilities. And We are still being taxed on that. I sure feel that pain, but I’m in the same boat.

01:47:07,370	You know, where we’re coming from, you know, it’s like, wait, how long do we have to keep paying on that, you know. Mhm Food for thought. Mr. Chair, thank you, sir. Comm. Munsen. I want to follow up on, on what Al was just talking about with the Homestead credit, um, my neighbor lives directly across the street from me. Our houses are very similarly in value.

01:47:30,300	Because of the homestead tax credit he’s paying two-thirds less. In property taxes than I am. So he’s done the paperwork, he’s filled out, he’s got the exemption, his tax bill is two-thirds less than mine. So it is a very good program to go through.

01:47:49,530	Did you say you have to apply for that every year, or is it keep on rolling once you apply for it, it’s it’s an annual application, but once you receive it, the, the assessor’s office of the county or the city, we send you out the application in the next. I mean, one thing to note is the homestead tax credit isn’t an exemption.

01:48:06,670	So we don’t lose those dollars at the local level. We are reimburse those dollars to the state coffers to pay us back. So, um, when we are when we build our budget, that’s included in our budget because that’s property tax dollars that we received back from the state.

01:48:23,700	Um, unlike an exemption, so for example, like the farm exemption, when we give an exemption, um, It just takes that property off the tax rolls even though they still. Receive the benefit of the service. So the credits are a much better way to go. Mhm OK, thanks for the clarification now.

01:48:50,470	Hey, anybody else wish to speak? Anybody else wish to speak? It was the 2nd time Kind of like at an auction, you know. Anybody else, wish to speak on this item we’re going to keep it open as a public hearing. So if something comes up, you know, and you want to speak, OK, come on out. Hearing no other bids, I’ll take you up on that offer. My name is Adam Rose, Mr.

01:49:10,130	Chair, Commissioners, I just wanted to kind of give like a last second like summary of how, how it’s being heard in the last check a second chance for you to clarify on that, I think, um, as Comm. Woodcock said, you guys only make up 15% of the property taxes on everyone’s bills.

01:49:28,300	Um, and your explanation is that very appreciative of you guys being here for this form. Essentially what I have heard, and I’m sure many others in this room have heard, your hands are tied. By those in the in the legislator.

01:49:46,170	Um, that includes for others on our bills including uh public schools, uh, the water, uh, and, uh, soil conservation, all that such. And so I just want to be very clear on that. Your hands are tied on the matter. outside of your 15%. You cannot help us any further on that. And like, like you said, we need to be banging on other doors, not just yours.

01:50:05,800	Don’t wanna, uh, give you credit for something that’s not exactly your fault, I should say, or blame you for something that’s not your fault. Is that correct so far? Yes, it is. So I’m gonna harp on a point that was brought up several times is we the people need to be going out and contacting with people.

01:50:20,800	Most importantly, we need to be contacting our legislators who have failed us for over a decade to help curb the costs. It is not just at the county commission that we need to be talking. Now just at the city, not just at public schools.

01:50:39,300	We need to be talking to every single leader in our community, because they have failed us outside of this room, outside of uh answering questions. They have created this crisis that we are in. And so I encourage you Talk to them Eventually, the wave of emails will cause their inbox to be full. It is mathematically possible. So I encourage you to do that. I encourage, let’s join uh Comm. Munsen. Let’s let’s flood their inboxes.

01:51:01,730	Let’s call them, talk to them, we can get answers. Otherwise, I really hope I see you at the ballot box in November. I have. Thanks, Adam. I appreciate that. Good comments. Everybody has been making a really good comments.

01:51:23,100	It’s never been like me to acknowledge that my hands are tied, but you know, in some regards, they certainly are because we have things that we can’t do anything about, even though we, we have the best of intentions, but we are going to move into now unless anybody else wants to get up and speak. We are going to move into discussions about um.

01:51:40,400	About the preliminary budget and the budget that’s in front of us, so. Commissioners, I don’t really have a specific point to start off with, so. One of you guys has a specific, uh, uh, thing you want to roll with, let’s start. Chair, um, so. Two items that I have on page 43 in our veterans service office.

01:52:07,070	Uh, due to a retirement, we have a reduction in staff, a position we decided not to replace. So we will eliminate 118,000483 from our veterans service budget, um. Let me get to that page, um, page 43.. 0 wait a minute, maybe, maybe we should just be using so that we’re all on the same thing. We have this. that was on the table with the paper clip.

01:52:37,830	We utilize that looks like that’s probably where we’re at. After the last meetings, is that if you want I can give you I wrote up an entire memo to tie everything up. Either that or I can explain to what’s in front of you.

01:52:56,570	You know, maybe you could explain this so that when we’re talking about um we want to take 100,000 or something out of veterans services because the budget doesn’t need it that we can use this? Yes, that if you so wish. Yeah, if this is an accurate. Oh, there’s Mr. Chair. Comm. things. Where are we at right now? Are, are. Turned my mic off.

01:53:21,630	Where are we at right now because we need a review of our taxable income and our tax expenses and uh in order for us to to get a tax reduction or maintain last year’s. Let’s find out where we at now? What do we need to say now that, that would be in this information that was just handed out here.

01:53:39,170	Um, I had asked Lee earlier. To print out because county has more paper than I have. Um, print out the, uh, uh, fiscal year, the year-end information from 2023. As a place to start. So at 12 at the end of 23. You’ll find one.

01:54:15,630	Packet In the upper right corner that that says fiscal year 2023 to 2023 from day 11 2023 to 1231, 23. So that To look like Uh, it looks like every other one, Let’s see. OK. OK. 23 to 23. Right. And so what that is telling you. And so that we can compare if need be that tells you what the ending fund balances were at the end of the year.

01:54:45,970	So basically what was left over. You know, that that hadn’t been spent. OK, so that that’s that one. And then I asked to include these other ones. Uh. For example, The 9/6 of 24. Whatever ends up being at uh. At 96 of 24 Chair Bitner, go ahead.

01:55:22,300	We selected the date of 9/6 because that was a payroll end and that’s a huge expense we wanted to include that. OK. And so 96 of 24. Tells you, um, You know ways where we’re at. On the 6th. And then the other thing is if you look to the. Right-hand side. The very right-hand column, it tells you what percentage.

01:55:52,230	Of the budget has been spent year to date up to this, up to 96. So assuming there’s still about quarter left to go in the year, you can figure if you’re, you know, around 75% or something of the budget, you’re probably pretty close to having spent that actual budget.

01:56:14,830	I thought that would be helpful to understand what any increases would necessarily be needed in the next year because we’re going to talk about salaries and and fringe, right? OK, so that’s why I asked for that information to be presented so that we can refer to it if need be.

01:56:40,200	um Lead you want to add anything that I maybe leave anything out on that? As far as OK. So there is a, there’s a revenue and there’s uh expense report. That expense report talks about the percentages that have been spent and then the general ledger tells you the cash balances in the accounts. At this time, from at 96. 24 Roughly 10 days ago. OK, so then.

01:57:07,600	We want to get to where we, we know where we’re at before we start talking about any deductions. OK, so auditor Sploskowski, you wanna Paul that one off. They have to present before the commission tonight is a memo that I wrote up. Kind of tells you exactly where we’ve been based on the commission.

01:57:47,130	Action Based on votes that have been made, seconded, and pass. It’s not the auditor’s office is responsibility. Uh, to interpret mentions, random comments, is the auditor’s office responsibility to enact on actions. Burleigh County commissioners. The following is the final budget for the Burley County, the calendars the year 2025. This document contains the budgets for the general special revenue and debt service funds.

01:58:15,970	The county commission’s goal for the 2025 general fund rolled and bridge budget is to maintain services at the current level and to remain sustainable while collecting the same dollar amount as was levied in 2024 budget.

01:58:35,100	Some high point discussions by the commission for the 2025 calendar year budget have been remodel of the Provident building to consolidate our departments currently within the city county building into the Provident building already owned by the county. Update to the boiler system within the courthouse and employee retention and recruitment. The county commission approved 4 additional positions requested in the 2024 budget.

01:58:55,970	One FTE planner for the planning department, 3 FTEs, state attorneys, attorney 2 and attorney 1 and a legal assistant. 3. As well as the continued employment of 4 detention officers that were previously paid through ARPA funds. These 4 positions would now be paid through the general fund. The total 2024 general fund budget is $39,363,592. With 28,183,936 or 71% coming from salary and fringe benefits. The total expenditure budget for 2025 is $800,232,866.

01:59:34,700	Compared to 2024 at $77,611,0661 for an increase of $2,621,205. This is mainly due to the increase directed by the commission. Of the road and bridge fund to reflect the 2024 expenditure allocation amount. As well as the increases to the general fund budget and special revenue budgets.

01:59:57,170	The increase to the road and bridge fund is being offset by a potential general fund reserve transfer, as well as other funding sources, so that the amount levied in the property taxes remains the same as last year.

02:00:13,800	The increase to the general fund is also being offset by a general fund reserve transfer, as well as a transfer from the courthouse maintenance fund for the boiler system so that the amount levied in property taxes is the same as last year. The main drivers for the potential budget increase for the 2025 budget are $3019,189 for salary and fringe benefits including all proposed new FTEs countywide. $2,354,612 for the highway department. And 1.5 million for the new heating system for the courthouse.

02:00:40,430	The total amount to be levied from Burleigh County approved preliminary budgets are for 2025 are as follows. For the general fund. Which would be in fact a slightly lower than last year as directed by the county commission to collect the same dollar amount for the general fund. $21,802,760 unorganized townships,,,, $867 200 dollars,, , $8,677,200. Road and bridge fund,, $2,410,657. Job development,,,,,, $80,760.

02:01:11,630	County library,,,,,,, $327,115. Senior citizens,,,,,,,,, $765,155. Veteran services $513,949. County agent or the extension $410,0362 and the wheat board, $353,923. The total amount to be levied from the Burley County approved budget for 2024 is as follows... . $21,805,080 unorganized townships,,, $813,500. Road and Bridge fund,,,,, $20413,491 job development was avoided by a commission to be at $0.

02:01:53,030	County library,,,,,,,,, $320,803 senior citizens, $443443,833. Veteran services, 464,686 county agent is $260,261,620 and we bore $217,713. Uh, that means that the total amount for a 2025 amount to be levied as it sits right now, is 270. $531,881 and the total amount that was levied in 2024 was 26,740,000726.

02:02:30,970	The county used a 2024 true and full property evaluation for the 2025 property tax calculations, property values increased on the average of 5% from the previous year. In the 2025 budget, the county commission will use a collection of $30,591,951 in property tax revenues, which is an increase of $1,172,278 from the previous year.

02:03:00,770	New growth amounts to $511,845 for a net difference of $660,0433 on existing parcels. This equates to a decrease on a $300,000 home inside the city limits of $9.72 and a home outside of city limits of $1.35 for a decrease of 0.72 or 0.1 mLs respectively.

02:03:25,700	The current preliminary budget includes a 2-step and 2% cola increase to salaries to continued efforts to remain competitive in the increasingly difficult task of employee recruitment and retention. No income from sales tax revenue has been taken into consideration in these calculations. The health insurance committee recommends an 8% increase to the planned premiums for 2025. Debt service funds are established to collect special assessments annually and make payments on existing debt service.

02:03:46,630	These funds are budgeted based on the annual debt service needed to pay for the special assessment bonds using special assessment collections. The county continues to have new construction in both residential and commercial development within the county. This creates opportunities for new growth, but also creates challenges to increased services and provide infrastructure maintenance and improvements.

02:04:07,430	The counties continued to feel the effects of inflation resulting in the increased cost of services. Many estimates were made based on the information available at the time. Uh, uh, the preliminary budget was approved, the county will continue to monitor and inflationary impacts to operations to create strategies to offset costs increases while creating minimal impact on the taxpayers as the county continues to grow and expand.

02:04:30,330	A summary of expenditures and revenues for the 2025 general fund balance. is a revenue of $35,078,145. Expenditure of $39,363,592. This creates a difference of $4,285,477 to be paid for out of general fund reserves, um, for the courthouse, he and the courthouse heating system uh for the courthouse heating system. Yeah, and to, to buy their own property taxes.

02:04:59,670	So that’s a brief synopsis of what was uh voted on, passed, and approved by the commission. I If you want to go ahead and start breaking down individual things that the county commission can decide on. That’s why I included that in this memo.

02:05:22,730	Uh, the reason that those were not Changed Is that the commission voted on and passed those individual special revenue funds and uh all the different budgets, not including the general fund. The motion that was made and passed by this commission to not collect any more dollars, was very specifically for the general fund and for road and bridge.

02:05:43,500	So as the auditor’s office, we complied with the county commission’s motions, and uh any changes that you want to make and all the other funds, if you so wish, can definitely be made during this meeting. If you want to look at the information that I gave you here. Uh, as to Comm. Munsen’s Uh, questions, there’s several sheets here.

02:06:05,070	One of them is a comparable mill levy sheet that compares uh what last year’s mill levy was versus the way it currently sits at this time. It’ll be this one here with the red, the numbers on the, on the back. On the yard Far right corner, that shows anything that went up, down or stayed the same.

02:06:22,630	And then this one here for the general fund expenses. This is one that we may spend some time in if we want to refer to all the different funds that in the general fund. And then also I included the uh new worksheets. For you to put into your binders for all the changes that were made in the preliminary budget.

02:06:40,070	So these are the, these are all the updated worksheets based on the changes that were made at that time. Mr. Chair, Comm. Woodcock, so if, uh, I read this right down the bottom of the back page, we took him, we will take in 35 million, spend $39 million so we have to come up with 4.

02:07:12,830	2 million from general fund reserves. Is that correct, to balance the budget the way it sits? That’s going to be no increase, yes, so, uh, based on what the commission’s actions in the past have been a portion of that will be taken out of the general fund, reserves, and then another portion will be taken out of the courthouse maintenance fund reserves.

02:07:28,600	Mainly to pay for that new boiler system, OK. Mark Mhm Job development explain that. So you want, if you want to look at your uh your budgets here. No, I, I wanna know what job development, what is job development, not the budget.

02:08:00,000	Yep, yep, so job development, uh, that particular one, I believe that one goes to the Chamber of Commerce for what that is basically our annual membership. To be in the Chamber of Commerce. Well, there’s a cut No. Yes. All they do is come up here and lobby for uh. Renaissance zones and stuff in the county’s got to pick them up.

02:08:21,030	We’re paying them money to lobby us to get more money. They’re the ones that helped us get the one cent sales tax. They did all of the work because we can’t for that. Yes, yeah, well that. has nothing to do with With uh Them getting, I’m, I’m looking at this thing $200,000 is that correct for a roof on the senior citizen center.

02:08:43,330	Are we gonna be footing that? That’s to be determined by the commission? Is that our building? No, it’s not our. Why are we fixing a building then? We’re renting it, aren’t we? And we have a, we have a 99, yeah, he, he provided that we have a 99 year lease on the building.

02:09:02,130	Yes, we have a 99 year lease for the building. I believe we paid $1 for. Uh, we do have a signed agreement, uh, I would have to review the details and I could do that during this meeting while you guys talk if you want, um, but yeah, we have a 99 year agreement, I believe that was

02:09:17,000	signed in the 80s or early 80s. Yeah, I did, I did review that and there’s nothing in there about building maintenance or anything else. We didn’t agree to put on a roof or fix doors or fix the parking lot or or anything.

02:09:34,670	And so whatever you would do is an owner of a building is not what a renter necessarily pays for rent usually covers those things and. Um, Not, not, not as part of an ongoing expense. Nothing I’ve ever rented included me putting a roof on. Go ahead.

02:09:56,470	I can tell you that in today’s world and not in 1980, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in part of the 1980 lease, but a lease that you would sign today is a triple net. You take care of everything from concrete up but in 1980, I’m sure it wasn’t that way, but in the leases today it is Mr. Chair, Comm.

02:10:15,230	, we’re referring to the senior citizen center, correct? And who owns the building? City of Bism. Oh, the city, OK. Our director is here if she wants to defend her cell and expenses, I think that’s a good idea. What a way to start.

02:10:31,970	Yeah, that’s what we’re here for looking at veteran services, but you can go ahead and transition to that if you want because we’re going, we don’t want, we don’t want to jump all over the place. Go ahead. OK, so there, there is a lease with the city. Um, it’s $1 for 99 years. Um, I’ve been there for it will be shortly 13 years. That’s But Burley County senior adults program, the nonprofit that runs.

02:11:00,530	The program in Burley County has always taken care of the expenses. Um, money comes from the mill levy. Money comes from the state of North Dakota through contracts for nutrition and health, and then from contributions from people that receive our services. As well as grants and other things that I write to help. Pay for projects. It’s the way it’s always been.

02:11:28,870	Um, we have gotten money from the city through the community development block grant program to help pay for projects right now, um, two of the projects that we’re doing, one was the uh warehouse.

02:11:50,270	remodel in our dish room remodel and also putting in a new walk-in freezer, did receive CDBG money towards that cost, which is about this is about half. That we got for those two projects. So OK, so when I reviewed your budgets, I didn’t see any mention in there of a roof.

02:12:13,530	That was not planned to be done this year, but we had um That first big rain we had, we had major leaking, we got it inspected and it’s, it was shot. Um, we’ve been looking at it for a while, being told that, well, it’s still OK, you got to get in in the budget so we can get it done, um, Suddenly they got up there and it was shot. There was a couple holes, um, the warehouse side, the was the rubber roof.

02:12:33,670	It was soaked all the way through the insulation down to the The wood underneath the insulation they had to tear it all off and replace it, so, um, that was quite an expense for us this year. It was about $340,000. And so is that, is that something you already did or something that was done, it’s done now. Mhm.

02:12:58,170	So we have had reserves. Um, On hand that we use to pay for that. So Of the reserves that were in. At the end of 20. 23, is that the reserves you’re referring to? Well, we have our, we have reserves in our budget. Or in our our funds out.

02:13:30,670	For the Burley County senior Adults program, we when we have um money left over from like we had a gift shop. Every year all the Revenue from the gift shop will get rolled into a building and maintenance reserve fund. Um, extra money from donations would get rolled into that. Well, we’ve never used it.

02:13:50,370	So we’ve been rolling money into this reserve fund for quite a number of years and it had enough money in it to pay for that project. Oh, OK, so that’s, that’s completely totally separate from Any fund balances that Burley County has here, yes, so you know the mill levy is only a portion of our total budget. We have about a $3 million budget now every year.

02:14:16,530	And with the um mill levy and the match from the state. Uh, this year it was a 1.379 million approximately that was requested. So it’s, it’s not, it’s about what, 40-45% probablymi levy money.

02:14:45,870	That money is used to help, um, with the expenses at the senior center, staffing, and then it covers the gap from what we receive from the state and. Donations from people receiving the services, whatever the gap is from covering all those expenses is what we use to mill levy for.

02:15:06,430	Does that make sense? So we’ll get, say we have $10 cost for a meal, and we got for this is an accurate numbers, but if we have a $10 cost on a meal, we get $4 from the state and $3 from the person getting the meal we’re still short $3. So we use mill levy funds to cover that difference. And that’s a consistent practice across the state with all of the um Title 3 nutrition. And health maintenance programs.

02:15:35,000	OK Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, Comm. I’m not clear as to what we’re doing with your budget or we proposing that we change it, or we know that it started, I don’t know yet, um, started out the conversation had to do with the roof and the roof’s already paid for and done, right? That’s so why are we worried

02:15:53,600	about the rope? Well, we’re not what we’re I understanding that that had something to do with the budget or that was the. Is that is that a part of this budget, but what is part of this budget is a $255,000 I think $255,000 budget for other maintenance and such around the place.

02:16:14,000	Yes, we do have we budget for other projects every year when I took the position For this program. Um, we found that there was very little maintenance done. Uh, there was, there’s a lot of things in need of repair.

02:16:38,130	What had been repaired wasn’t repaired properly, um, You know, for, for example, the, the fire alarm system, all of the, uh, we found all of the wiring for it was just laying exposed up in the ceiling of the center. Well, of course that’s doesn’t need code. It all had to be fixed. We found lots of things like that.

02:16:55,000	We’ve spent a fair amount of money on getting that building up to standards, and I invite you all to come take a look at it because it’s a pretty nice place and the people that come there enjoy it a lot. Um, I noticed looking at last year’s budget that it it looks like we got, we’re getting a lot more money this year, which is not the case.

02:17:10,600	I think last year they only level levied 0.4. Um, if I recall looking at paperwork, and this year I’m assuming it’s high uh higher levy, um, because we in 2024, we Received 1.273 million and this year I request is 1.3. 79. So I’m not sure what. You see that on that memo from um.

02:17:40,470	The auditor that’s on there that way. You know, we’re um Uh, what we’re, what we’re trying to do. is to hold hold um. Bud is flat with last year, right? What can you do without? Uh, if you would like me to adjust those projects, I can do that. I’d like to ask you to do that. OK.

02:18:30,130	How much do you want it reduced? Well, what we’re trying to do is to stay flat at 2024s. So I think in your case what is that 1000? Right, so, um, 88. With the Match, I mean, how do you want to work that with the match would be my question. Because if it’s, if it’s 100.

02:18:55,070	100,000 from the county level, then it would be another, um, 87,500 I would have to reduce from the match side. Which is stantial. Well, at this point I, I was just trying to keep the uh 2025 uh budget at the level of the 2024 adoption, that would be, I’d have to figure it out, but just

02:19:21,970	get, get our budget back down to the 1.273175. OK. That would be my goal, you can, you can live with that. I can figure it out. OK. OK. Anything else? OK, so I guess we’ll We can note that in this. Yeah OK Um, are you sure that’s gonna work for you? I’ll have to make it work.

02:19:50,670	Right. Well, in the past, you know, we’re trying to make sure we’re not trying to hurt Grandma and grandpa here. I mean we’re just trying to, we’re just trying to control I understand there’s some I understand there’s some I understand there’s some projects that I understand there’s some projects that I understand there’s some projects that I understand

02:20:04,930	there’s some projects that I understand there’s some projects that we could Chris I understand there’s some projects that we could Chris Chair can I understand there’s some projects that we could Chris Chair can wait I’ve had this portfolio for quite a while, but anyway, the, the matching money we get from the state is very important to the

02:20:12,830	total budget, so try and reduce the matching portion that that the county. I don’t know how you’re gonna do that or what, every dollar of counting. is 87.5 cents from the state.

02:20:37,330	Yes, so, so if you have $100,000 do we get 185,000 or do you get, if I, if I lose 100,000 of counting money, I lose 87,500 from State match. So that’s 187,500 then that’s what I’m concerned about is we don’t, since the state’s paying 85% of it, we want to be careful we don’t reduce it because we’re cutting our own throats, essentially. Well, yeah, we’re also talking about $100,000 worth of my question, Chair, Comm.

02:20:58,470	Bakken, go ahead if you can hear me. Mhm. Yeah, so my question is, do we have an, do you have enough in your reserve fund to make up that difference so that we’re not losing the state dollars. I don’t know in our reserve fund with the county. I, I don’t know what that balance is.

02:21:19,400	I think a lot of it got used last year. Because it was only leveled at levied at 0.4. But I I’m not sure what it is anymore. I don’t know who would, you know that? Keeping up my number. Well, we, we have that information.

02:21:54,470	This If we have the ability to take that out of the reserve fund and not impact the state dollars, uh, cause where I have a concern is not this year, but next year and moving forward on the state side, so. If we have the ability to take that out of reserves and not impact that state percentage coming in, then I think that would be a better way to go.

02:22:13,800	Well, at the end of last year, according to this documentation, that account 2905. That’s 2905. Had $722,020.62 in it. And so I imagine that cash balances and September of The year then should be able to kind of back that up. You know, senior senior citizens. General ledger cash balance. 9624 was 784,620, so you add some interest gained.

02:23:08,730	Get a little bit of interest there’s plenty to take from reserve then. Right, so along those lines, if you didn’t want That to be Removed from property taxes, you could take it from the reserve fund, not the general fund reserves so that we’re clear.

02:23:35,730	It’s from the the cash fund of the senior council on aging or whatever we’re calling it. Does that sound right, Lee? Um Yeah, we’re Logged in over here, um. fund balance is 682. That’s, that’s gonna include. Expenditures and stuff that have gone on throughout the year, um, revenue that’s trickled in. Uh, I’m thinking now about the match. And I don’t know.

02:24:08,100	My thought is the match is on the levee. Not on we had that conversation. Oh. So if we transfer in to cover up the, the budget, uh. Shortfall Reduce the appropriation we may not get the match. And or we may not be able to. Transfer out of here.

02:24:35,370	the general question if we want to keep things flat, if we have a levee here we reduce it the general funds. Yeah in this one. I don’t know if we can do that as these were raised under the. Um, You know, the idea that they were gonna go to the senior center. That makes sense. Yeah, it does.

02:24:55,470	So there again, is this a situation where your hands are tied? I mean, well, Comm. Schwab. I was just Questioning who owned the building. And this thing is morphed into something we probably should just leave alone. That’s what I’m starting to think now. Because I sure as heck don’t want to hurt a senior citizens.

02:25:23,800	My question my what I wanted to know was, are we paying $200,000 to fix. A building that we don’t own. That’s always the case, and that’s, that’s the beef I had there and Mr. Chair, Comm. Munson, we know we’re going to reduce the veterans services by 114,000. That’s plenty enough to keep the senior citizen center alone then I looked.

02:25:50,470	Yeah, I don’t want to hurt your grandpa, but the problem is, you know, we’re gonna have to cut wherever we can if our goal is to, um, you know, we got, we got to come up with $1000 here. You what? So you want to come up with 1,000,000 here. I know exactly how to do it. Well, um, OK, um.

02:26:15,270	I guess another question I have before we go any further is when do we have to actually have adopted the final budget? Do you know? I mean, I understand the meeting is today. But does that budget have to be adopted? Um, I, I’ll look that up. I’ll have that here for you in a minute here.

02:26:36,030	Do an actual specific date October, yeah, I believe it’s October 10th, all the, all the budgets have to be submitted to my office by October 10th, OK. And the reason I ask is because if we wanted to have um uh uh.

02:26:54,070	Le look into You know, does that, is it a middle levy that affects that match or any of those other questions we could do that, but but So it doesn’t have to be a final decision today as long as we have a little bit of breathing room if you wanted to look into that.

02:27:16,370	Because you know, options too, so let’s, what’s that now? What’s she got 700,000 in reserves, and we can use part of that. So be it, rather than, well, yeah, that’s what I was, I was leading up and that’s why I, that’s why I had this information presented so that if we You know, if we needed to look at that rather than just saying take it out of general fund reserves.

02:27:32,530	You take it out of that actual account that is for that, you know, and that and that kind of across the board. You got a lot of those, you know, um, and, and like you said, chair, the biggest question is if we matching funds are based on the mill levy versus we don’t want to cut the levy, no different than

02:27:50,600	we board. We have to have 3 mills in order for us to get that lap program 2 months. We can’t go below that period, we have to do that, but if her if her she is in the same boat, oh, I had a conversation about that with Lee, um, now, before, don’t let me forget that

02:28:10,400	thought. Are, are you two trying to work this out over there a lot of time. Are you trying to work this out over there? What are we what are we doing here? We’re trying to decide if it’s. Um, you can read this a couple ways. It says.

02:28:29,600	Um, OK, there’s a report we have to do that says the written report must be received by the state treasurer on or before February 1st of each year following a year in which the reporting county received grant funds under this subsection, a matching fund grant must be provided from the senior citizen services and programs fund to each eligible

02:28:48,970	county equal to to 87 and 1.5% of the amount appropriated in dollars in the county under this section for the taxable year. But the matching fund grant applies only to an amount equal to a levy of up to time. I know many years it was only 0.9.

02:29:19,370	And then last year I think it was 0.4. So they must have used our reserves last year as well. Right, I took a look at that and just to kind of interpret the legalese. I hope I’m interpreting it correctly since I don’t have it in front of me, but from memory, it basically says that, um, the grant match is 87.

02:29:40,070	5%, um, for any amount up to 1 mL that’s been levied. If you haven’t levied that, but they get the grant, um, and it’s an excess of what you’ve levied, if that makes sense, then you have to turn that over to a city that’s levied that amount. So basically, it doesn’t mean you have to, um, levy a mill.

02:29:56,000	You can levy up to a mill and they will cover under the Grant 87.5% of up to that 1 mil, correct. So if you give them half a mil, they’ll do 85 87.5% of that 1 mil. Mhm But if we said take 100,000 out of this fund here that’s still appropriating the money for it.

02:30:16,570	It has nothing to do with mill, correct? It just as she had indicated earlier, just affects how much of a grant that they would get if they end up with a grant in excess of that 87.5% then that excess has to go to a city that’s levied a mill.

02:30:33,500	Um, is how it reads, so yeah, they’ll still get the grant money up to whatever you appropriate. Up to a mill. Yeah Mr. Chair, I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem. I’d rather put it off though our next meeting and make sure we have another budgetering that’s what happened last year. I reported. The meal plus the 87.5% and it was received. OK.

02:30:58,000	So So are you able to to um get confirmation on that independently of On this match, I can, yeah. OK, I’d like to ask you to do that. Chair. Um, our final budget has to be finalized by by or before October 7th, our next meeting.

02:31:24,700	Well, uh On or before, on or before. OK, and do you want me to? Work on cutting, is that what my instruction is then or? As well Well, I, I wanna, I would, my personal preference, and I’m only 1 of 5, right, my personal preference would be to cut whatever it takes to, um, to try to get us to the goal of

02:31:46,130	not having a property tax increase for this year based on last year’s numbers. We don’t, obviously, you know, the conversation is we don’t want to cause an issue with costs or, you know, grant funding though. So if we can work that out, that’s what we’d like to do. OK.

02:32:04,800	I mean, if you can sit down and do anything with it or something and. It’s gonna be a little while yet, but there’s nothing saying that you’re not quite hit that target either, but You know, it would be nice. Right, because we’re looking for everything. We’re looking at all everything here. OK. Yeah, we don’t wanna.

02:32:24,670	I don’t want to have to answer to old people because I’m old. So Mr. Chair, if I may, is Just, just so that I know, is there any desire or direction from the commission at this time on this budget. Not on that one. OK, yep, not on that one yet. Nobody is comfortable messing with Grandma. No, no.

02:32:55,600	Chicks Um, OK, we were, we were talking about veterans services. might as well start with that one right there. Yes, a Chair on page 43 in our budget book is the Veteran Services, um, we have, uh, like, as I said, stated, we had one person retire and we chose at this point not to replace that person, uh, so we will save

02:33:17,930	$67,721.47 in salary. We will also save 46,497 61 cents in fringe. So for a total of 1:14 219, and 8 cents will come off of that budget. For a new total. The new total on the veterans services will be 410, 709.92.

02:33:54,670	And if we need to make each one of these a motion or are we, OK, if you don’t be my emotion. Second, The motion is 2nd to reduce the veterans’ services by 114,21908. Is there any further conversation? Caroll please. Chris Bakken Commission Bakken. Comm. Schwab, Yes, Comm. Woodcox. Yes, Comm. Munsen, Chair Bittner, yes, motion carries. Comm.

02:34:46,170	Bakken, are you with us? Just not OK, we talked a little bit about the weed board. And I was, I was talking to Lee a little bit and there was a question. We know that we had to have a certain amount of money. Appropriated for the weed board to qualify for that lap. 2 egg mills. What number is that on a. These training site which you.

02:35:13,800	We, we 45. OK, Lee did do the budget for me on and what he did was he went a little bit over just in case, so whatever I believe I saw 2 mills there. But I think it’s actually supposed to be 3, he’s he’s saying it’s 33.

02:35:50,870	So are we safe with that? Well, the question is more is because we haven’t been spending it, you know, and so. What we were trying to decide is if just having the money on hand met that. I go, you know, because the, but if we don’t. that goal. Then I got to start over with that lab program and I mean that is.

02:36:13,530	I get it. That’s what it is. But it’s tough. Mr. Chair, from, from my understanding of prior meetings. It is Budgeted Not spent. We have to allocate 3 county mills towards that budget, even if it’s not spent, it’s OK, but we have to allocate it in order to qualify for loan, right, right, well,

02:36:38,100	so what that leads to is then what do you do with the excess? Because based on, based on expenditures here. The weed board. I uh A long way from It is a long way from spending its money already. Yeah, but the problem is.

02:37:08,000	Yeah We don’t have that appropriated 27 when we sell weed killer and stuff like that, that, that finds its way back in. In the county treasury. Right, so it isn’t like it’s out there forever either. I don’t know. Lee, Lee could explain this way better than me, but you know at the end of 23, the weed control at 329,000 plus.

02:37:35,870	Julie wanted to say something or So, um, in looking at the statute, which is 4.147 16 subsection 2, it says this formula for distribution of this, um, These funds, the formula must require the county officials budget from revenues derived from county sources an amount equal to the revenue that would be raised by a levy of at least 3 mills.

02:37:57,030	So you have to budget that amount from whatever sources you have, you don’t have to necessarily levy 3 mills. You just have to have a budget up to what would be very important because according to this information at the end of 23, we’d control. Had 329,207.77. In the bank, so to speak.

02:38:23,330	So if you want to take that from the reserves and then if you have to levy another amount to equal what 3 mLs is, that will qualify for us getting these funds as long as you budget that amount, not necessarily levy that amount. OK, well, If the weed board, the last we board according to the state, did not even Apply for the lab, they just said.

02:38:48,800	Because we were close to we were short. Mhm. So that’s when we amended the budget this spring to bring it up and Get back into that program. I don’t know why they didn’t apply. Well, they didn’t come and talk to anybody as well the entire weed board budget.

02:39:13,700	is is Those are egg mills, by the way, what is an egg mill? I just had it here one second x 3. That’s what we need, you know. An egg male is approximately worth 175,644 x 30, I’m sorry, uh, Ag Ms worth approximately $175,644 times 3 would be uh 2 526,932.

02:39:46,070	So if you just put in a $30,000 buffer over the over the top of 3 mills. 530. Yes, the 5 they requested 556,556,000 is $30,000 over over the mill levy or the 3 mill. So it’s a $30,000 buffer. Yeah. Hate to say it, Chair, but it’s either that or the lab program.

02:40:18,630	No, I, I think there’s there’s money, I’m we’ve lost control of the state and all of this stuff, you know, basically. Yes, because they just have a budget because they just have a budget because they just have a budget for months. Chair. If, if the commission wants to because it says you have to budget the amount equal to 33 mLs.

02:40:41,000	So the difference between the $556,00011 and the 520 and the and last year’s levied amount last year’s budget, I should say, was 40 $2,174. And the difference would be $153 830 $153,837. I believe according to Julie concurs that you could use reserves. Well, to for that difference stay flat 24, and we commit. Because we know that there’s 329,000 sitting here. You have to because you’re not going to spend it.

02:41:09,930	I mean we know we’re not spending it. Yep, you’d have to budget the same amount, but buy it down with the reserves for the difference. OK, you have to remember though last year. We increased the budget. From the original. Well, we had to get over 5 $500,000 I believe.

02:41:34,600	And I think they were under, weren’t they weren’t they weren’t they weren’t they we didn’t actually look at what was set aside here either. Pardon me. We didn’t look at at what was what’s been set aside in the past, you know, I don’t, I don’t think we considered this 329,000. See, I don’t look at that because it says you have to.

02:41:58,570	Equal 3 Mills, we have to budget, budget is different than does it say you can use you have to budget that amount. It doesn’t say you have to levy or tax people for that amount. So, um, for further confirmation, if you go to the North Dakota Department of Agriculture website.

02:42:15,500	They actually have a site for this landowner assistance program and in there it says to be eligible to receive lap funds, weed boards must levy at least 3 mills for noxious weeds control or budget an amount equal to the revenue that could be. Raised by a levy of 3 mills.

02:42:30,930	So as long as you budget for that, if you have money in your reserves to cover that budget, you don’t have to levy the taxpayer for that money. You just have to budget that in your weed board budget an amount equal to those 3 mills. I would say that. We gotta use now.

02:42:54,100	Because this year’s budget, if we go if we go understanding is that’s what’s in reserve, right? If you could keep all conversations on the microphone for minutes, that would be appreciated. You are correct. I apologize. We were talking about fishing. Right. OK. You want that for the minutes, we can go for it. Um, no, what, what that, what that conversation was.

02:43:21,730	Um, It kind of had to do with the question about if measure 4 passes in November, do we really want to be taking money out of reserves any more than absolutely necessary moving forward. Well, my understanding is that 300,000 we’re talking about is unspent from last year’s budget, so that’s basically in your reserves right now and you just have to budget for that.

02:43:42,300	You just have to add that to your budget. It doesn’t mean you have to spend that. So if you’re basically committing those reserve funds to that budget, um, that would qualify for this landowner assistance program. You don’t necessarily have to spend all that money. You just have to budget for it.

02:43:59,130	So basically how would we put that in a motion Julie. How, how does that Or to make that happen. I was gonna say maybe the people, um, whatever the amount is, I think if you, um, if you make a motion to use the reserves that are in the unspent from this year’s budget for the weed board, um, for next year’s weed board along

02:44:22,000	with committing whatever the excess is to make it that. Equal to 3 mLs, um, that um, that um, that um, that um, that could um, that could be your motion, people tell you and Julie, tell me if I’m wrong and you guys tell me if I’m misunderstanding what you want.

02:44:43,370	So, last year’s budgeted amount was $402,174. That so that’s, that’s what was budgeted for last year, the amount that we currently have with the $30,000 buffer is $556,1556,011. So your motion could be. To Approve the budget as presented, but. To pay for the difference.

02:45:15,470	Between this year and last year out of reserves and to levy the exact same dollar amount like you said on the general fund as you did last year is that accurate we weed boards the weed out of 2970, whatever that is for the for the weed control budget correct so that’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about the overall general budget reserves we’re talking about just the weed control weed budget.

02:45:36,400	Yeah, this is, it’s its own budget. We have a target. 500 $30,000. Well, do you want 530 or do you want this 5555556. Just leave it submitted. The point is to have no tax increase to do it and still meet the need of the lap. Funding because that according to legal counsel, that will do that.

02:46:03,530	So can I get that motion? I would move that we approve the Weed control budget of $556,0011.35 utilizing 153,837 and 35 cents out of account number 2970 to balance that budget.

02:46:37,600	You did the math, so that’s where you come up with the dollars and cents on that we have to put in the amount of that and well, and, and if you, if it, I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same board. Thereby collecting the same dollar amount as last year. Correct. OK. All right, got, I think that gives me what I need so I can fulfill the requirements of the commission.

02:46:54,270	Right, so we’re clear on what it is. Yes, OK. I have a motion should work because. Agland went down. According to them, and we base ourselves off 3. Egg mills So we’re the same as last year, we should be OK.

02:47:21,030	Well, even if we’re not, there’s sufficient reserves in that 5970 to make up that little bit of a change anyways it’s not gonna hurt 297 29, yeah, yeah yeah I made the motion. Would you second it? Second, I’ll second yeah Second, is there any further discussion? Seeing no call, Comm. Woodcock, Comm. Munsen, yes, Comm. Bakken. Fisher Schwab, yes, Chaman Bittner. Yes, motion carries. OK, that, that took a while to get to that point, Mr.

02:47:52,270	Chair, I’ve got a quick one for you. Let’s go, uh, in the Missouri Valley complex fund. Uh We actually have a duplicate of line items between me and the um Extension office. We both have budgeted for 4H premiums of $3000. So I would remove that line item from the Missouri Valley Complex fund since it’s already in.

02:48:19,200	County agent’s budget. OK. That’s a motion. That’s a motion. Is there a second? Motion to second any further discussion. Seeing none call the, um, say again. Can’t we? take it out of our budget. It’s mostly for. It’s for the 4H folks. It’s a 4 extension.

02:48:46,800	It’s 4 for premiums and so we caught that after the preliminary and we emailed Mark that too. So you’re. Fine with it Yeah, it’s, it’s, it comes out of ours. It’s in ours we budget it for it’s it it was double. Yeah, whatever. I’m satisfied. OK, you got that? Um, you guys are going too quick for me. Give me 1 2nd.

02:49:11,870	If you don’t like this speed, you’re sure not going to like the next gear. I. Mr. Chair, go ahead, he’s ready. So can you, can you repeat your motion just so I, I just so I know exactly what’s going on. Sorry, I, I, I moved to remove the line item 4H premium. From the Missouri Valley complex budget. Of $3000.

02:49:47,070	And Woodcock’s seconded, correct? Yep. Very good. Thank you. OK, any further discussion? Comm. Munsen. Yes, Comm. Barken. Comm. Schwab, Comm. Woodcox, Chair Bittner, yes, motion carries. Mr. Chair, I have a quick question, um, since she’s still here, the, the Bertie County Golden Age Club. One of their line items for rent went from 1800 to 6300.

02:50:17,830	Any idea why that would be? Is that Is that uh Sterling. Whatever the Burley County Golden Age Club is. That’s Barb Knuts and signed it. That’s part of my budget. That’s included in then we should ask that question, why did it jump from 1800 to 6300 Let’s see, let me think a minute.

02:50:44,270	You can, you can, you don’t need to do it immediately, but I just questioned that amount. Yeah, they, um. We no longer have a meal site there. So this is a one year. Concession to help them pay the rent at the church until they can make alternative. Yeah I Right Um, in the early senior adults program.

02:51:22,130	OK No, I haven’t spent any time looking at it. Just the county agent. Has an increase. What what are we? And then I want to for sure talk about the uh water resource district as well. County agents on page 44. 44 OK, is it on this list simply because it was an increase over 24? On which list the agent.

02:52:13,400	Yeah, county agent on page 1 and 2 of the Part of the agenda packet. So, uh, it’s on this list because it is a budget that goes before this commission for its approval. Yeah. OK Because it doesn’t look like it’s much of an increase.

02:52:34,900	I mean we’re talking like $20,000 difference, right, yeah. It’s not going to get us anywhere. Yeah. Mr. Chair, Comm. question on the Heating system for the courthouse, yes. Now page. 11 and this may have been taken care of and I I failed to. We still have $1,740,000 in our budget. For county. Courthouse building and grounds.

02:53:32,600	Now, did we not decide to take reserves to pay for that heating, so that heating should come out of that 1740. That’s my, yes, that’s what I thought we did, but if we didn’t, we need to do that. I don’t recall that being a motion because I believe we have that money in. So the last page from the auditor.

02:53:59,200	Were the items that we had Voted on prior and it’s not listed there. Pro So and if I may, uh, Chair, that was a motion. The motion was made to use the county. A courthouse maintenance funds.

02:54:27,030	To buy down that that heating system, and I talked to the finance director, I believe we determined probably $1000 could be used out of that fund that wouldn’t mess with any of the other projects going on. If, if I’m correct, is that correct, Lee? But has that money been removed from your numbers when you’re adding up the 39. It has been removed from the dollars levied on property taxes.

02:54:47,130	Yes, it has not been removed from the budget because we have to budget for it if we’re going to spend it. OK, so that gets us to where that gets us to this, then I, I understand that because we have this sentence that says this equates to a decrease on a $300,000 home inside the city they went to $9.72.

02:55:04,330	home outside of city limits of $1.35 for a decrease of 0.72. If their values didn’t change. See if there was no nothing else changed with that home. Right, all the because we’ve had the whole discussion about all the variables, but yeah, yeah, well. OK, my, my question is though. In our budget We have $1,740,000 of expenditures.

02:55:33,600	You have to have that in the budget in order to spend it, but we’ve transferred then that money from the reserves to pay for it, OK, just just county courthouse Building reserves, not the I mean, we got to be kind of clear, you know, we’re which account that we’re we’re actually taking it from.

02:55:54,070	So if you’re if you’re using because in this case, the county courthouse, that’s why you have that money there, correct, to. Do those kind of big things, you know. OK, so then There doesn’t have to be other reductions in order to meet the goal of no tax increase on an average home that had no valuation increase.

02:56:16,500	Is that what I’m. Well, I think that in order to accomplish that, we definitely we need to take a peek here. And make sure on all these on every single one of these funds that the county commission can decide the budget on. Um, which is the general fund which the commission already decided to have a $0 levied increase.

02:56:36,700	Uh, the unorganized townships, that’s a, that’s a whole other thing, and that’s something that maybe Marcus could speak to better than I can, um, that’s, that’s the portion of this as well.

02:56:52,230	A road and bridge, which the county commission has made it very clear that they don’t, they want to collect the same dollar amount as they did last year. Uh, job development last year was at 0. Uh, county library, I believe, let me see here. County library is up or up $7000 from last year. Uh, there’s a senior citizens fund which you’ve already discussed. That’s up quite a bit.

02:57:20,500	Uh, as far as the budget amount goes, and then veteran services, which you’ve already discussed, uh, the county agent. Let me see here, county agent is they’re their budgeted amount is up. And we see here. And then the weed board. So just so that we were very clear on What the county commission wants to accomplish here.

02:57:41,800	It’d be good if we went through every single one of them, make sure that we’re all on the same page that every single thing that the county has a has a. As a choice in. That’s very clear so that every single one of those individual budgets is where this commission wants it to be. OK, so the, the general fund we’ve already made that decision. That’s correct. with unorganized townships.

02:58:15,930	Um, is we’re going to have to get there anyway because we’re going to be uh certifying the levy of the townships. Whereabouts are they here? Those are gonna be a miscellaneous consent budgets. It begins on page 48. OK. So these um unorganized county. Mill levies are based on the maximum middle levy of the.

02:59:05,600	Of the state, right? Uh, well, the, the, the amount, the amount that they receive in taxes is at 18 mils and I discussed that with the engineer to verify, we are leaving them at 18 mils. So what they received on their tax bill should be the same.

02:59:25,900	As it was last year as far as the unorganized townships, is that an accurate statement, Mr. Hall? Other than evaluation other than evaluations, yep, so they’re mill levy, again, we’re talking there’s a difference between a dollar. Amount and the mill levy. Their mill levy remains the same.

02:59:45,630	However, according to Burley County, if they want to receive Burley County services, they have to be at maximum levies of 18. As I was going through there, there’s just some strange thing, you know, one will be 43,000 and, uh, another one’s 64,000 and then another one is 915,000. And you know that it all just. Seems weird, but I don’t. I don’t know that I could recommend any change in the unorganized townships budgets.

03:00:13,400	Unless the commissioners feel, you know, because the goal has always been to to have them at the 18 mills that Road work gets done. Marcus OK So we’ll go on past road and bridge.

03:00:39,530	Um, is there anything you wanna add, Marcus, as far as road and bridge? Or anything you anything you want to talk about, not, not, don’t don’t add it wasn’t that don’t add it wasn’t that don’t add it wasn’t that don’t add it wasn’t that wasn’t the don’t add it wasn’t that wasn’t the don’t add it wasn’t that wasn’t the add it wasn’t that wasn’t the, uh, I don’t like this unless you have questions.

03:00:50,030	No, does anybody have any questions, um. OK. This one, job development. Gone and No, that’s they brought it back in this year. 480, that’s the membership 4000 or 80. I think we should cut it I really think you should cut it. Mr. Chair, Comm. Woodcock, as Comm.

03:01:26,230	Munsen recommended or mentioned, they were the big lead in in this. Sales tax. One that sales tax sales tax sales tax sales tax talk about. This is not the membership to to uh chamber, chamber we’re now we’re confusing two things here somehow I know that Account number 2802 is for the chamber for 100,000. OK. So how come does it say 80? OK.

03:01:58,030	That’s a different one, and I’m trying to find it, so that’s probably error on my part here instead of job development, what I should have said here is and that’s in the general fund. Um, the portion that we’re discussing, and that’s the uh Lewis and Clark Foundation. That’s the one that was cut from last year’s budget.

03:02:15,130	I think it’s listed in here under. On advertising, correct. So we’re so I guess you scratch job development. That’s the Lewis and Clark thing job development is the chamber that you scratch job development on your front sheet. And add in, put in county advertising, correct, because that’s the one we brought in back in.

03:02:40,770	After we eliminated it last year. And that’s the Lewis and Clark Development Group. Right, so it’s, it’s not I don’t think they helped us lobby for sales tax. I do What is the shrimp down there. Once a year I don’t know. No. They don’t do anything else because they’re a party. My opinion could. Mr.

03:03:07,530	Chair, then we have left in the budget the membership to Bzman Chamber of Commerce. But this is not that. No, no, but I just want to make sure that we don’t. What we are really, excuse me, what we really are talking about is county advertising, which is the Lewis and Clark Development Group.

03:03:33,070	What page is that page number 32. 32. OK, now There’s a note on this page that that the committee recommendation was 98,23498 but over here we’re talking about 80,000,760. What’s up with that? Let me pull it up here quick. Yeah Uh The initial request for me was 189 956. And the Budget Committee.

03:04:33,030	Uh, decided to only do half of that, which comes up to I have a different number than what’s on here too. So the amount requested, so the initial discussion. was for 2 years to pay for last year and for this year, correct.

03:04:54,730	And so what the commission chose at the preliminary budget was to take last year off, or I, I should say 2024’s budget, so this year off, which was at $91,721.16 but to remain to to leave next year’s on for consideration in the final budget and that’s where you get your $98,234.98. Chair, it’s the next page in your book is the letter from The Lewis and Clark.

03:05:21,470	What page are you on? 32, 80 to 32, 32, 32. OK, so now we’ve got a 3rd number thrown in here when in on this sheet here it says 80,000,760. So what’s that? Why is there a That, that would have been the amount that was levied. Let me see here.

03:06:16,400	Hm Yeah, I’d have to, I’d have to look into to see exactly where the 80,000,760 was. With that number, the amount levied to be levied that we see here for the approved preliminary budget is as follows. And so that would be 98,23498. We’re going the wrong direction there, guys.

03:06:52,830	What do you want to do? Anything on that one? So the the way we’ve got it set up now, we’re gonna pay the one we’ve missed or they missed we’re not gonna pay the one that messes just 25 yep. That was my recommend my recommendation was for both the budget committee, uh, voted to just do 25. Budget Yeah, I don’t support even doing it now. I don’t think it’s.

03:07:14,630	I think it’s lived out its usefulness. Do we need a motion to approve that or did we already, we have not made a motion on that one. I would move to approve the 98,23498. Yeah. The motion in a second. Who seconded. Well, you’re back, yeah. Where have you been? Yeah, it’s sketchy internet. I apologize.

03:07:48,230	I see and hear everything. I For some reason, I just can’t chime in every time. OK. Um, give you a motion seconding further discussion, seeing none call the rule. Comm. Bakken. Yes, Schwab, Comm. Woodcock, yes, Comm. Munsen, Sharon Bittner, no motion carries. Mr. Chair, for a second.

03:08:16,470	I’m trying to find the Cash balance in the F for the jail. Or the courthouse. What number is that account, uh, 2985. Thank you. Hm Plain and simple right there. Thank you. Part of that may be reserved for. For the JPA we have.

03:08:44,870	We appropriate so much money each year and that, so that’s why we came up with that odd and I know monitor had that number where it was. That was what was not. hasn’t been appropriated to that to that maintenance agreement. 2 times and I just needed to ask the question rather than. I OK, you’re comfortable with that? Yeah, yep. OK. A County Library. Not do anything with that, Mr.

03:09:12,970	Chair, that was one of my portfolios and I think there’s only 300 or $4000 difference and it went up a little bit and we went over every line item and I think it should be left the same. The motion Do we need a motion to do that? I saw. Motion secondary further discussion. See no call. I Mr. Schwab Woodcox. Yes, Comm. Munsen. Yes, Comm. Bakken.

03:09:43,530	Yes, Bentner. No. Just to be ordinary. Senior citizens, OK. Um, while you sat there, you have any other, anything you wanna add or, or subtract, and I shouldn’t use that word. So I went through the budget quickly, um, And if I I can cut back some projects.

03:10:12,000	When we did the budget this year, um, there’s a statement at the bottom that says October, November this year, we would prioritize what we were going to do based on what was available. Um, so I cut out, uh, 55,500 out of that.

03:10:35,870	Um, I can cut about 5000 from Wing, cut back on advertising, I think I can get to about 98,000 easily to cut, um, which would leave me about 8200 to shave off some other areas, so I could that would put us, um. So in 2024, our adopted budget was 1,273,175. Uh, this year it was 1,379 375 it’s $106,200 difference.

03:11:02,570	So I would have about $8200 to just shave off here and there to to get us back to last year. So give me, give me the final number again. Um, to be at last year’s budget, 10273175. It’s $106,200.

03:11:30,270	OK, now is, is that going to hurt the, like the wing you said cut wing by 8 they have um some money in there for projects and I know they do have some reserve funds, so I think they should still be able to do what they wanna do. Um, it’s only $5000 and then I can um just cut back on, on some things that we were planning on doing and push it to 26. OK. Um Mr. Chair, I can Mr. Munson, so you also have reserve funds.

03:11:52,100	According to this,, $722,000. So if there’s any Projects that have to be done. Can you use that? How does she go about that would be a budget amendment, um. Because then it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have to be a, a tax levy then, right, yep, but you can, you can.

03:12:13,970	You know, push comes into a pickle, I can come in and ask for the we don’t want to hurt grandma. Or, or grandpa. Oh, I’m not, I’m not trying to help grandpas at anything that had to do with the nutrition or health program whatsoever, so that I left alone.

03:12:38,570	So OK, so do you, did you? I want to submit a new budget then to you if you wouldn’t mind a new worksheet, but can you give me that number that you, uh, reduced it by at least right now. 106,200 OK. Oh, is there a motion moved. Take it. OK, we have a motion in a second to reduce the senior citizens by $1,106,200. Yes, you’re good. Further discussion.

03:13:03,130	I appreciate you doing that extra work on that. Now that that is a combination of. County and match. Right, that’s OK. OK, and, and, and, and is that uh if you don’t mind, uh, is that coming directly off of this budget worksheet that’s going to reduce it by $106,200.

03:13:27,100	Because I think that’s what our main focus here is what directly affects Burley County. And so how many of those dollars will come directly off this worksheet. And they asked me to do algeb tonight. I just wanna make sure the goal of the commission is realized. 106,200 is a combination of, of, uh, Projects. County and state match.

03:13:55,430	So if we look at last year’s, let me see, maybe I have it here just a minute. Um, Yeah, maybe I don’t. Let me look. I might have it here, OK? Let me go look. I need to, I need a bonfire for my paper. Not yet. Mm Hm I don’t have that number, so I’ll try to figure it out here quickly.

03:15:58,900	OK, thank you. OK. Um, Mr. Chair, while we’re that’s gonna be like. 106, what was that 106,210? 16, 106, 200. 106, 200 times. What, 80, 70, 45 times 0.875103. There’s some way to Cause you’re gonna lose 87.5 cents for every dollar. Mr. I got a quick question of Lee maybe. What is transfers out number on page $35,150,000.

03:16:48,370	What is that? It was 3350 and we reduced it to 150, but what, what does that go for? What page are you on? 35. So those are budgeted transfers from the general fund to um to provide for some other fund. I don’t, I don’t know specifically what they are, but it’s a budgeted.

03:17:07,630	Trans out. No, we’re not. We’re setting bill levies for that amount. No, that becomes part of our expenditures line in the in the general fund and so we either need to have reserves, other sources of revenue or revenue for those items we have some better way to do this. I just.

03:17:30,530	He’s talking on page 35 and I still haven’t found it. It’s right in front of road and bridge right in front of that. The big pages for You were talking about water resource. Budget, that was one of my portfolios. Um, It went up a little bit. It’s a balanced budget.

03:17:54,130	Uh, the main reason was, well, they have additional income of $50,000 which was investments on the reserves that they had drawing. Checking account interest, whatever that was and we transferred transferred it over to CDs, so uh that’s an additional $50,000 a year they’re taking in, uh, also the, the one line in expense that went up was projects and uh Mr.

03:18:14,100	Reap is not here, I don’t think, unless he’s hiding behind the pillar, but there is one project that they were going to do this this year that amounted to almost all the increase that they had. And I don’t know exactly what that that increase is what that budget is. I mean, I’m sorry, what the project is.

03:18:29,900	Other than that, everything else was pretty much the same, so where do we find that restart 47 and I was just back there. 2024 was 931,000 and 2025 is 1050, so it went up, uh. No, I got it right. But the one line item it says projects. 93,000 last year and 192 this year.

03:19:05,770	They, I forget exactly which one they were going up on, but it it was a. Project that they wanted to do, other everything else pretty much stayed the same. Their income went up. 50,000 because of the interest. Hm And everything else is pretty much the same.

03:19:34,070	You don’t think there’s room for any improvement in that then is that nothing that I could see. Mike Reap was, he’s the guru or one of the, one of their commissioners, very, very good, and very accurate, so he was the one that presented the budget and uh. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t need to have any changes.

03:20:00,570	OK, anything else? I was, I was looking through this thing over the weekend here and I came across where we, where we run into, um, we have one budget that’s just labeled supplies. And then we have every single department that has a supply budget.

03:20:19,930	And then I was reviewing bills today and there was some, a whole bunch of stuff that came out of supplies. So I guess my question was, are we not utilizing the supply budget within departments or what? I think that’s been a conversation that’s been had at this table before is if you want to consolidate everybody’s supplies into one budget or if we want to have individual departments have their own

03:20:39,100	supply budgets, um, when I made up that particular budget, when I put that one together, cause I did that one, I basically looked at what we were spending in prior years in that budget and to make sure that we’re keeping up with that if, if, if it needs to go up at all.

03:20:52,970	So when you, when you, when you did that, were you looking at? All the departments that had the supply budgets and putting them together in that one, or was that simply what I looked at is what specifically came out of that budget as far as the dollar amount and then made sure that we were at uh looked

03:21:14,330	into it, made sure, OK, is this something that we’re gonna continue to use or Or whatever, and so if that needs to go out individual departments supply budgets. If we have that one, is what I’m saying.

03:21:34,570	I would say that if that’s something that the commission wants to look at, they may, may, that may be something for next year because I would have to talk to every individual department to say, OK, what do you have in your supplies? What do you have budget for that, and then if the commission wants to put that all into one big fund. Or if you want to leave that in all different separate funds.

03:21:50,130	That’s up to the commission, I hear what you’re saying, but when I was reviewing the the bills today, it was, it was listed as supplies, not. Uh, not tax department supplies, not road department supplies. It was just. Indicating that it came out of the supplies.

03:22:16,330	Uh, Sure And And it was a kind of a number that I thought, well, that’s. Fairly close to what was in the book here for for the budget. So now I’m trying to figure out.

03:22:37,100	Um, You know, is that a legitimate thing or not, you know, we do, we do utilize that budget, uh, and I believe that several um departments utilizes it under my current understanding is several departments use it, so in their individual department. They can set it at a certain dollar amount and if it exceeds that, if it’s a higher dollar amount, it goes to this one, to my understanding, that’s something I can definitely follow up with the commission on.

03:22:52,700	And what I would recommend the commission doing just that we know that we’re all on the same page. Is whatever whatever decisions the commission makes at this point. Give them over to me and I will represent this to you. At the next meeting, so long is honored before October 7th, to make sure it’s where you guys want to be.

03:23:12,300	So that we can make sure that it’s all exactly where we want it. These aren’t very large numbers. The question just really had to do with. You know, Why would we have supplies in every budget just like computers, you know, we had computers in every budget, but we have a technology budget now that it’s all rolled into one.

03:23:29,030	Well, I’m, I’m not trying. I’m not in any way saying that people are abusing it or anything. That’s not the point absolutely and that’s I’m, I’m guessing that this is gonna be Munsen’s point is this we do the same thing with boat ramps.

03:23:44,300	Right, we have, we have one for boat ramps and then we have one for Steckle boat ramp and one for Kimble Bottoms, and these are considerations that the commission needs to decide, OK, do you want individual budgets for each boat ramp, and the same thing, do we want individual supply budgets for each department. So, or do we want to have them all, I tell you what I would suggest.

03:24:02,430	On that is that we make that an agenda item for the next department head. Meeting You guys do that and then you guys talk about it so that. You know, Mr. Chair, if I can. Last year during budget we also talked about doing the same thing for printers.

03:24:25,370	Because, you know, we have a lot of different printing contracts with different people, and I think that would be another item that should be under a central IT IT should be under a central contract with a central person, you know, the supplies should be the same thing. It should be a central contact, central person, one purchaser.

03:24:46,900	Then rather than each department because that’s going to lessen the tax dollars that we need if we have better purchasing power. OK, um. I would, I would like to see that also be part of the department head agenda, you know, department had meeting agendas if you know, the, the printers and the whole. You’ve been just dying to get up there.

03:25:12,370	I’ve been sitting back there just so Chair and commissioners. The copier and printer contract, that’s on the docket for next year for us to consolidate all of those. Um, the issue with the supplies budget, every department does have their own supplies budget.

03:25:34,830	It’s a, we need to define what should be coming out of the supplies budget, what should be coming out of contracts, what should be coming out of computer services. It seems each department is using those differently. So defining the chart of accounts is what we need to attain for next year’s process.

03:25:56,630	So how about if we just simply task the department heads with doing that these next department head meetings and To work towards that because I, I don’t think we’re able to sit here and and draw up what’s gonna work for the individual departments, Comm. Schwab. Uh When we got The new weed board put together new weed officer, I should say, went to work. We had to have printing done.

03:26:19,330	And it was recommended that he go down to printer A. And I come back and as the printing was $1600. So I told him, why don’t you go down there when next time you’re in town and go to printer B and see what it was. Less than half.

03:26:43,900	So I don’t want The weed department or the highway department stuff get into something where they’re gonna have to pay. 50% more or double the amount. That’s what I’m saying, but this is the actual figures. We got the figures and stuff and it wasn’t that big a job, but it was a very, very big difference.

03:27:05,030	You know, you kind of feel kind of good you go home and you save 70 to $800.01 day for the county, but that spread is there. How do we make sure that it It doesn’t happen like that when you outsource printing, they should be getting 2 or 3 quotes to make sure they’re getting the better deal instead of continually going to the same one because the prices do change. OK.

03:27:29,670	Where does that leave us? Anybody have anything additional, Comm. Woodcott? Well, while you figuring that out. On page 31, uh, I know we, I think we talked about this before, city recreation, 335,000 goes to the city parks. What is that for? And are we required, it’s 0.675 of the city ill.

03:27:50,130	Are we required to pay that? What is it? We are required. Due to the JPA that we talked about this last year. We can get out of it. With a year’s notice. Uh, Curly, 0675 cents of a city mail goes, has been going through the JPA to the uh partial powers agreement. The legal document that we’ve signed with them.

03:28:18,770	For that money goes to taking care of the boat docks along and and the the Some infrastructure along the river. In the city, in the city. And we talked about this last year. I know he did. I remember a lot of it we just have to give them that one year notice.

03:28:40,030	And we didn’t we didn’t do that. I think we should because what benefit do we get? We have our own park ramps, so they’re donating to us for our park cramps? They’re just taking care of it, but. Why are we paying for that though.

03:28:55,170	Yes Yes Yes, we do, yeah Yes, we do, yeah they’re not doing it put it on our agenda to uh. Reconsider cause that what what was our kind of our goal here to Cut tonight we still haven’t done the garrison diversion cut. We can’t do that. I was gonna look That’s $7000 for tonight’s meeting, though, but I’ll get to it.

03:29:23,770	Well, you know, it, it really, here’s the way I look at it, you know, we laugh at it, but it really isn’t funny. We talk about the senior centers the senior citizen. Center The veterans. All these other deals get cut. But whoa, not the garrison diversion who does the least in this county to help.

03:29:52,230	They have offices in Minot and down here and last year when I asked him how much canal did you drill, um, did you guys Uh, dig none. How much plate, you know, to Fargo, none. But they’re sure good at giving out grants and park equipment and stuff to validate. They’re like an old 50s vacuum cleaner. They don’t have power.

03:30:14,230	It should have been thrown away. But you keep it around because it’s just got enough power to suck money out of the taxpayer’s pocket. That’s all it is, but they’re useless and that I think we can get out, huh? That is a motion.

03:30:31,570	OK, well, but I mean, like you say, what are they gonna do to us? Well, you know, here’s the thing, you, you can, and I, I don’t have a problem with that. You could make the motion. Uh, to cut it. And if they, uh, subject to. State’s attorneys’ opinion, and that way if it, if it turns out that you can’t.

03:30:52,030	Then It could be back in, right? Could we do that? Because you don’t wanna, we don’t, we don’t want to take an action that gets us into, you know, well, add some publicity to it, I mean, at least we’ll, we’ll make people aware of the fact that we’re paying $700,000 for very little, uh, you’re absolutely right, Comm.

03:31:10,630	, the thing about it is 71 mil. I think they were put together in ’51, if I’m not mistaken, that garrison version started. And They’re taking $700,000 out of our county every year, and Morton County at 7. No Morin County is right across the river. They’re on the river.

03:31:39,430	They’re taking what do they So So I was, if you, if you want to go out on a limb here, I’m OK with doing that. If you, if you, if you wanna do a motion in a second. Now, as long as we got some wiggle room, um, in case we do end up.

03:31:57,030	Oh She doesn’t want emotion now she wants to do the research, I’ll say so move. Well, we, we can. We can’t do it, we can’t do it. Give us. I’ll second. Because that’s a, that’s a whole meal.

03:32:17,400	I mean, that’s, you know, yeah, well we’re sitting here fighting about, not fighting but trying to figure out budgets and like I said, it’s, it’s a shame that they, matter of fact, they can come in here tomorrow and say, hey, your budget, we want another meal. They can go up to 12 minutes. Maybe they’ll raise just stars. And the thing about it is there is our vets in our senior citizens and they do nothing.

03:32:36,330	Yeah I have a motion on the floor. All eyes are on you there. Yeah, so I’m reading it right now. It says any county in the conservancy district, not benefited or not to be benefited in whole or in part by the establishment of the Garretson diversion unit of the Missouri River Basin project, blah, blah.

03:32:58,430	Um, maybe be excluded from the district, the board of county commissioners of any such county may by resolution direct the county auditor and the Chair of the board to file with the board of directors of the conservancy District, a petition for and on behalf of the county requesting the board of directors of the district to exclude such counties.

03:33:15,570	They’re from certified copy of the resolution of the county board shall accompany and be filed with the petition. The petition and the resolution shall state specific reasons why such county will not be benefited by the establishment and development of the Garrison diversion unit, um, within 60 days of the data filing said resolution and petition for exclusion from the district

03:33:32,100	they shall meet to consider the petition. Um, and then, so I mean there’s, there are things that can be done. So I will put something together to put on the agenda for the next meeting so that you can we got it now. They’re not doing what they were intended to do anymore.

03:33:51,870	They’re off, like I said, fixing parks, playgrounds. Grants and There a um they vacuum up money for grants to validate their existence. That’s not what they were meant to do, but they’ve morphed into this thing that. OK, I’ll take 2. We sold. Um, what, what would be a motion that would accommodate that. Process because our next meeting.

03:34:19,630	With the the final budget has to be done by the next meeting. Buy before October 7th, yeah, and I believe it’s October October 7th, so we can’t really. We can petition, but we won’t, you’re not gonna get an answer in 2 weeks or 3 weeks and um.

03:34:44,830	So they’re supposed to do a budget, and adoption of an annual tax levy, and then the county editors, auditors, um, shall levy the tax and shall collect it and shall send it back. And so, um, I’m assuming I have to find that statue again. Here we go.

03:35:03,530	Um, The board has to hear the petition at a time and a place. Um, if after the hearing of the petition, the district board of directors shall determine the county requesting to be excluded, um, blah, blah, blah. Then they shall direct the Chair and secretary to execute an order of the board excluding such county from the conservancy district.

03:35:24,170	But if they don’t believe that, um, or if they decide the county will be benefited, it denies the petition and they execute an order refusing to exclude such county from the district. A county excluded shall not be liable for obligations thereof incurred after exclusion, but shall be liable for and shall pay to the district taxes levied before exclusion.

03:35:43,530	There you go. Go get them Yeah I think it probably don’t have any out on that for, for this year, but. You can probably um, Handle a motion to request that um a resolution to direct the county auditor and Chair of the board to file with the board of directors, a petition to exclude the county from the

03:36:11,770	garrison diversion conservancy. I can’t even say that word disct conservancy district. We got, we got a motion in a second on the table, so we better remove those first. What’s the I, I, I remember we don’t, I said that I.

03:36:31,100	Move that we, uh, no, I seconded your motion that we not pay it, that we not join. I don’t, I don’t think we can get away with that, guys. I, I want to remove that if we’re in once they’ve levied it, we are required by law to collect it.

03:36:48,630	If Yes, I know that, but until they say you’re out, you have to collect what they’ve levied and you have to give over what has been collected through that levy. So as of now because we’re still in there. You don’t really have a choice they’re in our pockets. I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it’ll go very far, I think you’re right, Mr. I think we need Mr.

03:37:08,330	I think we need I think the motion will be exactly what she said just not the motion to not pay a motion. I’m going to withdraw it and use her motion, OK, I’ll withdraw Mr. Chair, if I may, just a little bit of ketchup here.

03:37:27,430	I still have a motion in a second to remove $106,200 from the senior citizen’s budget. It was not acted upon yet. Right, we’re waiting on she was, she was gonna get the breakdown I just bring that up just to make sure you guys are still aware of that sitting out there we’re getting a little jumpy here, well, the motion for this other thing will need to be along the lines of what

03:37:45,130	Julie was saying for. Um, For the petition or the resolution to petition for exclusion. That was it. Let’s take this one first. OK, I’ll do that when we get done with this. We have, we have a motion a second on the table concerning your amount. The county portion of the reduction would be $56,640.

03:38:11,830	And the state match portion is $49,560 for a total of $10,600,200. Or reducing your budget just by the first month. The county portion is 56,640. OK. Well, I appreciate you doing that, and that is consistent with Keeping everything basically good and I will get a new, uh, worksheet done for you in motion.

03:38:43,330	OK, it’s gonna need a new motion or a clarification on the motion because the motion was for the entire amount, so you could modify the emotion. Modify the motion, not the. That was Munsen’s motion. I will modify my motion to the new numbers of 56. 6:40 and 49 560.

03:39:07,830	So the amount that come out of the Burleigh County budget this out of this budget sheet will be 56,640. OK. I am my motion to that. How about the 2nd. It was Woodcock was the second my second 2nd the new one, whatever we’re doing. He’ll do that. Appreciate your participation. Any further discussion. Gold rule Comm. Bakken. Yes, Mr Schwab, Comm. Woodcox, Comm.

03:39:43,630	Munen, Chair Betner. Yes, motion carries. Thanks again. I appreciate the effort on it. Um, I think that’s getting us kind of to the end here unless you wanna do the motion on the garrison diversion. Uh, they have to have Mr. Chair, going back to page 31 on the city recreation parks. I’ve moved that we uh.

03:40:10,370	Remove the $335,000 we donate to upkeep of the city parks. Second, Second 0, 2nd and the 3rd. Wonder how this vote’s going to go. The hard part is, is the JPA requires us to be in it for this year. For 12,025 we have a one year. Opt out, opt out.

03:40:37,330	We, we talked about that last year. That’s a one year opt out of the JPA. OK, we have a motion in a second to remove. The funding from the City recreation. Any further discussion. Well, if we can’t do it, we can’t do it. I mean, I, I would remove my motion and change it.

03:41:02,100	Just get we need to put it on the agenda. the next few meetings to go through the JPA. Well, we can, we can try. It’s crazy. We can’t cut these *** budgets. It makes absolutely no sense who’s who’s in charge here. We signed the agreement, you know, I didn’t sign anything.

03:41:23,600	And I see when an agreement is abused, Just like with the garrison diversion. Now I don’t know about this one, but when the time comes, we should be out of it. When we can get out, we get out.

03:41:44,400	Well, since we’re, I don’t know, Julie can there be a motion to Do something with that joint powers agreement at this point, or do want to, since we have a year to get out of that, we have until basically January, so I suggest you put it as an agenda item on the next meeting and discuss that. And then that way everybody has a year because we’re, you know, the.

03:42:04,670	If you put the out before January 2025, you’re out before January 2026, and therefore you shouldn’t have to budget for that in 2026. So I suggest you put that, like I said as a specific budget item, um, make a copy available in the budget packet so everybody has or not the budget packet, the meeting packet.

03:42:20,800	So everybody has a chance to look at that JPA and make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to continue it or not, OK, auditor that. Yeah, the next, for the next agenda, Mr. Chair, I think 335,000, what is there? Fox Island boat rap, the one by the bridge. And that one’s getting defunct.

03:42:44,600	So why are we spending $150,000 I bet they don’t put $150,000 in each boat. We are boat ramps, we don’t spend any kind, any kind of money that much money on heck no.

03:42:59,500	I just think it’s one of those things that you keep re-upping all the time and we don’t get a chance to analyze or we don’t analyze it, so let’s put it on the next agenda whenever we can. Leave it this way then. OK. Yeah Now where are we at? As you say, if you wanted to talk about that garrison diversion motion, so your resolution has to have specific reasons why the county will not be benefited from the establishment and development of the Garrison diversion unit.

03:43:20,130	So again, I suggest we put that on the meeting agenda for the next time is a specific line item so that way, uh, Mark and I can get together and maybe draft something up so that you have a resolution and, uh, draft of a petition to file and that way everybody’s again on the same page.

03:43:38,030	Regarding that as well we will in the meantime, I think part of the justifications could be we don’t get any water from you guys. Divert and garrison to us actually taking water away from us. True, they’re sucked up before it comes here. I suppose.

03:43:58,770	But anyway, that’s, I, I think it’s just a worthwhile effort to change that. What have we not covered then? Where are we at? What we get an update on what we’ve got. auditoronskowski, you got some kind of a summary. All right, so hopefully the finance director’s been keeping up too and maybe can verify and cross check these things.

03:44:20,230	So I’m gonna be working out this sheet right here. So if we want to go through it together. That way we’re going through it one at a time and and on the same. at the top it says preliminary budget of Burley County’s the one with the yellow on it, OK.

03:44:40,970	All right, so again, general fund, no, no, there’s been no changes to the general fund budget. The County Commission has chosen to do, to levy the same dollars as last year, and to buy down the difference with the general fund reserves and with the courthouse maintenance fund for that boiler. Next one down the appropriation for that is exactly the same. Next one down, appropriation for unorganized townships.

03:45:02,100	That was no change on that one. Appropriation for county road and bridge. That’s been already determined that The commission increased their budget to 2024 levels. However, the dollars collected will remain the same as last year and it will come up with some other miscellaneous revenues to cover that. So there’s been no changes tonight on that.

03:45:25,000	Appropriationway just just uh tax distribution is the same, special road and bridge fund that’s the same. Appropriation for job development, which is the Chamber of Commerce, that has remained the same, and that’s where that 80,760 comes from that that was on that main page. That’s where that number came from.

03:45:45,200	Although that, although we’re appropriating $100,000 for that, we have some leftover that was paid from last year, so we have to levy in property taxes that $80,760. There was no changes in that. Appropriation for county library. There’s been no changes for that.

03:46:06,070	Appropriation for special assessments, no changer for that, and that’s, that’s not, it doesn’t affect property taxes anyways that’s paid by the individual, uh, people who benefit from them. Appropriation for senior citizens, we reduced that by $56,640. So instead of 765,155 and I’ll just verify my matthew as we go. 765,155 Reduce that by 728,000, uh, I, I mean, let’s see here. One second. 765155 minus 56, 640. The amount we will levy. will be 7.

03:46:48,700	08 515 For $56,640 reduction to the amount levied in property taxes. And the and that so that that’s the first one. Or one of them Next one Uh, detention center commissary that stays the same 24/7 program stays the same. Communications center remains the same. Emergency fund remains the same. The next one, appropriation for veteran services.

03:47:15,330	So there’s been a $114,0219 reduction in that. So that’s gonna reduce the amount we levy. From 513,949 To 399 And 7:30, 399, 7:29 and 92 cents. So that’s gonna reduce that. Next one down, Missouri Valley Complex.

03:47:48,430	As you see here, that one doesn’t hit the property taxes because we have enough in reserves to cover in in that particular fund to cover itself, but we did reduce that by $3000. So the new amount budgeted for that particular line item is $189,400. That’s no effect on the property taxes. Uh, appropriation for county agent, there was no changes made. That’s 410362. Appropriation for the weed board. And so the the budget remained the same.

03:48:13,000	However, we’re going to be buying that down. With the reserves of in the weed board budget or in the Reed board reserves of $136,210 So the levy amount will go from 353 923. Minds that 136,210. The new levied amount, and this is strictly for the people outside the city of Bismarck. is $217,713. That’s the new levy amount for that one.

03:48:42,300	The next one down Water Resour district, no changes yet. Uh county parks that remain and, and a lot of these next ones, county parks, maintenance construction, canine, Mackenzie Hall Road, SEO. There is no line item for levy for property taxes on those ones. Preservation fund remains the same. Uh, sheriff’s Drug asset forfeiture remains the same.

03:49:03,770	State’s Attorney Dr asset forfeiture remains the same hazard as chemicals remains the same. Ru special assessments remains the same. State Medical Center remains the same, soil conservation remains the same. Garrison diversion remains the same, and capital improvement remains the same. So that’s where we’re at currently based on tonight’s decisions. Mr. Chair, Comm.

03:49:31,030	Woodcock back page appropriation for hazardous chemicals. Doesn’t that come under the weed board and they’ve got a line item for chemicals, big, big, is that, am I wrong? Is that for the weed board? I believe that’s out of emergency management has some uh Hm It’s under the emergency management budget. It’s one of our budgets.

03:49:53,330	It’s, um, in the entry code, it has to be a separate budget, but the businesses that carry a certain chemical and a certain quantity you have to pay a fee to the state of North Dakota. A percentage of that comes back to the county and then is distributed through our local emergency planning committee.

03:50:11,600	But it has to have a hazardous chemical component to it, so it’s a different kind of chemicals get it back that covers $5000. That’s uh there’s actually more in our budget than $5000. It rolls over from year to year. Um, we budget $5000 in expenditures in case we want to do more shelter in place brochures, educational items.

03:50:34,530	Things like that it has to have a hazardous chemical component. OK Thank you. There’s no levy for it. So how, how much more do we need to uh reduce the budget to Get to 0. Ballpark Reduce the budget or reduce the amount levied levied. I, I’m working on it. I’m getting a comparison between last year to this year right now. Mr.

03:51:35,230	Chair, what is what is BMDC Maintenance and Construction. What is it? Pardon me? Burly Morin detention detention center. OK. There are too many acronyms for me. Although I know what K9 program is. And another, another question, Mr. Chair, what is emergency fund appropriation 1.5 million. Is that every year we put 1.

03:52:45,530	54 million into reserves for emergencies that I don’t think that’s being levied. I think that’s what we have in there. And so it’s budgeted in case we need to spend it. Is that correct, Mary? Whose budget is that in? He marries Come on down. I do not have a $1.5 million emergency fund.

03:53:16,770	I have a $50,000 line item in my budget, um, that I believe is the county’s emergency fund. So who holds that? What, what department is it in? I don’t know if it’s under the auditors or? I believe that’s for like a water heater breaks and you can, if you don’t have the money in your budget, you pull it from there.

03:53:40,200	Um, it could be for disasters beyond my $50,000 line item in my budget, but that’s the county boards. I believe it can’t be spent until the county meets as a whole to decide it can be spent, but my question, my question to you’re probably not the right one to answer, but are we adding to that every year? Or is that just sitting there? I just

03:54:00,070	automatically assumed it interest? Is it drawing 5%? Who knows? Uh, did we do see some revenue last year. Um, actually this year 48,000. Uh $550. My punch is that interest. OK. I still, I didn’t get the. And we have, we have an account here for emergency management department. 2025 of 1,554.

03:54:50,430	Is that what the same thing you’re talking about. What page are you 57 Doesn’t that function is like an attachment to the res uh the general fund. 57’s emergency fund. But that’s not a fund that’s being levied. You’re not levying we’re not levying property taxes for that funder. I’m sorry, what? I’ve been trying to figure out where we’re at in our budget book.

03:55:43,030	Emergency fund for 1000. 5:54. Who controls it and is it drawing 4 or 5% interest? It is. I mean, I got 10,468,000. So if, if you look you can see the amount budgeted versus the amount spent.

03:56:09,230	Uh, I believe that’s just, I think Mary pretty much hit it and that’s the emergency fund that is at the commission’s discretion to use. I do not believe that we, as, as you see here, if you look through this, right. Are, are these, are these funds invested properly? I don’t know. Who do I ask? I’m, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. 4 numbers that is what I have there.

03:56:36,030	The, the emergency fund is, it is in money markets as far as I know. But who controls it? Who has the My hunch is the reason it’s being budgeted is so that we can use it if we can use it if we need it to.

03:56:56,300	That would be my guess, but there are no additional funds coming in every annually 50,000 other than interest, correct, we can levy under the century code up to, I think we could have something like 5 mLs in there if I remember correctly. No, no, maybe it’s more than that. Don’t quote me on that, but we can levy, we are not. We’re not doing anything, Comm.

03:57:11,730	Schwab, are you on that same page? Are you on? Page 57. OK, on the right hand side of that column where it says 2025 department head request. What number do you have there? What’s, what’s the dollar number in that? On the far right-hand corner of the 2025 budget budget. My budget book says 1,554.

03:57:48,570	My book is right Well, 3 of you are right and I’m wrong, but that’s what my. OK, so what is the actual number? What is the actual budget request for Because on this page, It matches my book. I have the 1,554. Well, you know the question here is. Every year though, I, I. Actual budget 000.

03:58:22,630	Money that’s When you look, you see this money’s sitting around, but it’s never been spent. That months ago. And there’s the cash balance. At the end of 23 in the emergency room. Mhm. Well, and here at the end of 9624 is 1.510053, so it’s increased interest, I suppose. It’s still less than what your book shows. Yeah. OK, well, I can’t believe that that didn’t.

03:59:11,900	Let me see that. Either way, if you look at your sheet here, we don’t levy for those. Right, but we’re what we’re concerned with is that we have accurate numbers on everybody’s book, you know, absolutely, and I’d have to look into that and and They’ve tried this number moved.

03:59:34,430	Up to this number, your number did not move up, it moved to that number. So they’re requesting. $90,000 more than they had. Who’s that? And why are we so there. OK, what’s the what’s the resolution without having a mill levy increased. Good question. Yeah. What’s the answer there, Auditor Sponsowski. That’s something I have to look into.

04:00:05,300	I was in the middle of getting finance director torn away from me while I was making this book, so I have to look back to see what’s going on. We’re gonna have to have a meeting before. October 7th That’s $90,000 right there they were. Going up for no reason, how, how is it going up? We’re not levying it.

04:00:31,970	Well, it’s $90,000 question. How much interest if you got, you know, I was, I was adding 5% on the last figure that’s not, it’s not because, you know, on the, on this one. Budget, or I mean not the budget, but the the cash balance on end. I um What was that number again? 2.

04:00:54,370	2910. Emergency fund, um, I’m only I’m showing 1.510053 30 September 6th, yes, yeah, so we couldn’t have got much more past that and whatever your number is you want to look further at that budget, the emergency fund in 20202 was 1.423, and then we spent 123,000 on something to to the next year, it went down.

04:01:24,930	So what did we spend the $123,000 on I don’t either. OK. Never mind. Is there any Is there anything else we want to to address now that we’ve found that. Mr. Chair, if we look, we haven’t looked at new employees because that’s one I’ve always concerned about is adding on another full-time employee because that’s every year it

04:01:54,770	repeats and repeats and pres uh. I know we’re getting some in the sheriff’s department, which I think is fine in the States attorneys is fine. Um, what are any others that we’re adding on employees to we had one has that been justified that we added one planning and zoning? Do they need it? Yes. Yes, I do.

04:02:19,500	I think, uh, Prove it. I’m at that point I’ll prove it. Why do we need another one, Comm., Comm., Mr. Chair, uh, we, we were looking for a new uh planning, um, Planner one in our department to help with the uh.

04:02:48,470	Planning and zoning zoning side of our business area with besides the uh building permits and the uh You know, The idea is that we are adopting the CRS program. And that is CRF is community rating system. OK, and it’s part of uh. FEMA Program that you have to adopt if you wanna if you have one part 10-15% discount to the Burleigh County residents who pay flood insurance.

04:03:14,430	So we’re devoting more time to that. I will be voting more time to that. It’s a, a more way more rigid program than the FEMA. Requires to be a part of that. We have a community cab visits every year. And we have a cab visit from FEMA every 5 years.

04:03:39,500	And it’s Quite a, quite a comprehensive uh program that they have. Do you have room? Do we have space, office space, uh, well, we could, yeah, we do, we could, we, you know, it’s. I mean, there’s our offices are our actual office space is fairly large, so we could. You know, maybe I don’t know, we, we haven’t really got to that point. We’re trying to get past.

04:03:58,730	Yeah, if we, if you guys approve it, yeah, that’s the idea. Have we got any other new employees coming on that I’ve been to this perused. 3 of the state’s attorneys, or in the sheriffs and the 4. In the one way A Commissioners, um, Chair Bittner and Comm.

04:04:35,430	Woodcox, those are the only new employees that we have and the county planner, um, with the addition of ordinances, which Mitch is doing more of than what we expected him to do and also the new additional duties that he’s taken on with the flood, um, information. There is need in that department.

04:04:57,370	For a planner and we can’t have Hit and miss. We’re a big county. We need to have formal planning. So we need to try and get a county planner. I can’t guarantee that we’ll get one, even if we have the position open, but We need that OK. OK, thank you. Uh, since you’re there.

04:05:19,470	How about Go to employee wages we’re projecting an 8% increase 22 steps with a 33 apiece, and 12% cost of living. And it’s that’s 8% across the board. Keep in mind that our, our pay grade and step structure has that arc. So it goes from 2.5% on a step one all the way up to 3.1% and it goes back down to 2.5%.

04:05:39,030	So it depends on what step each employee is in. So that 8.11 is actually 8.1 is actually an average. Not everybody’s getting an 8.1% increase. So how do we, how do we equate that to dollars that we’re levying? I Sent that information just one second I’ll get it. Pardon I didn’t see it. Oh, yes, I do.

04:06:10,200	I think I got it. Somewhere I guess the question is now is is that um all employees or minus the highway. That is all employees. OK, so it’s, it’s not the sheriff’s department, uh. Deputies that got the raise most recently and it’s. Or it includes, it includes everybody. It includes everybody.

04:06:38,230	Every employee except the county county Comm. did not get anything a raise, right? I can take you guys out if you don’t want to be there, but you guys are included in. No, we’re not. It’s, it’s 0. I saw that. Not that I’m complaining, I’m just picking on your own pace step and program.

04:06:56,900	You do know that the commissioners are not on the employee pay grade and STEP program. You have your own variation that I wanted to add I think that it’s not appropriate to take just recently gave a bump to um Uh Some county employees to to get them to an appropriate level and then now they’re trying to get everybody else to that appropriate level that would

04:07:17,300	give them an extra boost, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that it would. OK. So what’s the fair thing to do? So that all employees are at the same. Uh Same level playing field with. With this action. To bring everybody up to the same level playing field, we would have to take. The highway employees that received the two-step bomb.

04:07:44,330	And you’d have to Just give them the cost of living where the other highway employees that did not receive that and the rest of the county employees would get a two-step and the 2%. Right. Didn’t we recently do a thing with the sheriff’s department as well? For the. No, he did not.

04:08:09,030	We did a salary study and we found out that we’re low on the on the totem pole, um. Sure, I thought we did a salary increase though, Sheriff Lee did not want to go and do something just for the sheriff department, sheriff’s department because that would just be another department and then we’d have detention and

04:08:28,170	then we’d have the goal is to have everybody. You know, yeah, yeah, equitable or, or we don’t want a morale problem is what I’m saying. Right, so. You know, I think we want everybody treated the same. Go ahead, um, I guess these guys are lining up. They They They want here they come. Mr.

04:08:55,400	Chair, Commissioners, I think what you’re referring to, uh, Chair Bidner was that state funded money um for the retention and recruitment, um, effort. For statewide law enforcement every agency, um, across the state was considered for that and uh basically it was based on our numbers of staffing, so ultimately it ended up, um, when I approached you on this,

04:09:25,870	and we accepted that grant. It’s $1300 basically the high was 1300, and then it went down. Um, that was for the deputies and detention officers. Um, I told you at that meeting I wasn’t accepting it because I’m elected. I’m not hired.

04:09:50,530	And so basically we haven’t paid that out yet, um, and then I’ll be prepared to give you a report on that, um, you know, but what I can tell you now is that did not affect our staffing, um, you know, I don’t think it’s gonna be a positive thing.

04:10:13,430	Obviously it’s gonna help our employees, um, but it was a one time thing from state funding we will not expand any county dollars on that. OK, so. I appreciate the clarification. I thought we were doing something there, Marcus. Comm., I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page as far as this goes, you know, we had a specific problem that we had to deal with and and Comm.

04:10:31,570	Schwab, myself, HR, we all looked at what that problem was, and it was a salary as far as for our equipment operators and we compared those to other equipment operators throughout the area and stuff like that.

04:10:48,030	So what we did was a specific cure for a specific problem we have and, and it, it did help um where I wasn’t getting any applicants before now at least I’m getting 3 or 4 applicants. When we have an opening. I’m still having openings every 4 to 6 weeks. I have an opening come out on that.

04:11:07,530	Um, those people that we were comparing to when you come to January 1st, they’re all going to get raises, uh, the, the ones we compared to. So if you don’t actually implement and raise for the highway maintenance workers, uh, come January 1st, then all of a sudden we’re going to be back behind the eight ball again and 6 months, 9 months, some point in the future here.

04:11:26,000	I’m gonna have to come back to the board and state, uh, we’re short again now because of this patient structure that we didn’t follow through with, so. We, we solved a particular problem, and I just want us not to get back in that problem by doing something here, um, by not following through and treating all the employees the same throughout the county.

04:11:43,770	OK, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t want there to be some kind of misconception that leads to any sort of morale problem if Employees are thinking that those those other employees had some Benefit that they didn’t get. Comm., you’re absolutely correct that there could be morale problems. There’s morale problems different ways.

04:12:03,330	State’s attorney has paid more than a county engineer is paid more than a janitor and stuff. That’s just the nature of the game, the, the what we live in, we had seen an increase in our equipment operator’s costs, the cost of having them around.

04:12:21,970	So somehow we had to deal with that and that that’s how we did the salary increase for them in particular. I’m concerned about a morale. Going the other way. Uh, a morale problem if we don’t follow through and and also treat them the same as we’ve treated other employees within the county.

04:12:42,530	So, In, in our particular case, we did it halfway through the year, but many times we’re dealing with economic issues on employees, by the way we hire them and we hire them at not step one but at step 5 or step 6 right away. Those employees are getting increases also at the end of the year. So I just want to make sure we treat them all the same, so. What we’re trying to do. Go ahead, Comm.

04:12:58,830	Munsen and for Pam or for Marcus, so when you’re looking at market analysis of those operators. They’re currently within the the realms of what everybody else is getting paid. So what Marcus is saying is if we don’t increase those people today or January 1, they’re now going to be below market value again, OK, just wanted to clarify. Mr.

04:13:22,330	Chair, Comm. Woodcocks. Maybe explain to me, I know we’re, we are 2% cost of living. What if, what if we don’t do any steps at all? We just go to 5% cost of living across the board.

04:13:45,270	If you do a a cost of living only then then then you get paid compression in those steps, because that means that you’re gonna be hiring, you, you’ve hired somebody in 2024 out of step two. And then you’re hiring someone in 2025 at a step two. Pay compression. So the person that’s been there a year longer is being paid the same.

04:14:03,470	There was a time, I think it was when we went to the ark, where there wasn’t a pay step given, and you can see it especially in the detention center, we have pay compression. That eventually we’re going to have to deal with. Because we had people starting, didn’t get a pay st, and then we had to start people at a 2 or 3 just to get people.

04:14:21,070	So now we have people that are pay compressed. And that’s what happened with our highway maintenance workers too. So we tried to fix that and you can only fix that with steps because the cost of living isn’t gonna fix that. OK That’s the problem with the step program. Kelly Kills behind them. Mr. Chair, Comm.

04:14:47,230	, one other thing with the uh step and uh basically where I was supportive of this proposal. With the two steps and the 2% cost of living. So basically one of the things we run into is disciplinary situations. If we give a cost of living increase only. Every employee qualifies for that.

04:15:12,830	So we talk about a morale issue, we have employees in the department that were punished for misconduct, and if we do a a cost of living, they get the same raise as our overachievers, um, so the That increase is only gonna apply. To the people that have a satisfactory eval for the last year’s performance.

04:15:34,770	The other thing like PAMA tested to, um, so on, on our department, one of the things we’ve struggled with is hiring detention officers, so we have gone away from college requirement. We’ve gone away from, um, uh, Military service, prior experience, basically we’ll hire 18 year old high school graduate. Um, it’s surprising, um, how many young people we are hiring, and it’s working for us.

04:16:01,570	We increased our pool size, um, but we have seen in some instances we’re dealing with issues we wouldn’t have dealt with if people coming in with life experiences, but we’re willing to do that. We’re willing to do this to achieve our staffing, um. Results basically and so one of the things on the sheriff’s side.

04:16:24,900	For deputy sheriffs, we have a college requirement or um experience or military service. So if somebody comes in, let’s say they did 4 years in the Marines, um, we’re bringing them in at a 7-1 on the detention side, if somebody graduated at high school, we’re bringing them in at a 6-1. Um, so an entry level position.

04:16:48,900	Now, depending on what they bring to the table as far as experience and education, uh, we want to bring them in at a higher step. And so let’s say we have a detention officer that was a College graduate and served in the military, we’re probably gonna bring them in at a 62 or

04:17:06,570	63, um, which is a couple steps above minimum. The problem we run into though is if we don’t give steps, um, as far as compensation. Now some of our experienced employees are static, and we’re trying to bring new employees in. And we’re button up against them.

04:17:32,100	Again, another big morale issue because you have somebody with 3 years’ experience training a new person that’s making the same as them. But again, either that or you, you don’t reward them for the experience they’re bringing to you, and then now you’re struggling to get experienced people to come work for you.

04:17:57,330	It’s definitely not an easy solution, um, and I, and I will say this having been around for a long, long time, 34 years in the county. Um, the good thing about the step system is there’s a methodical method to move people through the pay grades. You know, when I first started, it was decided by the department head, uh, basically, the county would give the commission would give a pool of money.

04:18:20,700	Each department, um, you know, 2% merit, 2% cost of living, and then based on the salary of that department, the department had divided up the merit among the employees and some got more, some got less, but then you run in again, that becomes, you know, a morale issue if somebody thinks they didn’t get what they deserve, and then

04:18:45,770	they start questioning favoritism and that. Not an easy solution, um. I can tell you, Pam, and from my experience, the department heads do their best to manage this, um. And you know, the proposal we gave you, like I always say to you as a commission, I never want to back into a corner.

04:19:06,030	You got to make the tough final decisions, um, but the proposal we gave we thought was fair, um, from a employee standpoint, but also, um, the commission standpoint, if, if the numbers work. OK, thanks. So did we get a report on what we’re actually no, not yet, total what we reduced. Yeah, if you, if you’re ready.

04:19:38,100	We’re ready, man. So the difference between last year’s levied amount and this year’s levied amount. I, uh, so last year’s dollar levied amount at least in the areas that they can county can control was $26,831,247 right now we’re sitting at $27,224,81212 for a difference of 393,565.

04:20:12,330	Now the main difference, the, the main things that are increased is the library by $6300. Senior standard by 264,6 $82 and then the county agent, this is the the amount that would be have to be levied by property taxes of $148,742. Now the county agent, that’s one that their budget didn’t go up that much, but last year they had a lot of resources to put towards that.

04:20:32,770	I do not know if that was a decision of the commission to buy it down or what happened, it would take more research to know what happened there, but they have a higher amount of resources that was used to offset the amount that was levied. So those are the three, the 3 main ones that’s.

04:20:50,200	Pushing you, so you’re at $393,000. Higher than last year’s as far as the dollar amount to be levied in property taxes. Not bad. Yeah. 393, that’s less than the 700 for the for the uh carrison diversion. Yeah You’re not gonna get this thing perfect unless we can get the garrison version out of there. 700,000 there. Make my day.

04:21:26,500	Yeah, that, that would be a good, so we would have to come up with how much to uh out of out of general fund reserves to make it a zero increase, 300 and something. 393 565. OK. Mr. Chair, do you need a motion on the, the salary? Step and Um, cola.

04:22:01,270	Or did we approve that? We only approved that for the preliminary preliminary budget, I think, um, I don’t think, I don’t, I don’t think it would matter if there was a motion or not, but we could have a motion to. Um, are, um, I think if we’re approving the budget we’re approving the.

04:22:24,270	Oh, sure, anyway, Pam just gave us a bunch of options to choose from and so I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be very specific as to which line she. OK, do you have a, your opinion? I don’t have it in front of me. Are you? I would move that uh we approved the two-pa step plus 2 cola.

04:22:41,530	Uh, for staff moving into 2025. 2% 2% cola, 2, yeah, 2 steps plus 2% cola. Second, OK, we have a motion a second to approve the two step plus the 2% cost of living allowance for The next budget cycle any further discussion? I have a question. Go ahead, Comm. Schwab.

04:23:09,570	What about the people? That Say you give Two steps to this group of people here in the department. But last year, They got one step. I don’t know if this has happened. And now this year, the ones that had one surrogate and 2 steps, and the other one isn’t getting a step they’re not gonna be even. All that No.

04:23:30,470	Under what scenario would that happen, because the only way that you would not, Pam will tell you, but it’s the only way you didn’t get a step is if you didn’t have the merit raise, right? Yeah, the only way that you wouldn’t get it wouldn’t have received a stamp. Um, is if you had disciplinary action.

04:23:45,030	Or if the commission decided they were just going to do a cost of living and no pay stamp. That answer your question? I thought the highway department. There was some I know there were 2 steps. Last year for some employees up there. Didn’t some get one step.

04:24:13,100	Some got one step because we only did a certain level of employees for that adjustment for two steps. So not every highway employee got two steps. Some only got the one step. So the ones they only got one step, you get 2 steps, which would give them 3, and the one that got 2 steps, you get 1 step which you give them 3 to even it up.

04:24:29,300	That’s what I’m saying. So, well, that’s kind of why I brought that up earlier because I don’t want there to be a morale problems was an adjustment. The pay steps were an actual adjustment for the market. So that we could get Equipment operators. Because the new CDL requirements, equipment operators are harder to find and they’re worth more money.

04:24:53,630	Oh Well, as long as you can assure me it’s not going to cause morale problem. They would cause more morale problems to start messing with people’s stuffs and within a department. And there’s no A further discussion call roll. Comm. Schwab. Yes, Chris Woodcox, Comm. Munen, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Charon Bittner, motion carries.

04:25:24,730	I think we’re down to the list and list uh anybody else has anything else to add. I think we’re down to the part of asking for a motion to approve, go ahead. I know it’s 9:30 and I certainly don’t want to be here much later.

04:25:42,830	But As we started talking about no property tax increases and that’s what our whole goal has been as we work towards. When I was doing the research last week. Um, I, I picked a property that was. Not on the tax rolls in 21. was being built in 22. Or 22, 23, and now 24, so it went from 0 to 350 to 1.6 million. Those new builds.

04:26:09,500	That are in the midstream right now of. Getting a new property valuation. Are we still saying that they’re gonna have no property tax increase. From their last year’s statement? OK. So, so that’s jump right on that one.

04:26:35,170	Well, I, I just want to make sure cause, cause we talk about this, but then we have these brand new builds, you know, the point is, is no tax increase assuming you stayed the same flat, you know, I mean if, if in my case, and that happened. My property valuations went up because I purchased additional land and and.

04:26:56,970	My values went up and we lost so I expect from the person you bought it from, so we’re getting it from you, yeah, and and so I, I expected an increase in my taxes because I know my valuations went up, but E, go ahead, Chair, uh, yes, that’s. That is correct.

04:27:16,770	Um, you know, any one individual property, we can’t target and say they’re not getting a tax increase. So when you’re talking no tax increases at this table and for the people that are listening at home. We’re talking about no tax increases of levied dollars total. So the spread is how we determine who pays what taxes. So as residential properties continue to climb through the market, there is residential properties that see an increase.

04:27:37,300	Including those that are just being built so they will get that, we will get that dollar amount in levy applied to theirs property for what we need to collect that money and that’s how that spread happens. Well, I appreciate the explanation because it’s gonna come out.

04:27:57,170	When the actual bills come out and now that Al’s explained that, I, I appreciate that. Yeah, I, I think that as a commission we’ve done everything that we could to reduce wherever we could. I mean, I’d love to reduce more, but I don’t. I don’t know where we could uh. Pinch that penny anymore. Mr. Chair, I will move to approve the.

04:28:21,900	Sorry? In in the right order, if you wouldn’t mind. The motion, the, the first motion would be to approve. The appropriate or maximum mill levies for the unorganized townships just trying to pull all that up so I had all the right. All right. So So Yes Yeah They do.

04:29:02,970	See where we’re at, so we’re asking for a I’m asking for a motion to approve the levies for the unorganized townships. So the commission, um, you’ll have to actually, uh. You ought to convene as the board for the unorganized townships. That’s a good point. You have to recess and then reconvene or recess as the uh.

04:29:29,100	As the Burleigh County Commission and will Convene as the unorganized township board officers. OK. And Are you looking for a motion that we have the maximum meal levy overall. Oh Yeah. Comm. Schwab. Comm. Woodcock, Comm. Munsen here Cham Bentner not here anymore. I’m here. OK, it’s been a long day. OK, now. The motion to approve.

04:30:08,930	Are we adjourning or We are sitting as the Uh Unorganized townships board of supervisors right now. And if we hurry up, then I can adjourn that and. What do we need to do a motion to approve the mill levies from the unorganized township OK 2. OK, we have a motion the second to approve the appropriate new levies is is in the packet.

04:30:34,770	For the unorganized townships any further discussions, please call the roll. Comm. Schwab, Minister Woodcox, Comm. Munsen, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Bittner, motion carries. Any further business for the unorganized townships, if not, we’ll adjourn as the unorganized township board of supervisors and reconvene as the Burleigh County Board of Commissioners.

04:31:00,200	Do we need a roll call on that too? Call a roll please, Comm. Schwab. Woodcock, Comm. Munen, Comm. Bakken. Yes, Chain Bittner here. Still, OK, uh, another thing left is a motion to adopt 2025 final budget and appropriate 2024 Mill levies commissioners, so I moved. Second, motion a 2nd to it adopt 2025 final budget and appropriate 2024 mill levies. Any further discussion, Mr.

04:31:34,500	Chair, Comm.. Whatever we, whatever we under. Levied will be picked up by the general fund reserves, is that correct? Correct that 30 and that was not a motion that was made. I need that. I’m gonna need that in the motion to clarify exactly that that’s what the commission wants. I didn’t make the motion.

04:31:59,830	You made the motion, so. The motion will need to include. Utilizing general uh reserve funds to Subsidize or pick up the difference between. Uh, last year’s mill levy and this year’s 270224.

04:32:27,500	And that is what amount then that was at 300393, but I didn’t write down the pennies, and, and that, so do you want that applied to the senior citizen center and the county agent specific budgets for for that amount of 393 565 for the difference. I don’t think it matters which exact one it gets applied to is just overall. OK, yeah, I mean, whatever. All right, so you want the 33393 565 to be applied.

04:32:50,470	To the budget to make sure as needed to make sure it’s the same amount as last year. OK. That is my amended motion. We’re good. I believe so. Second that too. OK. Everybody understand what we’re doing there? Any further discussion? Comm. Chair, yes, go ahead. I just had him call the question, but go ahead, uh, just. Uh, yeah, I just, uh.

04:33:21,300	I want to reiterate the the. To County residents that uh this central central assessing issue. And the timeliness is something that we are. Going to continue to look at and address for next year, um, that is. Something that needs to get done.

04:33:47,500	With the help of our local legislators and on the state side, but it is something that we will keep our focus on. Thanks. I appreciate that input, Comm.. Any further discussion? Call the rule. Comm. Munsen. Comm. Bakken. Yes, Schwab. Comm. Woodcox Charon Bittner, motion carries. Any, uh, Any other business for the good of Burleigh County. Anybody in the audience have anything Comm. before everybody leaves, get out and vote.

04:34:20,230	It’s on, what is it, a month away? 4 weeks from today. Am I correct? for tomorrow, vote, vote, everybody get a chance to vote, get out and vote absentee absentee for to vote once. Don’t say that. Uh voter often for Steve Bach and anybody from Summit here. No, Steve. No Steve. I do thank you, Comm.. Thank you.

04:34:50,500	Thank you, Comm. Schwab. I do have one follow up with this. It was uh. pointed out and uh through a working group with the public Service Commission, and we’ve brought into question, I believe you brought it up last commission meeting, Comm. Schwab, uh, concerning, uh, some of summit’s, uh, investment.

04:35:16,270	Um, and we’d been asking about, well, why isn’t the state, especially at the legislature, followed or uh. Had done a uh some legislation concerning a foreign adversary and investment in North Dakota. Um, It’s come to my attention that the state. Or The Public Service Commission, they say it’s not in their purview. However, who can ask for that? I cities or counties.

04:35:43,300	can ask for an investigation of foreign investment into. Uh Foreign entities on investments in North Dakota projects, so. Upon my return, I will be meeting with the Our state’s attorney to Clarify that a little bit further and get that in motion, um.

04:36:12,230	And Julie, if you’re still online, it is a century code 47-01-09 that we’ll be visiting about. Yes, I think we talked about that a while back and sent in a letter and then sent in a follow-up letter. After the statute took effect.

04:36:30,300	And we still haven’t received anything back on that, correct? I haven’t heard anything or seen anything, so we’ll have to follow up on it because it’s already, we’ve already put it in motion. We just need to follow up on it and see where it’s at. Mm OK. Anything else