00:00:03,270	The chaplain, please. Welcome. Thank you. You got it. Let’s stand as we pray and then we’ll do the pledge. Heavenly Father, we just come before you tonight as we, uh, start this meeting. Uh, so often we, uh, we started it with uh really needing uh your, your help and, and your wisdom.

00:00:26,900	And, uh, so many things that is talked about tonight, our agenda is full of so many things and uh. Mostly our mind is on the incredible weather that we have outside and we, we thank you for that.

00:00:42,300	I pray that you’ll, uh, uh, Cause people to be smart in a way that they uh use their fires and and so many things because uh with the, with all that stuff, it just spread so quick, uh, protect those firefighters out there that are just waiting. Uh, for that next one to happen, uh, be with these commissioners tonight and, uh, guide us and everything.

00:00:57,400	We do this name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. 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. OK Coy lead board here on the. Yes, sir.

00:01:27,730	Uh, welcome to the Tom Baker Room, uh, for the meeting of the county we board. Uh, please, uh, call the roll. Comm Woodcox. Here, Comm Munson, here, Comm Bakken here, Comm Schwab, here, Comm Bitner, Chair Bakken here, uh, first up, approval of the agenda. Move to proof motion 2nd.

00:01:53,300	Any further discussion? You’re gonna call the roll please, Comm Munson. Yes. Comm Bitner? Yes. Comm Schwab? Yes. Comm Woodcox. Yes. Chair Bakken. Yes, motion carried. Uh, next up, consideration of the January 21st, 2025, we board minutes. Move to approve. Motion 2. Further discussion. Hearing none, call the roll please, Comm Bitner. Yes, Comm Schwab, Yes, Comm Woodcox. Yes.

00:02:17,300	Comm Munson, Chair Bakken. Yes, motion carried. Next item up, uh, are weed officer. Officer Johnson. Good evening. Uh, we board members, Chair Bakken and I just thought I’d drop in tonight and just do a little bit of an update, uh, that’s why it’s called the update.

00:02:37,030	Uh, I’m just gonna jus through a little bit here. Um, the forms for the self-application, that’s the chemical sales, uh, been, I started last Thursday on the first, had a few people show up there, but I’m getting a lot more applications in. Um, the contract spray is also coming in. A lot of interested people this year so far.

00:02:56,470	Um, I just want people out there to know too that they can get the forms at Burleigh.gov, down at the NDSU extension office on the expressway and also of the highway, uh, County Highway building, they’re right by the front door out there. Um, getting a few calls, like I said, uh.

00:03:14,900	We’re what the, what we’re doing here this year is milestone in High Noon are the two chemicals going out there, um, I ordered in some high noon in 1 gallon instead of just the 2 5s that we use for the main Coy right of ways.

00:03:31,000	And uh a lot of interest in that because it’s covering a a lot more of a, a wider spectrum of, uh, weeds for the, for the county. Um, here in the near future around the 19th is uh spray sink will be coming out that, uh, Spray Spray sink system was purchased in 2023.

00:03:49,670	Got it, getting it put in our county roads, so we’re going to be able to map out everything for NDDA. They want to get a whole statewide type thing. There’s There’s still a few counties that don’t use the spray sink or mapping.

00:04:06,870	They still use the old paper books and such like that, but we’re gonna fit in and get, be a part of NDDA there, so it’ll make it look a lot better for us and for the county. Um Let’s see, like I said, I started selling chemical on last Thursday, and I’ll be selling through June 26th. Um, on the Thursdays from 11 to 1.

00:04:26,500	Uh, and then also I talked to our inspector Derek Wall, and he, uh, I’m having him come out to go to the distribution center. I bought some new signs for there because the other ones were just kind of weather checky already from just last year.

00:04:46,300	And um I’m gonna have him come out, go through the distribution center, so I know that everything, everything is up to snuff, but I want him, I want his authority to say yes, it is. Also, when spray sink comes out to, uh, install the the systems in the pickups. I’m going to have Derek come out.

00:05:06,570	And our sprayers are going to be there, so they just do a mock uh inspection, so when they’re out on the road, if he does stop them, They have an idea of what’s going on. They’re not all worried about what’s, you know, what they don’t have or what they should have and all that kind of stuff. So make it a little easier on them. Let’s see here.

00:05:22,630	And then, uh, uh, we got the contract signed here the other day through, uh, for NDDOT, um, and I gave a copy. Ah, to Greenhead Springs, so he needs that for know what what’s, you know, what they’re expecting of him out along the state highways.

00:05:41,470	Also, there’s a dollar amount, um, that they’re up to, that’s that they want. They’re willing to spend or have a, a budget of 30,000 to do the state, but if it gets about 20, 25,000 if we get that much into it, that’s when they need me to contact them and let them know that they’re starting to run lower

00:05:57,830	on funds, so, um, but yeah, they’re, they’re really nice to work with. And then, um, yeah, just, that’s about all I got, um, other than just looking forward to get, get through the spring season and get the year under my belt here, so, so Darren capacity wise, are we back to where we should be now

00:06:17,030	as far as being able to. The DOT and all stuff and, yeah, the two people that’ll be doing the right of ways in the state highways. It’s kind of how we’re, I, I, I feel that, uh, uh, Greenhead will be doing. They got the 2 trucks.

00:06:34,170	For the roads are right of ways in the state highways with a backup, but Chris is also doing, you know, he’ll be doing our gravel pits, and then he’s got other jobs that he goes out and does too. So, but yeah, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll be good.

00:06:51,170	Yeah, cause they’re, they were with fertilon with Chris, there were OI last year. They’re dependable people. Thank you. Uh, any questions for Darren? Anything else to add? I don’t believe so. All right, thank you. Keep up the good work. Do you have any questions, feel free to call me. Absolutely. All right, thank you, gentlemen.

00:07:09,470	Without the weed board is now Adjourned.

00:07:20,300	OK, I’ll call the May 5th, 2025 meeting of the members. Comm Munson. Here, Comm Bakken here, Comm Schwab here, Comm Woodcox here, Chair Bitner here. Next approval of the agenda, um, any changes or additions or anything from anybody there? Move to approve. Second. Motion is second to approve any further discussion, seeing none call. Comm Bakken? Yes, Comm Schwab. Yes. Comm Woodcox. Yes, Comm Munson. Yes.

00:07:44,130	Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carries. Next, consideration of the April 21, 2025 meeting minutes and bills. I looked at the bills and at the minutes. And I moved to approve them second OK to me. Second motion is 2nd to approve the meeting minutes and bills. Any further discussion? I see none.

00:08:11,800	Uh, Comm Munson, right, Comm Bakken. Comm Schwab, Comm Woodcox, Chair Bitner, yes, motion carries. Next is consent agenda. We got abatement, special use permits, special event liquor permit, accepting player right away in a second access permit. Any commissioners want to pull anything off that consent agenda for discussion. If not, move to approve.

00:08:32,530	Second, motion is 2nd to approve the consent agenda. Any further discussion? See noncul. Comm Woodcox. Yes. Comm Munson. Yes. Comm Bakken. Yes, Comm Schwab. Yes. Yes, motion carries. OK. Burleigh County parking lot transfer. That’s not exactly what, what this, uh, discussion was about.

00:08:56,630	I had a conversation with the finance department. And at one point, um, We had made it, we had made a decision to sell the parking lot and as part of that, there was some funding that was, um, Sitting in an account.

00:09:17,900	That I really didn’t have a, have a use for it, and somehow or another, and I’d like Lee to give us a little more details on that, but what, what we ended up with is essentially uh in non-sufficient funds situation, um. Because of some transfers with within this fund, uh, Taylor. Yeah, sorry, yeah, I just kind of was the one who dug into this.

00:09:36,730	So just to kind of recap last year, it was, it was, we had received some bills for some specials. Um, I think it was 91,000, totally unrelated to the parking lot fund, I think, I don’t want to speak for the county auditor, I think they just came up with this source of funds, like you said, it was this parking lot

00:09:49,570	fund that we had sold the parking lot, didn’t need the the fund anymore. The issue with with how it was presented. It was presented as a transfer of the 2024 budget, which was 70,000, and there was some back and forth about where that 21,000 would come from and it was made clear, I guess, that

00:10:06,030	there was 2023 budget that was unused that rolled into the general fund and that’s, that’s not true for a parking lot fund because it’s, it’s a special revenue fund, which is like a savings account.

00:10:21,570	So whatever gets unused in their rolls forward to the next year within that same fund, and so essentially in 2023, we had no, no expenses in the fund and but the budget of 70,000 in that fund was just funded with reserves.

00:10:33,530	So then in 2024, we, we funded the budget with the same pool of reserves, so just the same pool of money rolling forward from year to year and so it’s kind of like we double counted that money and that left us about 21,000 with negative cash, and then it was also the way it was handled, where rather than a transfer the expenses were just recorded in the parking lot fund.

00:10:48,370	And so that’s now the parking lot fund has negative cash, and I know the last piece of the Um, Commission action was to close the fund, but we can’t close it with the negative cash.

00:10:59,030	So to fix it, we need to kind of transfer money from the general fund into the parking lot fund so that it brings it back up to a zero balance so we can close that fund. Bless you. OK. It’s the most obvious question then is, like it was at the time, it was, where’s the additional funding supposed to come from to cover the non-sufficient funds or the negative cash balance.

00:11:24,570	Did you have any suggestions on that? There nothing that we could see because I know, you know, I know in this case we were closing a fund that wasn’t used and so you can’t, you’re not supposed to really transfer money out of special revenue funds unless you’re closing the fund or unless you’re, you know,

00:11:35,900	reimbursing yourself for an expense that should have been in that fund. And so in this case, it was just there was, we’re we’re missing 20,000 of funding, so it’ll have to be general fund reserves unless some other source of funds was available that I’m not aware of.

00:11:51,670	I wonder if, if, if the auditor would have some kind of suggestions on, on that, because I think that there was To Accounting transactions that listed that as, if I remember right, as parking fees rather than specials or or something.

00:12:11,500	Yeah, that’s how, how it should have been done was was those, like I said, those were specials on and the bills are in your packet. I think it was the courthouse, the Provident Building, some other rural county property, so that should be recorded in the general fund as as special assessments, but instead they were recorded in the parking lot fund rather than transfer money out of the

00:12:24,470	parking lot fund. And they were split between two years, and I’m not, I. The boy who did it doesn’t work here anymore, so I’m not sure why it was split between two years, but what that then did was it, it. Cause again, that 23 budget was originally unused, so it rolled into 24 to fund that.

00:12:38,000	Well, then we used all of 23, so there was nothing left to use for 24, so it was that about as of today it’s 20,330 bucks that are negative in that fund. So, if I remember right, that was a February meeting. Yeah, February I don’t remember Is it normal to go backdate? Things into 2023 2024. Not typically.

00:13:02,270	There’s, there’s certain rules where within that 60 day window, if it was 23 activity, you know, if we had. You know, done something or or someone did services for us in December and for whatever reason we didn’t get the bill until February, we can put it back in that previous year.

00:13:16,130	But in this case, and I’m not sure exactly what year you would have put it in, you know, I know, I know, you know, taxes are paid in arrears, but we should not have split it between two years, no matter how we did it, so. OK.

00:13:34,730	Well A responseskowski, do you have, do you have a, uh, some suggestions or an explanation on that. Yeah, so, um, probably what, what should have happened was we should have transferred those funds like Taylor was saying over to the special assessments, um, GL and then pay that out of there.

00:13:51,470	I was reviewing those, those emails that you sent me and um I can’t say how things happened uh back then, I can’t say why they were done that way. They should have been done to, to my knowledge, they should have been transferred from that parking lot fund over to Special assessments account and then from the special assessments account, they should have been paid.

00:14:07,900	So, um, we should probably look at that with the balance of that special assessments account that we have for such things, um, we want to go ahead and pay those specials off so we didn’t have to pay any interest on it, so, uh, probably what I would do is, uh, speak with Lee and Taylor, look at what the balance of that particular account is, and go ahead and make that square.

00:14:25,500	Well, I think we just heard that the balance is overdrawn in the parking lot fund, yeah. I’m not sure the specials. I’m not sure about the specials. OK, let’s leave that item on the agenda for the next meeting and um. You guys will come up with a suggestion for how to Resolve that, right? Yeah. OK. Thanks.

00:14:43,930	Thank you. OK, primary residence credit. Well We recently had a problem with or we had a situation with the primary residences credit where we received primary residence credit from the state of North Dakota on March 28th and then state law says that that money needs to be Distributed to all the other taxing entities, the political subdivisions, the

00:15:12,470	cities, townships, park districts and whatnot within 14 days. And I understand it was late April, um, by the time that got done, so I was hoping for an update from the auditor on the status of the primary residence credit and the apportionment to The other, uh, political subdivisions and then

00:15:32,870	it was further kind of complicated because the 10.7 million that we received on the 28th. Ended up gathering interest and so the question was, um, and I, and I contacted and consulted with the state’s attorney about that is, is how do we handle that interest then next.

00:15:55,370	And so, you know, her, her recommendation, and I concur with it, was that the interest that was accrued during that period of time should be a apportioned the same as the tax.

00:16:17,100	Um, that earned that interest, and so that we’re all up to date on that, um, auditor Swanskowski, you wanna weigh in on that? Yes, Chair and Commissioners, thank you very much, uh, so, uh, as of right now, the apportionment has been done. The political subdivisions have received their funds. We cut checks to the mobile homes who, uh, who, uh, deserved our, our required repayment on that particular uh primary residence credit.

00:16:35,200	Uh, so a little bit of quick background as you see in your packet, uh, Chair Bitner requested that I put the emails regarding this in the packet, which I did, which is well over 100 pages. Uh, there’s a lot of discussion going on about this has really been a, a moving target with this whole thing.

00:16:50,630	Uh, however, that being said, um, we were able to get that payment out, the allocation’s done and uh we had to cut over 800 checks to mobile homes in order to, well, that was, that’s what they were, their payment was over 800, uh, individual mobile homes because they pay ahead.

00:17:11,170	Uh, real estate property owners pay in arrears and the mobile homeowners pay ahead of schedule, so that was kind of there’s kind of a transition period here over the course of the next few years with that primary residence credit.

00:17:26,100	But that being said, um, all the payments have been, have been going out and also like Chair Bitner said, the interest that that those funds have accrued. Uh, I did see those emails between yourself, Lee, and, and, uh, Julie Lawyer. And uh definitely we can, we can work with uh the finance department on, uh, figuring that.

00:17:44,100	Uh, now, just a kind of a heads up to all the different political subdivisions, uh, we ended up having to, we’re gonna have to do 2, disbursements in April because we had to do the one for the PRC and then we have to do one at the end of the month.

00:18:00,770	So they’re, they’re gonna be seeing this next uh disbursement is going to be very small because the first one that we did, um, included the PRC and everything up till that time. So, uh, yeah, the, the, uh, issue has been addressed. I definitely apologize to anybody for the, for the delay and, uh, we’ll be looking for this in the future to be able to streamline it.

00:18:23,130	Kate, Commissioners, any, any questions or comments? Thank you for getting care. Absolutely. Chair. Comm Woodcox. Was there any Solid reason why these were over 2 weeks late getting done.

00:18:38,630	I mean we had a two week period and it’s a normal course of doing business and all of a sudden we’re over well over 2 weeks late, and I just, Can’t understand why, I mean. Yeah. And that’s a, that’s a good question. So, um, that’s kind of like what you said, it’s a normal course of doing business. This particular one is not. Uh, it’s uh, it’s a completely different.

00:18:55,630	It’s its own set of rules and, uh, to be honest with you, I was not aware of the deadline, uh, because it, it wasn’t really included that much in the trainings and when it was discussed in the trainings, it was earlier last year, at which time the discussions were still being had.

00:19:12,100	Like I said, this PRC has been a moving target, this the, uh, the, uh. Uh, state treasurer’s office has been trying to navigate these waters as best they can and really, um, it really just, we weren’t quite aware of exactly when the date was, and so we were just planning on doing it with our normal portion every month.

00:19:42,500	Any other questions or comments on that one? OK, we’ll move on. Um Consideration of submitting a petition to the governor to remove auditor treasurer Slanskkowski.

00:20:04,730	Um, what you have seen is a rough draft of a petition, and I do know based on conversations with the state’s attorney, that there will, there will and should be changes to that. And I would ask for any input from commissioners to the state’s attorney. For any additional changes. Or additions. State’s attorney lawyer want to have any comments on that? Because I do have a couple of things to add that came to mind afterwards.

00:20:35,130	Um, thank you, Comm Bitner, Julie Lawyer, State’s Attorney, um, I had included that petition as a draft because the commission had talked about, um, wanting that. Daner were considering that, and I know it was tabled until this meeting, so that, um, the documents could be published, um, before this was decided.

00:20:52,370	And so I went ahead and kind of drafted, um, what a petition would look like with some of the information that I already had, um, I would point out it is a very rough draft. There are some things in brackets at the end, especially where we’re asking for relief because um that is the relief that’s available, um, and so that’s up to, I guess the commission if

00:21:08,100	you want to include that, that would be the Immediate suspension while the hearing is pending and then the relief, um, that’s not in brackets, which is the removal from offices obviously incorporated in that petition because that’s what the petition is for, um, and so it is a very rough draft just

00:21:25,200	with the information I had at the time so you’d have an idea of what um you were looking at with that petition, a little bit of um answers to the questions that came up at the last meeting, the statute does require that the petition is filed with the Attorney General’s office.

00:21:39,530	The Attorney General’s office then has 30 days to investigate and provide a recommendation to the governor as to whether or not a hearing should be held and that a special, um, I think it’s a special Comm is what it’s called in the statute would be appointed to overhea oversee that hearing and so, um,

00:21:56,230	there’s a lot of investigation and recommendations that are done if it does go to a hearing, then the special Comm is responsible for setting up that hearing and taking the evidence and then writing up a report giving the recommendation to the governor who then has the ultimate decision.

00:22:10,630	So that’s kind of the um. The workflow for a petition for removal. OK, and Commissioners, I think that, like we said, this is a rough draft. I don’t think there was an intention that we would take action to approve that draft at this meeting because I, I wanted to make sure that all commissioners had had an

00:22:29,670	opportunity to provide input on the rough draft for anything that needs to be included. And um you’re welcome to have a discussion about it. Otherwise, um, if you have no other questions or comments, then I would ask you to work with the state’s attorney very soon so that she has time to Um,

00:22:48,930	present, uh, an actual draft at probably the next. Commission meeting. Um, we can do that. I would suggest that, um, if you’re going to meet with me, you just give me your suggestions.

00:23:04,470	I’m not going to give you any information as to what any other Comm, um, suggested is just for you to provide me with information to provide a, another rough draft basically to the commission that way we’re not in violation of any open meetings laws, so I won’t be passing information.

00:23:19,000	You can give me information that you want included and then I’ll have a full draft from, um, input from all the commissioners to discuss then at the next meeting. Does that sound reasonable if you with me? OK, so we’ll keep that item for the agenda for the next Mr. Chair. Comm Woodcox. Can, can we make any suggestions on it right now? Yes, you can. OK. Item number 9, in the, in the petition.

00:23:40,730	There’s no amount in there of how much money we were underinvesting. Which is well over a million, I think that’s very important that we get that in there. Maybe this is not the place to put it. Maybe we wait till we present the evidence to the state’s attorney’s office, but I definitely think that should be in there.

00:23:57,900	And approximate, uh, we don’t know the exact number, but an approximate number. Right. Along those lines, um, I had a conversation with the state’s attorney about that and, and with the finance director, and she had asked that the finance department present that sort of information to her for that.

00:24:15,470	Has that been done yet? No, I don’t think it’s been done yet, Julie. We have not had an opportunity to meet to discuss that yet this is again like I said, this is in the preliminary stages, so I didn’t do a lot of work to put it together because I knew that the commission was going to be

00:24:30,370	considering whether or not to do this at this meeting. Mr. Chair, Comm a quick question. So all of the stuff that we’ve accumulated over the past year or whatever, does that all have to be in here or when it gets down to the presentation, we’re gonna have a lot more than just this to present.

00:24:53,770	Are we gonna have that opportunity to present that whole. So at this point, um, what happens with the petition is it’s sent to, like I said, the Attorney General’s office, and then a complaint has to be filed with the governor’s office.

00:25:10,570	So the petition just kind of lays out for the Attorney general, um, what issues we see that meet the criteria for removal. So, um, some of the things we’ve talked about don’t necessarily meet the criteria for or for um uh an actual complaint to the governor, um, it may be included in the petition just so that the Attorney General has all the information to do

00:25:27,100	their investigation. And then it’s um the it actually comes back to the state’s attorney, um, or the attorney General to file that complaint then with the governor as to um what to proceed on.

00:25:52,100	So, in short, I think the investigation that would ensue with the Attorney General’s office would consider all of the information that we have compiled. I’m just concerned that that all get, gets in there cause very important to our side, I would think so. Just so we get everything in there.

00:26:07,570	I, I, I think we should all work towards that with the, with the state’s attorney anybody that has, um, information because actually my concern, my biggest concerns here at this point was, was a simple fact that on, on at least 3 occasions here. The auditor’s office is not following state law. You had the, um, you had an issue with, um, um, a lawsuit that wasn’t consistent with the state law.

00:26:27,870	He had an issue with the primary residence credit that was not consistent with state law. And then you had an issue with W-2s and tax forms, um, for employees that not consistent with federal law. So my concern, my biggest concern. Is the lack of adherence to the law.

00:26:48,730	And that, that should be a a significant concern. To everybody, not just us, so. Any other questions or concerns on that? OK. We’ll keep that on the agenda for Commission A vote on that. I, I just don’t think we can kick it down the road.

00:27:11,800	I, I don’t want to kick it down the road anymore, so, if they want to pass a motion, someone wants to pass a motion table, that’s fine with me, but. Well, I don’t want it tabled. I want it to go to a final, final petition. My opinion, I think, like I said, Concerns about the violation of the law.

00:27:28,900	Not just, this is not just an attitude thing. So if you want to consider. So in that interim that we, if we postpone this for another two weeks. Those three concerns you have about the law are very legitimate. Now, are they gonna be, are they going to be itemized in this petition. They are.

00:27:47,470	They are, but in general, not specifically. Well, if they’re in there already, why do we need to move it down the road another 2 weeks? Uh, just in case there’s more to add, because we, we had a preliminary conversation about this, the state’s attorney and I, and this was her first shot at it, you know, there’s, she’s

00:28:02,300	been pretty busy too. We wanted to make sure that the entire commission had a chance to weigh in on it. Make sure I wasn’t overlooking something or, or because, you know, it’s not a one man band here. This is a five-member board. Mr. Chair, I move we approve the petition as submitted. Hey, I have a motion.

00:28:31,630	So that would mean that there’s nothing added to this at this point. Right, presented as, as is. chair I’m gonna to second that so we can have some conversation. OK, I have a motion to second further conversation then.

00:28:53,000	The, the concern I have, and, and I, I agree with, uh, Comm Woodcox, but as Julie stated, anything in here in parentheses is for discussion. Right. And so, That can’t be in this document. We need to get those finalized um by the state’s attorney’s office in the next two weeks and bring it back as you suggested.

00:29:14,370	Right, that, that was my goal was to, was to get it to a finalized form because you’re, you know, the, the, the initial shot at it was clear, uh, the state’s attorney made it very clear it’s a rough draft and we’re not ready with rough draft.

00:29:33,200	No, and I, and I understand now, I, I would hopefully an additional motion to allow her to move forward with the final draft. would be in order, I believe, so. You know, if, if the Commission would consider that, I think that would be a little more appropriate, but any other conversation on this. Motion Just expressing my Concerned that we move this along, we can’t keep kicking it down.

00:29:54,000	We’ve been at it for well over a year, and we all know what is going on. I’m just concerned that, rightfully so, we get everything in there that we need right now and be done with and not push it down the road.

00:30:07,270	Would you consider an amendment to the motion to Finalize this for a final draft for the next commission. Would that be. Oh, yeah. Acceptable. You can amend the motion. Anything you want. I don’t want to make, I don’t want to make the emotional. You just. No, I didn’t.

00:30:25,530	I said, I don’t mind it, but I. Oh, OK. Well, if you want, we’ll have a vote on the first motion and then we’ll are you going to amend the motion? It’s your motion to amend.

00:30:42,630	Anybody can amend my motion, correct? Oh Before we then we vote on the amendment and then we vote on the major. I would move that we amend the motion. To allow the state’s attorney’s office. 2 weeks till the next meeting. to create the final draft for our approval. With the request of additional information from any of the Commissioners. Yes, yes. Yes. Concerns or whatever.

00:31:03,500	OK, I have a motion to second on an amendment. Any further discussion? Seem uncul. Comm Schwab, Yes, Comm Woodcox, Comm Munson. Yes. Comm Bakken? No. Chair Bitner? Yes, the motion carries. Now as to the original motion. Yeah, the amendment, so now we have to as amended. the motion as amended. Any further discussion? Seeing noncul Fisher Woodcox.

00:31:33,200	Yes, Comm Munson, Comm Bakken? No. Comm, uh, Schwab? Yes. Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carries. So that’ll be on the agenda for the next regularly scheduled County Commission meeting. Item number 7. Discussion on preliminary resolution for the redesignation of Auditor treasurer.

00:31:58,470	Um, state’s attorney lawyer, did you want to We know that as well. I think you have the preliminary resolution in front of you and we’ve had some discussions about changes. Um, again, a very rough draft based on the discussions that we had at the last meeting about going forward with instead of, um, redesignating the office as an appointed office to reorganize

00:32:20,100	the office to have a treasurer who would handle the financial aspects of that office and have that treasurer be appointed. I, um, in that preliminary resolution, it’s a very basic, just kind of outline of what I took away from that meeting and what I believed that you wanted the um organization plan to

00:32:36,870	look like. Um, I have not yet d ra ft ed a plan. I wanted to get some guidance as to whether or not um what that preliminary resolution was is what the commission was thinking about and considering before I move forward any further. OK, Comm Bakken.

00:32:54,270	Uh, just for a point of clarification, it, we’re not appointing somebody. This is a hired position that goes through the hiring process with HR. That’s typically how the um appointed department heads are done like the HR director is that way where you put out an ad you do.

00:33:13,230	I have a problem with the nomenclature of appointed because we’re not appointing somebody, we’re hiring a qualified individual and we can change that wording as well, um. And the plan would outline all of that as well. You’re, you’re talking about the separation of, of the hiring of a treasurer, I still have a a hang up with, we’re not appointing somebody as a board.

00:33:34,900	Uh, we are hiring somebody to fill a position through HR just like anybody else goes through a vetting process. Yeah, I think that’s yeah, I use that term to keep it separate from having it be an elected position, correct? So, so the basic concept is really what we’re.

00:33:51,630	You know, what we’re looking at, and I think based on public input and whatnot, that seems to be a pretty, a pretty solid plan, pretty solid preliminary plan moving forward. The other thing I wanted to point out to you as I left, um, the initial information the same, so like the um enactment date is the same as was on that other preliminary resolution, um,

00:34:10,300	because you’re reorganizing the office, not changing the nature of the office, um, that doesn’t have to wait until the end of the term, uh, the only thing that you can’t do with this preliminary resolution is shorten the term of a sitting officer or, um, change the salary of the sitting officer

00:34:26,100	within the plan, but the plan can take effect before the term is over, if that makes sense. So you’re organizing. It’s, it’s, it’s not, um, doing away with any offices or anything, right? So they’re reorganizing can happen.

00:34:47,100	soon after the plan is adopted, correct, there doesn’t have to be a specific start date for that as to the beginning of the next term of that office, um, the only thing is the person who’s sitting in that office keeps that term for the remainder of their term and the salary doesn’t get changed regardless of whether you rearranged duties or anything like that.

00:35:02,670	And the reason we’re talking about salaries is, is because the state’s attorney and I had a conversation about, you know, the, the salary for an auditor as a, as an elected.

00:35:23,230	Person after doing all this reorganization that really changes the duties of the office and, and really Uh, takes away the the a lot a lot of the duties so that the, the compensation would be need to be where we started at, was closer to the statutory minimum under state law, and then at the suggestion of the state’s attorney that there be a path forward for once a newly elected auditor gets some specific training and, and, you

00:35:41,530	know, like the association of County Training, the, um, elections training and whatnot, that there’s a path forward for increasing the salary, so is commensurate with experience and abilities. Is that? And, yes.

00:36:07,830	And so that’s, that’s kind of where we’re we’re leaning with the plan and the and the proposal unless Comm Schwab, Julie, I commissioners, I would like to see This, uh, County manager or administrator. Effective 202027. I don’t remember making a decision on that. Um, again, that needs to be struck because I don’t think we need a county administrator.

00:36:33,300	Again, I put everything in there that we had talked about, which is an option, and this is for you to discuss as to what you actually want in there, um, what you don’t want in there, because another thing that um wasn’t necessarily discussed by the commission, but I think needs to be discussed is when the reorganization occurred, um, from, I think it was 98 to 2003 when it finally took effect.

00:36:49,770	Um, part of what happened was the tax equalization office got grouped in with the auditor. Treasurer office and they shared employees for duties now that they’re moving over to the um Provident Life Building and they’ll be in separate areas, um.

00:37:05,300	We should look at whether or not they should still share those same employees or we should have specific employees for tax equalization and then for the auditor treasurer offices, so I added that as well, which is something that this commission needs to discuss.

00:37:26,000	I’m kind of concerned because you, Resolved that the effective April 1st, 2027, the Office of Treasurer and County Manager administrator shall be appointed. I don’t think that belongs in there. I really don’t. That it’s uh it’s like saying in 2027, we’re going to have it administrator. Um-hum.

00:37:50,130	Uh I don’t think that belongs in there and I see no harm in removing that particular sentence, um, as far as that that word administrator, if that’s what you’re after, but I go ahead. Or, or the word shall. Then it’s our option. It’s available then at that point rather than use the word may, may, shall.

00:38:12,670	May well, there’s, there’s actually two places in here where, where that’s in here and mentions The county administrator and I can’t support that. Well, if you separate out the administrator and use the may and that. Yeah, and my, my reason for that is, That’s the date and uh, Everybody’s going to expect the county administrator, and I don’t think people understand it’s going to cost.

00:38:35,630	Upwards of $300,000 a year to set up that office. He’s gonna have to have staff. He’s going to have to And I think that should be separate. I think that’s a point well taken, Comm. Did we, did we budget for county administrator and staff for next year for 2026. Oh yeah, no, not that I.

00:38:57,930	Can, can our auditor answer that? Not Uh, the 2026 budgets have not been presented to me in any way at all or 25,,, 2525 did not have 25 we took it out, right? Correct. OK. Correct. So I think that’s, I, I would agree that that’s something we haven’t decided yet. No. Go ahead.

00:39:16,730	I’m concerned that when we did back when we put these together, it was because we were going to save a bunch of money and, and that different circumstances, different, a lot more duties now and a lot more activity than we had before, but, uh, if we separate these two, we’re going to increase expenses.

00:39:33,130	I want us to analyze that to see how much it’s going to cost us to, and we got time. We won’t be effective till April of 27, but I’d like to look, see how is this gonna cost us 200 to 300,000 to separate these two and new officers and new staff and we got to evaluate whether this is worth it.

00:39:51,730	I know that the public indicated they wanted to keep the elected auditor’s office, which is going to be part of this too, but is it going to be economically feasible to separate these two and increase all the, the, uh, expenses of accordingly.

00:40:10,300	And an analysis does have to be done as part of putting that plan together, um, which would incorporate that as well. OK. Good. I think we’re making progress. So you have enough information to, to return with a. Another draft. yep. OK So 7 stays on for next meeting too. stays on the agenda for the next meeting. Moving forward. Public hearing, a petition to vacate section line.

00:40:37,800	This must be under Marcus. Good evening, Commissioners. Uh, we do have a public hearing this evening in regards to a section line request. As you know, under the North Dakota Century Code, the county board may close a section line if requested by the residents or the property owners in a particular area, we

00:40:57,630	have received a, a petition, uh, the petition and the map showing that location are included in your packet. Um, The first step after receiving the petition and accepting the petition is, is then to, uh, conduct a public hearing and determine if there’s a public benefit for closing of this particular section line or if there is ascertaining if

00:41:20,500	there’s any damage caused by the closing of the section line. This particular section line is a little bit different than we usually see. We usually see one out in the middle of the, the sticks kind of thing, and that’s where we’re closing a section line axis.

00:41:36,470	This one is actually on the edge of a subdivision. Now this particular subdivision, uh, is right adjacent to, uh, the city of Bismarck, and so it did go through the ETA process as far as approval goes.

00:41:56,230	Now, under the section lines laws, uh, with cities, once the city plats a particular Uh, they can plait right over a section line and it goes away as part of that plotting process. The county we don’t, so this particular portion of this subdivision when it was plotted, uh, did not, uh, choose, they did not choose to enter the city at that time. So it’s really still a county, county lots basically at this point.

00:42:13,770	Uh, so as part of that, the section line is included on that, the particular those lots that are adjacent to the section line. So, uh, after the, you conduct the public hearing, uh, we’re just asking for some direction as far as if you’re willing to close the section and let us know and we’ll take

00:42:29,900	the process to move forward and, and do that, uh, for the county board. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have, um, At this time. The Commissioners, any questions? I just had a comment.

00:42:47,500	Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me like there’s, there’s an actual road like right on the front yard of those lots, right? That is correct, that’s. Not necessarily, I guess the road that’s already there is the public benefit right if I’m not.

00:43:05,100	And if the board can’t interpret that, and we have done that in the past where, uh, a particular development provides a county ward, a county road in lieu of that section line, they just move it over basically. That has been done in the past. So if, if we did that, would you, would you say that that particular road became the section line then? I mean, is that I, I would not say it becomes the section line.

00:43:22,730	I would say that’s just basically substitution for this section line. And, and keep in mind section line, road is the most predominant use of that section line, but you can hike on a section line, you can, you can do anything else. It’s, it’s for access to the residents, so.

00:43:39,370	Is there development activity on the other side of the property line. On the north side, um, not that I know of, but there’s probably someone, uh, looking at the possibility of developing that in the near future. Yeah. And there’s nothing there now. There’s nothing there at this time. No. Thank you.

00:44:00,730	Marcus, if we vacate that, That’ll actually go. Belong to the owner of the lots, right? Uh Yes, the property in this particular case, that section line still automatically still belongs to them. It’s just the public has a right to use it until you vacate the section.

00:44:19,230	Well, I didn’t want to get into one of them deals like they got out of Lincoln where they’re fighting over right away. You know, the people of the lot say, well, you’re taking away our backyard.

00:44:38,630	Uh I would just add and Comm Bitner is correct in the sense that there is no way we’re going to put a road over that particular section line because you can see there’s a road proposed just south of that. There’s another road proposed just north of that. Those lots will not have roads back on front and backside of them. Um, so I, I don’t see us ever building a road in that location, uh, but Axis is an issue, yeah, so. OK, thanks. I’m gonna open a public hearing.

00:44:56,870	OK, this is a public hearing for a, a vacation, a section line, I wish to speak. Welcome friend. Oh Thank you, Chair. Bitner Landon Miller with Swenson Hagen engineering, uh, representing the watchers in this case.

00:45:14,470	Yeah, I just add a little bit more detail to what what Marcus had already presented to you. This is unusual in in another situation in that these parcels were plaited and not only is the section line obviously shown on a plat as we typically would do, but it’s actually noted that there’s the 33 ft of statutory right of way on that side.

00:45:30,370	It’s actually noted on the plat, which is unusual, at what point there was a master plan showing that a possible road was going to come through this area, that has changed since so that the road that will eventually end up in River Road is going to be in another location, but the builders and the developers of are concerned that people will

00:45:44,730	see that that statutory red line is still showing on the plat and they’re concerned that they won’t be able to build in those areas. They’re concerned that the public will have access through their backyards at some point.

00:45:56,730	So that’s our goal here is to remove that, um, that we’re actually going through the same process with the city of Bismarck where portions of the plant have already been annexed into the city, even though it’s generally been state’s attorneys’ opinions that once it’s annexed, it’s no longer valid.

00:46:11,000	But we want to assure people that it’s, there’s paperwork to say, hey, you can, you can look this up and see that it has been vacated. But I can answer any questions if you have them. Commissioners, any questions? You Comm Bakken? Uh, Landon, what’s the timeline on this? I’m just asking for an access. purposes.

00:46:35,100	Sure, um, how, how long before the roads get built out? So, so, so the roads for the subdivision are already in process. Some of them are, are already built at this point, not in front of the public. That is the public access. There is dedicated, the roads are just not built yet. Any other questions for me? Thanks, Lynn. Thank you. OK, it’s a public hearing.

00:46:51,630	Anybody else want to speak on this item, please come up to the phone. Second time, this is a public hearing. Anybody else wish to speak on this item? Third and final calls a public hearing.

00:47:13,900	Anybody wish to speak on this item? I’ll close the public hearing, Comm, what are your wishes? Who to approve? Motion of second to approve the vacation, the section lining further discussion. We need to list the, the public benefit? Well, yes, I think that was. Yeah, but the public is the roads are already there, I think. If you look at the map in our packet. There’s um Frisco away.

00:47:34,730	On the one side of those lots, and then you got another set of lots north, and then you got tool. T U L E Lane. So there’s public roads on, on both sides on what is typically a yard and a backyard, correct, Marcus? I mean, that’s, yeah. I just wanted to. And I would anticipate those.

00:47:51,370	It, it looks, I’ll add that to the motion then. OK. That’s good. Cause it, it looks similar to all the other plats that I’ve seen with the road continuation, you know, it, it comes up to here.

00:48:08,030	And then it’s meant to continue they’ll usually put a little cul-de-sac at the end of that waiting on future development, but basically it’s just a correction for lot size consistency is what this is, so, yeah. OK, no further discussion. Call the roll Comm Bakken Comm Schwab Yes Comm Woodcox Yes Comm Munson? Yes. Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carries. Next item is consideration of Sanford Bond, um. Who’s got that one.

00:48:32,000	So there should be an individual on Zoom right now who uh want to go ahead and present this information, uh, if you want, uh, bring them on. Bring them up. Good evening, everyone. My name is Ronnie Martin. I am from the law firm Chapman and Cutler, and I’m here this evening on behalf of Sanford.

00:48:51,470	We represent them as Bond council. The reason that we’re here this evening to meet with the county commissioners is to um discuss adopting a resolution that would call for a public hearing at the next regularly scheduled Comm meeting.

00:49:13,500	We’re here because Sanford is planning on issuing tax-exempt bonds through the South Dakota Health and Educational Facilities Authority. And a portion of the proceeds of those tax exempt bonds are anticipated to be used at different facilities located within the county, um, and the documentation we’ve provided includes a list of the addresses of such facilities, um, and upon adoption of the resolution, we would publish the public notice and ask that

00:49:35,300	the county commissioners hold a public hearing. Um, this public hearing is required under Section 147 of the Internal Revenue Code. Um, there’s no liability to the county or to the city of Bismarck for these bonds, but under the tax code in order for Sanford to use tax exempt bond proceeds at

00:49:55,930	facilities outside of the state of South Dakota. We need to hold a public hearing and have the jurisdiction approve such financing. Um, so that is why we’re here this evening. I’m happy to answer any questions at this time.

00:50:15,930	Commissioners, any questions? I would move to approve the public hearing be held at our next scheduled meeting. Second. OK, so that, that motion is.

00:50:31,300	To approve the resolution requesting the Comm Woodcox, Comm Munson, Comm Bakken, Chair Bitner. Yes.

00:50:41,130	amend Article 8, Section 30, data centers. Welcome, Mitch. Good evening, Commissioners. In your packets in your packets are the, uh, Ordinance that uh Uh, Julie, uh, the state’s attorney reviewed and made some typographical corrections. It’s basically the text remains the same. There are some highlighted the red.

00:51:17,830	A crossed outlines were from the last meeting for the suggestive changes, so they would be removed. Once we final this Uh There is a memo attached that uh She just, uh, there was a discussion on the permit. Which is on page 3 of the ordinance.

00:51:46,670	Um Basically, this is uh The, the, the fees is based on the hard cost of the construction, not the total value of the buildings. To Ba value of the buildings would include everything inside the land, everything that’s not what we’re, that’s how we’re going to arrive at the permit fee. The permit fee was based on the construction hard costs basically the building itself. As an example, the Ellendel project had 2.

00:52:11,470	5, he proposed, he believes by the time he’s finished, it’ll be 2.5 million square feet of buildings. If you broke that down to a 75 square foot per cost basically construction costs for these larger buildings, you come up with a uh. Um A hard cost of $187,000. 100.

00:52:37,930	$187 million times the, it’s not a 1% but a 1/10 of a percent fee. In the memo, it says 1% so the 10% time 187 million is $225,000 for the special use permit. As a comparison, a house. That is in construction right now that regularly around $400,000 for construction costs, that would be about $40. For that cost.

00:53:06,400	Of a permit So that’s relative that would be. And it’s uh there are other communities that have the same. Uh framework or fee structure. These are large buildings, um. The P also is stops at $1 billion not $1 trillion. Because the This at according to the applied digital.

00:53:36,770	He plans on spending over 7 to $8 million on these buildings in Dickey County. So these are large structures. They could be, they could come to us. I said, I determined to stop it at a billion dollars of hard cost, which would be a 34 times the size of what Ellendale would be.

00:53:58,100	But it’s basically breaking down to those those figures that uh 110% of the hard construction costs. Nothing inside, nothing that’s attached or bolted down, no computers, none of that. It’s just the hard cost of the construction. So, so your proposed fees for the construction. That’s not the building permit, that’s the special use permit fees, right? I’m sorry.

00:54:22,500	You’re, you’re talking about special use permit fees or building permit no, that’s a separate issue. That’s gonna be. A lot more. It’s based on the fee structures of how we do commercial buildings. Now it’s gonna be 2 or 3 times that cost.

00:54:43,370	OK, so how does, how does a special use permit fee for this compared to a special use permit fee for anything else, you in line with that? Well, they, they start at $300. And they can choose their well it’s over $1000 worth of value over the $300 it goes, you can choose with the percentage fee of up to $1000 they pay and then once they’re done with the construction or they figure out

00:55:03,770	the cost of the construction, and that special use permit is applied. Most of these special use permits are $300. OK. Well, I personally don’t have any problem with the, with the fees. Um, and because it’s special use permit.

00:55:26,100	We can, we can address any concerns with those fees at the time of an application, Comm Woodcox. This doesn’t include any inspections you’re gonna be doing or anything like that, right? No. Uh, uh, Comm. For $1000 I mean, that’s a real minimum, minimum cost if we’re going out there 100 times to inspect the building. Right. Uh, Mr.

00:55:47,470	Chair, Comm Woodcox, that this, that fee, if you’re asking what it would cover, would basically, um, For these large construction or large projects, there’s going to be abundance of county staff time to continually monitor this. And to, to make sure that, you know, the daily operation continuance of the operation. Um, is relegated to that special use the outlines of that special use permit.

00:56:14,170	The, the future work that goes into this project over time, it’s going to have to be monitored too as well if there if there’s going to be a change in operation if they’re going to change a data center to an IA operation facility.

00:56:29,730	These things are, will be coming back to us for monitoring and research and reviewing of a more complicated application. These are very, very complicated applications. They’re gonna affect our county. They, um, they’re going to affect our future land use plan. They’re going to affect the comprehensive plan. We’d have to develop an overlay district, um.

00:56:51,000	I, I mean, the consideration of the impact is how are you going to weave that into our the our society here, how our planning society, how are you going to take a 2.5 million square foot building and put it in Burleigh County somewhere. Because they’re going to have a big change to us, and I don’t know if we’re going to have any. I don’t know.

00:57:06,570	It’s, it’s just we’re trying to get ready if they do come. Woo. Does this type of building or industry normally go into rural areas, they don’t normally go into a city, a city or adjacent to a city, they go out out in the rural areas, is that correct? Comm Wilcox, yeah, the smaller ones are, they’re in town.

00:57:28,370	There’s one for the, uh, Oh, I can’t think of it’s in Bismarck here yeah, um, and those are, you know, they can be in town and there’s some, there are some that are doing them in their homes now.

00:57:44,470	And that’s, that’s another thing that we’re going to have to discuss because this, this ordinance doesn’t apply to those. This is, this ordinance is for 100 megawatts use of power or more. And so it’s they’re gonna be smaller ones that could fit. Easily into a home or into a into a commercial area. These are, these larger ones.

00:58:03,300	Um, you know, they, they’ll be cited by PSC because of the service that they’re going to have to require substations and all that, so. That’s um Usually it would probably be a rural area in agricultural area. Mr. Chair. Comm Munson. So Mitch, you had answered Chair Bitner’s questions, so this is the special use permit versus a building permit.

00:58:28,100	Building permit would be separate for the construction of the building. This is a permit for you to determine if this is or for this commission determine if that’s the right business or the right application in the right area. You know, gather all the information we need to present it to you. So how would you spend a million dollars.

00:58:46,530	In that process because you’re capping this at a million dollars. OK, yeah, but that was. You know, again, we’re going back to the impact of how it’s going to be affecting Burleigh County, but would you spend a million dollars at that? If I can, Comm, I think it’s actually a billion. Yes. Oh.

00:59:04,470	With all the zeros after that, I had to count them several times as well. It’s just 10, sorry, a billion dollars which would be a million dollars fee. The billion dollars are total hard costs. They’re not the cost of the permit. That’s the permit stops, the permit uh evaluation of that permit stops at a billion dollars.

00:59:27,530	Right, but we wouldn’t. Charge someone a billion dollars for a special use permit. No, that’s not, that’s you’re reading it wrong. That’s why I wanna those are the project costs. They’re separate, right? So that’s the building permit cost. This is a special use permit. So I’m looking for a maximum.

00:59:46,630	On a special use permit. When you, when you say from 300. Up to Um $100,000 I’m fine with that. If it’s $250,000 I’m fine with that, but I’m not going to list a million dollars. I personally wouldn’t. As an as the top end of a permit application.

01:00:15,530	Well, this could be a very, very large building weight 3 or 4 times larger than the Ellendale site. I get that. I’m my ask is how would you spend that permit fee? If it’s a million dollars if we have, well, first off, if we had complaints. Coming through this to this, to this board. For an auditory study. Where we’re going to find that auditory study.

01:00:36,400	It’s going to be an engineer and most likely he’s not going to be in the state of North Dakota. So we would have to pay for that to determine whether there are violations. Uh, and uh continue and monitor of that if there, if there are changes or if there is a different application in this building.

01:00:53,830	There’s not just going to issue the permit. And then if we don’t, you know, we don’t hear anything, that’s, that’d be great. There’s no complaints, that’d be awesome, but.

01:01:09,730	Um If there’s going to be located next to people who do not want this building next to them, then we’ll have a constant monitor out there. Telling us that there’s a problem, so these are things I don’t know what an auditory engineer would cost, but it could be more than 6 figures, I can guarantee you. Comm Bakken, I just think it’s a little, uh, steep in the high end. Why got concerns about, uh, some of these facilities, um.

01:01:30,630	A lot of that lies with the sighting and what some of the cost to. Ratepayers are, those are all fall under public Service Commission. But Uh There’s a little bit of a juggling act about.

01:01:53,130	Are we pro-business? Are we building tax base, which takes burden off of our taxpayers, and I think those numbers. Presented are a little bit steep for are we open for business in Burleigh County. So You know, we’re not doing a moratorium. We’re not discussing. Eliminating projects coming into the county, but if you attach to tie of a dollar amount to it, it’s basically what you’re doing.

01:02:21,470	So I’m a little reticent on where that line falls that yes, we’re open for business, we’re also protecting our residents in the capacity that we can. Like I said, I’ve got more concerns in the Public Service commission side with citing and ratepayers and everything else, but I think these numbers are a little bit steep where I’m

01:02:40,630	comfortable or not comfortable with. Are we crossing a line where we’re precluding business by just, hey, we’re attaching this really high dollar amount to it. If you want to come, great, but it’s gonna cost you an arm and a leg and, and. A little torn on that.

01:02:59,470	Are you, are you looking at, um, are you looking at the, the top number, yeah, or a cap or or something, what would you base that on? Uh, that’s a great question. You know, he’s, he’s kind of, you know, the, the, it’s kind of a wide open thing, but Without knowing the value of something that’s being done, how would you come up with an appropriate.

01:03:18,400	You know, if it starts out at 300 bucks, and if it’s a little thing like goes in your garage. Well, I wouldn’t because that’s 150 megawatt. Bott wouldn’t affect that Comm Mr. Schwab, which brings up. We still haven’t got any kind of an ordinance.

01:03:46,300	If a data center comes in and the power goes out, that the citizens get first shot at the power. And there’s nothing in here that covers that. I don’t know if that’s, you know, when, when these, what I’m saying is when the companies come in, One thing, Mitch is We need it in writing that, uh, They don’t get the power and supersede the

01:04:08,770	citizens that are here now. farmers and the residents. And we need that in writing that. That’s outside of our, it’s outside of our of our deal. That’s the power companies that would have to regulate that. Mr. Public service. A lot of that goes through the PPA. No. Mr. Chair, I don’t like it.

01:04:34,870	They have to get written verification that the utility provider had sufficient capacity to provide for this building to provide for this service. So that means they’ve already got service here, they’re going to have to have additional service provision to those to this building.

01:04:55,770	They have to provide that written varication from probably Capital Electric or or um Oer, well, not Otter child but uh my dad is supplier is Comm Bakken and and just for a little bit of an insight, the way this function when this data center started popping up, um, in the crypto mining side of things started popping up was we were approached at the

01:05:16,030	city of Bismarck about this, and to the extent of. Going through the numbers going, hey, there’s a little excess load here. There’s a little excess load power here, there’s a little excess power here, and they wanted to put, At all of those sites and.

01:05:36,800	In some cases it was dropping down a container in A Not necessarily industrial area of the city of Bismarck, um, and I think that’s where a lot of our concerns lie too on the county side, but I, we need to figure out a, a kind of a better workable number that’s not preclusive to being open for business, but still protecting

01:05:59,830	our residents, you know, like. The sighting and everything that, that’s all public service commission and what the power companies can provide, but On that smaller scale. They’re looking for wherever there’s a hole in the power grid, uh, if, if there’s excess power or somebody’s looking at it.

01:06:20,030	That’s what we dealt with at the city, um, that same capacity is going to be looked at, uh, out in the county. Quite often there’s a larger load available somewhere in the county, so. Just just for Point of reference. Well, let’s back up now with regard to the fee structure and whatnot.

01:06:42,200	Do you have a proposed, uh, An amount or do you want further study on that? What are your I. Where are you headed? Mr. Chair.

01:06:52,100	You said Ellendale right? What was their maximum fee structure, you know. I don’t think they had any. Go ahead. I don’t think they had any, any rules down there, they didn’t, I mean believe me they had a permit issued with the uh the Ellendale project was 2.

01:07:06,930	5 million square feet when he’s going to be finished, the whole project was 2.5 million. And if we base those hard costs at $75 per square foot for these type buildings, these tilt up industrial buildings. His, his value would have been $187 million times 1 110% his permit fee for Burleigh County would have been $225,000.

01:07:28,930	For just the permit fee, that’s. Just the, it’s special use permit use permit. Right. Building is going to be much more than that. Mr. Chairman Comm Woodcox.

01:07:45,570	What if we, if this thing is big and we Would we end up with 1 or 2 or 3 people down there full time, monitoring what they’re doing, or would that be under the regular building permit process. And are we, are we capable of charging enough to do that cause that’s, if we end up with one or two people. That could be cheap. For us, I mean, Mr.

01:08:06,170	Chair, Comm Woodcox, the, it’s the daily operations and continual continuation of those operations that we have to monitor. It’s um. It’s not, I don’t believe we’re gonna be out there every day, no. But once this thing is up and running, we issue the COO. It’s up and running. We have to also monitor. Well, you know, and we get one complaint on this thing.

01:08:26,100	What are we, we have to hire an auditory engineer to determine what this auditory decibel level is that? I mean it’s OK You mentioned $75 a foot to build this. Can you build anything for $75 a foot anymore. That I got that figure from the assessors, the county assessor. I know houses.

01:08:49,500	I don’t know what that’s uh I mean these larger structures know more about, you certainly know more about it than I do, but I don’t think you can build anything for $75. I don’t, I don’t, uh bucks. I don’t, I don’t bill 2.5 million square foot facilities.

01:09:06,630	Maybe there’s an economy of scale there, a lot of roof and not a lot of wall. I, I just simply don’t have an answer. That sounds pretty low to me, but. Yeah. Mr. Chair, on the smaller buildings that can go up to 100 to 125 square foot, but are a million square foot buildings.

01:09:23,800	The larger the building, the cheaper the construction costs because of the there there’s, it’s just more volume. Since the economy of scale thing, but like I said, I, I don’t build anything that big, so Mr. Chair, if I could, Mr. Munson, I would not have an issue with the top end of $250,000. You asked for a number. That’s my thought, yeah, OK. with that.

01:09:48,230	You have any issue with that at this point because we can always change it in the future, right, this is an ordinance we need to get an ordinance in place in And, and when the state gets the association of counties gets through their process of their model ordinances.

01:10:04,800	We’re going to look at this again, but I really want something in place and Richard Bain said it, I think the best. We are open for business if we put this stuff in place, it shows like we’re not. And I don’t think that’s the right message. So A maximum of $250,000 for the special use permit would be. Adequate. Is that? That’s a motion.

01:10:28,230	Motion the second. Any further discussion? Uh, state’s attorney lawyer was looking at me funny earlier, so I wanted to make sure she had an opportunity to say what she wanted to say.

01:10:45,370	Well, but there’s a little smirk on her face a little bit of way though, huh? The way it’s written, the way I read it is the special use permit fee. can be up to $1 billion. So that should be reworded so that it’s clear, um, if this motion passes, then I would suggest that under fees, let’s say the special use permit fee will be based on 0.

01:11:05,170	001 times total project costs for a special permit fee no greater than whatever your maximum dollar value is just to make that clear. Yeah. I, I think that’s what the intent is. Yep. Um. So that would change the language according to the motion. No, that’s what his motion is what my motion is. That’s my suggested language for you if that motion passes.

01:11:23,830	Yep, OK. Thank you. A further discussion. So uncalled. Comm Woodcox. Is this just a vote on that fee or the whole ordinance with that fee included? What are we voting on? Mine was just a fee. OK. Yeah. Yes. Comm Munson. Comm Bakken. Yes, Comm Schwab.

01:11:45,770	No, Chair Bitner, yes, motion on the fees carry. Next is on the Next question is on the ordinance itself. I we approved the audience as. submitted with the, of course, we got the restriction on there already, so. With the amended amended. Second, motion to 2nd. Any further discussion, Mr.

01:12:13,500	Chair, Comm Munson, uh, state attorney lawyer, can you, I don’t know if you’ve looked at the decommissioning plan. Is that legal? Um, I did look at that. I did look at that and I couldn’t find um anything in state law that prohibited it. OK.

01:12:42,830	And actually, the, PSC has a pretty robust decommissioning plan for Coal, oil and gas and the reclamation thereof, and it, it’s been updated as I’m assuming this is probably going to fall under some of that on the reclamation side, because that’s kind of been the standard is what the state practices are building out that language in the coal sector, so this is probably going to get

01:13:00,000	there as well. Um, so there shouldn’t be anything in statute to precludes that language being included until which time. State law would supersede it. My, my only question when I, when I, when I was looking through the dollars. I have to find that. It felt like we were asking for.

01:13:21,400	More money than what it costs. We’re asking for 125%. Right. Of the estimated cost. To be in a bond or to be set aside. For reclamation. So if this building truly costs. $187 million or $250 million. This requires them to have 125% of that. Set aside For a reclamation process. Mr.

01:13:53,830	Chair, Wouldn’t that be PSE’s responsibility to. Or is that the county’s responsibility. I, I, it’s gray right now. Pardon me? Yeah, I, I think. It’s gray right now. Gray? The, the answer that I would have to that is that there’s going to be State Regulations.

01:14:14,770	This is probably just a placeholder in the meantime, I don’t, I don’t think in the end it’s gonna. really change anything. The planning and zoning Commission was very concerned that this would become a Burleigh County cost. And so my initial motion was not to have that.

01:14:36,030	In here Um, but as the table talked, um, I became concerned that it was a Burleigh County concern. I just don’t know if that 125%. Is right. How do you, how do you, um, I don’t know how you estimate reclamation. Yeah, that’s, that’s. Yeah. The whole thing. Well, and, and, I, I think this is another statement that says we’re not open for business. Given batteries and.

01:15:00,100	The materials that are in there, it could be a costly reclamation project. Cause There we go. I would be OK with a different number. But what number? What number? There you go. Chair. Mr. Woodcox.

01:15:21,230	Is it possible that we contact other counties around them, not just, not just North Dakota but around to see what they’ve got for closed down costs and some of these, if any. I’m going to, I’m going to give Mitch a lot of credit here.

01:15:37,470	He has worked on this extremely hard and has went through a lot of other ordinances to get this information and I appreciate the work he’s done and I’m not trying to take it apart. I just, I wish I had some better information on reclamation costs, Mr. Chair, Comm Woodcox, there’s um 6 other ordinances that I looked at, and they all have a reclamation or the surety bonds to clean up the site. It’s not for applied digital um.

01:15:59,570	200, 300 million, you know,,, $6 billion worth of construction out there in these tilt up buildings that are You know, they’re not dangerous or whatever. It, this is for somebody who comes to this board that wants to put a data center in a barn or in Conex boxes or in in a cheaply built steel building.

01:16:22,300	And it’s for the clean up of all right, let’s just take the applied digital again. I don’t want to pick on him, but he’s gonna have a 700, 670,000 gallon diesel tank on this site. Over 60 diesel generators that produce 3 megawatts apiece.

01:16:42,030	What would we do? How do we we clean that up? How would we clean up if they left, uh, 300,000 lithium batteries from these computers. I, I mean, these are, these are issues that We, we have no idea how much it’s gonna cost. But These are what we have to be prepared for because this board will be issuing the permit.

01:17:05,230	And this board will have to deal with the clean up. Comm Bakken. My question is, in, in your research, Mitch, and thank you for all the work you’ve done on this, but, um, Granted, The state winds up doing a lot of this bonding out.

01:17:26,100	Have you found any comps from what the state does for reclamation projects and anything of this nature. Because I know they’re not there yet, but Cause like Chair Bitner said this is gonna wind up being a placeholder. Uh, let’s hope that it’s uh The, I have not. I, I can find out tomorrow. I can, well, as soon as I can, I can find out. OK.

01:17:45,570	Living in the absence of any better numbers. That it’s good to have something. And that those companies come in and convince us that Um Maybe we want to do business here. We think this is uh Restriction, and we can modify it. Mr. Chair, Comm Munson.

01:18:05,630	So, and again, this is special year’s permit, so. They’re coming to us with their special use permit. If this said 25%, not 125%, but what was being presented to the board was a Conex box. process, we could change that number, right? Yeah. Yeah Nothing, nothing says it can. Right. So my motion would be to move that to 25%.

01:18:32,000	But to be evaluated at the special use permit process. With the ability to change depending on scope of a project. I think 25 25%? No? OK. No. Yeah. Absolutely not. Um And as a contractor, I couldn’t agree to that. that would be way too low as a contractor that that’s too low. You can’t. You can’t reclaim a site for 25% of the.

01:19:03,000	Cos to build it Chairiner, what, um, in your professional knowledge. Is there a number that you’re comfortable with? I wouldn’t go any lower than 50%, I can tell you that right now, and then I’d be worried about this is new ground we’re covering. This is batteries. This is. Absolutely.

01:19:25,930	I mean, he’s, he’s talking to 650,000 gallon. fuel tank, you know, that’s refinery size, yeah, Marcus would love that tape. Yeah, that would keep him going for, you know. So what about 75% knowing that this is a placeholder.

01:19:49,030	And Cause that’s gonna be commensurate with the scope of the project if it’s Con Xboxes versus a smaller facility versus a larger facility. Um, cause I think. Where this is going to fall.

01:20:09,730	There’s gonna be a lot of time that the state’s gonna have to address issues as well, and, I know there’s been some discussions about what a reclamation project looks like on a state level, so I don’t think this is gonna be a placeholder for long, but I would be comfortable with seconding a, a 75% motion. I will amend mine to 752. Motion is second to amend that language to 75%. Any further discussion? So no color. Comm Bakken. Comm Schwab? No.

01:20:33,100	Comm Woodcox? Yes. Comm Munson, Chair Bitner? No motion carries. Thank you, Comm. Now let’s, is that a motion on the on that number or the whole motion on the um on that question. So now we need to move approval of the ordinance. That would be a motion.

01:20:54,100	Second, motion is 2nd to approve the ordinance, and he has amended any further discussion, so you can call the role. Here’s your Woodcox. Yes. Comm Munson. Yes. Comm Bakken. Comm Schwab, No Chairman Bitner. Yes, motion carriers. OK. Next is, uh, County Finance Director Jacobs, um, Bismarck Mandan, um, Bismarck Morton Detention Center sales tax bond escrow agreement. Welcome.

01:21:25,630	Bitner and Commissioners, uh, you are correct, we are. Finally discussing the long awaited escrow agreement uh for our sales tax bond, uh, within your packet are 3 items which we received from Bond council, uh, a couple week or two ago. One of those is an amendment to our joint powers agreement.

01:21:50,130	Um, this goes back to the bond issuance in 2014, and the reason for the amendment is, let me back up, it’s a joint powers agreement with Morton County. Um For the bond and I don’t think it, I don’t think it has a lot of jail operational stuff.

01:22:11,470	It’s mostly bond, um, so what the amendment is doing is it’s fixing our ownership percentage in the jail. Based on the actual principle and interest payments each entity has made on the bond, um, in the original uh joint powers agreement, it, it said the final ownership percentage will be determined by payments and so that’s, that’s what we’re doing with the amendment and the, the final numbers came to an

01:22:34,900	ownership percentage of 83.07% Burleigh. And 16.93% Morton. And just for a refresher. That’s one number that’s our, our ownership in the building. There are, there are different numbers for operations. There’s different numbers for the land and there’s different numbers for maintenance, so it’s It’s a little bit, um, Complicated.

01:23:03,870	So I, I’m not quite sure where that number would come into play other than Demolition of the building because maintenance is dealt with some somewhere else, um. But anyway, it’s something we had to decide, and so that’s That’s what it ended up being. Uh, the second item is an escrow agreement.

01:23:25,800	Um So that’s just, just as it’s, as it sounds, we’ve got enough money to pay off the bonds, and so we’re, we’re going to deposit those into an an escrow account and our trust officer will, will make the future payments on the bond.

01:23:48,570	This is, uh, leese known as a defeasance and it allows us to take the bond off the books as a liability and replace it, well, we don’t, it’s, it’s off the books, but it’s, it’s basically swapped with this.

01:24:04,200	Asset which is this escrow account, so the escrow account is equal to the liability and so legally we’re allowed to take it off our books, so you’ll see that drop off our our audit report, for example, um. This, this year, 2025. One item. Two items Sorry, 3 items in the escrow agreement, the, the construction fund will be released to Burleigh. So that is in the escrow agreement.

01:24:29,300	That’s that $95,000 that we discussed a couple of weeks ago that um that you, you, the board, uh, voted to, uh, earmark for Burleigh East for some of those construction costs. So that’s, that comes back to us. The reason it comes back to us instead of us and Morton is, I think we are.

01:24:49,470	We are, we’re paying some, some expenditures for Morton related to the lawsuit that’s going on, and so, um, so anyway, we’ve, they, they kind of owe us a little bit there and so the construction fund, uh, comes back to us, um. Just feel like, so, so anyway, that’s, that’s that one issue that’s in the escrow agreement.

01:25:07,100	The other issue is that the any access in the escrow fund will be returned at the same ratio it went in. Uh, and then the third item is that once this is signed and we can, we can talk about that, maybe, maybe this week because it needs a signature from the auditor and the chair, um, Morton is meeting on May 8th, and so, um, we have a couple of days and then once it’s signed, it will

01:25:29,500	be delivered to BND and then it’s pretty much it, um. According to Bond council, that’s pretty much all we need to do is sign it and send it to BND and it’s effective. So the third item is the is a resolution. So the resolution is in your packet, um.

01:25:49,230	I would recommend you adopt the resolution. If I may recognize two people uh in this bond, if that’s OK, I, I’d like to do that. Uh, the first person I, I wanted to, to publicly recognize as our tax director Al Witmeyer when, um, When Mr. Witmeyer was the appointed auditor.

01:26:12,770	He, he did a refinancing deal on these bonds, uh, interest rates had come down. And he was able to save the county $7.5 million. Well, the counties, uh, Burleigh and Morton,,, $7.5 million by refinancing this, and I got that from From the Guy that did the original Bond deal at at Collier. So I’m, I’m pretty confident in those numbers.

01:26:32,500	And then the second person I’d like to recognize is our deputy finance director, Taylor Schmidt. um, he did. Quite a, quite a bit of research on the, on the bond documents there’s hundreds of pages and uh because of his research, we were able to structure, um, Sort of a longer repayment.

01:26:53,300	Where we were able to take um. Money that we borrowed at 2.25% and invested at 4% until 2032. And so I just wanted to, to thank those two individuals because that’s a significant savings and some of that money is coming back to the county to both counties, when we, because basically we need less money to

01:27:15,000	put into the escrow agreement because of these, uh, these 22 deals. So that’s the other issue is when the escrow agreements in place, any of, any excess funds that we have at, at BND are going to come back.

01:27:32,470	us so those are some of those, um, half cent uh discussions that we had this summer, um, so again, resolutions in your packet, I’d, I’d recommend we adopt the resolution. Happy to answer any questions. Commissioners, any questions? Mr. Chair, I would assume we would need 3 motions? Yes. One for each, uh, I or one for the whole thing.

01:27:50,630	I think the resolution has all of them in there. I took a look at it. It’s got the, it’s got the JPA, it’s got the escrow agreement, so I think we just need to adopt the resolution. I will move to approve the resolution in packet. Second. Motion the second to approve resolution, any further discussion? No. Where’s Mosen? Yes.

01:28:07,630	Here’s your Bakken. Yes. Comm Schwab? Yes. Comm Woodcox. Yes. Bitner. Yes, motion carries. Thank you, Lee. I appreciate all the hard work on that hard work on that before hard work on that he leaves hard work on that. Um, sheriff, we, this is 82, what, 82 and 18 approximately.

01:28:21,670	Is that what we started way back when, wasn’t it? That same ballpark, 82 and the ownership of the building. About 8 to 8. And do they have to approve this? Mr. Chair, Commissioners, um, like Lee said, there’s a lot of different numbers in those joint powers agreements, the ownership and the operating percentages are the two main

01:28:48,500	ones and so uh I’m trying to remember here, I think I was more of thinking it was in that 8515. OK. Um, was where it first started out and maybe Lee can correct me on that. As far as the ownership. OK.

01:29:05,730	And then, uh, the percentage, I would say is, more in that 75, 25 for the operation. That’s based on Prisoner days and. Correct. On the prisoner numbers and then we negotiated that admin fee in there, so that’s about 75, 25, 85, 15 on the ownership, roughly. Thank you. Mr. Munson.

01:29:30,770	I want to recognize finance director Jacobs, I really appreciate all of the work that Lee has done on this. This has been a very heavy lift. Uh, he’s worked diligently to make sure both Morton County and Burleigh County are whole and in a great place here, so I wanted to recognize Lee for his work as well. So thank you.

01:29:55,470	Actually Kind of relief to get that behind us as far as the uh responsibilities and the payoffs and the whole thing. County HR Director Binder, uh, 2024 turnover Report 2026 employee increase projections and leave sharing policy. Welcome, Pam. Chair Bitner, Commissioners, um, this evening I have the 3 things, um, the first one is our 2024 turnover Report.

01:30:23,630	And that was calculated manually, hopefully next year we will have. Automatic reports, um, but we do have a 10 year trend on that bar chart. So I’m just going to highlight a few things on the report that 10 year trend on the bar chart, if you look at those bars, it’s cyclical.

01:30:41,230	Goes up, comes down, goes up, comes down, um, the lowest year was 2019 at 15% turnover rate, the highest years is 2023 and 2024, both at 22%. Part of that is just the trend of what’s going on in the nation in North Dakota in general.

01:31:03,170	I did look up some statistics on the unemployment website, um, we Burlee County is in Region 7, so it’s us and a few of the surrounding counties. And we have a 2.8% unemployment rate. For Region 7 and when I dug a little further, there’s A little under 1500 unemployed individuals looking for work and almost 4000 job openings in that region. So you can see why we’re having a hard time with our jobs trying to.

01:31:28,170	Keep people in them and trying to get people, um. I did break down the last 4 years of turnover by department, um, it’s no surprise detention, the Burleigh Morton Mandan Detention Center is high with turnover rate, um, so is the.

01:31:48,500	Burleigh County Human Service zone and the human service zone are still. Early County employees, even though they’re on the state’s merit and they have their own policies they are Burleigh County employees. There’s 81 individuals. And the the 3rd would be the state’s attorney.

01:32:11,100	At around 10%, 14% those are attorneys you one attorney 1’s attorney twos, um, we have higher caseloads and we have a hard time getting attorneys because we are fighting. For them You know, from every other. Industry, private, government, so we are making some headway with that. Um, one of the other things. Our statistics for Breezy HR are applicant tracking system.

01:32:44,300	We process the HR department process 8 processed 861 applications in 2024 for 66 positions we disqualified 260 of those people. Um, through background checks. And we had almost a little under 20,000.

01:33:03,470	Um, personal views and what that means is they may have viewed it, but they may have started the application never completed it, so that’s 20,000, so in that within that 20,000 we were hand holding some of those people, sending them emails, calling them, sending them texts, trying to get them to complete the application. So those are not all just views, some of them are hands on by the HR department. Um, the other thing is that pie chart that’s in there that shows our recruiting sources.

01:33:24,800	Um, Indeed sponsored is the main one. And we have to pay for those, but what it does is it brings our positions up to the top. So when somebody’s querying. Indeed, or they have a.

01:33:44,030	As, uh Search set up that our position will be one of the top ones or one of them that will go directly to those candidates that are qualified, but that costs us a little bit of money, um, some of the other ones are like. Can portal indeed itself without sponsoring them and then just other job categories because indeed our.

01:34:02,370	Breezy HR does spider out to indeed spiders out to career builders, spiders out to every site that it can’t. So we are looking for, we’re spreading out as far as we can get, um. Right now we have 2 open positions and that is full-time positions permanent that doesn’t include any seasonal positions.

01:34:26,200	We’re having a hard time surprisingly enough, recruiting administrative assistants we’ve never had a hard time with that position we’ve had, uh, in the recorder’s office, I think we’ve opened that position up 3 or 4 times we have offered it to individuals and seems like the day before they come on after we’ve closed the process, they get a a counter from the job they’re at. or they find a different job.

01:34:44,830	So then we have to restart that recruiting process. It was a recorder’s office. We’re looking for.

01:34:57,300	Now too, because we had 1 person retire as well, um, the the process, I think we’ve opened 3 or 4 times, and we did finally hire someone who’s supposed to be starting May 19th, um, so we’re. Hoping that that person comes, um.

01:35:14,830	So the other thing We fall right into that 40 to 49 demographic, that’s the majority of our employees with the demographic 30 to 39 and 50 to 59 on either side being the, the second most people. So if you look at that 50 to 59.

01:35:32,270	In a few years, we’re probably going to be turning over positions. And if you look at that 60, we have 10 people that are over 60. 60 Over 65, so they could retire anytime.

01:35:50,470	So we are Older in general, um, in certain departments we are younger, the detention center is one that we have a lot of that under 26 age group because there’s a lot of turnover in that department. So we fall right in that 40 to 49 employee age group, the demographic, uh, our male versus female, male to female ratio is actually pretty steady.

01:36:11,470	It’s like 47 to 53%, um, now if you go into the individual departments, you’ll find some of them are male heavy because it’s a male heavy occupation such as highway department, um, other ones are female heavy because traditionally it’s been a female, uh, career which. HR department, we have 4 females. They’re getting to be more males in HR, um, field, but.

01:36:34,630	They’re, they’re still dominated by females in that field. Um I did include our workforce safety insurance premium billing because that is a cost for having turnover, especially in our detention center.

01:36:57,170	It’s a hands-on job in the detention center and the sheriff’s department and even in our Burleigh County Human Service zone, even though they’re rated separately, they’re hands on, they’re dealing with the people, they’re getting the door slammed in their faces. They’re getting inmates that they have to control, um. So we get claims and the claims drive our premium costs, so we do have high premium costs and that is part of the problem with turnover.

01:37:16,900	So that’s all I have on turnover. Is there any questions? Comm, any questions on that? Mr. Schwab, I have a commission. The question for everybody, including Hi. At the extension. At the Wheat board and at the highway department, the only hold up for finishing our budgets.

01:37:44,630	What are we going to do on this cola and step deal. How long do we have to wait to get that? That always seems to be kind of a last-minute deal. You can’t really put a budget together without it, you know. That will be the 2nd item on the agenda. I, I know it’s here, but we haven’t decided. Yeah, we haven’t got there yet.

01:38:02,900	We’re gonna talk about that next. So when roughly does that get decided? Next That doesn’t actually get decided until the preliminary budget and even after the preliminary budget if you choose something you can always go down on the final budget. You can’t go up, but you can go down.

01:38:25,230	So we’ll we’ll provide a guidance today. And that, that’s what I’m looking for is the next item is the guidance on the pay step and turnover. OK, let’s move into the.

01:38:50,230	And the second one is the The pat and cost of living, the increase, um, the department heads met last April 30th, and it was decided by the department heads to try and propose a pay step and a 2% cola, um, the pace step is right around on average about 2, 289, 2, 2.89% across the board now our arcage structure. Doesn’t mean that everybody gets that to some might get 3, some might get 2.5.

01:39:14,370	It just depends on where they’re at in that pay step because it does go work its way up to market and then it comes back down. So with that, it’s roughly about a 2.89. percent increase with just a pay step, um, then a 1%. On top of that would be right around 270,000 rough estimates.

01:39:34,570	And then one more on top of that is probably right around 300,000. And that’s just my rough estimates because I’m not quite sure where to go, so I’m not gonna put. All the work into something if we are not going to use it. What uh The the department heads were recommending a single step.

01:39:57,100	A single step and 2% cola. Where did the 2% cola? Com. Well, the 2% came from the, um, labor statistics that 2.4% increase overall on, um, gross domestic product. Mhm And then the pace step is the, the pace step is to keep everybody.

01:40:24,470	Moving up because if we don’t, we’re hiring employees in at the same pay step. Next year that we’re hiring him in this year at so we have pay compression and recently we, we went through a case where we had to do some. Significant salary adjustments within certain departments to try to get up to market and what not. Mhm Mr.

01:40:48,370	Chairman What, what was last year’s one step and two steps and 2% that that was that that was something around there. So I’m not, I’m, I’m looking for guidance, I’m not looking for a formal motion. I will put the numbers together so that we can get them out for the budgets so that we can.

01:41:10,170	have something to look at. Ms. Comm we heard from the city at all? Do we know where they’re at? I have not yet. I heard from anybody at all? Um we’re going to wait for the first. Yeah, everybody’s everybody’s asking us.

01:41:31,000	I’ve, I’ve been asked by 3 or 4 different counties, what are you doing? Comm Schwab, if you had a discussion at the highway department or in any of the other departments about that. If they had any concerns? Yes, we did today. OK. And Marcus, I think, can back me on that if he’s awake. His head’s up right. There’s Marcus, can you help me or? He’s put in a long day.

01:41:58,230	We’re, what we’re looking at is our turnover, start at 4:00 a.m., didn’t you? Comm, uh, as far as, uh, putting our budget together, we’ve already basically done our preliminary. We had to assume some number and we assumed 4.

01:42:15,470	5% just to get a number into our budget so we can start looking at where we’re at. So. is about right. So The 1 and the 2 is about Yeah, we were looking at the, you know, one step and 2% is roughly, you’ll get you to that 4.4, you know, somewhere in there, so. OK. I’m comfortable with that as a guideline.

01:42:36,730	I don’t because it’s gonna come back for discussion anyway, but uh if department heads want to start working off those numbers, I, I’m comfortable with that. OK, I can take that and start working on them so I can get the that part of the budget to the department heads. Yeah. OK.

01:42:56,470	Will that keep us, will that keep us in the ballpark with everybody else around? It should, it should. Once we find out what they’re doing. It’s one step and a 2%. So the third thing I have is a leaf sharing policy. I just have a revision on that.

01:43:18,370	Um, we’ve been getting a lot of calls from employees that are interested in leave sharing, but there’s requirements they can’t be on their probationary period. They have to be in good standing to do leave sharing, so what we needed to do is we needed to add that to the policy and then the. Family Medical Leave Act changed some of their requirements and so we had to add that to this policy, so I’m looking for approval.

01:43:34,870	For this policy. Move to proof. Second motion 2nd to approve the leave sharing policy and further discussions. See unable, Comm Schwab, Yes, Comm Woodcox. Comm Munson. Comm Bakken. Yes, Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carriers. Thank you. Thank you. Consideration of Missouri Valley complex bids and RFP submittals.

01:44:12,030	Who’s got that? it Uh, Chair and Commissioners, uh, the, uh, a couple meetings ago Commission authorized to go ahead and uh send out for RFPs for the, uh, wetland, uh, delineation Project.

01:44:34,170	We did receive, uh, 4 bids, which was surprising, uh, which is a very good turnout on those and, uh, so I put a synopsis, uh, Comm Munson and myself went over the bids and uh we looked at the proposed amount here you can see, uh, the amount of metallark environmental, the, the NTE means not to exceed. That $13,000 and then you can see all the the other amounts here as well that was submitted, uh.

01:44:54,900	That’s pretty much all I got at this time, at least unless there’s questions. We were expecting triple. The amount of the low bid, uh, so we’re very, very excited about the, the numbers that we received. I would make the, I would move that we accept the more engineering bid at $7000 but the question. Let’s just leave it at that.

01:45:15,830	Accept that bit. Second Mr. Chair, the, the amendment may come here now from the discussion. The question would be, I have money. In my Operation budget that could pay for it out of the Missouri complex, or we could use the, um, Missouri Valley Complex Fund.

01:45:43,530	Um, for the delineation cost of $7000 for the wetland. OK, OK, got you. I would prefer to take it out of the operational budget, but I wanted to ask you guys’ thoughts. We have access in their budget at this point.

01:45:58,200	I didn’t have a lot of stone removal, which I was budgeting for. And so I do have extra. See. I come out of the out of the. Missouri Valley funds in. It, like you said, it could come out of the operation or it could come out of the.

01:46:18,830	the reserves it could be either or, but well, it depends on how you look at it, is this an investment in the operation or is this? The build. I, I would like to, I, I would prefer to take it out of the operation just because that’s where the money’s at and, and that reserve fund stays whole stays whole. Yeah, exactly.

01:46:37,500	So I, I, I would prefer it came out of the operational budget if there’s excess in there. Yeah, I do have. So, Can you give me that GL number just to make sure. Um-hum, I’m looking at it right here. Where do I find the GL number. Oh, I got to blow that up much bigger.

01:47:02,100	Give me the 1st, 4 or 5 in the last 4 or 5, the GL is gonna be 2982. 45210.00382. To be exact. Thank you. OK, so that’s a question. That’s not part of the motion. Correct. Mhm. I would need to amend the motion to decide which account to take it from. And your recommendation is. Out of the operation operational.

01:47:29,670	Yep. OK. Well, I already said we’re just having a discussion right now about putting an amendment into which, which account, which accountants are coming out of. Mr. Bitner, you have an opinion.

01:47:58,170	Yeah, I, I, um, Yes, I’m not in favor of spending any money to figure out where the wetlands is because I’ve been out there so long that I know where the wetlands are, so I’m not going to, I’m not going to Oh, I’m not an engineer, you know, but it’s part of the process. Yeah, it’s part of the process we have to do it. Yeah.

01:48:13,530	Well, that’s up to you, but like I said, I, I know where it’s wet. Whatever, but um. So you want to, uh, is there a Let’s deal with the motion to begin with.

01:48:32,370	Um, do you want to amend the motion to amend to take it out of the operations, uh, GL account that I gave auditor Sposkowski and I’ll amend my second.

01:48:45,670	OK, so any further discussion on the amendment, Bitner? No. Now as to the, uh, Um, the motion to Proof. Any further discussion? See no wrong. Comm Woodcox, Comm Munson. Yes, Comm Bakken. Comm Schwab. Yes. Chair Bitner? No. Motion carries. Thank you, gentlemen. OK, um, anything else on that? Yep, we’ve got some more. Yeah. OK.

01:49:14,400	Uh, so, yeah, so, uh, we also were authorized to go ahead and advertise, open up the bids for the Heland properties in Missouri Valley complex, as well as the farmland properties in the Missouri Valley complex.

01:49:33,730	Uh, the, uh, farmland area was to be, uh, go ahead and put a crop uh on there for 2025 growing season, and then to replant it in a pasture cover crop, uh, for, uh, on. years so we can just go ahead and put that back to pasture or hay land or however the commission chooses to use it.

01:49:47,570	Um, we did receive a bid from uh DJ Coleman. Uh, he’s a Guy who has farmed it for, uh, I don’t know how long, very long time, and, uh, that’s the only bid we received on the on the farmland portion. Moved to Peru, 2nd. Motion the 2nd to approve the, uh, uh, Land rent proposal as presented any further discussion. on Caria Munson.

01:50:10,470	Yes. Comm Bakken? Yes. Comm Schwab? Yes. Comm Woodcox. Yes. Chair Bitner. Yes, motion carries. All right. And then, uh, final one is the healland portion. We did not receive any bids on the Hayland portion, however, I did receive a phone call from a, uh, fellow who has done it in the past.

01:50:27,630	He said that he wasn’t able to submit a bid, but he he would like to go ahead and continue hanging that area. I would move to Peru to extend his lease for the next 3 years. Um Julie, do we have to Notice that or can we just go ahead and extend that lease.

01:50:50,930	Um, because there were no, um, I guess applications or bids that were submitted to that, um, and then he reached out, um, we can go ahead with, with extending the one he’s currently got 2. That the current agreed rate? Yes. He’s done a great job for us.

01:51:10,230	He keeps all that hate, he keeps, takes the hay off as quickly as he can. We need him to keep doing that. It’s good upkeep. Yes it is. And for how long a term? 3 years, 2 years. Oh, same kind of thing I have done on my land, and I actually give it away. Yeah.

01:51:25,370	Um, so that it does get cleaned up, but any further discussion? noncultural. Comm Bakken. Comm Schwab. Yes Comm Woodcox. Yes. Comm Munson Chairman Bitner, motion carries. Anything else on the complex? No, we’re done. All right. Well, we’ll get to that little part about other business.

01:51:46,530	Anything First of all, is there a representative of Summit Carbon Solutions here. No, uh, with that, um, bitten or either yourself or.

01:52:05,370	Julie, uh, could we get an update just where uh The pipeline. Pipeline. Pipeline stuff. I can do a quick one. We’re, uh, there was a motion to dismiss filed by Summit Carbon Solutions and we’re, there was a hearing held. We’re just waiting for the judge’s order. OK. Thank you.

01:52:25,530	um about the only other thing that I would add is that I, I, uh, had an e-mail that, um, one of the attorneys involved that was for the PSC, I think, withdrew, but it’s of no. Means nothing to us. Yeah, no bearing on. No, no.

01:52:43,630	And then uh one other thing as far as the weed board, uh, we should be ready for Citizen board applications. I meant to bring that up at, uh, Um On the Wheat Board section, but uh. Uh, that should be up on the county website, and I’ll get verification on that for our next meeting going forward.

01:53:08,530	What? For the, the Wheat board citizen applications, yeah, you know, that’s, I, I think that, uh, We haven’t had a discussion about that, have we? As far as doing that, I think the portfolio holder Darren, Darren, it’s not ready yet. Is he not? We’re going to have some stuff that we’re going to be bringing here. That can get resolved before we get a citizenhe board if we even need one.

01:53:30,270	To be honest with you. So the, the thing about it is, We don’t want to be calling in. Dedicated weed board 2 or 3 times when we can come here and do our work. Once we get the office set up, And Darren. is getting close to it, then. Fine.

01:53:52,100	So I would like to hold off on that. OK. We’ll let you, we’ll let you know. Pardon me. The members, did they get paid before the citizen member. They got $85. St Statement.

01:54:19,800	Per meeting, mileage and The adviser got $90 an hour and that’s why the meetings went from 20 minutes to an hour and a half, you know, so. Well, I don’t know, I serve on one board here. I serve on the city planning and zoning, and I don’t get paid for that. I don’t get. Water resource this gets well paid. Well why don’t I? Damn it. Would you reply.

01:54:42,770	Well, we, no, we passed a motion at one time that all boards and whatnot. Well, we’re, we’re all members of the, we’re all weed officers. Even, I brought that up too at one point, Chair, we were talking about the park board, as we said for the park board, we don’t get paid. You know. Here it comes.

01:55:00,400	Chair Bitner, Commissioners, can I interrupt? Per century code Commissioners cannot receive stipends because you receive your pay from Burleigh County. No, no, I don’t, I don’t What ones are not, what volunteers are not paid a monthly st statement or a meeting statement, but Julie’s going to get asked the question.

01:55:29,830	There’s, there’s something cause they’re I know we pay, uh, social service got paid by the county when I was mayor on, County planning is only. Yeah, I got a little addendum on me. Yeah, so what, what’s, what’s with the, um I’m just curious. Good time to look at it since we’re in budget.

01:55:46,800	Do you have, Yeah Well, she’s doing that, can I ask? Cause I, I know, I know that there’s an addition on the check that I received that 65 or 85, or whatever it is for the county planning.

01:55:59,370	Can I have a quick question I’m not gonna say I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna donate that kind of time. That’s been 1617 years on that board and I’m done. You want back then, huh? No, we’re talking. Well, I’m just, I just. Quick, quick question while she’s looking that up.

01:56:17,230	Where are we at on budget and if we hit budget committee met and have they started? No, budget committee has not. Our auditors waving over there. Um, that was actually an item I was gonna put on the next agenda, however, if you wanna discuss it right now, we surely can, um, the, uh, the, uh, budget have the last couple of years.

01:56:44,370	And uh if you want me to go ahead and set dates for that to be presented to you at the next meeting. Mhm I would say so, yes. Yeah. I like the present. because Is that a consensus or? Consensus, yeah. Yeah. We want to keep that.

01:57:02,530	OK, I’ll put it on the next agenda. Do we get paid for that? Ask Julie. You are. I’ll have to answer for you next time. How about that. OK. I don’t want to hold you over. We do get paid for that. OK. Sounds good. We’ll hear more about that later. Anything else for the good of Burleigh County. We’re Adjourned. Thank you.