Waldo County Budget Committee Reviews Department Budgets, Finance Staffing

[0:00] Chair (presiding officer): Waldo County Budget Committee meeting of October 2nd, 2026. We start with roll call. Mary Morchia, Elizabeth Lentire, Brandy Bridges, Linda Payson, [0:14] Laura (Budget Committee member): Longer Creeley, Sandy Cameron, [0:16] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you. May we review the minutes? Madam [1:15] Mary Morchia: Chair, I have a question, point of order. Sure. I was under the impression that our prior meeting on the 17th was the commissioners meeting, not the budget committee meetings. Okay. [1:30] Speaker D (unidentified): Perhaps we should table these to be approved at a commissioner's meeting, since there's not really a, this isn't our meeting, so this isn't when we make votes and notions. [1:44] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah. We'll have them in the next. [1:49] Linda Payson: then [1:54] Chair (presiding officer): we will move on to first matter of business which is registry of probate and that is 1070 absolutely please do press the button on there i have to press this well that's going to be the [2:30] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: need the hand i'm sharon peavy i'm the register of probate sharon you don't have the whole you [2:38] Speaker D (unidentified): You can just press it once. Okay. But now it is looking. [2:43] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: And the budget I am presenting tonight, a lot of my line items have stayed the same or gone down. There are three or four lines that I have asked for an increase, and I'm happy to explain those. [2:57] Chair (presiding officer): If anyone has questions. [2:58] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: The largest increase in my budget, of course, is the personnel line. Do you want to go through these line by line, or just if there's nothing about the increase? what's the increase line okay so i'm asking for in court appointments for two thousand dollars more to take the request up to twenty seven thousand as of right now i have overdrawn this line by a little over eleven hundred dollars and we have three months left to go our court appointments have really exploded this year in all of last year in all 25 we've had 15 court appointments that we get to spend money on this year we already have 14 and we have we're averaging three to four appointments a month so this could this number is going to grow a little bit each court appointment that the court has to make has a potential of paying out fifteen hundred dollars to guardians app item or three thousand dollars to attorneys for court appointments That's the maximum. The other increase that's substantial is in what's been broken out to probate hardware. It used to be capital outlay, but it's been broken out into two separate. So under the probate hardware, I have asked for $7,000 for shelving running out of shelves for files. I received two quotes. One quote was for $13,000. The other one was for just under $7,000. [4:54] Chair (presiding officer): What department of class is this in? [4:58] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: Yeah, there's $1,000 in there for a scanner. We have four scanners in my office, and when one of those stops working, there are about $1,000 to replace. And the other that's not huge, but there's a $500 increase in the hardware software. software. My annual fee for our docket management system, the annual fee is increased by $500 for next year. I [6:17] Speaker H (unidentified): have a question for the commissioners. On the commissioner requested, I'm out. [6:24] Mary Morchia: You have to unmute. [6:26] Chair (presiding officer): The quorum is raise your hand. [6:32] Linda Payson: Okay. Now, Linda. Thank you. I have [6:37] Speaker H (unidentified): a question this is directed more towards the commissioners i believe my question is on the personnel amounts why is the commission a requested amount more than the department requested amount can you explain that to me the [6:58] Speaker I (unidentified): the 286 365 versus the 286 650. that's correct a [7:06] Chair (presiding officer): good question I think it was that lawsuit for the judges' position that he wanted to talk to me about a few days ago. It was another adjustment. The wage. The wage. [7:16] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: For the judges. For the judges. The wage survey. That stipend. Yes. That's why it's $300 more. [7:25] Speaker I (unidentified): So we've got to talk to the registrar here about the salary that we're talking about. there was a stipend in there that we need to adjust so we'll come back to that one for you [7:39] Speaker D (unidentified): but that's a good catch thank you okay thank you also a note on that line in the notes it refers to a 3.9 cola that was that note was a placeholder at the beginning of when we looked at budgets and the cola that was landed on for all non-union employees who were not also department heads that we went through this valerie survey for was 3.4 well i saw the note regarding the [8:04] Speaker H (unidentified): the COLA, but I wasn't sure if that was done by the department or done by the commissioners. Put the note in there. Yeah. Okay. [8:14] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. Thank you. And if that's the same on any of these, [8:18] Speaker I (unidentified): it's the same across the board. Doug? I have a question on the personnel full-time. [8:26] Speaker J (unidentified): On the page before the department request is totals 276022. And on the big spreadsheet, It's $286,365. Just over $10,000 more. [8:51] Speaker D (unidentified): Kevin, I believe that was before the COLA. So the department request came in before we picked a COLA for the year. We'll update that one. So it's accurate that the department request was less than the commissioner's, but that's why. [9:09] Mary Morchia: Mary. So going back to Linda's question. question. So is the number that's in the personnel line based on the 3.4 COLA? [9:23] Speaker I (unidentified): No. It's based on 3.4 COLA plus a salary increase for the registered probate. Is that the stipend thing? No. No. Okay. So the stipend thing is another thing. Yeah, there's another issue we need to talk to you. I'm just sorry. That 3.4 polo, that's actually inaccurate because that union negotiation, I think, was completed right around the time these sheets were updated. So we need to go back and correct that figure for you. So ask me, was those personnel affected the registry of probate, the probate deeds and also, let's see, probate deeds? [10:11] Speaker D (unidentified): The probate, the deeds, EMA. [10:15] Staff Accountant: EMA, no. The DAs. [10:18] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: Ask me, Pondrat. Oh, ask me. [10:20] Mary Morchia: Oh, deeds, probate, DAs. [10:23] Speaker I (unidentified): DA, indeed, sorry. Sorry. So that union negotiation contract was just approved, I think, right around the same time that she was prepared. So we can go back and fix that line for you. [10:32] Mary Morchia: So the department request and the commissioner's request, both of those numbers we should ignore. [10:38] Chair (presiding officer): Yes. Can I clarify a couple of things? Okay. [10:42] Speaker D (unidentified): The first line, the department request, that's the initial request that the department's made when we asked them to start working on their budget in June. We have made, since then, multiple changes to this. And the commissioners approved a market rate adjustment for, I believe it's nine department heads. The register of probate is receiving a market rate adjustment. That amount that's in there, the 78 to 17, that is correct. At the last commissioner's court session, there was a motion made to accept the judge of probate for $45,723. The number prior to that was all. It was less. So your difference in what Sharon is presenting on your budget worksheet and what the commissioners request is the actual difference from what the commissioners approved on Thursday afternoon. And I will agree that, yes, there is some additional conversations that need to be had, but those numbers on the commissioner request is not going to change. These numbers have been looked at already today, several times. It's, I think, just some clarification on our end that we need to note. So what the commissioners have on the budget worksheet is the correct amount that we are asking for. And that includes the ASHME ratified contract and those market rate adjustments. [12:10] Laura (Budget Committee member): Laura. Laura. Hi. And so I think you said we're going to have further discussion where you're going to share what and how much those market rate adjustments are, and whether we're doing it across the board in one year. I read a little bit before I was watching some of the other meetings. And so this survey that was put out, is that what you're talking about with the market rate adjustments? [12:36] Speaker D (unidentified): Adjustments, yes. When I talk about that, is a internal salary survey that was conducted by our office associate and our human resource director, and they contacted all of the counties, and not as much information as they've spent hours, yeah, putting this together. So you will hear us use the word market rate adjustment multiple times. Right, I'm just wondering if [13:02] Laura (Budget Committee member): if we're going to be told what that increase was. I thought I heard a couple of you saying, we'll talk about that later. So I'm wondering how much the increase was and if we're going to see that across every position this year. [13:20] Speaker D (unidentified): The later was in reference to, we had hoped to speak with the judge this week specifically around an issue between a stipend that was in their salary portion. Compression versus the market rate adjustment. So we're just, that was what the, we'll talk about that later because we haven't had a chance to connect with her about that this week. So that's a very small thing compared to the market rate adjustment piece that you're talking about. Kevin, do you want to add some information on that? [13:48] Speaker I (unidentified): So you heard the chair before talking about compression last year, wage compression, specifically in his case and also the chief deputy. And I think there was one or two other people that involved wage compression. You can call that term across the whole board. So union rates go up like this. If you look at the slope of line, they go up at a higher rate. But when you look at the staff, the management that has been here for a number of years and getting anywhere from 1% to 4% over 10 or 12 years, they've fallen behind the market. And so we did a salary survey internally, and I think we spent over $5,000 internal cost looking at the other counties as to where the market falls for those particular positions. In the case of the register of probate, you know, we surveyed all, in that case, there's not 16 but 17 positions because up in the county there's two, north and south. So we received back information in her case on eight counties. So she's below market median, which is the 50th percentile, $7,192, and she's the second longest-serving registered probate in the county system of 42 years. I think the longest one is 44 years. So she's fallen behind on the market rates, and it's the same thing that's happened in the jail system, too, with the sheriff, not the chief deputy, but the jail administrator and the deputy jail administrator, they have fallen behind. And so to stay competitive and try to even the playing field, we did the salary survey for market rate adjustments. And I typically don't like to use market rate adjustments. I get nervous because anybody can say, well, I did this survey or I did this survey. Well, we did the internal survey, and we shared our data with a third-party company to take an unbiased look at it, too. I think eight counties have participated with that out of the 16, and we're waiting for that data to come back to us, too. But the data that we did is exhaustive. Yeah. [15:59] Laura (Budget Committee member): I was just wondering if you're going to be able to show us what that looked like as far as dollar amounts so that we can see. I mean, if it's being applied all in one year or if you've looked at maybe increasing it over, you know, two years or three years, that's what I'm curious about. If it was all applied in this first year, it's all applied in the first year, and so, and so will [16:31] Speaker I (unidentified): we know like the amounts for how much $7,192 in the case of registered probate? Okay, do we know [16:39] Laura (Budget Committee member): overall, over the whole budget, how much that's added to the budget this year? [16:45] Speaker I (unidentified): Should I add, is that the $98,000? [16:47] Speaker D (unidentified): No, it's up from that. It's the, I don't know. Give me one minute. Yeah, we just updated this again this week. We met about it, so. [16:58] Speaker I (unidentified): Okay. So all in, Laura, it's going to be about $105,000. That's where it's going to come in. [17:05] Speaker D (unidentified): Another key factor about this market rate adjustment, it's not effective. January 1, it's effective anniversary dates, key point, and that's over, that's spread out over 11, persons, so all in it affects 11 departments heads, and the total amount is 104,297.56. And if you refer to your budget binders and the personnel worksheets, you will see what the department has appropriated last year for their budgets, and then you'll see, and again I would refer to the commissioners column, and you'll see what the commissioners have approved. It is a significant increase for that department head, more than likely that is the market rate adjustment. [18:11] Mary Morchia: Mary. First, just, Brie, there's a light in front of you on your desk there that's right in my eyes. Can you more level or something? That would be really good. Thank you. So am I understanding, Commissioner Kelly, that you used the median to make your decisions? Yes. I, for one, just want to make a statement about the market survey. We needed to go through that in Belfast about five and six years ago. We did it three years, about five or six years ago, because we had fallen so far behind and we were losing key personnel. And you really can't afford to do that. And thank you to the key personnel of the county who have hung in there. So the fact that you did what sounds like a pretty exhaustive study makes me very happy to hear that, it wasn't just kind of on the napkin. And so that makes me far more willing to listen and hear. And I also feel pretty good about you using the median as your criteria. It's hard to argue with that. We don't want to lose key personnel, you know, you don't have enough to lose. [19:38] Linda Payson: Great. Thank you. [19:44] Chair (presiding officer): Any more questions. Thank you. Thank you. EMA Dale. That is 1010. Everybody. [20:39] County Emergency Management Director: Yeah. County emergency management director. Director. My budget is up 9.98% proposed. I'll actually break out the stuff from the beginning. My salary was going to go up around 2500 recorded in 3.4. With the market adjustment is going up $11,602 to $90,610. My deputy's salary is going up 3.4%. She actually had a market adjustment a year or two ago on her. She's going up $2,043 because of the COA. My GIS planner, who's part-time, it looks like he's getting a big jump, but it's because last year we were able to use a part of the grant to cover [21:35] Sandy Cameron: This year we weren't able to. [21:38] County Emergency Management Director: He's getting the 3.4% increase. It looks like he's getting $5,787 more, but he's actually getting about $1,800 more. But it's because we weren't able to use that grant again. That's the salaries. My non-salary budget is actually being cut for the bottom line of $1,347, and I'll go through that. There. There's a couple lines that there's two or three lines here that are going up. Travel and gas. I'm looking to raise that $300. When we originally planned on it, we weren't paying $4.50 a gallon. And actually the county doesn't pay $4.50 or $4.80 or whatever it is because we don't pay the sales tax. So it's about 40 cents less. But still it's gone up. It's getting hard to run that. So I'm looking to try to get $300 more. Vehicle maintenance, the vehicle that we, our primary vehicle that we operate is now nine years old. 125,000 miles. Hopefully it'll go another three or four years. But it is having more maintenance. And whenever the maintenance now is usually $1,000 or $1,500, it's not the $200 and $300 items anymore. More still, it's cheaper to maintain it that is to get a new vehicle, so we're going to run it. My EMA programs 4325, we're looking to actually cut that 344 dollars, and the reason for that is one of the programs we're using, Help Email Me Form, it allows the towns and others when they're doing damage assessment to do this online form. The new web page that we're using does the same thing, so we were able to get rid of that software and we've moved over to the web page instead, so that was 99 and then we had a gis program called blue marble actually it's a main based company we're getting new gis software again through the county through the comm center use so that kind of made that somewhat redundant and some capabilities that we'll lose, but they were going from $245 a year to $1,200 a year, and we said that's, you've now priced us out of using that, so we're getting rid of that so far too. What's left, the 4410, is our primary operating software package called D4H, and we do all of our planning and training and exercising and actual response using that software. I've got on, I got in that level with that software right now. I had to pay 10 times as much using that software if I did, if they didn't grandfather me. Let's see, so that was a cut of 344 equipment. We're looking to cut by $200 equipment. Basically for us are things that we use over and over again, you know, a shovel or an axe or, you know, a stapler. Learn is what we call equipment, anything that can be reused. Tower site operations is the other one that's going out, 350. That's primarily due every five years the lease goes up. And for this year, it's going to be $350. It'll be the same next year, so it won't be going up. That line won't be going up next year, but this is the year that it goes up. We have a tower site in Frankfort up behind the Swanley State Park, and that we utilize 46 56 radio operations. We're looking to cut 200 from that. We actually went over our budget this year, but it was kind of a unique situation. We had one of our more expensive radios tie on us, and we had to replace it about 1200. But normally we don't go over that figure, so we're looking to cut that by 200 down to $800. Dues and subscriptions have pretty much been reduced, $4820, have been primarily reduced to our satellite phone. And what we're doing now is we're working through the process right now is we're switching over to Starlink, and my deputy actually donated her portable Starlink device to us so we didn't have to buy any equipment. But it's $50 a month for Starlink the Starlink, it's $75.83, really, for the phone. The phone just gives us voice. Starlink gives us, well, we can access the cell phone through Wi-Fi, or we can do data or emails or anything like that. So it gives us a lot more capability, and, I mean, we'll have $753 out of the budget by switching the Starlink from the phone, the satellite phone. Food, we're looking to cut $600 there from $1,600 down to $1,000. We normally in the past we do a banquet for the local town directors. That attendance has dropped off, so we've dropped that banquet and a couple other items that meetings that we do feeding for, so we're able to cut $600 off the food line. Supplies we cut from $1,900 down to $1,500. I'm able to get some supplies through the state and also through our local emergency planning committee, so we figured that we would cut that somewhat. The most expensive piece of the supply line for us is paper, printer paper, plotter paper because we do maps and ink for all that stuff, and that's it. So any questions? [27:49] Chair (presiding officer): No questions for Dale? [27:51] Linda Payson: No questions for Dale. [27:55] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you, Dale. Sure. Moving on to finance office, which is 1025. [28:12] Speaker D (unidentified): I thought I had some more time. [28:13] Mary Morchia: I'm nervous. [28:15] Chair (presiding officer): Dale didn't give you much time. He did not. [28:21] Speaker D (unidentified): All right. Well, I will probably be up here because I think I am the rest of your agenda. So 1025 is the finance department. You will see that there is a 45% increase in my salary line. The first increase is a market rate adjustment. This will be going from $69,899 to $78,44. 44. This also includes my office associate position. This is shared between finance, human resources, and the county's clerk. This position was previously part-time, and we transitioned into full-time through the budget approval last year. And she is getting a whole increase of 3.4 percent. In addition, last year I also asked, requested a staff position and in an effort to help reduce costs last year, I chose to hold off filling this position. I can't delay this any longer. My office really needs some help. So something that we've been kind of contemplating back and forth is do I hire a full-time staff accountant for the office or do we hire a consultant so when you're kind of looking at my department requested lines and the commissioner's lines you'll see a couple various values the line doesn't include a staff accountant but you'll see the contractor line of 35,000. I am open to suggestions on really which way to go in this. Either way, funding is needed. To give you an idea, I am responsible for all bank reconciliations, preparing the audits, [Chair (presiding officer): I serve] on the Finance Advisory Committee,. I oversee the biweekly warrants. I oversee the office associate and [31:32] Linda Payson: preparation [31:36] Mary Morchia: of the budget process. And other [31:50] Speaker D (unidentified): responsibilities that come through my office. This is just a small portion of what I do. And I'm tired. [Linda Payson: I'm very tired.] Jason, can you read this? Yes. Sorry. Okay. Okay. [32:19] Staff Accountant: Well, staff accountant. Pardon me, I'll try to pick up where she left off. Staff accountant, a full-time staff accountant position was requested last year in an effort to help reduce costs. I think she already read this, so I apologize. She chose to hold off on filling this position. At this point, this position cannot be delayed any longer. The finance office needs additional support. She's responsible. Okay, she already did that part. I apologize. When Carrie is in a meeting, attending training, or a workshop, or otherwise out of the office, there is currently no one available to step in and perform those responsibilities. Having additional support would provide needed backup, allow work to continue when she is unavailable, and provide the finance office with the ability to better plan for future needs. needs. She has budgeted $54,600 for a staff accountant, which is based on $30 per hour at 35 hours per week. She is concerned that this rate may not be enough to attract a qualified candidate. Another option would be to use a consultant to provide temporary assistance with monthly bank reconciliations, financial reports, adjusting entries, and year-end tasks. Her original thought was to budget $35,000, which would provide approximately 200 hours at $175 per hour, or approximately 16.6 hours per month. She has discussed the consultant option with Human Resources, the Commissioners, and the Finance Advisory Committee. They support the idea of a consultant, but understate that it is a temporary solution. The Finance Advisory Committee suggested increasing the contractor to $52,000, which calculates to 25 hours per month. She would like to make it clear that she believes the finance office needs additional support staff. This is not only about immediate workload, but also about future planning, continuity, and having someone who can provide backup when needed. needed. She views the consultant option as a temporary solution, not a permanent replacement for a staff position. Ultimately, she believes a permanent staff position is needed, but the finance office needs additional support regardless. Part-time salaries, treasurer. The part-time position is the treasurer's position held by Owen Smith. Over the past year, Owen has become increasingly involved with the finance office. He attends all finance related meetings, serves as the chair of the finance advisory committee, participates in Edmonds GovTech meetings as we transition to our new accounting system, reviews the warrants, and most recently has begun presenting the warrants during regular commissioners' meetings. Should I stop? If you have questions, I can try to answer them, but no guarantees. Over time, this is a new line. The intent is primarily to make overtime available to the office associate when needed. There are occasions when she may need to attend an evening meeting, finish an important task outside of regular hours, this is not common, or assist with a weekend meeting. These situations do not happen often, but having a small amount of overtime available would allow us to handle these needs without disrupting the regular work week. Bank fees check charges. This line provides funding for expenses such as interest on late payments, stop payment fees, wire fees, and other bank-related charges that may arise during the year. While these expenses are not necessarily predictable, having funding available ensures the finance office can address them if needed. You want me to finish reading? I'm down to travel meals. Thank you. You're doing an awesome [36:18] Speaker D (unidentified): job. I use travel and meals for conferences, hotels. I haven't stayed in any hotels and conferences are pretty much just a day drive. Mileage and other travel-related meals. This line is also used with Owen Smith, who is our treasurer. He also will attend conferences and trainings with me if needed. Equipment leases is for our copier. We received new copiers. I've actually removed this line as information technology is taking on those costs. Dues line includes memberships for Government Finance Officers Association, which is also GFOA, Maine Municipal Association, Treasurer's Association, Maine Municipal Town Clerk and Tax Collectors Association. These organizations provide valuable resources, documents, guidance, and training opportunities that directly impact the responsibilities of my office. The postage meter, this is an annual contract. I am the biggest user of the postage meter. I approximately send out 1,400 pieces of mail each year. And again, postage is expected to increase in January and in July again this year. Our current postage meter contract ended, and we are looking at renewing that contract. And of course, there will be some increases in that. With the potential of increased staffing, I increased my office supply line by $500, as well as the new finance accounting software we're getting. I'm going to need to purchase checks as well. Those are not cheap. And then I have also increased training. Again, increasing, I increased this by $1,000, having additional staff under me, and I want to attend four conferences and training opportunities this year. These training are important for keeping current with changes in our accounting requirements, county finance, software, and other areas that directly impact my position. The software line you'll see, this is for our current software, Northern Data Systems. You'll hear me refer to it as NDS. I have been, it has been requested from Edmunds GovTech, who is our new software, not to say anything currently to Northern Data Systems, but I do have a question out there asking what will happen to you, NDS, when I transition into this new software, because we are not putting all of the data from Northern Data into Edmunds. So I have the question as to what's going to happen with our software, do we have to pay for it? I have not heard answers back yet. So I still have a question about that line and whether or not I will be financially responsible for maintaining that old data system. So I [39:41] Mary Morchia: think that wraps up my finance budget very. I'm not going to go in a particular order, but I'm going to start at the bottom where we just stopped. So is that about archival [39:57] Speaker D (unidentified): information? It is. So due to the recent audits that we've had, we've actually had to go back to NDS and pay for our data for it was three years in order to give the auditors what they needed. I know when we close out a year it goes away essentially, and so we don't want to lose that data, so there may be the possibility of having to continue to pay for it just to keep it [40:28] Mary Morchia: okay. Now I'm going to skip back up to the top. Sure, where you left the room. Yeah, it so big conversation. This is my fourth year on the budget committee. You started in your position here my recollection is a couple of months before the first budget committee I served on. You are correct, you jumped right in. It was a mess. It was, and I could have used stronger language. It was, it was a mess, and you jumped right in, the whole body, and you were as in the dark as we as a budget committee have been or at least the first two years that I served on this committee. I know Linda was on one or two of those years, and we didn't even realize how much in the dark we were. And if we were that much in the dark and you were providing information, you were also to some degree in the dark. And lo and behold, last year, those of us who were at last year's budget meetings, it was like a light bulb or a floodlight went on in the room. And I hate this current transparency word, but it was like all of a sudden information came out of everywhere that we had not been getting. We hadn't been getting answers to questions, and I can, I can't even imagine what your life was like. So and when we stretched from December of 25 into winter spring of 26, you as well as other department heads and staff members were totally burned out. We were, and it was obvious, it was painful. Yeah, more so for you all than for us. It was painful to participate in and observe, and that is not acceptable, and that is not productive or efficient for anybody or any organization. And god knows I don't want to sit here and approve one more dollar. I'm just telling everybody it's not where I come from, but I'm not about cutting off my nose despite my face. And I knew last March when we left here, I said a few prayers that you didn't leave this position at that point, because that was what I felt was going to happen. I think I actually started going back to church, Mary, and I was very happy to learn you were still here when we started 2027. So thank you, but we haven't done anything since last march 27th to improve working conditions. No, we made them worse. [43:44] Speaker D (unidentified): It was 10. I will admit, January, February, and March. The way to explain it was I didn't realize how consumed in the budget that I was for those months. For those months, I didn't realize, I did not realize how consumed January, February, and March, I was in budget,, and while we had the final meeting, that didn't mean that it ended for our staff downstairs. And I think I was in a sitting in with Kevin and I think some other staff members, and it must have been two or three weeks afterwards, and I just sat back and I said, I don't even know what to do right now, because I was so consumed in this process. I did not, I knew, like I don't get me wrong, I know there's piles of things that are stacking up that I have. But I just didn't know where to start, where to begin, because it was literally three months. Every day I looked at these budget sheets every day. If it wasn't a meeting, it was working on those sheets, and it consumed my entire days at times. Very little energy was going into the tasks that I should have been doing. When you were one person and I think Jason read this, when I'm in this meeting, when I'm in my finance advisory committee meetings, when I'm commissioner of court sessions, when I'm off to a training, nothing else is getting done in my office. I think it's important that I continue my education. I think it's important to network and I find a lot of value into the things that I do and it's important for my job. But when I'm doing those other important tasks, nothing else is getting done. And I think for a long time the county has been without just the department of one in the finance. Sometimes there might have been an office associate, sometimes not. Well, we're coming to an error in this world where people are They're asking more questions. They're asking for more things. They're, you know, we get forward requests on a daily basis. All of that stops what we're doing. And as one person, it is a lot. And it takes away from every, you know, thing. I talked about my office associate that went from part-time to full-time. I'm glad she was able to. But I will tell you, her days, there is not a moment of rest for her. We are constantly giving her things to do. If it's not for the clerk or HR, it's for me. And sometimes she gets special assignments. You know, we're stretching a lot of our Department of Ones very thin. Why I'm here, I have no idea. None whatsoever. [46:33] Speaker H (unidentified): But the staff here is amazing. [46:36] Speaker D (unidentified): And I will say that our current Board of Commissioners, I think, have done a tremendous amount of work. And what they're overturning and to become more transparent I think is incredible. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. Things cost money. Nothing is free in this world, but you do not need your staff to burn out either. And I had a couple years ago I went to a conference and they were talking about burnout. Usually happens between 10 to 15 years. Two years, two years, I'm I'm there. It's not healthy. It's not healthy for me. It's not healthy for this job. And it's not healthy for my family. Something needs to happen and changes need to be made into that finance office. I think the County of Walden is the only finance office that has one person. Most of the other counties have two to three staff members so [47:40] Brandy Bridges: Brandy, we watched you, all of all of you girls last year worked diligently to give us every piece of paper, every explanation, every budget number, actuals versus projected versus revenues versus, and no matter what we asked for, you provided it immediately. You're you're one person, like you said, and you know, being in a small town, our town clerk has similar struggles. You know, when she's doing a registration, she's not online doing her MVR, right? So you know, we all know that juggling act. It works for a while, right? But at what cost, right, to you, to the county, you know what I mean, to your family? And we watched you also last year, from my perspective, you girls were willing to cut anything that you could to try to help this budget process. You were willing to give up a standing desk. You were willing to give up your, help, you know, that you made a 365 day commitment last year to get us through the process. And that was at your own personal sacrifice of your own, you know, well-being and enjoyment at work. so that being said we appreciate you sticking in for the last year and knowing what you're juggling and you guys are we're really blessed to have you so thank you for letting us know where you're at and what needs what needs to be done because i think that 's very helpful to [49:17] Mary Morchia: thank you Mary. I'm going to continue. So there's an interesting conversation to be had between hourly paid, part-time, whatever you call it, and contractor. There are different degrees of things that go with each of those things, and right now at this moment I don't feel that I have that information to speak intelligently to that, other than it's going to cost somewhere in the $50,000, $55,000 range to get the right person. So if we hire a full-time staff member, a staff [50:02] Speaker D (unidentified): accountant, I have $30 an hour in there for that position. That equates to $54,600. That staff person comes in, then on the employee side of it, can cost us anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 all in for a full-time staff person. And that's whether or not they're single or if they're family in our employee benefits, not to mention anything else that they may take. To hire a contractor, the one that I am particularly looking at is $175 an hour. He works with three other counties, and I think he's 10-plus towns that he works for. He has a CPA, and I would have him mainly focus on bank reconciliations, some light pre-audit work, financial reports, as well as adjusting monthly adjustment entries. So there would be a focus of what he is to do, whereas I feel with this full-time staff person, it's very easy to say, oh, we need you to do this today, we need you to do this, so to pull them off projects that they should be working on, whereas a contractor you can just focus and say, this is what it is, and you're not constantly giving that contractor special assignments. I am a little hesitant about the $30 an hour because I don't know who I would find for that, and I'm in a position where I need somebody that's willing to jump in, beat, body everything, and just sit down at a desk and be able to start working. I don't have the time to sit there and work with somebody that has no experience, who is just out of school, no municipal experience, no fund accounting experience, so I feel that my prospect for full-time staff is very narrow, and I'm not sure [52:15] Mary Morchia: who I would find for that, and is the contract person you have in mind, is that a remote position [52:23] Speaker D (unidentified): position, he would be off-site, yes, with, and we've talked about, he would be available, phone call, email, answer questions as needed, plus at the same time I would be getting training from him as well, so I'd be able to learn from him, but I just, yeah, it's a conversation, and we've gone back and forth. Our finance advisory committee, we've talked about it, and they felt that maybe the contractor was the way to go, just to see how it kind of works. I've thought about that too, until maybe we can come up with a good price for a full-time staff person. I will say that at least one commissioner doesn't support the contract. My HR doesn't support the contract, but they also to understand that something needs to change down there. I just don't, I really don't know what [53:22] Mary Morchia: that change looks like, and are we going to hear why there isn't support at the contract, they [53:28] Speaker D (unidentified): want the full-time person in the office, they want on site, because they don't think that the contractor is enough for the position. I'll [53:39] Linda Payson: stop there, Brandy, May, Hope, Doug, I would support [53:46] Speaker J (unidentified): Getting a full-time person and I realize it may take a little bit of time, but with the contractor you've got a hired gun. If something else comes up that's better, they can jump for it. In terms of continuity, I think you're far better off with it, with a full-time person. It's gonna, it's gonna take a little bit of time, but I would suggest using a contractor as much as you need to until tell you can find a full-time person, but from continuity, from balancing out of something, you know, worst case. Something happens, we don't want to be in the situation that other counties have had where you get a different finance person, but we have four of them in five years or six, okay, six. [54:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Hands of six hands touch that data in less than six months and we ended up with a total disaster. [54:36] Speaker J (unidentified): So I would fully support you getting a full-time person. [54:45] Speaker E (unidentified): Kerry. May I make a comment? I work with Kerry and do the things that she requests that I do. The majority of my time is spent on the employees. If I touch every employee's desk, it's through her office. Office. This full-time staff versus contract, I was at the meeting with Carrie when this fell apart. And a light came on in my head, and I sent her after the meeting, or a couple days after, You know, I think he could really be a big help to us. He does other counties. I was very impressed with his presentation and how much he knew about Walnut County and other counties already about that. I'll support whatever Kerry wants, but my fear of hiring a, first of all, I've already said this to Kerry, so it won't be a surprise. It's not going to get anybody for $30. My wife cleans offices for $34 an hour. And if she does get someone for $30, we're going to train him on her. And then in a couple of years, he or she is going to move on. So whatever we do, we need to have someone in our office. [56:28] Linda Payson: To help her, to keep her. [56:34] Speaker E (unidentified): Because as you said, Mary, and you've said that, I was really fearful she'd become numb sub in the last six years. So when I went, I tried to provide a little more support. I tried to provide a little humor. I'll throw my hat in some days to make sure it's okay to believe it all, But whatever we decide, we need to do it. If we don't do it, we're not going to help. And that's not an ultimatum. I don't think it's an ultimatum. We just need to do it. We should have done it last year, and we didn't. [57:16] Linda Payson: But we need to do it. [57:18] Speaker E (unidentified): And we'll get into it a little later, but we were very pleasantly surprised when the audits came in, how well the audits was, and certainly the last two and a half years, which is because of that. And the finance advisory committee is invaluable. We've accomplished a lot, but it's also put a lot more work on the character. We'll talk about financially at some point. [57:53] Mary Morchia: As Carrie was talking about what she does and what she needs and what's missing, two minutes ago, you talked about, I'm not going to say it the way you did, but you talked about you need, you need one who's going to be able to fill in, or maybe this is my interpretation, person who's remote, who's knowledgeable and experienced and professional and is working for everybody. That's very different from having a live warm body in the chair nearby. And yes, I understand when you made the statement about too many things get dumped on a person who's there. I get that one. I understand short-stamping and what happens. However, we need to have backup for you. Correct. That is becoming trained over time. You're not going to hire somebody that's a full-fledged multi-year professional treasurer. You're not going to hire somebody out of school. School. You're going to hire somebody that's in that middle range. And so they are beginning to move up in their career in that job growth. And I think it's longer than two years, personally. And they are becoming a backup to you. What if you had emergency surgery and you had a recovery of a month? The guy that's remote is not filling the needs, and somebody who just walks in the door the first day is not necessarily filling the needs. No, but they're a warm body here at the computer here and the systems here and the people here and the commissioners here that need to have dialogue, and human resources need to have dialogue, and the clerk needs to have dialogue, so there's still benefit. And yes, we made some hard decisions that maybe weren't perfect, but under the circumstances, they had to be made when they were made. And we put a freeze on this request. And we're paying for it. You know, you make hard decisions and you know that they're hard decisions, and it's not a perfect world. And I am going to be supportive of this discussion leaning towards the full-time person. There are too many benefits of that over the experience pro working with every county. You know, if you had no options, okay, short term, but I'm, I'm not satisfied that we have no options. [1:00:49] Linda Payson: Okay, I [1:00:54] Chair (presiding officer): Would just like to say I want us to keep the idea open for Harry to bring in the contractor for whatever period of time she needs to get some relief and help while she continues to look for that full-time person to bring in and get a realistic idea of what a budget for that full-time person is so that you get somebody of quality to help you and bring come in as that full-time position and that way you have some help and you're not so bogged down and burdened while you continue to look for that Person okay so take [1:01:34] Mary Morchia: When we can consider that Mary one quick question in your market salary survey you did were treasurers in that no thanks [1:01:47] Linda Payson: Excuse [1:01:50] Sandy Cameron: Me Sandy watching this it appears that we're at or beyond burnout and I concur that she needs help immediately and she needs professional help as quickly as possible that's a great idea I think we need to start with the contractor give her time to find somebody I know from the fact that having a new person on the floor is more work than they are help for quite a bit of time so I think that would help her the most I think that's what she's leaning toward I believe is that okay I'm open to Suggestions well you have certain things you've researched and people you're comfortable with and an avenue that would work for you and we're at or beyond burnout with you now so we really need to help you as quickly as possible [1:02:39] Laura (Budget Committee member): Thank you Laura I agreed with Sandy because when we talk about another full-time you have one person right with you now you're going to full-time that could fill in if you're gone if [1:02:58] Speaker D (unidentified): You're away she so our office associate I get a third of her a third a third she our office associate again is shared with human resources our county clerk and myself and just to reiterate for the county clerk she's doing agendas some website stuff design and minutes of the meetings with HR she's actually learning how to be payroll backup as well as doing all the payroll reports courts for human resources. And then for myself, she does a lot of Excel work, some research projects that I give her. And she actually is responsible right now for all of my data entry for invoicing. And that takes roughly between six and 15 hours a week, depending on the volume of invoices. So if she's not here, I pick up that, which means again, more time away. If she's out I'm doing it if and clearly if I was out she would be able to print off invoices checks would be able to get paid so I'm comfortable there just nothing else would get done I agree [1:04:10] Laura (Budget Committee member): with you that I think that a contractor who's really specialized in something and even is off-site working, I know for us I feel like we really get a lot of bang for our buck that way. [1:04:21] Speaker D (unidentified): So I think that personally is a great idea, thank you. Anybody else? [1:04:38] Speaker I (unidentified): So a year ago March our HR director gave her notice, one person department. In six days we had to run payroll, we could not run paid period. So I had to reach out network with another county and we had to resource on our doorstep on a Monday morning to run payroll. Now, Carrie's cross-trained, HR is cross-trained, and also the administrative assistant is cross-trained. So we have a person of three depth here to cross-train and also process payroll. So they alternate running payroll to make sure they know that their skill set stays up. One of the things about a comment, I want to go back to Mary's comment about a warm body. Having hired hundreds of people in 30 years, hundreds, I lost track. Anywhere from a receptionist to a doctor, you don't want to put a warm body in a seat to make the seat warm. You're looking for the qualified person, certain qualifications that may meet the basic needs of that job or more. Simply because you don't want to, as Kerry alluded to, is you don't want to take six months to train that person and all of a sudden that person moves on. They get some basic training and they move on. So for right now, I think we need to use, you know, that skilled expertise as a contractor and allow her to give the time to search for that person. And I happen to agree with our treasurer this past commissioner's meeting. I read a list of the things that the treasurer is supposed to be doing. So not only is he not doing some of the functions of his job but he's doing functions of the of the job that carry needs done to fill that slot. So when he's taken away from his functions as a treasurer to satisfy our accounting needs and staffing needs in that department, so we need to change what we're doing, we need to change the direction of the ship and come November carries It carries in a lot of training for Edmunds software because we're going to go live December 1st for the new accounting. Software. That's a huge shift. I've done database conversions before, accounting, like medical records. They never go smoothly, and we need to get that thing right and quick and on deck and up and running. The software that we've had, Northern Data software that we've had for over 30 years, should have been gone in year negative year one. It wasn't an appropriate software for the functions that we need here in the county. So those are the things that are bothering us. We're trying to move the needle, but it's getting more and more difficult. And so I just want to, I can't stress enough, the auditors are saying that staff accountant last year, I think the auditor almost wanted to get up on the desk and dance when we said that we wanted to put in the budget for a full-time staff accountant. He's still recommending that. In the situation with county auditors, HRH is pretty much the only game. He's doing 11 counties that I know of right now, audits for them. We finally got in our 23s after the budget committee adjourned last year, and we didn't have any material findings on that. But the management concerns were reconciliations, timely reconciliations. She doesn't have time to do it. I'll be blunt. The 24s are in, no management, no material or significant or findings, but it's the same issue again, reconciliations. She doesn't have time to do it and do the job to the best of her ability. We're not giving her the tools if we don't fund that position, period. I guarantee you, some of the things that we've got in the budget, if they're not approved this year, you're not going to see some of the staff sitting around here next year. Guaranteed. Thank you. [1:08:43] Linda Payson: Mary. So this [1:08:48] Mary Morchia: now in my mind brings up a question. Talking about the 2027 budget, which starts on January 1, January 2. And we just heard about the massive Edmonds training in November. Budget committee meetings are still going to be going on in November. There's no help. So this contractor position, which is direly need, and that's the way the direction is going, fine. Do we have any way of starting that before January 1? Starting which? The contractor, the accountants. [1:09:31] Speaker I (unidentified): Oh, as far as the audit? [1:09:32] Mary Morchia: No, as far as this contractor person, the $35,000 we're talking about for $27,000 that we have a need now. [1:09:40] Speaker I (unidentified): After here, a contracting firm here in place when, after we adjourned last year, the budget committee, we've actually brought somebody in to reconcile the checking account. Well, maybe we need to be brought up today. So we brought a previous staff member in solely to reconcile the checking accounts, trying to get this up to speed. And how far did we get, Carrie? She got through December [1:10:02] Speaker D (unidentified): 31, 2025, before her contract ended. No, sorry, March 26, before her contract ended. [1:10:10] Speaker I (unidentified): It. So that's the first contract that we brought in trying to resolve some of these problems. If we couldn't hire a staff person, we had to resolve the contract. The second contracting firm that we brought in was to take a look and see what we could automate to help us get things done. And one of the things they're doing, they actually look at another county. So they've educated themselves on the other county. So they're not learning off us. But what we want to do is automate as much as we can to take the stress off of the finance department. And so they're going to be reporting out, I think, next week as to what they can do. But certified public accountant, certified in forensic accounting, and the other person was a vice president of Bank of America globally, and an IT person, to take a look at the accounting functions and the finance functions to see what we could automate. So we brought them out on a wing and a prayer trying to figure this out. But the other thing that we need to do is because of the auditor that we use is to get more prepared for the audits. They've had, they, I know they've had 40 FTEs in their accounting firm, but they weren't CPAs. It creates, it creates more work. I'm used to authors coming in. One is a CPA certified, the supervisor. Another one has about three to five years under their belt as preparing for the CPA exam. And the new, and the third one is always the just out of school. So that's your team. We're not getting that as a team to come here, or the document request is not part of the team. So we're having to educate their staff. That's what we're doing. So part of the pre-audit, which is what a lot of accountants are going to, is to simplify the pre-audits. So that if they want, instead of this block of 100 pieces of document, now they want 125 documents, then we can just press the button and send it to them and be done to speed up our audits. So we still haven't got back the bid for the 25s yet, but we're going to use HRH because they've been with us four years now. It should be getting a little bit easier. You know, that's a stretch, I think. But at the same time, you know, we're held hostage because there's not enough auditors for the counties. But I think the pre-audit, to go back to the original conversation on that, I think is where we need to head as a county. And how we can facilitate that and automate it is what we're looking for. [1:12:39] Mary Morchia: Okay, so you left off at March 31st, contract one was ended, they'd reckon they'd reconciled through March 31st of 26. Yes, so who's been reconciling since April 1? Nobody. I have not. [1:12:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Had time, it's just been me. The contractor ended in June of this year, and we did not renew her contract. And there's always that, every day I'm going to go in and do this and that day. So [1:13:12] Mary Morchia: We will have no reconciling until this new contractor person January 2nd starts. [1:13:23] Speaker I (unidentified): I'm hoping for something sooner. [1:13:29] Chair (presiding officer): Yeah. So where did the [1:13:33] Laura (Budget Committee member): Money come from if last year we so-called, you know, for the art reserves, right, for the contractor for [1:13:44] Speaker D (unidentified): The reconciliation that came out of, no, the county savings. We used some county savings which had like 25,000 in it, and then they were hired part-time, I think there were 12 hours, sorry. Maybe it was 24 hours a month at $30 an hour. And she was in here every once a week working on solely reconciliations. She got as far as she could for me before her contract had ended. And then no other funds were approved after that. So this was something, though, those funds, [1:14:33] Laura (Budget Committee member): The budget committee, we didn't hear that last year before we let, before we left for the year, so it's just something that the commissioners after you all just decided to use that money. Oh yeah, no, I get that, it just would have been nice if, I mean for me, I know as a budget committee member, to know, oh okay, you guys are voting this down but we're going to go and use, you know, this money, so it, I would get it, but it would just be nice to know that. Well, I [1:15:11] Speaker I (unidentified): Think those savings come under the commissioner's purview. Oh, I know they do, I know we heard that [1:15:16] Laura (Budget Committee member): Last year. Yeah, let's be respectful. Oh, I am. [1:15:23] Speaker D (unidentified): Let's math. I would, I'd just like to add that use of reserves, which I think that even in this line of questioning you get that it was needed, is so small compared to what commissioners were doing along the way to get to this point where we have gotten. And we take very seriously pulling from a reserve account for anything. It is not something that we are going to, and I think that for quite a while reserves were just seen as a way to pad out a budget that wasn't enough. And that's why we got an IT budget, for example, for the first time last year. So we just said we don't take that lightly. [1:16:11] Sandy Cameron: Sandy. Not to get too far in weeds, but I have heard 24 hours a month, 25 hours a month is what's recommended and you're requesting 16.6. So where are we when this is this? Because you said they were working 24. Let's get a hold of the actual. [1:16:28] Speaker D (unidentified): The contractor that we hired to do the reconciliation was working 24 hours a month. [1:16:33] Sandy Cameron: So that's where the 25 came from, right? No. [1:16:36] Speaker D (unidentified): Are you talking about what was presented by Jason earlier? What are you going to need? [1:16:40] Sandy Cameron: Is 16-6 going to work or is 25 what's actually needed? [1:16:45] Speaker D (unidentified): With conversations that I've had, I feel the first probably three to four months, I'm probably looking at close to 20-25 hours spent with this particular contract that I'm thinking of, and then I as he understands our county and starts getting his bearings with the work, I can see that as a reduction in hours. It's all hypothetical, it's all in theory. [1:17:13] Sandy Cameron: I really don't know. Yeah, but you have been, your past experience has been you've been able to keep somebody busy in there and you're going back with one full album. Thank you. [1:17:31] Speaker J (unidentified): Dad? From what you said, we're all basically already, we're almost six and five months in arrears for the reconciliation. If you can find some money somewhere, it seems like that would be the way to go it because she's already flat out now and trying to catch up five months worth of that plus everything she's going on right now. I would, I would look around. My other question is you mentioned that the postage would increase in January and July. Do you [1:18:05] Speaker D (unidentified): have any idea what that's going to be? I think what I read today was 1.3 percent increase in July and a 4.2% increase in, I'm sorry, 1.3% in January, 4.2% in July. Yeah. Any [1:18:32] Mary Morchia: Further questions? Mary? The training line. I'm a firm supporter and believer in training. Training. My question is, I'm not fully understanding the, you talked about staff training in addition to yourself. Is that the one-third office associate? Is that Owen? Who is, [1:18:55] Speaker D (unidentified): what is that? So that could be for, that could be for Owen. He attends my treasurer association meetings. It could be a conference that we end up both going to. My office associate, if she has any payroll training, maybe there's an accounting class I want her to take. And I was also looking at my staff accountant. I was thinking of that position while trying to figure out funds for that as well. So I was kind of thinking collaborative of everybody, [1:19:27] Mary Morchia: not just myself. I understand that. I think I'd like to ask reconsideration of that if we're going to go the contract route on the accountant position. I think maybe looking at that increase to $1,500 based on your description you just gave us. It might be a little adjustment that [1:19:52] Speaker D (unidentified): could be had there. I can probably compromise that if we continue to talk about a person from my office. Do you have a recommendation what you would like to reduce it to? [1:20:14] Mary Morchia: Well, you know, you jumped a thousand bucks and [1:20:21] Speaker D (unidentified): can I meet you at the middle of 750? Yeah, Liz, may I ask a question? Absolutely, Rana, thank you. So it sounds like there is some consensus around this idea of starting with a contractor while looking for the right staff accountant, possibly maybe some overlap. So is that something that Carrie and the threshers could work on before the next meeting or at our next meeting rather to kind of figure out what those numbers for that sort of plan look like? Because it wouldn't be as much a buy-in. Yeah, is that where you'd like us to go with that? Yes. Yes. [1:22:05] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: Do you like to [1:22:07] Chair (presiding officer): take a vote on that? All in favor? All opposed? It passes unanimously. Thank you. Any more questions on this budget? [1:22:30] Mary Morchia: Mary. Mary. I have a question about the Edmonds training, no, The admins training in November versus potential budget committee meetings and work associated with that in November and normal workload in November. [1:22:47] Speaker D (unidentified): So I can give you an overview right now. I sat down with the rep last week and talked about a timeline from now until December. I have a October 15th deadline where I have to do what's called a crosswalk. So I have to re-number every chartered account listing and add those. That needs to be done October 5th. October 21st, I have another monthly follow-up. And then November 9th, 10th, and 12th is raining for to go live. On December 4th will be the last data pull out of Northern Data Systems. Can't do anything in either program for two business days. With the with the right now we're talking about going live December 9th based on our warranted schedule with the commissioner what's being done and that's if we you know that leaves some open options with additional training if needed and I will say that with our Edmund software our office associate is going to partake in our training and I do have a department head that is also going to be learning the software because the department heads will eventually have access so they can view their department accounts. They can go in and enter their own invoices. I'm not just going to, I want to learn the software and be comfortable with it before I bring on any additional department heads, but I'd like one to learn the system in tangent with myself so that when we do go to training, he can help. [1:24:45] Mary Morchia: And is that Jason? [1:24:46] Speaker D (unidentified): No, Dale Rowley. [1:24:59] Speaker I (unidentified): So I'm sorry if this has already been addressed. [1:25:03] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: Department requested $227,9264. Commissioner requested $192,100. [1:25:10] Sandy Cameron: Why such a difference? [1:25:12] Speaker D (unidentified): Oh, the $35,000 contractor rate is under my department head request, and it's not under the commissioner's request. Okay. [1:25:36] Linda Payson: Anything else? Everyone good? Okay, moving [1:25:45] Chair (presiding officer): on to audit, which is 1090. [1:26:13] Speaker D (unidentified): So Kevin already shared my exciting news that we did get our FY 2020 audit as promised by RHR. So in 2024, so this year, RHR has completed the FY 22 audit. He completed that in February. He completed FY23. And I believe the approval date in that was July or the acceptance was July. And then we asked at the July meeting, when can they get us FY24? They promised us September 30th. And I was shocked when I walked in on September 30th. And I saw the draft in my email that morning. So I was I was very pleased and we did get a proposal from RHR Smith. So at the time that I made the request, I wasn't sure how much that was going to increase. So RHR quoted us $19,000 for just the county audit, $6,000 for the jail audit because I have learned that there is It's statutory language that's saying that we do have to conduct a separate jail audit now. And it is also $950 for our fixed assets, and that's for the first $500, sorry, five hours. After the five hours, it becomes $200 an hour for our fixed assets, so a total of $26,000. dollars. In addition to having our audit done, as Kevin mentioned, we are looking at some contracted services for our firm to do pre-audit work, which we are hoping will allow for a much smoother audit process and get our audits done quicker. And we do not know, like as Kevin mentioned, next week we are meeting with this firm and I do not know what that contract will necessarily look like for the pre-audit work question. [1:28:34] Laura (Budget Committee member): Laura I was looking at the audit and so I'm not sure if a county is a little different than a municipality. I didn't see on the website we usually get what do they call it a management report or something that is separate for us. So and I heard you make mention that they mentioned the reconciliation. So that report doesn't go on the website. [1:29:04] Speaker D (unidentified): And can we have that report? Okay. I was doing that. [1:29:08] Speaker I (unidentified): So the 24 draft that we received, they just updated again. So it's draft number two. But I've already gone through the 68-page report itself, excluding the management letter. And I think there's some issues I want to have them take a pointed look at before I see it, Laura, before it comes out. But it's coming before the commissioners on the 15th. And I'll tell you about 23 audit. I had the auditor sitting there for 42 minutes asking him questions. And the ones that he couldn't respond to, he came back with answers to them, too, because it is a long report when you're talking a government audit. [1:29:52] Laura (Budget Committee member): it. Sure. I just, I was just interested in that management letter. If we could see those from the [1:29:59] Speaker I (unidentified): like 23 and 24, that would be a great thing. You know, one of the things with the new website is that, you know, you know, we keep thinking, oh, we can put it up on the website now. It's not like the old website where it was a WordPress document, which is a hair pulling exercise. But as we think of these things we just put them right up on the websites thanks Sandy [1:30:22] Linda Payson: this might be a dumb [1:30:25] Sandy Cameron: Question, but the department requested, the commissioner's request is five thousand dollars. Was there a reason for that? I [1:30:34] Speaker D (unidentified): think at the time we were talking and Kevin had heard that we were looking at potential 30 to 40 percent increase in audit costs. Yeah, we talked to other counties [1:30:43] Speaker I (unidentified): and to see what their percentage rate increase is. And that was the rates that I was hearing, the percentage increase. So that's the reason we put a higher request in there. We want to make sure the audit's covered. I don't want to get caught short on an audit. I want to get it done, paid for, and move on. [1:31:14] Chair (presiding officer): Any more questions on this? Seeing none, we will move on to debt services. [1:31:32] Speaker D (unidentified): I am not asking anything for that services. We have no long term debt, we don't plan on borrowing any long term debt. So I don't need anything, pretty easy one. Yeah. [1:31:52] Chair (presiding officer): Interest. That is 2000. Yes. Yes. [1:31:59] Speaker D (unidentified): I think y'all might need something stronger than that. So I do have a suspicion that this account is going to be tight. I did not ask for any more for next year, but I will tell you what has happened this year. We borrowed five and a half million dollars. I did not have to start using the TAN until March. I want to step back for those that are new. The County of Waldo does have to borrow a TAN each year. We do not start getting funds until September, October, November is when we finally get the rest. That means that we go between nine and 10 months without significant revenue. Our main source of revenue that we currently get every month is from our registry of deeds and our registry of probate. They do not cover our payroll and they do not cover our monthly expenses. So how do you pay your invoices and payroll every month? That requires the county to go out and get a tan, borrow money. For the last several year or the last few years, I've been borrowing $5.5 million. And our interest rate keeps creeping up. I will tell you in the past years, there used to be 1-2% interest. In 2023, they got a nice little surprise when interest was over 4%. And it has only been going up since then. So on our $5.5 million that we borrowed, our interest rate was 5.22%. I depleted those funds. I've depleted the $5.5 million by August. And I had to go to the commissioners and say, I need to borrow some more money because I don't know when we're going to start receiving our tax funds. And I borrowed another $2.2 million in August. Of that $2.2, I have used $422,973.06. Can you say that again? And that is at an interest rate of 5.4%. [Linda Payson: And] These are fixed interest rates. Since I have borrowed the $422,000, I have not had to borrow any additional funds on the TANs because I've had 10 out of 28 towns send payments in. I have collected $3.9 million. I have $10 million worth outstanding, and I expect to collect that between October and November. The interest amount currently owed to the bank is $87,597.07. On the five and a half, it is a per diem of approximately $789 a day, a month, sorry, a month. [1:35:32] Mary Morchia: Come on, all right, wow, yeah, total interest, Brandy needs CPR I think that. [1:35:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Remember I said I thought they were going to need something stronger than water, Mary, that's 87,597.07. Thank you, and I want to, I want to also add some of the reason we ended up using a lot of this TAN was partially due to our health insurance accounts, because we are self-funded. I will leave that discussion up to Tracy when it is her time, but the impact of our TAN is greatly because of that health fund, and I'll just leave it at that. This year, I thought I was going to request five and a half million dollars. Again, I plan on asking for six and a half million dollars. I did receive a quote for interest. Understand it's a quote. It's not written in stone, and it's only based off the rates during that time that I received this quote. Banks don't have to give this quote to me, but I have an awesome rep and he likes to help me out. So that interest rate that I'm looking at is 5.63%. And unless things change, I can only see that percentage going up when I officially go to request my TAN. I also want to say that where we are with our audit process is great. We are not out of the woods yet. So I really can't go out to bid currently to other banks to try to compete for a lower interest rate, so I will continue to work with the banks that I do currently have because with the 2.2, within a week I had everything done, start to finish, and close, and money like available to me. So again, I'm not asking for more. I am hoping that I can get away with $110,000. I think I'm going to be very tight this year and more than likely tighter next year. [1:37:54] Sandy Cameron: Questions? Sandy. This is something new to me. Is this standard operating procedure for county budgets to borrow all the money ahead of time, ahead of taxes? Is this normally the way it's done? Yes, it is. [1:38:07] Speaker D (unidentified): And I'm going to, I apologize in advance for bringing up these words. I think the only way that the county will get out of this, and I'm currently not a supporter of this, and this will be a longer process when we come to that point where we want to discuss it. Last year, we presented an 18-month budget to change from a calendar year to a fiscal year. It was turned down. We went back to a calendar year. But if we go into a fiscal year, we could get out of the TAN. I've talked to multiple counties that have moved from calendar to a fiscal, and it has eliminated their TAN. [1:38:45] Sandy Cameron: That's awesome. No sense paying the banks all that money if you don't have to. [1:38:49] Speaker D (unidentified): No, we went through great conversation last year about the fiscal year, and we're not in a place right now to go back down that road. [1:39:04] Sandy Cameron: But we're looking at it. We're planning, we're thinking ahead to try and see how we can resolve this particular issue. [1:39:09] Speaker D (unidentified): Issue we're always trying to figure out how to resolve this particular problem. You know, I think Mary can back me up. Interest went from a hundred thousand, well maybe twenty to thirty thousand, to a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand, and we cut that back because I try to, when I utilize the TAN, I only use it when I need it. So I'm constantly looking at those bank accounts and then putting in just what I need, so that way I'm only paying the interest I have to pay. So but fiscal year would solve. Okay, yes, thank you, Kevin. So let me address. [1:39:55] Speaker I (unidentified): The going to a fiscal budget versus a calendar budget, I took 100 percent agreed we should go with this fiscal budget. Not only just one of the reasons it lines up with the state budget, and that's the reason we have to have a separate audit for the jail is because we're in a calendar year. So that would eliminate that piece. We complied last year. I think Mary asked for a number of years for us to go to a fiscal budget, and we did it on the fly, and it was painful. It was really painful. We asked for a lot of money last year. You know, it was a big increase trying to turn this county around, and if we do it again, and it's on the radar to do it, I want to start an advisory committee, and I think that might go back to the financial advisory committee. Let's take this step by step. I don't want to do this on the fly again. It was very painful for the managers, and it was very painful for everybody that's sitting here, and I think it was painful for the budget committee, too. [1:40:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, it would have been painful for the municipalities, even an 18-month bill instead of a 12. [1:41:00] Speaker I (unidentified): Right, and so there was a number of things we talked about to ease the pain on the towns. I actually talked to a few towns in my district. They said we could squeeze by, but could we pay it by month? Is there a different payment schedule? And then so you're talking about statutory requirements versus the actual payment. There is a difference there, but it's on our radar to do. do. We're trying to, there's a lot of big pieces that we're trying to fix, and that's the accounting system one, that was the website, was the other one, trying to get market rate adjustments for the other ones, for the managers here, trying to stabilize the county. You know, we don't want to get in a position, as Penobscot County did, spin down all the reserves, spin down their undesigned fund balance, nor do we want to be in a position of Washington County. So I think going to the 18-month budget to get us to a fiscal year needs to be a walk and not a run, you know, a race for the Olympics. Thank you. [1:42:01] Mary Morchia: Mary. So my first year, four years ago on this committee, one of my first questions was why we couldn't switch to the fiscal year. It made no sense. couldn't you couldn't run a business not having income for 10 months it just there was no it made no sense and I was shot down pretty badly by the commissioners at the time but I didn't let up I drove Perry crazy for several years but and I we had gone through this in Belfast and it worked, and it kept us from having to do short-term loans to be able to pay the school and the county before our taxes came in several months later. So the difference was Belfast was in better financial situation when we made the switch. And because there was so much information that the committee didn't know when we were talking my first year my second year we didn't know how in the dark we were and all of a sudden last year when we had the both proposals 12 month and 18 month they all did double work we had all of this twice 12 months spreadsheet 18 month spreadsheet and but we didn't know until last year when those floodlights came on and all this information came out of the woodwork how bad the situation was and it became Very clear, very quickly, that we had to stop the 18 month conversation very quickly, very clearly. And I apologize to everyone that had to suffer through that extra work. But when it works, it is such an improvement in terms of the savings and just the knowledge that you don't have that overhead that you can't pay. You have cash flow when you need it. So yeah. [1:44:24] Brandy Bridges: We had talked about last year and I mentioned it again in our in our pre-planning meeting about tax being able to build the municipalities at different times and different rates. So if we could do that and you could set bills, you know, some per usual and in October, November, whatever, but then set some of them, you know, maybe bi-monthly or stretch out the 28 towns into incremental. Did you ever find out the legalities of the statutes for that to see if that was an option to maybe reduce some of this TAN interest if you can [1:45:02] Speaker D (unidentified): incrementally? I would love to do that because I come from a municipality where we were paying monthly school payments, which I thought helped out tremendously. I'd like to have that happen for the towns, but the statutes don't allow me to do that right now. There was some language change that the commissioners could choose the date or dates when the taxes could be due, but there's this little sentence that does not make sense and that says that I can't bill you before September 1st. So that means that the commissioners could choose to have you pay in October and November, but it is not going to solve my January to September issue. So I think that we need to have further review on that particular statute. Three of us in the office read it. I used AI to be like, explain this to me. And because I was hoping, you know, hey, maybe in May you could pay and maybe in November you could pay. So split it six and six. say but the statute says that I can't do that. So in our with the statute that we used to do the [1:46:24] Brandy Bridges: incremental tax club billing, that was what we used, is that the select board could choose the date or dates borough. So we chose dates. So on the, you know, 31st of 30th of each month, our community's tax bills are due on the 31st for the people who have joined the tax club. So like you said, we would, we have to pay our school budget monthly as well for the town prospect in, you know, August and sometimes July, but usually August and September. We split that bill because we do, you know, our two warrants a Month and so we split that bill in half because our account by August looks pretty, you know, pretty decimated as well, because, as you know, you know, revenue flows. [1:47:13] Speaker D (unidentified): I will tell you, though, if towns want to pay me monthly, I'm not going to turn the money away. So would there. [1:47:21] Brandy Bridges: OK, because I'm just I would love for that to be more, you know, for that to be really well explored, even, you know, if we have to throw that at the at the county attorney just to see what the commissioners you know what the availability is for them to be able to make that more flexible because not only would it potentially help the communities by us being able to hold on to those dollars for a little bit right so for those smaller towns that may be built later it could be actually beneficial For a little bit of interest and it would you know keep your cash flow coming in through the year if you were allowed the multiple dates Mary so I understand [1:47:59] Mary Morchia: Towns municipalities are different than the county statutes I get that can I just ask the question how many towns have their taxes due twice a year versus once a year I see it once hands raised or twice? July and November. I did. And Alphys was twice. Just my curiosity because I didn't know the answer because it's very helpful to us and to our taxpayers. Ours are due beginning of October and beginning of March. And it was part of the switch of the fiscal year. It was another part of having cash flow when you needed it. As we pay our school what we pay the school is huge each month the amount of money we have to have from our fiscal year July 1 till the October 1 taxes is huge dollar amount so seems there ought to be something that the state could [1:49:03] Linda Payson: So [1:49:06] Speaker I (unidentified): There's so the main county commissioners association we belong to it and I excuse me I co-chair the legislative committee. I am vice chair of the risk committee. And I'm also on another workforce committee. We are, the association is looking at Title 30A. There's a committee established in Title 30A. I think Bree's written, or not written, but read the whole thing. It's like 900 pages. We get about a page per year. We're looking at three focused areas right now because there's so much, there's so many things that need to be fixed, that we're taking a small bite at the apple. And so there's a committee on a broad spectrum committee that's, it's looking at just three-pointed targeted areas right now, and to take it before the legislative and to kind of put our toes in the water, start fixing that statute. It's, it's so, it's just. [1:50:11] Speaker E (unidentified): When Brandy mentioned at the last meeting about that, my, I got the thinking because way back and probably 50 years ago, broad bastard now, and that was very helpful for. And I've been scheming and I learned about that. I wanted to talk to Terry about it and just get a chance to connect. But I do have a plan. I'd like to talk to Terry about that. And as Commissioner Kelly had said, so much of county law is based on old English. You know, there are such weird things. I don't know, I don't think I'm wrong when I'm saying that the cities in the town can have a larger surplus, as it used to be called, I guess, as well, counties can't. Well, counties have to let the sheriff, they can't run it on the chief of police. This is all old English law then, if you don't want to give up, and hopefully MCCA will help to solve some of this. But I do have ideas about that, we may be able to circumvent the strict law without being illegal. You know what I'm saying? So I did listen to that. And I remember it more than a day if you think so. [Linda Payson: But I.] I had, maybe next week, I didn't have to carry a lot of stuff. I've been busy with the, with the budget, busy with other things. Absolutely. Anyway. [1:52:02] Brandy Bridges: Just want to keep it fresh in everyone's mind, because it seems like a fairly reasonable, simple way, if allowed, to keep your revenues coming in. And it may not erase your TAN, like going to an 18-month budget, but it may seriously diminish it if you actually have cash flow in the N4. [1:52:21] Speaker D (unidentified): So I'll just share to give you a good idea. Payroll is roughly about $500 a month. And our monthly expenses invoices can be as low as $100,000 and as high as $700,000, depending on what's coming in. And so when you only receive maybe at the most $40,000 from probate and maybe at the most $70,000 from deeds in a given month, that's not covering your expenses. So, yes, I am not a fan of the TAN, I will admit, but it's the only way that we can pay our invoices. I'd love to get rid of it, but I think it's just going to take some more time to be able to get that out of our budget. [1:53:14] Chair (presiding officer): Thank you, thank you. Any other questions? Reserves, which is 2045. [1:53:57] Speaker D (unidentified): So, Liz, I may ask, I do have a member of the Finance Advisory Committee here today. And then Owen is here, so I may refer to them if you don't mind, because there's been a lot of conversation. For those that don't know, the commissioner just developed a Finance Advisory Committee. Tammy Higgins from Town Manager for Stockton serves on this committee. Randy Place with Morrill serves on the committee, Vicki Ubley from Northport, James Gilway from Sandersport, and myself, Commissioner Kelly, and Treasurer Owen Smith. We started our meetings in August, I believe it was, and one of the first things that we tackled were reserves. I am a huge component of consolidating all these reserves that we have. And we spent the better part of, I think, two or three, maybe even four meetings kind of talking about reserves, what they're for, the use of them, where their targets are, what's going to be consolidated. In those conversations that we have had, we've talked about funding reserves, what's needed this year? What does future planning of these reserves look like? And so in the spreadsheet that you have in front of you, 'll see that there's county facilities, there's severance slash assistance and technology. The only, while there is a value for county facilities, I'm not asking for that to be funded this year, but it is a holding place so that we can start having these discussions, and this actually comes at the recommendation of Randy. And I guess I would ask if Randy wanted to speak up at this time as to kind of why we're doing that, but just for [1:55:57] Speaker P (unidentified): The facilities, just for facilities, please. Well, you know how many buildings did you say we had here in the county, 10? And the everyone has buildings in their communities, and they are targeted or they looked at originally targeting like 450,000 for a facilities reserve, and I'm like, I don't see that being anywhere near enough. I mean, you're talking all these older buildings and stuff like that, you don't know what you're going to have for repairs, so I just asked, I mean, to me the public should be Closer to a million dollars, but I'm not even sure what that's about out, but it's going to take some time to build that reserve up. So I guess I'm not sure what you're looking for from each other than I told them, as long as you front load the tax of the committee, the budget committee, and we have a public hearing that the all of these reserves need a target and we need a goal to get there over a course of so many years. Keep it in mind you may have to pull out of that, say we pick a million dollars. in the facilities reserve we get to some hundred fifty thousand dollars and we need to do a hundred thousand dollar building repair now we just gonna take even more years but we've got a set of target that people understand that 's what we're doing in our town is we gotta give them something we just add money to our reserve we're gonna have a it should be a cat or a target and so just discussing facilities in my opinion and $450,000 isn't enough. Now, taxpayers aren't going to like it. I don't like it. But we don't have a choice. If we want to keep, we can't go to the building. I don't know if anyone read the jail report or the jail, what's it called, Kevin Lee? [1:57:45] Speaker I (unidentified): It was the SMRT, which is an architectural firm out of Bangor and also Portland. They actually built prisons along with WBRC out of Bangor. But I can tell you, when they did that report, it was about a year and a half ago now, they looked at the jail specifically because we're part of the Sixth District collaboration, and we're looking at operations and also the bricks and mortar piece of this. Our 72-hour hole jail is approximately 50 years old, and Randy is correct. If the roof went on that, I guarantee you it started $250,000 right there, and it's asbestos. So, you know, we could have some issues there. And then once you touch a building, then all those grandfather clauses evaporate and you have to bring it up to whatever the code is. So and I did have an opportunity to talk about another firm just recently at the Maine County Commissioners Annual Conference that are doing the modular concept for Penobscot County. And their square footage estimate is typically around $835 to start for a square foot. So the other two firms are quoting $800 a square foot. We will never build a jail here, I think, in my lifetime, and I'm going to last another 23 years. That's my goal. But you're talking probably a facility, you know, a 72-hour hole. We're talking about a pretty good-sized facility that could cost us anywhere from $15 million to $25 million range, depending on what you put in there. We just don't have the money, period. [1:59:22] Speaker P (unidentified): So the biggest thing is, if you read the first couple of pages of that report, I'll tell you the structural integrity of the building is in pretty good shape. So we've got to maintain what we have. And I'm not sure how other buildings in the county are, but we can't afford to build a new jail. So we're going to have to maintain what we have. And I'm huge into preventive maintenance in my town. And we've got to maintain what we have, or we're going to get in trouble with having to build new buildings. We can't swing it. [1:59:49] Speaker I (unidentified): So the five buildings out in Swanville, those are in pretty good shape out there. Actually, I think very good shape. The sheriff's office and DA's office are in fairly good shape. The communications building is good shape. shape. The building, the second building that's probably on the list of things to get done is this building here. The part of the building is in the historical district. So we've been taking a look at the windows and that's another leap of faith because they're leaking. But the back part of this building also has some window issues too. We did fix the roofs up here on the inside. The shingles are at end of life. We are doing some clapboard work, which is minor repairs. repairs but if you come in the back door down here it's in pretty bad shape and I hate to say it but that could cost us maybe $15,000, $20,000 when you get into the frame and there's frame issues in there because of the rust and the salt that could be another issue but so I think the jail is number one on the hit list and I think this building here because the leakage in the windows and everything is the second one so but I think the other buildings fairly good shape fairly good shape so [2:01:04] Speaker D (unidentified): And again, I'm putting this county facilities on here to start the conversation. I'm not asking you to fund the hundred thousand dollars this year, but we do need to start having these conversations and start planning for our future in these reserves so that we're not having to come to you and say, oh, we have a 400 or 500,000 repair and this is why your budget's going up X percent. So again, I'm not asking you to fund this. That decision is yours. But I think we need to start having open conversations. And in the future, you'll also see probably additional reserves that we will be asking for so that we build up them over a slow period of time and not having to ask for, you know, like I said, half a million dollars to a million dollars all in one month. So. [2:01:56] Mary Morchia: Mary. So when we left off last year, commissioners, there was conversation about you were studying the reserves and that you were going to spend time to set the goals, define the reserves, maybe change some wording. I think there was state approval needed once you had come to what you wanted. So what has transpired since then as part [2:02:25] Speaker D (unidentified): of this conversation? So November, let's see. So there were some reserve consolidations that I do believe I gave you in the months of January, February. Since our finance advisory committee met, we looked at the additional reserves. We've done some more consolidation. And I apologize, I apologize. I don't have the list exactly, but we had capital reserves that had 10 accounts in it. We narrowed it down to two. We had active reserves. I believe there was eight accounts in that, and we narrowed it down to two. And then our restricted, I believe that was eight accounts, and there's still four in there, and then jail had five accounts, and we narrowed it down to two accounts. We looked at language as well. We added a little bit of language to make it more clear understanding, as well as adding, giving authority that the commissioners have the authority over the reserves, so a department head can't just say, hey, I want to use this reserve. They actually have to go before the commissioners, get approval to do so. So We did do a lot more consolidation. We did look at those targets. The finance advisory committee has been a tremendous help on those targets. I still think that there is some more work that needs to be done, but what has been approved, which I will talk about more as we kind of go through a couple of these, I do have a letter that is going out to the state auditor to get approval on what the commissioners have approved this far. So we'll look at that, take another pass through it, and maybe there's the possibility of some more consolidation as well. [2:04:12] Mary Morchia: So are, so are some of those compacted reserves you just mentioned, are they within other departments [2:04:20] Speaker D (unidentified): as opposed to on this page? Yeah, there's, so this is only, these are only reserves that I'm asking funds for. All reserves have a specific, they have an amount in there. Some of them meet the target already. Some of them are under target. And I think for right now, we, the finance committee was, we were focused on county facilities. Another one, for example, is, and the name's been changed and I can't remember the name, so I'm going to use the old name, County MCRRC revitalization, and we consolidated four accounts into this. That one account included employee, sorry, inmate medical expenses, in the offhand that an inmate has to go to jail and the hospital occurs, all these expenses, it's more than what we've budgeted and we have to dip into this reserve. It's also designed if there is a housing problem and the fact that we have to pay more for housing for whatever reason. We've been faced with that challenge in the past, and I lost my complete train of thought on that one, revitalization, television, adding, oh, we talked about adding additional funds to that at some point because we are facing a roof that needs to be changed. We could be facing structure changes. I know that last year the sheriff presented that a kitchen needed to be overhauled and put money in there in his budget to do that, those renovations. So those are some of the conversations that we are having in the finance advisory committee to look at what are future options, what's necessary now, and what can hold off. So we're not, I don't think we're done with our conversations, but as far as the consolidation component, the verbiage and some of our targets, I think we're there, but again, it's still open conversation. Thank you. 're welcome. Sandy, yes, could you tell me a little bit [2:06:40] Sandy Cameron: About technology, looks like there's a significant drop in the requested amount, and what happened in one year versus the other? [2:06:50] Speaker D (unidentified): I can skip to there, and I will defer to our Information Technology Director, Jason Bailey, to talk on behalf of the Technology Reserve. [2:07:07] Staff Accountant: I didn't hear the question, so I'm sorry, you'll have to repeat it. [2:07:10] Sandy Cameron: My question was regarding the actual expense in 2025 and the significantly reduced requested budget in 2026. [2:07:21] Staff Accountant: What was the, what happened in 25, in 25 it actually got bought an operating bucket, so I wasn't operating out of reserves anymore, to be pretty simple, pretty blunt and honest to you. [2:07:38] Sandy Cameron: Now that you've got an idea what you need, it's moved out and reduces, yeah, and then going forward. [2:07:44] Staff Accountant: What I'm doing is I'm trying to ask for 150,000 because in four to five years we're going to have replace our core servers, and that's probably going to be about five hundred thousand dollars, so I'm trying to ask for that a little bit, well not a little bit, but less each year than coming back in four years and just saying hey, I'm going to need five hundred thousand dollars to replace this because they're out of warranty and I can't get parts except on eBay, that sort of thing, so trying to play. That okay, thank you, so that's all that's fine, okay, and any other questions on the. [2:08:17] Speaker D (unidentified): IT Reserve, are you able to collect interest on this reserve? Yes, thank you, anything else for me? [2:08:30] Linda Payson: Okay, thank you Jason, and. [2:08:34] Speaker D (unidentified): Lastly, I have severance and assistance, the name has been changed to County severance, our finance advisory committee talked a lot about severance, and they felt that severance should become an expense line because there is nothing in the actual reserve, we utilize this quite a bit, and to give you an idea of what our reserve, sorry, our county severance account is for, it is for employment separation, a program called basic law enforcement training program, and that is with our law enforcement agencies. Bereavement and other contractual obligations, in the past we've had sign-on bonuses that have come out of this, in the past we have had that unemployment expenses come out of this because the county employees, we're a government, we do not have to pay in unemployment. So we are responsible for paying the bill that the state of Maine sends us if an employee is collecting unemployment. And this has happened in the past. And I think, and the sign-on bonuses, that is a majority of what our severance account is used for. Or last year, I do believe I asked for $236,000 for this account. When I came to you with that request, that was covering additional sign-on bonuses and the potential of nine employees that could potentially retire. We did not have nine employees retire. We had one retire. What I did not plan on was the two basic law enforcement training reimbursements that I had to do. One at the tune of $50,522, and the other one at the tune of $40,000. I think it's $119. We did have one employee with separation at the sum of $54,000. And since then, we've had some turnover. We've had additional employee separations. So I'm down to about $25,000 in that account. There is some rumor that there is another employee getting done which means that $25,000 will be gone. There's also some additional contract obligations that will be coming up in November that are unavoidable. We have to pay those out and I think we're finishing up the tail end of our sign-on bonuses. So there's not enough in that account. I don't consider the severance at this point a reserve. It is an expense account. The commissioners have approved allowing this to be an expense with a caveat that the county severance account remains open and if I remember it correctly and please correct me if I'm wrong if there are funds left on the severance expense those funds are then to move into the county reserve county severance reserve account so I am it's a really hard account to determine what's going to happen, to calculate correctly, because I don't know who's going to get done, who's not going to get done. It's a hope, a prayer, and a start. No, I just, so I am asking for $250,000 this year. [2:12:22] Laura (Budget Committee member): Laura, so when it says on these sheets tonight, the mid-year actual expense I mean this one says 90 504 so obviously you spent much more than that so these figures are from like June or what yes that would be throughout the whole [2:12:43] Speaker D (unidentified): Book it's their June figures thank you for pointing that out I didn't get to my to this reserve, but all of your departments say nine months. So all departments have been updated and should say hopefully nine months actual. This one was not taught and I will update that. [2:13:17] Speaker E (unidentified): The other thing that the finance advisory committee talked about, we spent a lot of time talking about reserves and I think the work we did was really, there's no good and no important. But the finance advisory committee made comments that they feel very strongly about in my opinion, that practice. We don't want to use reserve accounts when it should be an expense. And I think it's fair to say that the present Board of Commissioners have certainly improved on that from the past, but going forward, the advice from me is that if we're faced with an expense, It's an expense we need to budget for. It's accounted for emergency only, and don't dip into it. So we've got a lot of municipal finance brain power on that committee, and I've been very impressed with the work that the committee has done. And I always look at Randy's but I stopped doing that so but anyway the things I talked about was because we all know your folks have been here for a while now that we can't use we can't use reserve accounts but we're running for budget and we recognize that right off and that's things with me and either Carrie or I report to the commissioners every meeting with the finance advisory committee's done Commissioner Kelly sits on it also and so I think it's well worth the time it was recommended at Some point we put together one and once we got our head above water whatever we did to it in the fall, I guess, now it's this summer. It was August. Yeah, and it's, there is a lot of work, but it's great work, and it's an eye-opener. [2:15:36] Speaker D (unidentified): One thing I also want to add is I've been asked probably every meeting whether or not the Finance Advisory Committee is working. Absolutely it is. It is not wasted time. We go in, we start at 9, usually our meetings go over, but they are not Chukot meetings. They are hyper-focused on what we're doing that day. The attendance has been fantastic. Everybody shows up, and I will say that it is, I've learned a lot. I have gained a lot of knowledge from these individuals and having focused time to be able to really work on a specific project has been super helpful. And even through this process with the budget, they have had, they reviewed the budgets, they've looked over, they've asked questions, we've gone into detail on so many conversations. And at our organizational meeting, we talked about budget committees attending these finance committee meetings. And Sandy attended a meeting, and I think it was very enlightening for him. He received some more information, more than I think maybe some have received here tonight. But that said, the finance advisory committee took a tour up to the jail. And they said that was so eye-opening. They just did not understand what the jail really was composed of, what happens up there. I do believe they are individually going to go up to the communication center to see what that is involving of and the process up there. So they really are taking and trying to understand what county government is because it is very different than municipal government. It also gives them the opportunity to see what the county does on a day-to-day basis as well. And I think we've invited Sandy to go up to go look at the jail and the communication center as well. [2:17:51] Mary Morchia: Mary? So I got to tour facilities, I think it was before I was on the budget committee. And I'm, I don't remember what the circumstances were, but maybe it was for city council. I might have been city council, I don't know, but we were invited and a few of us went and it was definitely before I was on this budget committee. And yes, it's in Iowa and I know when I joined Belfast City Council the very first thing I did was tour every department without the city manager, without, you know, I was on my own. I could ask any question I wanted. And it is the best time you can spend. It's worth making time to do that. It is just eye-opening and puts you in such a better informed place for every conversation we have. [2:18:48] Speaker I (unidentified): Have. So we can, you know, certainly the budget committee members, if you want a tour of any of the facilities, I'm going to put Barb on the spot. I'm trying to keep Barb away. But yeah, just reach out to Barb. And because I know trying to get together collectively is a challenge. So if you want a tour of any of the facilities or a spotted facility, just reach out to Barb and she'll, she'll tee it up for you. Good, very good point, thank you. Any [2:19:24] Chair (presiding officer): other questions? Is there anything else anyone would like to go over again? I [2:19:38] Laura (Budget Committee member): have, I have a different question if we don't have anything to go over, Laura, on this agenda. So I wanted to put some requests in writing to you. I did listen to all of last week's meeting. I also listened to the commissioners meeting that they held that morning. And the last 15 minutes of it, you guys were really quite candid. I'd suggest everyone watch it about the whole budgeting process and last year's budget committee. So I understand what you folks were saying about presenting the full budget to us, but I would really like to request that we have the full budget, the full amounts for me when it comes to budgeting, and we have department heads up. If I know the overall number for the budget it 's more beneficial if somebody's asking for something and I know oh it's a great budget and I have no questions or just different areas if the budget's really high you know it might cause me to ask more questions so I'm going to request that we have that full budget I know the statute says within 60 days but we have most of our meetings right at this point in october so i would just really like to have that before we see more of our department heads. I'm gonna, I intervened. Yeah, one second. So you should have [2:21:18] Speaker D (unidentified): today in your budget binders every department. We don't have the, are you referring to the summer [2:21:23] Laura (Budget Committee member): sheet? Yeah, yes, the percentage and all of the, yes, that is, that specifically what you're looking for, or is that summer sheet? Yeah, the overhead. I mean, I know from the meeting, maybe 21% or something, but yes, I would like to see that, as well as those reserve accounts. And like last year, I know that I had asked, it was really helpful if we can see, say, 23 on what was budgeted, and then the actual spent, because I know for some of our newer members, like, say, for example, last year, we prepaid the first quarter, I believe, for the jail, the inmate housing of 26 with 25 funds. And new members might just see that figure and not realize when we go to budget that, oh, well, that was because it included some of 26. So I would like to see if we could again, like last year, the actual budgeted amount, the actual spent. And I'm not sure how you guys, if you're able to let us know when funds were used from a previous year to offset that, because that's just hard for us to know. And again, I'm just going to give these in writing to Beth, the balance of the contingent fund. And if we used what we used in the last year for that. And any commitment of funds from the undesignated fund balance from probably November to current. And I understand that what you're requesting now it's probably for us to put all this in writing and give it to the chair so that it can be part of the minutes and she can pass it on to you. So I will do that. [2:23:32] Speaker I (unidentified): Kevin? So Laura, a little clarity here. So you want to see actual to budget for 23, actual to budget for 24, actual to budget for 25, actual to budget for 26? [2:23:45] Laura (Budget Committee member): Well, it won't be actually up for 26 because it's not done. But I think that we had all those years last year. I think she had already done that for us last year. [2:23:58] Speaker I (unidentified): Let me just kind of process for a little bit, because what you're asking is a lot of work. [2:24:04] Laura (Budget Committee member): If she points it to me, I can certainly go. But I mean, we had it last year. [2:24:10] Speaker I (unidentified): So one of the things we did last year was that we took, what was it, 33 general ledger lines? Was that 33 that we shifted them to the right accounts so well so that was the integrated diversity of non-integrated budget so we're going to put the put those numbers back where [2:24:29] Laura (Budget Committee member): they originally were no i'm not no what it's it's something you understand what i mean when the jail fund how we prepaid some of that prepaid stuff that's easy right and so right and so i just think our new members if they see that budgeted amount they don't realize that we had prepaid the first quarter and might think oh prepaid you remember that will definitely be [2:24:58] Speaker D (unidentified): part of that presentation that was a big topic for that night or day didn't we do that didn't in your powerpoint i did do it on my powerpoint it does explain what was it broke it down jail it the comm center so those values are there and then we talked about we also talked about the health fund and the shortfall of the health fund so you had a total of 2.2 million dollars that was removed from the budget and the jail was prepaid comm center was prepaid as well as IT work previous from 2025 I [2:25:41] Linda Payson: understand [2:25:44] Speaker J (unidentified): what you're asking and I think it's it would be great to have them but there have been so many things that have changed and I'll use the IT budget for example, used to be scattered all over the place, and now it's one consolidated budget. So it would be a massive amount of work to do it because you're not comparing apples to apples. You're comparing apples to oranges to pumpkins to grapefruit. It would be virtually impossible to go back for several years and do that. [2:26:21] Laura (Budget Committee member): Would it be any different from what you gave us last year? [2:26:24] Speaker D (unidentified): You can look at the budgets that you have last year, as well as our final budget is online, which includes those budget-to-actuals as well, because you have in front of you 24, 5, and 6, and so we give a two-year overview. review. And I will say that once Edmunds comes into play, you will receive far more information as far as budget to actual. You'll see a longer period of time. I think you can see up to 10 years on the software itself. Honestly, if you could really refer to last year's budget, I would love that, because you were probably saving me about a day and a half's worth of copy and pasting into of budgets. [2:27:18] Laura (Budget Committee member): I can, I will, I'll go and do that. And I'll just say, you know, just the point, that's what we, do in, my town, because we all know as selectmen sometimes and on budget committees, you know, our budgeted amount, if we only go by those and not look at our actual amount spent, that's where sometimes some of our reserve accounts grow and whatnot. So it's in, And it's important for me to be able to see if something says, oh, we spent $200,000 on that last year. So we're going to budget $225,000 this year because everything's costing more. But if we can see that we have a pattern of only spending $175,000, that's just important for me to see. But I can certainly go do that research myself and get it. [2:28:07] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay. Thank you. Barbara. I just want to start with an apology. I realize that I left one thing off the agenda, and that is the Mid-Coast Council of Governments, [2:28:19] Chair (presiding officer): and that gentleman is sitting in the back. [2:28:21] Speaker H (unidentified): It's on the overview schedule. [2:28:23] Brandy Bridges: Somehow I left it off the agenda for tonight, and I apologize. Okay. Bruce? That's understood. I'm sorry. [2:28:47] Linda Payson: All right. Then, Pops, come on up. [2:29:14] Chair (presiding officer): Sorry, we didn't mean to make you ask. Max Johnstone, City of Boulder, I was in the area. [2:29:19] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: Max Johnstone, City of Boulder, Good evening, everyone, my name is Max Johnson i'm the director with mid coast castle governments, we are a nonprofit organization that works with municipality from public all the way up belfast actually stopped in springs. Max Johnstone, City of Boulder, We provide technical assistance that includes grant writing and implementation plan writing and systems. Max Johnstone, City of Boulder, For a minute whenever there's a meeting when there is parties or counties five systems. the budget request i don't know what the numbers are in that document but we put in two separate requests we put in one for our membership dues for the whole county but then we put in a ten thousand dollar request because we understand that a lot of counties and municipalities are trying to have a look at the budgets very closely so we put in a ten thousand dollar request as a an alternative for offering sort of a strategic plan to work with the county and I didn't know how much more to really go on with that [2:30:26] Speaker H (unidentified): Linda, my question is, I want to check to see, you're asking for money from the county. Do you also receive money from the towns individually? [2:30:43] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: Individually, so we do go to the towns individually to ask. Our membership dues are one dollar and fifty cents per resident, based on most recent census data we can get. But we do go to the county when we do, when we have received at least half that amount, or what a whole county would be. So of all the municipalities we do have, we have about thirty thousand dollars in membership dues from all of Waldo County, whereas if we went to Waldo County and asked to pay for the membership dues for all communities, it would be about $60,000, or I think I had $59,000. [2:31:18] Speaker H (unidentified): I understand that. But you do understand that the towns are what pay the county budget. So for you to ask for money from both places, to me, it feels like double dipping. [2:31:31] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: So what was going to be done if the $59,000 was taken was we would have just simply reimbursed the communities that have already paid their membership dues. And for the 10,000, it's more of just a strategic plan for the entire county, just because we don't have every single municipality involved again. [2:31:53] Speaker H (unidentified): I don't mean any disrespect. [Speaker P (unidentified): No,, I understand.] I'm sure that your project is a good project. I'm just saying we have others, too, that in the past have come, they go to both the towns and then they come back and ask for more money from the county. And the towns are the ones that pay the bill, and the people can only pay so much money, and my people in my town can't even afford to pay their taxes this year. So we have to start someplace and just say, everybody has to start somewhere, I guess. Agreed. [2:32:30] Speaker J (unidentified): Dad? I have a question. If this got approved at the county level and you reimbursed the towns, how would your activities with the towns, for example, writing ordinances, comp plans, that sort of thing, how would that work? [2:32:48] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: If the $59,000 was approved, then that would mean all municipalities would then be a member. So they'd be receiving about 16 or so free hours of technical assistance, and we'd continue doing grant writing, as we're doing right now. If there was a community that asked for a greater amount of work, we do give them a feasible contract rate. For a comp plan, for example, most people are finding consultants for $50,000 or plus, where assisting communities for $20,000 to $30,000 instead. But that's on an as-need basis. We don't go to a community and do anything more unless they come to us and ask for it. But this upcoming year, for example, with some towns asking for assistance with ordinance writing because of some state-related zoning changes, our members are kind of getting those ordinances done for free if they are a member. [2:33:56] Sharon Peavy, Register of Probate: Liz, may I speak to this? [2:33:58] Chair (presiding officer): Absolutely, Brianne. [2:34:00] Speaker D (unidentified): So I've been a big fan of MCOG and my work as a municipality, and I've really appreciated the way they've partnered with us and the value that we've got for our Jews in Northport. But I was also not in favor of this and most successful special appropriations this year simply because of our budget and mostly what Linda said. And just not being in a position to make community type contributions when we are not able to pay our bills the way we would like to be able to pay our bills. That said, I do think that MCOG, I think, isn't really special appropriations. I think they're really more like contract services. I would be interested in the county working with MCOG in future years. I would want to see that start with like maybe visiting with our department heads to find out what funding needs there are and how MCOG might be able to assist with those. I think there's, especially in the absence of a county administrator who writes grants, for example, this could be a really beneficial partnership for us. It just might be that we're not ready to make that investment yet. But I would like to see us work with them in the future. I would also like to see the county provide more bang for the buck to the taxpayers. And so that idea of if the county were on more solid financial footing, paying the dues so that all the municipalities could get that benefit, I really like that idea for the future but in terms of special appropriations in general you'll see the commissioners went very low on their recommendation and that was simply because of the position that we're in [2:35:36] Mary Morchia: Right now Mary I concur with a lot of what we just said but I'm going to add a little bit to it for smaller towns municipalities that don't have for example an economic development director there's a lot of what MCOG does that I personally lump under economic development at the broad umbrella and they do a lot of good and I read through everything here nice presentation thank you and looked at all the towns and the list of who's had what done and look you know how they participated and I Absolutely get it if you're a small town and don't have a few extra staff that Belfast has to have an economic development director for 12 years and has brought in a lot of money with grants and things, has the ability to write grants and you know all kinds of other things they've listed in the presentation that I can see absolutely would need that help. But I think because of the dire situation that the county budget is still in, still in, we're nowhere near out of it, we're nowhere near out of it. That I can't be supportive right now in this year talking about the 2027 budget. I think there is absolute good that could come from this and I would want it on the wish list for continuing conversation, but until the county is in a much better secure position I can't support it. I think we're just, we're at bare bones time and we have to really separate absolute needs from wants and wishes. Laura. [2:37:45] Laura (Budget Committee member): But I think your organization is great. Our town actually, we work with Katie Bogg if we very beneficial to our town, so thank you for what you do. Max, I want to say you're. [2:38:03] Chair (presiding officer): Helping our town by our comprehensive plan and it's phenomenal. [2:38:10] Speaker J (unidentified): Just one from Montville, we've gotten through M5, we've gotten I believe it's at least $50,000 worth of grants and we paid I think $2,300 or $2,100 or something in dues. So that's been worthwhile. It's been a big return. [2:38:37] Chair (presiding officer): Anything else for Max? [2:38:41] Mary Morchia: Thank you, Max. Thank you all for having me. Thank you for being here. Sorry for the wait. [2:38:47] Chair (presiding officer): Yes, I'm so sorry. No worries. I'll slip right now. Mitch is the Council of Governments, but he's the only person that showed up. So the others, please. Is there anything else anyone would like to speak about, you. [2:39:17] Linda Payson: Know, just set up, set a question. [2:39:19] Max Johnstone, Midcoast Council of Governments Director: Do we have a percentage as far as increase for overall budget right now, I. [2:39:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Do you're looking at 21 percent, 21 flat, 21 and some change. I don't, do you want the couple other numbers? [Linda Payson: 21.].20 percent, okay, and that's that would be overall, that is everything that is based on your department head request is 21.20 percent. Any. [2:40:29] Chair (presiding officer): Other questions, Mary? So Carrie, are we going. [2:40:33] Mary Morchia: To be able to get the budget summary before the next meeting? Yes you are. I did not instruct my. [2:40:39] Speaker D (unidentified): My office associate to print those off, so I apologize. That's why I said I thought they were in front of your books, but you will get those. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Oh, I do want to make comment as you're going through those binders. Under 2025, you'll see a letter in there. Your health benefit has not been provided, or your health benefit budget has not been provided to you. They are doing additional research and work on that budget. They are trying to get, when I say they, Commissioner Kelly and Human Resources, Crazy Ben Benton, are working very closely with our current broker. So that will come at a later time, not providing it until they both feel [2:41:30] Laura (Budget Committee member): comfortable with that budget, Laura. So does that mean that though that fake year isn't in that [2:41:38] Speaker D (unidentified): 21.2 for the last year? I have put a number, I have put a number based on the last numbers that I received from him. That number is changing. I'm not saying up or down, but it does change, but it is thrown in there. It does give you an idea of what we're asking. And again, we have had, that has been an awful account this year to deal with. There is a number there. I'm not saying I'm going to stick things. I'm not saying it's going up. I'm not saying it's going down, but it gives you some idea. Yeah. [2:42:20] Speaker I (unidentified): So we did go to bid on the health. Well, so we've talked to all four unions, just to give you a snapshot of where we're at on the health benefits, and we presented a deductible plan, which mirrors the state plan, which has a deductible of 800 and 1,600, 800 per single and 1,600 for family. The other plan, the rates that we received, and these are soft numbers, but there was a 22% increase if we stayed with the current plan on the premiums. and then the fourth plan or the third plan that we put down was a health savings account we're trying to push everyone towards the health savings account that has a deductible and i think it's just the transition health medical benefit that we need to go to get into the commercial market out of seven carriers anthem right now is still on hold we're not sure if they're going to put a proposal in there was one other carrier i can't remember the last name of it 's an odd carrier too it's one i haven't heard of. We're waiting for their number to come in. MMA did bid and said it would be 250,000 more and the rates would be higher for individual. I think the individual will go to the family rate, so MMA is out of the picture. So we did take language out of the ASME contract, which we had to deal with Maritain. I sometimes call it Maritime, so I have to stress the Maritain. They agreed to take that language out, and they're open to go to that deductible plan. So we've got the broker coming in to educate all four unions about what's going on. I can tell you, they asked me, we've changed our approach to how we negotiate union contracts. I don't want to give tactics out, but it's more inclusive. There's a team of one, two, three. I think this last contract, we had up to seven players on the employer side of it. And so the approach has changed how we deal with unions. Unions. But I can tell you that the FOP, which is the deputy union, they're going back. And I think that sounds promising because it's similar to what the other counties are doing. Their negotiator actually has 11 counties out of 16, you know, for the deputies or the FOP union that he negotiates for. So he knows what's going on in other counties. And so he was very agreeable to our approach to the health savings account. So we're making some movement in that direction. We've had some very heavy hits on health insurance. What's in our reserves for that right now? [2:45:12] Speaker D (unidentified): About $80,000. I've been low as, I think, $20.87. [2:45:18] Speaker I (unidentified): So once you get the audit, once you see the audit, well, once we approve the draft and we get it out final, you'll see in there in that the 24 audit, they actually state in the audit that the expenses for the health benefits went up 43% that year. So this is a challenge for the, you know, if you look at the budget, salaries is always first, then it's benefits, and the benefits are killing us right now. So we're trying to restructure that and go to a health savings account. So I think three out of the four unions, we've had a little issue with one union that didn't come to the table when they were supposed to. And so we gave them a 10-day notice, and we're trying to deal with that union right now. But there was two union contracts that are up for renewal this year. Asking was one of them. And that deals with the administrative staff and DA deeds and probates. So that was across three departments. Departments the one that's on the table this year is communications or 9-1-1. I suspect that's going to drag on for a little bit. You know, we've we try to get them to the table that negotiated to the table has been a struggle through this year. We had it all planned out for five sessions and we haven't met one time yet. But asking was very good to work with, I'll tell you. They realize what the situation that the county's in with the health benefits. So that's the latest update. So thank you. [2:46:50] Chair (presiding officer): Any further questions, comments? [2:46:52] Laura (Budget Committee member): I'm sorry, I have one more question for the committee or the commissioners. We're concerning the Islesboro selectmen. So I was posed the question to ask because I know that, you know, or Islesboro really gets hit with this budget and it's really frustrating for them because of the timing of the meetings they can't make the ferry or their budget is so stretched that they can't afford in their budget to do it and so under the state statutes it says that even though we're not paid compensation members shall be reimbursed from the county treasury for expenses lawfully incurred by them in the performance of their duties and was wondering if that would include a member if they were voted in from Owlsboro their ferry over and even if a meeting is late and they need to stay in a hotel if that covered that for them to be able to represent [2:48:05] Speaker D (unidentified): themselves that's the way i would read it and would love to have representation for mylesborough yeah great we and we switched to having this available last year [2:48:16] Mary Morchia: so that is definitely something we're interested in we have had there was a representative at least the year just before I started for sure. It was on for a full term at least. [2:48:34] Chair (presiding officer): I was going to spend a new member [2:48:35] Laura (Budget Committee member): of women last year. I don't know. It continually reached out to me [2:48:40] Chair (presiding officer): and it has this year. That's good for clarification. Okay. Anything else? Okay. We will entertain the motion to adjourn. [2:48:53] Mary Morchia: Is there a motion? Motion to adjourn. [2:48:55] Chair (presiding officer): All right. All in favor? We adjourned at 8 49 p.m. The next meeting guys is the 16th at 6 p.m. again. See you guys then.