Full meeting transcript - May 28, 2019

» all members are present we have a quorum it's a great day in kershaw county it's a great day in this all-america county we're called to order i want to first wish up our councilman snodgrass a happy birthday look a day over 90. but on a serious note i'd ask for a moment of silence uh being memorial day we just lost one of our volunteer firemen at a funeral today aptly uh presided over by keith ray and the team and just for a moment of silence please for stephen campbell amen amen with that we're called to order and i'd ask you to stand for the invocation and pledge of allegiance led by councilman connell please dear heavenly father we're thankful for our many blessings pray for wisdom as we make decisions regarding kershaw county pray for charity in our hearts to lift up those who struggle

» pray for the campbell family they might be comforted in this time of mourning and we pray for all those who struggle or otherwise afflicted pray for healing please help us to lift up and serve others say these things in the name of jesus christ amen thank you much indeed mr connell good words on this memorial day day after memorial day With that, we go to public comments. I asked Mr. DuBose to pull out the list, and I will read in some detail what the governing guidelines are of this community. One public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to share information with council. It is not a time for debate with our questions and answers from council. It is a time for council to receive input. It is not a time for council response.

» In short, during public comment, council will listen to public comment but not comment on those comments. Two, offensive and inappropriate comments will not be tolerated and comments should be limited to statements and rhetorical questions. Three, if a group would like to speak to council, would request that a spokesperson be selected and that this person indicate the group he or she is representing on the sign-up sheet and in his or her comments for public comment is a time to discuss issues and not individuals and i'll emphasize the next sentence other avenues exist for individual personnel complaints and that was the reason i had to cite that was something of last time when we had an issue of decorum item number five public comment period is limited 30 minutes with five minutes maximum t

» hem aloud per speaker. Mr. DuBose, can you do the honors? Mr. Chairman, the first person signed up is Jim Steele. Mr. Steele, sir. And thank you for your service, Jim. And only three people signed up, so they all get to sign up. Thank you. Okay, what I'm here to talk about tonight is post-financing of other professional firefighters. Thank you, Jim.

» Okay, I'll learn how to talk into this thing we all know that circumstances come up where we need additional services in the county and as chairman burns aptly said a while back anything new costs something we all realize that the question is how do we pay for it okay those people needing those services in a certain area do they pay for it or does everyone in the county do it if everyone in the county is benefiting from from a new service or a new requirement then the county should pay for it okay but in the case of the firefighters how do we do it and i'm sure you're all aware whether whether it's admitted or not we have a lot of people hundreds perhaps thousands in this county that live on a very very fixed income okay and while 25 for uh addition on a parcel of land another 25 on each ve

» hicle it's just a drop in the bucket okay but when you look at all the federal state and local things that have happened lately penny sales tax okay an increase in the property tax bill okay uh and all these other things 25 for this 25 for that's just a drop in the bucket but gentlemen there's people out there that are already having to make decisions every month whether they buy all the food they want or whether they buy the medications to keep them alive okay so when you start thinking about it please keep these people in mind that yeah this is another drop in the bucket but buckets getting pretty full for a lot of people okay so if people want a service why don't they pay for it it's just like the sewer fund that we're all paying for okay people have been paying for this the sewer fee ev

» en though it's only a drop in a bucket okay they've been paying for it a long time and them and their grandchildren will never see the use of that sewer fee or the sewer. Okay. So please keep those people in mind when you think about this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Steele. Mr. DuBose. Second person signed up, Tom Webb. Mr. Webb. I remember when we didn't have a sales tax, nothing, whatever the price was on something, that was it. And they put on a penny sales tax and said, that'll be gone pretty soon. We'll take that off.

» I bought a hamburger over in Richland County recently, and the sales tax on that hamburger was more than the price of a hamburger when mcdonald's first opened up because i realized we're going to have inflation it's uh but it it bothers me that it seems to be one of the chores of government is to raise money any way they can and uh there's there's always cheese in the trap and i'm wondering because i'm skeptical i mean penny sales tax has gone way way up i'm skeptical um will this fire district turn into a tax district is that is that behind it too everybody wants fire service and uh we don't want it though if we don't need it and in my case uh we're we've been depending on the south carolina state forestry commission they come out and put out woods fires and brush fires and they will they

» will send a crew and it's all over the state we already have that for us we live in an old house that ever caught on fire just be gone this is not going to do us any good but we are going to have to pay an awful lot for it more than a drop in the bucket because we have been buying little parcels of land around us when a neighbor wanted to sell it we have bought it and it's going to cost us around with the three vehicles we have and the parcels of land close to 700 to fund something that we don't really need we already have fire service but i understand that other people need it and i don't mind helping out a little bit but i'm just a little skeptical as as i generally am of people in government trying to do something good it's one of those things that mark twain said it frightened him when

» people got together and decided to do something good because they didn't know where to stop so um fire extinguishers fire extinguishers we want to do something about fire fire safety i would suggest one of the things you could do for homeowners and shop owners all through the all through the county is to promote the ownership and training with fire extinguishers get them to get the right kind of fire extinguishers tell them where to put them and you need more than one you certainly don't want it where the fire is going to be right there in the kitchen you need more than one and the fire the fire crews now that that we have in Kershaw County would be glad to to train people on the use of fire extinguishers that's something that can be done right away in most cases and you might not even need

» to call a fire firetruck. Anyway, I appreciate the chance to speak to you. And I want to mention Memorial Day as you have. We had some fine people die, put everything on the line, come away terribly injured to give us the freedom that we have and to defend them. And maybe we can pass them on. But it appears to me that the American spirit is much more fragile than we first thought, than I ever thought. And you can see that in the news when you look at who is running for president now. We have out-and-out socialists that want to take away our country from us, pull it out from under us, take away our Constitution. There's something very wrong. We have a very fragile American spirit that needs to be exercised a little bit. It's an endangered species.

» And when government does too much for people here, there, and yonder, rather than encouraging them to do it for themselves, put out their own fires, in effect, I think that does not promote this healthy American spirit, can-do spirit that our parents and grandparents had. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Webb. Mr. Bowes. Third and last person to sign up is Jeff Maddox. Mr. Maddox. Good evening, Council. During my last comments at the last meeting, I was interrupted by the chairman and told we, the people, cannot use the word steal in our comments. This action of restricting freedom of speech prompted me to send the chairman the following email, which I have received no response. This email was sent last Friday.

» I apologize for using the word steal in my public comments during the council meeting on May 14th. I was completely unaware that the word had been prohibited from use when addressing a government body. Again, I apologize for my ignorance. As you stated, Mr. Maddox, we won't use words like steal when we are in a government body. Being that as it may, it behooves me to inquire if you can provide the public with a list of words that may have been banned from being spoken when addressing a government body. This list would provide the people with the necessary tools to comply with the chairman's speech restrictions.

» How is the public supposed to know what has been banned if we do not know what words have been banned by the council? As council and the public were advised by the county attorney, Mr. DuBose, it is the chairman who determines what words can and cannot be used when addressing this government body. And as such, it would be the chairman who should provide the people with a comprehensive list of those words so that the public does not violate the chairman's protocol. Perhaps the chairman should require all public comments to be submitted five days prior to the meeting for a speech review by the chairman or an independent speech czar appointed by the chairman. Thank you in advance for your cooperation in resolving this avoidable conflict.

» I believe both would prefer to avoid any further conflicts has occurred during the meeting on may 14th the fact that i haven't had no response is completely unacceptable but no real surprise council does not care what we have to say and we deserve no response free speech is dead words are banned public comment is limited and dissent is stifled taxes and fees are unilaterally raised and 17 million dollars in corporate handouts are sold as bringing prosperity through public-private partnerships called economic development now Council tells us they care so much for our safety that we must fork over $25 per vehicle at $25 per parcel of land totaling 1.7 million dollars a year to ensure fire protection for all this is such a great idea council refuses to ask the people if they support the new ex

» tortion demands proof yet again this council does not care what the people have to say corporate handouts and water parks are far more important than individual liberty and free speech the amount of tax increases over the past five years alone laid a sad truth to bear. Council taxes today to borrow tomorrow and guarantee the debt of our children. Council will use these new fees as a stepping stone to borrowing millions to build beautiful firehouses with brand new equipment and claim how wonderful they are.

» What will not be said is that by the time the debt is paid, all those wonderful things will be obsolete and the debt paid for those things will be double the amount borrowed what we have is a totalitarian regime with a dictate who will dictate the terms of our enslavement and restrict our once free speech to silence our voices of resistance robbing the future to pay for the present in order to create a legacy and secure re-election mother russia would be proud And so freedom dies surrounded by a collective with good intentions and armed with a gun. Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security, despite the claims of this council.

» Continue to tax and spend, gentlemen, and you will be committing political suicide as the people finally see the emperor has no clothes. when is enough enough perhaps when the people are broke and have no more for you to steal for your utopian dreams thank you mr maddox mr debose that concludes the sign up list and that concludes the public comments we move now to an adoption of the agenda the agenda is on the board and also on your tablets gentlemen can we have a motion to adopt the agenda make a motion to adopt agenda mr mr tucker a second second second from mr gardner any discussion on the agenda all right let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and the agenda is approved and we move now to a series of two public presentations the first one is the ag and art

» tour introduced by miss susie sale please chairman burns members of county council mr carpenter thank you for allowing us to be here today to talk about a really terrific thing that goes on in Kershaw County. We can't say enough about what happens on our farms and what happens in our agricultural life here in Kershaw County. As you know, the Ag and Art Tour in Kershaw County is a free self-guided tour of farms and farmers markets featuring local artisans at every stop.

» The tour concept was created as a product of Clemson University in conjunction with our regional south carolina parks recreation and tourism partner the old english district commission our county tour this year takes place on saturday and sunday june 8th and 9th there are 10 counties participating for kershaw county this is our fourth year which has proven to be a very rewarding agri-tourism event for our county with several thousand tour goers around the county each year visiting us on that particular weekend and this doesn't include the other thousands that visit our every day agritourism sites the sites that are south carolina certified and also are on the south carolina agritourism passport trail and that includes olma caskell's farm in rembrandt goat daddy's farm in elgin and boykin mi

» ll farms in boykin all the various farms and ancillary sites are joining us here today are the reason why Kershaw County Ag and Art has been so successful because of their participation and their dedication and creativity over and above the things they do on a day-to-day basis and the individual events that they hold they continue to put their energy and investment in seeing to it that Kershaw County is highlighted on the Ag and Art tour and for this reason it's the Old English District has awarded Kershaw County their attraction of the year award it gives me great pleasure chairman to present this to you it's dangerous looking but it's it's a wonderful thing we know you'll want to express your appreciation today to all of the members and also to present their attraction awards to them as w

» ell which Miss Siegler has but let me call them up here for to you first please Wayne Belger representing Boykin Mill Farms you want to have them all up here for a photo sure yeah come on up way Kathy McCaskill with old McCaskill's farm Josh Souther's with Goat Daddy's farm Pam and Stephanie Tedderton with quite content urban farm in downtown Camden Teresa and Brian Motley with Raintree Farms and Raintree Jack's Rescue and also Dorothy Butterton with the Kershaw County Kershaw County Farmers Market always a big participant and want to especially thank our the county for sponsoring this event the city of Camden also sponsors we've had Belger Farms be a sponsor but this year we have a brand new sponsor and we're very proud of it and it's the folks at AgSouth with Spencer Floyd when you're rea

» dy chairman if you want to present them with their awards and let me just say before we wrap up there's some goodies out on the table outside for everybody to enjoy please enjoy I'm sorry I'm so sorry this is a brand new sponsor for us this year and an ancillary site and it's triangle hardware and dusty bin thank you very much congratulations everybody thank you thank you all very much I know that's right where's wayne wayne wayne where's the shrimp congratulations to all our farmers thank you we're getting served right now can you are we getting some food can you give us just a minute yeah that's right yeah all right we get some food now mr chairman in the past when they said there was an old goat up at the podium i guess new meaning now well as this is happening i wanted everybody to reme

» mber that Kershaw County is the number one most profitable right Martin we checked on this number one most profitable farming community in the state wow and Kershaw and Kershaw County is number 17 nationwide is the most profitable county in this in the United States of America so we shouldn't forget and we should always remember the contribution of agriculture I got a dog biscuit I guess I eat that those are dog cookies y'all yeah oh these are all dog cookies the back of my dog biscuit says it's a it's a dog-eat-dog world and you're wearing dog biscuit underwear Thank You Susie and thanks to the whole team well done I neglected to say during public presentations questions and discussion are welcome and as the case in the next item on our agenda which is another public presentation item numb

» er two on the board air methods community partnership at tab a we had a nice read ahead on that. Mr. Jones, you want me to introduce this or shall I go ahead? I will, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. You don't mind. Thank you. I want to ask April Watt to come up, please. She's been an ER nurse for almost 20 years. She lives in Kershaw County. She's a resident. She sits on several community boards to include the free clinic board. She loves serving the community and the underprivileged. She has been married to her husband for 11 years and he is currently employed with the Department of Defense, you know, on this day, Memorial Day, I think this is very appropriate. I'd like her husband to stand. He's a two-time Purple Heart recipient.

» And I don't want to embarrass anybody, but this man was shot twice. And, you know, we appreciate your service and what you represent. Thank you so much. And having said that, April, I'm going to turn it over to you. First of all, let me just say one quick thing. April called me about this. I had called her maybe a few months ago, a year ago, about a couple of constituents that had called me and were concerned about the amount of money they had been charged with the helicopter flight trauma. I think they were in trauma, whether they had to be flown out. But anyway, it was a huge amount of money. And she remembered that. And she called me and wanted me to come in and sit down with these folks and her. And I did. I was only there about 15, 20 minutes.

» And what they started to say to me sounded so good i said no no we need to stop i want the entire council to hear this i want our county attorney to hear our administrator you know so we can all get it at one time so i look forward to hearing what you have to present tonight thank you so much april please and uh just at that point we're trying to limit this to 15 minutes but it's an important topic and unless we will be a liberal in our our time keeping go ahead please thank you mr chairman You bring that microphone up so people can hear it on the Facebook. I really never have that problem. You never have that problem, April. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and all council members for giving me the opportunity and the privilege tonight to take up your time and your attention.

» As I've stated, if you don't know me, my name is April Wach. I've been an emergency room nurse for almost 20 years. I've worked both in Richland and Kershaw County. I've personally experienced many great things in the emergency room, and I've personally experienced many terrible things in the emergency room. I believe one of the saddest events occurred two weeks ago when a patient wanted to choose death or possibly death versus being flown for the care that he needed due to the cost and being afraid of losing his home or his car. So I want to share a couple facts with you. South Carolina is third in the nation for fatalities due to car wrecks. That being said, accidents are the third leading cause of death in South Carolina, only to be topped by heart disease and cancer.

» As of 2016, Kershaw County sits above the South Carolina state average for motor vehicle deaths, reporting 38 deaths per every 100,000 citizens versus the state average of 21 deaths per every 100,000 citizens. In 2018, Kershaw County transported 124 patients via emergent medical air transport. Of those, 84 were Kershaw County residents. 67 of the flights were transported per the request of EMS in the county who got to the scene and deemed these people have what we call the golden hour of trauma or they're having a heart attack and they need to be flown. The other 57 patients were transported from our local hospital. The average charge for a flight from the helicopter service for medical transport is $26,000. Just looking at Kershaw County alone in 2018, that would be $3,244,000.

» Some time ago, I received a phone call from Councilman Jones. He was concerned regarding the cost that one of his constituents had endured following a medical transport by helicopter. This prompted a review of what could be done to assist all Kershaw County residents or each and every one of your constituents or family members. Should you find yourself in need of emergency air transport, you, your family, or someone you know led to the meeting with LifeNet. LifeNet is an air medical helicopter service who has actually had a base in Kershaw County for the past 13 years at Camden's airport.

» They assist all residents of Kershaw County in their most crucial time of need and they are here tonight to provide their idea of how they, in partnering with Kershaw County Council, can help meet the needs of Kershaw County citizens with emergent air medical transport in the most cost-effective manner. Thank you. Thank you April. If you could introduce yourselves gentlemen as you come forward please. And first of all let me on behalf of council thanks for what you do for our county and thank you also for being a business in our county. We want to make you successful. Thank you. Well thank you very much. Thank you for allowing us to do business in your county. My name is Jason Bover. I'm the area manager for South Carolina I oversee the three bases that we have here in South Carolina.

» I've been with Air Methods for 13 years. Prior to that, I flew with CareForce at Richland Hospital, so I've been in the air medical industry for 18 years, 25 total in the medical field. And I worked with April in the emergency room at Richland for a couple years also. But I just wanted to give you a quick overview of who Air Methods is to let you know who you're doing business with. Air Methods started in 1980 with one helicopter in Denver, Colorado, over since till 2019 we have over 300 bases throughout the 48 states and in Haiti and we have 400 helicopters and fixed-wing transports so you are dealing with a big company many assets have been around for a very long time since 1980 well in 2017 we did over 70,000 transports in 2017 we have 130,000 hours of flight hours, safe flight hours.

» So pretty much in essence, you're getting the airborne ICU. You know, we bring everything that the ER and the ICU has, we bring it to you, to the bedside, to the roadside, where the patient's in need. We have monitors, ventilators. We only respond if a physician calls us or if first responders call us. We just don't go launch and go fly and pick somebody up. We got to be requested by one of your services. That's air methods in an overview. LifeNet's been here for 13 years. It originally started in Columbia, Orangeburg, and Camden. We have expanded since then. We do have one in Conway, South Carolina. Those are the three bases that we have now. Unfortunately, we had to close down two bases because of the financial viability of them.

» But we have one in Kershaw, one in Orangeburg, and one in Conway. And we're 24-7, 365 days. Each aircraft is staffed by a pilot, a nurse with a minimum of three years of experience, and a paramedic with a minimum of three years of experience. all of our pilots have to have a minimum of 3 000 flight hours so it is expensive to to run this operation and to be available 365 days that's an overview of air methods and life net now turning over to jeremy thank you uh jeremy let me have your full name this is not a court of law but we just want to record who you are good evening council thank you once again for having us my name is jeremy roberts and i am an employee of air methods and i am the outreach coordinator for the eastern seaboard so i represent every state in the east coast from maine al

» l the way down to florida i myself live in florida i've been a firefighter paramedic in rural northern florida for approximately 12 years and working with air methods in multiple different capacities such as as a flight paramedic clinical appeals specialist for our billing office and now in the outreach role i'm here to talk to you about our patient advocacy program tonight our patient advocacy program was founded back in January of 2017. Sorry. And at that point, it was at that point that we realized through all of the bad press and media via Facebook, the national news chains, that we were doing our billing practices wrong. Our practices, we were very aggressive, almost heartless to the point of going after patients for the monies for the flights.

» And I'm here to tell you that we were wrong and we recognize that we were wrong and we made that change. In 2017, when our patient advocacy program was founded, it was founded on the basis of walking our patients from the second that we are dispatched to that patient all the way through to getting that claim resolved with their insurance company. A vast number of our claims are denied multiple times before they are actually paid and a substantial portion of this does have to do with regulation changes brought on by the Affordable Care Act as it was enacted in 2014. The vast majority of our patients that we see, approximately 65 to 70 percent, are on Medicare and Medicaid and they're on fixed incomes or they're uninsured.

» Leaving the other 30 percent who are self-pay or insured privately through plans such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana, United Healthcare, essentially taking care of the costs for everybody that has flown. So 30% of our patients cover approximately 75% of the cost overall, with Medicare filling in the other 25% as the numbers fall. First thing we did with our advocacy program, we wanted to set out to go in-network with major insurers. Emergency transportation, both air and ground as a large part, is not in-network with the majority of the insurance companies across the country.

» um they said this is not a situation that's isolated to south carolina but across the country if you call 911 and have to be taken to the hospital by ambulance or air ambulance majority of the time that claim is considered out of network can you can you just stop there because this is a term of art everybody should understand in network and out network could you just run through that real quick just for further understanding oh yes sir not a problem so an in network provider um the provider themselves has negotiated with the insurance company they've negotiate a specific rate that although the company may charge X number of dollars, the insurance company will only pay that contracted amount. The patient's only responsible for any co-payments, co-insurance, and deductibles.

» Whereas out of network, your coverage difference are usually vastly different, sometimes only 50, 40% coverage. In some cases, you're not covered at all if you're out of network, leaving the patient responsible for the entire bill. In the emergency situation uh chairman nobody knows that if they are in or out of network with the provider in an emergency situation and they don't care correct no and and we don't either and we say we we you know we respond to our patients at the request of fire rescue and ems or the hospitals that we serve and we respond to these patients um with without regard for their ability to pay their claims that's settled after the fact um but as far as negotiating in-network agreements i am proud to say that we do sit currently sit in network with approximately 30 to

» 35 percent of all major insurers across the country with the vast majority of that 35 percent being achieved within the last 48 months excuse me 24 months um we are currently in network with blue cross and blue shield in the south state of south carolina as well as blue cross and blue shield or anthem in georgia alabama mississippi tennessee kentucky virginia maryland new york state massachusetts ohio indiana and michigan so where a lot of the visitors to the state of south carolina come from especially snowbirds um but as far as the advocacy goes um can you uh we have a team of dedicated patient advocates in our billing office which is located in san bernardo california each of these advocates is assigned to a specific department so there's an advocate in the medicare department the blue c

» ross department united health and then there's another department for the other smaller payers that we deal with when it comes to charity as many of you may know a lot of the pretty much any health system across the country they offer charity care to their patients they determine this level of charity care by running a patient through a financial algorithm and once they do that that determines the amount excuse me the amount of charity that a patient may be eligible for and may be anywhere from zero up to 100 percent cost when it comes to the charity care policy air methods on our billing team and our advocacy team we will follow any charity program that has been established by the hospital so if a patient is flown to prisma health in colombia and they've been determined to have 80 charity

» care we as a company will also follow that same charity care guideline which takes 80 or whatever has been determined off of their off of the bill after insurance um and the last section here is a simplified correspondence i spoke earlier and stated that we as a company were we were wrong in with how we were billing our patients and working with our patients to get our claims resolved on the very first notice that went out to a patient that notice included the number the total number of the bill of what the charges were to the insurance company and it didn't say whether they have paid or not at that point but you may see you bill into the tens of thousands of dollars and oh by the way at the bottom here's a credit card information if you'd like to pay that before it went through the insuran

» ce now our billing statements as you can see here um there are you see five arrows directed across the middle of that page the first step every patient is flown by our company they receive a letter from the patient advocate in the department wherever their insurance lies and that this letters simply it's very empathetic and simply states we are sorry that you had to use our service please let please understand that we are here to help you feel free to reach out to me whoever that patient may be and that is a direct line not a 1-800 number but a direct line to that patient advocacy that patient advocate in our billing office if you have any questions comments or concerns patients get updated statements as we move through the billing process certain forms are needed to submit claims such as s

» ignatures from the patient or the patient's family member to submit claims or act on the patient's behalf if we're submitting an appeal if the claim has been denied. By the time you get to the fourth arrow from the left, that is when the patient finally sees a number on a statement. At that point, the patient has finally reached a point where their insurance has been contacted, the claim has been submitted, and their claim has been paid. At that fourth arrow is where the patient now sees what they may be responsible for.

» Any patient that's at that point, any patient that's in network with the providers that we have currently gone in network with, at that point, they're only responsible for their co-insurance, their co-payments, or their deductibles, which those are always, they have to pay those contractually per their agreement with their insurance provider.

» Any patient who works with our advocate through the entire program, and I must absolutely stress that the patients and their family, when they get that written, that first written correspondence or that first touch phone call from an advocacy department, please do not ignore those phone calls do not ignore those letters um because the information in there is vital to getting the claim paid and working with the insurance company to get it resolved without any additional without any additional stress on the patient or their patient family um to share with you two brilliant success stories of our patient advocacy program to this point we had one in live oak florida which is in north central florida near the intersection of i-75 and interstate 10 a patient that was flown with a stroke after the

» fact we were actually in network work with her provider, but her provider failed to pay the claim appropriately. One of our advocates worked with the patient and Humana directly to get the claim resolved, and approximately two phone calls, that patient's claim was paid in full, leaving that patient with zero balance. The other success story that we have, I can share with you, is out of New York State. A patient was flown with a critical illness to a tertiary care facility, and after that flight, that patient received that first touch phone call and that first touch on the new billing statement that you see on the screen before you.

» Those, after approximately six months after that patient was flown, she received a letter in the mail from a collections company stating that the entire balance had been forwarded to collections company and was now due to her. That patient went to that hospital's administration and made a complaint stating I was having a severe medical emergency I had to be flown. Why am I facing a bill? The hospital administration reaches out to our business team in New York state who reaches out to our billing team in California and was able to determine that multiple written correspondences were sent to the patient. Multiple phone calls were made to the patient because they needed a simple signature because they could not submit the claim without a signature.

» That information was returned to the hospital administration who in turn had the patient contact our advocacy program in California, working with the patient, getting the proper signatures that claim was submitted for the first time and paid in full, leaving no balance to that patient. And I must stress once again, any patient who works with our patient advocacy advocates through the entire process and does not ignore that written correspondence or ignore those phone calls will never be left with a large outstanding balance bill other than their co-payments, co-insurance, and deductibles, which are required by law.

» thank you thank you hello chairman council members i'm patrick lamontine i'm uh the account executive for south carolina unlike these two i haven't been around uh with life as long um i've spent my career with the red cross and switched over and became part of this team about a month ago so i'm still learning a bit but uh i'm i'm appreciating uh the work that we're doing and it's a nice transition from the work i've done with the red cross and the blood services side of the house. I'm going to take you to the next slide and talk to you about our community partnership program. I wanted to start out with a little basics about LifeNet and their methods so you know exactly what we do day in and day out for the citizens of our community.

» And also so you could learn a little bit about what we've done in the last three years to change over the processes that Jeremy has just detailed for you. And because of that, it has enabled us to be able to be a better stewards for our community, for the patients that have to be transported due to the types of medical treatments that were necessary. The Community Partnership Program is a way for counties to provide financial assistance to the residents that require air medical transport without paying a large upfront sum of money that would go towards a membership. Many of other air ambulances have memberships that are an annual membership where you would pay in, and that would help cover the cost through a year, but it's a lump sum payment up front.

» Air Methods also used to go with that strategy until we went and networked with a lot more of the private insurers, and also before we had our patient advocacy program. So we've started to roll out our community partnership program in place of it, in place of the memberships. We feel that the citizens and the counties shouldn't have to depend on memberships in order to feel comfortable about the transports that they might require if they're in a serious accident or have a serious medical condition and need inter-hospital transports. With the implementation of the patient advocacy program and also with the signing of the in-network contracts that we have with the private insurers, the out-of-pocket expenses for patient transports has drastically been reduced.

» As Jeremy had already mentioned, 70% of our transports involve patients that have Medicare or Medicaid or are uninsured, and with Medicare and Medicaid, that the reimbursements are completely set. With or without memberships, they're set reimbursements amounts already for Medicaid and Medicare patients. So it's not really necessary even to have a membership for those patients. For those that are uninsured, our patient advocacy program utilizes flexible financial assistance programs to help minimize their out-of-pocket expenses.

» nationally patients transported by air methods since we have gone in network and have also developed the patient advocacy program they're typically seeing an average out-of-pocket cost of four to six hundred dollars for their transport which is quite significant compared to the overall cost what what is incurred to run a base to have the flights to transport those patients. Part of the community partnership program, there are no upfront costs to the county or the citizens of the county to be a part of the program. As part of the program, the county would determine if they want to set aside, internally have a certain amount of money budgeted each fiscal year to cover any air medical costs that are remaining for their citizens up to a pre-negotiated amount with Air Methods and LifeNet.

» In addition to that, invoices are sent only to the county for any remaining out-of-pocket expenses. So to go a little deeper with that, if the county, let's just throw a number out there, and if the county budgets $50,000 towards air medical transport for their citizens, But throughout that year, the citizens and the costs associated with medical transport for the citizens only is $30,000. The remaining amount of that money that you budgeted stays within the county, can be used for other expenditures. It never comes to us unless we invoice you for any outstanding out-of-pocket costs. So if you'll move on to the next slide, it'll give you some basic numbers. These are, some of them are estimates based on past amount of transports that we've seen within Kershaw County for their residents.

» In the past, there used to be a membership fee based on the population base. For Kershaw County with 65,036 residents, the cost for a membership would have been $162,590. Air Methods is not doing memberships any longer, and it's a beautiful thing because if you look deeper into these numbers it'll go into, you'll see that through our private insurance contracts and through the patient advocacy, we have listed in the third column expected per transport. So that's the expected out-of-pocket cost for different pay classes for the different type of reimbursements. So for Medicaid, there is no additional cost associated with the transport after Medicaid settles up on the reimbursement for those patients. Medicare, there are some co-pays and deductibles that can average around $375.

» For government insurance, the GINS, the average is about $70 out-of-pocket. For in-network private insurance, the average is about $225. And then for out-of-network private insurance and for self-pay or uninsured, Air Methods has set a cap of $700 out-of-pocket cost towards the patient or the county if the county was willing to cover those costs through this partnership. If you look at the fourth column, it goes into the total cost. So as you can see, the bottom line right there is the highlighted area in green, $33,195. That's an estimate because obviously flights are fluid. You don't know how many citizens are going to need air medical transport in the next year.

» But if we base it on what we've seen in the past, the number of transports we've seen in the past for your citizens, We would suggest that you budget at least $33,195 to cover those past expenditures, past out-of-pocket costs, which is a far cry from what we've seen in those memberships before. And the beauty of it is all the money that's budgeted stays in the county and is only paid for the flights that occur, the out-of-pocket costs that remain for the flights that occur. So compared to the membership fees of the past, the savings are $129,395 if everything is the same as it has been in the past.

» Two things to note that we wanted to bring up was that since we signed or went in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield on April 1st, those numbers really aren't reflected in the in-network private insurance row right there. So we expect that the out-of-network private insurance costs will go down because more people will be in-network because of our relationship with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. And then the other asterisks that were on the green section, the shaded area, say that the actual county costs are dependent on actual flights. So that could go up. It could go down, of course.

» So it just gives you a good visualization if this was an opportunity that the county was willing to take to partner with LifeNet and AIR Methods to add a benefit for the citizens, it could be a really good thing to take care and really show that you're giving back to the county as well and helping those people during the time of real struggles in their lives when they've been through a major procedure. as well. So just to recap, no upfront costs for Kershaw County. We are in network through our partnership and have negotiated rates with Blue Cross Blue Shield and other insurance providers. There's lower out-of-pocket costs for our patients. And as I've mentioned before, $400 to $600 on average.

» We feel very strongly about our advocacy program that simplifies the process for the patients after they're transported the county keeps any unused funds that are budgeted towards the medical transport there are caps on the out of out of network insurance claims and the uninsured costs as well at 700 and as i mentioned no memberships required to be a part of this partnership questions thank you uh mr jones we have a discussion period and new business how do you want to go forward on this well i would like to ask a couple of questions and i hope my colleagues to get involved and ask some questions as well so you're telling me for instance let's take an example the folks that called me they had a twenty six thousand dollar bill if we were doing this now what would they what would their bill p

» robably have been um now it will be somewhere around that four to six hundred dollars yeah jerry jerry a little better verse on the billing side um so with that twenty six thousand dollars um i don't it would depend on how that went through their insurance company and what was left over um so with being in network if those claims occurred now and those patients were in network of blue cross and blue shield of south carolina that flight as long as it meets the medical necessity criteria would be paid out at the contracted rate leaving the patient only responsible with co-insurance um deductibles or co-payments that is an absolute far cry from what we've been doing or what has been happening absolutely yes i I just think that's remarkable.

» Other questions? And I did want to point out one more thing about the membership program since we have that slide up. That $162,000 is based on the 65,000 citizens times $2.50 per citizen. That's what that comes out to. And it's important to remember about memberships. There are many companies out there selling memberships, citing that, hey, this will help you with your out-of-pocket costs. A very important thing to remember about the memberships is that the memberships only cover out-of-network costs and those who are uninsured. So when you look at 70% of the flight volume, if you are in-network, you're only subject to your copayment, your coinsurance, and your deductible. If you're on Medicaid, it's the same thing. You're still only subject to copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles.

» And if you're on Medicaid, federal regulations dictate that you cannot balance bill and Medicaid patient. So if you pay $162,000 for a membership program, only 30% of your citizens are actually using it. Thank you. To continue, since I still have the floor, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. DuBose, if the county was interested in this, where would we need to go from here? Mr. DuBose, please jump in. I would believe that if the council wanted the county to pursue finding out more information, that the appropriate step would be for county staff to reach out and seek proposals from them and anyone else who may also provide a service. And then receiving those proposals, staff would review it and then report back to council our conclusion on the basis of those proposals. I agree with that.

» I think you'd have to do due diligence. I think you'd also need to make a policy decision that you wanted to delve into. This is totally a policy decision, but that the council wants to delve into uninsured medical costs as a matter of policy. Well, Patrick, Jason, Jeremy, April, thank you all so much for being here. I'm going to ask that our county administration looks into this further and gets back with us, because I am very interested in getting some information. if this is something that can save the taxpayers some money and not have to worry at probably one of the worst times of their life, I mean, it's just unbelievable. I appreciate what y'all brought before us tonight, and I think it's something for us to think about. But if you would, Mr.

» Carpenter, any questions for me and my colleagues? Mr. Chairman? Yeah, Mr. Connell. A couple questions. I was wondering how many other counties in South Carolina have adopted this as a best practice? The community partnership program is a newer program that we're rolling out because a lot of counties in the past have always done the memberships, completely gone away from that avenue and really have done this because we haven't, we've been able to do this because of our relationships with the private insurers now. But it's a new program. And I know you've only been around for a month, right? So I'm not trying to dig in the weeds. No, you're good. I've met with, I've only been on this a few weeks, but I met with Barnwell County a few, just last week as well.

» But it's something that we're going to be rolling out to most of the counties. One, I'm just curious. So prior to the transition to this program, I guess the other one where people were using memberships. Yes. Didn't have enough participation for it to work that way. Maybe that's just an assumption on my part. I'm kind of wondering why was there a transition to now where you're. The transition is occurring mostly because we're able to do it with our private memberships and getting the insurers to pay what the patients were paying for. Yeah, it seems to me like on the Medicare side, a legislative approach would be the best way just to increase your reimbursement rates. And there's active work going on with that. Yeah, I'm sure. Aggressively.

» This is another government entity that you're coming to to seek funds for citizens, but these folks were initially citizens of the United States of America. as we're a creation of the state of South Carolina, which was then created by the federal government. So anyway, I do think we need to look into it more. It sounds interesting, but I'll have some questions to drill down on. We want to reinforce that this isn't, whatever you budget isn't money that you're automatically paying us. We're only going to send an invoice for any of the flights and the out-of-pocket costs that remain. Okay, well, as I look at the numbers, so say you had 84.

» It's roughly about, I mean, the request is to subsidize about $400 or so yes sir 84 people within the county yes sir that have found themselves voluntarily or not in a uh in a uninsured or situation where they can't pay this full bill and you're asking that we pay their bill instead it it's an avenue for the county to consider and an added benefit for the citizens if if y'all chose to go that route but it's also what i feel as an outsider coming into this this new world it's a much better i i think it's a much better arrangements for your citizens than what what has occurred with other companies and even air methods in the past where you're paying a lump sum money that would never be coming back to the county well in in the past just since you brought it up based on what was described i mea

» n it almost sounds like unfair debt collection practices um so i appreciate the change in the business process and how you actually help people navigate their insurance which is a quagmire itself trying to understand what coverage you have or don't you probably get better return on investment by like you're saying that's being friendly with folks and saying this is what you're entitled to for coverage and this is how you you know invoke a claim and make sure it gets paid yeah and i appreciate your response on that because i see it the same way question uh briefly mr snodgrass or sure uh so this is somewhat intriguing in a former life i was in i was in a hospital billing well i'm only 30 anyway i'm through i'm old man 37 um so just walk me through just real quick and i may have more question

» s that i probably just need to get with you on instead of taking up council time but so am i hearing this right if we come into this agreement so let's say uh a patient who's um probably medicare primary and medicare medicaid secondary let's say they get life flighted to prisma richland um so obviously you have a you have a base bill of what you pay a negotiated rate with medicare patients yes sir so you you um you send that to medicare b because we know medicare a doesn't doesn't cover life flights um so you send that medicare b and then whatever's left uh comes to us and we're the patient and yeah whoever wants to answer this is totally fine yeah in that situation councilman if the patient is on what's a lot of close that mic sorry a patient who has medicare primary medicaid secondary tha

» t and even any other patient you'll see they may have medicare primary blue cross secondary or humana secondary that claim goes through medicare first whatever is left after medicare pays goes on to the secondary provider so in this case it would be sent to medicaid that patient will receive zero balance bill because federal regulations of medicaid prevent balance billing so that piece that patient would have no balance bill due to that situation that didn't come to us then not at all so only in a situation where it's just medicare only or or a primary maybe a private private in and yeah medicare only private in and out of network do they have so the patient received anything or does everything remaining come to us or is there like a patient portion and we can kind of help out.

» So as he stated, so the cap on that would be $700. So that's all that's going to come back. And everything that's put into this account, essentially kind of like an escrow account that can roll from year to year. If $34,000 is budgeted for this account, but a technical would say maybe there's actual $50,000 that was actually used from the number of flights that year, that remaining $16,000 does not come to you, does not go to the patient, you're capped off at 34. That's part of whatever, after the county council agrees and wants to move forward, that's all negotiated. Is there a difference in your charge if you fly someone to the Augusta burn unit versus Prisma Richland? Is there a difference in that? There is.

» Okay, so it's not just crank the helicopter up and cost this, but it depends on... Depends on, yeah. Where you're going. Travel, yeah, distance. Seems logical. Sorry, there's a base fee for the type of aircraft plus mileage and it's dependent on a state-by-state basis so say in this case say an aircraft from the state of Georgia had to come into South Carolina and pick up somebody they would be billed at the Georgia rate because that aircraft is located in Georgia so it's different from state to state for the most part they're all pretty close together but that they do in states that have states that have higher higher income per capita that numbers a little bit higher versus the state that's got a lower income per Mr.

» Gardner question for instance we don't agree to do this what happens company here do you continue to operate here do you yes what happens to yes we do the difference is that the responsibility would still fall on your citizens to cover the balance thank you how many choppers you got in now each Each base has one aircraft, so we have the three bases in South Carolina. You're still out at the airport, right? Yes, right here we still have one aircraft. And y'all took an airplane, I mean a chopper from here and take to Orangeburg because y'all didn't want to pay us money, right? About five or six years ago, seven years ago. Is that right, Mr. Carpenter? They did relocate one, yes, sir. Yes.

» We had a spare aircraft that we keep at the hangar, plus a permanent aircraft that we keep at the airport. And we've always had, for the last 13 years, we've had the base in Columbia, Orangeburg, and Camden. They said, unfortunately, April 25th, we had to close down the Columbia base because it wasn't financially viable anymore. So we never took an aircraft from this county and moved to Orangeburg. Thank you for clearing that up. Yeah. Mr. Tucker. One of my questions was answered on the, that numbers go up to 160 versus the 84. does the fees go up to 60-something thousand to double it? And I think I've got that answer. But I would make a recommendation to you guys, because I've heard this presentation about two years ago or so when y'all were at our conference down in Hilton Head. Okay.

» Y'all had a booth down there. Yes, sir. I talked to whoever. I don't look like I remember seeing any of y'all down there. I probably took her place. Yeah, okay. So I say that to say this. I think a good avenue for you that I would recommend is to go through the association of counties and municipalities um and get with them because if you can sell them and get them on your side you probably can pick up all 46 counties and move forward so that's just my recommendation for me thank you very much um and we will we're already scheduled to be there as well so i'll see you down there okay thank you uh mr tucker used to be the president of that organization so nice uh other comments um we looked at this in august of 2017, I was brought in on a $78,000 bill, and I'd be keen to hear what the staff c

» omes back to with as to what's changed and what the business case is, recognizing what Mr. Carpenter and Mr. DeVos said is this has to be handled as a business competition. Other comments? Mr. Jones, you want to close it out? If I could, April, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is something that's close to me i know you care about folks as well all of us do but bottom line it's got to go through the process i think mr tucker was probably a spot on contact association of counties try to get them on board but i'm also going to ask mr carpent to have an open mind i think some have not had an open mind in last week but have an open mind about this and let's look at it and see just what we can do if anything to benefit the citizens of kershaw county and i want to thank the ma

» jority my council members in here for allowing this to happen tonight because there was a push to stop y'all from talking tonight and I don't appreciate it thank you for being here one last point I just want to ask you a question is Kershaw health the best hospital you ever saw of course thank you very much we we took a liberal interpretation of 15 minutes but I think it was well worth it and I think we have a staff course of action from here all right well thank you John you chairman thank you council thank you y'all probably would have got it tonight but y'all didn't bring no dessert all right well thank you we move on in our agenda now the next item on our agenda is approval of minutes from 14 may uh those minutes are at tab b and also on the board can we have a motion to approve the min

» utes make a motion without you so move uh mr gardner a second second a second for mr snodgrass discussion on the minutes uh very good we'll move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous they can use either hand there david thank you miss mary all right now we get into some business uh ordinances follow we have five ordinances um the first is a third reading of an ordinance of county council kershaw county to amend a zoning map uh and uh owning uh property owned by randy bach mr carpenter can you bring us up to speed here chairman members council you previously uh approved uh this rezoning of property 21 acres of land approximately um from r15 to rd1 that is in front of council for third reading very good can we have a motion to approve so move uh mr jones a second second s

» econd from mr connell any discussion uh seeing there is none uh let's move to a vote all those in favor of this uh approval on the third reading so signify uh and it's unanimous and it passes and moves on to action for the staff uh we would now move into a series of three uh different uh ordinances impacting the budget uh item number two on the agenda is it tab uh d in your in your book and And it's the entire budget for the year 19 through 20. Mr. Carpenter, can you introduce it, please? Mr. Chairman, members of council, go back to item two. You don't know item two, right? Item two, correct. I think that's the fire fees, isn't it? Yes, sir. Maybe I've got the wrong budget here. Yep, you moved it around on me. Yep, it does. I had an earlier version. Thank you, Mr. Tucker.

» I correct myself. This has to do with a fire fee, and it's tab D. Mr. Carpenter, can you bring that in? Mr. Chairman, members of council, you have in front of you for second reading tonight the implementation of a fee for the purpose of generating revenue to advance the county's fire plan. Very good. I passed earlier on the first reading. Can we have a motion to approve it on second reading? So may. Mr. Connell, thank you. A second? Second. Second, Mr. Gardner. Any discussion? Deferring first to Mr. Connell.

» I would just have to echo what I said on first reading essentially that we need to do better for our volunteer firefighters we need to fund them a little bit better we need to also transition to a in part full-time fire service to cover the increased number of calls that they're happening with a increasing population throughout the county nobody argues that the Camden fire service and Lugol fire district provide outstanding service with their full-time service and addressing the number of calls they handle but our numbers are just they're climbing and we've been subsidized for a long long time by volunteers and it's increasingly challenging to get them certified because it takes over 200 hours to get get someone new to be able to even stand on a fire scene and help out before I go to anothe

» r comment I want to first say that it's in a three-year process to get to this point with hard work by the staff and by mr. carpenter and but led by the task force led by mr connell and mr gardner and mr jones uh other comments please question mr chairman uh mr snodgrass uh mr uh carpenter question for you is there is there and before i say that i do want to i want to stress the importance uh that we see for our fire service as we transition from uh volunteer to what i would call a career firefighter system and and i hope we all understand that the firemen in this day and age are no longer it's not about just putting fired out but these are first responders these are individuals who are tasked with far more than just putting the wet stuff on the hot stuff but these are people who are triagi

» ng a situation these are individuals who are first on the scene and responding and as you saw on our heat maps last week or the last meeting that a lot of it has to do with uh maybe a motor vehicle response and other things but that being said i do i do when i think about the fee i do have questions about it and i do have reservations uh to to some degree and mr carpenter is there is there any mechanism within our county structure that we could put some sort of rebate system in place so that when you look at a when you look at a taxpayer that maybe does have 15 or 17 parcels of property that there's a mechanism in place in which um they're they're not taxed or yeah tax as much is there is that anywhere impossible it's not grass it's it's something that we've looked into um it's something th

» at it's my desire i have encouraged the county attorneys to see if they can help us find a way But one of the issues we run afoul of is the Constitution of the state requires that everybody be taxed equally. And if you start rebating taxes to some for the best reasons in the world, you still run afoul of those constitutional issues. Now, we've got some of the best attorneys around. So, you know, they're trying to find a legal way, certainly, that we can do it or come up with some workaround. And I'll refer to Mr. DuBose if they've discovered anything. But as of now, I'm not aware of anything that we can do. And I thought that would be the case, but just for the sake of discussion, it might help. We're trying. We get it out there. All right. Other discussion. Mr. Tucker, please, sir.

» This kind of goes beyond, I probably could say for third reading, but in the future, we go to millage. This is you, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. DuBose. You're going to miss some folks, your rental, people that rent, your rental folks, but they have vehicles. Is there anything in the Constitution that keeps us from still putting a fee on their vehicles versus, because they have no property to have a millage on, where they can have skin in the game as well with the property owners? You're not going to exempt renters, first of all, because the millage is on the car as well. So if a millage, the current fire millage of 9.6 mils, people who own cars are paying that right now.

» so the increase in millage will affect them also a fee also affects renters because it's assessed on each apartment it's assessed on each piece of property he certainly is the assumption is that landlords are very good at passing on costs so I wouldn't expect that it will be paid and I assume the landlord will take it up with the renters well I wasn't clear that it was on the vehicle so that takes care of my question thank you yes other comments mr.

» Jones please sir thank you mr chairman members of county council just some clarification before i make some comments um this is second reading of an ordinance kershaw county council to be placed into effect service and user fees for rates and charges for the furnishing of fire protection services within the fire protection district so what we're asking to vote on tonight is the existing tax district for fire correct correct that's correct okay so last week we took a vote on fees and taxes for a new tax district correct yes sir what was that was the first reading of this ordinance but I'm saying this is not the same fire district we were voting on for last the last meeting when mr.

» Snodgrass myself voted against yes I understand but it's not on the agenda that was what that was was the creation of the new fire district effective July 1st which is not it's not up so we're not reading that tonight but now we're talking about a fee in the existing district yes sir so i'm not wrong um daddy you've got my slides ready let me start off and say i am voting against imposing large fees and property on large fees on property and cars for fire service i have always been against it without an advisory referendum as county council stated in the kershaw county goes for fiscal year 2017 2018 if you'll look it's right there Kershaw County Council goes fiscal year 1718 establish an ad hoc committee that is charged with engaging in a comprehensive study of County fire services and retu

» rning to the County Council with recommendations for a possible advisory referendum for consideration and vote by citizens of Kershaw County 2018 a fee is a tax in disguise but is sometimes worse than a tax because as Mr. Carpenter has said, fees are regressive, which means they hurt the people who cannot afford it. An advisory referendum is best. Just ask the question in 2020 election, we won't have to do a petition. We won't have to get 15% of the signatures on there if we do this.

» Say, are you willing to pay more taxes or new fees for better fire service in the fire protection district and under the fire service fee ordinance caset can i have that other slide up there please not that yeah that if you look at casets this 2023 caset okay under the fire service fee ordinance for caset caset won't get much benefit at this point in time new fees might not benefit the lake at all or liberty hill or westville we're not sure i am for better fire service but i want the citizens to be informed and the citizens to vote as council promised in 2017 so the decision will be their choice to pay or not to pay more taxes and new fees for fire service or increased fire service I'm saying let the citizens have a voice folks it's been said up here that it's got to do it there's an emerge

» ncy we got to move now there is no emergency in 2019 on something that has been around for many years and the council stated in 2017 to have an advisory referendum on the days of volunteers I see we have some firemen out here now the days of volunteers are gone my time as a volunteer farmer as a paid farm which I was there gone you're not gonna see the volunteers every county around is facing the same situation that we're facing so there's no reason why we couldn't take time and wait and do what we said we were gonna do what the intention was us to do we don't need to rush to judgment this is very complicated as you have seen we voted on an ordinance at the last meeting that we're not bringing up tonight because there was a possibility the way it was written or the way it would be implement

» ed that some folks would be doubled be double paying and nobody wants to have a bottom line is I've never seen a county government reduce fees or reduce taxes after they have implemented them no matter how much good faith they say up here and I've been here for 13 years and i've seen these tax districts established before as i said this is very complicated we don't need to rush it let me just tell you about council rushing to judgment in my opinion which is facts we wasted well over a million dollars for land on the lake at liberty hill that i voted against we got raked over the coves by my the bureaucrats and politicians for doing that but i came out right on that the land was it was very little value and or no use to the citizens.

» In 2015, three and a half years ago, we issued a $17.2 million economic development bond. However, we have had very little, if any, success with economic development. I voted against the bond. That didn't work out so well for us as to now. I also voted against the $425,000 for the river parcel that's in the floodplain at the Watery River. As I said, I voted against that. Camden has a park, a river park, less than a mile away, and it's being funded through grants.

» the same thing would you go back to my other slide where it talks about volunteers yeah i would like for my colleagues on council to tell me how we're going to achieve this every other county around is facing the same thing volunteers are almost a thing in the past yes we do need to look at paid farming we do need to look at a full service fire program however let's do what we said we were going to do we said we're going to send it to the people on referendum the fact that you need a petition with 15 of the signatures but what i just mentioned is not correct anyway mr chairman members of the county council thank you so much for allowing me this time thank you uh other comments mr chair mr connell if i could address several things first um mr carpenter how would the point system be impacted

» by this proposed fee for fire service the point the point system increases by roughly 30 percent the amount of money available points are awarded to the firemen the volunteers for the number of calls they receive so essentially the pool goes up by about 30 percent for available fire volunteers so they're available earnings goes up about 30 percent so this proposal directly benefits volunteers through an increase in the point system right yes sir that's correct all right this would have to be the slowest rusted judgment I've ever seen because we've been looking at this for over three years we've got new systems in place to actually let us look at accurate data which we've had for 14 months now I think somewhere around that time I think it's been very deliberate in the approach and the volunt

» eers are crucial that's one point I'd have to agree disagree on I don't think volunteers are gonna go away we need them we need their leadership the system will not work because they know these areas they know the fire stations and this is not a capital proposal that is looking at building some type of grandiose fire stations this is just talking about having the actual bodies in place that can respond to the existing calls we have based on the trends that we have based on accurate data I would also have to agree disagree that that these are these are high fees because the overall fee structure would be less than what you would pay per capita per house as I understand it in Lugaw Fire District or Camden Fire District. I have a business in the Lugaw Fire District. Mr.

» Jones, I think you live there. I think that I get great service for what I pay. I'm pleased with my insurance ISO rating based on that service. And I would just emphasize again that it was a possible advisory referendum that we're looking at. I would love to be able to send this to the people and have them vote on it.

» And at some point think they'll have an app that'll let us do that really really quick but i emphasize possible because we had to get a lot of education on the impact of act 388 the impact on uh on local municipalities and you know how all this would happen uh over two plus years ago when we started looking at it um formally as a council and others were looking at it individually before that thank you mr chairman thank you sir uh mr gardner yeah you know most of our information that we got on the adcock community that's come from us came from our firemen those are the people that know uh gave us the information and certainly uh you know a referendum you know could be the answer but that puts us three years away early 2021 or 2022 before we can do anything i think we're putting our firemen a

» t risk now because of our shortages and we're asking them to do the task that we're not adequately manned because volunteers are down and we're putting them in bad positions because they're going to a fire with two people and some of the standards that were brought to us that they need four or so many more there before they go into a burning building or what what have you their standards that they have to go by and i think the fee would allow us to an immediate impact on that that's what that fee does and then when we go to millage the fee will go away uh could you go back to the other slide danny and i disagree with mr jones that cassette doesn't get get anything to 2023 we get a 12-hour shift started in 2019 that's an improvement in itself right away if we get that 12-hour shift we move t

» o 24 hours and we add some people there so i don't think mr jones is correct in saying that they don't get anything for four more years they do get something immediately when we place the fee 25 a lot of money to some people not so much i guess it depends on whether your house is on fire or not thank you uh i think mr tucker you gonna yield to mr. Snodgrass thank you mr. Tucker just a couple questions so comments mr. Jones you and I we agreed definitely last last meeting on on the millage piece in the new district and I felt like the dialogue that you and I led and kind of helped helped us realize some things and on the table and we're gonna study that but I will say as far as agree with mr. Gardner as far as Cassid I mean they do get a 12-hour shift and if I'm not correct mr.

» carpenter don't they get a station at 2021 around that's correct okay so a new station for cash at fire 2021 uh and possibly could could relocate that cause possibly could put it downtown downtown cassette and create a sense of downtown there is my father was there is and you need to go to go to highway one cafe and he can get breakfast there they got a good buffet um so there's that there's also things like this this begins to generate revenue to where I know specifically our other stages may not be listed but as we begin to get this revenue in it frees up and it gives us more liberty to look at the Antioch station and to look at maybe the Westville station and to be able to dream quicker about how we do put the put a new roof on how we do paint and those, those types of things.

» So I'll be honest with you. It's, it's, it is a, it's something that has been, I've prayed over the last just weeks because I understand, I understand what $25 means to people. I honestly, I honestly do. And since I've been on council a short time, this will, this is probably the toughest decision that I'm going to come to.

» And, and so I have, have considered that but at the same time i i uh i can't help but but if we're going to move our county forward i think it does have to do with moving towards career uh firefighting um as far as volunteer i know last week a-tech graduated explorers and if i if correct me if i'm wrong guys these explorers who graduated last week are certified to right now join the fire department um are certified right now to be a volunteer and to step in and be on scene so i would encourage our county fire department i don't know the pro i'm ignorant to what it looks like to start an explorer program but next year i'd love to see kershaw county fire service graduating explorers there as well and and and that that could be that could be the piece uh that helps us um trickle in those volun

» teers and and and uh hopefully those are career firefighters that come up through the a-tech system yes thank you mr chairman i just um want to point out a few things first i want to say uh thank you to councilman jones carnell and councilman gardner for sitting on this ad hoc committee thank you chairman for assigning it um can you go back um here i would just like to point out in that slide that councilman jones read to you for the word recommendations for possible advisory referendum where i'm from possible mean it may happen or it may not happen and i'm going to take the lead about county administrator staff county attorney and the majority of your ad hoc committee that wants to move forward recommendations over what you had just stated but i want you to know that no one ever committed

» to doing a referendum we talked about the possibility and it's still not too late it just happens to be some more criteria that comes along with that that the seven of us can't touch and county employees so i keep saying that reiterating that because i want people to know the full story not that we are just omitting what you would like to see happen other comments so mr jones thank you mr chairman and members of council for those kind words uh we're voting for a fee on a different ordinance tonight than we were last week in two weeks it's changed there was a fee taken a vote on an ordinance last week for a tax district two weeks ago that did not get mr snodgrass's vote in mind we're we're voting tonight that's sort of been pushed aside we're voting tonight on the existing tax district, the

» existing fire ordinance. And my question is, why were we even entertaining a new tax district, a new fire district? Can I clarify that? That's for implementation in the next year. And we did a first reading on both of those. It doesn't mean they're pushed aside. They're still active. Mr. Carpenter, you want to talk to that? Mr. Chairman, members of council, the last meeting is when we went into great detail over the plan and the proposal to fund it, the aspect of the double taxation or the double dipping was something that was a concern.

» But the proposal that was presented last week or last meeting, it included two things, one of which was the creation of a fee that would effective july 1st which is what is currently up for discussion right now with the existing fire district the second one was the elimination of that district and the creation of a new district that would be effective july 1st 2020.

» that is what was brought off the agenda as we do some more work on it with the intention of coming back on with council's approval july or august later this summer so it was not any fee because you can't go ahead and set a fee or a millage for the next fiscal year that would be that council's responsibility to do that but what it was doing was setting in place the the language that would eliminate the current district and the 25 fee attached to it and going away and replacing it with a new district that would have a millage as the basis for funding the fire service so it did not have we did not remove from the agenda a fee that was being set um that that we couldn't do that because it was effective july 2020.

» okay i still have the floor no sir i still have the floor i still have the floor mr tucker mr jones still has the floor thank you thank you mr john thank you mr chair your support we appreciate you being so kind to me listen um my point stated we're doing the fee tonight first reading so we can go and get a fee process moving there were a lot of complications with the new tax district that was first reading at the last meeting because of the possible double charging on some folks out in east camden you know in that area that fire district for the camden fire department and um tonight by doing this we don't have that problem but but let me say this too we keep talking about we're going to vote on this for the existing fire district but in 2021 or whatever we're going to look at the new tax f

» ire district i guess i was kind of concerned as to why we felt like we needed a new fire district our tax district because the one we have now it doesn't include lugo fire district it doesn't include the camden fire district in east camden it doesn't include elgin it doesn't i mean it does include elgin it does include bethune which is what we couldn't do with the the new one last uh at the last meeting is it true that under the current tax district that we're in now that we have to maintain under act 388 when it comes to millage yes that would be a yes yes sir and is it true that if we create a new tax district for fire one time set up there is no cap with act 388 not initially there would be but once it is in place then it would be governed by in other words what he says there isn't becau

» se initially and that's what we're talking that's where the 14 meals will come into place. So I'm just not comfortable. I don't think we know what we're really doing at this point in time. And that's my opinion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Tucker has the floor. Mr. Connell, go ahead, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Jones had me about as confused as I can get. Let me clarify a couple of things. We just voted on the minutes. This is second reading of this fee for the fire. It is not first.

» We just approved these minutes first reading in title only in an ordinance for kershaw county to place into effect service and user fees for rates and charges for furnishing fire protection service within the protection of the district of kershaw county and authorized by ordinance to the fire protection district of kershaw county motion made by councilman cornell seconded by councilman gardner all voted in favor except councilman jones councilman snodgrass voted in favor for that where he voted with you against was for the tax district for millage and it was five to two so i want to make sure that everybody's clear this is second reading on the fees not first we didn't we didn't take this off the agenda and put it back on the agenda there's no hokey pokey going on up here um we're going str

» aight by what we said we were going to do what we said in discussion and this is where the chips lie we deliberately not put the tax millage on because their study doing an investigation and seeing what we can do what we can't do legally and also the cooperation with the other municipalities thank you all right uh mr connell that just about covers it thank you very much i have some quick comments so i think we know just what we're doing it's uh it's a challenge but it's deliberate after years of deliberation the first vote first reading um on a new fire district was actually requested by our administrator so that in good faith the municipality of the town of elgin and the town of bethune could see what this body had done because we can't act individually so whenever we showed that intent by

» voting in favor of it the administrator was able to approach those municipalities and and understand what a partnership would look like under a new fire district because they're directly impacted by Act 388. He wanted to have that will manifested so that he could actually have those conversations a little more in depth. I understood they've happened and that we need time and they need time to figure out exactly how it will work. But, you know, we're all optimistic. And then secondly, I mentioned this fee is only an issue, I think, because the fire service mill has not been adjusted for an extended period of time even to account for the cost of inflation.

» We haven't adjusted the fire mill, increased it at all to account for what volunteers needed, and we haven't adjusted it proactively to look at the increase in population. You can see where Lugol Fire District did that many, many years ago. The citizens said, you know what, we're gonna, we need this over here, and in order for them to actually do it, referendum was really the only mechanism they had to make it happened, so they did it that way. Here, we have this mechanism, and I feel that the data justifies it. Other comments? Mr. Bozart, please, sir. Thank you. Mr. Carpenter, we talked about this last week.

» You were going to talk with Bethune and Elgin and see if they're going to go along with this, and we were going to swap money back and forth and so forth, right? I've met and discussed a few things. First of all, I've encouraged them that they need to get their own legal advice to counsel and guide them to make the decision that's in their best interest. So say that up front, that I'm not an attorney and I do not represent to them that what we're doing is in their best interest, though I think it is. It's not my opinion, it's their opinion that matters.

» The town of Eldon has requested a work session with me and their counsel in June, which I'm glad to do, to sit down and explain with them the plan in greater detail and answer many questions as i can to start the process of working with them so very open to that and i think that's a good process to follow and they requested it and myself and staff will be there okay but my point was we're going to reach out to those two areas yes sir include them thank you yep thank you other comments i'll make a few i think i'm ready to call the question um there's no effort and in In fact, there's a full commitment to retain volunteer fire service. It is difficult, but that doesn't mean we won't do it.

» And everything in this proposal is riding on the bedrock of our volunteers, such as the young man we buried today. Volunteers are absolutely an essential part of this. Secondly, you get what you pay for. And as Mr. Connell has said, it's been over two decades since we have seriously addressed our volunteer fire system. And we have taken three years of study on this. And it is my judgment a delay for a referendum will put on another two and a half to three years before we begin to see any benefit. And that's presuming the referendum goes through. There will be no double taxes. We're doing this with careful deliberation. But as you know, several people on this panel that have had military experience and I've had to bury people who aren't well trained, well manned or well equipped.

» And when we put our firemen and firewomen into action, they deserve the very best we can get. I look at the level of pay that our very fine chief from Lugoff, who is here, provides $127 for every $100,000 on a home. When I look at the city of Camden, they are taxing their people to the tune of some $190 per $100,000 home. And even with this proposal, we only rise to $92 per year. We have got to do something, and the gap is huge. Kershaw County can do better by its firemen. And by gosh, if I have anything to say, and I do have one vote out of seven, we'll do it. With that, I'm ready to call the question. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your hand. And it's Mr. Connell, Mr. Bozard, Mr. Burns, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Snodgrass.

» those in oppose opposition uh as mr jones and it passes on the second reading moves forward the next item is item number three uh mr carpenter can you introduce it please mr chairman members council you have in front in front of you tonight for second reading uh the 2019 i'm sorry 2018 no 2019 2020 budget uh for council consideration and approval very good can we have a motion to approve so move uh is that mr you mr snodgrass yes sir thank mr snodgrass a second second second from mr tucker tucker uh i go to mr tucker for any amendments and discussion sir uh yes sir uh mr chairman i would like to make an amendment to the budget um my motion would be to put central carolina technical college on its own millage at a total of 2.33 mills with 2.105 in operations and 1.225 in scholarships give me

» the last number please uh the last number was 0.225 0.225 with total millage of two point point two three three two point three three two point two point three three millage increase so we have a motion to provide a millage for cctc at 2.105 and for point two two five uh can we have a second second second for mr gardner uh any discussion led by mr tucker i just want to say that um mr chairman and my colleagues that um this will stabilize our college where uh they can move forward and keep the megatronics and the engineering programs and i've got some statistical data if y'all want me to share it with you where we're not even paying 10 percent of the operation and maintenance costs down at this time we've really got a big bang for our buck over the years and that school we have really invest

» ed into it and we need to operate it now efficiently and effectively for our kids in the future can you clarify the second millage do you propose as a part of this at point yes sir two five yes sir what that does is that scholarship money will grow as the millage grows and it's separated out so uh the carolina the central carolina technical college will use it for scholarships and not incorporated in operations and maintenance calls we want that to go to the scholarships uh mr thobose has a point i believe this is the budget budget doesn't contain millage the millage is in the millage ordinance would you want to rephrase that mr tucker to say tucker an equivalent yeah i think he needs to ask for an appropriation in the budget it would be that some he would take the millage the malva mcmill

» times what he wants to do and you'd appropriate that amount then assuming he wants a millage when he gets to the millage ordinance he would make a motion to add it to the millage ordinance or add it in addition to or take it from operations i don't know how that's going to work but if we're going to millage ordinance not the budget i have no problem can i reinstate my motion okay well let's have an amendment to the amendment amendment to the the amendment here we go guys i'd like to make a motion for appropriations of five hundred and forty nine thousand dollars and uh five hundred forty nine thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars for the central carolina technical college and our 2019 2020 budget and just for clarification so before i get a second does that include the fifty thousand do

» llars for the scholarship yes sir that is included that's the operations and maintenance along with the scholarship monies we have a second to that amendment to the amendment second we have a second uh further discussion please yes if i'm not mr jones i have an amendment why don't we want to do the discussion am i correct point of order i can do my amendment now as we've done well they can discuss and then you can make your amendment okay yeah i'll certainly open up to you jim thank you point of order can't the one who has made the amendment withdraw the amendment and restate it do we have to amend the amendment can we we can't do either we can do either way and we'll go the way i just decided thank you you're right it would have been simpler but we're here we go all right all right miss ma

» ry likes others other comments mr tucker well mr jones uh go ahead mr connell i just had a quick question so yes sir could you uh break down the ops and scholarship proposed millage again i understand sir i don't understand what the 549 was but i want to okay so just take the 549 50 000 out of scholarship money that's what that would be the 0.225 if you were talking in millage and our current funding level is about four hundred thousand dollars yeah with that's actually increased last year we only gave 300 303 well well three plus 50 for the scholarship okay so 350 total yeah 303 444 last year plus the 50 scholarship uh the discussion well okay uh let's go to mr jones mr chairman thank you members of council thank you so much i'm going to make this easy for everybody and make everybody happ

» y tonight i move that we amend the amendment to reflect a total allocation to central carolina technical college of 553 000 coming from the following existing revenue sources none of which would require a tax increase 303 000 from the economic development fee and loom revenue stream which is an increase from the current 253 000 that is already set aside for uh ccc tc and 150 000 from the general fund which is currently already allocated to central carolina and then an additional 50 000 from the general fund that the administrator is tasked to find for the current balanced budget i make this in the form of a motion and i just added it up and you're 500 553 000.

» do we have a second to mr jones's amendment to the amendment i'll second i want to hear what he has to say okay we have a second from mr connell other discussion you want to lead off jimmy i sure do thank you mr connell well i basically said it in my motion this uh we currently have 253 000 already allocated from the fee and lou economic development i think it's been moved out of the economic development budget but is still allocated for central carolina then we have 150 000 am i correct mr carpenter that has already allocated this in the uh general fund have you said that then i would ask the administrator to find a 50 000 more to put it together to present to the central carolina budget that they're requesting this year yeah that's pretty much it it's pretty simple excuse me it's pretty s

» imple it makes a lot of sense thank you thank you sir uh mr bozar have your hand up thank you very very much i'm not in favor of mr tucker's proposal or mr timmy's proposal i want to see what we're getting for our money i want to know the kershaw county what they're receiving for it i want to see how much it's doing the kershaw county i just don't believe we're getting our money's worth i'm a graduate of something tech which is now central carolina i did advertisement for them after i graduated for two years so i'm not against central carolina what i'm against is giving them more money and we're not getting our money's worth so they're a state college i understand at one time they had one of the biggest foundations helping them get money there was in the state and i understand that foundati

» on is twiddled down to nearby nothing but again i'm going to say that i'm not going to support either one of these until we hear from the college and what they're doing what they can do for Kershaw County sir the comments mr. Tucker well I'm gonna tell you what you getting the best bang for your buck you just don't know it Central Carolina's got it going on down there's those kids are leaving some of them 30 plus hours of credit going off to college so they don't be weighed down with debt when they get off to go to these other universities and in places to try to get their education I would also challenge you mr.

» Bozar that um you um if you have any questions there is three and I'm going to introduce them right now of our Commissioner sitting right out here one of them is the vice chair mr. Terry Hancock mr. Paul Knapper and I get to call him the junior commissioner mr. Thord Warren talk to these folks they're appointed by our delegation they represent this county they do a fine job they can get you any data that you want and and and these kids are doing phenomenal things. And we need to push more with our guidance councils in the school so we can get more of our kids free of debt. And I'm a living parent of it. My son took many credit hours to Alabama to go to school, and he's a graduate now, got a fine job up in Charlotte working, and a productive citizen, married with two kids.

» So I know it works from a personal testimony. It works, and it has done a fine job. Yeah, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'll say one more thing. Yeah, mr. Jones thank you cities aren't you on the foundation foundation well anyway I recognized you well I didn't know you on the foundation board and I didn't speak about the foundation but I spoke about the commissioners that was all mr. chairman thank you so thank you other comments yeah yeah please sir just this this comment can can go either for mr. Jones amendment or mr. Tucker presented And Mr. Tucker's amendment obviously frees up some money to do other things with the FLO, whether it be through other avenues that we can talk about later.

» But as far as what Central Carolina is doing, I want to tell you a story, a young girl named Mackenzie Wall grew up in Camden, was in dual enrollment in CCTC since her sophomore year of school and has just graduated with RN from CCTC and is now employed at Kershaw Health. This is what I know. Every vibrant community in this state, every vibrant county, every vibrant county in this city, in this state has a vibrant technical college system to go along with it. I'm partly a product of that.

» I did some dual enrollment myself in high school down at Orangeburg Calhoun Technical College I believe that technical schools trade schools in South Carolina are they are the backbone to our economic development machine here in this state I'm governor Fritz Hollings going all way back in the 50s or 60s was instrumental in starting the technical college system in South Carolina and there have been welders there have been electricians there have been heavy machine your machine operators there been RNs they've been rad techs that have been trained in our technical systems for in kids have been able to stay in their community and become profitable contributing taxpaying systems and so again you can take these you can take these remarks to support both members really because I'm convinced that

» this is important because every vital and vibrant community in south klana has a vital technology to go along with it uh mr bozar yes thank you i agree with you mr snartgrass the schools is important i taught at york tech not only i go to central tech but i taught at york tech for 12 years i graduated a lot of students up there so i'm not against that at the same time though in york tech we did not get a whole bunch of money from the counties like what they're giving kershaw counties wanting to give now to these colleges we did a lot more on our own and that's just basically where it is mr.

» Gardner had his hand up please say that you know times change and I think that that what we're getting if that Central Carolina is not moving forward I don't think we would see the enrollment doing what it's done in the last four or five years nearly doubling so I think that in itself speaks for what we have here so i think they're they're very important to our community our county uh and like mr snodgrass says that uh we're producing uh citizens that stay in our community that work here they contribute some of them will be elected to this board at some time down in the future and i think it's very important that we support it uh as we should and and we've been lagging behind on that so i support uh mr tucker i'm done okay well i think mr gardner said it best times have changed you can't ta

» ke what you did in the 70s and 80s and apply it to 2019 listen to these figures dalton county 69 000 population 2.5 million the county gives uh georgetown county 68 000 population 465 000 greenwood county 73 uh 73 000 population 1.4 million cherokee sixty thousand five hundred and eighty five thousand dollars from the county these are figures from the county so you're trying to tell me Kershaw County is not better than these four five six counties Kershaw County we gave two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and 2017 so not counting the scholarship money so are we not better than this mr. chairman mr. Connell sir a few comments I was able to see some of the return on investment from Central Carolina just recently at Lugolf Elgin High School, they had their awards day.

» And at the end, they were calling up the Central Carolina graduates or participants, I guess, who had -- I mean, I was astounded by the number that stood up with a minimum of 12 credit hours going into college, and I think one had, like, 34. Male Speaker: Right. Male Speaker: I don't know how you do that. Male Speaker: 34 hours. Male Speaker: No summer. Male Speaker: Yeah, and my brother, Will, actually finished up a number of years ago with about 28 credit hours. It's just amazing what you're able to accomplish here locally and the kind of workforce you can help develop. So that was the first point. I think there's good return on investment there. I really appreciated Mr. Snodgrass's comments because both of these motions, and I think Mr.

» Jones is still pending on the floor at the moment, suggest significant funding to the local community college. Mr. Jones actually was asking for about $4,000 more from various sources. But with that said, and I could agree, you know, that both of them should probably be supported. I think, though, for continuity's sake, that millage is probably a better business model for a funding mechanism because Central Carolina is home-based or has traditionally been home-based in Sumter, and we're trying to set up home base number two up here and really have them commit to new programs that the market wants that will make the graduates locally more attractive, more marketable, and hopefully attract industry.

» So, for that reason, I think I'd support the millage increase, which actually is $4,000 less than Mr. Jones' proposal. And just for continuity's sake, it shows a commitment so that they will introduce programs that invest resources here in a continued way thank you other comments I will say mr. mr. Bozart it seems I did pull the record in it and and you right at one time York probably didn't it's like you missed the boat I pulled the record they do now have millage for your kind of your Technical College and and you probably should call them and say hey you know where's your share but just my point being yeah i mean things things move things you know time changes and and uh i i it's it's very it's not unprecedented for counties to uh to establish that kind of millage mr carpenter what 2.3 m

» ils what does that look like for the uh because we talk about millage most folks may not know fully understand what that amounts to but let's say a hundred thousand dollar home what does that account to um it's a little over nine dollars so nine dollars a year on a hundred thousand dollar home roughly and and that multiplies into over five hundred sixty thousand dollars to take our college to the next level thanks thanks for your okay other comments uh mr jones yes um we support central carolina we just support different funding mechanisms up here i i well most of us do mr carpenter a mill is worth about what 230. about 226 000. so the millage tonight would generate how much to 2.3 mills go ahead and do the math for you sir i appreciate it i think it's 549.

» 549 yeah that 2.33 will about two yeah about 526 580 or about 526 or 580 thousand dollars correct yeah unless i typed it wrong my motion tonight how much did that generate 500 and have in front of you 553. okay i guess i'm wondering where's the four thousand dollars more in my motion versus the millage i wrote down 549 880. that's what it was and then your motion was five yeah mr carpenter is using i think uh 230 or 220 that's off 236. okay oh 230 okay right right all right and that's what you gave us that budget anyway thank you mr tucker for your commitment to support the central carolina technical college and mr. kind of all the rest of you I have the same feeling I'll tell you guys see you here tonight the commissioners the foundation members they speaks a lot about what dr.

» Mike Michael Makota and others are doing at Central County Technical College because it absolutely does change lives I've seen that firsthand you're gonna get your money thank you mr. chairman other comments let's see I think I should say something with the chamber here trained and ready workforce. We've heard that from those who support our great technical college. From the foundation, from Mr. Isler and the team, Mr. Makota has approached me on how we can help you on this partnership that you do, and so I'd love to chat with you about that.

» And for the board, Lloyd, Terry, and Paul, let's keep telling a good story here, okay? Now, are there any other amendments to the uh amendment to the amendment no other amendments to the budget all right we'll begin to vote and we'll take them in reverse order starting with that for mr jones i'll restate it help me out here uh that we take 553 dollars three thousand dollars 553 thousand dollars do you want me to restate it yeah please restate and then we'll vote okay i move to amend the Amendment to reflect a total allocation from CCCTC of $553,000 coming from the following existing revenue sources, none of which would require a tax increase: $303,000 from economic development in lieu of revenue stream, which is an increase from the current $253,000 revenue stream that is already allocated;

» $150,000 from the general fund, which is currently allocated to central carolina technical college and then an additional 50 000 from the general fund that the administrator is tasked to find from the current balanced budget thank you members of council thank you mr chairman we have a first and second i'm now ready to call for the question all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr bozard and mr jones and all those opposed Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Connell, and the motion to amend fails. We move to the next one as introduced by Mr. Tucker, which is an appropriation by Millage. Mr. Tucker, do you care to restate, please? Yes, sir.

» Once again, I'd like to appropriate $549,880 into our budget for the operation of Central Carolina Technical College and $50,000 for the scholarships. So that would be a total of $549,880. Very good. All those in favor of Mr. Tucker's motion, signify by raising your hand. Mrs. Snodgrass, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Burns, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Connell. And those opposed, Mr. Bozard. And a motion to amend the amendment passes. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Can I state one thing? Yes. First, I'd like to just say thank you to my colleagues, including Mr. Jones over there, because I know his love for Central Carolina, so I want to thank all of you. But I want to say this is something we don't, being hit on it earlier, we don't have to address next year.

» Due to any type of catastrophic failure or just tremendous growth, this should move right along with our county. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Bozard. I will make it an anonymous. Sorry? I will make it an anonymous. Anonymous. So I think we go back and vote again. All right, we have now mr. Tucker's motion We will now revote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and Mary it's unanimous and so the amendment passes unanimously And now we have to vote on the budget as amended go tight. Sorry if I had followed mrs. Nodgrass is good advice But I'm having too much fun I tried to help you sir. There's a serious vote.

» We now have the budget as amended and all those in favor signify by raising your hand and the budget passes on the second reading unanimously uh we move to the next item mr carpenter help me out i'm wearing out mr burns there were more motions it wasn't dealing with central carolina but there was more motions it was yes there's some more motions that we have that you yeah amendments for the um for the budget appropriations correct well that amendment then carries forward i think that's what we just voted on we only voted on central carolina with central carolina there's but that but then with them on when i asked for the third vote i asked for the budget as amended so if you'd like to do it again let's do it again all those in favor no i don't want to vote on the budget being closed again i

» wanted to make the amendments that we were supposed to make um and we didn't get a chance to do any other than central carolina i asked for any that you had well i i wasn't would you like to do another amendment yes we were so excited about the titans right so excited about the titans right terry go titans yeah i asked when i asked you that's when i asked for but please let's open it up and you have an amendment yes sir um mr chair i'd like to make amendment to the 2019-2020 budget to re-establish the county council accounts at forty nine thousand dollars and like to make a motion to budget $94,000 for the COG building, the new COG building that's coming up at Santee Lynch's Region Council of Governments.

» Is that one amendment, Samuel? You want me to split it? Can you split that? Yes, I can. Yeah, okay, let's go again. Okay, motion to reestablish the county council accounts that we've had a couple years ago at $49,000, which would be $7,000 per council member. A lot of good came out of that. Okay, can we have a second to that? Second.

» Just to be clear, i'll restate it uh some years ago there was a an account where there was seven thousand dollars for each council member to appropriate to uh directly spent uh and that didn't have to be in his own district and now seven times seven is forty nine thousand all right um a second you got it bozart mr bozart gave us a second um any discussion mr chairman up mr tucker if you might add i believe there are some rules they're enacted as well and rules are not yes sir that's why i said re-establish so that means that the rules are re-established along with their appropriations thank you you're welcome and if i could just clarify what those rules essentially are was that council members could not appropriate the funds i think that was term used council members could recommend to coun

» cil allocation of funds but the county council as a whole would have to vote allocating required the vote of the council thank you mr administrator mr mr council all right a second it was from mr bozard discussion i think we've had a discussion well i would just ask where um mr where do you see this money coming from in the budget go in the county council's account you'll have a line item there right right but so it's uh it's it's part of what you just voted on for the millage okay all right so that's that that so that opens up so we all understand yes with with the increase in millage that opens up other opportunities and so for example let's say well yeah so if there's a project within the within the council members district that's that's imperative you know so I can we could bring it to

» each other and allocate those as needed okay what we find a lot miss star grasses these voting precincts we use you know we don't use them every year, they don't have a source of revenue that's steady. So a lot of times they would come to the local representative of that area and ask for assistance. And we've done the healing of the wall. We've done projects in Elgin. We did a lot of good. And I was real proud of this council on how responsible and what good they did by spending this money. And it wasn't just spent in one district. We helped other districts out when projects were brought to us.

» And we didn't spend it all that's exactly right we do not spend it all nothing says you have to spend a dime mr chairman yes sir mr connell question for mr carpenter is that using those funds just requires one vote council approval correct because the money will already been allocated in the budget right so the money's in the budget it says directing where it goes other comments uh i will repeat what i said three years ago as a matter of principle i don't believe this is appropriate we've just spent six months doing a budget and there's enough uh reserve and uh certainly competence on behalf of our administrator if there was a contingency that would require an untoward uh expenditure and a vote in this council we could find forty nine thousand dollars or seven thousand dollars and i believe

» that this is a bad practice that gives the council members the authority to do things that give them a more authority over budget than they should have and it leads to bad practices and I won't go any further on that because I'm really quite strong on that matter could I say something yeah and I see any other comments yeah yeah I disagree with you on that first off if the money is someone on council wants to spend that money they got a break before County Council is vetted for County Council has to have a majority County Council to approve that money to be delivered it allocated on that thank you for the big word on that proposal or whatever anyway I just thought I'd bring that up yeah and we've had that discussion before and I still have strong feelings about it that I believe it's a bad p

» ractice for this county but other comments yeah mr. Connell I appreciate mr. burns position because it establishes or emphasizes accountability you want to have over taxpayer dollars but also appreciate the responsiveness that is allowed by these accounts i'm trying to think i think it was only there for one year um or i got to experience it for one year and i think we put maybe three thousand dollars of that towards a uh f-250 truck at the blaney fire station for a tool tray so mr carpenter if you could help me understand and maybe this gets into your discretion of spending under 25 000 what would would have been the other mechanism to fund that if it needed to get done quickly and they had some type of need. I would have to identify a source of the funds.

» So this would be a source of funds to pull from. Absent that, if council wanted to spend $3,000 on it, then I would find the funds somewhere in the budget. So I'm just curious, if responsiveness is the issue, under the second hypothetical, say we don't have this account and they need to get something at Blaney Fire or wherever else, that is a very significant need. Would we have to have multiple readings, or would you use your discretion to spend? It's within $25,000, then I have the ability to authorize expenditure of funds. I would just have to identify where it would come from and make the necessary transfer from that account. So you could do a line item transfer from the general fund or something like that? I could do a line item transfer.

» It would just have to come from somebody's budget. I would not have a budget to pull from, so it would. You couldn't pull it from the general fund unless we omitted the budget to provide. Correct. It would have to come from an already allocated amount of funds within the county's budget. Mr. Chip. Yeah, Mr. Tucker, go right ahead. I understand your thought process over there, Councilman Connell. Here's the problem. Let's say there's X amount of dollars in the budget. You have a project. You go first to Vic. I go second. Your project eats up whatever leeway you may have. I get left out. My constituents get left out. Here, you've got a set amount budgeted.

» You know what you can do, what you can't do, and it's not a fight over the administrator to make a decision on who he's going to fund and what he's going to fund and make him have to make those decisions, because I don't think that's fair to him. Mr. Kaufman, please. And if I could be clear, I would not do that, Mr. Tucker. I would not just, you know, Mr. Tucker comes to me and wants me to spend $5,000 and do that. It would be a case of I would identify the funds and then come to council and let council know, or the council member would come to council and let them know. But I would not, you know, behind a closed door find the money and spend it. Sure, and that's not what I'm suggesting. Sorry, I know you have a four. Question. So, and I'm just not a grass, go ahead. I'm sorry.

» I would be new to this if this would pass. So, I'm assuming there's some sort of check and balances procedures on what is appropriate to use this. Because I've heard some really interesting stories from smaller counties that have this, the councilman they sit around thinking hey I'll give you 500 from my account for the barbecue and I'll give you this for the ball team and all this type of thing and this is not in my scenario organization sir it had to be nearly my scenario organization and mr. Boz can define that got better than I can I mean I get I don't want to turn in I don't want to turn into a situation where we're just going around the table just you know I would imagine there's there's there's rules on what is appropriate you know capital capital projects those type to things. Mr.

» Burns? Well, I would not be the one to say that this council is like those other councils in which one council member says, you vote for mine and I'll vote for yours. I would say Mr. Jones would not say that to Mr. Tucker. But there is a tendency for that, and I'm sure no one is that unethical. But there is a tendency when you swap that sort of influence, and I'm steadfastly against this on those ethical grounds. Over to you, Mr. Tucker. Yes, Mr. I just want to say, Mr. DuBose, can you relocate those policies that we have for distribution of these funds and share back with council, please? I can, but as Mr. Carpenter said, the overriding parameters are that council is appropriated, the money is appropriated. It's $7,000 per council member. You can combine them, but you can get seven. Mr.

» Snodgrass can give you two of his. It provides that the councilor does have to vote, no concession, as an agenda item. An item that specifies what it is. And the overall consideration is it has to be a public purpose, not a private purpose, but a public purpose. All right. And you don't have other amendments. Shall we go ahead and vote on this one, Sammy? Yes, sir. All right. I think we're ready to call the question. All those in favor of this $49,000 with the previous rules to be totaled $49,000. Seven for each council member. Signify by raising your hands, all those in favor. Mr. Bozard, Mr. Gardner, and Mr. Tucker, all those opposed, signify by raising your hand. Mr. Jones, Mr. Connell, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Snodgrass, and the amendment fails. Let's go to the next one. Yes. Okay, Mr.

» Snodgrass, you're going to lead? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead, please. I was just looking at the budget that we have outside of agencies in which we contribute to. these are non-profit agencies which take a i would i would argue take a minimal investment of of of our funds and do a lot of good with it and multiply it uh far beyond what we could do and uh mr mr carpent did a great job putting that outside agency i need you to make the motion please sure and then we'll discuss it okay absolutely i'll make a motion that we increase the united way contribution to ten thousand dollars and do you have a source for that yes the source is the uh mills that we we have just voted on okay and within that context within that because that frees up all right that frees up uh general fund money okay we have

» a motion to uh apportion ten thousand dollars more to the current five to the united way within the the construct of mr tucker's original motion uh do we have a second second second for mr tucker uh any discussion now you would please yeah i just continue you know it's it's not about we've we've already we've already got beyond the millage so as so everyone understands there is there is more ability more opportunity within our existing budget to do some really neat things and uh outside agencies is one way that you can take a little bit of investment and it goes far beyond what we could do on our own as far as creating perhaps safety nets if you will for our community by investing in the private sector or the private nonprofit sector and I believe the United Way has has proven their ability

» to do that in our community I realize there is a stigmatism with United Way national but it's been in my experience that the United Way of Kershaw County is is total opposite of what maybe your impression of the national organization is the United Way of Kershaw County does a phenomenal job of investing very wisely and investing in in things that are of value and that are consistent with with our Christian values here in Kershaw County that's why I support this thank you sir other comments I'll say this is the 65th year of the United Way in Kershaw County. Mr. Savage and my father were the first two leaders of that organization. I'm very proud to say that, and it continues to do great work this year and into the future.

» Rose Shaheen is heading up a celebration of that, and if you can give support to Ms. Rose on that, I would appreciate it. Other comments? I will be abstaining. And Mr. Gardner will abstain. I think we can move to a vote on this amendment all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mr snodgrass mr tucker mr burns all those opposed signify by raising your hand mr jones uh mr connell and mr bozard and abstaining would be mr gardner the motion fails uh next uh amendment please that's it okay we have one additional amendment to carry forward no we have none and we have previously voted on the amendment that mr. Tucker introduced for five hundred forty nine thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars to amend the budget in the behalf of the cctc so now we'll return if mr.

» DuBose doesn't shoot me to voting on that amendment to the budget now fully the amendment to the budget and the budget as amended can we have a motion to vote on the budget as amended quick question yes do we do the motion as amended on the budget then we vote on the budget you can do it at one time we've made the amendment budget now be the budget as a man I got you okay very good question Jimmy and if I had done what Dave Snodgrass had said we'd been done right now thank you David so So, as I stated, can we have a motion to vote on the budget as amended? I so move, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. A second? Second. Second from Mr. Connell. All those in any discussion? No further discussion. Good work, gentlemen. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. And it passes. Nope.

» We have Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Burns, Mr. Connell, and Mr. Bozard in favor. Those opposed would be Mr. Jones. and let's move forward with the next item and help us out here mr tucker i'm you're wearing your chairman out yes sir i know i am no mr carter mr mr carpenter excuse me cartwright i understand confusing me with mr tucker that's that's my business uh we have uh tonight mr chairman for second reading a setting of the millage ordinance uh for kershaw county for fiscal year uh 19 20. very good uh and i will say in advance we'll need a little help from you mr carpenter and mr DEBOSE ON HOW THIS MIGHT BE FIXED AGAINST OUR PREVIOUS VOTE SO DO WE HAVE A MOTION TO APPROVE MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE UH OUR MILITARY ORDINANCE OKAY AND WE HAVE A FIRST FROM MR.

» TUCKER A SECOND SECOND SECOND FROM MR. SNODGRASS UH DISCUSSION OR FURTHER AMENDMENTS I HAVE AN AMENDMENT MR. YEAH MR. TUCKER GO AHEAD THIS IS WHERE I MAKE MY AMENDMENT FOR THE 2.33 MILLS So I'd like to make a motion to increase millage by 0.233 mills. And I think I've already spoke about that in the budget cycle of the appropriations, how it's going to be spent. So that's my motion. Can we have a second? I know there will be discussion there. Can we have a second? Second. I'm sorry. You, Ben? I just heard the motion say 0.233. No, no. 2.33. 2.33. Yeah, 2.33. 2.33 mills. I'm getting, it's getting late.

» sorry about that uh do we have a second that you've been uh david snoggrass seconded uh mr tucker tell us how we might fix that language up on that to any discussion you might have with that uh where it goes there for 2019 uh 6.58 mils you would add 2.2.33 is that right yes it would just be um yep it doesn't affect the rest of that the top line right there operation and personnel budget let me ask a question and sandra listen up please would that have a cctc line to it sammy or others or not i think mr tucker's correct he just wants to add 2.33 because it's in the budget yes but i don't mind it being um labeled out on the tax notice like ems that's that's not a problem i prefer that so they can know what they're paying for yeah be very transparent yes sir uh mr i was under the impression th

» at i was voting for basically you would add a g you'd add another line to that and cctc would have its own dedicated millage we can do that can you dedicate millage well it would question is can you dedicate millage the answer is you it's every year you would have to do it so it's only it comes from county operating it's in the budget it's for part of county operating of course emergency medical services in the budget too county capitals in the budget too that would be part of county operating okay so every year you'd have to vote on it so it's only dedicated to the extent that the rest of that's dedicated which means every year you have to vote on it but tax notices could reflect it as that does with the g for central carolina technical college tax notice bill but it's going to go to the c

» ounty operation and personal budget yes i got it under county operation i'm tracking all right tracking tracking uh other discussion here uh my view on this was to try to get transparency so that people know what they're paying for and what and the cctc knows what they're getting would there be any need to adjust the fees on this chart because of the fire and that and we've already done that it would not be on this but it would be a fee reflected in the the massive budget document that we have here correct everybody get that all right any further discussion all right with that i call the question we're ready to go all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mr snodgrass tucker mr gardner mr burns mr bozard and mr connell and those opposed would be mr jones and it passes uh six to one

» uh with that we move to the next item mr carpenter help us through mr chairman members council you have before you tonight for a second reading an ordinance that would amend the existing public utilities uh the county code or our sewer ordinance essentially this is just bringing us into compliance with mandated and required changes from the epa and dhec and for your information it's up on the board it's just a short paragraph if you want to scan it gentlemen can we have a motion to approve someone mr uh thank you mr tucker we have a second that is that you david second the second from mr snodgrass uh discussion um just very quickly run it over please and um the county is required to bring our use ordinance in compliance with existing mandates from epa and so this changes wording in it it do

» esn't add anything new significantly to it it just brings us in compliance mostly with some of the minimums required as you see under the bod cod etc those are the basic minimum parts per million parts for what have you that are required to be in the ordinance was this the um inspection and visit that russ uh van patten hosted uh i mean it wasn't because of this but i mean this is something which we had to do yeah yeah didn't arrive enough hamburgers questions uh can you explain what streamlining rules russ certain items that you can choose to include some of them are required um some of them you can choose not to put in there so we've we've put in the minimum that's required so that coordinates meets the requirement any other questions for us good job mr van patten thank you sir uh ready t

» o go to vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and mary it passes unanimously we go to new business the first is a census update that requires no vote mr chairman members council just a brief update the county is in the process of putting together a complete count committee the complete count committee is suggested by the federal census which is department of the bureau of the interior and we are in process of putting that together we're also working with that committee and also the census itself to check county records against their records such as 9-1-1 records and subdivisions to make sure that everybody in the county is recorded correctly so they can have the opportunity to participate it is strongly in the county's interest that every citizen of this county every resident

» of this county be counted as this is what determines our local government fund allocations this is what determines our road funding allocations this pretty much determines about every source of revenue outside of our own taxes and millage that we receive and if i can lead the discussion i will tell you i've been in touch as a quote senior elected official i think i'm the oldest no now you got me beat uh as a senior like don't you forget it either yeah don't you forget it uh i routinely get a letter from atlanta or from the national headquarters telling me what's going on i go to see mr carpenter and he says he's already done it so your staff has done a great job the second point here and everybody should capture this idea is that the county is doing it on behalf of the municipalities and th

» e elgin and and bethune camden all are relegated and secondated secondary to Vic and his team and they're doing a great job but the next phase of this thing is has to be understood that this is a digital census back when when it was last done I think they used stone tablets and so if we don't get it right and we get missed we lose huge segments of our influence and our ability to garner money for our County so the idea is to form what you call it a whole count a full count committee yeah mr. Tucker has you had mr. Tucker has experience with the full count as does mr. Jones the rest of us do not and so as chairman I've asked mr.

» Tucker to take up forming a full count committee it is not an ad hoc committee it's not appointed but it's voluntary of nature but it really requires the three municipalities the school district and many many other organizations so we get a full count and when a person in some remote house gets a letter that person needs to know that's important to respond to that because it helps our fire departments EMS our schools and all of us if we get a full count so i'd ask that mr tucker allow the staff to lead but sir if you would leverage them and we'll move forward on this thing uh that's all i have to that i say on that but i would ask you to give it your full attention it makes a difference uh any comments mr chairman mr tucker just one briefly i have had the opportunity to meet with miss peele

» r who is the regional coordinator for south carolina um i think her office is in gaffney she's upstate uh that's correct yeah she is getting a lot of uh of her assistant folks this is a uh a time that we uh really really as a chairman has stated need to count and we're going to need to churches and local organizations involved because people are not going to fill this stuff out electronically or by paper ballot uh if they're uncomfortable and you know the rhetoric that's going around now so we want to make sure that everybody's counted we don't care whether they're a citizen an alien whatever we need to count every breathing body and um that way we may pick up another congressional seat as the chairman stated it's definitely um on the funding part where it's going to determine what type of

» federal dollars we're going to get into this state and i'm tired of them the money's coming south but skipping south carolina so we're going to need your help and i encourage you if you want to volunteer see staff myself and uh we're going to get going and that's called a complete count mr chairman very good thank you uh let's get it done uh okay the next item on the agenda is the uh returning to the live well excuse me no air methods community partnership uh mr jones you want to introduce that again i do not very good i think we can do a dispense with that mr jones i think it was very valuable and we spent almost an hour on that topic and i think it's important to our people that we get good staff support with that we go to council briefings and mr connell you have the honors I would just

» say happy birthday to mr. Snodgrass I I had most of my hair before I started council I hope that your jeans are stronger than I have no additional briefing mr. chairman mr. Jones mr. chairman just a couple of things right quickly happy birthday mr. Snodgrass and Tom garden is great seeing you doing so much better as I said you've been in our prayers and that Cornell told me the other day that he really enjoyed sitting by me these last couple of years and he plans to do it or more thank you thank you mr. Jones mr. Snodgrass mr.

» chairman members of council just very brief tonight I just want to we did some hard work tonight yeah we did as a council and thank everybody for being apart that and just again I said it during some remarks previously I don't take any vote lightly this again this was going into meeting was one of the toughest meetings uh so far uh but i believe that we are a community and i believe that we take care of one another and i believe that even though some decisions may be tough for for for some at the end of the day i i think we do what is what is best for the for the greater good of of of moving our county forward and and that it is a place where people want to live work and play and uh to encourage encourage that that type of growth so uh also i want to remind people that um i'm currently acce

» pting nominations for our district five award pride award uh so if you any uh business owners properties that you are seeing being invested in uh whether it be down the uh highway one north corridor uh which is east camden or other parts of of of district five please let me know i want to recognize them as uh as we want to encourage private investment taking place in our county and thank you council members for your birthday wishes man there's no place I'd rather be on my birthday those of you know me you know that I'm actually this is I really enjoy being up here so this i mean um but yeah thank you all uh tom he just skipped over me i guess you cover me tucker go ahead thank you sir i couldn't even see you once again happy birthday um councilman snartgrass i want to say that i had the opp

» ortunity to bump into uh councilman snartgrass this weekend over the long weekend and um he has a very proud mother and I just want to share that she's a sweet lady but she's very proud of him and very warming and loving I had the opportunity to meet her so you ever get chance she lives of course in his district down Black River Road but I think it's a pleasure and a treat to talk with her I want to say to this council thank you Thank You commissioners and foundation members of Central Carolina I think we took what's those saying one step forward a man and a giant leap for mankind is what's happened here today for our citizens, our children and our grandchildren when it comes down to higher ed. I say that because I don't take your vote for granted or lightly. And Mr.

» Mozart, I appreciate you standing up and joining the team. I really do. And I say thank you for that. And the foundation, just for your information, is really up and coming. Councilman Jones, I want to tell you thank you for recognizing and Sid Isler, I did not know he was on the foundation. He's not always on my call list, so we don't communicate on a regular basis. But that foundation is up and going. There's new members on there, and they're really trying to get it back in a working order that you're accustomed to. With that, Mr. Chairman, I have no further. Sir. Just, Mr. Connell, I vacated that seat. Mr. Jones got tired of me kicking him under the table, and so he made me move over here. So that's all I have. Mr. Bozarth, sir.

» out thank you i just want to comment a little bit about some of the discussion it had here under the public comments to my knowledge we don't have a list of what can be said it's a matter of being respectful when you end up talking respectful for this board for the people sitting out here and so forth and i guess it's being just to each other respectful we do not have a list of words again to my knowledge and i just want to say if you're going to talk up here be respectful thank you thank you and i'll be very brief but we have we're on the second and now going to the third reading of the budget there's a lot more in that budget than we've talked about we have talked about we have security the county services uh sros economic development workforce readiness our volunteer firemen our regular

» firemen our sheriffs there's a whole lot in there and it's all envisioned 2030. uh vic and your team and sandra thanks for uh getting us this far along there's a lot in there that we probably need to talk about and and maybe brag about a little bit i thank the media for trying to explain all this complicated stuff it was given to us by our constitution uh 18 whatever 98 it was that then developed into a thing called act 388 and it causes massive headaches for the seven men up here and for your staff but i congratulate you vick you delivered on a very good budget and we'll see what survives on the third reading over to you No comment. Mr. DePose? No comment. Can I have a motion to dismiss ourselves? Motion to adjourn. Mr. Tucker, first. Mr. Snodgrass, second. Second. No discussion.

» Wait a minute. You didn't have nothing to say? No, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand, and it's unanimous. Thank you. I'll be safe going home. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.