Full meeting transcript - June 28, 2022

» Testing one, two, three. - Sorry, you must first dial a one or zero when calling this number. Will you please hang up? - Hey, Mr. Boggs. - Yeah, I'm locked in. - Testing. - Brausel, Brausel, you hear me? - No, I'm almost here, bud. You hear me? - Yeah, slightly. Okay, we got you. - You got me? - Yep, we got you. I'm gonna put you on mute until we start. - Think we have a quorum. Can you confirm that we have Mr.

» Brausel up on the line? yeah okay we gotcha we are it's a great day in kershaw county it's also carolina day when general william moultrie defeated the british in charleston harbor where came our flag the palmetto flag not only are we an all-american city tonight we're also global with mr mr brazel for the first time testing our electronics all the way from some faraway country i think it's ireland uh thank you you very much the county is still in a runoff tonight those of you who haven't voted get out there polls close at seven and that should bring conclusion of this election cycle until the general election in november with mr brazel remote we are now called to order we have a quorum of all seven mary and i would ask you all to stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance i will

» lead the invocation let's remember the words in the bible in psalm 32 where it says blessed is the nation whose god is the lord and we now tonight call on your holy name father we adore thee and thy and the gift of thy son and thy holy spirit which we remember with reverence and devotion and gratitude give us tonight the wisdom to deal with these weighty measures matters measures and give us peace so that we as a county can move forward and all this we ask in the name of our savior and to the glory of our god and let all the people say amen amen join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance thank you please sit down with that we go to public comments uh mr dubose tell me how many of you are signed up uh mr chairman four people signed up but the first three who signed up have indic

» ated they wish to speak as a group all right and so the first three that signed up are dr harrison goodwin dr james smith and tom mcdonald and i think they're from school district and won't speak on fee and lieu of tax and then we have uh two others the fourth person signed up is tom webb mr webb has signed up and i would give you a notice in advance we have some written comments to read i'll go through the public hearing guidelines public comment guidelines is an opportunity for members of public to share information with council not a time for debate with or questions or answers from council is a time for council to receive input is not a time for council response in short during public comment council will listen but not comment offensive and inappropriate comments will not be tolerated

» and comments should be limited to statements and rhetorical questions if a group would like to speak which as we currently have welcome mr chairman and mr superintendent and you todd uh would like to speak a spokesperson should be selected public comments is a time to discuss issues and a minimum a maximum time of five minutes is allowed please mr mcdonald thank you gentlemen appreciate allowing us to be here we'll make this brief want to introduce our board chairman and him have him introduce our our new superintendent let me just say this before we pass it over to dr smith over the past four years we have had an amazing working relationship with this council uh we've come before you before um with items we've worked cohesively with ad hoc stuff we have not asked for millage increase in th

» e past four years we're all on the same mission we might get about it differently but we'll have the same mission to make kershaw county great so i thank you for allowing us to speak and with that here's dr jim smith thank you mr mcdonald um chairman barn and councilman we are grateful for the relationship that we have had throughout the years and at this time i'm not going to continue to talk we have something that we want to pass out but at this time i'm going to turn it over to our district superintendent in whom it's been an honor for the last several weeks that we've been talking and i'm glad he's home so he's going to thank you all right good to see you Harrison I bring the microphone up to your mouth so there you go thank you and mr.

» chair I listened real closely about no offensive remarks and I'll certainly try members of Ed members of the council appreciate the opportunity to come forward no I'm not the new superintendent come to rattle a bunch of cages and all we we have had a little bit of information that has come to us during y'all's budget process that we just wanted to make a quick comment on just so that we're all on the same page, because I do understand the great relationship that has gone on over the past four or five years. And it certainly is one that I value because it's something that I'm used to, just to be honest. And it would be foreign to me not to have a good relationship with the county council.

» But our comments just revolve around mainly fee in lieu of and not even particularly what y'all are dealing with right now. But as we look at fee in obviously Act 388 has put quite a crimp on all of us and we all have to be careful when we look at how we look at revenue streams and as a school district we obviously make plans based on that and what we would like to ask of you is that as we move forward and me being new in the seat is that we be able to have an open dialogue about the fee in lieu of agreements I know that currently there's not a formal agreement. I did come from a county where we did have a somewhat formal agreement. That way everyone was on the same page.

» I'll be honest, I like the fact that this county has looked forward to economic development as being an engine to help keep millage off of individual taxpayers. And I think that that is really starting to show its benefit. And what we need to do is it with your help is to make sure that all of us are able to to depend on how that revenue stream is going to come and i think that mr mcdonald had a couple of comments before we passed out the handout that's all the time we'll take because we certainly want to be at honor your time thanks sir if you'll allow us to hand these out or give them to uh mary over here please just the big thing was that we wanted to show is that over the past four years that we have taken and relied on that philo money to suppose give them to mary first please to incre

» ase our sros in every school we have an sro in every school and as this breaks down you'll see that our funding for sros has increased dramatically over the past four or five years as has the philo agreements and so if there's changes in that then we're forced to look at how do we continue that safety and so i'm just asking as we work together the number one thing for the largest employer in kershaw county is to keep the kids safe at all times again guys thanks for your time any questions at all we'll be glad to answer but thank you for letting us present before you thank you very much delighted to see you all thank you gentlemen thank you mr bowes the next person that signed up and he's the last person signed up is tom webb brought up this subject before and i think it needs to be brought

» up again it said that if you keep repeating a lie long enough people will believe it well the same thing applies to the truth, I hope. So I hope I'm going to provide you with some information. I happened to be talking with a friend of mine recently who has a PhD in physics, and we shot the breeze a little bit and got onto the subject of technology and the EMP. So I wanted to say something about it. I think Fuller Berry focused on what's local, and they think that maybe some of these things that are not so local are of no danger. There's nothing to think about, but I think it really is, and the EMP is one of them, but what leads me up to this is there's been technology hidden in times that we suspected it wasn't true, like the Blackbird, that super secret spy plane that the U.S. had.

» I think it's been retired just recently. I heard a presentation from one of the crew members, a science officer, and he wouldn't tell us what the top speed was, but he said it got it was so fast way in that upper atmosphere the skin got hot so that's fast and he wouldn't tell us how high it would fly but he said you could see the curvature of the earth and you could see the little blue that was our atmosphere it was that high it couldn't go outside of the atmosphere because it had jet engines very special jet engines so um i was guessing that it might fly 15 to 20 miles high about like the distance to cast it but straight up and it's incredible what technology does but the atmosphere doesn't run out just abruptly it's gradual it's gradual so when you get up to about 100 miles or so it's not

» really much there but here's a another thing probably as real as the blackbird that people thought didn't exist and more than science fiction as the EMP, the electromagnetic pulse. It may be the weapon of choice against the United States, just any old time. I mean, there are several countries that could do it. It doesn't require an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the thing. The missile only has to reach about 150 miles high, carrying a nuclear weapon that can be detonated just out of the atmosphere, and the bright X-ray, high-frequency X-ray, the gamma ray, affects the lower, the atmosphere below it, driving the electrons out in such a rush that it produces a magnetic field, a tremendous magnetic field, like a zillion lightning bolts over a wide area.

» It's been theorized that three of those popped off over the United States would disable us, our our our grid would go down the transformers would burn out anything you've got plugged into the wall in your house will be zapped that it would even affect the the computers and your automobiles so it wouldn't burn them up that wouldn't be smoke but solid-state equipment is very sensitive to over voltage which could certainly happen enough to you won't be able to run your vehicles anymore so America would be left some people say in the Stone Age but it would it wouldn't be quite the Stone Age it would be maybe even more dreadful than that when the food quits coming vehicles don't run there's no electricity the transformers are burned out and it takes years to replace them some of these really big

» transformers could take years to build actually I don't know what we would do except that I think one thing we could do that I'm always harping on is buy some rice and beans to try to get by for a little bit in hopes of something that would come along to save us all, this could be the end of America. And I can give you a slight example of an EMP. Some years ago, I had a wire, probably 50 feet long, wrapped around a pine tree. I don't remember what the other end was wrapped around, but it was for supporting grapevines. And there was a lightning strike, probably within a couple of hundred yards.

» There was a flash and popped like a firecracker the end of that wire was touching the tree and it flashed I happened to I was looking at it it was in my field of vision there was a bright flash at the same moment the lightning struck maybe 200 yards away it popped like a firecracker so that wire picked up and affect a small EMP from a lightning strike it was just static electricity and it was enough to get my attention I went inside so that's my presentation thank you very much for please be cautious thank you very much mr webb uh with that mr debose mr chairman that concludes the sign up list of public comments all right and i also tell council that we have a written comment from mr matt harrison uh under our rules hutchinson excuse me matt harrison is related to me uh under our rules it's

» 300 words this one came in significantly over so i'm going to ask mary to read it and paraphrase it to keep it within the time limits uh mary would would you also tell us where a hard copy might be obtained can you make sure your microphone's up they all have them at their desk okay very good would you go ahead and read it please to the council i want to address the issue of a county council with three possibly four seats changing hands by the end of this year deciding on a budget that is bloated with pet projects and unnecessary EXPENDITURES. DISTRICT FIVE IS BEING REPRESENTED RIGHT NOW BY SOMEONE WHO ISN'T A RESIDENT OF THE COUNTY.

» THE OUTGOING DISTRICT SIX COUNCILMAN IS TRYING TO GET A HALF-SPUN LEGACY PROJECT FUNDED WITH $300,000 OF FEDERAL ARPA MONEY TO RENOVATE AN ABANDONED BUILDING IN MOUNT PISGA WITH NO REAL TANGIBLE PLAN TO FUND ITS OPERATION FOR LONGER THAN TWO YEARS. HOW MANY FIREFIGHTERS COULD BE HIRED WITH THAT MONEY? 300,000 WON'T EVEN BEGIN TO START A renovation on that building and you know it. Gentlemen, we have an EMS system with only four operable stations that is strained by an ever-increasing call volume, a fire service in its infancy, a sewer system that is basically at its capacity, and roads that are riddled with potholes. This budget should only be covering the very basic needs of the county and any new items should be held off until the newly elected council members are sworn in.

» Here are a few examples of what i'm talking about last meeting a discussion was had in regards to hiring a head hunting firm with the goal of finding county administrator candidates at the cost of up to thirty thousand dollars how ridiculous we have a man doing the job now who is who is fully qualified and a lifelong resident of kershaw county why do we need to spend this money looking outside the county 206 250 000 for an attorney why we spend nearly 1 million for the information technology department but only a little over 83 000 for emergency preparedness 6 million 695 602 dollars for the sheriff's department and this doesn't take into account the recent 1.2 million dollar lawsuit settlement with two similar lawsuits pending special services whatever that is has a budget OF OVER $460,000

» . OUT OF THAT AMOUNT, $87,000 IS FOR ANIMAL CARE. SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS. WE ARE PAYING $100,000 A YEAR FOR THE CITY OF CAMPBELL'S WELCOME CENTER. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT HAS A BUDGET OF $4,132,054. OUT OF THE NEARLY $100 MILLION BEING SPENT IN THIS BUDGET, ONLY $200,000 HAS BEEN ALLOCATED FOR ROADWAY IMPROVEMENTS. IN CLOSING, I WOULD ASK THAT THE COUNCIL THINK LONG and hard before passing the budget as it sits today fund only the essential things and leave out the special projects thank you very much and a hard copy is provided and we can get a hard copy to mr. mr.

» Brazel as well when he gets back any further comments saying there are none we move now to the next item on the agenda which is a public hearing in regards to an ordinance to provide budget appropriations for county purposes in the county of Kershaw for the fiscal year beginning one july 22 and ending 30 june 23 and adopt and implement the charge and collection of service and user rates and fees and other tax purposes and county appropriation purposes and matters related thereto uh mr devoe does anybody sign up mr chairman no one signed up all right i'll open the public hearing and after a decent interval i'll close it and move to adoption of agenda which is the next item uh can we have a motion to approve the agenda which is on the screen must approve mr chairman mr tucker a second second

» for mr gardner any discussion uh over to you mr brasil any discussion none okay i do have one question mr jones under new business item number one county council rules and order of business is that for a vote or for discussion that's for discussion thank you very much and that's very helpful sir with that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by first mr. Brazel I and all others raise your hand and it's unanimous the agenda is approved approval of minutes it's a tab a page 3 dated 12 June can we have a motion to approve mr. Tucker a second second mr.

» Gardner any discussion just thank you miss mary thank you again mary now with that we move to a vote mr brazel how do you vote hi and all others signify with a hand and it's unanimous mary we move now to an ordinance third reading of an ordinance to provide budget appropriations for county purposes in the county of kershaw for the fiscal year beginning 1 july and ending 30 june and adopt and implement the charge and collection of service and user rates and fees and for other tax purposes and county appropriation purposes and matters related there too it's if you can move to the item on the screen please it's at tab b and it said page can't see eight in your in your book so with that can we have a motion to approve make a motion that we approve third reading of the appropriated budget for 20

» 22 2023 uh mr tucker a second second second very good it's on the table mr tucker i believe you have some amendments mr mr chair yes may i make a statement before we get started please well that's not within our rules it would be fine it's just something that's concerned me well we'll have an opportunity during the discussion uh mr tucker go right ahead thank you mr chairman thank you so much mr chairman mr carnell and mr john um thank you mr chairman and my colleagues i want to make a couple of amendments to our budget this year i'm going to list off a couple things and then i'll be willing to take questions um well let me just first say we'll the order will be we'll go through an amendment we'll discuss it and vote it and move to the next amendment and the rules we used in the past were t

» hat would um we would identify either a bill payer other sources of revenue to keep the budget in balance go ahead mr if i may go ahead i've got something that's really of importance that i'd like to mention before we get started in the budget process yes go ahead thank you thank you mr tucker members county council i'm having a problem here tonight because i believe in my heart we have a member of county council that's not even a member of his district much less a member of living in kershaw county but he's sitting here tonight he's going to be voting on the budget he's going to be making decisions that will guide us through the next year and i just don't think uh he should be doing i think he should yield and not be placing any votes on the table on this budget yeah we have a legal opinio

» n on that uh with his address in camden where what's his address go ahead mr snodgrass 403 Garrison Court, Camden, South Carolina. And the legal opinion, Ken? If he resides in his district, then he's a member of Kershaw County Council, appropriately a member. Okay. So I think that point of order is overruled, Mr. Jones, and we'll move on. I'm glad you found an address, Mr. Snodgrass. Go ahead, Mr. Tucker. Thank you. Thank you. So I would like to make an amendment at this time FOR THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE OF 261,000. CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS OF 6,000 PER POSITION, WHICH WOULD BE 119,845. DETENTION CENTER, 81,000. OUTSIDE AGENCIES, 54,500. PUBLIC DEFENDER, 125,000. THE SOLICITOR, 75,000. HUMANE SOCIETY, 75,000. ELECTED OFFICIALS, 91,087 DOLLARS.

» probate judge for a part-time position $30,000 and a part-time judge $57,000. Finance on accountant for $60,000. Public works, road inspector $90,000. Voters registration for election system specialist $55,000. IT person here for the county at $75,000 and fuel dump of $280,000. That tolling where the funds will be coming from will be from a 5.2 mil increase can we have a second on that please second second from mr gardner discussion mr tucker yes sir thank you mr chairman um these things are what we need to continue to provide the services and have a functioning county government and therefore um these are what the request was from the different departments and we're just trying to give them the tools to work with very good mr gardner pretty much same thing these these are requests that hav

» e come to us this is not what we created but these are uh created like the sheriffs had asked for five thousand for deputy to keep up uh so that he's not losing all of his deputies uh this also includes a litter officer uh in in this uh that uh that our great first of all clean community commission has asked for uh that they need to keep litter and these are all requested amounts thank you very good other comments if i may uh mr jones i want to make an amendment to that please all right let's hear it okay mr chairman i made the following motion i'd like to move that we increase the pay for each kershaw county deputy to five thousand dollars per year uh of course they'll have to take care of their uh deductions and everything out of that five so it won't be a total five for each one also an

» increase to personally aligned item for dispatch as 120 000 for our 9 11 employees and i'd like to direct the staff to use the funds in our county reserve in order to eliminate the need to increase taxes or fees and to use the money we already have available to us by increasing the salary lines for these two departments we can ensure that we have the ability to retain a high quality service for the deputies and dispatchers and attract the best applicants to serve in these vital first responder roles and let me just say this because i know what's going to come out of some of you why don't we get a second jimmy and then you can talk uh do we have a second uh mr brazel harvest or anyone else we don't have a second so the motion fails to carry oh we move now uh any other discussion any other di

» scussion uh seeing there is none uh yeah mr not grass i was just looking at this at this list and a lot of this is is comes to us over months of a budget workshop that we've been a part of in budget meetings that we've been part of probably since what guys january or february as we've been uh planning on all of these uh you know couple couples that that stand out to me is i mean in in the probate office you know just it was very alarming to me when we when you hear about how uh the the mental health of of our area and the cases just in mental health side of probate um have and this is an approximate approximation but you know doubled or has increased exponentially and you know i look at this list and you know i see essential services like that i see uh central communications um you know she

» riff is as important as you guys are on the road I would think that you would admit that you know dispatch is vital to what you do you know it's I've heard it I've heard articulated like this you know it's you can have a nice car with everything all the bells and whistles but if you have a small gas tank you're not going to go far and dispatches is that fuel is that dispatch for our for our public service and so as I look at this I see all things that are vital to to our to our growing County and so I'll be able to support this night is I mean nobody wants to like knowing Mike wants to pay more but at the same time these are all services that that we get calls about we get calls about litter we get calls about dispatch and response and and things of things of that nature the The county's gr

» owing, the IT needs are growing within all the departments. And so I thank y'all for putting this together. - Thank you very much. Other comments? - If I may. - Please, Mr. Jones. - Then I'll let Mr. Carpenter go. You know, talking about the budget, I had asked Mr. Carpenter, I think it was September 14th, 2021, and county council, you know, what is the plan for the radio replacement for first responders? You know, I know that the county's radio replacements be approximately two million five hundred thousand dollars right now i think look off elgin could be up to four hundred sixty five thousand dollars and as of july one twenty twenty five the motorola solutions pow 800 will switch over and all the radios will be obsolete and some counties have already purchased and are awaiting radios cov

» et has a backlog of almost two years uh if i could gotta get some clarification on that uh mr templer well i'd actually like to speak to one of your your finance people if i could danny or tyler are you yeah and not such trying to sidetrack you i just think the question is mainly directed towards finance understood yep sir welcome do you can you tell me i was looking at the check registry with kershaw county and have you heard of a will dan finance services out of california i primarily work over in the budget side of things so when comes to actual we have ap personnel that handle those so i'm not intimately familiar with that specific company or any of those invoices okay i know because on 10 29 21 we had a wrote a check for professional services two thousand nine hundred ninety six dollar

» s to will dan and i checked i don't even think they're accredited um and then in uh one fourteen twenty two world and services professional for professional services four thousand four hundred ninety four dollars And then on 2-11-22, World Dance Services, Professional Services, $5,992. And do you know what our current plan is for the funding for the motor or radios? So just to double check, those are usually handled on a departmental basis through either ongoing capital requests that we receive from departments or for smaller purchases through, there's a non-capital equipment account for a person that are less than $10,000 for single replacements. We'd have to get like slightly more specific for me to be able to be helpful.

» Okay, actually what I'll do is I'll give you the information on Will Dan and if you can research that and give me an answer on that later, I'd really appreciate that. I'd love to. Also, I know we have the ARPA money and we had talked about putting some of that aside for the radios. Where do we stand on that? And that's all part of the budget. Mr. Templer, do you want to answer that? Yes, sir. Motorola does an excellent job of always moving the finish line for us. So once we complete one phase of what Motorola demands to use their product, it probably only lasts about three years, if that. I think so. So that's something that we always have in the budget. We're always looking at a replacement plan. And it's a large cost. Those radios are about $6,000 apiece for a handheld.

» So to get further specifics, I can have Fire Chief come up here because that would fall under his purpose. Can we step up just one minute and give you some clarification? Chief, come on up. Thank you, Tyler. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Where are we at with our Motorola's, our switchover? Currently, the fire service has a grant submitted to AFG for replacement of the large majority of our radios. If that grant does not come through, we will start a replacement plan, you know, purchasing a certain amount of radios every year until we can complete the replacement. Didn't we appropriate a certain amount of funds from the ARPA for the radios? Not that I was aware of.

» Well, I think that would be a wise way to spend the money, you know, because if we spend it on sewer or anything like that, it's just going to be a drop in the bucket. and we are running into a deadline here and there's a backlog and uh chief maybe we can get together at some point in time with the county administrator talk about it yes sir and get some clarification on that anything further jimmy i would like to say this though that uh i had planned to also implement a litter officer into my motion and that was going to come up later but uh and utilizing the reserves for this would have uh you know we put over a million dollars away every year why are we raising taxes when we can transfer a million dollars from our general reserves to our capital reserves that's a lot of money but anyway t

» hank you thank you mr connell thank you mr chairman whenever it comes budget time one of the things i i ask where i hope it's not unreasonable is try to get advance notice so you can actually have a meaningful study of and communication with constituents about significant changes in the budget budget um and in consideration i try to do the same for all council members if i'm gonna make a motion or multiple motions that amend the budget I try to put it out there early sometimes I understand things are last minute um in regards to the current pending motion though since it's in a bundle I don't think I can support it to tonight there are some things in there which I definitely would support like the sheriff's office just skimming through here which I think it's on the chart I didn't hear you

» mention it Mr. Tucker but you did intend to include or mention the litter officer yes sir yes sir okay I didn't hear that verbally I see it on the chart yes sir um solicitor's office is a big question for me I've had questions about that in the past on grant proportionality uh a significant portion of the grants that's greater than the per capita rate so the population rate between counties i think goes to richland county and uh in my view in the past kershaw county hasn't been treated fairly in that way so i'd have a big question there elected officials increase may be completely justified but i don't know to who or how much i agree there's probate um court needs especially with mental health issues going on and we don't have a um this doesn't particularly address the issue but we don't ha

» ve a fully staffed or a full-time mental health professionals i understand it it's kind of a on call i got some calls about that just recently um fire i we've been saying all along or i've been saying all along that millage would be the most equitable way to fund uh to fund fire as opposed to partial increases but again it's kind of a hodgepodge right now until act 388 or other acts make it fair for smaller counties versus larger counties absolutely to fund um but so i could i could support that but again i have so many questions about the other stuff that's just come across solid waste um i agree costs are needed uh or is increasing costs have required mr connor if i can a point of order that's not in my motion that's not in this current motion we're just talking about what's in the blue w

» e went through um the items in blue on the right hand side oh so you may you're making subsequent motions on all the other ones yes okay so the first thing i want to just put in a big conglomerate where you could not first one's your blue block right okay so you're going to have another three or four all right yes sir okay well then uh i'm just foreshadowing but the same rationale applies and i guess um so for that reason i can't support the blue block necessarily because there's too many questions i have unanswered okay very good apologies to Mr. Breisel. Russell, do you have any comments? No apologies needed. I can hear you just fine. I'm sorry. I couldn't understand you. Am I coming through okay? Okay. But I didn't ask you to speak. Go ahead. I should have gone to you first. Go ahead.

» I'm sorry. I misunderstood. My thought process is a lot like Ben's. There's a lot to each person's suggestion. And 5.4 mil seems like a lot of money. So I couldn't support tonight okay very good all right um any further comments all right we're ready to go to a vote uh mr brazel how do you vote and then we'll vote here at this at the podium no uh and others vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns and further opposed uh mr connell mr jones uh the emotion passes uh mr tucker you had another motion yes sir mr chairman and colleagues um would like to at this time make a motion for a 1.1 mil increase into our ems um that would be 305 000 which will be strictly for the ems and uh this would get them where they need to be so we can have um re

» sponse uh like the citizens deserve and the funding source would be the 1.1 mils 1.1 mils we have a second please second uh mr gardner uh discussion mr tucker yes sir as i stated just a few minutes ago this will go directly if you look on your tax bill you have it uh in the pi form where it's um on your tax bill and it says ems says central carolina different things of that nature so this is where this money would go to solely support ems very good uh mr gardner any further uh this is just a reflection of a growing county as we grow our needs grow ems is no different than any other department they have they have needs and this will help offset some of their needs very good uh we have gerald here by the way for expertise uh mr brazel uh 1.1 mil increase for ems uh do you have any comments th

» e only comment i have is this is the first i'm hearing of it so i won't be able to support it okay very good uh other comments please mr chairman yeah mr connell i'd like to know from staff what percentage increase is that in the existing budget just roughly i'm not pinning you down they probably around in the lower single digit percentile is it less than the current inflation rate at six to eight percent whatever it is right now yeah i would assume yes and does this represent um all personnel all capital or a mix for you or gerald for that melody it would be a mix you already have it designated is this this represents uh are there any new hires included in this or is it uh gerald come on up please sir i think this is personnel thank you i appreciate the opportunity to speak we have request

» ed four additional ftes for this year to bring up an additional qrv to help cover the more rural areas of the county it will be staffed with well the hires are actually three emts which will allow us to shift a paramedic over to that qrv to be able to hold and wait for transport so it does have ftes included in that okay so is that is four ftes for you essentially one additional shift uh no i wish that we were talking about an additional shift i mean how many um no that would be one 24 hour uh emt per shift for our three shifts 24 48 and you've got them at different locations correct yes sir and an additional and that fourth fte will be a an additional command staff member uh to help us collect data for quality improvement so is that what the three plus one stands for here i guess three fte

» s and then one man staff member yes I'm sorry I didn't know you were directing it to me okay so this is not any capital then no sir all right Thank You mr. chairman other comments mr. Snodgrass mr. mr. Blanchard thank you for your work does this and this doesn't reflect any kind of raises because that's Danny that's in raises across the board were in it was in the first reading or the initial budget is that is that correct okay and mr. mr.

» Gerald are we so you fully staffed or you like this will kind of help us get there we're currently down one staff member okay over the past year we have seen a significant turnover ems is a very transient field unfortunately across the state as we've discussed before we've done a fantastic job of keeping those vacancies at a bare minimum this additional fte will allow us to cut down on overtime for when we do lose someone they will come off that qrv and slide into an ambulance as opposed to having to down an actual station thank you other comments mr templar do we know just based on the value of the mill so you know 1.1 increase what is that just kind of for uh the lay mind what does that equate to as far as per 100 000 home kind of dollar figure i would have to defer to finance on that oka

» y right other comments uh the issue of manning of the emt is extraordinarily important what's that is that something finance could answer for us now or yeah tyler if you if you don't have the answer give it to us later do you have the answer okay he's working to get you the answer approximation's fine while he's doing that i just say that manning our emt is extremely important and uh that's a high skill and a high payoff and we are competing with other counties and i do We appreciate, number one, as Mr. Snodgrass said, we have increased pay across our personnel. And secondly, this is an increase in full-time employees. Any joy there, Tyler, yet? About $4.40. Huh? $4.40. So in real dollars, that equates to, on a $100,000 house, per $100,000 is about $4. $4. Okay. All right. Thank you.

» Thank you very much. Okay. Further comments? think we can move to a vote can i make a comment yeah mr jones i think this is a discombobulated way to handle this budget there's a lot of things thrown out here that are huge huge amounts of increases thank you thank you mr jones other comments all right we move to a vote uh mr brownstone how do you vote uh others here we now move to vote all those in favor signify mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns and those further opposed uh mr connell and mr jones and the motion passes we move to a third motion uh mr tucker yes sir if you go would go down to the bottom of your sheet there where it says cctc funding operations at level committed to i would like to decrease millage by 0.2 mils for cctc that would go back into general fund all right a

» second please second mr gardner uh discussion mr tucker what's the rationale here uh the rationale behind this is that um the state is now picking up our um scholarships for our kids so we no longer need to have that into that budget and so we stuck it and put it back into the general fund that's 0.2 mils yes sir all right mr gardner i can't add anything to that okay uh mr brazel any discussion no sir very good uh other discussion mr jones uh excuse me let's talk about how much does that equate in dollars uh roughly about 65 70 000 okay and that will go back into our general fund that's correct sir okay very good one question go ahead please no gimmicks no honestly it's not none of this is gimmicks yeah okay let's just let's just not grasp please mr tucker so you know obviously a decrease t

» o our our community college but if i understand this correctly essentially we're still honoring uh the level of commitment that we've always had to them because this this kind of represents when you look at reassessment and the increased value of the mill this is this is still within the bounds of honoring the commitment that we've always honored yes sir yes sir so we're not underfunding them or taking anything back than what they had from previous years it's just that we're wanting to stick the um keep them where they're at and the monies that they're not able to use or shouldn't be using because someone else is paying right because they have other funding sources now right we're not there years exactly when we first did is they didn't have these fundings it was you know Kershaw County cit

» izens funding our students which I thought was a phenomenal thing and so therefore that's no no longer needed we still have money obligated to that we pay maintenance that's in the general fund to through this building thank you yeah mr. Connell I'll admit I don't have to study real about the ones that say money i wish it was more but but i think the uh i think the commitment that we made to central carolina of designating mill was the substantial move and if they if the revenue generated from millage increases due to the mill value increasing beyond the dollar amount we intended for them to have then it makes sense to adjust or if another funding source comes in so i can support this one thank you thank you other comments all right very good we move to a vote mr brasil how do you vote yes

» good work sir okay supported uh all others signify by raising your hand uh and it's unanimous mary and that motion passes back to you mr tucker all right mr chairman and my colleagues um you know we talked and i heard councilman pinell spoke about you know you wish he has more time and i know how he operates he likes to peruse and go through things and analyze and whatnot but sometimes these things landing in your lap on the 11th and 12th hour go ahead and make the motion first sammy please yes sir so what i'd like to do now is to make a motion to fund the kirkland community center which is at the baron dekab elementary school which uh at 145 400 145 400 and that money will come out of the opera funds american rescue plan act a second please second uh mr snodgrass discussion uh jimmy i mean

» uh sammy i know we look alike yeah you do but both good looking men um as i was saying um this request uh came to me yesterday and um the young lady who is uh a part of this she is here tonight if happen to have any questions but as you can see the handout i gave you they're planning on doing uh some of the same services and they're off and running already with applying for the 501 C 3 this school was given to them through Kershaw County School District which I think is a great thing and an awesome thing children and youth senior citizens and people with special needs and rare emergency preparedness and shelter will have that in that area the hunger and food security food distribution site CENTER OF ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNITY EVENTS, HOUSE PROGRAMS THAT BENEFIT THE COMMUNITY, VOTING PRECINCT.

» SO YOU CAN TELL WHAT THEIR INTENTIONS ARE, THEY HAVE IT BROKE DOWN FOR THE PERSONNEL AND WHAT INSURANCE AND THINGS IT'S GOING TO COST. SO THEY KIND OF GAVE US A BUDGET HERE AND WHAT THEY'RE ASKING FOR IS THIS 145-400, WE'LL GIVE THEM THREE YEARS TO GET THEIR LEGS UP UNDER THEM SO THEY CAN GET STABLE AND BE ABLE run this on their own with not as much support if any at all it's no different than what we did at Mount Pisgah and I thought it was a good idea there and this is another rural part of our county that needs our assistance that um the school district is doing something good in that community and the county has a chance to partner with the school district here on making this project successful so um that's my motion mr. Gardner excuse me mr. Gardner mr.

» Snodgrass you had a second thank you thank you oh so mr. Tucker do we know on these these ARPA funds we designated last year on these ARPA funds for projects like this is that is that is that correct yes sir and it was told to me by mr. Templer and also staff that that those monies and I'll be happy to break it down to you a million dollars was given into employee commitment salaries bonuses whatever you want to call it 2 million was put into the opera fund that we approved for this year over here that's going to end at June 30th that was not spent so you've got about a million dollars there left and then 10 million was designated to sewer so that's your 13 million that came down in the federal government and just to add to that we gave some to the golf fire department as you remember yes y

» eah okay um back to you mr snodgrass thank you uh further comments i'll i'll take to mr brazel first uh russell how do you uh you have any comments this is just a one-time funding right yes sir sammy yes sir it is yeah no i think i could support this thank you sam and i sent you the email last night uh russell i don't know if i don't know that you got it or not but okay very good any further comments russell no further comments thank you other comments uh mr gardner please i'd like to also point out this is a three-year plan that 145 so if you break it down it's about 50 000 a year so this is not an annual amount or anything like that this is a 145 400 over over three years thank you other comments mr chairman uh mr connell yeah this is one i can support tonight i've heard from the folks wh

» o are involved in this project originally um the arpa funds if you look at the scope it was fairly wide i mean there's some things that we couldn't use it for in the county but it also could have gone back individually to households um the first motion i think we made off of or that the council actually acted on was a bonus to county employees which i had some reservations on so any effort to send this these funds back into the community i think makes sense get it back um get back to the people thank you mr chairman other comments yes uh mr Jones my comment is uh going back to the opera funds how much do we have left we've got 10 million left that you can put into sewer that's that one more question ask that one more time please mr how much will you have left out after this right here um th

» at's probably more of a mr temple question but i'm thinking it's probably half a million well you i'm concerned i'm just guys i don't know why but i'm really concerned about the radios and getting those switched over and i know we had talked about assigning some money to it but uh we're spending money we're spending that one-time money on all these other things i don't know why we just can't go ahead and take care of uh our radios and update them so that we won't be caught off guard when july 1 2025 comes especially with the backlog okay thank you other comments but i wanted a response go ahead yeah like i said i think it's a little over half a half a million about 550 000 that remains it restates your ocean a motion is to fund the Kirkland not Kirkwood Kirkland Community Center at Barron D

» eKalb Elementary School from the opera funds at one hundred forty five thousand four hundred dollars and this will be for a period of three years what will I balance be in the opera funds that's my my guesstimation about five hundred and fifty thousand you take that from the million if you take the 300 from mr. Gardner's request earlier last meeting and then one I rounded up to 150 so that leaves about balance of 550,000 and I think there'll be some more requests coming before tonight you know I know we have designated 10 million to sewer correct correct well that's that's a drop in the bucket what we have to pay going down the road I mean that's literally throwing money away in my opinion I'd like to make an amendment Okay, let's hear your amendment, please.

» My amendment is that we take $465,000 out of the ARPA money and we take $2,500,000 out of the ARPA money and that $465,000 will be Lugau Fire Department radio replacement and the $2.5 million will be the county radio replacement that we are going to have to be addressing pretty soon with Motorola Solutions. That is my motion. Do we have a second? I'll second for discussion.

» for discussion all right uh jimmy go ahead okay guys we can make the decision we can do it we take that money and we can spend it and we get those radios and they're much needed if we don't move quickly on that we're going to be i think sitting in a pretty tough situation yeah can you guys uh recount the the dollar amounts jimmy so i got them for me and mary yes um it's two million five hundred thousand dollars for the county and that's approximately of course you know give or take and then 465 000 for the lugo fire department now that would be what would be the source for those funds the source of funds yeah where would you get the two and a half he said opera i thought i just said that i just didn't hear it opera okay opera for both yes okay he's wanting to go into where we got it reserve

» d for the sewer is what he's saying so that would take away from the sewer well it makes a whole lot of sense to me okay all right uh mr connell you had discussion discussion this is this is why i seconded i wanted to just ask mr templar whoever can respond is the issue as pressing as mr jones presents it such that it and why wasn't it covered in this particular budget by staff originally or is this something that needs to be covered in next year's budget it is pressing communications will always be pressing but um i understand there is 500 000 in this year's capital budget when i was told by mr carpenter so it it is being chunked away at so you already have five hundred thousand dollars set aside to fund this particular concern right in this year's capital budget this year's capital okay w

» ell to mr connell's question there was also a grant that we heard about so that grant would be known when uh fire chief by the fall by october so that may give us time to maneuver on that and mr jones if i may go ahead mr tucker i think that request for the county is 1.5 not 2.5 well i figured it up at 2.5 fire chief and he answered that yes come on up chief we got a mr.

» Brazel I need to hear your answer or Gerald make an answer I know just for the fire service is about 1.3 million just for the fire service that's not including the Sheriff's Department or yeah but that's I'm talking about the entire county yes sir 2.5 yeah I don't know the exact total for the whole county but I do know for the fire service about 1.3 that works out about right because if you go ahead and add the sheriff's department and everybody else it'll be about 2.5 million roughly thank you thank you uh mr brazel any comments actually it needs a little bit of clarification i'm sorry i couldn't understand it needs clarification from chairman vice chairman tucker okay go ahead uh sammy yes yes sir um which part you're not clear we're at a hundred or was it three times no sir the 145 400 i

» s one-time monies for three years my amendment is still in the floor mr chairman point of order i can't hear him miss uh i did not hear words you said sorry no you're fine you just walked on over here live go ahead and time mr brazel uh russell can you go ahead with your question again please he didn't fell into the water now oh we lost him any joy y'all did that to my buddy there you go i think we got you again russell go ahead hey i'm so sorry so so that's a total of like 450 000 right roughly it's 145 400 but um it's a one time for three years i'm so sorry okay sounds like he's got kids in the background all right mr chair uh yeah i want to speak to mr jones's point of order because if i understand i i think we're on an amendment by mr jones about radios and then russell's trying to get

» clarification on the original motion right um and so because i understand your original motion is is money to come out of a million that's already been designated for non-profits correct and then mr jones his his amendment's not going to come out of the million for non-profits so i just think we need to kind of clean that up yeah he said he said out of sewer that we reserved the 10 million is what he was saying yeah am i correct mr jones you are correct okay that's correct i heard him clear yeah i'll call the question all right yeah we're about to call the question i would like to make a comment we long ago agreed that we pursue with removing the sewer tax and pursuing a rate application so that people who are users would pay for the sewer going forward and we would restructure the bond as

» to upgrade the sewer from two to four that is in the base budget already using the 10 million dollar arpa money and uh the the income from rate users such as commercial industry and houses so that is in the base plan already uh that would divert from the base plan and so mr jones has now called the question uh that would take money from the sewer and move it over to uh radios uh with that uh let's go to a vote mr brazel how do you vote uh no nothing heard we're gonna have to move on uh all those in favor of mr jones motion raise your hand it's mr jones all those opposed signify by raising your hand and it's mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns and mr connell the motion fails we move now to the base uh amendment as made by mr tucker on kirkland community center uh mr brazel i hope you

» can hear us how do you vote sir uh nothing heard uh we moved hello there he goes got you again russell how do you vote sir mr brazel oh he's trying he's trying to get i would barely hear you russell he needs more information well we've called the question we move into a vote russell do you vote up or down he voted i vote i heard a nay vote uh with that we move to here and all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh it's mr uh snigrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns and mr connell and those opposed that would be mr jones and mr abrazel uh we move now to another amendment uh mr gardner yes sir mr chairman i'd like to make a motion that we increase our solid waste fee by 43 dollars per year very good a second from mr tucker uh discussion mr gardner yes sir our solid waste we have tried t

» o make that a standalone so that it funded and it is falling below that and we're having to take out the general fund to keep that funded this 43 dollars that will add to that will help us to maintain that uh that it will be self-sufficient that will help in uh as we grow as a county we talked about a while ago then obviously we have more trash uh it requires more workers more trucks and all the things that go with it and this 43 dollars will bring us up to a point of a break-even point actually it's it's nothing more than that but it will help us to keep our equipment and keep operators and keep our trash hopefully out of our highways uh so that our clean community commission won't have as much to do so mr chairman you probably need to put in the record what the new fee will be the the new

» fee will be 123 dollars i believe it's 80 is that correct well it's not a new fee the the new fee will be 123 which is addition which is a total fee counting the old fee correct that is correct yeah i will amend my motion to include the new fee is 143 up from 80 123 123 i'm sorry does it say 123 okay we correct that error all right uh mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman i i think uh councilman gardner said it all with the growth and stuff and we're enjoying the um facilities that we have throughout the county which are our recycle centers and as if you follow the budget process we're open a lot of hours compared to our surrounding counties and we're trying to accommodate all the citizens with good service there and make sure that we're getting the best bang for our buck we've got some enforc

» ement issues that we have to take care of and the only way you can do that is that you've got to put people on the staff that can enforce your rules your law and your policies and so all this helps with that and we also want to make sure that we're able to dispose of this trash so you don't go there and it smells like the landfill thank you all right mr brazel a comment is there a direct dial option with mr brazel in ireland you can dial them in on my phone yeah trying to dial direct i don't know what the international code is somebody knows right here's the exit luck of the irish mr chairman in the meantime yeah go ahead van just so we don't have dead dead space um a couple questions what amount of additional revenue does that result in city say that again yeah the increased parcel fee wha

» t amount of additional revenue does that result in oh that's a taller question tyler you want to try that one all right all right next question uh just for the public's benefit is that all parcels or just improved parcels it's the same parcels that you have now which i think improve parcels it's not if you got a building on it it'll get assessed if not then um no calls and then the other question was the additional revenue what is that that's a million but i'm sorry yes roughly yeah according to the the some of the numbers i had was 1.1 million but tyler can obviously speak to that yeah can staff confirm that i'll bring the microphone over to you thank you so an additional $43 to that fee at the current number of customers, which is $28,977, will be $1,246,011 additional dollars.

» Thank you, Tyler. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. With that response, I know that we need to increase the fee to fund solid waste so it's not coming out of the general fund or attempted to use other sources. I mean, it's just, it's a byproduct of growth. And if I may mr carnell that's going to keep them out of our capital too yeah they'll actually be able to put money into the capital that they can draw back that's their own versus what is there for the county and if you recall if you recall i think it was four or so years ago under mr carpenter we made a move to go in-house so that saw um waste management wasn't hauling our loads we went took it in-house and saved approximately 300 plus thousand per year that's correct uh and here we are with with the growth facing additiona

» l costs um you mentioned enforcement i think it's important for the public to know that we are paying a roughly i mean we don't know exactly but between 250 maybe 300 000 extra per year in loads that we haul from folks who are outside of this county they just come in and you know our our folks who staff these facilities don't have the ability or time or jurisdiction really to authority yeah authority to kick people out or they don't have a mechanism to enforce them we've investigated you know do you spend money on a license plate reader sometimes those aren't most the most effective um sometimes the sticker system works sometimes it doesn't the most effective thing according to staff is a live body there for spot checks who has authority to charge them with something and some big ominous lo

» oking signage that says if you're improperly dumping here and you're not a Kershaw County resident, you're going to have a $500 fine or something like that. And so I think we have to make some of those moves and then be ready like we did with CCTC to adjust the fee back down if we can recoup savings that we estimate the $250, $300 or so. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, staff, for the response. Yeah, on that theme, we've pursued efficiencies and just about every solution we could. Over to you, Mr. Snodgrass. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

» members of council this again this was another one that when we got as we went through the budget process one of our departments that is probably has had experienced the most strain as a result of growth and you know just when you do the only increase I did the math I mean it's about ten dollars and 25 cents a month you know and and that's that's when you think about what the county offers as far as the ability to take tires to take oil to take car I mean everything is done in those convenience centers uh i i think based on my research that we're doing and offering you know a lot more from solid waste than than really what we have to and what most kinds is doing um the other thing that is significant for this mr tucker that i i think if i heard you right this is some of this is going into c

» apital right and so this isn't just operational as much as it is this is a fee that puts us years ahead to operate but then also to to begin to do capital. - Trying to make it self-sustaining again, where it's not subsidizing off the general fund, which is taken away from your other departments, which is making the administrative job very creative. - Yeah, and a question for Mr. Templer. How many miles average do we put on one of those trash hauler trucks a year? - They're our initial fleet of five. They're about four or five years old, and they're around 300,000 miles.

» - So roughly 50,000 miles a year, these trucks uh and and they're just they're running every day from elgin to east camden to the landfill uh how much one of those trucks cost as we have to prepare to buy new ones um probably right now with the fitment of the the rear components probably around currently 280 280s and and the equipment so at the landfill so trash it goes to the landfill and then once it's there we have to manage it correct and move it around and right i mean what's the what's the price tag on the equipment out there that that moves and moves and manages the landfill anything yellow sitting on that hill starts at five hundred thousand five hundred thousand dollars okay thank you and again I think these are all questions that we know but I just I think it's good for the public

» discourse to to really think about well you know most of us when we place our trash and at the airport convenience center you know or you know they're on Black River Road or anywhere else you forget about it you it goes there and you forget about it and I mean there are when I'm here in four or five steps of that trash being handled and and this fee goes to directly to manage that other comments mr.

» Tucker I just want to add to because I have a few relatives that's on this if you got sanitation pickup your bills about twenty twenty five dollars it may have gone up since it's uptick in fuel per month so you're half of what curbside is charging you know sanitation companies that's here in the county they do a great job you don't have to go anywhere to take it but you definitely pay a lot more double the price than what the solid waste recycle centers and things that we run here um in kershaw county yeah other comments um did we get comms with uh russell brazel he has a bad connection on his end i had him on my phone and it's dropped and it dropped it dropped on my well we're gonna have to just proceed um i regret that and we need to catch him up when we're done with that i'm ready to cal

» l the question all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr connell and those opposed uh mr jones and the motion passes with that we move to another amendment uh mr snodgrass i believe you have thank you i make a motion that we remove the three firefighter positions at pine grove to be funded from philo and fund the equivalent of six additional positions to be funded by a 0.6 mil increase uh to the fire district and a fee increase of 20 on the improved parcel within the kershaw county fire district can we have a second please second uh for mr tucker you want to discuss that yeah sure uh so just something that we need to be thinking about i i feel like that using the mechanism in which we've always used, which is funding the fire service from

» those who live within the Kershaw County Fire District. And we need to remember that that's not every citizen in the county. These are, the Kershaw County Fire District is the unincorporated areas of the county minus Lugoff and because they're under the Lugoff Fire District and of course also Elgin. And as we've moved towards the fire plan for me I think this is a cleaner funding mechanism using filo direct directly for fire takes away from the other revenue streams that go to EMS and other vital services so so when you have filo come when it comes in it gets divvied out first to the school district and then it gets divvied out among the county to different to different kind apartments And so when we direct PHELO directly towards fire, then every other department that receives PHELO is gonn

» a take a hit. Things like EMS, things like 911. Also, because our school board is not autonomous, and what I mean by that is, in order for the school board to raise millage or anything like that, it has to come through us. So they're not autonomous. And so from my view, that makes Kershaw County ultimate steward of our resources and so we need to realize that because of Act 388 school funding comes from those six percent properties and those commercial properties and those industrial properties but here's what happens when an industry enters into a fee low when it enters into a fee low that takes away the school districts management of that money and then that money then becomes our sole responsibility and historically we have always we've always operated well with the school district to th

» e tune of two-thirds a philo goes to the school district and one-third goes to the county operations and so I see ultimately County Council being a steward of all these County resources not just County but also school board I believe this will bring more revenue to the fire district than the previous plan and will bring them closer to completing the fire plan with within the within the plan Pine Grove is on the radar to get additional firefighters and they can house them now and so essentially what I'm changing in the previous plan is really the funding mechanism this isn't anything against anyone who would live in Pine Grove or anything of that nature I'm essentially wanting to us to move towards a cleaner funding mechanism and honestly at the end of the day the last four three and a half

» four years fire service has been has been kind of at my heart now the ad hoc committee took place before I got on but as I came on and I and I saw what we were trying to do to move our fire service from volunteer base primarily to a a hybrid of career base and volunteer it's just kind of been close to my heart and and so I want to I want to see these six additional firefighters and I want to give chief Glover the the leverage to be able to put these firefighters where where he sees fit within the plan and thank you for your attention mr. Tucker Thank You mr.

» chairman well said councilman Snodgrass um I know you probably said it and heard last meeting on innovative ways to do business think out the box well i haven't been sitting up here not trying to think out the box i just think of others more so than i think of myself and i say that because that's just i was raised that's just the american that i am that's just the person that the lord has made me and i don't shy away from it and i don't pretend to be anyone else um with this motion it really does allow the school district who has already set their budget to function because all those monies out of that $194,000 was not new money.

» That would be a whole different story if the county had sat down and brokered a deal with the school district saying these are new revenue streams of fee and lieu. Now that can potentially happen as we bring these businesses on and say this is what Dr. Harrison Goodwin was talking about and have a funding mechanism that says certain percentage go here to the school district, certain percentage goes to the county. I can name you four people gets fee in lieu right now. School district, Lugo Fire, if it's in their jurisdiction, the county, and then the city of Camden, if it's in their jurisdiction. And there's others, depending on what deal has been brokered when we try to bring industry here. So messing with that pot of money is not a new pot of money.

» You have to reinvest, and you continue to get industry and expansions and things of that nature here and then you have to make sure that everyone who is privy to this pot of fee-in-lieu is getting their fair share I say to the school districts kudos to you for the last four years being able to not come up here and ask for a millage increase that takes a lot of strategy foregoing thought on how you gonna budget grants you just you've been doing the things you need to do to not come up here and ask but the sad part about it is the day is going to come that they will have to ask because as this county continues to grow who grows students i'm pretty sure we just don't get elderly people i'm pretty sure we just don't get you know all the nuns that don't want to ever be married or don't ever want

» children that's not how they come they come in a rainbow coalition of however they are and we accept them and there's nothing wrong with having children um i don't want anymore but um so with that said i think this is a more cleaner as um councilman snodgrass has said more cleaner way of funding this and it makes more sense moving forward thank you mr chairman uh do we have any joy with uh mr brussell brussell can you hear us no joy all right uh mr jones you have your hand thank you mr chairman council uh again how much of a millage increase was this point six point six which is the the max of that 388 will allow yeah if you can take that point six out of it i could support this what do we get the 115 from though to support the full plan we find the money that we want to do things with we a

» lways find it well i'm asking you to help me i'm asked i didn't listen let me make myself clear this is already pretty structured because when you come into a meeting and the chairman says sammy would you like to make a motion uh tom would you like to make a motion but they've already talked about it i'm sitting over here trying to catch up and i just said if you can drop that i will support that on the field that's that's all i'm saying jimmy you said drop what please point six meals drop the point six yes and so and do away with the attacks and with the increase of the millage then it's unable to there's no funding for it sammy you want to speak to that well you can i have a question for mr john i just this is the first i've heard about this i understand and you know you you sitting over

» there playing like you've never been through this you've been up here second longest you you know how this rolls and i i just got all my numbers together and were able to get these charts and stuff this afternoon into a final state so i came to you as quick as i was able to put my stuff together ben gave me his stuff yesterday i mean nobody had this stuff sitting on it just waiting to uh throw it out We had to confirm because the rules that we go by if you want to fund something you got to identify this Fund source I'm getting to my to my question for you So we pull the 0.6 mils Are you willing to add five dollars to the parcel so we can make up the one which is 0.6 mils equate in dollars 115,000 okay, take it out of your reserves you put a million away in your service What happens next yea

» r you put it you take out any reserves because you know what we put a million in reserves every year so the reserves is a recurring amount amount of sum of money and bottom line is uh it can be used for that or at least it gives us a year without increasing the military more than what we've already done tonight and uh i think that's a solid way to you know sammy we've done that before here when gene wise was here yeah i didn't vote for funding anything else we did great but we did great with it we replenished the money the following year that's when you had the votes that's what y'all did we did a good job okay well let me ask you a question yes sir you and i've been here what i've been here 16 years you've been here 18 years yes how how and when did we get to where we are now because this

» is not the way we used to do business sammy well i don't know that's probably a question you and i probably need to take up yeah and we will thank you thank you very much mr snodgrass i would just say mr jones i just want to say i appreciate your uh your uh honesty and being able to to want to engage in policy and even to to say hey let's let's find um let's find in the middle ground I just know for me I don't I would be a little uneasy about taking anything away just because based on what we've heard from the from the fire department this is this is what they need and honestly I see it as the previous the previous plan was more of a hodgepodge is not it's not the best word for it but it was I think this this funding mechanism gives him more security for for the future and and so that's why

» I would be inclined to just stick with where i am but i i want to say how much i appreciate you wanting to engage you know with me in a in a very meaningful dialogue and and that you uh have you know indicated that that you would you would come um you know come off of your stance i just i just want to say i appreciate that i will say that uh when i do the math uh this this comes out to the the new fee with the millage i mean it comes to about eight eight to nine dollars a month that the residents of the Kershaw County Fire Service are paying for fire service I will also point out that in the last four years we've seen we've seen our ISO rating go from a six some stations maybe a seven but it's five countywide and so for those of you who were on the ad hoc committee to the council that is he

» re now to our fire personnel we should we should be applauding ourselves those of you don't know the ISO rating that's that rating that your homeowners association is looking at when they insure your house and the lower it's it the lower the ISO the lower your premium is and so you know not only have we been trying to to make our fire service more robust but we've been trying to ensure that our citizens you know are in a better insurance area and that and and lowers that burden as well. And so I think in the grand scheme of things, I think this is, again, just a cleaner funding mechanism. And again, this isn't countywide. This is for those who live within the Kershaw County Fire District.

» And again, we can't take general operating money to do, this has to be, funding has to come within that fire district. So thank you. - Other comments, Mr. Tucker. - Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones, if you wanted that dollar amount, it's $6.50, so it would go from $20 to $6.50. And Mr. Snodgrass just made a great point. We can't cross-collaborate funds from the general fund to fire fund. They are two different entities. So, therefore, the only way would be to increase the fee because we'll be at the max increase of the millage due to Act 388. So, that would be our only way to have any additional funding unless you do something new with a fee. Okay, I think we're ready to call the question. Mr. Connell, Mr. Chairman, excuse me, but just for the record, I think Mr.

» Snodgrass's motion is to add 6.6 mils, which is $115,000. That's correct. Yes, sir. And then he wants to increase the fee per parcel from 60 to $80. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That's correct. That's your motion, right? That is correct. Yes, sir. As stated by the county attorney. thank you all right i will restate that before we vote uh ben thank you mr chairman so um and just for mr jones consideration i know we have to pay to fund fire we're going from a volunteer system to personnel cost you didn't you're relying on people to volunteer their time leave their job and come and fight your fires and uh and handle your car wrecks and those kinds of things so it costs money to pay for the people and we're trying to phase that in over time it's just a cost we have to deal with now i just need so

» me clarification on the plan so this proposal would fund what uh what will had talked about at pine grove and what russell had talked about at pine grove it will if it's if it's the discretion of the fire chief and yeah and so he so the next dollar he gets he'd have the discretion to spend in pine grove or anywhere yes sir and based on and i'm not i'm not gonna put him in a box but based on my conversation with him pine grove is is is a high uh volume station it's number three yeah the council i mean in the county and so logic would say that they would they would be receiving a fireman firefighter soon okay and the one thought i had from but this would provide more funding than that needed because i think that motion was uh 275 to 300.

» they were yeah it was going to be three full time this is six full time and again it helps him do what he needs to do on the west watery and then as cassette station comes online it gives him the ability to do what he needs to do on the cassette side so you're going to bank and build up uh personnel costs for a year is that the idea before cassie gets built he would certainly have that option to do so i don't know if he asked him to come speak yeah i just would like to know how the funds are going to be used or if you just plan on saving it up for a year uh chief come on up and help us out he's made more trips today he's made all year i need to um no so what we would do is uh there's some things that we have to do before we staff anything else on the east side of the county so these funds w

» ould be used for equipment or station renovation or things of that nature to make sure that we had the acceptable facilities for the new people coming in on the east side of the county possibly but again how would the 475 be used like under the pine grove um presentation or motion that we had we knew it was going to go to three personnel i heard you mention before put up a wall and somebody to be able to stay there so all that is tied into this And then also, what we would do is hire those three personnel, and then any other funds that are left over after that three personnel would be used for equipment or other modifications to any other stations that would house the additional three personnel for the next year. Like a portion of your radios or something like that? Correct, yes. Okay.

» And this was a comment from Mr. Jones. I remember we talked about in the past how the mill, or fire mill in particular, even though it's hamstrung by Act 388, that's all, thank you. You don't have to stand up if you want to. That was the only question I had. the mill is the most equitable way to fund fire service like if you take a hundred thousand dollar house and you say the same hundred thousand dollar house has to pay a eighty dollar fee now fire service in the county versus a five hundred thousand dollar house paying an eighty dollar fee well they're both getting fire service but you know it's a little bit inequitable there you have a house that would probably be higher in square footage and maybe more complex with multiple levels harder to fight a fire there you might need more resour

» ces so i've always thought that the millage was the fairest way to pay for that particular service and so you know i was almost thinking kind of conversed that the mill was more equitable than the um improved parcel fee but again fire is kind of a hodgepodge for us until we can get x388 adjusted or find some way to uh to fund it more equitably and fairly thank you mr chairman and i think i know somebody might help us out on act 388 next year thank you very much i want to bring back to another point here you you pay for what you get you get what you pay for uh we've been operating on a skimped plan here across the board and and a number of us have come in with different ways innovative ways thinking outside the box ways to try to find ways to avoid what we all don't want which is taxes and f

» ees but at the start of the budget year every year there is an agreement made between the administrator and the superintendent and that is the apportionment of philo and at the last minute with two and a half days left in the fiscal year this is not a time to be moving philo around and cause the school budget and the logo fire district budget and the camden budget and the economic development budget to have to adjust to that when the philo for good purposes is taken from extraordinary success that we've enjoyed in economic development looking forward now we have yet to bring in philo for some of those wins that we have but the philo is in the program and in any agreements made and we at the start of the budget year i would ask that whoever's sitting at this table next year in january and fe

» bruary make those agreements and not renege on them as we might have done tonight except for the fact that we found a millage solution so the school board needs to have certainty going into their budget and that's uh something that i hope to protect tonight i do thank mr brazel for his interest and his passion to find another solution but i think we found a better one that's more equitable with the millage uh mrs snodgrass i would say to that um i want to appreciate uh mr brazzles uh he helped us realize that our plan there was there was another station that maybe was not originally in our plan and helped us look at our numbers again and to see that pine grove is a busy station so i i want to i want to make sure that that is not that's not lost that i always see like what we do up here this

» is called making sausage i guess if you will i mean we we try to get together and and govern the county and so everybody's effort is there's no there's no effort that's null or void uh it's all it's all a journey to help us get to where we're trying to get to mr jones thank you members of council uh i'm a little confused maybe you can help me with this we're talking about philo philo philo nothing was passed to use any philo last council meeting yes it was yes it was we talked about it no it was but the the votes weren't there for mr brazel yes it was yes it was if you look on page five of the minutes excuse me thank you i was i'm incorrect thank you i can't believe i'm saying that but you're exactly right i was the only vote that didn't vote that's right yeah it was it again passed in seco

» nd reading on page five of the minutes so with that i'm ready to call the question do we still not have any joy um russell and i were texting and he his indication that he votes no for any fee increase okay all right and i think i'll make a ruling as a chairman for the first time we got a text message all right when others members present all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns those opposed uh mr connell and mr jones the motion passes three to four with that uh we move now to mr connell do you have some motions yes mr chairman i have three items uh for council thank you my first motion is i make a motion to amend the budget to appropriate funds to the local legislative delegation office an administrative assistant position to the amount of

» thirty thousand dollars this would be from the previously budgeted uh budgeted fiscal year 2223 non-departmental operating expenditures can we have a second second uh from mr snodgrass ben go ahead please thank you mr chairman as you recall fellow council members the prior allotment was forty thousand dollars for this position it was not completed fully in its tenure for uh the last fiscal or um or calendar year and this would ultimately be a reduction in that budgeted amount for that position i just ask for your support all right uh second who had second it's progress yes sir just david yeah just that i support uh mr ben uh mr connell excuse me uh effort here thank you all right uh let me see if mr brasil is up can you get he he signed off okay good uh mr jones go ahead uh at this point ma

» ry let us reflect that mr brasil is no longer present uh jimmy please thank you members of council uh we always fund this every year we've been doing it for years and it's kind of appreciate you bringing in with the 10 000 reduction appreciate it other discussion matters i presume this is going to be pro rata from the date of hiring you know which would be in january correct it would fit in with our fiscal year assuming we can get somebody to sign on then and then as you and i talked the office over in the clemson building is probably needs a good look too but that will be in next year's all right with that let's move to vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous uh mary back to you on uh ben go ahead thank you mr chairman the second motion i have is a motion to amend the budget

» to appropriate two hundred thousand dollars from arpa funds to the town of Elgin to complete the Elgin Community Center and Park. This would be subject to a memorandum of understanding containing provisions that the town has sufficient funding to construct and complete the center, and the funds appropriated will be used in construction of the community center, and that community center will be public and open to Kershaw County citizens and residents, and those outside as well, but particularly Kershaw County citizens and residents, and that the community center will be made available to Kershaw County in particular for disaster relief and or emergency response, if needed. This would be something that I've discussed with the mayor and town council in general.

» Let me get a second, and then we'll- Sure, sure. Can we have a second? Second. Mr. Stodgrass, go ahead, Ben, I'm sorry. Yeah, and I was just gonna say that this would be something, the memorandum of understanding is particularly important to me, but it's something that the town is inclined to, as I understand it, and that the attorneys would sort out and make sure that the town has those rights reserved.

» this would be a property obviously that elgin would own operate maintain and insure so we wouldn't have any additional carrying costs it's a one-time capital cost did you mention also that that would go to the arpa funds that they already have no no i identified that as our arpa funds good but they have arpa funds as well they can employ yeah well they've actually um if i can just share with you yeah please do that's already raised so this project in particular the town of of Elgin's already raised $502,000 and they received a state grant and $65,000. That brings them to roughly $567,000. They need a little over $750,000 to complete the project. And so this $250,000 would put them up to the level where they can complete the project at a little over 2,500 square feet.

» Incidentally, there is a museum group in Elgin that's headed up by Ms. Shirley Miles. they've raised about twenty eight thousand dollars and in connecting the town and the museum group they're probably gonna put some funding in or at least i'm hopeful to have discussions about it to add a room on to this particular facility and have a timeline or a museum or you know however they decide to design it for the history and timeline of blaming and elgin that's really important to that community as well and i think it's significant that the county has a reserved or retained interest in being able to use the facility over there we don't have anything like that and not to mention this is the fastest growing portion of the county the census had elgin at 24.8 percent growth i believe over the last 10

» years and so that's an area that's booming and uh it needs the service and attention very good other comments mr stargrass sure just that uh i support mr mr connell's effort here and uh you know it's kind of the year of being able to to use these arpa funds that have come our way and then use them to reinvest into our communities in ways that that perhaps we wouldn't have before so thank you mr connell for having your your ducks in in a row very good i just have a question go ahead mr gardner did the town of elgin use any of their arpa funds towards this they've got their arpa funds dedicated as i understand it to a town hall improvement project which includes additional parking landscaping and the space that they need there that building's been about the same size for well since it's been

» built i'm not sure what addition or renovation they've had so it needs to expand and be updated and i think their arpa funds are committed in that way of course they received a much lesser portion than the county did very good i know what their total amount was but i know that they've already budgeted and saved up over the last four years over five hundred thousand dollars towards the project and the only reason i'm asking that because you got another township in this county that will probably after uh they hear about this uh come up for project as well and it's called the town of bethune um they receive opera funds as well um the only little bit of heartburn i'm having is that they did receive opera funds compared to the other two entities that we did um fund um they was not a government e

» ntity so they had no way of receiving any funds um their community and organization as non-profit but um well if if a particular municipality comes to the table with 80 skin in the game already that's a really interesting opportunity you're trying to tell me that it won't come with any skin in the game no no i'm just saying if you can if you can bring a project that's almost at the finish line and that that's really intriguing and other comments uh seeing there are none i think we move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous with mr brazel no longer present mr connell any further amendments thank you mr chairman my last one is i make a motion to amend the budget to appropriate 110 000 from uncommitted a tax funds to complete the pending lighting project at the west lotter

» y sports complex can we have a second second mr jones uh discussion ben thank you mr chairman um gentlemen the information i sent you yesterday was a larger number i was saying that we probably needed 284 out of the 290 which is pending in atax but it turns out that we had some funds uh budgeted for capital expenditures and recreation account correct staff right thank you mr templer and so we only need 110 from the pending atax account which leaves that that balance of uh 174 roughly in atex for projects next year or otherwise um this is a quote that's a little bit older but thankfully the contractors still agree to honor it correct yes that's true and so in spite of inflation costs and otherwise we've got a quote that's uh that they're going to hold tight to this is very important portion

» of completing the project out there and will according to shane with the recreation department get us much closer and probably in some of the final steps of tournament ball which is what we've been talking about for a long time being able to complete the lighting out there and have the competitions we need okay other discussion i think mr jones had to say mr jones you had a second no discussion okay other discussion mr carnell go ahead thank you mr chairman um just a question just for clarity um these a tax funds do fit within the expenditure of these uh of this request this motion that you made oh yeah i've double double and uh triple check that one so a tax funds just for the benefit of the public are restricted to tourism purposes primarily correct mr county attorney yeah so yes that's c

» orrect it's primarily tourism engaged as a state uh fund that we really can't do much else with at all so you have to try to line up a tourism related purpose and uh becoming tournament ball worthy in kershaw county is one of the main things the community's been interested in this council has been pushing towards and so this helps us reach that goal just one for clarification thank you very good other comments uh david i just also point out this helps us get to the finish line of our project that i know it's been uh dear for all of us to to be completed so i appreciate your work on this and there's already some action out there with roads and parking which we also all know we need to do out there as well um other comments none let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your

» hand and it's unanimous mary and without mr mr brazel present any further amendments are ready to move to uh a vote on the budget as amended we i have nine i'll just recite them and i'm counting on mary and tyler and danny to pull it all together the first amendment was a millage increase uh dealing with public safety justice systems elected officials pay voter registration and so on the second one was an ems millage increase by mr tucker the third being a cctc millage removal and redirection item number four was kirkland community center by mr tucker using arpa item number five was a solid waste fee to put that back in a lucrative position item number six was fire with a millage and fee combination uh item number seven was uh thirty thousand dollars for the administrative assistant item nu

» mber eight elgin community center using arpa item number nine uh using a tax to fix the lighting at last in west watery complex uh with that can we have a motion to approve the the budget as amended mr chairman make a motion that we're approved to 22 23 budget as amended can we have a second second mr gardner discussion question yeah mr let me first hear any any discussion no sir okay mr tucker mr gardner okay mr jones go ahead if i could can you give me the total in millage and fee increases you want them mr jones 5.2 was the general fund 1.1 was ems 0.6 was for fire those are your millages and then you took away 0.2 and then we took away 0.2 of 6.7 and fee totals increased 63 63 mr jones thank you you're welcome okay uh further discussion seeing there is none we move to a vote all those i

» n favor signify by raising your hand mr snodgrass mr tucker mr connell mr gardner and myself are those opposed uh mr jones and the motion passes tell me mr devose i don't have to do another vote on that that's that the vote's over thank you budget has amended mr chair thank you very much my parliamentarian advice okay we move the next item uh which is uh county council rules and order of business tab c it's at uh pages 56 58 61 63 and the current one is on page 66.

» you can go to page 66 there uh sparks uh mr jones you want to make a motion i still move for discussion for discussion uh second second uh mr tucker oh you jimmy thank you you know mr tucker some while back you and i got together and we revised these i think before a lot of the members here maybe tom was here but the rest of them weren't and uh would you go over would you mind just stating what the chairman's responsibility is what the county council members responsibilities are when it comes to budget when it comes to the agenda excuse me well i have to look this up mr jones because i don't have my tablet but basically dealing with basically dealing with the fact that the county administrator is in charge of putting together the proposed agenda thought they were in here well i'll just read

» it for you preparation of agenda the county administrator and clerk the county council shall prepare a proposed agenda that's uh section 2.2 okay got it uh the county administrator and clerk to council shall prepare a proposed agenda which shall be compiled with supporting documentation by 1 p.m on wednesday preceding the next regular scheduled meeting session of the county council at which county council will vote on or take action on any matter coming before county council the agenda shall be published by 1 p.m on friday for special meetings the agenda with supporting documents shall be published at least 24 hours prior to the meeting and that is section 2.2 of our ordinance and mr chuck i carry on some dialogue with you because we both were were here we did that what was the reason we di

» d that well we we never had any rules in order prior to this basically there's seven of us up here we wanted to make sure that seven of us up here had a part in that agenda and not just one individual i'm not accusing mr burns over this was done before him correct but this was still about the chairman having that authority to do that where county administrator uh former government correct right okay who runs the county the administrator correct are we to get involved with any of the departments without the administrator's permission no no we're not supposed to be involved in daily operations of the county okay and i abide by that and i wanted to make i want to put these rules on the table for us to discuss so we can understand that the county administrator runs the county not the chairman o

» f county council or any single member of county council and uh i would like to encourage my colleagues to pay attention to that sammy do you have any other comments no sir i wasn't sure uh oh what was you know you wanted to bring out or well that was it okay just want to make some clarification all right jimmy can i ask a question you included the four emergency ordinances in here yeah the reason is i asked for the uh county council rules of order to be placed on the agenda that was my discussion what i just mentioned there was no intention for the other okay very good could i depart from that just slightly um we just saw where mary had to read uh written comments from an individual and uh there's an appendix to the rules of order that require that if someone wants to write comments to the

» county council they would be read at 300 words and mary had to paraphrase because they were well over 800 the question i have is i believe the individual was in the room and so i i need to get the sense of counsel about this written comment rule uh because the individual was in the room uh and could have made comments himself i'll respond to that go ahead jim and i had no idea who the individual was i had no idea he was sitting out there but i believe that if someone if the public wants to communicate with us what does it matter if they're sitting in room or they won't write a letter what does it matter let's let's take their comment i think the spirit of it was that we are open to any and all comments to include text message from paris france or or ireland i think but he's in rio en route

» now to paris by train go ahead jimmy you know and we've been here before throughout my time on county council i've had it's been rare but i've had some people get up and speak against me and uh i've actually said it has been rare but i have i have actually said to the chairman at that time let them talk they want to rail me let them talk give them extra time and y'all did yes you did no i jumped in for you no you did not you have amnesia anyway anyway you have selective memory but anyway i i wanted to hear what they had to say about me and i would always ask him to stick around because i was probably gonna make some comments during my council briefings right mr carpenter and i did that and i challenged to somebody if they didn't like what i did run against me well they did so i guess i bett

» er watch what i say but no i'd have no regrets in there bottom line is if someone was coming here call me a dog they can call me a dog i don't care i think we're too sensitive i certainly think we need to control the meeting and run the meeting but bottom line is any way somebody wants to communicate with us i think we should welcome it thank you thank you so much uh any further discussion on a topic thank you uh with that we go to item number two a memorandum of understanding between kershaw county and the sheriff's office as to operating funds in the fiscal year 2223 it's a tab d and it's up on the screen and it's page 74 in your electronic books mr tucker you want to make a motion make a motion that we enter into our mou with the kershaw county sheriff's office uh second second uh mr gar

» dner mr tucker go ahead please yeah so what i did not do and it was intentional when we were going through the budget was address this portion of the budget and it's not any more monies it's it's how we're going to be able to identify a public safety when it comes down to sheriff's department so as i stated earlier you're gonna have ems on your bill central carolina um solid waste tax to all be identified what we wanted to do equal to the sheriff's budget is set as millage when we set the mills later on this fall or this summer whichever happens once we get our numbers in um that we create a notice on the tax bill that says this is what the sheriff's millage is that equates to his budget um with that i have asked the sheriff to enter into a mou with us and i'll have the chairman read it in

» just a minute so we can stay on track because this county is going to continue to grow and um what you probably found out and have seen it's way more equal shares when we can put certain entities on millage and allow them to grow with the county versus having to fund them out of the general fund every year and try to figure other departments out I think we got 22 departments here that the administrators responsible for and it may be more lose count after about 22 so this makes it a little bit more easier and to be truthful i'm speaking with the sheriff this this will um allow him uh some growth without increasing millage in the future this will also um hold him accountable to you as if things come up and he needs something that you know exactly where it's going so for those reasons is why i

» have this on the agenda okay let me read the memorandum i i'm in fault here uh this agreement made and entered into this particular day by and between kershaw county and the sheriff's office collectively the parties is deemed in effect on the date the agreement has been signed by both parties whereas kershaw county dedicated millage in the budget to fund the kershaw county sheriff's office for fiscal year 22 to 23 is expressed in 23.4 mills and whereas the kershaw County Sheriff agrees to accept said millage to fund this budget for the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office for said fiscal year. Now, therefore, it is the intent of the parties to agree as follows.

» Item one, Kershaw County will designate 23.4 mills in the general lobbying budget to fund the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office as reflected in the budget ordinance. And number two, the agreement is limited to fiscal year 22-23 and as a matter of law is subject to the annual budget appropriations of kershaw county council and witness thereof etc any further comments sammy yes sir um of course we can't legally and we won't bind him over from year to year this would be a year to year uh mou and anytime the sheriff deems or sees that there's something about it that he's not liking or something's happening he can address counsel or the administrator and move forward from from there, but I think this just allows him to have some growth on his own millage. Same thing we did with Central Carolina.

» Mr. Gardner, I've got the second. Go ahead. I just think this sets the Sheriff's Department up to grow as they need growth, where they don't have to come in and ask us for more money and that sort of thing. I think this is an appropriate way. Mr. Jones. Well, I'm a little confused. You said it's like Central Carolina.

» You said it's like the way we do other departments i don't think we appropriate millage to any other departments do we uh ems ems is on their own but you said this would be like central carolina too didn't you right yeah we've done them as well well we write them a check once a year are we gonna write him a check once a year no we're gonna appropriate this budget as we always have but what this does mr jones so as we add industry on which we're gonna do you know starting the physical year 2020-23 um his as the mill value grows his budget will grow which means as we continue to get people to come to work here and move here and live then it's going to be a higher value on the mill he can take that money and at that time do things within his department without having to come and say i need a t

» ax increase he's got more maneuverability within his budget that's speculation well um i'm not speculating that's that's what the numbers say from economic development um yeah i'm not just dragging this you know off the side of my hips but we still have to appropriate it yes well you have to appropriate everybody's we did central carolina we did ems understand that but we still have to come back every year if we're going to do this memorandum of understanding we still have to do it every year just as if we appropriate his budget correct right the difference is once again he has growth in this mag um mechanism if we choose to use it tonight i have a question i have an answer not really okay but let me just say this are we going to do all the elected officials like that no why are you doing o

» ne because this is public safety and i know that their needs um they change daily weekly yearly uh this this is i don't have to explain this to you you've been in law enforcement yeah but i didn't have my own millage well you wasn't as fortunate i wasn't on council when you came through mr devos question for you maybe um is this entering some dangerous territory or unforeseen waters or is it a proven entity that can work well i think the if the debt of course as mr tucker says the millage ordinance will have to reflect this too so a further step will have to be taken and as mr tucker said um you're designating the mills and is subject to appropriations so the mills still go back to the budget is that not correct that's correct so basically the notice that goes out i guess will have these me

» als taken from the general millage general fund that's correct and he designated the sheriff well that happens with with ems now that happens with central carolina now it's done the same way understand we're still subject to appropriation central carolina a check once a year don't we i don't know how it's distributed because i don't get into the day-to-day operations remember we just had that conversation that's not getting that that's not getting into day-to-day operations okay it's doing your homework all right oh no i'm not finished mr chairman please go ahead um but to answer my question as from a legal point is that is there any danger in this well it concerns mr jones it ties back into appropriations and so you have to appropriate the month the whatever 23.4 meals equates to fina in i

» n terms of dollars has to be appropriated in the budget okay so if the meal grows next year for instance you'll still have to appropriate the money but we still have to appropriate the money with that you have to have a new agreement is this sort of redundant well it's not redundant excuse me i'm talking to attorney well it's a matter of of how it appears on the tax bill okay that's the only difference yeah let me hear from ben go ahead mr dubose i think that's the only practical difference is that it shows up on the tax bill now that's the only difference is that right yes and so the sheriff recognizes that if we're going into a recession and there's a 25 drop in real property values you'll then be dealing with the converse issues instead of potential growth you'll have to say well hey we

» got to adjust this millage thing or you know something else has to happen to get me back at a level where we can actually fund operations but the only practical difference really because they've just oh and then the other question excuse me i'm getting ahead of myself um sammy does does this mou reflect the increase that just occurred with the blue chart yes sir that's correct okay yes so really there's no change in dollar amounts from the budget that was just approved they just equated it to a millage and now they want the millage to appear on the pie chart yes that's the only difference is that it appears on the pie chart and so also in the tax bill of course so as long as it's appropriated to line up with the mill in some level the public's getting more information about where the money

» goes by seeing that it goes to the sheriff's department as to post just the general fund and then not knowing what portion goes to the Sheriff's Department. That's correct. The pie chart changes and the bill changes but the parameters of how you effectuate it do not change. It's the same dollar amount. Same dollar amount, same process. You have to appropriate it. You have to have a middle choice. You can do the math. 23.4 times 287 equals 6.7. Some change. Well, in summary, I think it's not a harmful document. It's an informative document that drives information to our citizens about the level of security provided through the millage to our sheriff along with SROs and other the good work he does for us um and I don't see any harm in it that's the third issue uh Mr. Snodgrass.

» Sure thank you uh Mr. Tucker for putting this forward and I know for me I think it's another level of transparency uh Mr. Templer what's uh is it is it not correct Sheriff's Department's probably our largest department in the county or at least one of one of the largest is that correct? Yeah they are the largest they are the largest and so from a transparency standpoint uh you know i think there's value for the the citizens to be able to see you know where the majority of their resources are going obviously we're happy that they go there we are always grateful uh for for those who who put on that uniform uh not just the deputy's uniform but the uniform of all of our first responders uh this is also one of our most i think from a risk standpoint this is one of our more exposed departments ju

» st because of the nature of their of their work and and so we have to take that into into consideration as well because that is a part of of funding the sheriff's office is is also managing their risk if you will so mr tucker i thank you for putting this forward i think this helps again just adds another level of transparency so the people understand you know and and it's consistent with the other public safety mechanisms within the county it is fire ems and of course now sheriff thank you that's correct i'm ready to call the question uh jimmy please go ahead do you see this as more transparency mr de bose and please give me a straight answer well i will but to the extent that the pie chart is transparency then then it is transparent because the pie chart is going to show it and and it's go

» ing to show this all going to come from the operating millage of of the county it's just a sub subcategory of the operating village isn't that correct mr templar this is just a subcategory right it just parses this out from our already existing millage and and dedicates it to the sheriff's office operations okay mr chairman yeah uh go ahead ben and i was going to say it's the same dollar amount as was just budgeted it's for a one-year period which we're already budgeting and it just will show up on the pie chart now through this mechanism and by by its own terms it ends in a year so if for some reason somebody doesn't like it you you just change it next year but it's already the same dollar amount mr.

» Boas could we change it in the middle of the year with three for three readings you can admit you can yes you can amend the budget with three readings but after you do the millage ordinance the tax notices will go out yeah so at that point you could not amend it okay other comments yes sir Mr. Tucker. Mr. Jones, you count seats? You have the final word, sir. You count seats? Seats for the first of the year? What seats? Never mind. Oh, you're talking about four seats flipping up here? Okay. Is that what you're asking me? Sammy, come on.

» My point right here is Lugo Fire Department does the same thing that what I'm talking about now, where they own a millage and their increases keep them, for the most part, keep coming back up asking for increases as the years as they fire district grows it's no different in what we're doing already is what I'm trying to say it didn't increase the dollar amount from what we've already approved it just put them on their own millage yes sir now you're right about that but the fire district has their own elected commissioners the sheriff doesn't the sheriff has a budget that comes through the county that's got seven of us up in that approve his budget but i don't think comparing lugo fire to the sheriff's department is an equal comparison i think so because they got an elected body that has to

» approve his appropriations i disagree with you and that's not the first time all right i'm going to call the question all those in favor of the motion from mr tucker signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and mariel you took me through all that for nothing for one year all right we move now to the next item on the agenda which is council briefing starting with you mr jones good thank you mr carter i mean mr carter mr uh chairman i uh something really bothered me and i want to bring it to everybody's attention um i got a call that the farmers market was had a elected official who had rented a booth and was collecting signatures or doing some kind of campaigning and i uh got a call from quite a few folks so i talked with some of the board members of course they told me that they were

» allowed to do that it's been done in the past i don't know when it's ever been done in the past and I was reading over their policy their policy states the Kershaw County farmers market shall not participate in or otherwise intervene in political campaigns on behalf of any candidate our public office that's their purpose that's in their bylaws but they tell me that renting a booth to an elected official or potential elected official candidate is not getting involved well it is that's my opinion very disappointed to see that you know i go to the farmer's market i go to buy vegetables to have a good time to rest i don't go to hear somebody screaming out hey come over here and do this or come over here and do that vote for this person vote for that person sign this bill sign that bill i think

» our kershaw county farmer's market has made a mistake i think they need to stop it people go there to to enjoy themselves not to hear political rallies and what's going to happen is it's going to open up a pandora's box because you you got one doing it you have another doing it and uh i'm very unhappy about that and and i'm very disappointed and uh i'm not going to shut up about this because i think it's wrong but anyway um that concludes my report uh mr snodgrass go ahead sure mr chair members of council uh again i wanted to again state uh as previously stated i accepted a new position from out of kershaw county months ago one that is taking my family out of this community and just that this has been a long transition but during the transition I've been I've been committed to honoring my c

» ommitment to Kershaw County and specifically to the citizens of district 5 during this transitions I have remained and still am a registered voter in Kershaw County specifically a registered voter and which means an elector of the seat that I hold I currently have presence and intent at 403 garrison court camden south carolina i've always i've always been a faithful citizen in kershaw county and i've always been faithful to the citizens of kershaw county of of fulfilling this role i've demonstrated nothing else but to be a good steward of of the county's resources and i would never do anything to take advantage of of the the precious citizens in this county if and when the situation changes the citizens of kershaw county will be will be the first to know and again just wanted to to give tha

» t update thank you members of council mr chair uh mr tucker uh thank you mr chair my colleagues man oh man i want to say to all of you up here and russell if he was on the phone um i know our passions run deep and sometimes different but um i um i do respect all of you and i do understand uh your love and commitment for wherever it may be um we just don't always agree on how to do things and that's what makes up this collective group you know we are different while the same then we wouldn't need seven of us we need just one okay so I thank you for going through this drooling process called a budget and maybe it may not be the budget that you wanted or you would like to see happen but we do have a balanced budget for our citizens with that being said I think a lot of good things are going to

» come out of this budget for the citizens and for the employees and I'm happy about that it's probably one of the one of the better budgets that we've said do a lot of good things and I'm gonna leave it at that because there's a lot of good things that's gonna be done this budget and what I do know about people people are tangible so when you you won't appreciate it until you start seeing it and the good part about it if you just wait on a little time you're gonna see some differences you're gonna see some improvements you're gonna see some growth that's in the good way. We cannot do those things without doing the things we've done up here tonight. This is a very conservative county.

» If you move to your left, to your right, northeast or west, let me put it that way, Lancaster County, Lee County, Sumter County, Richland County, you're going to be jumping out the frying pan into the fire. Not one of those counties have lower taxes as we do, better services, better safety, or better education. And I'll take that to the bank with any of you. I hear it all the time from my colleagues at work on how disgruntled they are, how they get nothing for their dollars and for their service that they pay. So I say kudos to all of you up here, no matter how your vote went on the budget. I don't know if I'll get another opportunity yet, Councilman Snodgrass, but just in case I don't, don't know what a good Lord is going to have me come two more weeks. I hope it's right here.

» But by some reason or miss that I miss you I want to tell you I commend you and love you and you've done a heck of a job sitting in that chair despite what anyone else may say I trust you and I'll roll with you as the young folks say you can be my my die right right or die not guy not not not not chick yeah you be my guy so um with that I'm gonna ask that Danny miss Brown Tyler and all staff see mr.

» Blanchard there as well and well and all those department heads um do good and do right and do your best by what council has awarded you with and show the citizens what good work that you will continue to do in good decisions so therefore our phones won't ring and say see i told you not to give them that money um they can say it if they're just mad at me but i don't want them to say it because it's true that concludes my report mr gardner just kind of follow up on that uh you know this this budget isn't about the seven people sitting here this budget is about the 70 000 people that live in this county and i think the primary thing you need to take away from this is the high points of it is that we took care of law enforcement we took care of ems and we took care of fire those things affect

» our citizens every day and those are the most important things that we do and and i'm very happy with what we did with this budget thank you mr connell thank you mr chairman um good news for the council i heard from legal staff today that he heard from mary that the codification project has been completed i think it's been five years before you left ben oh my goodness i'm serious i'm serious so we've moved into the 21st century uh as far as that goes now i don't think it's linked online yet but it should be available on lines pretty soon correct we'll have to have an enabling ordinance to actually for the council to actually pass it in this entire yeah so can we get that on the next agenda yes all right and then the link will be available online and so now all this time talking about how pe

» ople need to have better access online to the code and things that have been passed in a searchable format now they can do it and i think i hope that will reduce some of the confusion or issues that people experience at various departments because they'll be able to look online and figure out you know what are the rules that apply or what's already occurred what's the precedent and they just have more information which i think is really important for the public um thank you for that mr chairman that's all i had and i'll close before we turn it over to the staff we've done a lot to address the justice system thank you for being here judge and for keeping us mindful uh pay rises for our staffs pay rises for our elected officials the sewer tax is removed and we're moving into a two to four mil

» lion gallon day upgrade uh thanks to the leadership of uh mr templer and our engineer and we're doing it well before capacity would tell us we have to do it we've addressed community rural issues and more yet to come we found some imaginative ways to do that we've addressed the clean community and i would ask those listening in the community to also address your own attitude towards what you can do to help our clean community and our new litter control officer who will be working for the sheriff we've addressed solid waste we've addressed fire and ems and we've kept them on plan and within the constraints of response times that really matter to people in urgent need of their services we address fires we've addressed parks we've addressed public safety thank you sheriff again my best to your

» wife she gave me an earful today and we've kept faith with the other players in the county and that is the other three municipalities and with the schools and district and everyone else i would ask the administrator to catch up mr brazel on all of this and i will certainly reach out to him too and i think with all of this we've anticipated the ad hoc committee under mr gardner mr brazel and mr connell along with mr todd mcdonnell who is here tonight there's more work for them to do especially in the area of schools but we've anticipated looking forward on growth and many of those items are in this budget to the great credit of the men up here that voted in favor and lastly uh i would say danny your first budget congratulations thank you very much you're the calmest head out there i watched

» top gun i saw your squadron out there on top gun if you all haven't seen the movie that's danny templer's squadron saving uh tom cruise's butt when he came in without landing gear right that's right that's your squadron that's the nature of our county administrator the golf fire district is next we've got to address their millage issues and i wish you all a happy and safe fourth of july and keep us that way sheriff over to you mr administrator um mr chairman members of council i was going to lead off with the codification news but ben i can't have a a better way for you to you know kind of be rewarded after this um but i will close out with that um it's an honor to be sitting here at this table um and mr tucker what do you say about the the work that y'all have done and and which only gives

» us our marching orders for this budget year um it's not taken lightly it it uh i respect the work y'all do um the decisions y'all have to make it's not easy um ken and i get to sit here or wherever and just watch the work be done and y'all are accountable to the citizens so that is not lost on me or staff and so thank you all for what y'all have done thank you sir attorney mr. chairman I have nothing okay with that I move to get a motion to adjourn let's still join mr. chairman first a second for mr. Connell any discussion y'all be safe on the fourth of July man Danny Templer and with that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify and into unanimous and we're adjourned. Have a good night. Be safe out there, everybody.