Cache County Council Regular Meeting - December 9, 2025

It's

official.

K. It's 05:00. We're gonna go ahead and start our county council meeting. Thank you to everyone that's here. You have to do this. Okay. We'll go ahead and start with an opening by councilman Nolan Gunnell.

Okay. I'd just like to open a few comments first. Wishing everybody in the county a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We're giving our council a gift. We get a whole month off supposedly before another council meeting. That's exciting. I really like that. And to thank Barbara Tidwell for her service. If you haven't heard, she has tendered her resignation. I called her up immediately and tried to talk her out of it. Even tried to bribe her. So I'm not very good. She didn't take my action. So, I'm not very good. She didn't take I'm not very good. She didn't take my actions. So I would like to take a minute and give her a round of applause for her time. And while I'm standing, I'll finish And while I'm standing, I'll finish my comments in the form of a prayer. Our father in heaven, we come before thee at this time, and we give grateful thanks for this land and the freedom and the peace which we enjoy. We pray at this time and this month of December as we take time to reflect on our bounteous blessings and many things we've been blessed with. I ask a prayer at this time for those men and women who serve this country who are gonna be away from their family at this time in the holidays. Well, I'll bless them and their families that they may have peace during this month and that they may have reasons to celebrate. And may we, as citizens who benefit from their sacrifice, recognize them and give thanks and credit to their time that they have served, those who were present and in the past. We give thanks for their sacrifice. We pray that they'll be with us during this meeting, that we can do the business of the county in a correct manner. This we pray and ask for and do so in the name of the son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Now just stand with me for the pledge of allegiance, please. Yes, sir. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Nolan. Before we move on in the agenda, I have a a special presentation that I would like to read. This is a resolution recognizing and expressing profound gratitude for outgoing council member Barbara Yost Tidwell. Don't you cry because I have to say all this. K. Barbara Yost Tidwell has been an integral member of the Cache Valley community for over five decades and has served the residents of Cache County as a member of the county council for nearly nine years beginning in January 2017. And whereas her distinguished commitment to this legislative process is evidenced by her service on five separate county councils, including her leadership roles as council chairperson in 2022 and council vice chairperson in 2023 and also in 2024 and also, I believe, in 2021. So we'll fix that. Whereas she is consistent and passionate advocate for the fair treatment and compensation of county employees while championing principles of sound fiscal responsibility for the taxpayers, and whereas her dedication, level headed patience, unwavering positive attitude, remarkable sense of humor, and tireless work ethic consistently demonstrated a commitment that went above and beyond the call of duty. And whereas, council member Tidwell has chosen to resign from the council to embark on new personal adventures, dedicating more time to her beloved husband and pursuing cherished travel plans. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Cache County does hereby formally recognize and express its profound gratitude and sincere appreciation to council member Barbara Yost Tidwell for her many years of dedicated service, her lasting contributions to the county, and her continued concern for all the citizens of Cache County and beyond. And be it further resolved that the county extends its warmest wishes to Barbara and her husband for a joyful, fulfilling, and adventurous retirement from the County Council and expresses that she will be dearly missed by her colleagues and staff. So thank you again, Barbara. And I think we should clap again. Okay. Well, it's hard to to let Barbara go. Alright. So review and approval of the agenda. Does anyone want to make a motion?

So moved. Second.

Been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. The review and approval of the minutes, we have several. There's the workshop and regular December 2 meetings and amending the and approval of the 11/18/2025 regular and truth in taxation meeting minutes.

The second are available.

They're not available yet. Okay. So we're just doing the '11 meeting and a truth in taxation? Yeah. With those corrections. Okay. With the corrections that were made. Has anyone been able to look at that and would be willing to make that motion?

I would move that we accept the minutes for 11/1825, the regular meeting, and then the council county truth and taxation meeting minutes on 11/18. Second.

It's been moved and seconded that we amend and approve the 11/18/2025

regular and truth and taxation meeting minutes. Those in favor, say aye. Just one sec. It says we adjourned at thirty eight forty five. Maybe we should change that to the time on the truth and taxation adjournment.

Thanks. Okay. Recording, not the time. Alright. Again, those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Alright. Report from the county executive. Turn some time over to mister Daines.

I don't have any appointment, but I'd like to just inform the council that we're distributing the Christmas bonus checks to the employees and officers, and they're uniformly thankful. They appreciate what the county has done. It it I think it's something next year that you're gonna wanna participate in. In some fashion, divide up the county or something. Kurt and I visited almost all of the departments. There's still a couple we have to catch up with, but the employees are uniformly thankful for that. The second matter I'd like to bring to your attention is, we've changed the leadership in COG. Mayor Craig Hidalgo has served as the chairman this last year, done an outstanding job. The mayors and the COG board elected mayor Buys of Mandon to be the new chair and mayor Peterson of North Logan to be the vice chair. That's my report.

Thank you for that. K. Six a on our agenda, the PILT payment. Is Blair Stringham here?

Alright. Thank you, madam chair. My name is Blair Stringham. I'm with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and I'm here this afternoon to present the PILT check to the county. This is a check that we pay in lieu of taxes for the property that we manage here in the in the county. The amount this year is $19,160 and 27¢. I believe it's similar to the check that we have presented in past years for the properties that we have. Just wanna talk real briefly just about the funding that we have from the division. Much of this comes from hunters and anglers and licensed and pre net sales. We use that money largely to manage wildlife as well as the properties that we hold. So we appreciate your support in holding property here and also managing it. It's very beneficial to the wildlife species here in the county. We have a lot of our big game species utilize these properties, waterfowl, pheasants, as well as hunters and anglers. We get a lot of people going to these properties to participate in hunting and angling activities as well as biking, hiking, and other forms of recreation. So we appreciate your partnership and everything that you work with us on, and we hope we continue that partnership in the future.

Thank you so much. We appreciate you guys and what you do too. Does anyone have any questions or anything that You probably got it, don't you? Yep. So I've got the Actually, I have a check. You can hand it to our clerk Okay. Perfect. If that would be okay. K. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Blair. You wanna ask the crowd if anyone else wants to give us money? Yeah. I'll put you in a big check so we can all stand and Put you away at the front of the Okay. Okay. Matt and Mark, we're gonna talk do you wanna talk first, Mark, or do you want Matt to? I think we can just turn it over to Matt for a brief summary.

This year, at the direction of the Appropriations Committee, the Appropriations Committee felt that it would be appropriate to put the annual county audit out for bid. Joan Simpkins has been providing that. We haven't asked them to rebid that for a number of years. So we we did an RFP. We had three firms respond. Joan Simpkins responded as did Squire and Company and, Salt Lake based firm, Larson. The, Appropriations Committee met last month and reviewed all three bids. And based on factors that they discussed there, one of which being the price, Joan Simpkins was the low bid. The Appropriations Committee recommended to you that you approve Joan Simpkins to be our our auditor for the next five years.

K. Does anyone have any questions for Matt?

I have a question. Is there an industry standard on how often we,

rotate through? There is for companies that are on the NASDAQ or that are are publicly traded. Mhmm. But otherwise, no. Okay. Thanks.

Anybody else?

Kinda to that point, Will, we do have intent to help remind us all how long the contract is. This contract is is a five year contract. We asked them to to bid that out. Now, of course, there is clause legislatively that if you do not approve those funds, that you can always opt out of that. But we've asked them to, and they have bid a five year time frame.

Okay. Anybody else have questions, or I would accept a motion to accept this recommendation?

We'll make a motion we accept the external other proposal and award to accept Joan Simpkins' bid and use them as our auditors.

Second. K. It's been moved in seconded. Is there any further discussion? K. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. K. Alma.

Thank you. I'm just gonna go over a recommendation from the Appropriations Committee. I went to the Appropriations Committee on November 24 and presented to them the status of all of the projects that were funded with ARPA. There were 76 projects that you approved and were awarded money. 59 of those have been completed, so we're down to 17 of those that need to be finished up. A lot of them will be finished up this year, but some of them will go into next year. Statutorily, We have until 12/31/2026 to spend those monies, and it takes a little bit of time. And so I I presented to the Appropriations Committee and asked if I could get support, to contact some of them that had not been spending out the money. And it was discussed and decided to make the recommendation from the Appropriations Committee to the council that if significant progress was not made by 03/31/2026, that we need to, you know, we would need to pull those funds back and reclassify and and reaward those to another project that's eligible so that we can spend out the money by 12/31/2026. So I wanted to present that to you. And

Do we need to make a motion on that, Andrew, to accept that.

First of all, I wanna thank you know, the email that you sent out, I thought was extremely it was very good and detailed and and really, you know, descriptive as to what was happening. Okay. And with that, I move to to support the Appropriations Committee's recommendation that was outlined within that email as well as the Falmer. Okay. I'll second.

So moved and seconded that we accept the recommendation of the Appropriations Committee expect significant progress on these projects by March 31, or else we will take a second look at those. K. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Thank you. Thank you, Alma. Okay. Andrew.

Good evening, council. So this item is in regards to the meeting schedule for the county council next year as well as the noticing of the county office holiday schedule. I'm gonna go ahead and zoom that in so you can see a little bit more. I believe the only thing of discussion here would be for the meeting dates of the county council. Me and Amy have gone over the office dates that the state mandates that offices be closed. So that section should be good. But, in regards to your actual meeting schedule, that is something that you guys said. And, maybe to the dismay of some council members, you guys do have to meet twice a month. But as per usual, you guys are listed on this proposed schedule to meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month with the exceptions in, I believe it was February, November, and December. The change for November was just due to Thanksgiving. The change in December was trying to finish up the council year early. And in February,

there is some events going on that we may need to plan around. Well, that one is was at my request. I've been asked by UAC to attend the NACO conference, which is during the '20 the it would be when our meeting is. And so I've asked Andrew if we could have that discussion, if we could change our February dates to the tenth and the seventeenth so that I could be able to attend that conference.

I just had that's one comment. K. November, I looked at the dates, and the seventh is a Saturday. And we didn't give ourselves a raise this year, and ain't no way I'm coming in on a Saturday.

I don't have my phone with me. Is that correct? Seventeenth day would be the tenth and the twenty fourth. The tenth and the seventeenth. Tenth and seventeenth. Tenth and seventeenth. I must have been using this year's calendar. I apologize. Apologize. Yeah. No problem.

Tenth and seventeenth? Yep. Gotcha.

What about the rest of the dates? Are they I was gonna say yes. Okay.

It was only those three months that I made any adjustments towards. Yeah. I checked the other ones. They were good. K.

Alright. Does anyone wanna make a motion about that?

I'll make a motion that we approve this with the amended dates of November changing to the tenth and the seventeenth.

I'll second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve this council meeting schedule for next year. Is there further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Don't we approve

the the days off? The days off? The holiday one. Yeah. The holiday Okay. So we approve the holiday schedule as well.

Should we redo the motion or do a second No. We can have a separate Yeah. We can do a separate motion. Will someone make a motion about the the county holidays that have been presented?

I'll make a motion. We approve the listed holidays for the county.

Exactly. Because that was needed. K. So wait. Juneteenth is like a Friday, but we're gonna celebrate it on the fifteenth? That's perfect. On a Monday? Yep.

This is always a tricky one. It is observed on federally on the actual day, so on June 19. However, Utah State Code says that it would be observed on the Friday prior to that or sorry, the Monday prior to that if it falls on Friday. So the state government will be closed on Monday the fifteenth which is one of the reasons why the council approved that we observe Juneteenth because our attorney's office and our DMV wouldn't be able to conduct business that day. However, it does pose an interesting thing when banks are closed and everything else. So

there you have it. Does that coincide with the payday again? It does. It does. Okay. So at least we'll maybe be

looking ahead and We are prepared and looking ahead. The auditor's office has already had a staff meeting and and prepared for that. K.

Alright. So, Nolan, we had a motion and a second. K. Those in favor of accepting the holiday schedule, would you please say aye? Aye. Any opposed? K.

Thank you. Next year, can we make the holidays some of the same days as our council meetings? Fights in better.

Let's work on that. Work on that. We still have to have two every month unless we change that ordinance.

Work on that too. Yeah. We can work on that. Okay. Tax relief hardships.

Diana.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We have before you two hardships. If we can start with the one ending in 0045. Can you you've got those in your media packet? Mhmm. This one comes to the council with the recommendation to deny based on noncompliance with information requests, like no financial information, a lot of extra deposits through Utah Locavore, which is like a year round online farmer's market. So So or she didn't bring all of her information. We're not able to recommend any tax relief.

K. I move that we recommend this for denial due to lack of financial disclosures. Second.

It's been moved and seconded that we deny the tax relief application that ends the property ends in 0045. We deny that. It's been moved in second. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any any opposed? K.

Moving on to parcel ending with 0020. This one completed all disclosures. She comes in at the 2500446, which would make her eligible for a 29Percent abatement if granted by the council and that is our

recommendation. Okay. So we'll make a motion about that one or do you have any questions for Diana?

I move to approve aforementioned hardship.

I'll second.

It's been moved and seconded that we approve the tax relief for property ending in zero zero two zero. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? For 29%. For 29%. Thank you.

K. And you have your signatory pages there. If you'll just pass them off to Bryson so he can fully execute them and then get get them back to me. Alright. Appreciate you. Appreciate all your service. Thank you, Diana.

K. It's time for public hearings. I guess it's close enough. Angie.

Yes. This one sorry. Angie Sutterquist, interim director of Dilmaud Services. Sorry. This one will look familiar to you. It is bring being brought back due to a procedural error. We had the incorrect legal description as part of the ordinance. But this is the SBA UT24138B Paradise rezone. Just as a reminder, it's just North of Paradise, and again the yellow dot represents the approximately 2,500 square foot area where that, public infrastructure overlay would be applied. Again, previously we had the wrong legal description. Then when we thought we had the right one, we had our GIS department confirm it and it was still off of it. So we do have the correct legal description for the area that want to apply the overlay. This will allow them to apply for a conditional use permit, in order to construct a telecommunications facility. So, that is the basics. It is consistent with the purpose of the public infrastructure overlay. We did receive one comment from Paradise because it didn't meet their design guidelines and they prefer building mounted mounted antennas. But other than that, public hearing, planning commission did approve it on a six zero vote on September 4. So we're just looking forward or looking towards your approval or denial on that reason request.

Does anyone have any questions for Angie? I have to. Okay. Is there anyone here from the public that would like to speak to this project? This would be is the proponent here? This is your time to speak to us?

He did send a message to oh, you are here. Okay. I know he had a delay in mic, so I'm sure if he'd make

Any

questions regarding this again? State your name. My name is Ben Feldman. K.

Does anyone have any questions for

It's a public hearing. It's a public hearing. It's time for you to speak to us if you'd like. I'm just here again. I mean, we had the air, so just back in front of you guys again to see if we can get it approved like we did last time. K.

Alright. Thank you. Is there anyone else here from the public that would like to speak to us regarding this project? K. Motion. Move to close the public hearing. Second. Moved and seconded that we close public hearing. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Alright. It's time Angie, come on back. Yeah. That's the next one on the list. Yes. Actually, this one, I'm gonna turn over to Chris Sam. No. We got we have to vote we have to vote on that one. That's the first time. The Paradise Reset. If you have any questions on that, just let me Yeah. Does anyone have any questions before we take a motion on that one? I just wonder how we got proper descriptions wrong twice. I just hope that's I think it only happened once. Once. Yeah. And then but we we that was before the day before we passed it, and I believe they it was sent to Andrew right before the meeting started. Okay. And so that's what I Yeah. And we Now it's all corrected and procedures,

so we'll make sure that those legals are correct before it ever gets to planning commission.

Okay. I believe last time you made the comment, there weren't a lot of buildings out there to put an antenna off in the top line. Yeah.

Which I like. Yeah. I will suspend the rules and recommend we approve ordinance twenty twenty five dash 28 s b a u t twenty four one thirty eight dash b Paradise Reason. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve ordinance twenty twenty five dash 28. Is there any further discussion?

Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K. Now on to the next one. Okay. And now I will introduce,

Christopher Sands, who is the, chair of the Cash Open Space Advisory Committee. He is doing a presentation on a round one open space application.

Okay. Thanks, Angie. And all credit to for this presentation tech goes to Angie in in pulling this together for us. So I'll just take a couple minutes of your time. But COSAC is is very pleased to be, making this recommendation for first round approval to the county council and the Vivian Christiansen, LLC open space. We have a a just a few handful of slides here just to touch on the the key factors that we looked at and considered about this project. So this is located just North of Richmond and is immediately north of the new grain silos up there north of Pepperidge Farm. So that gives you an idea of where we're at. It is part of the north gateway into Cache Valley, which is a strategic area for us and our focus. They this the the Christiansen family wants to continue with the agricultural operation. There's a lot of new development pressure in and around them, and so they're they're interested in in in, protecting the property in perpetuity. A variety of crops are produced there, you can see, on the list. We are, at this point, in the process, at the end of the first round approval, with our, unanimous recommendation to the the council. This is a quick summary of the review factors that we always look at. Each project can be scored on a scale of 100. That's the breakdown of the point factors, that each, committee member evaluates in this scoring. And this actually this project, as you'll see, represents the highest scoring project that has come before us by point two points, just higher than Elkhorn Ranch. And so this gives a quick summary. The total score was 71.6. There were, eight committee members that scored the proposal. So this is an average of of all the lows totals. And then there's a comparison with two other, projects that have actually gone through round two approvals and what they were awarded, through this program. And, those projects are still in the works. They haven't finalized. These these projects do take time, often a couple of years, but they are are making progress and have both of those other projects have received outside funding. And so that's just in the due diligence phase.

Sure. Have they been able to explore the

possibility of other funding? Yes. This this one, the Christiansons. Yes. They have other funding, and I'll mention that here in a couple of slides. So I'll just touch on that. Sorry. I jumped again. Nope. That's okay. How many acres are we talking about? 334 acres about that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great project. So in the scenic vistas, of course, the project is immediately adjacent to Highway 91 and actually has properties on both sides of the highway that are visible, from the entire length of the highway through this portion of the county. It is within the gateway, so it scored very high. I'll just back up for a second. 12.75 was the average score, for this one out of 15. 12.38, it's in the gateway area. There are some intervening parcels in in certain portions of it, so that's probably why I didn't get the full 15 points, I would guess. Maintaining agriculture, of course, very high score here, 14.9, basically, out of 15. It's great productive farmland, and you'll see with the map I'll show in a minute. The maintained waterways, although it doesn't have actual stream corridors, through the property, there is a little bit of flood plain, but it it utilizes, as you can see, water from High Creek, which borders the northern boundary of the property. So although it doesn't go through this project, it's immediately adjacent to the flood plain on High Creek as well as the Cub River to the west. And so, there there's definitely some related value there, although it it's well below, the high score of 15. Wildlife habitat, it got 10 out of 15 for this. A lot of, game species inhabit the property as you can see, from the list there. The public access score was low just because this is not identified the as a trail corridor through the property. The landowners have allowed hunting access in the past and continue to do that. But what you can see from the trail map, there is that several, planned, trail corridors, pass immediately adjacent to the properties, whether that's the old rail corridor, Highway 91, or, the road and canal to the east of the property. And so anyone using those future trails would will benefit from, this project. Some of the distinguishing factors, the last category there that COSAC members wanted to mention here, back to your question, Catherine, is they have been awarded Leeray McAllister Fund so far. There's a NRCS application pending, and they should find out about that in the next couple of months, I think. So they have made application. They are represented by the, Utah Agricultural Land Trust, which is a local, land trust organization that has brought a number of projects to us recently, and we're grateful for their active participation in the program and and, connecting with landowners who are interested in in putting conservation easements on their property. And so, there's development pressure, which was noted, And there's also, public open space immediately nearby in the form of Richmond City's, baseball park, at the southwest corner of the property, as well as it's next to Casper's. And so you can enjoy, Fat Boy while viewing the property. So next steps, obviously, is just to have you folks vote on this. This is part of the drone footage that one of our committee members, Justin Clausen, was able to capture of the property. Just goes for a minute or so here. But any other questions I can answer that haven't already been asked? How close is this to the Harris property that we saw before? It is. It's pretty close, isn't it? Half a mile. The southern boundary is probably about a half a mile to a mile from Harris. So it's like the Harris is on the next road major road, East West Road to the south of of this property. That's weird. Not too far away. And and in that regard, we've we've already been talking to other landowners between those two who are also expressing interest in in applying for the program. So it's pretty exciting. I I see a nexus of of projects happening in this portion of the county, which is great. It's our north gateway. It's it's, you know, a remaining classic view of of the landscape in Cache Valley. So

Will you briefly remind everyone what approving round one unlocks?

So what happens with round one is there is interest on behalf of the county to to find out more about the project. So this really triggers the the landowners and their land conservancy group to do their due due diligence and provide us more detailed information, such as, matching funds that have already been procured or are being pursued, how much funding are they looking for from the county on this project, how much the landowner donation is gonna be, what's the appraisal, those kinds of things. So we'll we'll be coming back to you. I this project seems to be moving rather quickly, so I think you'll see us in the near future, with round two. Any other questions for Chris? In round two yeah. Round two is where there would actually be a request with a dollar amount. Correct. Correct. So our recommendation to the council in round two will come with a dollar amount attached and and sort of the full budget of the project so you can see the other funding that's available and as well as the county's portion. Cool. This is awesome. It is. It's a great project. Yeah. We're very excited.

Well done, guys. Yeah.

I'd accept a motion on this.

I I move. So move that, we suspend the rules and, pass resolution twenty twenty five dash forty eight. Vivian Christianson, LLC, open space application in round one. I'll second.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we approve resolution twenty twenty five dash 48. Is there any further discussion?

I I have a question. Okay. Have they you know, we haven't had tons of applications. So far, is the feedback that it feels cumbersome, or has it felt like they've been able to get through quickly and

Honestly, I haven't heard any complaints about our process. Good. You know, there there's so much to do, on the landowner's behalf to secure other funding, and that's really what drags on and there's a lot of red tape. So so far, I, you know, I I know that Elkhorn Ranch is in that last step due diligent phase. And so, coming to the county with an agreement, that sort of thing, I I don't think all of that process has fully completed yet. And so, you know, what remains to be seen, if there

are any concerns from the applicants on the process, but we haven't heard anything so far. Okay. Thank you. I think we could probably vote on this. But before Chris leaves, I'd love an update on when they're gonna send out the

mailers that we approved too. Let's let's vote on that motion first, and then we can do that. K. Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we approve resolution twenty twenty five dash 48. Any further discussion on that motion? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Yeah. That I think that's an excellent question. Yeah. At our last meeting, what we discussed is,

obviously, we're in the middle of this holiday period, and we didn't want the mailer to get mixed up with general mail and every all the kind of mail we get this time of year. And so we are prepared to send out the mailer after the first of the year. Great. Yeah. We'll provide you an update at that time. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Okay. Thanks.

Alright. Bryson, you're up.

Alrighty. This one's gonna it's pretty, very brief. So, this privacy, program is required by the state. The state passed a law about two years ago requiring all government entities to have our private a data privacy program. So I am now the chief administrative officer of the records. So I'm in charge of the data privacy program and, the county of states to adopt it. So, this privacy program, was a template from the state. So which was really nice that they gave us this template. So it's kind of, plug and play, I guess, to say, like, just make Cache Countyify it and I would be up to the state standards. I also wanna add with data privacy is just letting it like, we have a data data privacy program because of all the records of information that we'll be holding. These are still going to be protected records under grandma. But like I said, there's no data privacy program in the county, so we gotta adopt it. Yeah.

K. Any questions? Yeah. Anybody have any questions for Bryson?

It's been through OMP and through the attorney's office. We've been working on this since, like, April.

Okay. I would entertain a motion.

Move to suspend the rules and approve resolution 20 25 dash 49.

I'll second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we approve resolution 2025Dash49 adopting a privacy program policy as part of the Cache County Administrative Code. Any further discussion? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All abstain because I didn't have time to read over it. K.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thanks, Bryson. K. 10 a, resolution twenty twenty five dash 43, approving and adopting the 2025 Cash County budget. Matt, you wanna come up and help give us some guidance?

Now let's push it off a week.

Council members, Matthew Funk, Cash County Auditor. The budget that was we have presented included the few updates that you had asked for last last week. Otherwise, is, is unchanged. Can I answer any further questions about it?

I I had a a one question that and I know I don't know that you can answer this specifically, but it's about the employee benefits line in the council budget. It's less in '26 than it was in '25. And I know that that the benefits line is kind of a tricky one. It's one that we don't get lot of detail for, but it should be just our one employee from '25 and then the same in '26. So I don't know why those benefits would be less in '26 than they are in '25. So I questioned that amount.

I've got Britney here. We can take a look at that. My one this has come up a couple of times in the last few days where we've had benefits, budgets that are lower in '26 and '25. We've seen that on a couple of line items. I know Councilman Garrity had asked about some of those. And and what we had found in the 2025 budget is that we had had over budgeted Mark me through the year. For, the expected Yeah. Beyond the expected the expenses that we were gonna face. So we have in 2026 in a couple of areas reduced the 2026 benefits below what 2025 was. It's 2025 was just too high. Okay.

K. Thank you. That was that was just one of the questions I had. I know that several council members have some things they wanted to discuss. I don't know who wants to start.

I I'll just bring up the two that I had. One, we've had a update presented or considered a change to what was recommended initially on the public defenders funding. And it looks like the document that that we have working here does not yet include that additional 50,000

I think it does. Discussed.

We did include that. I apologize if that Yeah. It's there, Mark. It's right here.

It was on the professional technical.

Oh, okay. I'm I'm just looking at the overall expenditures and the Yeah. If you I was thinking that number should be 1,500,000.0 or just about and it's listed at 1.4 now. 1 0.45.

Now it's listed at 1.503.

Okay. Okay. Forgive me then. I I I just came across this portion here. So then the only other thing would be the the discussion we need to have about the, status or funding of the library. The library. And and so if we if we're ready for it now, I'd I'd propose that we reinstitute the funding for the library for 2026 and give the process that we've been undertaking of accreditation and and then the doors that that opens up for the library to to find additional funding sources and and become more of a self sustaining venture that we that we hope it could be. If we were to stop now, we'd be cutting that short by by the final year for the accreditation. And also, you know, with the community outreach and engagement that has come by way of the of the good discussion. I think it's been a good discussion to have for what the interest is in our community for a county library. You know, some sort of funding going forward. I obviously, I certainly stand in support of as well as reaching out and accepting and finding the right way, meaning the library board become informed, fully engaged in the effort to work with volunteers to seek out fundraising opportunities, etcetera. So, anyway, my my proposal is we continue the Cache County Library for 2026.

Do you wanna make that as I think we need to take these items one at a time and make motions on them so that we don't get things complicated. So your what would your exact motion be that we increase the the county library budget from the $1.34 600 that is proposed to what? The

Is the $1.34 the six months that we That that matches the six months that was in what the executive proposed to us last week and what we've thrown around or not thrown around, but what we've considered it to be in conversation. You know, I I I'm certainly grateful that we've moved in that direction, and I would like to, you know, proceed with that being kind of our our base. You know, if if we want to give the accreditation effort its full weight, then I do think that means we should proceed with funding for the entirety of the year. And then look at this strategy and the conversation engagement again for 2027. So, yes, my suggestion is to take it so that we would be funding the library at the same funding as last year of 02/6300.

I'll second that.

K. It's been moved and seconded that we make an amendment to the budget for the library fund from 01/30/4600 to 02/2004. Is there any further discussion about that? I would like to ask a question. K.

So if we go back to what the executives proposed and we finance it for six months, we get to five months and find things aren't going. We could entertain an opening of the budget to continue it at that time. Could we not? Yes.

We could.

Yep. And and I like that just because based on I believe it was missus DeFries who proposed before on the library some things. I was kind of excited at her excitement about doing some things there. And I wonder if we follow what the executive said and give Mrs. DeFries a chance, would that get us anywhere? And we monitor that for five months? That's I'm just open for discussion on that. I thought that to be interesting.

Barbara, did you want to say something?

It goes along with what Nolan just said. I was wondering if we do this in the future, is there going to be any kind of action taken to see that the library board or whatever is moving towards self sustaining in the future. 54.

Just a point of clarification, the budget presented this evening on page 54, I don't see has any money

Hang on. I'm getting there. My printed version does, but

I see. What am I seeing here?

Page 54 on mine is the fair. Oh, there's library services. Two thirty four. We did have a Google

Sheets that was sent out to us. There's this is the official one that we're adopting, so I just wanna make sure the official one that we're adopting. That that's the Google Sheets that was sent out to us here lately was did have the latest changes. It does have the two thirty four on it. It just doesn't have last year's this it it has what we are So here's the 2025 estimate, 2026 tentative, and 2026 council for zero.

You're correct. So the the document that we have in our packet is not

the the document that was emailed to us. Does not have the half funding. To be fair, you guys never made a motion to amend. That was never before we voted on.

Yeah. He just sent that to us on

Friday. So we had Ask Matt. We asked Matt to make those differences and bring them to us for this meeting.

This this is because this we have to this one has to reflect. This is the one that's adopting the ones in our packet. So it's Yeah. This one we left. You see, you guys can't motion to amend. Yeah. Yeah.

Mitch, we have a motion on the floor. So the motion on the floor is the amount This is the full is the full It's the full It's the full $35.09 $0.04. Last year.

Yeah. But

k. So it's been moved and seconded that we change the library budget back to the $20.25 amount.

Is there any further discussion about that? I does anybody have an answer to my question? It's it's saying the future of how if we going if there's going to be a direction moving where we make the library self sustaining without the county

last couple years, you know, after after we, that we I said we, the library board discontinued the effort of looking at a sec or an alt, you know, changing locations. Mhmm. Then the effort shifted fully to a, the accreditation which had been going ongoing already, but then b, into, you know, efforts to improve the operations of the library. One big step, like like, was undertaken when we this body adopted the current contract to to set things in order for the current state or the way things had been operating, because there was not a base agreement to to back all that up. So getting that in place then, now is has given the foundation for library board to formally move forward with several things, you know, so the very next step would be, an update to the bylaws, regarding the the some of the changes that were outlined in that, contract. I mean, it was the way things are are broken down for responsibilities, as well as, the the board membership itself. And then secondarily, in line with the accreditation, which opens up, funding opportunities for the library through the state, through state library grant funds, which will shoulder a big portion of these costs, as well as then there are other opportunities as well that accreditation opens up. And so those efforts are well underway, but we've also been Alma just left. He would be the one to give the full detailed answer on this, but he and I have been in conversation about, you know, working together for on grant applications and as which include also coming to the RAPS. The library falls under, is is eligible for RAPS funding. But, more specifically, I'm interested in how we can establish fundraisers and and how that has to be coordinated with the library being a government entity. And we we have to learn how to do that fundraising efforts under the CASHCARES, nonprofit portion of the the state has made available to counties or local government entities. So those are the efforts that have been underway and will continue regardless of what the conversation is tonight,

so long as there is some sort of the funding for next year. K. Thank you. I appreciate that. Madam chair, can I make a substitute motion? Yes. We follow the executive's plan and monitor for a few months so we can see if it goes. If we accept the motion that's on the table now, then we're engaging further. I'm just wondering if we go follow the executive's motion, then it may put pressure to go faster. I don't know. I'm just saying I would make a motion that we follow that and monitor for the six months as was proposed.

I'll second

that. Okay. I, I think we have It's amending the main motion, basically. It's amending it. And yeah. Is it amending the main motion? But It's a substitute motion. It's a substitute motion because Mark's motion was seconded, so I think we need to vote on that first, and then you can pay. Oh. How was the Now now the substitute If it fails, you go back to the next section. Okay.

Alright. Before we're done discussing Mark's motion

K. Sure.

My thoughts are that I agree with Catherine. I don't want to interrupt the service or the, validation process. But I also think that for budgetary reasons, I would support funding the library for the first six months knowing that things will be talked about and changes will happen. And if we need to, we can open the budget again in June and discuss further, like, if we're happy with the direction it's going or there's there's discuss further, like, if we're happy with the direction it's going or there's there's further discussions that can be made

with that. And that's why I made it. It gives us some alternatives, I suppose, some options to plan down the road. So Well, let's vote on Mark's motion first because Mark made a motion and Kate No. We vote as the solution. The substitute

Substitute before the original. Thank you. I need a parliamentarian to sit next to me. K. So the substitute motion is that that we follow the recommendations of the executive and do the funding for the first six months. In the amount of? In the amount of 134,600. And did someone second Nolan's motion? David did. K. K. So that motion is on the table. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

Okay. Alright. So that one passes. And now we need to clarify what we are looking at. Like, this is important. Because we were given this was the tentative budget we were given, and then we talked about some changes last week that were emailed to us. But do we need to make motions for each one of those changes that were made individually from the tentative budget? Like, we can't just accept this this the second document that we were emailed on Friday, Matt, I don't think counts as a substitute or as a tentative budget. Will someone maybe Taylor, someone help me make sure that we're all looking at the because what we have in our packet does not include the changes that were emailed to us on Friday. Yeah. And that took me by surprise. And I'm not parliamentarian.

But, yes, the the changes that you requested last Tuesday were all made and sent, on Friday. And so that was my assumption, is what we would be talking about tonight.

But that's not what we have in our packet. And so to me, that's a problem because this is what was sent to the public, and any so anything that we pass has to be changed. This is what's the ordinance that is being approved tonight. It's like the public works section that got modified, for example. Yeah. So, Matt, you're gonna I would ask that you and Britney walk us through every change that you made that was mailed to us on emailed to us on Friday so that we can vote on them because they're not in our packet. And I apologize for that. I just I had a printed copy, so that's what I was going on. I didn't look at the packet in the on the iPad. But the like, we have to be very careful about what we do.

So the following changes, were

I think if you displayed them, that would be fine. Yeah. Could you I think if you just displayed it, it would be fine. Could you put them up on the That little list. That little list, it's it's not as big as we think. Yeah. I I don't think it was just displayed. That would be sufficient.

Yeah.

That that the council budget It enters the record and it can be changed for

I think do you think that's sufficient? That that's sufficient to me. I just wanna make sure we're very clear about what we're doing here. Let me switch homework to you. Like, we all need to be going on the same document.

Well, we're pulling doing that. Yeah. Hey. Go

ahead. I'm gonna put this to Mark. How do we involve missus DeFries who said in our last meeting she would be so engaged in the library that would help us in this six month thing? Does that make sense?

So we'd love to invite her to our next board meeting, have her come and and visit and share ideas, and then also, we would have a discussion about how fundraising would work, volunteerism, coordination would work, and all those things. Again, that's kind of stuff that this current iteration of the board is having to learn how to do, because it's not something that the library board in the past has has established. So yeah. You know, publicly throw it out there. I have done not yet been able to find

her phone number. But if your phone number. Did she not call you? I have not. K. I have her number. I will give it to you. Oh, perfect. K. And so if we can engage her as early as possible, that just helps our success of meeting Absolutely. Six months, I believe. So sorry.

Yep. No. Great. That's any any question about that is perfect because the the effort, you know, we need to keep the momentum that we have about people being engaged. Definitely.

I I was just gonna publicly thank Matt. I asked him questions about 20 different categories and several questions within those categories, and he he answered me very quickly and thoroughly. And I learned a lot of things, and I think it's important to look at nuance. So one of them was, like, the clerk's op budget was a little bit higher. And I said, well, I think that's because there's a federal election coming up, but can you speak to that? So he he was able to clarify that, as well as a multitude of other issues. You guys probably saw software increase across the board in several different departments. A lot of that had to do with ARPA funding being rolled back. So a lot of times when we talk about cutting federal budgets or state budgets, that gets people excited, but a lot of those services still need to be paid for. And so it it falls on the county or municipality. Thanks, Matt.

So before you have the before you, you have the changes that you requested. These are in the form of a of a journal entry. So we've got double entry. I'm just going to address I'm gonna start from the bottom and and move up. I I think we've all

I believe we've all gone through these to save a little bit of time. I think we went through all those and that this Any phase of how we can speak to them. I I remember very vividly that I was talking about all of these as they we went through them. And with that, to save your time and ours, because we appreciate because I know the attempt was was made. And therefore, I would move that we go ahead and accept these changes into our current budget.

And I will second that. Yep. Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we accept the changes that are displayed into our current budget. And those are found if you want to make sure you're looking at them, they are found in the email that Matt sent out last Friday evening.

And so if there is there any further discussion about that motion? I just haven't put in an awkward position of I oppose the library thing, and now it's included in this. So I don't necessarily wanna vote against the whole thing. So could we exclude that in our

Anything for Catherine for picking that up. Discussion? Was there any additional input, Matt and Britney? No. The as as I think, Councilman Erickson pointed out, these are just the sum total of the changes that you requested. I'd be happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Britney has one.

But,

if all of these are accepted into the budget, then we also need to update the tax admin allocations. So this tab would be those changes for tax admin. Okay. Because there were changes to the council wages. At their percentages. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's precipitating.

I would go ahead and add that to that amendment that we accept both of those.

Stands. K. Still stands. Okay. So it's been moved and segmented that we accept these changes into the budget we are considering tonight. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were very clear about what we're passing. Yeah. And I appreciate that. I just remember going through all these, and I just didn't wanna

hold everybody up with what time we have. So Okay. Alright. So we we talked about the library. We've got that done. Who has some other amendments that they would like to consider?

I I have a couple here. One would be on the council budget under the subscriptions and membership, which is $2.10 $41.12 $2.10. I would like to increase that by $1,000 so that we can maintain our membership in public lands council for the state. Is that the one we do each year? Yeah. Yes. It keeps getting let go. And we keep having yeah. We keep having And we keep talking about it later, and so I thought if we just we put it in the budget, then we can just go ahead and get it taken care of. I will second that.

K. It's been moved and seconded that we increase in the council budget line 100 dash forty one twelve dash two ten by a thousand dollars to account for the wildlife fund. No. The the public lands fund. Sorry. Public lands fund that we contribute to every year. Yep. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Okay. Then also under is it equipment and supplies or is it capital

you mentioned one other one. Oh, we don't even have a non

I thought it'd be under equipment and supplies that we would increase that one $7,000 so that we can actually get us all some I guess, get rid of these

things. Dinosaur the dinosaur.

Get us get us some laptops that would work Yeah. And be more functional, if it's possible.

Yes.

Well, no. Then you would have to go eight From your own budget. A little more thousand. Thousand. Thousand?

It well, it's for council only. We can put yours and the executive. We can increase yours. Include yours. Please. Okay. I I will remind the group that the executive did say he did not need more than a 125,000 for this position.

Thank you for clarifying. Yes. $7,000?

Yes. I hope that'll cover it. Yeah. This year. I think it I think it's ample. I think it can I think it'll be less? I think it'll be less than that. K. It's been moved and seconded that we increase the line $141.12 dash $2.50 by $7,000. Any further discussion about that? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

In the executive's budget, I had one that we we had talked about yours, about that city managers association stuff. There was 3,200 in there. Do you want us to re reallocate that to equipment?

What what I'd like you to do is is make it a general fund. I I find myself paying for certain things that I think it would be for example,

the luncheon I'm providing for the legislative group Yeah. This next week. Did you get my email? I emailed you and said we would pay for it out of the council budget, and they I sent it to you and Janine and said, what like? I I

I acknowledge that. I I think if you just gave me a little bit of a slush, but I'd like $3,200, it would help me carry out my duties.

So could we move that up to the I would move that from the City Manager Association to the hated miscellaneous services. That would be ideal.

Okay. That one.

Miscellaneous do. They don't like to say slut phone.

Yeah. Call it miscellaneous service. It's does that cover the laptop? Would that cover the laptop? Or should we take a thousand of that and put it into the equipment supplies and maintenance?

Okay. So does someone wanna make that motion, please? I did. Yeah. Okay. Then in the it's been did somebody second that motion? Okay. It's been moved and seconded that in the executive's budget, line 14131Dash622, we take out the 300 $3,200 and move it to the six twenty line miscellaneous. Does that work for you, Matt? Okay. Is there any further discussion? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Was there while we're on the executive budget, was there anything else that you needed us to consider? K. That's

k. I I have one well, I have another one under for the this is under auditor two, the fund for and this is I'm not sure how this can be balanced. Matt, I've talked with you about this in the hiring of someone that will be full time into the tax admin.

Was that added

to this stock?

Yeah. Okay.

I think the estimate was on there. It was gonna be 86,000, but yet maybe I guess I'm hoping that maybe the shuffle of some part times and seasonal and stuff could be lessened by bringing another full time in to start gleaning that knowledge.

That would be somebody that's pairing right up with Diana. Right? Exactly. Yep. Exactly. Somebody To train that institution. Has. So

the succession fund Exactly. We need some of that.

So I'm asking them. I guess their estimate we thought was of which that 86,000, 86% of it would actually go to a and c, But how that would be funded is through a and c and then 14% possibly out of general fund. But I don't know how these other part time and seasonals are also being financed. I guess So wait what you're proposing? I wish I could put it in there and then the magic be made. What you're proposing then is is an increase to to salaries

and benefits, or just salaries of 86 plus amount for benefits.

But then somehow, I I wanna see some of the other season or the part timers, stuff like that that may not be needed. I want Understood. Want that balance. We can we can do that. I wish I had an exact number on that, though.

I have a question, Matt. In this document that you emailed us on Friday, there is just one section that says the auditor. It says the total auditor. And in the tentative budget, there's an auditor one and an auditor two. It doesn't appear to me that both are included in this document together. Is there two sections that are that are not together that I'm just Tentative budget,

auditor one, auditor two refer to finance as a division Finance. And auditor. And the budget you have, they're they're referred to as finance and auditor. Okay. That that clears that up because I do have a finance section. I just didn't see that

there's two auditor sections. Okay. So so it would just be to the auditor budget. We're going to add a part time person

or is it a full time? Well, we'd add a full time and Eliminate the Can we believe it? The part time and eliminate some of the some of the part time and seasonal to offset that full time as much as possible. I don't think you're gonna be able to do it all. I think you're gonna probably have anywhere from 11 to $17,000 difference.

So then what I would propose with that understanding is is that let's let's do the increase of of $86,000 with the understanding that I'll I will work with Diana to cut as much as possible so there's no there's as little overlap as as as possible.

Would would that motion be okay in saying it that way? It's there's gonna be a little bit of faith in this to get this balanced. So In order to

get her a trainee, I think I would go this way. I'd like to see some cutback, but we don't know how that's gonna go for a while, I guess, or what's in there. Yeah. It's it's a situation where when Diana is out for vacation or surgery, the office has to close because there's a lot of times, there's no one that can deal with the public. Good. And so work or public. You just

collect the things for whatever it is or Yeah. That's it. But no questions are answered. Veterans. Yeah.

Okay. So the motion is that we add a full time employee to the auditor's budget of up to $86,000 and for for twenty twenty six, and then you guys will work out all the gory details. Is that including benefits?

That would probably include benefits at that point. It's starting it out possibly. Amy, it's not even there. If needed if needed, we can do it by the opening on that one. But nominal That probably would include benefits and then and then adjustment to part time and just balance that and bring that the least amount of possible out of the out of our general fund as possible.

Okay. You're good. We got a thumbs up both places. K. Alright. So we've it that's a motion that we have. Was it seconded? Seconded. K. It's been moved and seconded that we add a full time employee to the auditor's office of up to $86,000. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K.

Alright. What else do you got?

Go to go ahead go to someone else while I fumble through some of my writing.

Okay. I don't have that much because we We need to make a discussion about hiring a a board of equalization hearing officer. I sent you guys all a text. Regardless of whether we hire somebody to do the board of equalization hearings, we all still have to do the two days of training so that we can accept their recommendations. So do you guys want to add something to the budget to pay for that, or do you wanna keep doing those ourselves? I I thought we'd had some discussion that it doesn't necessarily

have to be somebody outside of the organization. It could be somebody within the organization right now. We have civil attorneys that we could rely on, that they could do the training with us. I think that hiring outside organizations doesn't necessarily have to be the only answer. K? I agree with that. But I'm also

I wanna I wanna be known that I I'm I'm happy to continue to to participate in BOEs.

So I've had some people contact me, and they're wondering how do we know that if we hire a hearing officer that that person

has a background in green belt and those other things. Well, they would we just have to make make sure that that's a qualification.

Because I align with Dave. I'm fine with doing it. It does take a lot of time, but I've actually sat with some constituents that I've known, and I I think it's helped in in a voice there. So but I also see the point of if you get somebody in there who is fully trained in all of those areas, that's good too. But so it's half of the Well, that's what we if we don't add anything to our budget

and because those won't happen until next August. Mhmm. So let's go ahead and go through that training and maybe talk with the executive or with the attorney's office and see if if there's somebody that might be able to join us in that training from the county. And if not, we'll have to do a budget opening and hire somebody, or we'll do it decide to do it ourselves. But we can make those decisions next year. We don't necessarily have to increase the budget tonight. I like that. Does that sound acceptable that we kind of That training's scheduled for March? Yeah. It's March 10 or eleventh and twelfth. Yeah. Two full dates. Save your save your date. Yeah. Already did.

Barbara,

you you skipped that one. Yeah. Well, I would like to say, you know, I'm not going to be here. I agree with David and Nolan. I it does take a lot of time, but I feel like when we're in there personally that they're going to, I don't know, either open up or, you know, whether it's for whether they agree with us or not, I think they're going to be more able to talk to us on a personal level with with us. So I just agree with that.

K. Alright. So Is everybody okay with that? Decision later. Yes. We can. Okay. The other thing, if you will look at the communications line in the council, that includes a cell phone stipend that we had not previously received. But That's allocated to all other elected officials. Allocated to all other elected officials, So that is a change. And then I think there was one other thing that Do we have the the AV credit here? It's not there. You're gonna have to make a motion. No. No. No. No. No. It was it was brought in. Oh. Yeah. We brought it in. We brought it in in the one. Up there. Yeah. Yeah. It's taken out there. But it's not I don't see it in here, Matt.

It's in the capital section. I don't know if that's on that page. But Oh, we don't have a capital

line item in our It's a different fund. So it's gonna appear. Okay. Cool. Okay. That's why I didn't see it. Okay. Perfect.

Alright. We're gonna have a room that's gonna work, like, 2025.

2026.

2026. Well, don't get ahead of yourself. 2020 well, I'll be happy with 2025.

Okay. I think that includes the things that I was looking at in the council budget.

The $40,000 equipment upgrade is on page 63. Thank you. Thank you.

The pages aren't numbered. That's okay.

I could go from one to the other back between the Of the of

the one we emailed you. Okay. Those are numbered. Okay. Gotcha. Alright. Yep. That's for the for the yes. For all For audio and video and everything in here we need to do. K.

Alright. What else? Bring me your ideas.

I I mine was just a comment, and I was I was holding just in case it was brought up, you know, by someone else that's already talked plenty. But just to me, it looked like things are, you know, are matching up or or consistent with what they were before as far as what we're sending or what we're budgeting for for the interlocal things like Bragg and and other things. And so I just wanna make sure that I hadn't missed that there was the parity there, or if there was parity internally and it just but it looks the same. I mean, sorry. I said that wrong. It looks the same, but on the inside things were shuffled around. Is there any anything that's really changing there with with

Not with Bragg. I and I've talked to their director about this. Their their fiscal year starts in July,

and so they

for the last couple of years, we've had that discussion about whether or not we need to increase our allocation to them. And but so far, we haven't received anything from them. So if at that point, if they do bring something to us, they do provide many, many services to our county that we would have to do ourselves, and they believe we'd pay them a nominal fee. So we can discuss that, though, but we need to have a proposal from them, and we haven't received that yet. So

is there any other one specifically that you No. No. I I I was yeah. I that's as far as I understood it, we were not expecting anything different. But No. You know, sometimes some of the lines change and I

You're ready for emotion? May have not caught it was my concern. I think so. I think I unless somebody has any other Dave, did you have any other things you wanted to bring up? My state has been in Mexico.

I had one question that I haven't been able to get an answer to. It was the the $10,000 that we had in the 2025 budget for the cash water district. I thought that was for the study. That was that that was our portion of a study that that they were doing. And then I noticed it's in the '26 2026 requested budget again.

And what,

has it been It's under non departmentals.

The non departmental. Has it been done? Are we sure that they've Well, no. There's still it's still ongoing. Still ongoing, but I think we've paid? But we've put our money in. I I think we already we should've already it's already been it was in twenty twenty five's budget, and it should should've already been sent to the cash or the Cash Water District. So I I'm under I don't quite know why it's in the 2026 again, because I thought that was they only requested the 10,001 time.

And I I will say, though, and and I agree with you, but I do say I think in the future we're gonna have to look at putting money to the Cash Water District so that we go along with what we've had on the meetings as far as some water control in the county, helping in that.

They levy their own tax out? Yeah. They they are they they levy all their own tax. They had an increase this year. And I guess yes. I'm I'm in favor of helping out there immensely, actually, but yet I think it's project by project Yeah. Rather than than just blankets. Just keep sending them something. Yeah. I agree. I'm just saying I think they need to be open for down the road. So I and I see that. On on here, I was I saw it on a nondepartmental. I didn't couldn't find my sheet in there. Yeah. I don't see nondepartmental in there. In looking at the finance worksheet that we had, I would move that we strike that for now until we find out if we're doubling it. You got some more information? And so it's probably just rolling on That's why we would need to roll it forward. Yeah. Okay. That's that was the explanation I needed because I thought we had that was requested, and I thought it was off and gone so they can do that study.

So does it are you waiting for an invoice from the Cash Water District? Yeah. We we don't we we don't send that out without an invoice for us. Okay. And on several of these I just thought they'd already would have done that. Yeah. Is that our general practice

Matt. If we have something like that that hasn't been paid in the previous year, we run it in the budget again unless we're Yes. If we're if it's if it's something other instances of that too. K. Okay. That well, that answers my question right there. Just as long as we aren't paying it again, which you I'm sure you're okay. You're only gonna pay it once. Yeah.

And I just didn't wanna it's kinda like drugs. I just don't want organizations to get addicted to it. What what's going to happen is when we finish

we we have a bunch of those. When we finish our budget for this year, when we we will reopen the budget, we'll take that out of the '25 budget. K. And clear it up. And that will we won't have all of those numbers until sometime in probably February. Right, Matt? Yeah. But we will have another budget opening, the last opening on the '25 budget. And those funds that have been allocated for certain project that were not finished,

we will take out and put in the twenty sixth budget. You could kinda look at some open POs and stuff like that to roll over it. Yeah. I understand that, Mark. I just wanna make sure that we just all we just got another request and Makes sense. Yeah. So I appreciate that explanation so that I'm I'm I'm I support all that. So

And, Matt, are you guys in the process of reevaluating the tax admin percentages? Is that something you guys have discussed?

Not at this time. It's on our to do list. More, I think, urgently, we're next year, we're gonna be reevaluating the tax admin tax revenue. Okay. I think we're probably gonna need to do

The the a and c line item of tax. Right. Because because the the the spending

on that is drawing that fund balance down. So we're gonna need to do an increase.

Okay. Okay. Perfect.

K. Alright. What else? Got a very small one. K. After all the scrutiny, one that I found in the fair, it's on page 54. It's, item 100 dash four six two zero dash three ten, professional and technical. First two years, there's no budget for that. This year's budget was 10,000. I talked to the auditor. They've spent 5,000 of it so far. There's a couple weeks left in the year, and they're budgeted for $18.05 next year. So I would just reduce that by $5,000, so it makes it $13.05. It's a modest cut, and it seems reasonable.

Has there been any discussion with the fairgrounds? Like, are they aware of this? And they like, was there a reason they asked for that much more for this year? Did they have specifics in mind that they needed for that 18,000?

No. They did they just they just specifically they asked for the increase. They did not get into specifics about why other than that they felt they were gonna need those those those funds. But councilman Garrity is is correct. We've budgeted 10,000 this year and have only spent 5.

K. That same true with education and training? Two lines below?

That one went down. That went down. But And the reason for that is is that the executive budget committee the executive felt, I think, wisely that there was just too much budgeted for that travel. They don't need to travel that much. Now, not all of that travel is for the staff to go to training. Some of those travel costs are for us to bring in judges, rodeo clowns, what have you. But in budget process, as we met with that department head, we felt that it was just too rich. Cool.

K. So amendment?

Yes. So that's the amendment. I'd make that motion that we amend that line,

which is I will second, though. It's been moved and seconded that we decrease the fair budget in line $146.20 dash $3.10 by $5,000. Is there any discussion?

You'd be a little careful Yeah. Because that same can go through a whole bunch of these other budgets and all of a sudden and see little spikes here and there and wonder why too. One is trails. Trails are also bang, their travel budget went up way up. And, you know, there's a bunch of things like that that I sit there and Well yeah, I question about.

What what my suggestion would be on that, to to tag on something the executive mentioned, is that we're gonna have firm data by February as to what was really spent in 2025. And we've already planned, a second round of of meetings, translate that into cuts that we're going to be presenting to you based on what actual spending was in 2025. We're going to come back and cut 2026 where we find the areas are too rich. We've already identified this area and several in public safety.

Okay. We envision the budget process as more fluid than it has been today and that we're gonna be continuously monitoring expenditures and making adjustments in them. What what you're trying to do now is predict 2026 when you haven't finished 2025. And so when we when we try to compare '25 and '26, what we have to do is estimate what twenty five's gonna end up at and then project '26. The the smart way to do this is we're we're not I mean, we have adequate reserves, and we're not gonna spend any money that we don't wanna spend. So if we're up or down a little bit, it's it's well within our capacity. We're not trying to budget to zero, though we don't have enough money to cover anything that's a little different than what we've done. So we've asked all the departments instead of putting additional money in in case you need it for something, to to just put what you actually believe that you need. And we will be cleaning up those further department by department once we get the end '25. We intend to reopen the budget, finish '25, and reopen '26, and adjust it. And that won't be just the first quarter. That will be the first, second, third. On a quarterly basis, we're gonna be making adjustments in the budgets going forward. Sure. We'll have a year to date. That's true. We'll have a projection. We'll have a result, and we'll adjust. One of the benefits that you have is you have an adequate reserve. We can do that. And for example, the change that you talk about in the library, if we decide in June that we're gonna fund this library the rest of the way, we don't have to worry about having enough money to do that. We have plenty of money to do that if that's what we choose to do. So it's it's a more fluid process than locking everything down now and planning on living it with it the next

k. I have a motion.

I'm sorry. Councilwoman. Yes, please. Chair, may I on that $5,000 budget, we were just doing a quick on the fly analysis, and we realized part of the problem that we on on why that's underspent in '25. We booked it to the wrong account. There was a $16,000 expense that we booked to to the February account rather than $3.10. Based on that, I I think I would come back and say, let's maybe let's let's leave it words out. That's that's gonna be my situation. Withdraw that motion.

K. Yeah. I hate to arbitrarily do something without checking. Without talking to the department. I do wanna say too, it wasn't a haphazard haphazard cut based on just my guessing, Dave. I wanna speak to that. Like, I I did try to do my due diligence and reach out and find out what was been.

That's true. Keegan has been asking me questions for the last two days. I've spent most of my time happily.

That's why

we didn't get the information.

Some of us got a lot of information.

Yeah. K. Is there anybody else that wants to discuss a specific line item? If not, I would well, I should say if not. I'll give you a minute. Anything else? Does someone want to make a motion? I move to

approve resolution twenty twenty five dash 43, approving and adopting a 2026 cash '20 budget.

As amended. As amended. As amended. I'll second.

K. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the Cash County 2026 budget, resolution twenty twenty five dash 43 as amended. Any further discussion? Those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Oh, wait. Never.

Oh. Give me it's a good thing I have this Do we need to vote again or do we

Hey. Everybody said something. I don't know why. Oh, alright.

Alright. I'm gonna excuse councilwoman abuse. I know you have somewhere else you need to go. Thank you for joining us. The other business, the the play Christmas dinners tomorrow night, hopefully, you've all RSVP'd can be there. You at County Day on the Hill, January 21. Please let Andrew know whether to register you for that. Yes. Yes. Yes. I will not be there, Andrew. K.

K. I'm gonna maybe waive council member reports, and let's take a motion to go into executive session. Madam chair, I move we enter in closed executive session in Cass County Executive's Promotions Room for the following two reasons. One, strategy sessions to discuss the purchase, exchange, or lease of real property, or to discuss the proposed development agreement, project proposal, or financing proposal.

Do we have to do them separate? I

just wanted to say I'm sorry. Before we move in and give some thanks. Thank you, everybody. First of all, I want to thank my husband for his great support to me. I didn't wanna do this, but Gary has supported me in everything I've ever done in my whole married life to him, and he's been a great support. So thank you to my husband, and thank you to all of you who really love this county because you've been a great inspiration to me. It's sometimes it's a thankless job doing service in for the in the public, but I'll tell you, people do appreciate what we do, and they sometimes don't agree with what we do, but they do appreciate what we do. And I appreciate all the department heads. Thank you so much for all that you've done for me and the respect you've given me. It's it's been great with working with everyone here. And I just want to say that publicly. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks, Barbara. And thank you to all the council.

Thank you. Thank you, Laurie. Council

meeting just so she knows what she's missing. I know. We expect that you'll be watching.

Watching from my own watch. Yes. And that's another thing. This is not the end. I you know, I will be involved in different things that come up, and I still have a voice, and I will make that voice heard on different things.

Thank you, Barbara. You're welcome. Okay. I have a motion on the floor that we move to executive session. I didn't finish the second one. Okay.

The second one would be the discussion of the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual.

Second. So moved and seconded that we move to executive session for the aforementioned reasons. Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? K.

I'm glad you did. I didn't catch what she was doing. Good. Thank you.

Oh, no. Thank you. No.

Okay. Before you go to the original.