Board of County Commissioners | Regular Meeting | June 2, 2025

001There'll be medication for the Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. I would like to call the June 2nd, 2025 regular meeting of the Union County Board of Commissioners to order. At this time, I would like to recognize Commissioner Christina Helms for the invocation. Those that are so inclined, dear heavenly father, we'd like to thank you for today. We'd like to thank you for your grace and your mercy even though we are not worthy. We pray for all of Union County, our residents, our staff. We pray that everything we do gives you honor and praise. We pray that you bless this board in the decisions that we make and that everything is pleasing in your eyes. We do all this in Jesus holy and precious name. Amen. Amen. To the flag of the

002United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next item on the agenda is informal comments from the community. Looks like um we have a few people that have signed up tonight. I will recognize the speakers who have signed up. Each speaker must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name stating whether they are residents of Union County and indicating the municipality within which they reside if any. Each spa speaker will have three minutes to make remarks. A tone may sound at the conclusion of the remarks. A speaker may not yield his or her time to another speaker. Speakers may not discuss matters which are the subject of public hearings. And they must be

003courteous in their language and presentation. Restatements or repetitive comments by the same speaker, whether at the same or at a separate meeting, may be ruled out of order and terminated by the chair. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Speakers may leave written comments and or supporting documents, if any, with the clerk to the board. God bless you. The first speaker we have signed up is Jessica Lee. The next speaker who signed up is Kelly O'Neal. Are there any other speakers here tonight who did not sign up who wish to speak? Hearing none. Oh, okay. Yes. If you if you want to please come forward, state your name, address, municipality, and we'll give you three minutes. Can you hear me if I stand this way? Okay, perfect. My name is Amanda Carter. I am a resident

004of Union County. My address is 10007 Oakill Drive in Monroe. Um, I am here representing Special Olympics Union County and I just have a few words I'd like to say to you. Can I begin? Yes, please. All right. So, good evening commissioners, county leaders, and members of our community. My name is Amanda Carter and I have the privilege of serving as the local coordinator for Special Olympics Union County. I've stood before many groups in many places, but tonight feels different because tonight isn't just a line item in a budget. It's a commitment, one that says to our athletes, "We see you, we support you, and you belong here." What started as a small grassroots effort has now grown into a program offering three days of spring games and 12 yearround sports, excuse me, serving over

005600 athletes. We've launched three annual fundraisers, our Polar Plunge, Golf Tournament, and Poker Brun. And we've gone from local events to proudly competing on state, national, and international stages. In fact, we have just returned from the 2025 Special Olympics North Carolina Summer Games where 51 delegate delegations from across the state um competed. Union County was represented by 52 athletes, uh 20 coaches, sport assistants, and chaperrons. and we participated in basketball, gymnastics, and bowling. And we all stayed at Tucker Housing in those wonderful dorms on those wonderful air mattresses. So, that color of purple you see under our eyes has a lot to do with that. Um, we also were proud to have individuals from the Union County Sheriff's Office, Monroe Police Department, Waxaw Police Department, and Stallings Police Department join the law enforcement torch run

006and participate in the last leg of the torch run at the opening ceremonies, continuing their strong commitment to being the guardians of our flame. In fact, in the past 12 months, addition to the what I've shared with you now, we have competed at the Unified Bowling Championship in New Orleans. We had a team represent at the Caribbean Botchi Invitational in the Cayman Islands, which was the first time that the USA has made an appearance at their games. And then we also had the honor of watching Windgate University accept the Special Olympics North America Unified Champion College um of the year award. So, the first school to take it away from the University of Florida. Um, these weren't just trips or titles, but they're they're these life-changing legacy building experiences. So, tonight I cannot begin to

007express what this community grant would mean to us. For the first time in our history, we feel seen by our local government. We feel supported and we feel hope for what's next. Hope that we will get to stop asking how will we keep going and hope that we get to start asking how many more lives can we impact? Because our athletes deserve more than just the chance to compete. and Union County deserves to be known as a place that doesn't just include people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, it embraces them. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, before we move any further, we actually have a special Olympic medal winner out in our audience, Miss Chloe Cole. Look at her. Chloe is a gold medal winner. for two events, and demon gymnastics, silver for vault and bar

008and for all around. And her mom and dad are here tonight, Andrew and Elizabeth Cole. And oh, Chloe's also a golfer. [Applause] Turn on him. Look at mom and daddy. [Applause] Wow, she's got a lot of medals. Congratulations. We're so proud of you. I didn't even ask where she goes to school. Chloe, where do you go to school? Um, Sardis. Oh, Sardis. That's a wonderful school. Keep up the good work. Okay. And Mrs. Carter, thank you so much for being here tonight. It's wonderful to see you and thank you so much for the work that you do for our county. It's much appreciated. Okay, let's see. We're I think I lost track here. Yes, here we are. Okay, I think we've already cleared that. She took that one. So, okay, we're going to we're going

009to conclude. Okay, here we go. The next two items on our agenda are public hearings. Before opening the first public hearing, I will read the rules that apply for any members of the public wishing to speak on either of these public hearings. Each speaker must must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name, stating whether they are residents of Union County, and indicating the municipality within which they reside, if any. Each speaker will have three minutes to make remarks. A tone may sound at the conclusion of your remarks. A speaker may not yield any of his or her time to another speaker. Speakers shall limit their remarks to any to the subject of the public hearing only. Speakers may leave written comments and/or supporting documents if any with the

010clerk to the board. The first public hearing is item 25-321, a public hearing regarding the system development fee study. I will open the public hearing and recognize Amy McKascal, Uni County's water business operations director for comments. Good evening, Madam Chair and commissioners. Miss Khloe is the hard act to follow. So, congrat congratulations Okay. So, tonight we are here for the uh system development fee public hearing. This is um after the 45day public comment period. Uh we are required to have by general statute to have a public hearing. Uh so this is to report back to you uh on the public comments we received during the 45day public comment period. Uh and next steps would be to approve the resolution in the business item today. Uh and to have updated fees in the county manager's um

011budget. Uh the timeline, if you'll recall on April the 7th, um the board gave us direction to move forward with posting the final study using the incremental cost basis for both water and sewer. Stantech uh presented a program to you all that night. We posted uh the document on the website April 14th through May 30th for the 45day required public comment period. Tonight we're giving you the presentation on the public comments received and having the public hearing as required by statute. Uh as a as a reminder um the results of the SDF study uh showed uh that based upon our expansion related capital in our current CIP incremental method is required recommended for both water and sewer. These incremental fees you see 4669 for water and 10,800 for sewer uh are for the 3/4 inch

012meter. you have a schedule of fees attached that would show you all the meter sizes and the and the um fees associated with with each of those. Um the incremental method is based on percentage of growth by major transmission and collection projects as well as the Kataba water plant. We received one comment during this 45day uh period from a one resident of Union County and um her and their comment was stop building and invest in park parks, roads and infrastructure. Um next steps um the June 2nd and the business uh portion of this meeting you will um be asked to approve the analysis and methodology included as a business item. And then at the 16th board meeting, the fees would be included in the manager's budget. And that is all that I have for you.

013We do not have we do not have anyone signed up to speak on this public hearing, but is anyone here that would like to speak on this topic? Good evening, board of commissioners. My name is Joel Down. I reside in Wesley Chapel, as you probably all know. Um, I'm here to speak in favor of the proposed uh fees here. Um, we all know that these fees will ultimately go help to help help infrastructure uh in the water and sewer plants uh that this is going towards. Uh, as the constituent stated on there, that's what they wanted to see. Um, obviously we want to see more than just this, but unfortunately the um state legislature cannot has not changed the legislation so that this board can do more. Um, obviously we all know what we're talking

014about. Um, but I would thank you for at least charging the most that you can for this because um, the growth needs to continue to slow. Um, and we need definitely need, as I've been here, I understood that we need more commercial in this county and hopefully this will help with that, but I think that the general assembly needs to do more. So, thank you very much. Thank you. I will now close the public hearing. The next public hearing on our agenda is FY2026, the proposed operating and capital budget. I will open the public hearing and recognize our county manager, Brian Matthews, for comments. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Oh, so this is our public hearing on our proposed operating uh and capital budget for 2026. Um I will say that this uh this

015has been a little bit of a challenge. Um, we had a revaluation this year and obviously there were a lot of public concerns about the revaluation and what that would do and what effect that would have on property taxes. Um, a revaluation is not a bad thing. It's a reset of what the values are. Um, we don't control what the market here is in the county. So, we're required by general statute to certainly make adjustments for those market changes. Those have been done. Now, it is an uh it is our goal to then set aside a budget for county operations while keeping the tax rate um as reasonable as possible. And I think you will see that we've done a a good job of trying to be reasonable with that tax rate. The staff has

016done an excellent job in working on this. Um just to go over a few things what is being recommended in my budget and and keep in mind this is the manager's recommended budget after this then the board will d deliberate and make a decision at at the usually on the meeting on the 16th is where the board will have a decision on what you do with ultimately the budget but this is my recommended budget. Um previous or current tax rate is bifurcated. the board had made a decision that you wanted to show education expenses or or a tax rate specific to education and then a tax rate specific to uh to general government. So what you have here is a is the recommended rates for that. The current rate for the county's general fund is

01716.32 cents on the 100. We are recommending that rate be changed to 11.24. Um the debt fund which is all counties counties debt the our general fund debt would go from 1.75 cents to 1.02 06 cents. The educating operating fund and keep in mind this operating fund covers all forms of education. This is South Pedmont Community College. This is Union County Public Schools as well as the component that is part of public schools and that's paying for charter schools. That's a that's a built-in cost that they have to accommodate. That fund would go from 37.42 cents to 26.78 cents. The education debt fund, however, is recommended to go up and I'll talk about that in just a little bit. That's from 2.92 to 3.89. That is really more related to um voter approved debt, but

018I'll talk about that in just a few minutes. And then the economic de development fund would change from 39 to 0.45. I I want to point out that uh we are required to calculate a revenue neutral tax rate. Now revenue neutral by general statutes means that we can capture what is called organic growth or growth in the system that we would normally receive anyway. That's new structures being built. Those are the the the values we receive because over time our county grows. That's generally somewhere in the four four and a half% range. So the the revenue neutral tax rate calculated using those general statute parameters would be 41.60. We are proposing a total tax rate of 43.42 42 cents per $100 of of valuation. That is an additional 1.82 cents over revenue neutral. And that

019is specifically and only for voterapproved debt for Union County Public Schools and South Point South Pedmont Community College. We are not recommending any tax rate uh change for general government. That is specific to the education debt. So I want to point that out. You do see that economic development fund did go up a little bit. Um the reason why is we actually shifted some of the Union County debt fund to that economic development debt fund. And the reason for that is number one, this board made a decision to create your own economic development department. Number two, you've made a commitment to going out and trying to secure property for economic development purposes. We need funding for that. So that shift from the the from the Union County debt fund to the economic development fund debt

020fund will help cover number one paying for that department. Number two, having funds to be able to actually purchase land so that we can do at more economic development in Union County. Just to go over some totals, you'll see that um the the total budget for general funds showing it a little over 216 million, almost 217 million. The Union County debt fund went up to 9.2 million. Education's operating fund, again, those are all education partners. That's not just one. Um, that's 164 million. Um, as far as operating funds, education debt, again, that's debt for all of our our education partners is at 51 uh million. Then our economic development fund went to 2.7 million. And then you have your enterprise funds, which is water and sewer and your solid waste. And those did increase as

021well. 93 million to your water and sewer and 15 million for your solid waste bond. So there were some increases as far as those budgets go. Most of those for general government were related to either capital or our expenses for our class and compensation. understanding that the the board made a decision in order for us to attract and retain quality staff, we've got to be able to have compensation and benefits for those. So, a good bit of those increases are capital needs as well as those class and comp compensation benefits for our staff. The other items within there are combination depending on the education. Again, that debt is that fund went up because debt went up as far as what the voters approved. That's why you see an increase in that water and sewer again

022went up because we are the B board voted for a number of projects in their capital uh line item and that's one of the reasons why you see that going up significantly is for those projects that we have to deal with. This is where I I wanted to talk about the voter approved debt just a little bit. So what you'll see here is that previously when we were talking about this back in 2022, we had estimated at that time that the the actual increase for voter approved debt would be a little over three and a half cents. So, our current debt 085 voter approved plus what was approved uh for um UCPS, you have a total education debt of almost a little over 4 cents on that. After the revaluation, we were we were able

023to realize some savings on that. So the values of property helped for us to actually lower that impact on the tax rate and that ultimately dropped it down to 1.82. So we were able to work through the revaluation and lower that tax rate impact significantly. Now again uh that is due to the fact that pro people's values are higher than what they were in the past. That's that's a market adjustment. That's not something we control. But because of it, we were able to yield a a better rate impact. And that's significant if you look at it from three and a half down to almost 1.82. That is a significant decrease in our impact on the tax rate. Just to give people sort of an example of what in what this would do as far as

024the average property values within the county. We showed the the one that's in bold there. That is sort of the median value within the county, $450,000. There are plenty of homes that are well above that and there are some that are below that. But if you lived in a home that was valued at $450,000, uh that additional 1.82 82 would yield almost $82 in additional tax for that year. Just to put into perspective, that's a $158 per week on a $450,000 home. Now, granted, you have a much more you have a a higher valued home, it's $182 impact if you've got a million-doll home. If you got a $200,000 home, it's $36, a little over $36. So while the impact certainly is, you know, more money out of people's pockets, um the the actual total

025is not necessarily significant when you look at over a full year, 12 months worth of period. Just to give you a little details on what we have as far as the budget goes, as I mentioned before, we are investing in economic development. I talked about that rate. That rate generates about $2.75 million in actual funds. As I said, this is for debt service on current economic development funds. This is for land banking and it's also for the operations of the brand new economic development department. Uh we think that this is the the the start of being able to see more economic development countywide as opposed to being focused in one area. Enhancing public health and safety. Uh some of the things that uh that we're trying to accomplish here under this budget is providing for

026uh enhanced basic life life support BLS and an ALS tiered response. So we're giving some additional funds to our EMS uh uh partners for new EMTs and also some capital funds to help them with purchase with transport vehicles. Um again, a little over 745,000 almost $750,000 for uh 12 new EMTs and about $2.3 million in capital for those vehicles. We are also recommending um a a change to our senior nutrition program. There's some additional funding necessary in order to continue to fund senior nutrition at its current level. That's the cost of food has gone up and that's a little over $127,000 to do that. But also, we're recommending almost $250,000 to help reduce the weight list. It doesn't go do away with the weight list. It helps reduce that. But the good news is is

027we've had our municipal partners are um they are stepping up. Uh several of them has expressed interest. Wesley Chapel, Mineral Springs, Wingut, Lake Park, and Waxaw. I I believe Wesley Chapel is the only one that's a formally committed funds at this point. The others are interested. Um, we're working through that process. They're just not formally done at this time. Yes, ma'am. Next meeting, we need to approve this. Can staff reach out to them in the next week or so to verify their commitment or not? We will certainly do that. Absolutely. Um what that would do obviously would make up some of the difference on the weight list. So while we are recommending some additional funds to help that weight list, it would just it would just add to that. But we will do our best

028to get a commitment. Please. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Absolutely. And we're hopeful that other municipalities other than the one shown here will join in as well. Well, reach out to all of them if you will, especially those that have um significant numbers on that list. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Absolutely. Fire services. Um if you recall, the county went to a um a fire tax for all of our volunteer, all of our fire departments within the county, and there are a significant significant number of them. So each fire department has its own specific tax rate and that's really based on its uh the the value of properties within their district and the budget related to those those t those fire departments. So obviously when the value goes up because the revaluation the amount necessary to to

029to make it make them whole goes down. I'm not going to tell you that the actual rates for the fire department would be lower than what were they were. They're lower than what they were, but they are going to generate the revenue necessary to run the departments. So, I believe there was one department that actually did go up uh and and that had to do with the valuation of the property. It was New Salem. Real three substations. Thank you. It it did go it did go up, but but again that is also related to the the need for their actual area. They grew. They had some substations. There were things that that grew in that cost. But I will say that the the fire departments have done an excellent job in the county and I

030think that that tax rate um system that we put in place has been very beneficial and wellreceived. Um, one of the things that they face which this is a this has been a volunteer county for a long time is actually staffing. It is difficult now now to find volunteers. There's a lot more that they have to do. There's a lot more training and time commitments and it's getting to be where we're having to fund more paid fire um personnel versus the volunteer ones. And so that's a a challenge. Also, the cost of their equipment has gone through the roof. I mean, half a million dollars for a vehicle sounds like a lot. It's gone up to near a million dollars now for those same fire trucks. So, again, we're we are uh faced with those

031increasing cost, water and sewer. Um, as I pointed out there, the that enterprise function is going up. Uh part of that again is due to the uh capital budget that the board approved. There are a number of of projects that are built out in that. We're expanding our water system for the the Kataba plant. We are doing um doing some projects to actually increase uh our fire flow as well as pressure water tanks water lines. And we're also doing some work on some of our sewer. We are not growing capacity of our sewer in these rates. The sewer that is being grown is actually being paid for by grant funds that we have received through the state and some additional dollars we already had set aside. So those dollars are not for growth of the

032sewer system. I want to point that out. But you are going to see a 7.5 uh 7.25% 25% increase for water rates and a 6% increase for sewer rates. The board previously voted on a three-year rate increase program. This is the second year of that three-year rate program. So, just keeping consistent with that. Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Brian, and thank you for explaining that. I think that um you know we probably need to um you know clarify this a little bit further in the fact that the increases that that we approved for water um number one show a commitment to safety because as I understand the information that we had there was uh questionable water pressure there you know for emergency services use and so you know that required us to make some

033investment there on the water side. Um obviously the Kitaba plant is a u you know huge um thing for for Union County and um and with the unprecedented growth that we've seen well we're going to have to make some investment there too. Yes sir. And we have partners there as well. So obviously we have uh we've tried to grow with our partners. They have been uh they've been willing to always grow when we needed to grow. So, same thing. We need to be willing to partner and grow with them as they do as well. Yeah. And the only last comment I'll make is is that I think that this shows this board's commitment to water especially. Um, you know, we do recognize it's important and uh we certainly, you know, want to be a be

034able to provide for for the county with this, but we also want to provide safety, too. So, absolutely. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Um you also saw um the system development fees as we had a public hearing on the system development fee methodology. Later you'll be um asked to make a decision on that methodology and then on the 16th as part of the budget adopt whatever those fees might be. Um and so that that's later on this evening investing in our employees. I mentioned this earlier. So uh we did a class and comp compensation study for employees. uh we are on the third and final phase of that compensation adjustment in order to catch up. Um we were we were way behind when it came to um our peer organizations and and how our employees are

035compensated. So we are making up for that. This also includes in this budget a 2.5% cost of living adjustment which would happen in January. And it is my goal in the future to have a cost of living adjustment in mid year basically January and then the actual um performance evaluation adjustments would be done in July. So employees that received, you know, great marks for their performance could get an adjustment in July and then their cost of living adjustment would be in January. And that's really the run concurrent with the consumer price index and how that information comes about. That's usually more of an annual number. So that's where we get that 2.5%. We look at the CPI and how that uh how that looks for the u for the year. Um we're also um have

036made some adjustments to our healthc care fund which has helped provide some savings for us so that we could realize some of these adjustments for classification and compensation. Uh so we work very hard to try and get our employees the best that we can uh to make sure that we are competitive. Union County Public Schools. Um we were unfortunately we were not able to accommodate their entire request. It's just within the budget as it is without additional tax rate uh implications. We were unable to fund their entire operational cost. However, we were able to provide them with additional $ 8.8 million. uh and this is slightly above the organic growth and that and fortunately that gives them some funds that they can work with. It allows them to accommodate some of their uh mandatory items

037that they have in their budget as well as some discretionary items. We were also able to fully fund their capital requests and that was through a number of different avenues. one, the money that we always have set aside for them uh in our in our budget for capital, and two, we're able to realize some one-time funds uh some of our funds for state building, RNR fund, sales tax reimbursement, as well as some fund balance, not fund balance in our education budgetary fund, not their bud fund balance, our education uh budgetary fund balance. So, we're able to cobble those together, meet their full capital request, and then next year, of course, we'll we'll um adjust accordingly based on what their request is for next year. Um unfortunately, as I said before, you you do have um

038a $14.5 million estimate for the charter school funding. That is not something that the county nor UCPS has any control over. There's a calculation at the state level. those funds go with the student and if they leave and go to a charter school then we have to pay that money to the school and the school turns around and pays that to the to the charter school. So that's a lot of money coming out of that that UCPS's budget that we have to accommodate for them. Uh South Peont Community College, we were able to to help them as well. Uh they had some security issues that they wanted addressed on their campus. So, we've uh uh been able to operate the give them some additional operating funds to deal with those safety threat assessments, proactive security

039as well as enhanced security measures. And then we met um some of their operational capital budget needs of a little over $375,000. Again, another one of our education partners that we're we're doing our best to try and accommodate. So, just next steps, we have the um hopefully the budget adoption on the 16th. And I say hopefully because we need it by at least June 30th and that's your next meeting. So, we really don't want to go past that. That's not a good thing. We want the the board to hopefully give us a decision on the 16th and then budget uh implementation would start July 1. There are some people I do want to say thank you to and all the work that they did and the manager's recommended budget, but there are so many folks

040that do all the hard work on this and then they turn it over to me and and I stand up here and give you all the good news. Uh, so this our county's tax assessor office, our clerk, you know, all of our different our budget and finance staff, our information technology folks, our budget director, our executive team for the manager's office, and then, you know, the folks are really staying and burning the midnight candle oil there, our budgets and grants team because they do put a lot of hours in trying to get this done. you know, Jason May, our new director, Blake, our assistant director, Mary, Greg, and Jody. Thank you so much for all they do because they really are the backbone. They're the ones doing all the work. And I appreciate that cuz

041I don't want to sit there at night and type all this stuff in and do all the calculations. They do all of that and then they give it to me. So, I really want to say thank you to them. That is that concludes the presentation I have. I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have. Other than that, then you have a public hearing and we can go from there. Mine is more of a comment and maybe something for our next discussion. I was extremely happy to see um money budgeted uh for senior nutrition and to take um seniors in our community who have been sitting on a wait list um for for that. But I do want to challenge you and staff um because I did not see anything for um inhome services.

042Okay. For seniors. So that is a discussion I would like to have um and to see if there's anything we can do for the seniors that are on a wait list for that as well. if there's any room um for us to circle back and look at inhome services. Yes, ma'am. Any other questions, comments? Commissioner HS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um ju just a comment. Uh Brian, and you know, you and I talked about a number of different things, you know, in the budget this afternoon, actually. Yes, sir. Um so so first of all u let me say thank you to to both you and all the staff that that worked on putting this proposal together. Um the the fact that we have balanced so many different things with this budget and well you know

043things being equal um without the voter approved bond would be at 41.6% which is revenue neutral. Yes sir. Um so you know first of all let me say that the only uh potential increase that we are looking at above revenue neutral u and it actually come in to your point a little bit better than what we had first anticipated was a voter approved actually two voter approved bonds. Yes. In November. Yes. So that would include the upgrades there. Um well I should say that'll finish out the Forest Hills cluster as well as perform design work for Parkwood High School. Um and then also um proves an investment there with SPCC. That is correct. Yes, sir. Um so, you know, education has been very important to our county and it was apparent in what the voters

044approved in November that they still supported these projects. So, I believe that it's incumbent upon this board obviously to have to fund those projects if the voter if the voters do approve them. So, um so again, just an observation. Um I appreciate you pointing that out. Um I think that well one thing that I like seeing in your budget was an increase in funds there um for economic development purposes. Yes sir. You know because we've talked about this time and time again that um well and we've experienced a lot of residential growth and we're currently sitting at 90% residential and about 10% everything else. Um and so economic development in this county is a huge priority for us. you know, we want to diversify that tax base so that it's not a burden on our

045residential, you know, units and our dwelling units and our our residents. So, um, so I appreciate that. I appreciate your office making that a priority. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if we want to go back to this slide or not or if you'll know what I'm talking about, but when we were talking about voter approved bonds and there was a column for 2022. Yes, ma'am. We'll see if I can find that there. Yes. So, weren't there also bonds for 2024 that were voter approved? Um, or not? Yes, there were. Okay. So, do we need to have a column to or are we okay with what was approved on 2024? or we or do we only need adjustments for 2022 that as far as the rate goes that the rate

046that is shown accommodates all of the what's what's been approved at this point. So, okay, because it is a little confusing that it says 2022. So, if you go back and look at your ballot for 2022, you would it would it does not appear to acknowledge what the voters approved on the 2024 ballot. Sure. So Beverly said the South Pedmont one was approved in 2022. 2024. Oh, sorry. The schools was 2024. South 2022. Okay. And and so yeah, it is a little it it's confusing because it doesn't it it doesn't show you that really the UCPS one is really the 2024 number and the 2022 number is the South Pedmont number. So we can just add that ma'am to each one. But there is no additional impact. 1.82 is for all of that. Okay. So,

047I'm glad I brought that back up so that you know because probably the 2024 ballot is what people remember the most. Sure. Yes, ma'am. You know, what they just voted for. Correct. Um, so that might be helpful to show that SPCC was on the 2022 and UCPS was what we just voted. Well, it's 2022 plus 2024, right? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. It's all It's all the debt necessary for school funding. And I I do want to point out, I didn't say this, that um the county used $10 million of our own ARPA funds to put in that school debt fund. So, we bought down the debt by putting some of our own funds in there. Um and so that number would be a lot higher if we didn't do that. Take that um that strategy.

048Well, and I think it's important for everyone to understand, too, that, you know, when this went on the ballot, this is what it was estimated to cost. Yes, ma'am. Um, and because of those decisions like buying down and using $10 million to buy that down ahead of time, um, has helped get us to not having to talk about, you know, the the 4.35 as opposed to the 1.82. Absolutely. All of those things together have made it, you know, instead of the perfect storm, sort of the the perfect sunshine or whatever you want to call it. It wasn't a storm, it was a good thing. And um be able to make that impact less. And coming out of co Yes. Um it it's great that Union County is as healthy as it is to be able

049to um you know, offset what it would have would what it would have cost. Yes, ma'am. Again, I know folks um I know there was a lot of fear, a lot of concern with that revaluation, and I get it. I understand. Um but had we not gone through that revaluation, that number would have been closer to 4.35. And while you brought up that word revaluation, I just want to remind everyone here and at home listening that that was a state mandate. That is correct. this, you know, we did not choose to have a reval. That is a state mandate that we are required to do. Yes, ma'am. Um, so I would just say, you know, please, you know, edit this particular graph um so that everyone understands that we're that they're not waiting for the

0502024 shoe to drop to find out how much that's going to cost us. Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. U Brian, one one more comment since Commissioner Barl brought up the assessment. I think I mean listen, we've had numerous conversations with folks regarding the assessment and um and to her point, you know, this is something that the state mandates that we do. Obviously, that's triggered also with, you know, sales numbers. Um but you know we we talk about the concept of revenue neutral and you know what that means is is that where you where you see an increase in in home values those assessments it's incumbent upon us to lower that rate. Yes. Um so we're not looking at at the previous rate of 58.8 cents. Yeah. We're looking at a much lower rate than that um in

051an attempt to keep everyone's taxes as close to what they were currently paying as what we can. Yes, sir. And still become or still be responsible, you know, for all the different functions and services the government has to provide. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Get that up. We have no speakers signed up for this portion of the public hearing. Are there any speakers here tonight who did not sign up but do wish to speak? Madam chair, I signed up. I tried. That's okay. I signed something. My name is up there somewhere. Regardless, we we are more than happy to hear from you, Reverend Benon. Thank you, Madam Chair, uh Mr. Vice Chair, uh and fellow uh commissioners and staff. I am Reverend Jimmy H. Benson, Senior. I reside at 302 Tucker Street, Monroe, North

052Carolina 28110 in the municipality of the great city of Monroe. I stand tonight before this uh awesome uh board of county commissioners of ours just to from the uh Union County Public School perspective share some highlights that we hope uh will get uh considered in this budgetary process. said highlights start with this operating budget request. And we just heard the manager. We're just we're just petitioning. We're just sharing. Uh increase of $14,6769 982 over the 2024 25. Uh we're looking at 2 million requested to substain current operations, 11.1 million requested for compensation increases. We're looking and hoping for a flat $2,000 increase for certified staff supplements. This increase projection uh to move us in our state rankings from 37th in the state to 10th in the state. If funded, this would be the first time

053in almost 10 years we have been able to increase the instructional supplements two years in a row. If that is funded, we're looking for a 3% for skill trades and facilities and transportation, 1.5% for teachers assistance, and $563,900 requested for support staffing such as two additional nurses, five-year plan to increase the numbers to provide a full-time nurse in every uh school. And we know with the situation that happened a few weeks ago in Fairville how important it is to have a nurse in every school. Additional month of employment for EC support uh such as data managers and bookkeepers. Uh 850,000 to support the charter school payments projected to fund 5,200 students. In our capital request, we're looking for an increase of $850,224 over 20 2425. Uh 15.4 million to support, repair, and maintain existing buildings,

054$560,000 transportation requests for three activity buses and local service vehicles with the highest maintenance uh cost. And as a former coach, I can tell you the value of those activity uh buses. Uh we're looking for 250,000 replacement equipment for school nutrition. Many of our schools were built during the same time period. So that causes a lot of the equipment to go down. Unfortunately, at the same time, 4.4 4 million to support the district's annual laptop lease and 50,000 for Piedmont High School band uniforms and equipment, which is in par with our uh year eight of the district 10-year funding cycle in which every year a school's ban uniforms and equipment is replaced. We respect and we are so happy to have you all serving as our board of county commissioners. And again, on behalf of

055the Union County Public Schools and the Board of Education, we hope that you will be able to find uh in your deliberations these requests that we have made before you today. Thank you and blessings to all. Thank you very much. Would you like to leave a copy of that with our clerk? And I do have a couple of comments and thank you so much for being here tonight. um when we had our joint meeting a couple of months ago, um I think even at that early time time period, two or three months ago when we when our board met with your board, I believe the county manager was very transparent in that meeting that we would only have like $8 million um to add to your budget. Did did that um not give y'all enough

056time to look and see, you know, what what you would or would not be able to do and whether you would be able to give $1,000 increase um to the classroom teachers versus um the $2,000 because and I don't know if the county manager or if you can help me with this number, but um what what was the number to do a 1,000 um stipen an increase um for the teachers. My recollection was for the 2000 it was a little over almost 8 million but I think 7 something million that's my recollection. Uh that would for a thousand would make it somewhere in the 3.5 3.7 I believe range if I'm not mistaken. Right. And so I I just want to confirm that my memory was right and that's what I recalled also. So, you

057know, having communicated that the county would only be able to increase the budget by 8 million, um, with that information a few months ago in the joint meeting. That right there would have, um, you would either be able to do the $2,000 increase and nothing else on your request. Um, so that's why I really want to see the copy of all the things you read off tonight. Yeah. And at our board meeting, we we vote we uh we voted for that flat 2,000 uh rate. Again, realizing and knowing that uh we're presenting uh to you all and uh we are it is our hope and our endeavor, but obviously we stand ready to receive uh the uh the rulings of the board of commissioners. So, I guess when you when you and your board reconvene,

058you would have to decide to strike out everything else on the budget request and do the $2,000 stipend or go back to the $1,000 stipen to do some of the other things on your list. Commissioner, question. Um, Mr. Venshin, the $2,000, who did that go to? Did it go to classroom teachers only or did it go to supporting staff and to classroom teachers education members? No. Uh Miss Miss Mclam is here. She can help you with that. Thank you, Miss McLam. No, that would be certified staff in our school buildings. that that flat increase has always been for our instructional staff in school buildings, which does include teachers, um, and you know, all of our guidance, you know, all all of those instructional school building, schoolbased staff, the people that have hands-on with children. Yes.

059Only. Yes. So, that gets a little tricky. So, would there be people in central office that are getting that stipen because they're a certified teacher? No, this is really intended if there we we serve a lot of students and we have a lot of instructional staff in our buildings and this is intended just for them. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That's a common question that gets asked. So, it's good to have that out there. Do you have any more questions? Okay. Is that it, Madam Chair? That's it. Thank you all again. I appreciate you. Thank you. So, I I did want to point out that um there were some mandatory um items that were in the school's u budget request that I I I think would have eaten up a good bit of that $8.8 million.

060And some of that has to do with the increases that the state level would do. those. Again, even though the state agrees to give funding, we still have to accommodate some of that. So, there were some mandatory impacts that would eat into that 8.8 million. I don't remember the exact numbers. Um, but it wasn't that they had 8.8 million that they could put strictly towards teachers supplements. They they didn't have that flexibility. I did want to point that out. Sure. Any other questions? I will now close the public hearing. Next on the agenda is item 25-277. Uh recognizing 2025, the Bobby Cobb award recipient. I would like to recognize Deputy County Manager Patrick Nyling concerning this award. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's my honor tonight to be able to recognize one of our employees for

061the uh 2025 Bobby Cobb award. Um, Bobby Cobb was an incredible employee, but he was an incredible human being as well. Um, he unfortunately passed away in 2022, but while he was with the county, there was no department that wasn't touched by what he did. Um, and as a way of honoring him, every year we we came up with this Bobby Cod award. Um, so this year's 2025 recipient is Jared Steele. Jared is a park superintendent with uh parks and wreck and he's been with the county for 20 years um through a variety of of services. Um Jared handles himself with grace and humility every day. He works with countless uh county departments. He also works with count uh countless outside agencies. So we have a short video we're going to show and then we're

062going to invite Jared up to congratulate him. Mr. Jerry Steel has been um nominated and selected for the Bobby Cobb um award. This is a very prestigious award. Jared is very involved in the community, is very involved here with the uh with the county. He has done a lot of great things. You are our rural land use committee. Uh you've worked with the uh the Yini County firefighters burn children on fundraiser. You've done work with our forestry folks on helping us uh make sure that we don't have forest fires in the area. You seem to put forward that kind of we all want to see from our our staff. You go above and beyond uh just being here doing your job. You go way beyond doing that. And the Bobby Cobb award is really about

063recognizing those people who take polish. Jared, I apologize for that, but I I think we'll just invite you up and congratulate Yes, ma'am. Okay, Jim. Exact. [Applause] Next on our agenda is item 25-298 GFOA Distinguished Budget Award. I want to recognize Jason May, our budget and grants management director concerning this item. Thank you, chair. Every year, uh, our department applies for the GFOA Distinguished Budget Award. Um, I I believe that this is year 20, um, that we've received this in a row. There's a number of different credentials that we have to be able to meet. We have to meet proficient in every one of those areas. So, we have to be able to go through an entire process. That's why there's an awful lot of verbiage in the budget book that sometimes maybe is not

064as much entertaining as maybe the the numbers there. So, we've gone through that. This year, we've been awarded that and so we wanted to make you aware of that and I wanted to congratulate my team on a job well done. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] About three years ago, they stopped giving you little. Very nice. $400. Hello. [Music] I can see everybody. Thank you. All right. Count three. One, two, three. Just checking out my blanket. for consideration of the agenda and consent agenda. Are there any motions regarding requested revisions or amendments to either the consent agenda or the business agenda? Okay. Is there a motion to approve the items listed on the consent? Madam Chair, yes. I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as published. Okay. All those in favor say

065I. I. That brings us to the business portion of the agenda. The first item on the business agenda is item 25-312, Union County critical intersections design and cost estimation study adop adoption. I want to recognize Bjornne Hansen, our senior planner, concerning this item. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, Manager Matthews. This is the result of a year-long study that was um funded earlier last year by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization. This is the third design project that we've undertaken in the last five years. And this particular iteration was six intersections. We partnered with five municipalities throughout the county with the six intersections, two of which were in Marvin. The intersections are shown on the right. They are all in the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization study area. These were identified in our

0662016 study, our 2019 study, and our 2023 study. They look at safety, operational um just growth concerns and the process we go through is to take two viable alternatives to the public for feedback and then take that feedback as well as uh staff analysis to identify a preferred local design. And then that's taken to the municipal and the county governing boards for um concurrence. And then once you have that locally endorsed design and cost estimate, then we can move forward to actually respond to grant opportunities through CARPO or the NC DOT to actually implement these. So first step that we undertook last fall was data collection. collect a lot of crash data and growth projection information as well as baseline information. Then looked at the existing conditions on the ground, developed some alternatives, went out

067to the public, analyzed the alternatives, and then here we are in the in May and June where we're taking them to the municipal boards which have occurred for all five municipalities and to you to uh concur with a a design so that we can complete the report uh by the end of June. So this is an example of the type of analysis that was done for all six of the intersections where we collect data. Um 2024 applied a 2050 design year which sounds like a long time but it takes optimistically four to five years for any of these projects to be implemented if they were funded today. So the intention was to have a 20-year useful life for any of these intersections. It used to be that we could throw a single lane roundabout down

068at a lot of locations and it was going to be okay. But as you and Wesley Chapel experienced last fall, for example, the one at 84 and Potter now is redesigned as an frankly an exotic intersection design because roundabouts can be exceeded and we're seeing that in other locations. So, um, in some instances roundabouts just weren't going to work. So, it used to be that every intersection needed a roundabout, and that's not the case anymore. So, looked at designs, what would work 20 years out, uh, crash history, and then the, uh, the different benefits that could be seen based on the unique situations at each of those intersections. So, we looked at different designs. They were based on traffic analysis and the topography of the ground. It's not survey level design. They'll be refined once

069these intersections are actually funded for construction, but it was pretty good information to help us uh know what was on the ground in terms of the constraints. Public outreach, again, public outreach was key to this process. We had over 400 people uh respond to one or more of the surveys that were out. We uh conducted public outreach in the month of March. uh virtual public meeting was held for each location and we had municipal NC DOT consultant and county staff attending each of the meetings to answer questions from the public. So the next steps after the completion of this study is to respond to CARPO NC do funding opportunities. CARPO has annual uh solicitations. We don't think we're in a place to apply for this fall because frankly we have committed money over the last

070couple cycles that's eaten up our uh available balance. So we need to pump the brakes and let that balance build up so we can respond possibly in the fall of 26. And then again it's 3 to four years optimistically to get any of these built because you have to complete the designs, rightway acquisition, movement of the utilities which can be very complicated and then actually moving into construction. So this is an example of an intersection in Wesley Chapel. Um Billy Howe and uh I think Waxaw Indian Trail talk about the uh types of issues that we're seeing in terms of lots of left turns and rear end crashes, heavy volumes making that movement as you can see in that intersection moving up towards the Harris Teter and the Target south of 84 and significant delays

071were going to be uh continuing moving through 2050. So looked at at the different intersections, looked at traffic signals with realignments, which was considered at that intersection, but it was ultimately not uh preferred, just a upgrading to a traffic signal with turn lanes, uh a roundabout, a split or offsite intersection, which we're going to talk about for Indian Trail, and then converting an intersection only right in, right out. So these are the types of analyses that were and and designs that were considered. This is that uh redesign that was considered and not selected in Wesley Chapel. You can see the costs. We gave the costs both in 2025 and then something that Carpo now requires is we have to project it for year of expenditure. So if it's expected to take several years to complete,

072you now assign an inflation factor. And that's why you're going to see some some kind of startling costs. And that's because they're taking into consideration year of expenditure and increased contingencies that are required and just the just the across the board increase in the cost of projects. So what was ultimately selected at this specific intersection was a a uh just a general expansion of the intersection with turn lanes and with a signal. You can see there's a uh kind of a free flow right uh moving on from Billy Howley onto Waxaw Indian Trail to the north. And this was a lowerc cost project that was selected. So it's it's still 4.5 million in today's dollars and by 2030 it'll be up to almost 5.3 million. And then the the two um alternatives that were taken

073to the public were considered or I'm sorry compared in terms of the benefits both for congestion and for safety. And then the cost estimates are broken down with the construction cost, the envir uh engineering costs, uh oversight cost by the DOT, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocation, contingencies that's applied to all phases, and then um the administration charge because the expectation is that in all instances, the NC DOT would administer these projects on our behalf. And that bottom line um learned that statistic recently it was kind of startling during COVID costs increased by 2/3. So just four years increased by 67%. That's that's unbelievable. So the uh the cost that we used to assign for projects in terms of our local match is is increased significantly. So again, the public engagement, how we did it, um online

074survey was our primary source. Social media posts, Uni County Horizons, Uni County Communication Department was excellent in in helping us get the word out as were the municipalities. We sent postcards to each of the properties near the intersections and uh the recommended designs align with the public feedback, which has been the case in the other rounds of this uh design process as well. So, this is the status of the endorsements from the municipalities. The one at the bottom is the one we're going to talk about a little bit because Indian Trail had uh actually three alternatives. It's at Rogers and Wesley Chapel near the Sun Valley Cluster, which is challenging to say the least. And the designs that would have addressed the congestion and safety issues were exotic and were not supported by the public.

075But at the same time, the design that was supported doesn't really address the issues. So the town chose no alternative and we're going to talk about that. These are the designs that this is one of them that was considered. It's called a quadrant roadway. So to um make left turns at the intersection, you would actually coming this way instead of going to the intersection making a left, you would make your left turn over here. It takes some of the turning movements away from that intersection. Problem is, it also requires a purchase of a lot of rightway of a person's yard, and it's very expensive. It's over $10 million. The next one, similarly exotic, really takes that person's front yard, splits the two intersections, so they operate um separately, which looks like it would be worse,

076but because you're separating out a lot of the left turns, and you can then store those cars in the middle, it operates better overall. It's a couple million dollars less. And then the last option was just a traditional we'll add more turn lanes. And that was $4.6 million. So, it's even less money, but it only made a a moderate improvement. And so, the the town council just this past week said, "We're going to we're going to wait. Uh we we don't like any of these alternatives. We're going to we're going to see what happens." And in fact, this corridor going all the way to US74, which realistically needs to be multi-lane, was funded in CARPO's, it's identified in CARPO's long range plan uh after 2045 and at a cost of over $160 million. That's $80

077million a mile, which is again just a breathtaking number. So the the public engagement just specifically for this intersection, you can see that nearly half chose the signalized intersection and the other two alternatives were split roughly 50/50. So if you were to combine them really the public in input was half for just a normal looking intersection the other half for the more uh invasive intersection that would offer more benefit. So the adoption timeline for you is uh if you choose to tonight to endorse the local position for the six designs. If you have questions, we can still bring this back in two weeks and and uh answer any questions that you may have. But the intent is to complete the work. The consultants have uh released their draft plan that the staff are all providing

078their comments to and we hope to get that finalized in the next couple weeks and complete the work by the end of June. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have in the meantime. Commissioner HMS. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, uh, Bejorn, you know, I think I think personally I'm I'm clear on the first five. Um, if we were to approve the the requested action tonight and approve the design work for these intersections, what exactly would we be approving for the Rogers and Wesley Chapel intersection there? Would that just be that we're approving no position on that? Correct. It's essentially saying it'll be decided at a future date. Okay. All right. Thank you, Commissioner H. Well, I am appreciative of those few municipalities that decided not to do um a roundabout because

079this county has been called the roundabout capital of North Carolina. Um the one at uh Indian Trail, the last one that Commissioner Helms was um discussing with that massive cut through uh uh an owner's um property. I um I will not vote for that in any way, shape, or form. Um I know congestion's bad there, but that is not okay to me. I I just needed to go on record and say that. Thank you. Commissioner Balk, you're good. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, yeah, I agree with Commissioner Helms, too. I, you know, I understand why Indian Trail struggle with that. Obviously, it's that that would be a lot of property to uh to try to take on or condemn. And, you know, obviously that that affects somebody's home and we don't want to do that.

080So, um, so I, yeah, I I agree that looking for other options is probably the best course of action there. Um, you know, with that, Bjorn, thank you for the presentation. Um, I'll make the motion that u that we approve the designs uh for the six intersections. Obviously, that Indian trail intersection is is kind of up in the air, but but I'll make the the motion that we approve the requested action tonight uh for this item. And I just want to clarify that that motion we would not be doing anything on the Indian Trail. Correct. You choose no alternative and we would not and that would include not doing um not approving the one that cut through someone's property. If if you wanted to say at this point that that was a design you didn't

081want to consider in the future, that's perfectly fine. Okay. Okay. Um in that case, I'll amend the motion uh just for clarification that we approve um the first five intersections here. Uh that would be Waxaw Indian Trail and Billy Howie, uh NC28 and Indian Trail Fair View, Joe Curr, Marvin, Stacy Howe, and Waxall Marvin, and then Franklin and Johnson. Uh those intersections that we would approve the recommended design. Um and then to further clarify the motion that we will take no action um or that we're going to choose no alternative uh on the Rogers and Wesley Chapel and Indian Trail intersection. Okay, that works for me. Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next agenda item is item 25-335, interlocal and mutual aid agreement, Anson

082County building inspections. I want to recognize county manager Brian Matthews concerning this item. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, um, much like we have a interlocal agreement, mutual aid agreement with the city of Monroe where we actually do the same thing if the city has a request for building inspections uh because they are short on staff, they have an issue or vice versa, if we have an issue, um, then that agreement allows us to be able to perform those inspections for those for the city. uh if there's ever an issue. Anson County came to us with a concern. They have staffing issues there and they don't do very many inspections, but when they do, they don't have the level of inspectors they need to perform the work. So they asked, would we consider a

083very similar agreement where if they have a need and we have the ability to accommodate that need that we would have an agreement in place would allow us to perform those inspections. That jurisdiction county would be responsible for the cost of that. So they they pay us for that inspector. They pay us for the cost. we're essentially providing the service for them. Um, and same thing, Monroe pays us for that cost for that service. So, when I had the discussion with the chair and the vice chair, um, they had some questions and I I felt like it might be important that our chief building um, code director would be here to answer any questions specifically about how this might work within the department. Um, but this is here for the board to consider whether or

084not you would like to have an interlocal agreement. It would be temporary, but obviously an agreement to provide those services for um Hansen County. So, when you say they don't have many inspections um per year, how many inspections did they have last year or what estimate did they um give you? because, you know, our primary responsibility is to take care of Union County. And so I just I have a little bit of heartburn about our employees paid with Union County taxpayer funds going to another county to take care of their constituents. And I understand they're going to pay a fee, but did benefits and mileage and all the vehicles and oil changes and tires and you know, is all of that factored into the fee to help another county commissioners, um, manager Matthews and staff.

085Uh, yes, ma'am. All of that was factored in, including retirement benefits. It's above my pay grade to do that calculation, but it was provided for me. Yes, ma'am. Everything's inclusive. And I'd like to add that it's not just a matter of having enough staff. They simply don't have anyone with the proper credentials to do the inspections. They can't do them. They simply can't. You answer how many potential inspections they would have. based on the number of of large buildings that would require that extra level of certification. I'm going to say that and I don't have a solid number. I'm sorry. We would be there no more than a half a day at any given time. And I don't believe we would be there a half a day successive in a row. I think it would

086be a half a day half a day a couple days a week perhaps as these buildings come out of the ground. There's a few commercial buildings they have planned and they simply don't have anyone with the credentials to do a commercial building. Now that's not I'm sorry that's not like a half a day all year long. That's during the construction this particular building. That is correct. If you had to guess that's a total of 30 inspections. What if you had to guess how many insp I I would say it would be no more than three or four inspections per day. Maybe a two days a week depending on upon the rate of the buildings come out of the ground. It's just hard to foresee how many they're going there have. Now, I will tell you

087that the reason we're being called in is the fact that their their senior inspector retired last week and he had the credentials that gave him the capability of doing these inspections. They now have a new inspector who is going through the certification process. It's going to take him somewhere between 6 months and 12 months to regain the certification needed to get that done. Um, with respect to the costs, they are paying us exactly what we are spending on on getting it done. We would also charge mileage based on once we hit the county line, we would begin to charge mileage for that service. I would not allow staff to be there to the point that it would compromise what we do daily. Commissioner, thank you. Um, Madam Chair, so uh, so Mark, thanks for being

088here. Yes, sir. Um, you know, I've had the the unique um privilege of riding around with some of your guys and Yes, sir. and I can tell you that those guys are um well, number one, they do a great job, but also number two, they're uh they they can get busy. Yes, sir. Um, so in your opinion, you're you're confident that we have the resources here in Union County to provide aid um um to Anson and not be at our detriment. We have that that kind of manpower to where we can accommodate them. Sir, I do believe we can comp we can we can take care of what they need. I just can't do it for a prolonged time. I can't send someone there every day of the week. I can't do that. But sporadically,

089yes, I I can accommodate what they need. And and also, you know, I read over the agreement and Yes, sir. And it does give us um it does give us some assurance there that I think it's in part two of the agreement says the number of hours spent by union staff um shall be at I'm paraphrasing, but shall be at the sole discretion discretion of union. Yes, sir. So, so essentially, as I understand the agreement, and please correct me if I'm wrong, um, if if we if we have a lot going on here in Union County, we may not be able to respond to Anson right away and they might just have to wait a few days for us to get there. Sir, you are correct. Historically, I have said no to the U city

090Monroe when they had a need. They want an inspector on Monday. I may say, "I'm sorry, I can't get you to Wednesday, but no, sir, we come first. Yeah. And I think that's a good point. I mean, you know, we want to be good neighbors. Yes, sir. Obviously. Um but we have to take care of our own backyard. Absolutely. Before we can render help to our neighbors. So Yes, sir. Um and I think too and and I don't this may help sort of balance too some workload. Um so there might be times when when our folks might be a little slow. Um maybe that's few and far between, but uh but but perhaps you know during those times this this may provide some balance to the workload. It's important to point to point out that

091the majority of help they're going to need will come from the commercial sector. So if we're going to have a slow day in Union County, it could very well be on the commercial side. So yes, sir. Uh we're not slow, but we can do this. We can make it happen because I'm not going to let them stay there too long. I'm going to pull them back. Well, I I hope that we can change that trajectory. I'm looking forward to it, sir. Because we we definitely need more commercial and and other types of growth here in Union County. So, well, from what I see, my guys are staying busy. All right. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. Anything else? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Um the terms of the agreement is uh just for one year or initially?

092Yes. So now I will tell you that with the city of Monroe it uh it also initially took place for a year and we found ourselves coming back before the board to seek further improvement. So what we did is we we extended that to a open-ended mutual agreement but at this time we're at one year is my understanding. Okay. and they have every anticipation of having a um a person trained up by that time. And based on the new requirements for commercial buildings, that's certainly feasible to have someone up in a year. I would like to hold it to a year until their person, you know, gets trained. Absolutely. end up on their feet because I think it's going to be quite bizarre to see a Union County vehicle and a Union County inspector doing

093work in Anson County and I think it could be confusing to people who see that going on and I continue to be amazed at the phone calls we get. So, and you know who sees what and who reports what. So, I definitely would like to hold this to a year. Absolutely. And if I could add an opinion, I I I think that the only other choice is to go to either another jurisdiction or to the state of North Carolina and ask the state to send someone down. And to uh Commissioner Ham's point, I I just think there's an obligation to um to be a good neighbor and there may be times when we have to ask for help. So that's all. Well, SPCC is a partnership between Anson and Union. Um, but I do want

094to hold this to a year and encourage Anson County, you know, to help get their person up to speed and learn from our people, you know, when they're on site, you know, what to look for and check for. And um we definitely would like to um you know we stand ready to assist that process any way we can. Yeah. You can feed a man. That's correct. Or teach them you know how to fish and feed themselves. So, um, we definitely I don't want there to be any confusion that this board is now employing people in another county because they're having trouble hiring. So, um, I just want to make sure that that is not going to be a slippery slope. So, okay. Um, I need an action. Whoever's comfortable making it. Madam Chair, I will

095do my best to uh to make a motion on this. And Mr. K, you may need to help me out here about putting the uh the limitation of one year on this um on this agreement. Um, but I will make the motion to approve the requested action. Um, authorizing the county manager to one, execute an agreement substantially consistent with this agenda item. Two, exercise any renewal or extension term um options set forth in the agreement. Maybe that's what I need some help with um to for a period of one year. Would that be appropriate, Mr. K? Yes, for a period not to exceed one year. Okay. So two would be exercise the any renewal or extension term option set forth in the agreement not to exceed one year in duration and then three terminate the

096agreement if deemed in the best interest of the county um each in the county manager's discretion is will that suffice Mr. K. Thanks sir. Are there any are there any questions or comments? Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. The next item of business is item 25-337, a resolution to approve system development fee analysis and methodology. I want to recognize Amy McKascal, Union County Water Business Operations Director. Boy, that's a long title. Concerning this item, good evening once again. I'm going to skip down. So, tonight um we presented you the public comments that we received. The action we are requesting is to approve the resolution. I believe you have that in your packet accepting the system development fee analysis as well as the methodology for the fees. Uh water and sewer system

097development fees both based on the incremental method. So, uh, at on this particular item, we are not asking the board at this particular time to approve the amounts, although those were shown. Uh, Amy, would you mind going back so I can at least refresh my memory on that? Certainly. Um there's a I believe water was it is 4669 that that would be the incremental rate and sewer would be 10,800. Um obviously that would need to be approved to be part of the budget uh for the July 16th meeting and make a decision. But at a minimum, the board, we're asking the board to approve the incremental methodology for how the fee was calculated and adopt that resolution as it um as it's been presented to you, Madam Chair. Um so so first of all you

098know I support the incremental uh methodology as shown here and I think it's important for for us to maybe you know inform the public here of the reason why we why we look at this. Um these system development fees are a funding source a funding source that we utilize when we start talking about water and sewer rates. Um, so you know, we we use these fees for capital improvement projects that we that we need and it affects our our water and sewer rates that we offer to our utility customers. Um, so it it's to the benefit of the system as well as, you know, the people that we serve with the utility and also just the people that we serve in general in this county to keep these as high as what we can in

099my opinion within reason of of course and certainly within the confines of general statute. Um, you know, all of these methodologies that that we look at are based upon well state approved formulas. I mean, so it's not something that we just willy-nilly decide to do. Um, we don't sit here and go, you know what we should do today? We should charge $4,669 for a system development fee for water. Um, it is based upon, you know, certain uh certain criteria that the state allows us to do and obviously that helps fund a lot of the major improvements that we desperately need. So, you know, we've talked about a little bit about the Kataba water plant. um the uh that that's that's probably the biggest source of water, you know, for our county. Um and and it's,

100you know, critical not only to us, but also our partners there in Lancaster. Um we've got, you know, many different projects going on, uh with water tanks, uh with transmission lines, um that again are needed for for public safety because we found ourselves in a situation where we're not going to have certain pressures that would be needed, you know, five 10 years down the road. Um so you know again I I often talk about growth and what you're seeing is in a lot of ways a direct result from some of the growth that we've experienced. Um so you know in order to to reinvest in our system and our utility I think that looking at this incremental methodology is the best thing that we can possibly do. So, um I'll be in support of it

101and you know, if it's pleasing to the chair, I'll go ahead and make the motion that that we um approve the resolution accepting the system development fee analysis um as well as the methodology for the fee uh water and sewer system development fee based on the incremental method. Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is item 25-341, charter school financial presentations. I will recognize deputy county manager Patrick Nland concerning this item. Looks like the I apologize, Madam Chair. It looks like the the presentation got screwed up a bit. See if I can Well, I am not sure what's happening with the technology tonight, so I apologize for that. But, um, hopefully you can see enough of the writing to where I can

102get through this. But, um, earlier this year, the board had some discussion about the charter schools that, uh, gets funding from Union County Public Schools. I think Brian mentioned earlier that the projection for fiscal year 26 is about 14.5 million. um in the board's interest in inviting those charter schools here to talk about how some of that funding gets used in their operation. Uh we sent invitations to 11 schools that represents 4793 Union County students. Um and the invitation was to discuss uh how the money gets expended, some of their audit requirements and fund balance uh policies. Uh we we offered five minutes for the institutions to present to the board of county commissioners and initially there was three that expressed interest in coming. Um of that only one is here tonight, Union Academy. We

103appreciate them being here to present to you all. Um one provided uh information in writing which was pro provided to the board earlier today and one uh said they had an a family emergency come up and they weren't able to attend tonight. So with that, I will turn it over um to Union Academy. Good evening. Hi board. I'm Allison Simpson. I'm the head of school at Union Academy. Thank you so much for having us here and allowing us the chance to talk with you. Um I am joined today by Dave Fence who is our CFO who will be going through the bulk of the presentation answering the questions that were proposed to us and he'll be available at the end if you have additional questions. Okay. Thank you for being here tonight. It it is

104um a little disappointing to hear that 11 charter schools were invited. So, we commend you uh Union Academy for being here tonight. We appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commissioner, thanks again for having us. The the one benefit is that your your closing act tonight is only one CPA instead of 11. So that's probably probably not an altogether uh disadvantageous uh outcome. Um I I thought it appropriate to just be able to quickly summarize kind of the funding mechanisms for charter schools including Union Academy and uh and also to get into the specifics of precisely as you ask how do we spend those public dollars. It's important to think of charter school students as public school students. They're a a child that that attends Union Academy is every bit as much of a Union

105County public school student as young Khloe who uh highlighted her awards here tonight. We are funded with three major sources. The first is state funds. They come from the state just like everyone uh every other uh public school out there. They're the largest portion of our funding. We also have federal grants and subgrants administered through the US DOE or subadministered through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. And then really what we're focusing on this evening is this local prata share under uh 115C 218 105. We invoice five different counties. Union accounting, the Union County students, roughly 2,000 of which makes up for about 95% of our local LEA funds. So, it's kind of how that how that breaks down. And you can see that local LEA funds represent about 24% of our total budget

106along with we have state funds about 61% with a small portion of federal grants. And then other local funds are really uh athletics clubs, organizations, fundraising, those those other ancillary and co-curricular uh revenue generating activities. Of that 24% about 23 of it is is uh Union County from from the what you folks award to the public uh sto school students in Union County. Just like other public schools, we have three primary buckets of expenditures. We have instructional expenditures. So these are really direct instruction. So we're talking about salaries and benefits for certified teachers, instructional supplies, equipment, and then contracted instructional, a large portion of which is for our exceptional children and uh children with special needs and gifts. We also have support expenditures and that's where so much falls uh from an administrative standpoint but

107also for a contracted professional. Our SRO's fall there. Uh legal, accounting, athletics, insurance, all of the not exciting things. If you're an educator, nobody uh none of my educator friends ever want to talk about support expenditures. They want to know all about that direct instruction. And then lastly, we have capital outlay. Again, just like any other public school out there, this is to maintain our facilities or uh if we have major any type of major renovations or changes to those facilities or the equipment that we have as well as the IT infrastructure which just seems to grow no matter where you are now. Uh IT infrastructure continues to be a major demand on funds. We're looking at this from a proportional standpoint. You'll see that instructional makes instructional expenses make up about 12.6 6 million

108or 51% of our total budget. Uh the Union Academy board of directors and also the Union Academy leadership is committed to making sure that that the heft of our budget is invested in the children that were charged with educating. And so you see about 51% goes into that and then 43% of those support services and another small portion into capital outlay. the way our instructional expenditures break down. You would ask how do we spend these monies and this these are the ma major categories for instructional expenditures. You see over 91% really is salaries and benefits and and again this is for primarily our certified teachers and then we have supplies and programs and some contracted instructional and staff development as well. Our support expenditures really fall into seven major categories. The largest of which is

109support salaries and benefits. So we're talking about uh administration, coaches, um maintenance, etc. Uh nutrition, transportation, on and on. And then occupancy and debt service is that next big uh chunk there. We have a bond on our building, a tax exempt uh tax exempt low floater bond on our building and uh and then the rest fall from there. uh down through clubs, athletics, administrative, etc. And lastly, our capital outlay, which again, the largest part of that is furniture and equipment. But we also have facilities capital maintenance. We do our our best to try to minimize that deferred maintenance line. I'm sure that as county commissioners, you've heard that that dreaded term deferred maintenance. And so, Union Academy again does its level best to keep up with the maintenance on what are always aging facilities. it

110seems like no matter how new they are and uh and again you'll see the IT infrastructure comes in as a pretty strong third place finisher there. We do have an audit every year. That was one of the questions was do you have an audit? We do have an audit. When was the last one done for 2024? Our la our most recent uh dated audit is June 30, 2024. We have never had anything but an unqualified audit or i.e. clean audit. So uh but we undertake we undertake one every year that's required by law. There was a question about the fund balances what our fund balances are. The fund balance for the school. So the school actually consists of two two units. One of which is called a component unit which is the foundation. So they're

111kind of wrapped up or rolled up into our audit if you will. So the fund balance for the school per the audit is 14.5 million. And then the fund balance for the foundation per the audit is about 11.88 million. The majority of the fund balance for the foundation is the building. So the foundation holds our building. The it also holds really all of the substantial material assets of the school. Those are those are valued on the balance sheet at around $27 million and we have a copy of our most recent audit that we'll leave with we'll leave with your your clerk uh so that you can have it and you folks can distribute that as as needed. uh but about $27 million in assets owned by the foundation with about 16 million in uh requisite

112debt that goes with that. So uh only about 600,000 of that fund balance for the foundation is nonassetreated and that uh that's as as much as you have to hear from the uh from the green bar guy tonight. So, and I'm happy to certainly happy to entertain any questions you may have or if you have larger questions about mission of the school operations and whatnot. I'm sure that Mr. James or Miss Simpson can answer those for you. I do want to clarify, I mean, just out of curiosity or, you know, because this is new to us, we've never um had UA come to a meeting before. Um, and Union County Public Schools has to present theirs annually. Um, and more than once usually. Um, how many students are enrolled at UA right now? 2,200. 2,200.

113And that's preK through 12. Just K through 12. K through 12. 2,200. Okay. And that's over five counties, but 95% being Union County students. Yeah. So those 4,700 children you saw on that prior slide, uh, we're what? 46% of it. 44 46% of it. Okay. And going back to the last page or the second, yeah, the second to the last page that we were discussing fund balances. Those are two separate fund balances. One for the school and one for the foundation. That's correct. Okay. Mhm. And and so those two together bring you to the 27 million you were discussing. Uh yes, more more or less. So 27 million is actually the assets in the foundation. And so remember fund balance doesn't equal cash. Fund balance is is really equity if you will. Uh the the

11420 roughly 26 million here is uh 118 is 600 in in non non-asset if you will balances and debt and then we maintain about we maintain about 14 about 14 and a half uh in cash because we are a our we operate on a on a fund basis that's rolled up into governmental financial statements at the end of the year full approval and in your audit is that broken out by assigned and unassigned? So the fund balance is so and our the fund balance policy is in the notes to the financial statement. So when you get a copy of that audit, you can flip to the notes and it will show you our fund balance policy in there. Thank you very much. The last question that I thought of um during your presentation and um

115really enjoy the presentation. It's very good. Thank you. Is um going back to your um salaries and benefits um do you know offhand how many classroom teachers you have? Um and an estimate's fine about 140 um including guidance counselors. Then you start to coach instructional coaches and it starts to go up from there. Okay. And roughly that number, how many are cert do you do you know how many are certified licensed teachers versus how many are not certified teachers? Yeah, to start the school year, we had 26 that were unlicensed. Um and now at the end of the year, we've cut that into more than half um that are either working on their lensure or have have since obtained it. Um and it's a requirement now moving forward when we hire teachers that they must

116have a license. Okay. So you started out the year 26 were not licensed but they some so roughly half of those have begun their process. So about 13 are no are not not licensed and some were just in the process already and maybe stalled and there's a bunch of different things that could have happened but um and some of those that are not licensed um one was a college professor, one has a degree in economics. There there are other um qualifications that they have that would make them a desired teacher. Yeah, absolutely. Um thank you very much. Are there any other questions? No, Madam Chair. Yeah, Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got a couple questions here. Um, so first of all, um, again, thank you. Thank you for being here. Um, I I

117agree with what Commissioner Merrill said earlier. Um, you know, obviously, um, you know, we're glad to have you guys here. It's a shame that we've had, you know, so many others cancel on us, but uh but certainly appreciate you here, um because I believe that this gives some transparency, you know, to uh to tax dollars and and I think this very important for the public to see, you know, where their where their tax dollars is going. Um couple of questions for you. So, I noticed on the presentation that you guys had, um under support expenditures, there's a there's a line there for transportation. So, can can you can you explain what $81,000 would be going to for trans for transportation? Yeah, we have activity buses. Um, and then we also provide a shuttle in the

118afternoon um for families who sign up where we go to like Sun Valley or Monroe Mall to drop off a cluster of students. Okay. So, it's like a drop off point. You know, you would have many different students going there. Okay. We we have um some vehicles that are used for like the golf team, for example, doesn't need a bus, they need a van. Um, so those sorts of things. Okay. Um, you know, obviously it's budget time for us and it's budget time for UCPS as well. Um, can you can you go into maybe a little bit about your budget process and and maybe, you know, what you guys uh or maybe what the process would would entail, you know, how that's approved? Um, can you give us just a little bit of information regarding

119that? Sure. Um, so we started working on the budget quite some time ago. Um, and we Dave is Dave is very conservative. So the budget he gives me is always very flat or even sometimes less than flat. Um, so we work on our budgets as a as a department. We come together and we send them to Dave who takes a look at them. Um, and then we review them with our board. The board will then approve the approve the budget. And there is a finance committee in between there where all of the really rockus argument goes back and forth on the on the proposed budget. Okay. Thank you. Um, so, so the board would would make final approval on the budget that you would recommend. Um, sounds like similar type process what we contend with

120here in the county. That's correct. Um, how many board members do you guys have currently? 13. 13 board members. And how are these board members selected? We have a nominations committee. Okay. And so then uh I guess the way that it would work is is a nomination would be made and then that nomination would be voted upon by the other other main body. Is that correct? The committee goes through the nominations. They have interviews and review resumes and proposed forward um candidates say that they think would be add value to the school board. Okay. Um one last question and this goes back to the difference between um the foundation versus the school. Um is there is there like a budgeting process for the foundation? Is that similar um or is that strictly for fundraising purposes?

121It's strictly for fundraising. Their their budgeting process is separate um separate from ours as a school. Okay. How how if you don't mind me asking who oversees does the board oversee the foundation as well or is that a separate board? It's a separate board and they're also audited in the same the same way that we are. All right. Thank you and thanks again for being here. Thank you. Great. I would now like to recognize our county manager for comments. I have no comments. Thank you very much. Okay. I do want to say we did mi miss commissioner sides tonight and we look forward to him being with us u very soon. I will um start with commissioner Brian Helms for commit comments. Thank you madam chair. Uh just a couple comments u from me tonight.

122So, first of all, um I think many members of the community um was well probably found out about the uh the Monroe City officer that was uh injured um in the line of duty the other night. Um thoughts and prayers go out to that officer, wishing that officer a u a full and speedy recovery. Um obviously, we talked about a lot of things tonight. We've heard from um you know, our great folks there at UCPS. Uh we've heard about system development fees and we've heard about budgets. Um again, thank you to um Union Academy for being here. Um just a quick note on the budget. I don't know if uh if anybody's ever, you know, looked at at the county budget before. Um if you haven't, I would encourage you to do so. uh because

123it's about 400 pages of light reading and uh and there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of effort that goes into this. Um obviously you know our staff puts in a lot of effort um you know we put in a lot of effort and looking at these line items. There's a lot of questions that have been uh that have been tossed around and and posed our staff. Um, and so you know what the public sees when we talk about this is not at the granular level. And I I understand that that most probably realize that, but there is a lot of effort that goes into putting these things together and and from what I've seen the budget that we are considering and and the budget that our manager has proposed is is extremely tight.

124Um, it is and you know I I I commend our staff, you know, for putting that together and I want to assure the residents of Union County that every effort has been made, you know, to u to make sure that that we are that we are bringing that tax rate and that tax uh that property tax as close to uh what you what you were currently paying as what we possibly can. Um, so we do have some challenges. You know, we have to pay for that school bond. When the voters approve something, we have to do that. Um, but I I think that what we're seeing is a better result than what we had anticipated at first. Um, and again, hats off to staff for for putting us something together that um that takes the

125best interest of the property owners in mind. Thank you, Commissioner Christina Helms. Um, of course we want to um recognize the Monroe Police Department and and Union County Sheriff's Office for um the recent development of an officer, a peace officer being injured. Um it has hit close to home for us simply because I have family members who have thank thankfully retired safely from um being a peace officer on the state and local level. Um one of them was shot but thankfully it was not life-threatening and very minimal time in uh for recovery. Um, but they have a very dangerous job and I hope that this board has expressed time and time again. Um, I hope it's clear to them how much we support what they do for all of us here in the county and

126how much we appreciate all of them. Um, I would also like to thank staff for working so diligently on our budget. Um, it was great weekend reading. Um, there I have many, many tabs and still many to go on mine. Um, and lots of questions. Why is this one uh why is this one line item? And I can call staff and say, "Why is this line item on page such and such so high?" Well, and and it's amazing. They know the answer without having to research it. Um, so I do appreciate what staff has done um during all this. This is um a very stressful time for not only board members but for the community at large um just worrying about their taxes especially right now when um we're still coming out of the last

127four years. Um, so hopefully this meeting and the next meeting will put a lot of people's mind at rest because I was asked multiple times, I understand our home values, our tax rate is going to go up 68%. No, it's it's No, no, it's not. So, please take the time to go back and if if someone has a questions, please reach out to somebody, ask the question so that you clearly understand. um staff has done a fabulous job trying to minimize the impact um that we're faced with and um as Mr. Helms has mentioned multiple times. Um some of the increase is from voterapproved bonds and because the voters said yes, we want improvements in schools and whatever else it is. Then then we follow the law and approve that and make adjustments accordingly. So,

128I would I definitely want to make sure that staff knows how much they are appreciated during all of this and all of their hard work and many many long hours that they have had to go through each department and there were a lot of departments that actually took cuts. So, we we appreciate all that they have done. Thank you, ma'am. Commissioner Valk. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I would like to express my support for local law enforcement for the for the job they do and for the risk they take on our behalf. Um, then ask continued prayers for them. And also like to congratulate little Chloe on being a winner when she hopped out of that seat. I think it it lifted the hearts and spirits of everyone in the room and put a smile

129on every face. And I notice y'all aren't always smiling when we up here. You really lifted lifted the room. So that concludes my comments. I'll just end with um thank you staff. I know that you've been burning the midnight oil I think since since January or fe February just to get to this uh first presentation um tonight. So, we look forward to going through this with you and and hopefully coming to a conclusion on at our next um June meeting. Um I do want to uh wish our Monroe U police officer a speedy recovery. I know that was an extremely um scary situation. I cannot imagine being shot at. I cannot imagine someone fleeing into the woods and shooting from the woods at police officers. Um, but it just again solidifies our um how proud

130we are of our law enforcement and um and I just want to commend the Mon Monroe Police Department for trusting their instincts when they saw this vehicle. Um we just regret that they were fired upon. Um so we wish um her a very speedy recovery. I am going to join the Chloe bandwagon and I am going to say Chloe, thank you so much for being here tonight. Um and her sweet parents um her medals just jingled as she um came up here. Um what what a just bright young young lady. and um she looks very decisive, but um and I want to thank Mrs. Carter with um Special Olympics. It is my understanding that she volunteers all of her time to help run um Special Olympics in Union County. Yes, ma'am. That is true. And

131she was also, and she's too proud to to say it, she was nominated and approved. She is the local coordinator of the state this year. She won that accolade that was announced at spring games this year that she was the recipient of that award from North Carolina this year. Thank you so much. Well, please let her know um that we mentioned her and we're we're so um thankful that she was here um tonight. It was lovely to see her face to face instead of email. Um thank you Reverend Jimmy Venshin, chairman of Union County Public Schools Board of Education. Thank you for being here tonight. In your presentation, almost $15 million does come right off the top. Most people do not realize that when Union County comes year after year after year that when they

132come to us um advocating for local tax dollars, they are advocating for charter schools. and um their budget request this year is almost $15 million for the charter stu school students. So again, I want to thank UA for being here. Um enjoyed your humor and um it was it was great um to hear from you tonight because we really don't hear from from the charter schools very often. So and you're a known entity in the county. So, it was an honor to have you here tonight and um have you present to us. Um and with that cl with that, I will just um say this coming week is going to be very exciting in Union County with all of our seniors graduating and we wish um you know, great celebrations, safe celebrations with all of

133our Union County seniors. We wish them the very very best whether they're choosing to go into the workforce um if they're choosing to serve our country in the military or if they're choosing to further their education. We just wish them um great great success going forward. Um but just please be safe and we wish all those um children a safe summer, a fun summer. And with that, I will um just thank you for being here and we will motion to adjurnn. Okay. All those in favor say I. I.