On this episode of the Post Podcast, Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recap this week's Ellis County Commission meeting with County Commission chair Butch Schlyer.
Transcript:
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James Bell
Hays Post reporter Jonathan Zweygardt recaps this week's Ellis County Commission meeting with commission chair Butch Schlyer on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Jonathan Zweygardt
not a huge meeting last night by any means handful things on the agenda. And kind of the the one thing I guess we'll start with the budget discussion, because that's going to be something that you all talked about last night. And it's going to be a continued kind of process through the next several weeks and months. And I know, a week ago, Commissioner, Rutherford County Administrator, Dr. Meyers kind of laid out the the calendar. And then last night was the first opportunity to kind of start to direct how the commission would like the budget to look. And I guess that's kind of where we start. So it's an opportunity for the commission to kind of lay out their vision for what the department head portion of the budget budget and elected officials looks like,
Butch Schlyer
right? Last night, we were to start to give them direction on what the budget should look like, and what department heads elected officials should try to do with their budgets. And of course, as I reflected on that, through the week, our budgets are going to go up, we know that going in. And they're gonna go up because we had additional personnel, we added, I believe our IT department added a person we added an assistant to our admin administrator, we've we've increased a clerical position from halftime to full time and we just increased an appraiser position for three quarter time to full time. So we know that personnel wise, we're going to have an increase. And we know given the inflation on things, we are going to look at an increase in supplies and increase in equipment. And on top of that everyone has had their homes valued at a whole new level, mine went up 19.4%. So that just going to impact people's wallet and trying to make sure people are aware that what what we definitely came to a conclusion last night is we want the department heads and elected officials to bring in a budget that they believe they need to provide the services necessary in their departments. And that includes their supplies and their equipment, we know the cost of fuel is going to go way up. That's even going to be real hard to budget for. But But looking at that, it just comes down to a matter of what we can do with the dollars we're going to get. And we're going to pull them. And we're also looking at trying to increase money into our public works department for road and bridge projects. Currently, we're allotting one mil for Bridge Park project, specifically, which gives us about 450,000 a year that we had one bridge failure on the saline river this year, that costs us $900,000. So we feel like we really have to put more money back for that. And then addition, as we look at personnel, we have been giving them the same cost of living increase that Social Security recipients get, we don't know where that's going to fall either. So the budget, we're going to look at where the budget kind of comes in at and then see where we can best to reallocate funding resources wherever we need.
Jonathan Zweygardt
It's interesting to talk about so road and bridge Public Works and the revival of a old fund to now make two funds where there's a highway fund road and bridge fund that, as you mentioned, is funded $400,000 each in each fund. So combine $100,000 A year ago, but as you mentioned that that won't replace a bridge. I mean, if we have, and we have some bridge that bridges that are extremely old and the county is structurally deficient is a is a is an interesting term, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually you know, going to fall down tomorrow. It's just a tech, technical term. But there are bridges that the county and rows of the county has to look out for in the future. And so it's important to start to set money back in case there are big projects, big failures and bridges,
Butch Schlyer
right, like I say with that one bridge failure versus $900,000. And that should be finished up here this year sometime. But it when a bridge fails like that it does cause an inconvenience to the users of that bridge. And this bridge that did fail. The oil industry is really harmed by that bridge failure. They have a big detour they have to go around.
Jonathan Zweygardt
And I know that something that with the road and bridge, the road tour coming up next week. That's something with that we wanted to hit on Well, let's keep talking about the budget but obviously that's an opportunity for the commission next week. was part of a special session to take a look at some of those bridges, right?
Butch Schlyer
They do take our the commissioners around and shows the various projects that are going on and the projects which we may be facing in the future. And that's always an eye opener.
Jonathan Zweygardt
When you look at the budget budget process, we talk about some of the unknowns, the inflation, the price of fuel, the cost of health care may change as well. You talk about the direction that the Commission talked about last night and keeping it as you know, make sure you keep the services that you want. That's something that as you've been a part of the commission that the you guys have, really, I don't want to champion to the right word, but making sure that you keep the level of services that we have in Ellis County at the level we have,
Butch Schlyer
right? Well, well, county government is governed by statute from the state. And the state really tells us what we're going to provide with most of our departments, there is an exception with just a couple. But we have to provide certain services for departments, and with with the elected official departments, we have to provide them adequate funding to provide those services or else they could come back and take us to court on those kinds of issues, which I hope that never has to happen. So it can get. We've had budget sessions in the past, I'd got quite intense.
Jonathan Zweygardt
And I know to you being a part of the Commission, as part of the discussion for the sales tax, and it went past and the Commission, you can only through the sales tax or tax directly a certain portion of that specifically to one which the commission elected to do health care, which we can talk about in just a moment, but also then kind of earmarking saying, Okay, we have a percentage that needs to go to road and bridge. And that probably goes more to what we were talking about earlier, too,
Butch Schlyer
right? Yeah, that what we've done with the with the portion for road and bridge, is we did take out a bond for certain projects. And as as we start down that list, if a project is overrun, comes in more than it should have or what we anticipated, then the list just gets shorter. So list doesn't go away. It just shortens up and we have to make a new list next year. And I
Jonathan Zweygardt
know Darrin County Administrator, Dr. Meyers talked about it a week ago with the sales tax and how much that has helped on the budget, with the being able to fund the health through that. And then also with Raja road and bridge. So that's a big part of the success that the budget has had for the county.
Butch Schlyer
Right. Without that sales tax, Ellis County would have crashed and burned, we would have had to have layoffs service, whether it had been curtailed, probably would have had to cut hours for existing staff, it just wouldn't have been a good outcome at all.
Jonathan Zweygardt
I'm curious to in your position with the as the commission chair, and with kind of those numbers and understanding that that will sunset in 10 years, obviously, under 10 years now. But and looking at it as far as who knows what happens the next time you go to the voters? Is there also that way in the back of your mind that you have to find a way to set aside money and and start to make sure that you don't get back in that situation? As before.
Butch Schlyer
We're trying to build up the reserves for it for the LS County.
Jonathan Zweygardt
Yeah, I'm curious. That was something that you guys kind of talked a little bit about last night. Right. And so any particular reserves, we talked about Rowan bridge, but is there any other than that you think that you want to highlight as far as from your chair?
Butch Schlyer
Well, our reserves, our capital equipment fund, just our cash carryover balance. And anything we can build up to help sustain this, should we not have quite the revenues we think we need is going to help and maybe get us by a year. If we run into a situation in eight years where our sales tax doesn't pass, we're in bad shape immediately. That's that's just going to be that effective.
Jonathan Zweygardt
And obviously, that's something that Darren had pointed out and you see an ad budget, and there's some things that you just can't control, as we talked about before. One of the things that came up last night. So your director was talking about outside agencies, and as a whole, those are agencies of the Commission and the county of funds. Is there anything as far as director that you're talking about with them that, that you think that won't be related? As far as well.
Butch Schlyer
We we talked about the outside agencies or the agencies what just enhanced quality of service or quality of life in Ellis County. And we talked last night, we just wanted to see them bring in pretty much flat budgets. And as we look at our county budget comes in, look at the subsidize agencies that will determine if we're going to increase decrease or allocate different agencies within those outside agencies different funding, so it's something we just got to look at the big picture when we start getting the pieces put together
Jonathan Zweygardt
and This is going to be a process that will go all the way to September because there will definitely be an increase in the budget. And so that takes an extra step. Yes, absolutely. So I know we'll be talking more and more about that. So we look forward to having more of those types of discussions. Anything else from last night, it's a meeting that kind of stood out to me, we got an update from the health department. I think that was something with Kim mareel, the Director of Health Department talking about a couple of different things
Butch Schlyer
we did, we did send the health department back to the governor's Public Health Conference, the whole staff went, they closed up the department for a few days, it sounded like it was very beneficial for him. We have completely redone the health department as to what it was, when I retired, we brought it back to that same level with with an administrator directly into the department, running things on a day to day basis, instead of having us split administrator, that just doesn't seem to be working well. So I think our health department is kind of getting its feet back under him. They're looking at expanding some programs with the maternal child grant, as well as with the family planning grant. So that's all helpful. And then they're trying to find ways to spend some of the COVID grant they had with with some remodeling and some signage and things like that. So we'll see how that turns out. Yeah, I
Jonathan Zweygardt
know, that's something that I think we'll definitely be hearing more about as far as maybe a little bit of a different look. And it's because of safety issues that have been brought up within the departments, that new location is not new anymore. It's been settling for a while, but that's something that I know that the the remodel and kind of making it a little bit safer, and then also more efficient. Right. Absolutely. And we'll look forward to hearing more about that. I know Kim presented last night and as you mentioned some COVID money that has to be spinner. It it goes back to the federal government. So I think the odd the, basically the understanding was this is your chance to use that money or you will never get it again.
Butch Schlyer
But you have to lose it according to certain contingencies. So sometimes that can be hard to sort it all out.
Jonathan Zweygardt
Very good. Well, um, that kind of wraps it up. I know, there was, as you mentioned, an approval of a little bit of a change in income, kind of some of the positions there through the appraisers office. That was some personnel change a little bit and then more about the Katherine township that was one of those that was out for dissolve nine, but it looks like that some folks have stepped up and decided that they want to keep their township running. Yeah,
Butch Schlyer
I guess according to the county clerk if they don't file the budget or the proper reports, we can dissolve the township and the Catherine township I believe it was decided they didn't want to do that. So they got some offers. We got everything renewed last month. Great.
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