Buckingham County Board of Supervisors April 24, 2017

Transcription

1 Buckingham County Board of Supervisors April 24, 2017 At a reconvened meeting of the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors held on Monday, April 24, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. in the Peter Francisco Auditorium of the Buckingham County Administration Complex, the following members were present: Robert C. Jones, Chairman; Danny R. Allen, Vice-Chairman; Donald E. Bryan; Don Matthews; Joe N. Chambers, Jr.; E. Morgan Dunnavant and Harry W. Bryant. Also present were Rebecca S. Carter, County Administrator; Karl R. Carter, Asst. County Administrator; and E.M. Wright, Jr., County Attorney. Re: Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance Supervisor Chambers gave the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance was said by all who were in attendance. Re: Quorum Chairman Jones certified there was a quorum, seven of seven members present and the meeting could continue. Re: Call to Order Chairman Jones called the meeting to order. Re: Supervisor Mathews, Acknowledgement of and Appreciation for Kyanite Mining for Road Clean Up Matthews: Yes, sir. I d like to recognize the great job that Kyanite Mining has done again this year for the trash pickup across the County. I just can t say thank you enough and I d like to recognize them. We are going to be giving them a plaque for appreciation for what they do every year with the employees and again I can t say thank you enough and I want to recognize them and go on record for recognizing them for the great job they do all across our county. Thank you so much. Re: Dr. Cecil Snead, Division Superintendent, Request for FY17-18 additional Funds for Increased Health Insurance Costs Snead: Good evening Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, I come to you this evening as a part of the original budget process in which we began together at our joint meeting. At that joint meeting we had requested level funding with regard to our budget for FY18 and on the last slide we had two outstanding pieces of information that had not yet come to fruition. One of them and 240

2 the most significant one as I noted that evening was health insurance. Health insurance as you see in the memo started out very early on February 22 with our meeting at zero and on March 17 th we learned that it would be a 10.6% increase. With that increase we equated on our PowerPoint on March 22 nd it could be as high as $261,000. In the meantime, negotiations ensued and it brought it down as you see in the memo to 7.3% or $180,000. That s just the update to complete our budget process that we started on March 22 nd. Jones: Do I hear from the Board? Bryan: Dr. Snead, if you don t get the $180,000 how does that impact the employee? Snead: Yes, sir. Right now, if that $180,000 was spread out across the employees, it would range from an increase in premiums say for the POS $2,000 deductible plan for the employee of $32.74 a month. It would increase that much. It would increase from $62 up to nearly $100. That s the cheapest one. If you have a family it would increase $ for that employee and that would move from $ a month to $580 a month for that employee and their family. Bryan: That would pretty much eat up the pay raise that they got last year? Snead: Yes, we are not giving a pay raise this year. Bryan: Right but the increase they got last year it will gobble it up and probably some extra. Snead: Yes, sir. It would affect 244 employees. We have 300 employees approximately and 244 employees are taking advantage of some type of insurance. Jones: Anyone else on the Board have any comments? Bryan: Mr. Chairman, I make a recommendation that we fund ½ of the $180,000 request for the school system to cover their health insurance increase. This will at least pass some on to the employee where it will not eat up their pay raise. That way they can at least enjoy some of the pay raise that they got last year. Hopefully you will be able to absorb some of it in the school system. Jones: Motion made, do we have a second that we fund ½ of this. Allen: I second. But why do you want to just do ½? Bryan: In the past two years, I believe that there has been increases and the school system has absorbed total costs for the school insurance increase and has not passed it on to the employees. We already know we are in a budget crunch as it is. Looking long term, we have a request of $200,000 from the fire departments. If we fund the full increase I believe that s going to take us to $160,000, $170,000? 241

3 Carter: If you fund the full amount to the fire department and full amount to the school it would take your reserve from $544,027 to $164,027. Bryan: I would like to keep a cushion in there of at least $250,000 for reserve. Allen: How do you feel that would take care of do you think there is any way you can absorb that? Snead: We can look at some options of plans and see what would be less intrusive for our employees. What I mean by that we can have the company change some of the plans up for us. Maybe we can absorb that way. It would change the plans but leave the employee whole. We believe we can do that but it might change copays and increase their copays but that would be if they used it. That s one direction we could go and leave the employees whole. Jones: I understand that you ve got some people retiring. Salaries that are high and the possibility of getting them into the system without hiring somebody back to take care of that. Is that possible? Snead: Like without Matthews: Delegate responsibilities within the staff. Snead: I have cut staff to the bone in terms of basically you are saying not hire this person. Then spread out responsibilities throughout the staff that already exist. Is that correct? I ve done that a lot. It s just not there anymore. That s not a bad idea at all. But my people are I m lucky they are loyal because I don t know why they are here still. I mean they work hard. That includes that lady there and that gentleman back there. That includes me, I mean we all work so hard. I don t know how they could do more. But I understand what you are saying and I m in the middle of restructuring but I do have to have that position. Jones: Any more comments from our Board? We have a motion on the floor that we pay ½ that was made and seconded. Any further discussion? Call for the vote. Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Allen seconded to fund ½ of the $180,000 requested from the School Board to fund health insurance increase. This motion passed with a 4-3 vote. Supervisors Allen, Bryan, Jones and Bryan voting in favor. Supervisors Dunnavant, Chambers, and Matthews opposing. Snead: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board. Thank you. Re: Consider Buckingham Fire Department Request for Additional Funding Chambers: Mr. Chairman, I still stand by what I said at first. I look at all the work these guys do in the county. Fires at all times of night, storms, and all that they do. I make a motion that 242

4 the Board fund the additional $50,000 for each department continuously and come from the Contingency Reserve. I make that a motion that we fund them $50,000 annually every year additional to what they are getting. Bryan: Can you clarify that, not out of reserve but to fund it Chambers: Contingency reserve. Not take it from the library or the solid waste account but from the contingency reserve. Bryan: To fund the $200,000. Chambers: Yes. Jones: This is for every year? Chambers: Yes sir. Jones: Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? Bryan: Mr. Chairman, I do have one thing. I know there were some fire departments that wanted $50,000 per year and then they wanted $200,000 lump sum to rotate between the four fire departments. I think for the short term, I agree they are in desperate need of funding. I think the first year we go with $50,000 to each fire department and then get together the full Board sit down with the Chiefs and discuss what s the consensus of their fire chiefs and their organizations of do they want to rotate the money or do they want to continue with $50,000 to each fire department. Chambers: That s not my motion Mr. Chairman. My motion was to fund the fire departments $50,000 annually every year. That s what he seconded on. Bryan: That s my issue Mr. Chairman. There were some fire departments that wanted the $200,000 rotated between fire departments in that lets say year one it would go to Dillwyn, then Toga, then Arvonia and then Glenmore. But I would want to sit down and have some dialogue with the fire chiefs. The only other issue I have is reading their by-laws. In their by-laws it says if a fire department folds, which I hope it never does in my lifetime, my children s lifetime and my grandchildren s lifetime, but in the event that it does the equipment would be sold and money donated to charity. That s a little for me to swallow considering the county taxpayers over the course of 10 years gives $2 million to a fire department or fire departments, that something happens that they can no longer be in operation, I feel the money should come back to the taxpayers rather than sold off and donated to a charity. If something does happen to a fire department and like I say, I pray that it never does, the county is going to have to step in and do a paid force and they are going to have to raise money and increase your taxes for equipment and it s going to have to be rather drastic. That s my concern. I fully support the fire departments but I have concern is there a way we can sit down with the fire chiefs and say can you look at your 243

5 organizational by-laws and if in the event you fold, the county will absorb the equipment. My only other issue is you being a 4013C Charitable Organization, Becky does it affect them if we give basically, we are going to be giving over $100,000 to each fire department, if they are a nonprofit charitable organization, how does that Carter: What I found out today is that there is no limit to what we can give them that will make them lose their volunteer status. In taking with the Virginia Fire Programs, they said it would depend on how their 501C is set up. If there is a certain limit that makes them not for profit or charitable. Talking with Chris, they don t think there is anything in there that sets any limits. Bryan: I just don t want to put them in jeopardy of losing that. Carter: Theresa said she had never heard of anyone having anything like that in it. They would be very interested to know if ours do. Does anyone know? Chris Davis: Not that I m aware of. I will check on that to make sure. Chambers: My concern is this, if you give them $50,000 this year and then cut them off, they will be in worse shape than they are now. Bryan: I fully support the money, Mr. Chambers. It was reading some of the packets there was some issues with we are going to give them the $200,000. It s going to be a recurring $200,000 but there was an issue of $50,000 to each department or rotating $200,000 between the four fire departments. My only thing was and if you would amend your motion to say in the first year we give each department $50,000 and in the next 12 months I would like to sit down with the fire chiefs and discuss how you guys want to go forward with this. Chambers: I tell you what. I want my motion to stay like it is and I think the fire chiefs will meet with you. I trust them to do that and discuss it with you. Jones: My only problem with this is I have no problem I know the fire department needs this $200,000. I have a problem with us stating now that we are going to do this every year because we don t know what s going to be down the pike. I don t want to put them or us in a bind. I don t want to promise something that we can t fulfill. I don t understand the fire department says they would like the $50,000 plus each of them individually. To me if you are going to buy a fire truck or a pumper, and we give each of you $50,000 plus now, you still can t buy it anywhere near the time because there is not enough money there with the $100,000 total that you are going to have. It looks like to me it would suit you better for one company to get the full $200,000 this year and next year we go forth and give the next company $200,000 so that if you need to buy a pumper or something you ve got more money to do it. I still have a hang-up of stating tonight that we are going to give this $200,000 rolling over each year. 244

6 Matthews: Mr. Davis, at the end of December of the year we are in now, by your estimations what would you have in your reserve amount? You can kind of forecast that a little bit can t you? Davis: As far as Matthews: Let s add what you are going to get, what we already give you, let s just add that to what you have in your account which is about $30,000 or close to that. Davis: Based on the amount that is proposed that we get, we would have somewhere in the neighborhood of $135,000 less $27,000 on the final truck payment plus operating costs. We are looking at just a guestimate of maybe $100,000 but we can look at using it to purchase large line item pieces of equipment whether it be a truck or air packs or something like that. It would take most of that. Just to clarify I know there is hang up between $200,000 lump sum or $50,000 split between the departments, just to clarify, I think that was a concept when we approached the finance committee as a either or. Whichever one would be the simplest for the Board to do. It was an either or based on the easiest for the Board. Chambers: Call for the question. Matthews: Looking at your financial statements, each department has some money in reserve and you are not spending that down to a zero balance and I don t expect you to do that but it s no need to keep that money for a rainy day. Go ahead and use it because we are willing to give you the money that you are asking for so my statement is going to be, in the future if you get this additional $50,000 or yall want to get together with each other at $200,000 a pop, you are still not buying a truck or big piece of equipment on a yearly basis so at some point and time there s going to be a substantial amount of money in some of these accounts, in my opinion, I can t tell the future but by basing it on what you ve given us, it looks like that to me. Davis: I would say in the off years they will not buy a $350,000 say for instance we were on a rotational basis and we got the $200,000 lump sum, that s once every 4 years and the way our replacement schedule is looking we are going to have to buy an apparatus roughly every 5 years or once every 6 years depending on the aging condition and whether it s still in compliance or not. If we were purchasing a truck for say $100,000 in that one year, there is also other pieces of equipment we are going to have to purchase during those years that we are not spending that entire amount. Air packs for example, to replace 8 air packs and additional bottles, it s going to be $64,000. Not including other turn out gear that s going to have to be replaced and extraction equipment for $20,000 or whatever. During those years that we don t have to buy those large line items, we are still using that money to replace additional equipment and repairs that are still necessary. We are still not going to be a large surplus of money that I can see. Chambers: Call for the question. 245

7 Jones: Call for the vote. 6 yes 1 no. Supervisor Chambers moved, Supervisor Bryant seconded to fund the fire departments the $200,000 as $50,000 to each fire department on an annual basis. This motion passed with a 6-1 vote with Chairman Jones opposing. Re: Consider adoption of Proposed Tax Rates Real Estate: $0.55 Public Service Corporation: $0.55 SCC Personal Property: $4.05 Personal Property: $4.05 Machinery and Tools: $2.90 Merchants Capital: $1.00 Air Craft: $0.55 Allen: So moved. Bryan: Second as advertised. Jones: Motion made and second. Any discussion? Call for the vote. Unanimous. Supervisor Allen moved, Supervisor Bryan seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the tax rate for the Calendar Year 2017 as stated above and as advertised. Re: Consider adoption of Proposed Fiscal Year Operating Budget Bryan: So moved, Mr. Chairman as we amended it tonight. Chambers: Second. Jones: Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Call for the vote please. Unanimous. Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Chambers seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the FY17-18 Operating Budget with amendments to include $50,000 for each of the four fire departments to come from Reserve for Contingency and $90,000 (half of request) to the School Board for health insurance increase. 246

8 Re: Confirmation of Solid Waste Site Closures Carter: I just wanted to confirm before we had signs made and also notification to the public the times that you all are and make sure we are on the right track of the times you want to close the sites. Rt. 56 will be closed every evening at 7:00 p.m. and reopen every morning at 6:00 a.m. Lyn brought to my attention that on Sundays all the sites close at 6:00 so that will be Monday through Saturday from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Sunday to 6:00 p.m. Is that the way you see it? Rt. 655, the Arvonia site and Dillwyn will be closed from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. every day. Rt 655 and Arvonia will continue to be closed all day on Thursday. The one we didn t discuss is Rt. 600 and it has a different schedule than the others ones do. I have provided you all with that. This site is not used that much Lyn has said and Don has observed that too. Do you want it only open when it s manned? Matthews: I agree with that. Carter: So the hours between here will be closed. Ok. I just wanted to get that clarified before we made all the signs. We will get right on that. It might be 30 days before we get all the signs made and notifications up. Also I gave you a copy of this so you will see what s going on at St. Andrews Church Road. We are going to try to monitor all these sites because closing the sites, these sites are probably going to catch it. We are going to try to monitor those as close as we can to see maybe work with law enforcement to watch the sites. Allen: That s about all you can do. They ought to look at hiring enough people keep them open all day instead of closing them down. All this is going to do is get more trash on the sides of the roads or at my dumpster and yall will be complaining about that. Carter: I just wanted confirmation on how to handle Rt Bryan: Do you need a motion? Matthews: So moved. Bryant: I m just throwing this out for your information we should try to alternate the monitors rather than close them. Such as the monitors open up and stay for a couple hours and then come back in say at 11:00 or something like that. Carter: I think what he s trying to do is because part time we can only work them 29 hours a week and he s trying to have someone that can open up and close also. But the hours we are closing is in the middle of the day will be a burden on some people but I think that s why he does that. Bryan: We had talked about that one time in our Utilities Committee meeting and it was because of the hours, trying to juggle the hours of the people. Certainly you don t want to come in for an hour and then go home and it just fell into his schedule of people of when they rotate. 247

9 Dunnavant: Would we want to do this on a 6 month trial basis and see what kind of results Lyn gets from that? Bryan: We can try anything. I definitely support that. I don t say put a time line on it because we can always undo what we ve done. Dunnavant: Yeah, we can undo it at any time. Bryan: But don t handcuff our self to say in 6 months because it may be in 3 months that we don t want to do it. Carter: I really don t need a motion, I just want to confirm the hours so that I get it right. Chambers: I didn t understand what Brother Bryant was saying. What were you saying? Bryant: If you can alternate the time that the monitors are there. You don t have to give them extra hours. You know, you can get them to come in to open and leave in a couple hours and instead of having them come back at 2 have them come back at 12. Two hours in the morning so if they come back at 12 they can still work to closing. Jones: It really won t make any difference if when the people that are monitoring the site leave, they lock the gate then they can t put anything in there until the monitors come back. So I don t see where that is a problem. Allen: He s talking about leaving it open all the time. Jones: It s not going to work. When the monitors leave for 2 or 3 hours. It won t work. I can tell you. Matthews: The only thing to do is hire another part time person and let them rotate the lunch hours. Dunnavant: How much does the solid waste monitor cost us? Carter: About $11 an hour. We don t pay retirement or health insurance on them. Dunnavant: So you are looking at about $23,000 a year? Allen: How much money are you counting on saving by closing these times? Carter: That question I read in the newspaper where we are bringing in $100,000 of outside trash. We don t know. We have no way of knowing. We don t know that it s local or what. When they leave the sites, we know trash comes in there but we don t know if it s local or what. We guess. But the only way I can think of to see the difference is if you close all unmanned sites 248

10 and only have open manned sites. Then you can compare your costs but I don t think it will be $100,000. Matthews: If you hire someone to rotate around these sites at about is it $30,000 a year? Carter: It will be about $23,000. Matthews: If they were there during the period of time when the people are coming and you save that $100,000 you still have a surplus of $77,000. Carter: If you having the three hours a day for three sites, 655, Dillwyn and Arvonia so that s going to be 9 hours a day so you will have to have two to fill in that gap. You won t have any at 56. Bryan: You can always have the utilities committee take a look at it again. We have cameras up at 56. Dunnavant: From what I understand we don t get a lot of contraband materials at 56 right now. Most of the contraband comes to the other sites when the monitors are not there and naturally the unmanned sites which is part of the trash business. Carter: However I asked for a report for the last six months on 56 since we had the cameras there and almost every month the waste costs went up. More trash is coming in there. I don t have an answer because our costs are going up and we have more trash. Where it s coming from I don t know. Bryan: Our population is not increasing. Bryant: My question is, if the doors are locked and people bring trash there, what do you think they are going to do with it? Are they going to carry it back home or leave it at the gate? Carter: We ve had them leave it at the gate before. Bryant: Most likely leave it at the gate. They are not going to carry it back home. Bryan: If they know the hours, then maybe they won t carry it at all until the hours they are there. Those that are going to do harm are going to do harm if they had a dumpster in their front yard. They will be trifling enough not to put it in there. Bryant: Absolutely. Jones: We need to make sure that we give them fair notice, 30 days, 60 days of when it will take place and I don t think you will have a problem. 249

11 Carter: That s why I wanted to confirm the hours because I want to put the hours on the notice so they will be notified and know the hours. We had a lot of trouble when we started closing Dillwyn at 6:00 on Sunday. We had a lot but soon they got adjusted and got used to it. Bryan: Would you guys be in agreement to say effective June 1 st these hours go into effect? That gives, 31, 39, a month in a half, almost. Jones: You will need big signs at each one of them. When we started it in Arvonia, closing one day a week. We had the notice up for 2 months and then I got a call from a lady that goes by there every day and said she wouldn t have a problem if we just notified her of when we were going to do it. The notice had been there for 60 days. She did go look at it and see. Bryan: We can post it at the sites, on our websites and Jordan will post an article in the paper. Bryant: People won t read it. Jones: A lot of them don t read it. Bryant: That s what I m trying to say. Carter: Did yall vote on this at the last meeting or was it the consensus? Chambers: I thought it was the consensus of the Board to do it. Bryan: Did we? Lann: There was motion and a second but the vote didn t happen. Dunnavant: I think it boiled down to a consensus. Carter: I think with something like this, we are going to get a lot of calls and yall are going to get a lot of calls, we need a record. Bryan: I move that as we stated tonight, effective June 1. Matthews: Second. Jones: We have a motion and a second that we start this June 1sts. Any discussion? Allen: So you are closing them when they are gone to lunch? Carter: We ve had a complaint that they are taking 3 hour lunch. It s not their lunch. It s a break in schedule. They are not taking 3 hour lunches. Bryan: It s a break to transfer employees. 250

12 Jones: Call for the vote. 1 no, 6 yes. Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Matthews seconded to close and lock the gates at the Arvonia, Dillwyn, Rt. 655, Rt. 600 site when the monitors are not there. Close and lock Rt. 56 at night effective June 1, This motion passed with a 6-1 vote. Supervisor Allen opposing. Re: County Attorney Matters Wright: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I have one short matter. The other night when you were doing claims, you pulled one out for review. That s been looked at. It is a regular claim in the course of business and some reimbursement is being sought. It would be my recommendation based on the reading of the Code that you go ahead and authorize the payment. Chambers: So moved. Bryan: Second. Jones: Any discussion? Call for the vote. Unanimous. Supervisor Chambers moved, Supervisor Bryan seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to authorize the release of the claim that was pulled out for review at the April 17, 2017 meeting. Jones: Anything else to be brought before this Board? I would like to make one statement before we adjourn to the fire department. Because I voted no, doesn t mean that I don t think that you should have that $200,000. I do think you need it. What I can t see tying us down to something that might happen different later. That s why I voted like I did. There being no further business to discuss, Chairman Jones declared the meeting adjourned. ATTEST: Rebecca S. Carter County Administrator Robert C. Jones Chairman 251