- committee. Um, so let's, uh, roll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm here. Sorry. Yeah. All our
- present with two in the room and commissioner material virtual. All right.
- And of course, we have Tom Glass, an executive director, and we have John Arnold, controller in the
- room. And do we have any staff online? Looks like. Jacob is a CAC member. Welcome. All righty. Approval
- of executive committee meeting minutes June 2nd. Any comments or corrections?
- that we approve them. We've got a motion for approval. Do we have a second? I second. I just have one
- question on these. Under all other items deemed appropriate, we talked about, we spent a lot of time
- talking about the compactors. And I think the conclusion that we reached was that staff would get quotes
- on service agreements
- that would go with the purchase of new compactors so it can better weigh the costs between leasing and
- buying. Should that be in the minutes? Is it important? It's just kind of, that's where we stood, so
- it might be good to add that. I don't know. If that's the committee's call, we can certainly amend those
- in if that's the wish of the committee. What do y'all think? I'm reading, it's right here.
- And you're saying that to add more detail? Well, to add what our conclusion was. I see. I think, I mean,
- that would be fine. Yeah. I mean, I think if it's something that we said and that I do remember. I listened
- to it. I listened to it again. OK. I'm like, if you remember, he's better than I do. Yeah, I have no
- problem adding that. So I can send you that text? Sure.
- Sure, that's fine. So I propose to add at the end of that second paragraph under all other items, there
- was general consensus that staff would get quotes on service agreements that would go with the purchase
- of new contactors so that we can better weigh the cost between leasing and buying. So, Tom, does that
- meet your recollection?
- I mean, I did listen to it again, because I was like, OK, what was our conclusion? You would want to
- add that as the last sentence of that term. Yeah. OK, yes. So I'd like to amend my motion. Do we have
- a second? I second. All right.
- Mr. Mclasen, could you please call the roll? Wilkes? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Madera? Yes. Motion passes
- unanimously. Does Commissioner Madera need to be on camera to vote? Oh, yes. That is in the statute.
- Commissioner Madera, can you? OK. If you could repeat your vote. Yes.
- Thank you. Thank you. OK, any comments or questions about the board of director meeting minutes that
- will be handed on to the full board? So I have to say that I was not there. It says I was there virtually,
- but I was not. Were you at the previous one virtually? Probably.
- Leftover text. You might want to double check whether Lee was there. As well. Do you remember if Lee
- was there virtually? I do not, I will double check. I remember that she was. But I will confirm the
- attendance before we put the meeting packet together. Awesome. Any other comments on those minutes?
- Okay. Next item on the agenda is Resolution 20-26-07 to amend the district fee resolution. We keep hearing
- about this. It's a long process. We first discussed this a couple of meetings ago here. The June board
- meeting was subsequently canceled. So it was introduced at the July board meeting.
- You can see behind the memo on page 10 of the packet is the affidavit that it was published in the H.T.
- on July 29th that meets the unnoticed requirements for public hearing and but assuming no objections
- from the committee would have the public hearing on the agenda for the board meeting prior to the discussion
- and vote on the resolution.
- which I believe is exactly we did it the last time we amended the fee resolution. Yep. And the board
- already talked about what the fee changes were last time. Yes. And then for the record, the public hearing
- notice has been on the district's website. I think it's been announced since July 9th.
- really adequately noticed and are well in compliance with the statute for public hearing notice. I think
- there's one typo in the resolution itself. On the fourth whereas clause, it lists all these resolutions
- that have been passed to revise the fee resolution. And one of them says resolution 200-15. I think
- that should be 2000.
- I think so. That title's been in there a lot. Yeah. Maybe five, six years. Eventually we'll catch these
- things. We will get that. I will confirm the resolution number and get that corrected. Okay.
- I think we need to vote on this. Are there any other questions? Comments? So we can move on to Resolution
- 20-26-08 for a public utility easement. Another one that's been around for a little while. So did have
- last week did have some email correspondence with parties involved and was advised that the utility
- service provider has completed
- necessary easement documents and forward them to the National Guard for review. The hope and anticipation
- is that we will have those finalized documents in our possession prior to the end of the week when the
- meeting packet would go out. So I think the caveat is in the memo that requests that this be placed
- on the agenda pending receipt of those documents and if not we'll pull it and shoot for next month.
- Sounds great. Let's get this wrapped up. So hopefully we'll have that documentation. Any comments or
- questions on that item? Not for me. All right. Moving right along to resolution 202609, revise internal
- control policies.
- Uh, yeah, as indicated in the memo, this is, uh, came up with, um, I get a couple of board meetings
- ago. Maybe it wasn't July meeting. Yeah. Cause the June meeting was canceled, but we had the, uh, the
- HHW vendor claim, uh, for 88, $1,000. That was an ACH claim and our internal controls did not address
- electronic payments in excess of $50,000, but do put a cap on
- staff's ability to sign checks. At $50,000, staff interpreted that the same limitation would apply to
- an HCH transaction. So we were asked to revise the internal controls to address that. So we did that.
- And you can see the bullet points in the memo in addition to that. So in reference to, we do accept
- money orders for payment, specifically from a lot of the orange bag vendors.
- I did try to do some clarification on how AP claims on the approved vendor list are processed and approved
- with respect to Resolution 2022-02. And then also since we were providing a mechanism for staff to
- execute an ACH payment in excess of $50,000. I thought it might be appropriate to provide a mechanism
- to provide staff approval to sign a check in excess of $50,000. So that is in there, and we can go through
- that. Indeed, it does require written approval from the board chair or their designee, but in the event,
- I know that our bond payment is coming to an end, but in the event that we do have
- something that needs to get paid in excess of $50,000 and people are out of town or, you know, there's
- just conflicts and getting it together and we need to get something signed and that we could do written
- approval via email or something so that the control of the genre owner could sign that check and get
- payment made if we need to. Did you say this was reviewed by our legal counsel? Yes. Okay. Didn't know that.
- legal status of an e-mail if that was sufficient. Well I guess we didn't we did not I guess specifically
- discuss that it just says written approval and what qualifies as written approval was not discussed.
- I can certainly pose that direct question before we put this to the board. I think we want to make sure
- that e-mail is acceptable else. Is it writing a letter. Yeah I assume that it is but.
- assuming is probably not the best approach. If you bear with me a minute, I'm going to... Are you going
- to email it? No, I'm going to refer to how the claims, the weekly claims not covered under resolution
- 2022-02 get approved.
- So it must be approved in writing by the board to pursue. And we have historically done that via email
- and that's never been called into question. Yeah. Just if you could just make sure we can do that. Any
- other comments or questions on the revised internal control document?
- I do not, thank you. Neither. So I have a couple. Yay. Thank you for that. Some people may say boo.
- No, I like it. So I was just wondering, so in that section under account accounts payable claims where
- you cite resolution 20202.
- Can we append that resolution to this document so that somebody wouldn't have to like go to a totally
- different place to look that up? I don't see why not. I think that would be convenient. I mean,
- we could just... The first reference to 2020-02 is we could just print the seed index A and attach it.
- That's great. I think that that would be helpful.
- And then, let's see, my other question, so if I go down, and this wasn't revised at all, this is just
- an overall question I have, with the accounts payable claims process, and there are all these, you know,
- 12 steps or whatever, it talks about the invoices being,
- in hard copy, right? Because it says, shall be stamped with the date received and forwarded to the office
- manager or controller for claim preparation. But I imagine you get invoices electronically. So do you
- print those out, or how does that work? Yeah, we will print those out. And then depending on exactly
- how they are received, I mean, if they're received in the text of an email, they'll be dated in timestamp
- when you print that email out. If they're attached as a PDF,
- we would print the PDF and then put and stamp received on it. Okay. That's a lot of paper. Yeah. Well,
- is that required for auditing purposes? We have to have all of that copy. There are, I will, I will
- say that the LGF is starting to make some changes that
- with things being regularly uploaded into Gateway. It appears they are setting themselves up to move
- away from having to have those hard copies available for an audit, which might alleviate some of the
- need to print everything. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember the promise of
- a paperless office.
- I used to do tech support for a hospital chain in Oklahoma City and we had a tech guy that was adamant
- that the hospitals could all go paperless. That doesn't work that way. So are we okay to pending making
- sure that emails count as written communication are we okay to send this to the board.
- as well. Okay, thank you. Then we can move on to the budgets. So you had some relatively good news from
- the LGF. Yeah, I think this tends to happen about every year. The first go around, I get pretty conservative
- with my tax estimates and we don't get a windfall, but we generally get
- wind up with a few thousand dollars more in tax revenue after the DLGF workshop. And then again, that
- happened again this year. You can see a little over 10,000 of additional tax revenue estimated by DLGF.
- You can also see then in the tax for the revenue, we also did increase OCC cardboard recycling revenue
- by 3,000 after we got the rebate for June.
- The year-to-date figure bumped up significantly when we did that. So based on what was presented in
- July, we have an additional just over $13,000 in revenue. So that's good news. Conversely, I spent it.
- Wow, that was fast.
- So you'll see a little over a $13,000 increase in expenses from what was presented in July and I will
- say that a good chunk of that actually went into training and education for you know employee continuing
- ed and training and then about then travel expenses which would be related to getting employees to and from
- the trainings when we identify them. But I did try to, as you go through the memo, identify where there
- were differences from what was presented in July 9th. I think the other big difference was in vehicle
- repair and maintenance. Talked with Van Horn Tinting and
- We've, if you recall, we had $50,000 appropriated this year to get a new administrative vehicle. And
- something I was gonna talk about during the other items. We'll go ahead and do it now. So hybrid vehicles
- that would suit our needs are hard to come by, but we did work with Royal Toyota South
- Toyota Sienna is about the only hybrid minivan that is available on the market. So we've moved forward
- with getting one ordered through them. And the $5,000 is to put a wrap on that. So instead of hanging
- it, we'll put a vehicle wrap on it that will have graphics on our logo, and we haven't designed it yet.
- kind of talked with them more about what the vehicle and what we'd be looking to doing. And they said
- that $5,000 would be sufficient to do whatever we wanted to do there. So that's that increase in the
- budget. Back to the van. So you're going to see at the board meeting a claim for $1,000 to Royal Toyota.
- That is the deposit on the vehicle that is coming.
- They're not on the lot. They're not on the lots anywhere. They are sold before they get to the lot.
- So we have one order. It's a hybrid. It's a hybrid. And probably looking at end of October, beginning
- of November on delivery on that. Yeah. That seems to be a thing. I recently looked at Toyota's.
- and specifically Toyota's are not. They don't have a large inventory. They are in demand. They're sold
- before they get to the lot. Even things like the hybrid Camry's in the spot. They've got to wait six
- weeks to get delivery. Popular cars. Yeah. That's what I drive, so. Yeah.
- But anyway, I think those are the, I mean, there's some other smaller ones, but the big, the training
- and education and vehicle repair and maintenance are the two big increases. And fuel, right? Fuel went
- up like a thousand, and that was more of a cushion than a necessity. We already had that bumped up some
- in the July, because I think we all know that gas costs a little more. It's a yo-yo.
- All right. Thank you for the memo which tells us what changed. It's a lot and I appreciate it. I guess,
- yeah, we don't so something left to decrease. I got to look at the math on that because we are in the
- capital. We also had
- $12,000 increase from July. But then that's, that's for, we already had a big bump there. We talked
- about purchasing the new roll off containers. So that, to check the math on that, but everything seems
- to balance. But that's. Yeah, that's $12,000. So it must have been a decrease somewhere. Yeah.
- So that, but that's, that would, you know, that would be one more roll off box than we were planning
- on buying, compact or buy. Okay. Well, if you can find that decrease and add it to the memo from the
- board, that'd be good. Yeah. It may be multiple decreases of a thousand or 2000 that added up to that
- difference. Okay.
- questions or comments on the revised budget proposal. That's the operating operating. Yeah, so then
- that's resolution 2026-10 and you have that resolution and all the supporting documentation in the packet.
- Then 2026-11 is the debt service budget for the final payment. Yes.
- against but we'll pop apple juice because we can't pop champagne in the government. But then I and I
- just on page 50 in the packet is kind of the summary of the debt service budget proposal. I just I did
- want to confirm that that kind of makes sense to everybody. We've kind of been talking about this the
- last couple of budget cycles but we're going to have to be loaning money.
- because of the way the tax disbursements come versus when the payments are made. So based on that workshop
- at DLGF we're looking at an $89,360 balance on December 31st after we pay back the existing temporary
- loan. So that means we'll have to in January loan $47,875 to the debt service fund for that February payment.
- which should also leave the $750 for the administrative fee. Not sure when that will come due. They
- usually do that in the fall. That's when we have two payments a year. So it wouldn't surprise me to
- see it come in March, April timeframe, because we've made the last payment. And everybody will be closing
- out the bond on their books. But that loan should cover all of that.
- Based on calculations from DLGF, the tax disbursements in June and December, we'll balance the fund.
- What is the $24,000 loan repayment account? We had to loan $24,000 to make the payment, the August payment.
- For this year? Yeah, for the payment that was approved at the last board meeting. Because revenue comes
- in December.
- Okay, so that was the same reasons. Right. Yeah, that's what I think we were going back a couple of
- budget cycles. We said that for the last three, maybe four payments, the operating fund was going to
- have to loan money to the debt service fund because the tax disbursements, in essence, are in arrears.
- As long as it's got enough money to make the loan, then time's fine.
- Well, the payment will be made regardless of how much the tax disbursement is. And we will figure out
- how to reconcile any discrepancies when all is said and done. We will not default on final payment.
- And then the QCAT fund resolution 2026-12 obviously substantial decrease in the balance of that because
- we just appropriated money out of it for a roof. But and I did mention at the July board meeting and
- it doesn't have to be right now but you know that fund balance is about a thousand and thirty dollars
- by the end of the year. That's that is the current fund balance but that's what we base budget off of
- by the end of the year.
- it may or may not be a little more, I don't know if we'll get any interest on it with that level of
- balance or not. But so I think, but I think given that the board needs to consider, do we want to make
- an attempt to refund that capital fund or do we want to close that out and revert that money back to
- the cash reserves? The statute,
- You know, we'll see what happens with revenues, with all the changes to the tax laws and stuff. The
- statute does allow for units to budget. It's maybe 3%, 5% max of the budget can be appropriated to be
- transferred to a cumulative capital fund on a manual basis. What's the benefit of doing that? Well,
- since it's hard to budget,
- million dollars in one year if you have a project coming up and you want to build a fund so that when
- you're ready to purchase land or build a building you have that cumulative capital fund that you can
- do that with. But the interest earned is not more in a QCAT fund than in our operating fund, right?
- Correct. Now there I would need to check there might be investment options similar
- to operating cash reserves that we could do with Kim Cat Fund which might present opportunities for
- a higher interest yield. But I would want to check the statutes to see what options and or limits there
- are on what can be done investment-wise with cumulative capital funds.
- At what point should we make that decision? I mean, if we want to replenish some of the QMCAF fund,
- we could do that with the 27 budget, right? Well, we could. I'd hate to reinvent the wheel with this.
- Plus, what you have... It would be cash balance that we... Well, right. I think we would have the option
- at the end of the year if we have unspent appropriated funds.
- that we could transfer those to the cumulative capital fund. I just went by what I was referring to
- earlier is that you have the ability to actually build that into your budget as well which is something
- for you know for the 20-28 budget if that's what the board wishes to do you know that we could attempt
- to appropriate funds specific for a transfer to the cumulative capital fund so that we don't have to
- worry about trying to have unspent appropriations at the end of the year that could be transferred.
- We could just build it into the budget if the revenues are there to support such an appropriation. But
- we don't have to budget it. No. So it could. So like for 26 we didn't budget any transfer obviously.
- At the end of this year, if the board decides, we don't want to mess with it, let's just close the CUME-CAT
- fund, can we do that at the end of this year? I believe so. Okay. So we should, in the next few months,
- we should. Right, yeah, like I said, it's not a decision that has to be made at the August meeting,
- you know, but it's, you know, $1,000, that's capitalized, that's not going to do anything for you.
- So I think it just makes sense to either make an attempt to replenish the fund or close it down. I think
- having a QMCAT fund is a good idea simply because it it just sets aside mentally money and just having
- it randomly there rather than
- identifying kind of a strategic purpose. And I realize the purpose is for things like a new roof and
- things that come up, but we had been talking about the, for instance, the leasing versus buying
- of containers. If we looked at a cycle for replacement, then we could determine how much we wanted to
- keep putting into. Yeah, now there are, I don't know,
- I would need to look at the statute. There are restrictions on what QCAP funds can be used for. I mean
- land and buildings I know for sure. Equipment I'm not so sure. But I'm not saying you can't.
- I'm just right. I'm not positive on that one. And that's something that I should I will research and
- then the board's ready to have that discussion. We will present that information that you know you know
- here are the allowed uses.
- for Hume Cap funds and you know does it make sense to replenish it or not. I will I will also add that
- the current Hume Cap fund was established under the previous director. The district had a cumulative
- capital fund way back when when it first started and that got closed out. And I don't recall what all
- Larry had to but there were some steps involved to reestablish that fund.
- It wasn't just going to Gateway and say, okay, we're now going to have a QCAT fund and here's the balance.
- Any questions about any of the three funds and the proposed budgets? I wanted to
- add a piece of information that I got by being on the fiscal committee of the city of Bloomington Common
- Council. So we have engaged Reedy Financial for many months to make sense of SEA 1 and House Bill, what?
- 2110 or whatever. 1210. 1210, thank you. And so they've done some analysis
- of the impacts expected from the changes to the property taxes. And I emailed you this a little while
- ago. And so they estimate in 2029 when all of the changes have gone into effect, property tax levy loss
- of $148,970 for the district.
- For 2029? 29. How much? So almost $150,000. $149,970. And it wasn't the additional $19,000 and something.
- Wasn't the total impact $168,000? Yes. Let's see. Right. It's the debt capacity that also
- went down. Oh, okay. That was specific to destiny. So yeah, but and that's, yeah, I did see that and
- I appreciate that. Although I was a little confused at first because it started off all talking about
- lit. Yeah, I know. But the spreadsheet had a lot. But 150,000 is in line with, you know, I guess what
- I would have been projecting based on
- the increase to the cap impact for 26, and then the additional, what it went up for 27, looking into
- 28 or 29, getting into that $150,000 range, that is in line. And so, you know, the true fiscal impact
- of it hinges on the growth quotient. Yeah. Yeah, there are assumptions that went into this estimate.
- 4%. Right. And that's, you know, for 27, and I'm curious to see if this is addressed in the next legislative
- session, because for 27, we got a 6% growth quotient, because I don't know if it was intentional, but
- the growth quotient cap that expired in 26 was not extended when they did Senate Enrollment Act 1.
- So, you know, are we going to continue to get, not that it will be, you know, millions and millions
- of dollars, but, you know, an unlimited growth budget? Will it be a true reflection of what the actual
- assessed growth is? Or are they going to implement another cap? When did they start implementing caps?
- I don't know.
- It's been it's been on the books since I became director 10 years ago. So. Something I've always had
- to deal with as director. And this year there were no camps. And so it's purely based on the. I guess
- that depends on whose index you want to look at. I think there were some indexes that were pushing 9 percent.
- that I saw, but I don't know what, those necessarily weren't the state's numbers. But yeah, so that's,
- you know, it was nice to get that this year, obviously, particularly with the additional cap impact,
- but I'm not going to hold my breath that we're going to be in the same boat next budget cycle.
- It may have just been an oversight with all the other changes happening, but oops, we forgot to extend
- the cat. And so, yeah, and so, you know, all that's going to play into the, you know, the true fiscal
- impact of that cat hit going up to 150, $160,000. Yeah.
- least with this unit of government, we don't have to deal with all of the changes. You're right. I'm
- very thankful that I think that regardless of what happens, we're in a strong enough financial position
- with cash reserves that we don't have to have a knee-jerk reaction to a substantial. Obviously, we can't absorb
- $150,000 annual hit forever. But we don't have to turn right around and stop the program because we
- lost $150,000. We have enough money to have time to plan for how to best address this and minimize the
- impact on the residents. Yeah.
- Other questions or comments on the budget proposals? So many, but none that can be answered. Same here.
- I may be absent for the board meeting then. Are your comments? Wise choice. 100 gallons. Existential
- kind of. OK.
- I have plenty of questions about the city of Bloomington budget. This one I'm feeling pretty good about.
- Yeah. And I will also throw out, and I don't know if Kate or Jodi can or want to weigh in, our operating
- budget does have a 3.5% cost of living increase in it. That is based on the wage earner index that we
- have historically used.
- The last I got from the county council office, which was probably at least a month ago at this point,
- was that the county was not looking at any cost of living increase. And I don't know where that sits
- now. I know that if our COLA is significantly different than the counties, that raises
- when we go before the county council for the adoption, it can sometimes raise questions with the county
- representatives on our board. So it's in there. And I think it's justified. I mean, the budget in essence
- is balanced. I think we're at an $8 deficit. It's justified based on how we have historically
- determined what that would be. But obviously, the board at the August meeting, and for that matter,
- the county council at the adoption hearing do have the authority to change that. What's the historical
- trend? What have you done in the past? And specifically, the reason I'm asking is
- the county gave a huge COLA just a couple of years ago. Well, yeah. I think the year before that, that
- was all COVID impact stuff, we gave a huge COLA. That came up during the adoption hearings and over
- the two or three-year span through and coming out of COVID, the COLA is balanced out between what we
- gave and what the county gave.
- So it's not that they're the same every year. But, you know, they're generally, I guess, other than
- the COVID period, you know, we're generally pretty close. Well, we alternate years between the dollar
- amount and the percentage. Yeah, across the board percentage and then a flat dollar amount based on
- medium wages. Do you know,
- where the negotiation stand with. Well, it's, um, so it's not really a negotiation. It's something that,
- yeah, I don't. Um, I know that the recommendation from the commissioners was for 6% and the directive
- from council president was zero. It will be somewhere.
- In between. In between zero and six. OK. So yeah, and that's one of the other, I do the best I can to
- take our index and what information that I have from the county and try to put us there where we're
- going to be on par. But we do think so much earlier than the county that it's hard to do that. And I
- think other than those two years with COVID,
- We've always managed to be pretty close, so. I think that we might have a better idea. Well,
- I don't know. We have some work we have to do around our own budgeting. But I think the idea is to keep
- all the calculations at zero and see what happens and what we can do.
- Well, and obviously the bottom line for all of us is, you know, the budget can absorb what it can absorb.
- You have to keep things running and those expenses have to be assured. Well, I mean, it's also a matter
- of priorities, right? If you say,
- priority is going to be to make sure that our employees don't, in the economic context, make less next
- year than they do this year. That could be put in like the base, the minimum, and then you could go
- from there and say, okay, well, this means we have to cut this or cut that. Non-personal. I'm just saying
- it's a philosophical.
- And I will say too, and I think that, you know, you can see when you look at the budget comparison sheets,
- on the expense side in particular, that, you know, when we, you know, going back to last year, you know,
- I was pushing on staff, you know, not knowing, I did not know that the impact, the circuit breaker cap
- didn't get continued. I was on then. We're going to have to find ways to cut money. You know, we've
- got to be doing and I think that you can see when you look at that summary sheet and what some of our
- year-to-date expenses are and and you know there's there's like a hauling line came down significantly.
- You know so so we already had already had staff looking at ways you know that we could reduce expenses without
- compromising services and we've done some of that and that's helped us be in a position to be able to
- put that COLA increase in there for the employees. Yeah. We have that same discussion more broadly for
- the whole county and one thing that we bump up against is there aren't very many
- things that the county does that aren't statutorily required. We just don't really have a lot of,
- I mean, we have some things like, you know, we'll bond for some things that could be put off.
- But a lot, you know, we're trying to be very judicious about those choices and have been for
- a little while, um, seeing this coming change on how we're doing things. Yeah, you're right.
- You're right. And one thing that, that we've also talked about is it was several years ago, you probably
- know the county did a lot of changing people from 40 hours to 35 hours work week, just to keep people
- rather than
- And then they did that without changing the wages. Correct. Yes. No, without changing the wages. Yeah.
- So anyway, lots of variables. Yeah. Yeah. And there's certainly been, over the years, some creative
- ways to deal with that and manage how it impacts the employees.
- To put that out there, and I don't know if it'll become an issue at our board meeting, and I don't know
- if it'll become a question or an issue with the council adoption hearings, but. What can the county
- council do as far as, can they cut the budget when it comes to them for a specific reason or for specific
- categories? Yeah. I don't have any inkling
- that that would be a red flag. I really don't. But I'm just one person. I think 3.5 is justifiable.
- Like I said, we're using the same CPIW wager or index that we've always used. And that's where it is.
- It was like 3.4, so I just made it 3.5. That was easier to calculate. Oh, wow. But anyway, just to make
- people aware that in case there are questions or issues that arise from that being in there based on
- what the county decides that it can, wants to do, or not do. Yeah, that's a good point.
- Any other comments or questions about the budget proposals? No, I think those issues are all really
- good to discuss. I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, then we can move along to all other items deemed
- appropriate. So who has something? Yes, Mr. McClassen.
- A couple things. Any questions about the van that we're looking at purchasing? I've already put that
- one out there. I have to say I'm a big fan of the idea. Fan of what? Of a hybrid. Yes, I'm a big fan
- of that idea of doing the hybrid. If we're going to reduce waste, we might as well start with the vehicles we drive.
- I agree that that's why we're doing it. I've never bought a car under this process before. I don't like
- not going on a lot in test driving, but oh well. Which vehicle does that replace? It's really not going
- to replace anything immediately. It ultimately is going to replace the butterfly mobile.
- um but um uh you know it's it's the thing is it's 22 years old i know we've talked like many years about
- we talked a few years ago because we had a bad run we had a bad run a few years ago with maintenance
- costs just because you know i don't know if it was because it hit that 20 year mark or whatever but
- a bunch of things went wrong and we fixed those and then quit having problems and
- So, but it also gives us, you know, a vehicle that, you know, it won't be here in time, unfortunately.
- But, you know, like we have the Association of Solid Waste District Conference coming up at the beginning
- of October. We generally send four or five people to that. You know, so instead of everybody taking
- their own car or taking one of the trucks that we have that has a king cab that gets 10 miles to the gallon,
- or whatever it is. This gives us a more economical vehicle to take. It will also allow for outreach
- opportunities that need a bigger display than that element. It's going to have more cargo space. But
- I think the short answer is no.
- declare a vehicle surplus property right away. We'll continue to run that thing till the wheels fall
- off of it. So is the wrap for the truck or for the van going to be as pretty as the butterfly? I don't
- know if it's going to be as elaborate.
- but it'll be more our branding. Yeah, our logo will definitely be in there and be a color scheme that
- matches the colors that are in our logo. We certainly have a website listed on there, some general ideas.
- If Van Horn is who we choose to guide, that was one I knew that did it. So I called them just to say,
- hey, what kind of ballpark, what kind of price do I need to budget to make this happen? But they said
- that they could. And I assume other companies that do this, well, they have graphic designers. And they'll
- take our ideas and throw some options at us. Cool. And then the roof.
- Starts next week. Replacement of the administrative roof. And then the last thing is the September board
- meeting. We have to do this every year because it conflicts with council budget work session. I think
- the past two, maybe three years, we've actually just canceled it. We kind of make an effort
- get business done at the August meeting so that there's nothing pressing that we have to address right
- away. What happens with the utility easement or they've delayed this long if we got an extra month I
- don't know. But at any rate you know we do need to think about and you know do we want to do we want
- to. Is there a need to make an attempt to have a September board meeting and if so we will
- At the very least have to change locations if not find another date and time. I do know that Councilor
- Wilk's schedule based on council meetings and budget work sessions is going to be limited. But the district
- office is always available and we would have the ability to do quite as good as tech services does but
- we would have the ability to do virtual meetings from there.
- this room would work for the board, right? Unless for some reason the public wants to show up. They
- can still come in here. It's cozy. I mean, given how many weeks we have, it's probably. Yeah, but I
- just wanted to put that out there. And it's not necessarily something that has to be decided at the
- board meeting, but I think it needs to be put out there and you can communicate via email.
- you know, as we approach September and decide if there's a need to meet. Yeah, I mean, it all depends
- on whether we have agenda items, whether any of them are urgent. There will always be agenda items.
- It's just a matter of how fast do they need to be added. All right. That was it? Does anybody else have
- any items to bring up?
- So I did want to follow up on that compactor rental versus lease question. Has Joey had a chance to
- get any additional information? I know that he's requested it. He hasn't told me that he's requested
- purchase pricing and asked about service agreement options. I don't know what information he's gotten
- back from people yet. OK. Even he was out last week.
- I know he was reaching out to manufacturers, potential vendors for the equipment well before that. And
- we'll follow up with that. So we may want to have an executive committee meeting even if we don't have
- a board meeting in September or late August. Because I think we do want to make some progress on that.
- Yeah, and I just in that that brought to mind one other other item that. But. Chair Bruce Piedmont Smith
- and I have had some discussions on. We're going to have to discuss the district's health insurance offerings.
- I checked with legal counsel. There was a new. There was a new executive session
- That was allowed for, but it was a, I forget the exact wording was you could have an executive session
- regarding special exceptions to health insurance. The term that the issue that we have or attorney did
- not believe that the special exception definition or lack thereof that there is so. Special exception.
- I told him that he couldn't find it. Good question.
- There's lots of special exceptions for zoning. Yeah. So. Well, I guess it's not talking about any particular
- personnel, right? No, it's not specific. It's not specific to any one individual. It has to do with
- eligibility for coverage. And a change that we're being
- based with the insurance carriers. It's going to impact coverages that we can offer. I see. And that
- is going to have to be done outside of the executive session, unfortunately. Yeah. At what point will
- we have the information on
- how and whether we can still offer coverage to employees that work less than 30 hours. You have it already.
- So maybe that's another topic for the next executive committee meeting. All right. Anything else?
- Um, actually, I just wanted to ask real quickly about the, um, the new program that, um, is collecting
- hard to recycle. Oh, excuse me, hefty renew. Uh-huh. Yeah. Um, have you had much use of that? Uh, some.
- Um, and we didn't necessarily expect, you know, a mad rush of people with, um,
- You know, unfortunately, the bags aren't available locally. You've got to order them, get them delivered.
- But we've had a few people that were holding on to things, hoping they'd find something other than disposable
- to do. We've had, I think, a pretty good response to the social media postings that we put up about
- it. You know, people excited about it. Where do I get the bags?
- So I think it's been received well and people, the word is getting out. What we don't have at this point
- is feedback from Rumpke on, in fact, I don't even know if they pulled a load that would have the bags
- in it yet or not. So I'm wondering about the bags because we have
- purchase them online. Is it even legal to have the district purchase them and then resell them?
- I don't know. I would ask the attorney and then that would also be something we'd have to work out with
- Brump or with Hefty
- or whoever is producing the bag. Amazon sells the bag. Who's Amazon supplier? Because that's who we
- would have to be working with. We can't buy from Amazon and you sell them. We have to be a retailer
- of them. I don't know if we can be a retailer. That would be a legal question. Let me just make sure
- I understand how this works. People have to buy these bags online.
- and they get them at home and then they fill them up and they bring them to the district. And then Romkey
- picks them up. Well, Romkey has us putting them in the bins with all our rigid plastics. And then when
- all the plastics get to Cincinnati, they pull the renew bags out because they run the renew program
- in the Cincinnati area.
- I was wondering why everybody had to have their own bag, but it's because it goes in with the other
- plastics. Yeah, and that bag is to keep them separate. The purpose for piloting it at just one site
- is, are the bags going to survive intact? That's the real question. Because they don't do it this way
- at other places?
- Why is that? Well, they do, but they're transported from the residence to the sorting facility. They're
- not transported from our collection facility to a transfer station, put into another truck, transported
- to Cincinnati, and dumped again. Handled more. Yeah. I've got to get myself some new bags. Because when
- I was in Germany, I was just amazed. They recycle everything, every piece of packaging.
- You just put it in with the recycling, with the plastic. Well, and I noticed that Wild Birds Unlimited
- here in town has a collection of bird seed bags. And I talked to Vintlinger a little bit about this
- program, and he was kind of interested in more information. He would be happy to be a retailer selling
- those bags, but for their own use currently, he will
- because he right now drives them to Cincinnati. Okay, yes. Okay, I think we're almost done. We're just
- talking about the Hefty Renew program.
- I think we're about done. Yeah, I think we're about done. I think we're done. We're good. Thanks, Joey.
- Thank you. Bye-bye. Good night. Good night. I was just watching you answer the phone. I was like, well,
- who's calling her? Right. Must be important.
- Anyway, just, you know. Right. And it's good to know that. And I appreciate that. But I think, you know,
- since we're piloting it right now, I don't want, there's no reason for anybody to make any,
- take any steps, make any effort to be a retailer until we know that this is something that's going to
- continue. Sounds reasonable. All right. If there's nothing else, I think we can adjourn. Thank you.
- Let's do that. Thank you.