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Tuesday, April 28, 2015 – 6:30 p.m.
Courthouse Annex, 79 Jackson Street, Zebulon, Georgia
1. CALL TO ORDER....................................................................................Chairman J. Briar Johnson
All five commissioners are here tonight as well as County Clerk Jo Ann Wrye to take the minutes, County Manager (CM) John Hanson, and County Attorney Rob Morton. There is a fairly full house as well. Assistant Scout Master of Troop of Troop 37 Eddie Boronkas, Joshua Boronkas, John Sulewski, Nathan Brumbeloe, and Assistant Scout Master Chad Lynch were at the meeting tonight as part of the requirements to fulfill their Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge. They get to pick the pros and cons of one topic from the meeting and discuss it as well as doing 8 hours of community service.
2. INVOCATION……………………………………………………………………………Ben Maxedon
3. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE...................................................................Chairman J. Briar Johnson
4. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA - (O.C.G A. § 50-14-1 (e) (1))
5. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES - (O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1(e) (2))
a. Minutes of the April 8, 2015 Regular Monthly Meeting.
6. INVITED GUESTS
a. Matt Bidwell from MSI to discuss renewal of employee health insurance.
Matt Bidwell spoke about insurance for the county to the commissioners. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBS) initially asked for a 7% raise and he advised that they were able to talk them down some. He walked through the past history with BCBS for commissioners. We had a PPO contract before Upson Regional joined BCBS but now we can go with Point of Service (POS) network which was a 13% decrease with no benefit change to the employees. This year will be an extra cost of $734,000 with a 7% increase overall. There will be an employee increase in this, but there is almost a $43,000 increase if we stay with BCBS and stay with the one plan that we have. One of the options is to keep this plan in place but also provide an additional plan with a $1,500 deductible instead of the $1,000 deductible. The county could go with the $1,500 deductible and let the employees pay extra for the $1,000 deductible. [Note from the Editor: He pointed out that we are in the world of mandatory government healthcare now where there are a lot of benefits but these benefits are NOT free. And there is an embedded tax in the county's insurance with 4.67% of this increase going to the federal government. I could go on here, but I won’t since we are reaping and sowing all that FREE stuff that we were promised… and should have known was too good to be true in the first place.]
There is a 2nd increase in 6 years with the dental plan with BCBS Dental, but they are recommending that the county stay with BCBS. There is a telemedicine provider in the BCBS network. [Note from the Editor: BCBS justifies telephone medicine by saying that an emergency room visit for something small is $800 versus $200 for urgent care (or how about going to a regular doctor?!) but telephone medicine will only cost $25 because the employee will download the app and talk to a doctor through an app on their phone. Convenience and saving money together smells like the way of insurance now that we have government healthcare. It sounds good when you talk about the money end of things, but there are always unintended consequences to be dealt with.] There was discussion about biometrics where people can get a screening for potential problems as a prevention measure. The county doesn’t get any of the personal information but will get a general overview of entire process after it is complete. This could help people know whether they are at risk for problems like diabetes or high blood pressure, etc. [Note from the Editor: I think that there will be a reward for employees and the county for doing this too.]
This is a July 1 renewal for insurance so the county needs to ok this by the May 13 meeting. CM Hanson’s recommendation is for the two plans with employees being signed up for the $1,500 option with the choice to pay a little extra for the $1,000 deductible. The commissioners want to study this and make a decision in the May 13th morning meeting.
7. REPORTS FROM COMMISSIONS, DEPARTMENTS, COMMITTEES, AUTHORITIES
a. Monthly Reports submitted from County Departments and County Authorities, including a Revenue/Expenditure Statement for all departments, and a summary check register. There are no Department reports as they will be provided during the first Board meeting of May. Revenue/Expenditure Statement and Detail Check Register is included.
b. County Manager Report
▫ Update on County finances for the following funds/accounts:
General Fund ............................................................................................ $3,305,606.83
Fire Dept. Donations........................................................................................ $1,880.86
Cash Reserve Account................................................................................. $437,151.86
Jail Fund ........................................................................................................ $21,399.04
E-911 Fund .................................................................................................... $16,091.84
DATE Fund ................................................................................................... $34,697.42
Juvenile Court Fund....................................................................................... $16,884.19
Residential Impact Fee ................................................................................ $260,950.75
Commercial Impact Fees ............................................................................... $11,851.36
C.A.I.P FUND............................................................................................... $20,001.23
General Obligation SPLOST Tax Bond Sinking Fund, 2011...................... $248,126.23
L.M.I. Grant (DOT)..................................................................................... $157,785.22
c. County Manager Comments.
CM Hanson said that Sonny Gwyn resigned as the Chairman of the Board of Health. He has served for a little over 40 years. He said that it has been a pleasure to serve and looks forward to retirement.
There has been work on Hollonville Road. This should be done and striped shortly.
There are a lot of repairs on our roads and we should be seeing the results of new county equipment soon. Cook Road is being worked on now. There will be ditching projects ongoing come this summer.
d. Commissioner Reports.
Commissioner Daniel said that he has had lots of road calls because of the rain. A lot of calls about Hollonville Road and why tearing up what was just fixed. He went out and saw why they were doing what they are doing.
Commissioner Guy said that he has had some calls on Cook Road and explained that the weather is holding us up. He commends the Road Department for the work done through this weather.
Commissioner Powers said that he has had a lot of calls about roads and know that they are doing all that they can and explained that to people who have called. There is a call about McKinley too so he’s gotten calls about dirt and pavement.
Commissioner Jenkins commented on ACCG training and said that after sitting in a room with 40 or 50 people from other counties, he is proud to be from Pike County because we don’t have the problems that many others have.
Chairman Johnson recognized the Boy Scouts in our meeting who are earning their Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge. They get to pick the pros and cons of one topic from the meeting and discuss it as well as doing 8 hours of service.
e. County Attorney Report to Commissioners.
Rob Morton said that we don’t have a whole lot of litigation going on. He commended Planning and Development Director David Allen for the work done by him and his staff with code issues. He said that we end up in court on code issues as a last resort because of their working with the citizens as much as possible.
8. UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None
9. NEW BUSINESS
a. PUBLIC HEARING: To receive public input on SE-15-04 – The Pike County Agribusiness Authority, property owner and applicant, is requesting a special exception in an A-R zoned district to allow for eight recreational vehicle parking pads (with utility hookups) at the Chestnut Oak Center for overnight stay during scheduled events there. The subject property, located on Sandefur Road, currently has approximately 775 feet of frontage along the eastern side of Sandefur Road. The property is located in Land Lot 203 of the 8th District of Pike County, Georgia. The property consists of 23.65 acres and is further identified as Tax Map Parcel #083 047.
ACTION: Discuss/Approve/Deny
20 minutes for both sides. This went before the BOA on April 16th. The pads would be on the southern boundary between the arena and the highway. The BOA recommended approval with conditions including Health Department approvals on septic, etc., no dumping of waste or trash, 8 pads only, only used with scheduled events that have been properly registered, no overnight camping, and must leave within 12 hours of each scheduled event.
In Favor:
Ken Gran, Chairman of the Agribusiness Authority, spoke. Research for 8 pads and the amount of waste is ongoing including the use of the well. This is actually downhill from the well but they are checking this anyway. Potable water, sewer and electric are what they have requested. They have bull riding there as well as weddings. Bull riding wanted to have someone there for security purposes.
Opposition: None.
Commissioner discussion. Will they charge extra for this use? This could change because this hasn’t been cleared yet, but there may be a charge to help cover the expense. How will they pay for this? They have applied for two EMC grants that will hopefully cover the costs of this. Will there be individual dump stations or a single dump station? Probably each will have its own sewer hookup like a KOA campground. This will cost $6,200. County Attorney said that AR zoning allows this as an exception, and commissioners are not agreeing to pay for this. He also advised that any uses will be tied to the use of the property and not for anyone passing through.
Motion to approve with conditions. Approved 5-0.
b. Approve/Deny Capital Acquisition EMA Grant Funds.
EMA Director Jimmy Totten spoke with commissioners about this proposal. Every year the state gives $5,300 to the county and the county matches it. If we don’t use it, we have to give it back. We used it for Delta Alert and the EMA Tahoe was purchased with this too. The only way to get an all terrain vehicle is through this. If we have an injured hunter on a back property, we can’t get to them currently. If we have a call during the Concord Jubilee, this will go where ambulances cannot as well as back in the woods. It will be for emergency use by law enforcement, fire, etc. The price includes a trailer. CM Hanson advised that the Fire Chief and Sheriff advised that there is a use for this though it will not be used all of the time. It may not be used for 6 months or it could be used 3 times next week. It was pointed out that there were 2 calls during the Concord Jubilee last year and this would have been of use. County Attorney Rob Morton advised that this was done with the Tahoe. Totten advised that this is currently in the budget. Motion to approve. Approved 5-0.
c. Consider request from the Pike County Arts Council for use of the courthouse grounds on the 2nd Saturday in May, June and July.
The Arts Council has 2nd Saturdays on the Square each year. Motion to approve. Approved 5-0.
d. Representative(s) from the Library Board to address the Board of Commissioners regarding the Library budget.
Manager Rosemary Bunn advised that the county has now given an amended budget to commissioners through CM Hanson. She thanked him for his time to go line by line. The Flint River Regional Library has also gone through the budget. She said that our budget is greatly under funded compared to other comparable libraries though she acknowledged that the county has raised their budget over the past couple of years. She that that the J. Joel Edwards Library is a state library and part of the state system and are obligated to abide by Georgia Public Library standards. Georgialibraries.org has this 18 page document which tells of the requirements that they have to abide by. Click here for easy access. Click here to see the comparison of comparable libraries in our area.
The J. Joel Edwards Library has been making improvements for the past two years, but acquisitions and payroll are the two big items of concern. She said that when she came on board, there were hundreds of books that were old and worn and hundreds of books were there that were not even cataloged. She explained that when people donate items, there is a $4 per item cost to catalog them so this is good but not free. She discussed budgets with similar libraries and they have $15,000 to $32,000 for new acquisitions (books) each year. The library has been told that that 10% of their budget should be used for new acquisitions. In 2011, there were a number of funds from contributions that had been given to the library. The county requested that they spend these funds. There was over $18,000 spent for new computers, $10,000 to $15,000 for new materials spent, and upgrades to the library were supplemented like the extra shelving, phone system upgrades, etc. so they have depleted their account past the suggested contingency level that Flint River Library System suggests.
The Library Board has suggested a change in payroll as well because of the amount of turnover there over the past several months. She said that they need experienced people working there with knowledge of people, with an initiative to work unsupervised and as part of a team, and people who are able to help those who come in and need help with the computers. The Library Board met and decided that they are not offering high enough wages to get and retain labor that can be retained. The people working now are being paid less than those who were working there in 2011. They want to raise the entry level pay for new people, and this amount is comparable with the low end of employee pay with other libraries. She said that this library was not open the minimum number of hours when she began 2 years ago (40 hours was the minimum per week) and are now open 44 hours which meets the requirement. There is 1 full time and 4 part time employees. She asked for 1 more full time employee with benefits to help cover the scheduling of hours there.
The Library Board acknowledged that their budget has been increased but submitted an amended budget based on these items. Our library was compared with Lamar, Butts, and Monroe County Libraries. There are 8 libraries in the Flint River Library System including Spalding and Fayette, but the comparison was not made with the larger libraries—only the smaller libraries like us. The FRRLS suggests a 6 month buffer be kept in the bank. There is $75,000 to $80,000 in their checking accounts as a buffer now. They do receive some donations now with maybe $5,000 that comes in from fines, copy amounts, etc. There are no direct state funds though the state sends some to the region for purchase of the books. However, that only purchases 10 books or so a month and this may not be continued in the upcoming year. They are looking at some grants to help out the library. The library has grown from 98 kids in the Summer Reading Program to over 400, they do story time each month with big participation, and she has done everything possible to save the county money including painting that was done through donated labor and materials, they received a $20,000 landscaping program that cost nothing to the county, and Rosemary renegotiated with the gas company to save $3,000 overall per year and she got $600 back to the county. She said that she is doing all that she can to make sure that the county dollars are well spent.
Chairman Jenkins asked what the bottom number is for part time workers in other libraries. She said that you can shelve books in Griffin and make more than those who are running the front desk and running programs in Pike County. Many are making $8 an hour in entry level and then they go up as they learn to do more work in the library. She said that her workers have to walk through programs to help older people who don’t know how to work computers because many of the state programs are now online only, there are no state tax forms anymore so they have to be printed off of the computer, and many jobs have online job application requirements now. They have even started a basic computer class each month to help the community. [Note from the Editor: I understood this to be a presentation of their amended budget to the commissioners and that this is part of the regular budget process. No decisions have been made yet so look for more about the budget process as time goes on.]
NOTES ON THE UPCOMING BUDGET: The Pike County Board of Commissioners were presented with the recommended Fiscal Year 2015-2016 budget during its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. Public Hearing will be held on May 6, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. The public is invited to participate. Public Hearings will be held for the first reading on May 13, 2015 at 1:00 p.m., second reading on May 19, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. and Final Adoption of the Budget on third reading is scheduled for May 26, 2015 at 5:30 p.m. Copies of the DRAFT FY 2015-2016 Budget are available at the J. Joel Edwards Public Library at 585 Highway 19 South and the Commissioner’s Office at 79 Jackson Street, Zebulon, GA. Click here to view a copy of the current Tax Digest (2014-technically last year's budget) and a 5 Year History of the Levy. Click here to view the County website.
e. Approve/deny surplus items for GovDeals. Items for consideration are as follows:
1977 Chevy C65 Pumper Truck CCE667V132353
2001 Ford Crown Victoria 2FAFP71W61X165836
1984 American LaFrance Century Pumper Truck 1AFAV1180F1A18151
1964 Ford Pumper Truck 275002353000210164
1986 Fire Truck Cab/Chassis 1GDJ7D1B4JV510942
2005 Crown Victoria 2FAFP71W86X117648
2004 Crown Victoria 2FAFP71W15X116470
2004 Crown Victoria 2FAFP71W64X129438
1000 Gallon Duraco Tar Tank Tandem Axle
300 Gallon Duraco Tar Tank Vin 12794 Model 125DJT
2610 Bushog Brand 12 ft. Rotary Mower
Motion to approve. Discussion: There was a staff error and some of them are online now. There are 4 online now that closed yesterday. CM Hanson asked them for authorization to complete the transactions for the four that are online now because they were not supposed to go online until tomorrow. Approved 5-0.
10. PUBLIC COMMENT- (Limited to 5 minutes per person)
a. Steven Godwin to address the Board in regards to Zoning – Sub. Ordinance
This was a citizen comment on the Subdivision Ordinance. He and his partner purchased 25.72 acres of roadside property. He is in business in Pike County with Meriwether Ready Mix and was shocked by the amount of rules that are in place about developing property in the county. The 3 acre minimum requirement, they knew already but he said that cutting up property up to 4 times is allowed and then it becomes a minor subdivision that requires engineering and retention ponds, etc. There is a 3 year moratorium on cutting up property 5 times too. We are keeping out some progress and growth from Pike County that we need. He asked commissioners to look this over. We need residential and business growth in our county. There are only so many people in this county to pay taxes for roads, etc. He asked the commissioners to look this over because it’s hard on grandmas and grandpas who want to split property for their children and grandchildren.
11. EXECUTIVE SESSION - None
12. ADJOURNMENT
Agenda subject to revision
Motion to adjourn. 7:48 p.m.
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