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Wednesday, April 8, 2015 – 9:00 a.m.
Courthouse Annex, 79 Jackson Street, Zebulon, Georgia
This meeting was attended by all of the commissioners, County Clerk Jo Ann Wrye to take the minutes, County Manager(CM) John Hanson, and County Attorneys Rob and Tom Morton.
1. CALL TO ORDER....................................................................................Chairman J. Briar Johnson
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 March 31, 2015 Regular Monthly Meeting.
6. INVITED GUESTS
a. Employees to be recognized for their service to Pike County.
Christopher Goodman was recognized for 11 years of service with Pike County Public Works. He received his 10 year Employee Service Certificate and a 10 year service pin.
Jermaine Thornton was recognized for 11 years of service with Pike County Public Works. He received his 10 year Employee Service Certificate and a 10 year service pin.
Jeffery Boatwright was recognized for 11 years of service with the Pike County Sheriff's Office. He received his 10 year Employee Service Certificate and a 10 year service pin.
Melissa Connell was recognized for 26 years of service with the Pike County Tax Assessor's Office. She received her 25 year Employee Service Certificate and a 25 year service pin.
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.
b. County Manager Report
Update on County finances for the following funds/accounts:
General Fund ............................................................................................ $3,366,118.33
Fire Dept. Donations........................................................................................ $1,880.82
Cash Reserve Account................................................................................. $437,135.95
Jail Fund ........................................................................................................ $30,201.47
E-911 Fund .................................................................................................... $25,322.86
DATE Fund ................................................................................................... $34,694.65
Juvenile Court Fund....................................................................................... $16,418.61
Residential Impact Fee ................................................................................ $280,314.69
Commercial Impact Fees ............................................................................... $11,850.92
C.A.I.P FUND............................................................................................... $20,000.46
General Obligation SPLOST Tax Bond Sinking Fund, 2011...................... $264,058.23
L.M.I. Grant (DOT)..................................................................................... $157,763.29
c. County Manager Comments.
It's only been eight days since the last meeting. He said that his office has been working on the budget for the past few months and that he will reserve his comments until that part of the meeting.
d. Commissioner Reports.
District 1 Daniel – none.
District 2 Guy – Other than a few roads calls, everything is running normal.
District 3 Tommy Powers - A few calls on roads.
Chairman Briar Johnson – Congratulated the employees who were recognized today. He also asked CM Hanson if he would like to mention the article in Georgia Trend Magazine. CM Hanson advised that Pike County was recognized in Georgia Trend Magazine because of the work of the IDA to bring notoriety to our area. He said that the writer did a nice job with the article.
e. County Attorney Report to Commissioners.
He said that they have been dealing with the Department of Labor on some labor issues. There were some benefits that were charged to the county that were not applicable including where benefits were given after an employee lost a case.
He also advised that they are working on an RFP (request for proposal) on the ambulance service. They are meeting with the Chief this week and pulling this together.
8. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
a. Approve/deny the 2nd Reading of the Re-Adoption of the Official Zoning Map of Pike County, Georgia.
No changes since last time. Motion to approve. Approved 5-0.
9. NEW BUSINESS
a. County Manager to present the FY 2015/2016 budget to the Pike County Board of Commissioners.
John recognized Ginny Blakeney and Kay Landers for their help with this budget. Trying to be diligent without going to taxpayers for additional funds. He praised all of the department heads for working with him to streamline things. There will be some changes a little because of insurance, etc. We are significantly lower (about $250,000) than last year.
Summary: Contingency $80,000. We haven’t gone into contingency this year except for the trash supplies. Recommending $75,000 this year. $9,164,592 is our budget #. $9,414,171 though $150,000 of last year's budget was taking care of the emergency repairs on the Old Zebulon Road culvert so it was about $9.3 without that expenditure last year.
Road conditions are our major concern. A big part of this budget is roads because we have the paving equipment from the 2011 SPLOST. Looking at calcium chloride, patching and paving, and pulling ditches
Williamson-Zebulon Road is our LMIG project this year. We are putting out an RFP next week for this project. We anticipate this to be a competitive project and hope to have a definitive number before the final budget is approved. We are continuing the Capital Improvements Program to purchase computers, fixtures for specific departments, etc. We are recommending an employee to the Tax Assessor’s Office because they have been down on employees for many years. John said that this would allow them to have a Level 2 appraiser on the road and give them the opportuntity to work on commercial and they haven’t been able to do that for years. Recommendation to add a part-time worker to Buildings and Grounds too. This does not increase Brandon’s budget. They are roofing the Animal Control building and cleaning county buildings. Change to part-time worker between animal control and Planning and Development. We are getting an onslaught of calls for animal control but need David Allen to concentrate on Planning and Development so the animal control officer spot will become full-time with some of that time still spent at Planning and Development.
Recommendation for a 3 percent increase for employees. We would still be under the amount of tax that we asked for last year and under the expenditure. They hadn’t had a raise in 8 years before their 2 percent raise last year. This can be discussed more at a later meeting to show the numbers. (This will not include the Commissioners, County Manager, Constitutional Officers, or other elected officials.)
We had a probationer yesterday that helped with weed eating and picking up trash yesterday.
May 13th is the first reading on the budget. Click here to read through the budget.
Working to get the final health insurance numbers. We are on track for about a 7.5% increase, but John got with Matt Bidwell about insurance for options. Our best option is likely if we change the deductible to $1500 from $1000. We can offer employees the option to choose between the two deductibles and that will help us go from a $44,000 to $48,000 increase on insurance to a 1.3% increase or $9,500 to the county. Couldn’t count pharmaceuticals before and now you can. There will be an buy back so employees can keep the deductible the same.
We are putting out an RFP on ambulance service. We still have the current number plugged into the budget and figure that it will be that amount or less.
Our numbers are coming down from the Tax Commissioner’s office with the way that we pay for car tags, etc. now. The true up is helping but the numbers are coming down and that directly affects our tax digest.
County Attorney Rob – The CM and staff put in a lot of work including meeting with everyone. He suggests that the commissioners go ahead and ask questions long before the deadlines and not wait until the last minute to adopt this budget.
Tom said that he has been dealing with budgets since 1962 and this is one of the most comprehensive and detailed budgets in years. He has never seen anyone go into such detail in the short amount of time that he has been here in Pike County. His recommendation on employee increases hasn’t happened before and he is impressed overall with the handling of the budget.
Tim Guy commended them for the long hours that have been put into this budget.
Motion to accept the presentation of the budget today. Approved 5-0.
10. PUBLIC COMMENT- (Limited to 5 minutes per person) - None
11. EXECUTIVE SESSION - None
12. ADJOURNMENT: 9:39 a.m.
Agenda subject to revision
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