 We will get started with our discussion items. The first being a municipal election update. Mr. Terry Graham, the interim director of elections for Richland County. Good afternoon. My name is Terry Graham. I'm the interim director of election and registration. We all know we have election coming up, November the 5th. I ask the team we'll open up Monday at 8.30 to 5, October the 7th. We will be open this Saturday. We won't be open for absentee, but we will be open for anybody that's not registered to come out to the office from 9 to 1 to get registered. And we also have, I brought two of my staff members, Jesse Henson and Barry Wells. They're going to give you a small demonstration on the new voting system that we have, their express vote, and also the DES 200, which is this printer. And without no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Jesse, and he's going to show you guys the new voting system. South Carolina's new express vote voting system. It is made by the vendor ESNS, that's election systems and software. It does, yes. This is the express vote itself. It's called a ballot marking device. It's the same principle as the old machines, the old iVotronics. It is a touchscreen device that will allow you to mark your ballot. At the precinct, you will be given a ballot card, blank ballot card. His name's Terry. It's not Chad. The card, voter will take it and insert it into the slot. Ed, you got another vote. Right. Interval cards. Yes, actually. How many would you like? All right, so once you've reviewed the selections on your ballot, we'll hit print card. We'll give you your card back with your selections marked on the card, both in readable letters and in bar code. Hmm. Let me see that. Electronically. Yes. Is it storing that data? Yes. Yeah, I see it, sir. Oh, it's storing the data. This machine stores no data. It did, right. Take that card and in a minute, we'll run it through here. And this DS 200 is actually where all of the vote data is stored. Has your name on top that you voted? No. Ballots are still anonymous. A little bit. Quicker in a way, yes. It's also more secure because we have a paper trail for audits now. Whereas before with the electronics, it was all digital. So the paper has to get to this next step, though, for the vote to be counted. At this point, that ballot has not been cast. That ballot has been marked. So it's the same as bubbling in a paper ballot. Right now, you've just bubbled in that paper ballot. Maybe I'm jumping ahead. So what's the chain of custody of the piece of paper to get to there? It will go from our poll workers to the voter through this machine. The voter will take it out of this machine once it has been printed and come over to this scanner. The voter will come in herself. So what prevents me from making 2,000 copies of that sheet right there? Is there a barcode on there that identifies it as me as the voter? Or is it doesn't? So how do you prevent fraud? Those barcodes identify ballot style and the selections made. But what if you want all the selections to be the same? That would really go to our precinct coordinator. But I believe we are having provisional plans made for people who try and enter a precinct with the ballot already marked. What does it say, Nova Dora? I'm just trying to figure this out. So to summarize this, the insert card that the precinct workers would put in the machine because it will tell you what precinct or what you can vote for or what you can't, basically replaced by this piece of paper or not. The piece of the little brick that they put in the machine has been replaced with this card. So who keeps this paper? The poll workers will have it at the sign-in table. After I cast my vote. Oh, after you cast it. It goes into a blue bin down here in the bottom that will lock at the end of the night and come back to us to be stored there. You're going to show you there, so we'll go over there. So after I cast my vote, that's that piece of paper goes into the blue card. To the recycling bin. So you'll have the paper is back up. Once you cast it electronically, you're done. We will have every one of these cards at the end of the night. That's a lot of money. I'm just trying to understand how you keep the voter. I know it'll be lines or whatever, but when you get there, voters will understand that this is the process and you have to put that piece of paper in there before you leave. We'll be putting signs everywhere that say, take this. Oh, no. As long as they read. The roll of the poll workers. As far as the roll of the poll workers goes, this card is the same as the PED who actually voted in person or in absentee in person. The poll worker had a little plastic block that they would stick in the side of the machine and it would pull up the ballot selection. That PED has effectively been replaced by this card. As soon as you put this card in the express vote, that ballot selection screen will come up and they'll like your ballot. So the bar code has my name on it or the voters. No. So this is the ballot style and then all the selections that have been made. So is this a generic for everybody that comes to precinct? This is an anonymous ballot. When you come to the polls, everybody gets just a blank piece of paper. Okay. The only point that they know you voted is that you sign in like you used to. That's your only point. The concept of poll has not changed. You come to the precinct, you show your ID, you come to the poll table, they check your name. Once they verify that you are who you say you are, you take that piece of paper and give you. Right through there. You come to the express vote. You slide it in there and then you make your selection. Then when that paper come back out, which your ballot marking is here, then you take that paper to here and then you slide it through. Then your ballot had been cast at that time. So that's a bar code reader. That's a bonus here. Yes. So this is a bar code generator. Right? So if somebody made a mistake and said, oh, I didn't mean to vote for Howard. If they make a mistake, they get one of the options. They don't say they're all day tripping. They say, well, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. You get one out of the choice. You get two choices. The first time you put it in, you made a mistake. Okay, I didn't mean to vote for such and such. So we give them another white piece of paper. They go to the machine again and they vote and then they take that second one and they'll take it to the DS 200 and the printer and put their ballot in. What happens to the mistaken ballot? This one will be marked as four. The first one will be marked as four and it'll be put in another blue bin, separate from this one, and it'll be marked as four and then go into, but they all be accounted for because when it goes to the poll, we already know how many we send to the polls and how many are supposed to come back from the poll. So to verify the totals from a particular precinct, your, I wanna say Chad, but your card there should coordinate, total numbers should coordinate with the total signage. Only one poll is correct. So you still gotta check in before you can get to the express vote. So I mean, there's not a way to bypass. Have we done education reach out or education center for people to understand what to do? Well, the state election, they've got a band going around different places, different events to let people know this is how you vote. I haven't seen one. I don't know where you went to. They said I worked in the state election, but I think it's gonna be confusing at first. I mean, it's gonna be, it's pretty edgy. I think people are gonna, they just need to realize that's not casting their ballot and they're gonna see express vote. They're just not going to be able to get to the express vote and they're just not gonna think. So it's gonna be a matter of they're gonna get this and think it's a receipt. Right. Now, let me ask you. But after that, it should make things move pretty smoothly. That's why we need an education seminars or lessons or class. So all we do in the X maybe we'll be able to help you spread the word. So are we doing that with the, are we doing it with each precinct education? Education. Educate and do. I haven't done that yet. You hadn't done that yet. In our defense, we just got these new equipment. And you're testing them on us? Well, this is the first election. Everybody across the state, this is the first election, municipal election that we've used to assist them. It just gave you a way to protest. Let me ask another quality control question. Yes, sir. If you check, if I meet you at the door of your official, how do you know that I submitted my form to that box? And I'm not walking out with it in my hand. Are you going from the public check-in table and clerk to the whole work that's gonna take you from the check-in table to the experience? To the express boats. And from that express boat, someone taking you to the printer, the DS-200, and from there, once you cash your ballot, then why can't you go out the door without your ballot? I don't get a sticker or whatever. I don't get a sticker or whatever. Yeah, you can get our motor stickers. I think it's a nothing change. The only thing change about our motor process is the new equipment. Everything else, the process is still safe. If I walk out of that door and I'm passing you the last point of control and I don't have a sticker, do you question that or does it matter? Well, at that point, it doesn't matter that you don't have a sticker because everybody don't want a sticker. I mean, people even with the, I've been trying to, people didn't want a sticker, but we still don't have a person that cashed a ballot. My only concern is this hasn't been communicated with the public and we only a month away. True, I agree. That's, I mean, that's not good. I mean, that's not really good at all because, and the other concern is with senior citizens and whoever, you know, that who used to one system, this is a completely different system. Is there a possibility to, you know, in my world and yours too, you always try to, you know, give people information and not probably more than three points and it sounds like there's about three steps here if you kind of not dumb it down. I don't want to use that terminology, but between now and then, being that we're the first, would there be the possibility of some type of, just like a, I don't know, quarter sheet of paper and it's like one, two, three, you know, so people start knowing when I get there, I got to make sure I've done these three things and the last thing being I've cast my ballot because the only thing that's, I guess, given everyone's concern being that it's new, when I think people will get it after they do it the first time, but it is the first time, is making sure people go through every single step, right? So it seems like we need to do something to start pushing that. It's three things you got to do, three steps. Or however many steps, but something that's going to make it be that when you get there, you know you got to go through on social media and everywhere else, a little 15 second video. I mean, something really, something really useful. You need to make a video. The state will come in a week. Yeah, I see them over there. I can't wait for the state, man. We only have five weeks. Well, the state rolled it out, so we have to go on the direction of the state. I mean, it's not like we're doing this on our own. It's stuff that, this is... So, presentation of city council. I believe that we can reach out to the state election commission and see what marketing materials they have and then we will work together to push that out to our voters. And I agree with you, but what I'm saying is this is our first city election and it's the first election with these machines. And until I haven't heard, there's a new system. I mean, we heard new machines, but nobody told us the whole new process. We need to reach out and educate the public, especially our city voters. I think we can do that. Based on the issues we've experienced in the past, I think this brings us a whole lot. Just, it's just a whole lot of improvements that have been made to the overall process. And I don't want that to get lost. So I think with the new changes, we can let voters know. And I think what we're missing is that you'll still have maybe even more clerks and workers at the polling location to help voters work through the voting process. So they're not just walking in the precinct and having to figure it out on their own. They're gonna be walked through each step of the process. That's the key, right, Lee? That's the key. I'll walk you through. To your question, your point. Is the state going to be participating in the PR on this? They are. What, I don't know what they're going to do. Now, I do have a presentation that we're gonna do at Benedict. If we're not inviting to somewhere, some forum to come and do a presentation, I mean, I'm not gonna just show up, ask my staff to just show up to somewhere we're not invited to. I mean, if you have a forum that you guys want us to come back and you're inviting the public, we'd be more than happy to come back before the election time. Even though we busy, but we still got to test our election. We still got to do absentee. We still got to prepare for the polls. So if it's something that you guys want to do, give us a vast notice. We'll come and we'll come out and we'll do a demonstration to the public. I think the Columbia Council of Neighborhoods would probably be a good avenue. I know Ms. Youssees, our public and media relations director can work with you all. She may have some suggestions right now, but I just personally, just knowing how people are and I'm sensing the concern of the council. What is going to be key is having information ahead of time, but also that day of election day. If in fact, when we say more poll workers, I don't know what that means in the context of what was before and what is now, but it really does need to be that. Because once you get, I mean, we can sit here in an ideal world, say what's going to happen, but you're there on that day and you've got people going and coming and doing and whatever. Well, I take all your concerns back. Yeah, I mean, you really literally have to have. I mean, y'all always, because you have elderly people, you have to, I mean, they'll be here and they think they've done what they're supposed to do and they'll go wander somewhere. I mean, it just happens that way all the time with everything. On that side of the poll workers, I don't remember for sure, this was a few weeks ago, Brett, as we were being busy with these, I believe our precinct coordinator was talking about having a poll worker to stand by this machine and go bring your card over here and scan. Every single machine. And my precinct, there is eight. The precinct, you'll have eight of those and one or two of these. It'll be by the door exit, so you can't exit without passing this machine. But that's what I'm saying. It's a lot, what I'm saying is, number one, it's too many steps. Number two, you really have to watch every single piece of paper going in and make sure it doesn't leave. Pretty easy. So if you mess one or two, you could decide it in election. That only happens in Florence. Oh, Florida. And then. Have you seen this thing? I don't know. It was one month. It was one month. Yeah, one month. And when someone put it on channel two, it's still happening. Yeah. So we'll, we'll. I mean, the, the, the. There was somebody just having step walk through and put it on channel two. The most important. We, we, we, we, we. You are essentially looking at three steps. Sign in. As you always do. Do it. That first step at the table, express, scan your ballots. Now, the issue is, the issue is, you've got a lot of constituents who are coming to the poll and are used to the, the regular voting procedure. You mash your button. Both yes. And it's done. We've got a three step process now. And I think the more publicity we can get out into the, into the city, relative to what are the three simple steps to vote. I think that makes, that makes it easier for our folk. That makes it easier for senior citizens because a great number of senior citizens are going to come and they're going to look at two machines and say, good grief. Something's wrong here. I'm used to the regular machine. So I think the PRPs has a lot to do because it's very simple. But we can make this thing very so, very confusing for some folk and we don't want that to happen. It seems like, let me ask you this one. Once you, once you put your ballot in, when, when, when the, when voting is over, how long does it take to scan the machine? All right. So take your voter ballot and just runs through here. There's an error or a check. It's a check. No. It's a check. It's a check, man. Too many people here. Hey, we may have done, touched that barcode too. Okay, I see why she's doing this. Of course, the one's the wrong way. I'm going through this all right now. The one machine we brought with us decided not to do two of the barcodes correctly. I got you. We need a one, we need a one sheet or a card. So let, let me ask you, since it's a, since it's a, does it make any difference if you touch that barcode? So we're friends on thermal paper. So nothing leaks. As long as you don't mark through the barcode, it'll still read. Good dude. Oh yeah. Probably mark card. Comes into the scanner here. Go on, that's true. He says, thanks for voting. The card is dropped into a blue box down here. Oh, you don't even get the card. No. I got you. Okay. So this blue box down here come out at the end of the night. And it's got the handle, the top will lock and this will come back to our office with all the cards in it. There is also, this flap here, a USB stick where all of the data is stored digitally. It actually stores an image of every ballot that's run through this machine. So in that, in that curious it from, I mean, that makes it, you've got the ballots here. Yeah. And you will have a digital track. Yep. We'll have a digital trail and a full paper trail. And where's the counting done? Yeah. Is it counted as it goes along? Yeah. So the machine will actually keep track. At seven o'clock, you know. How many ballots are run through it? I know. This was a public count right here. It doesn't tell you the catch up or the mustard wins. The total state flow. The same as with the old system, they will have a zero tape and a total state printed at the beginning and end of the day, respectively, that will be posted on the door. And one will come back to us and it looks pretty much exactly the same as the old one said. So you can't tell you up in the middle of the day. You always have to zero out the machine at the end of the night. Right. It will not keep running those throughout the day. Terry. Yes, sir. Situation I'd like you to take care of since you're the interim director. Yes, sir. There are two parking spaces right in front of the door to the elections office that are reserved for deputy sheriff. Right. In previous years, Leon has let us put notices on those available for voting. Would you take it? Like curbside? Yeah, curbside. Not curbside, just parking. Just parking. Yeah. Just for somebody to just get out and just walk into it. Curbside. Curbside. Curbside. He's on the building. Curbside makes more sense. Yeah, curbside. Okay, we have already made arrangement with Erika. We're gonna have four parking meter going to be reserved for curbside. So they don't have to worry about four in the front. And we still got business at business as usual at the Bristol County Building. So if we got those curbside on the street, then we don't have to worry about it because it is already designated for curbside. You can just come for it. You can take the two deputies. Yes, sir. I'll let my deputies. I'll let now. Thank you for the presentation and the specifics. Just briefly, can you kind of summarize this kind of policy reasons for the change? I mean, so we'll be focused on... Policy reasons for the change in the voting system? Yeah, I mean, is it an update? Is it election integrity? Is it efficiency? I mean, what's the role? Efficiency and plus for years, the voters always want a paper trail. They didn't have that in the old voting system. So with the new voting system, they got a paper trail. They wanted something they can have in their hand and say that my vote was cast. So now they have that. So it was something that the state had been wanting for years, but delegation wouldn't give us the funding. So this year, the delegation gave us the funding. So we thought it was a purple opportunity for to go get a new voting system. I mean, places to use the system so far in North Carolina. Well, I think North Carolina just got approved for the system. In our South Carolina. Hold on, everybody has them right now? Yeah, all 46 counties have them. I believe we were the last county. Yeah, we were the last. See, that's why it wasn't a whole lot of presentation because we was full to get our system to the first part of September. And then when Hurricane Dorian came through, so he threw us back enough a week and a half. So we just got our system last week and just got the acceptance tests on it and got it approved for to use them. So that's why we just now trying to roll out stuff to make sure the public is aware that we do have a new system. Well, in addition to obviously the idea to be on challenge two, can we make sure we connect them with CCN and I don't think we're gonna have the organic requests come because a lot of people just don't know. So we may need to make that request on behalf of them, on behalf of the neighborhood presidents and get out to as many organizations as possible. CCN's got a debate on 20. I think particularly thinking about 24. Some of the senior facilities in the city. I'm sure you want them at Greenview Park. I mean, you want them in the family house. Places like that. Some places that make sense. We got some critical mass of people to you guys, you're not gonna present us to people, which is fine, but if you got, you know, dozens and literally some of these places, hundreds of people is worth walking through it, particularly some of our seniors. And also they at that time, they would have an opportunity to come up. Try it out. We've got a final election. All they have to do is come, touch the screen, take it to the scanner. They can get their little practices and get their hands on and actually do it themselves. Where we are today, you guys, we just do a demonstration. On that day, they can come and test and touch themselves. Maybe on the 15th, before the council meeting downstairs, if you are available, we get to touch you up down there. What are you doing? Okay. We're worried about you. The 15th, you have the 15th in spad, we go to New York. Okay. That's another council, evening council meeting, and I was just thinking we could set them up for something for people to decide with. Before the meeting started. We'll figure it out. I just think, I think you need to get the media as well with y'all and do the three steps, one by one by one, right? All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Our next discussion item is the Model Business License Ordnance, and it's Melissa Harrell, with the Municipal Association of South Carolina, and she is the Research and Legislative Liaison. Hey, Melissa. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon. I don't have anything exciting to show and tell. I'm afraid. We can make it excited. Go ahead. I have no doubt. There's a little intimidating speech for my former boss here. He's all right, he's all right, he's all right. All right. What I'd like to do is draw your attention. I put some things in front of you. My shortness is making this microphone challenging. Couple things I'd like. I'm gonna draw your attention to several of these things as I go along. And what I was asked to do was kind of start at the beginning, since y'all are not on what we call the model business license ordinance. To kind of explain to you what the ordinance is, let me start there. Back in the early 70s, two gentlemen, a CPA and an attorney created the two components that make up the model ordinance. And if you'll, in your packet, I have a copy of the blank model ordinance which lives on our website and is available to all cities and towns in South Carolina. And we have recently made a number of updates to this ordinance. But anyway, back in the early 70s, these two gentlemen created this and it was given to the association upon their retirement back in 2007. And unfortunately, I was walking down the hall and Howard looked at me and said, you're new here and you have an MBA, you understand how the math works, don't you? Yes, sir. Next thing I know, I've inherited doing the model ordinance ever since. So this ordinance has been tested by the Supreme Court, not once, but three different times and it has been upheld as being a fair and rational methodology. What I mean by that is nothing more than like businesses are treated the same. So if you have a grocery store here and a grocery store there, they are treated just the same, regardless of their size, okay? The second thing is, remember I said that there are, let me back up, I apologize. There are three parts to a model ordinance. You have the local legislation, which is the model ordinance. It's the how you do the things that you do. Then you have the rate schedule. That's nothing more than what you charge, the tax rate that you charge. And then the true meat and potatoes of that whole package is the class schedule. And that class schedule is what takes, it is the piece that makes it challenging for you because not only do you have to adopt the model ordinance, but then you have to make a commitment to stay current with that class schedule. Meaning you just can't adopt it and then forget about it and then 20, 30 years, come back to it. This has to be a living, breathing piece of the ordinance that has to be addressed every two to five years and update it. And you're saying Melissa, why in the heck do I need to do that and worry about all of that? Well, the reason is is because that class schedule is what keeps it a fair and equitable methodology as described by the Supreme Court. So what that means is the class schedule is divided up into seven classes. Classes one through seven are, there is no arc to this. It is completely science. It's completely math. It is based off of IRS statistics of profitability. So if anybody comes in here and tells you you're treating people inequitably or however, if you're on the model ordinance using the class schedule and you're updating that class schedule, you are treating everybody equally and fairly because you are up to date with the profitability by industry. Now, I know this is boring in a lot of detail, but I wanna make sure to at least throw enough at you so that when your staff comes back, you'll hear it again and it makes sense. This very overwhelming looking book. We call this the NAICS book. This is what all national statistics from businesses, it all comes from this classification system. It's a six digit code and I'm not gonna get into it, but trust me, if you'd like an education, I can borrow you to Deb on this. But it's a very clean and neat way to do your organization of statistics. So every single business in the entire country has a number. That number goes on your tax return. It is no secret. There is no magic. This book is nothing more than three different ways to find out what number is appropriate to your business. So we take the statistics from the IRS that are based off of these classification numbers and take their income data, figure out the profit margins, put them into classes one through seven. Neat, clean, science, math, nothing art here. So that means your big box stores which typically have a high gross have a low profit margin, grocery stores, convenience stores, those kinds of folks have very small profit margins. The biggest profit margin, believe it or not, is mini storage. So one day when I retire, gosh darn it, I'm gonna buy me a mini storage place and run that. So that's the model ordinance in a nutshell. Let me make sure I, all right. The one thing I didn't say is that we have an eighth class. This eighth class is a catch-all class. There are a number of businesses that are statutorily carved out or for various incendiary reasons need to be addressed in a different manner. Those are in your class eights. Those are usually unique to the city or to the area in which the city resides. So any questions on those two pieces? I also, in your packet, you will find what I call the meat and potatoes, this class schedule. It's, I know it looks overwhelming and it looks like total Greek to you now, but I can assure you your business license staff understands this and gets this and it's easily done. So the reason why it is so imperative that you either go towards this model or find a methodology that you can defend is it takes off any kind of legal liability off of your head. So remember I said that it's been tested by the Supreme Court. Those cases were brought up and each one obviously is very different, but it's based off of an unfairness argument in some form or fashion. And as long as you have the math and the data behind you, it takes off any liability off of your shoulders as a counsel. And remember I said that that living, breathing class schedule has got to be updated. And here's the reason why. You have an ebb and flow of businesses. My guess is today you're not gonna go out and buy a horse and buggy anymore or the whips that go with it. So at one time there might have been a big business in that, but today they wouldn't be. Same thing with doctors. Doctors at one point or in a class seven. Today they would not be in a class seven because most of those doctor's facilities, one or either, this is a whole nother avenue that I know you're going into, have been bought out by the hospitals or their business is on a contractual basis now. So almost all of the payments are done through insurance contracts, Medicare, Medicare, Medicaid or Medicare. So that's number one, the model ordinance and your legal liability there. Second one is a political reality that we all have to accept. And please forgive me. I hold two rows, two hats roles is what I'm trying to say at the association. I do all of the research for our legislative initiatives and I also lobby on your behalf in all cities and towns for anything that is tax law related. So when I wear the second hat, it gives me the advantage to be able to go in and fight on your behalf to legislators because I hopefully understand what's behind these initiatives as far as the reason and the facts. So when we get this very scary bill which is also in your packet, it's House Bill 4431. And as you can see, we have several of our house members in this area who's are sponsoring this bill. And I cannot attest to their reasons for their sponsorship but I'm sure they feel very strongly for signing on to this bill. But this bill is a very frightening bill to cities and towns for multiple reasons. And I'm not gonna go into that bill but what I wanted to show you is there is extreme political pressure at the state house for several reasons. One of which it's an election year. Number two, the two largest local government payments by businesses or either business license tax, not either but they are business license tax and property tax. And the legislature has not found a way to get to the property tax payments and controlling that other than what happened through Act 388. So a way to assist businesses in lowering their local government liability is business license tax. And this is an easy one for them to control because it doesn't cost them anything, it costs you in your budgets. So remember that piece. Talk about the bill, most of it. I'm sorry? Talk about the bill. Well the bill was just dropped at the end of the year. So it has not had any hearings or we haven't gotten to that point but it is a very frightening bill on several reasons. One of which is one of the reasons I'm here today is to I guess implore you to go towards the standardization initiative that the association has been pushing. And while I know it sounds like I'm jumping, I promise you I'm not mayor. This little rack card that's also in your packet is what we have produced for the cities and for the legislature and for anybody else that needs to understand and be educated on the business license tax in itself. So one of the biggest issues for businesses which we concur and this is a big piece in the bill is the standardization piece. It is hard for businesses that go across multiple jurisdictional lines with different due dates, different 12 months for their gross income to be calculated, they have different forms, different definitions of gross income. All of this makes it very complicated when you're a small business or even a large business. So imagine if we could do some of these things to make us more business friendly across all of our cities and towns and counties. And by the way, nine counties in South Carolina charge a business license tax. So standard due date, all of the standard form, the model ordinance, having your class schedule and the definition of gross income being consistent among all of our cities and towns is one of the tenets of this bill. But there are also some very negative things in this bill, one of which it transfers all authority to the Secretary of State of South Carolina and takes it away from you. You would not be able to do any sign. They would centralize a portal and they would run the class schedule. Instead of it being a voluntary thing for you, they would control it. They also would treat transportation folks in and out of the city differently. They would carve these whole folks out and have a different methodology. But another, one of the biggest problems in this bill is their switch from gross to net. They don't actually say it in the bill, but they'd say it through their definitions. And when you, right now, state law says gross income is how you measure and start the calculation of the tax. And when you say net income, you say, okay, well that makes sense. That's how you do your tax return. Okay, I'm cool with that. Well then I want you to go to your folks on the front lines that actually administer a business license tax and get them to explain to you what a disaster that is. Not necessarily for the city, but for the businesses themselves because how many different ways can you file as a business? There isn't just one form that all businesses fill out and there are different types of businesses between an S Corp, a sole proprietor. You could have a partnership. You could have an LLC. There are lots of different ways to file your tax return. Net to everybody is a whole different number. You can make your net be zero all day long. Well, thank you, I appreciate that. I'll pay you later. You will hit it right on the money. And when you go down that road, not only do you, let me finish one point about the net and the gross, if you have a really good accountant, you're gonna be as low a net as you can possibly be. So if you have the resources to have a really good accountant then you're gonna be in a better position than a small business that may not have as many resources or have as much of an education. Number one, number two, your front lines folks are gonna have to request a number of documents because you wanna treat like businesses the whole purpose that this model and this kind of methodology works is you're treating like businesses the same. So to do that, you're gonna have to take lots of different forms. It's not gonna be one page of a tax return that your folks are gonna look at. They're gonna have to look at multiple forms and add and subtract to make apples and apples and to make it fair. Sure. But think of all those people that zero out and if the folks that are behind this bill say what, really mean what they say, they say they want you to remain revenue neutral and still be able to raise the same amount of revenue. All right, so if you go down to net and you're not doing it on gross anymore, that means your rates are gonna have to go way up, right? So what happens to all those small businesses that were paying based on their volume of the business? Now you've switched it to those that have a successful structure to go down to zero or really good accountants or they have formed their business that way that will show a zero net. So then you turned everything upside down and once again created inequities. So you may have instead of a base rate of $100 or $50 on your first 2000, you may have $1000 or $2000 just to be able to, I'm just throwing numbers out there, I understand, but just that gives you a concept of you're not making it based off of somebody's true ability to make a profit because if they're looking at the profitability it's already embedded in the model. Already taken care of the profitability component. That's very helpful. We've been talking about adopting model business ordinance for a while and I think our numbers show that we're generally gonna be maybe revenue neutral, but just in the interest of transparency there will be some winners and losers, I understand. What are you hearing? Without question. What are you hearing from other communities as to which particular NAICS codes might be most affected? It depends on if you, like Greenville is like you, they are not on the model and I'm working with them right now to see whether or not they can handle the losers. Law firms sometimes fall in this situation. They are a class seven in the current profitability statistics. If you have them in a much lower you're gonna have to handle that. Doctors, a lot of folks are charging them a lot so they'll come down and then you have the whole dynamic of what you're addressing now with the new way the medical industry is organizing. So until I look at your data in particular, Mayor, I can't answer your question unilaterally because every city is different because they are on a different year they came into the model or they have never been on the model. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for me, sir? I know you can't, really can't answer it, in terms of the losers. Yes, sir. What are some, a few more examples of the losers that come out of it. Classification. Yes, sir. Until you are unique, your current model is on a different methodology. So until I take your data which I have your data now and I will get there but I'm not there today. I didn't get it in time to be able to give you your winners and losers but your staff will be well briefed on that in the next few weeks. And you have to remember too that for every loser there's a winner. Right. So until we get a fair table based on the IRS profitability then we're treating some people, is it an equal number? About an equal number of people that'll win and lose? It depends. People will pay less business license, a lot of people will pay more but I think it balances out. Typically you have, in your kind of situation you have a lot more winners than you do losers but the degree of the loser is more intense than the degree of the winner. Especially if you make it revenue neutral. If you make it revenue neutral then you come out with the same amount of revenue. There's gonna be a lot of people that'll be paying less, some people will be paying more. I mean that's just, there is no other way to do it. I mean, when you're going from one completely different methodology to another. But you're coming up with a legally justifiable situation that can be defended and has been defended in court. By the way, the two people that she was talking about, you see Robinette and Roy Bates. Well, I know you can't give examples and I'm just curious into if it's revenue balance, whether you lose, some businesses will pay less, some business will pay more. Yes, sir. Give me a category, because obviously you- I can't until I dig into your data. Not one single office, you can't even do like a- Well, because you're completely different. I could do it on other cities that have the old version of the model but you don't have anywhere near the version. So on the license class schedule that you have listed here and it's basically you've got a class of different numbers that's assigned with different category or maybe an average profit, what'd you call it profit? It's based on profitability but it's an industry-wide profit margin. So if somebody, I guess that's why maybe you're talking about some of them you'll be winners, some of them you'll be losers because you're following this class. And also the court has upheld that things have to be done equally among all businesses and right now you have different declining rates and different levels where the base rate applies. So those kinds of things will change the winners and losers dynamic as well. So we've got a little bit more to do. A little bit more to do. Yeah. Yeah, any questions? Anything else? What? I'm sorry, you have more, we have more to do. Gotta keep going. I have more to do for you. Yes, sir. But you have the heavy lifting to do. I'm not even suggesting that my version of the work is yours to work. Because politically it's gonna be unpleasant for some. But very happy for many. Don't let's not negate how many people end up doing well. It was just important. That's for part of our discussion. Just wanna be fully transparent that this is not gonna be a fun process for probably for anyone. Right. No, sir. And it will be more painful for those that have never been on the version of the model before. Sure. Now with this model, with the small business, get any break at all? They will be treated equally within their industry. So all restaurants will be treated the same. All shoe stores will be treated the same. All lawn care folks will be treated the same. So, and it will be based off of their growth. Reese, I'm sorry, Mr. Davis. Just to, I guess it's one of the classifications on it, it's on here. Just happened to have had to be able to respond to some questions this morning on it by call. So, classifications. We're saying right now, well the model that you officially may come up with includes religious organizations, nonprofits. Is that, can you mix that now? No, sir. I will give you, if you choose to include them. It would be a local, a municipal choice. That is a local decision. Yes, sir. That is not my decision. We won't be there yet when you complete what you're doing. Please no, sir. Don't put that on me. Okay. All right. Thank you. The only thing I will add, if you don't mind, mayor is the political reality that we are all facing. And the more of these standardization components you can adopt. The more wind we take out of the argument that it needs to be done to us. Let us do it, let us clean our own house the way it needs to be cleaned and the way we know how to best. Not to be told how to do it. It's interesting, you know, the state caps. Railroads, we only get a couple thousand dollars, but yet they wanna come and control the other. I mean, it's very interesting dynamics. Probably a good idea for everybody to kind of look at their. It's not taking away their revenue. Look at everybody. Well, but at the end of the day, what they're doing is that by generally you're affecting the same constituencies and that's what I think the message is long. Every year by provisional, every year by provisional, they still local government funds. I love this one. It's good to stay for years and come back in a fraction thereof. So there's nothing new. We do need to register, Teresa, a displeasure with H-2431, with the delegation and with all the sponsors. And may I add one more displeasure? Please. In your package, you also have a copy of a proviso that was passed in this past year's budget. It is also worrisome. This Thursday morning, the committee has been formed to study, and I'm gonna use air quotes, which I do not like when people do this because I don't quite know what the study is all about, but the study committee is stacked against local governments in the favor of business and community, and they will be reviewing our business. And so do stay intact in with your local delegations and make sure they understand the importance of this revenue source. And they are addressing third party vendors. We hope that's all they do. They want to take away our ability to provide funds for police and fire and everything else that we need to articulate those displeasure. This is the critical fight. Have the citizens express that to them, so. And I'm available. Love living in the legislative state. All right, let's keep on moving. Thank you, Melissa. Thanks, Melissa. And we'll see you after the boot. So, let's do a while. You got something for us? Are we ready to go? I think so. Let's go. This is record. Let's keep it. Let's keep it. Let's keep the record going. May I make a motion to go into the second session for receipt of legal advice related to pending threat and a potential claim pursuant to code 30-4-78-2 opioid class action lawsuit discussion of negotiation proposed to factual arrangement pursuant to 30-4-78-2 storm water. Receive of legal advice related to matters covered by a 20-client privilege pursuant to 30-4-78-2 ordinance 2019, new road 7-4, business and professional licenses, and join on road discussion of a requirement of a employee pursuant to 30-4-78-1 business liaison and development corporation and municipal court. That goes the afternoon. Is that second? Do you have a question on the road? Aye. Yes. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Mr. Mayor, what's your preference?