 So this is the Washington County Preliminary Budget Meeting for the period beginning July 1, 2024. And the sheriff is unable to make it because of staffing. I understand he's required to be in court or something, so. Okay. All right, so he has given us his budget and very little changes from when we met last time. The only thing was I had brought it in quite a bit higher as far as what the county tax was going to require. I say quite a bit higher. I think we shaved off about 13,000. Are you people shaved off about 13? Which is my newest one. The portrait. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't put in notes. Great. The portrait. Approximately, yeah. I'd have to go back and look at that. And that includes sheriff? And that includes the amount of sheriff, yeah. So the amount we're going to need to raise in taxes this year was a couple of things. We're predicting the revenue to be more. That's kind of assuming that we're going to be able to open the passport office by July 1. And that the word will be out so that we get back up to the number of visitors for passport requesting passports will come right back up to normal. We did have a very good previous year as far as revenue and passport because we have offsetting expenses for the two passport agents and other expenses occurred. But last year in revenue, the year that ended June 30th, 2023, we had approximately 51,000, 51,095 to be exact. And because of all that's going on, I initially was going to put it in at 50, but I'm just a little nervous that we may not get up to speed by July 1. Yeah. In that order. And even if we open by July 1, people have gotten used to going elsewhere. Elsewhere. Right. So it may take a while to rebuild. Build it. We have to place some ads. Yeah. And even with that, I was anticipating the non-revenue and non-tax revenue was going to be up slightly this year. So that helps to redo it. So the amount we need in taxes, bottom line, last year we required 618,650. And that amount, as you know, is then, the state provides me with an equalized municipal grand list based on their property evaluation and reviews that the state does of the individual towns in the county. And that number does not come into me until the end of December. So, you know, the towns, they're preparing, in fact, I watch Middlesex start preparing their budget on orca. And they're calling me and saying, can you tell us how much our tax is going to be? I can't tell I get that because it shifts depending on the equalized values. So, but anyway, we're going to require, and last year we required $618,650. And this year it's going to be $605,070. Say that again, $600. Last year, yeah, last year we required, or the year we're in required $618,650 in taxes. And this year we're going to require $605,000. So hopefully that will help towns. But based on equalized, some may go up and some may go down, even though we've reduced our higher line of need. So you expect that equalized municipal grand list by $1231, and then you'll start to let people know. Then I will do the calculations because they will be finalizing their budgets in the middle of January. I will give them an amount that I estimate based on the fact that we don't make any major changes at our January 25th meeting. But we have been very lucky in the past that if we've had to make changes, they haven't been major. And we've adjusted elsewhere so that we've always kept to the estimate that we gave them in early January. And I hope I can do the same thing again. Administration costs, which includes salaries for the administration, most of which are sitting right around here. The two assistant judges, as you know, receive an administrative fee and they've certainly earned it this summer. They probably, you know, with all the flood and meetings you're having and the approval of expenses and working with the contractors, you people have really, really earned your keep, I must say. Then the assistant judges also get an hourly wage based on the hours spent in court. And that is, oh, I think a little less than $25 an hour. So it's not exorbitant by any means. And that's based strictly on the hours you have to submit a time sheet to me. And then it goes through payroll. Both the clerk and the treasurer are on our straight salary because our hours is times during budget that we feel like we work full time. And then there's other times in the summer usually where we certainly probably, if we put in eight to ten hours a week, it would be exorbitant. And so that's all based on all the salaries are in there. And then of course I have to provide for our responsibility for social security and those costs. And we pay, you know, you have the other in there, your workers comp and the normal unemployment, the normal things that go along with a payroll and employees. Purchase services, they have gone up slightly this year because our payroll services. Well, I do the initial part and then do the recording after payroll is done when I get the payroll reports back. The actual payroll now is handled by a payroll agency who do automatic direct deposits and everything for us. And their fees have gone up this year and the audit fee is the biggest fee. We were paying $6,500 every two years and now they're predicting $10,000. Every other year? Every other year. Every other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have every two years. So we should have started one in September, but until I can get back in the office and be working with Thanksgiving. So now that means spring because they're getting ready now to head into their tax services, our audit company. So now it's going to be, which we did during COVID late. So, okay, facilities, you know, the water and sewer costs to the city, the sewer benefit charge to the city. We don't pay taxes, but we do pay those service charges for usage of using water and sewer. Trash removal, snow plowing, normal facility costs that go along with, in our case, two buildings, the courthouse building and the sheriff's building. And those costs we estimated $4,000 increase. Servicing that's like copier maintenance, the tower clock maintenance. We have a fellow that comes in every year and services the tower clock. And we have, you know, times where we have to call the computer people to figure out what we need to do next. And Joe and I have learned a lot about iCloud and safe saving of our documents and whatnot. And you got the message that the malware was renewed as of yesterday. Good. Yeah, it was running right down to the end. Okay. Good. And on the communications, it's mainly what we pay for is internet. The state covers the phone part of it for the courthouse and the sheriff's building. And we, of course, have an office in the sheriff's building, and so we come under theirs and they take care of that. The state does not pay any rent for the use of the buildings to the county, but in lieu of that, part of our revenues, which are on the very first page, part of our revenues are notary, we don't have notary fees anymore. Passport fees and small claims. We get to keep a percentage of those of the superior court administers. But yeah, small claims, I'm sorry, I said passport, didn't I? Small claims and probate. Passport, we have two agents that we hire and pay for under the county official expenses. Let's see, servicing. Data supplies, computer supplies, office supplies, just routine, things you, postage is our biggest, the postage has gone up tremendously, I don't know how many times it increased during the year last year. And that was a big hit on our post, on our passport. And it's increasing again as of January 1st. Yeah, and sometimes they don't increase all the fees. It's certain fees. First class mail. First class mail. And then other times, however the passport one goes out, you know. It's special priority. Priority. They didn't increase every time, but they did have one major increase. Yeah, so we've increased that a little. Insurance funds, of course, luckily, we had flood insurance. And the building insurance, the normal stuff that wouldn't be covered. I guess I said that backwards. We have the building insurance. And then in addition, we have flood insurance that wouldn't be covered under normal building insurance. County bonds, especially I have the largest one because of the fact that I handle money on behalf of the county. So I'm bonded. And then the general clerical staff, which is the two clerks in the Sheriff's office and Josephine are covered under a general bond. My bond is, I think, roughly a thousand in the general clerical is around 300 or something. Because they don't handle the, don't have signature power on the stuff that I have. Bank charges, like normal things, they charge a percentage of deposits and withdrawals. Banking account, checking and money market counter and TD bank. We have a CD that is allowed under the operating legislation that was created a few, well, there were two. One for capital reserve account for the operating fund. And then we have a capital reserve fund for capital expenditures. It used to be counties had to go to each town and get a vote from each town if they wanted to bond. And I was here at the last time when we bonded about 25 years ago. And when the chimney started to pull away from, started pulling the back wall away out. And we had to go and borrow money that was paid off here two or three years ago. But now legislature provides that we can put up to 75% in for capital reserve for building costs or emergencies. That we have managed to fund at its full price. It's taken us a few years to get there, but every year that we had any money left over. Instead of returning it to the taxpayer, the county municipalities and things, we put that into this reserve to get it up to its maximum. Like I said, we have that. It's almost 500,000 that's in that reserve fund for emergencies. And what bank is it? That one is in the community bank. International. No. No. Community bank. Bank. And A, the former merchants. Oh. Yeah. And then we have the operating. We're allowed to have 25% in for operating emergency. 15? Not 15. That's a 25. Yeah, 15%. Yeah, sorry. And that one also is funded at 100%. In fact, I think that one's a little bit over because the interest rates have started going up. So any money left over this year will, if we do not have any need to add more money to those funds, if we're still at max, we will want to consider a carryover to reduce next year's budget. Definitely. Yeah, we haven't had. We'll know about flood expenses by then. Yeah. We just, you know, we've not got anything from FEMA yet. We have no idea how much will be covered or how much of these operating or capital funds are going to need to use. Yeah. And what is the estimated costs that they're not fixed at this point? They find something new that they didn't. We're hoping to reimburse 75% of the pure clean, you know, immediate emergency. Yeah. To take everything apart, huh? Build within a week or two. Oh, wow. Yeah. Good. But who knows about everything else? Yeah. And like I said, the assistant judges have been handling that. And that would be reimbursement from FEMA? Yeah. And did you put a rush on that one or a request for it because you said? Well, our project manager, Paul Stafford, meets with FEMA every week. Oh. And Leah often joins them when she can. Okay. So. Okay. You know, that's his latest update, which was as of yesterday. Great. Yeah. So how much? He said the reserve on the 75% one was close to 500,000. How much is the operating account reserve? Do we know? It's 400 and something, but it's almost five. I didn't bring that figure with me. Oh, that's okay. Yeah. I think we don't sound most capped. Yeah. It's capped. And the 15% operating account. Yeah. It is approximately 100,000. All right. All right. I don't have the exact amount. And like I said, at the interest rates right now, of course, there was a while that we were having anything on these CDs CDs. Yeah. So, but in right there that now do some subscriptions. We belong to the Vermont leagues of cities and towns because that enables us to get going to a group for insurances and things. And they handle, we do our unemployment is reimbursable. So we only have to, you know, we pay a fee for them running that, but it's called reimbursable. It's different than the normal business pays way they pay. It's paid through the league. Association of county fees for the judges. And we have a little bit in there, $200 cloak and treasures. We haven't spent it ever, last few years for any dues or subscriptions we might need. But it's there as a placeholder if we do the capital improvement for under other. In addition to what we've already talked about, we always put a contingency in there of 5000. We've never had to use it. And capital improvements. Some years we've we've been budgeting 60,000. But because of COVID and things, a lot of things didn't happen. And now we reduced it to 50, hoping that the between our flood insurances and FEMA and our savings account or reserve funds that we've reduced the capital improvement figure to 50,000 from 60 in the past years. So that's the county budget comes to a total of $370,880. Now we're going to the sheriff's budget. And like I said, he can't be here today because everybody else staffing issues and he had to be on a court order. We've reduced the personal costs there mainly because a long-term employee retired last year and we hired a new employee with some reduction. And we also had allowed a little extra, I keep saying last year which is actually because I'm thinking about the future year. Actually, it's the current year that we went up a little bit because we knew we were going to have a training period and we had budgeted 132,000 and that definitely should be probably a little less. And last year we spent 127,000 with that training period. And like I said, that we won't have that this coming year and we won't have the new employee as star data reduced rate from the long-term employee. So based on that and what I took their two salaries and I was able to reduce that number to 127 from 132,000. And again, we have to pay social security on that. We work with COMP on employment. The two employees at the, none of the county employees are full-time. I shouldn't say no benefits. We do have, we have no major insurance. We do give them some dental and coverage. But only the two full-time girls at the sheriff's office get full insurance coverage. Are they not considered county employees? We don't consider them county employees. They are county employees. They are county employees. Okay. Yeah, yeah. They are county employees who work directly for the sheriff. For the sheriff. Yeah. For the sheriff employee, county employees. They get health insurance. Full-time. And we pay 80% and they pay 20%, which is mostly, that's kind of a norm in government. And then he has a, under education heading, he has in-service fees, training fees. And he has ammunition. They need to, but he's been, it isn't just bullets. They bought tasers for the first time. And there's other things in that. I can't explain all of them. He could. There's contracts. They have a, you know, a copier and, John, do you think the other Joe, you help? Radio repairs. And, yeah, well, yeah, radio repairs. But I was just trying to think, Ken, and I think it's the contracts for the copier. And of course we did lose one copier in the flood. And part of the expenses, flood expenses, will be we have to pay that off even though we don't have access to it. And we had to lease a new one. We may want to, some year, consider what we did in the county, buying it and not doing it. Especially if this lease company isn't working with the sheriff in a very helpful way. Away. Yeah. Because it's leased. It's just like a car, you know. They should have taken it back and not kept charging us. Yeah. Yeah. We're still arguing with them, I believe. You know what will happen. Yeah. Then you have your normal office equipment, office furniture costs very little. He's got 1200 in there for office equipment. And whether or not we'll even spend that, because I think probably by the time we get through this flood thing, we're going to have to have replaced anything. Exactly. So hopefully that will be a savings toward next year. Communications, we level funded it, we reduced. And that is his phone and internet and, oh shoot, I did not. We were going to combine that phone internet and DV line as one, right? Yeah. And then we had to double check that. I think it's at 7,200. Instead of 3,600 each, it's 7,200 total. I'll change that before the final hearing. And the final hearing, Joe, is January 25th. I believe so. Let me double check that. And I think it's at three o'clock in the afternoon. Correct. We don't have a place yet. We're going to use here. Going to be used here. Okay. We have no access to our buildings right now because they're being renovated. Okay. Let me just double check that date. Final budget meeting at 3 p.m. in the Hayes room at the library. Okay. January 25th. Thursday. Yep, Thursday, January 25th. Little different day of the week and a different time of the day. And that'll be publicized. Supplies. He's got 3,000 in for law enforcement supplies and 4,800. He reduced that by 1,200 the office supplies. And again, hopefully what they're, what they lost will all be replaced by the flood. And that will still have a normal year and get back down. Utilities. We're under district heat through the state of Vermont. And we budgeted that, I didn't mention that, but that cost is split between the courthouse pays two thirds of that cost and the sheriff's building pays one third. We have budgeted again 24,000. The district heat headed prepared us for an increase going forward. They're finding that they need to make adjustments. And, but up till now we've been budgeting in the 20,000 range as you'll see by the past two previous, not the one we're in, but two previous where we have what we spent in the fiscal year 21, 22. We spent, we budgeted 20 and we spent approximately 17. And that was for the court part of it. And then in 22, 23, we budgeted and that's line number around 611. In the 22, 23, we anticipated a bigger increase and it was only a thousand more that we paid that year. But again, we've left it at 24,000 just so that we are prepared not knowing what that increase is going to be. And what kind of winter we're going to have? Yeah, what kind of winter we're going to have. And also, you know, what kind of issues the flood created for that whole issue. And so like I said, so we've got the county portion of that heating in at 24. And we have the sheriff's share of that in at 12,000. And his have been his costs where ours were running 17, 18,000 a year. His were running roughly 8,521, 22. We had budgeted 12. They ran roughly 9,022, 23. Again, budgeting 12. And we feel that even with proposed increases, it won't go over. So we level funded that piece. Electric, we do anticipate an increase the last unaudited year for 22,23. We paid 5,000. We've got 5,200 in for the current year. And we felt that that needed to go up. And so we've put it in at 6,000. So we'll benefit that again, all building costs are two thirds on the county side of the budget in one third. And those are split with the sheriff's. He plays one third of the sewer benefit and one third of the water costs. Because there are more people in the courthouse than the sheriff's building most of the time. So then insurance and bonds. I budgeted for a bond this year. But he was going to check on that. And I think probably we'll have it. I'm not sure we're going to have to spend that next year. I think it's that the sheriff's bond is a two-year bond. I thought the sheriff's bond was a two-year bond. But it doesn't say on the policy. On the policy. Yeah. We'd have to look at our talk with our, or he'll have to. He'll talk. Well, no, we have that one through a local Dennis Wiccan Brown. So we can get that one too. But I put it in the adjusting case. Okay. And again, the building insurance, everything, building insurance, flood insurance. Again, that's prorated one third of the total bill we get. So anyway, we're down to where the county budget. And it went up 3000 this year, but we were able to hopefully the revenue projections. We've never not made revenue. And it's just such an unknown now with this flood thing. But with the little increase in revenue. In the sheriff's budget was taken down on the insurance end of some of the stuff that this year we're in at a total of both of 687870, but when it's offset by the revenue from non-taxable revenue, which is 82,800, it means that we've got to raise taxes this year. So we had to raise $605,070 and last year we had to raise 618650. And some of the fees that we hope to receive other than passports are indefinite too. Because you've got the probate court and the civil court squeezed into the very family and criminal courthouse and who knows what their fees will bring in. They may change too. They may change too. They may weigh lower. So we decreased for this year as far as the need of taxes. Yes. Yes. From 618 to 605. Like I said, I want to make it really clear to the towns and cities. There's 20 towns and cities in Washington County that even though we have reduced that taxable need, they individually may see a higher or a lower based on what the state gives us for equalized municipal grand list things. So some may have gone up. Some may more than others went up or decreased more than others. So that's okay. I wanted to just ask, Joe, because this is my first year of this piece of it. I only started February 1. When you mourned, are you placing as, I didn't see them in the world or the bridge where I was looking for them, but maybe you used the Times Argus. I just curious. I used the Times Argus and Washington World. I did not use the bridge because it really is just solely on one town. Sure. And it's not coming out. I'm happy to use the bridge too. I was just curious. Washington World was in and they sent me a copy. And I'm waiting for the Times Argus to send me a copy. I personally don't get it, but I'm sure it's in. Oh, we could get more if we had to. Yeah. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah. So I will do that again. I think if you can, I don't know some of the places where I used to post it are not available right now. Like the courthouse lobby is closed, but I used to post at the library. I used to go back to the post office too, but you can't do that. No, I posted library at Shaw's, but that's Shaw's. But that's something. And where else did I post? I guess the co-op has a free board. Yes. The co-op. I could take one into the city board too. Thank you. Although the main board. That's where I always did it in the city. Yeah. Okay. And so I will make sure that that happens at the city, which I, yeah, okay, the city, the library and Shaw's or co-op. Well, both. Both. Okay. Yeah. But every city and town clerk gets a copy of the notice and we ask that they share it with all of their staff and also to put it on front porch form in their town if possible. Okay. Okay. It's not required. Yeah. Super. Thank you. So it, you know, for those that are watching this, it is helpful because we have had, we do now have an assistant judge who was our county clerk that really has knows the ins and outs of it. And Leah, too, our other assistant judge, Elizabeth Batty, it was our former clerk and now our assistant judge. And Leah has been with us now, is it two years? Two and a half. It'll be three in February. Three in next February. And she was appointed first by the Governor Scott to replace the assistant judge, Otto Trouts, who had died during his term. And then she began for election. Here we are. And we should say Josephine Romano, our county clerk and Beverly Pembroke Hill, our county treasurer. Yeah. Thank you. Can you've been with us now for? Let's see. I think it's 2018. Five years. Yeah. Five years. Five years. Yeah. Yeah. And this is going on my 35th. Yeah. My 35th. And I still get nervous. I was county clerk also. Yeah. For 20 years between 1970 and 1990. That's right. That's right. And then the positions that were full-time were reduced when the state took over the clerks in the court part of county government. 2010. 2010. All the positions of like clerk were. So I work 10 hours a week and you work? About 15. 15. Yeah. But like I said, it's not that much of a week. Like right now, it's a lot. Or during audit. And like you have it like with election sure. Right. And so next year elections, it's... Oh yeah. That's right. Elections are coming up. So one thing that I can remember having to do, and so I know you too need to do it, is before you place your ads and your postings for the January meeting, you need to come up with that table. Oh yes. Oh yeah. I already sent it to me so that when I get home. Great. So I love you too. Oh yeah. I'm good with it. Send it to us too if you want to. Yeah. If you feel like you've got it all set. Yeah. I just give her the numbers and she takes it from there. Okay. Yeah. And I need that by... Next week. Yeah. I need it by... Today is Friday, right? So if I could have it even on Monday. Yeah. Because you've got that very nearer window. Tuesday at the latest. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to have it here. Yeah. Yeah. Because Monday will be what? The 18th? 19th? So the 18th? I would like to get it in by the 20th. And if you're trying to get it in the world, you've got to do it Tuesday. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But we've got what? It's 30 days? It's 30 days. But that's after... No more than... No less than 30 days, no more than 40 days. Right. And the thing about the Washington world is... You've got to have it then on a certain day in order because they've got a friend. You know, and the statute just speaks to full-time newspapers. In other words, not a newspaper like the Washington world. Well, I mean, that's part of it. It does say, you know, if you have a daily paper, you must use it. Yeah. So that's the time... And then not even daily anymore. Yeah. And it seems really smart to use the Washington world. Here it is. If a daily newspaper of general circulation is not published, shall be published in a weekly newspaper. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Include a summary of expenditures, blah, blah. Yeah. And how a copy of the proposal may be obtained. Yes, we always did that. Which is also different because it used to be able to say it's available from the bank and it's available in the courthouse. Yeah. And you now can't say that. So... Oh. Well, we'll say a copy is available by contacting me. And then I will mail them out. Perfect. Okay. Like by email or by... Yeah. I put my email in. The county's email. Okay. Yeah. All right. Good. Let's see. What else? Okay. So no one from the community has shown up. But again, all the town clerks did receive notice. And there's one more... One more official hearing before we... And there's one more official hearing. Yeah. Which is open to the public. Yeah. All right. Well, great. So do you want to close the meeting? Yes. We can close the meeting. At 9.47. Alrighty. No. 10.47. Yeah. 10.47. Meeting adjourned. Thanks for writing up a few minutes for us. Well, I was wondering if... I mean, this is so much better than I've written. Yeah. If I could just get a photocopy. Sure. Take with...