Bay County, Michigan Uploads, 18 Jul 2023

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From YouTube: Bay County Board of Commissioners Meeting (7/18/23)

Description

0:15 - Call to Order
0:28 - Roll Call
0:52 - Invocation/Pledge of Allegiance
1:36 - Minutes (6/20/23)
1:46 - Agenda Approval
1:57 - Citizen Input
2:13 - Petitions and Communications
2:17 - A. Rehmann Robson - Bay County 2022 Audit Presentation
20:27 - B. City of Bay City - Application for Industrial Facilities Tax Exemption Certificate - Mersen USA GS Corporation
20:45 - Reports/Resolutions of Committees - A. Ways & Means Committee
22:48 - B. Personnel/Human Services Committee
23:34 - C. Board of Commissioners
23:59 - Reports of County Officials/Departments - A. County Executive
25:40 - Commissioner Comments
25:46 - Unfinished Business
26:21 - New Business
26:23 - Public Input
26:33 - Miscellaneous
26:37 - Announcements
37:30 - Adjournment

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We'll follow the meeting at the Bay County Board of Commissioners to order Tuesday July 18 2023 at 4 pm, commission Chambers uh roll call. Please.

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uh Ricky here present.

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Here I'll take them, take a motion for you, I.

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Made a motion to excuse me.

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Invocation and then the plug friends.

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Lord we come before you this afternoon asking that once again that you bless the session of the County Commission, be with this board this day and guide them so that the decisions made today and always will benefit. Every citizen of this community amen, amen.

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With liberty and.

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Justice for all.

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Yeah minutes from 6 20 23.

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Discussion, all those in favor, say, aye aye motion passes gender approval.

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Support discussion, all those in favor, say: aye aye aye opposed motion passes citizen inputs. Five minutes. You would like to speak.

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To this second call third call close citizen input, petitions and Communications Raymond Robson, big County, 2022 audit presentation.

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And we perform the audit for the county again for December 31st 2022 for the County's fiscal year. I handed out four documents too. One is the big County audit report. This includes all the information and is what is submitted to the government Finance Association for their review and approval as well.

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Then there are two documents: stapled on Raymond letterhead, the thicker one, there's some required Communications that as us as Auditors are required to have with the board. That's what's in this document here: okay, the thicker stapled one and then the thinner stapled one on our letterhead. This is a separate report on internal controls and has any findings during the audit include in this and then the fourth document is the PowerPoint that I put together. That summarizes those other documents so I'm going to focus on the PowerPoint.

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If there's something else within those other documents, you want to look at more detail, I'm happy to do that, but I'm just going to run through this, the summarized information and on each page in the top left corner. There is a page reference to the auto report. So if you want more information about what's summarized on that page, it tells you which audit, which page number to go to in the audit report for further information.

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So, first of all, we issued what's called an unmodified opinion on the financial statements means financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. It's basically a clean opinion, the same opinion that counties received over the years and it's the highest level of assurance. The independent Auditors can provide on the financial statements.

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The next page looks at the general fund. This is the main operating fund of the county, and this page shows the assets, liabilities and the fund balance or what's left over at the end of the year, for a future uh broken on different categories. The first section total assets remember. This is a one point time. This is a December 31st 2022.

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total assets were 25.2 million dollars. Most of that is in investments in cash um and really the only changes during the year from 21 to 22. If you look side by side is Cash went down a couple. Hundred thousand and Investments went down 100 about 600 000, so about an eight hundred thousand dollar change in assets liabilities. So these are things that were incurred prior to December 31st 2022, but not paid until after fiscal year ended, there's normal trade accounts payable of 922 000 and then there's other liabilities of just over 5 million.

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Of that five million there's 2.1 in arpa funding that is considered unearned, so the arpa fund transferred 4.2 million to the general fund. General fund only spent 2.1 of that, as of December 31st I, believe the 2.1 will be spent in 2023.

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and therefore the general fund can't recognize that Revenue until it's actually expended. So that's what the unearned means. There's some deferred inflows resources. These are for some long-term receivables and governmental accounting says you can't recognize the revenue unless it's considered available uh to pay current bills. If it's not available, it gets recognized as Revenue in the next fiscal year. So what you see here are deferred inflows, so the county has received the benefit but can't recognize it as rent I'm, sorry Revenue until the next fiscal year.

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The difference between those different categories is called fund balance. This is equity. This is what's left over available for future spending. That's broken down into five different categories. You have non-spendable of about 747, 000 non-spendable has to do with some long-term receivables as well, that aren't available for future spending. There's some prepaid items where the county prepaid ahead of time. On some items, so that just says that portion of the fund balance isn't available for additional future spending. At this point in time, the restricted our external third-party restrictions about 150 000.

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committed of 7.3. The board has a budget stabilization agreement or a policy that says you're going to set aside 20 percent of the most recent budget, and that is what shown is shown as committed so that's available to meet if the budget has a shortfall or something in a future year. So that's what that commitment is a sign of about.

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4.3 million is a sign for General services in the general government, and then unassigned is kind of what hasn't been given a formal bucket to go in yet, and so that can be used for any purpose.

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Next page looks at the general fund revenue and transfers in it presents the pie. Chart is the actual numbers for 2022 broken down by the main categories down at the bottom. There's a column for the. What for the final amended budget was for each category compared to actual, and then also shows you what 2021 actual was so as you can see, their total revenue budgeted was through 35.5 million actual come in at 37.2 million, so better in Revenue than what was expected.

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Most of that is in property taxes, almost a million more than budgeted and property taxes, and almost 2 million more in federal revenue that had I think, partly due with the arpa funding that was recognized. That I mentioned earlier um other revenues.

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You can see the second line from the bottom, so that's anything didn't fall in the top four categories and you can see there's a pretty significant change from 21 to 22 of about two million dollar swing negative opposite way, and this had to do with um about uh 2.9 Million Dollar loss on investments, so governmental accounting says you need to adjust your Investments to fair market value. At your end- and everybody knows, the stock market December 31st 2022 is in the tank. That was the impact for the year the county recognized on their Investments.

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Now, at this point, the stock market has rebounded some. That number is going to be totally different. It's going to look a lot better than it did at December 31st.

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Thank you. Next page is the general fund expenditures and transfers out broken down into the different uh major functions of the county. The county had budgeted almost 43 million dollars in total expenditures and actual commit 39.2 million.

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um Nothing real uh significant when you're. Looking at what you expected happened to the budget. There's some significant swings from 2021, but you had expected that when you set your budget for the year, so there's really nothing real significant. There you're, you know had some cost savings that you were maybe not expecting during the year next page looks at the change in fund balance, so the change in fund balance is the total revenues and transfers in minus the expenditures and transfers out.

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The 2022 budget had a reduction expected reduction in fund balance of 7 465 000.. The actual reduction for 2022 was just under 2 million dollars, so I'm a pretty good uh savings when compared to what you had expected and that's really the impact of the additional revenues that come in over budget and the savings you had under budget on the expenditures.

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So the general fund ended the year of 17 million 439 000 in a fund balance and those are broke. That's broken down in those categories, I mentioned earlier next page the pension trust fund. This is the fund set up to fund the pension benefits for the retirees of the county. This includes the entire plan, so this is the county, the component units and babh.

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So this is the entire plan that the plan I'm sorry, the yeah, the entire plan that this fund accounts for so it's a little different than you're going to see on a slide coming up here. So for 2022 there was a restricted net position of 376 million dollars which almost all of that's in Investments. You can see about a hundred million dollar decrease year over year. From 21 to 22, if you switch to the next next page, you'll see what makes up that difference and the very first line again. This is at December 31st 2022.

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The pension trust fund had a an investment loss of 72.4 million dollars, so that loss uh in addition to the deductions you see, which are the benefit payments coming out, resulted in an almost a 91 million dollar reduction in that position again. This is one point in time: it's it's reversing itself and going in a positive direction at this moment.

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But who knows what's to come so just hmm next, one is the vibatrust, so this was set up to pay the retiree health care benefits or to set money aside for the retiree health benefits, this fund at December 31st 2022, had almost 81 million dollars in net position and again, almost all of that is in Investments, and this had about a 12 million dollar decrease in nap position. You look on the next page, okay, that first line again the investment loss of 13.3 million dollars.

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We switch to the next page page 11.. This is where it changes now so now what this information is just the county, it's the county and component units. This excludes uh babh. So it gives you an idea where the county stands as a whole for the pension plan, and this is measured as a December, 31st 2021.

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So there's a year lag time on this and the actuary that the county hires does their calculation come up with the total pension liabilities expected to be over the life of the plan so over the life spans of all the participants in the plan.

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So the total pension liability at December 31st 2021, was expected to be 269.3 million dollars. That's the First Column, the total pension liability, the next column, the plan net position. This is the amount that the county has set aside to fund those benefits and is included in the trust fund that I mentioned on the previous page.

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So again, this is at 2021 the not plan that position was 388 million dollars, so there was a net pension asset or the plan was over funded in 2021 by 119 million dollars. Now again, this is the plan that had a 90 million dollar decrease during the year as well. So it's not that well funded when you see 2022 next year right, so it really varies based on the market. The market plays a huge part in this.

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Next page, the actuary also calculates what their county is required to contribute to the plan to make sure it's fully funded, the county is required to contribute to store 980 thousand dollars this plan in 2022.. Now this is a county and component units, uh so I want to make sure you remember that the County's actual contribution was a million 141s about 160 000 over actual or over. What the actuary said you needed to contribute so again fully funding the plan.

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Next is the next page is the same type of information for retiree Health Care again, this is just the county and component units. The top section is December 31st 2021, total op or retiree Health Care liability of just over 72 million dollars in the plan. Net position is just over 66 million dollars. This plan is slightly underfunded. You have a net opeb liability of 5.8 million dollars, but the plan is 92 percent funded, which is a very well-funded plan compared to other comparable entities in the state.

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So um and again, this is as of December 31st 21 when the market was doing fairly well right and now we saw that turn around in 2022 and now we're seeing it again bounce back in 2023. So the bottom section of this page is the required contributions, shows 7.6 million the county and its component units contributed 6.2 million dollars so a little bit under what was required for uh what the actuary says to fully fund the plan.

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Okay, that was the final statement. Audit we're also working on. What's called a single audit, it's still in process. We haven't finalized this yet, but this is uh has to do with the County's expenditure of federal Awards, so the federal government says anyone that expends more than 750 000 in federal Awards is subject to what's called a single audit. This varies from a financial statement audit because it looks at compliance, it looks at.

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Did you spend it in accordance with the federal government says you could spend it on okay, so the total federal Awards expended by the county for 2022 was just under 12 million dollars about 5.2 of that roughly was arpa funding that was expended, so we did have two major programs and I noted this after these were printed, but the major programs are the ones that we have selected to test for the year and the federal government gives us guidelines and criteria to use to figure out which programs to test.

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We are testing the provider relief funds, which was provided to the Medical Care Facility of the county as well as arpa. So arpa will be a second major program- that's not listed here, but it will be audited as a major program this year.

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This single audit is required to be submitted to federal government by September 30th 2023, so we we hope to wrap this up in that within the next few weeks.

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Next page, we did have one finding this year, so during the audit process we look at internal control and if we come across any issues in the internal control, those are communicated to you as the board.

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The first page, it looks like a lot, but really it had to do with some audit adjustments that come across that we found during the audit process as we're auditing the information that were required to get the final statements fairly presented in accordance with General accepted accounting principles. So all these adjustments were posted, they were just found by the audit process and not by the internal controls. So we've already worked with Shauna I know she's working on strengthening those internal controls to make sure that doesn't happen in the future.

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Next page was just another item. This is a we consider it a minor other matter kind of thing. It's a suggestion to improve. There was one cost. um There was an improvement made to one of the County's buildings that really extended the life of the building. When that happens, that Improvement should be capitalized and depreciated over the life of that building. The extended life of that building- and there was a small amount that you can see there on the page that was missed and not capitalized.

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So again, that was another adjustment that was posted during the year.

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The next two pages are just five new accounting standards that are coming into effect in the near future. For the county, really the gasby 96 one, the top right corner is probably going to be one of the more significant ones the county is going to start. Looking at this is effective for December 31st 2023.

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This has to do with subscription-based information technology arrangements and how those are accounted for so I know. We've already had some discussions with Shauna and her group and we'll continue to have those throughout the year to make sure the county is ready for that standard when it goes unifact at the end of the year.

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So that is all I wanted to cover. I will open it up. If there's questions comments, discussion faster.

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I have one yes I'm on the Retirement Board on the Viva board and the numbers have been better since the first of the year. You know last several months, looking trending better. Yes, yes, probably a lot better and you only need the money when you retire right.

D

So right you only need it as people retire and draw on it. So yeah I mean the plans. Are plans are in pretty good shape, really good shape compared to a lot of others throughout the state. So.

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Then I go to the Mac Michigan Association accounting meeting is another account. You know we talk about budget. The budgeting and a lot of the counties are not not doing as well. They're funding, so we're I think we're doing a good job. Correct I would agree.

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And then there's the chairman observed, you know I I also I think through it was Crane's business. They didn't analysis of all the counties and how underfunded so many counties are.

F

You know summer Millions actually in debt in the upper peninsula across Michigan, but I would say we're in a very strong position, both on Viba, as well as the pension right 100 144 yeah. It's probably not rivaled anywhere in Michigan. As far as County pensions, yeah.

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I, don't I'm not familiar with all the counties, but I can tell you you're one of the best better shape ones that we have. Yes, you know a lot of them are at the 40 50 funded, maybe there's some that are down to the 20 30 percent funded uh for pension retiree health care. A lot of them are at zero to twenty percent. Some of them are not pre-funding, their retiree health care. So yes, the position, the county, the Bay County is in for those two plans is very, very nice, very good.

F

Yeah, thank you for the great job. Thank you.

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Any other questions, otherwise the motion to receive would be in those questions support any more discussion. All those in favor say aye aye motion passes. Thank you.

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Right city of Bay, City, application for industrial facilities, tax exemption certificates.

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I'll support it discussion. All those in favor, say: aye aye opposed motion. Curious uh committee is ways and means thank.

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You Mr chair resolution number 2023-116 2023 National Child Welfare Law conference I moved to approve this resolution discussion.

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Periods resolution number 2023-117 title 4--d, Cooperative reimbursement program, 2024-2028 I moved to approve this resolution, support discussion.

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All those in favor say aye aye opposed motion.

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Carries resolution number 2023-118, Michigan, State, University School of Social Work virtual connections, Grant sub-recipient agreement, 1024 and 44 cents I moved to approve this resolution. Sorry.

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Session, all those in favor say aye aye motion, curious.

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Resolution number 2023-119, e-gold facts: electronic faxing agreement I moved to approve this resolution, support discussion.

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Holes, if you ever say hi hi opposed motion.

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Carries resolution number 2023-120, Court recording software for the record record FTR gold recording software I moved to approve this resolution. Sorry.

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Motion carries resolution number 2023-121, multi-function copiers bid award 36 month lease I moved to approve this resolution, support.

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Discussion all those in favor, say aye opposed motion carries.

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Number resolution number 2023-122, payables I, moved to approve this resolution, support discussion.

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All those in favor, say, aye, aye, opposed motion carries and thank you, Personnel Human Services, Miss Mrs nemec. Thank.

H

You John resolution number.

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3-123 AAA annual Implement implementation plan, aip4 FY 2024 region, 7, Area Agency, on Aging, move to adopt this resolution, support.

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Discussion, all those in favor, say aye, aye and I believe he's going to try to come in I. Don't know if we've spent a time that for him to come, speak to us or the CEO sometime.

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Somewhere, pretty soon all right and Mr herrick's absence I've asked commissioner poyer to work on this next resolution motion to receive this would be the report of the county executive.

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Support it: okay, discussion, all those in favor, say aye aye opposed motion carries now we have the report of the county official.

F

Reef, uh just some positive news from congressman kildee and they're, the community Project funding, which has been reported to the floor of the house uh from the House Appropriations Committee awaiting a vote. The one million dollar request for the community center was reduced to 770 000. and the 300 000 West for the Bay County Land Bank was reduced to about 230 000.. Hopefully those figures will hold through the Senate and be signed into law, and that will be some money.

F

You know funding that we badly need here in Bay County and we appreciate Congressman kill these. You know always looking out for for Bay County and always responding to our requests. So a little bit later, I know we're excited the the clear of the shelter event is is taking place and I know that later under announcements belong to give report on that this chair. That's.

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Let's listen to the question any.

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Questions should be like the British Parliament here right. We should have some tough questions for you. We don't do that motion to receive I, guess we received it already.

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We do have uh County officials from the house has any comments. I think Jim spoke for all of them right.

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We discussed putting that on there or not putting that out there since you, you speak for everybody. Excellent commissioner comments comments from the commissioners.

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All right, unfinished business.

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Thank you again. Take this one. Yes,.

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There's the chair um referred matters motion to adopt the following: the recommendation: Attorney Kevin Kilby, as presented during closed session at the Bay County ways and means committee meeting on July 12 2023 regarding monitor Township, DDA, Technology, Park district, one extension.

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Discussion I have all those in favor, say: aye aye, aye Holmes motion carries new business public inputs for more chance.

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One more chance, one more chance: miscellaneous.

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The Alex Burke Memorial Bay County Tennis tournament will take place. August, 6th or August 4. Sorry through the 6th and entries, must be received by July 31st. So the deadline is coming up for additional information. Those interested uh can can get additional information at baycommunitytennis.com.

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Okay, I have one um former Commissioners, uh coonan and craiger always had their Beach Wellness um project. uh It's back on this year. It's been I think about 13 years. It's not been going the last couple because the coved it's August, 12th, it's a 10k run, a 5k run a 5k walk and they are adding a pet walk at the end.

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It starts at nine o'clock on the 12th in yukin of August, and you can register online at runsignup.com and go to the beach Wellness section to sign up I, think it's 25 entry fee and if you haven't been out to the beach you need to get out to the beach because they use every penny of this towards grooming and making everything better out there. Kim was out there today. I saw a video of them online and it's really nice I mean it's really really nice.

C

We walk out there flat, that's very nice, so you can sign up for August 12th. Thank you.

H

There was going to be a scrap tire drive at Frazier, Township Hall on Mackinaw Road, and it's going to be August the 5th from 9 A.M to 2 p.m. It's for Bay, County residents and you have to have a photo ID or proof of being a Bay County resident and there's a limit of 10 Tires per resident and only passenger car tires are smaller, are accepted and that's at Frazier, township hall August. The 5th.

A

Thank you any other announcements.

E

Yes, Mr, chair, I have one the Bay County Sheriff Office will be holding a training scenario on July 26th of this year, starting at 8 o'clock. In the morning. The training will take place in the Saginaw Bay near the mouth of the Saginaw River Sheriff Troy Cunningham, the Beatty County Sheriff's Office dive team and the numerous other agencies will participate in the training exercise, which will consist of a simulated plane crash and emergency Personnel response.

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This scenario-based training exercise will provide invaluable Hands-On training for a wide range of First Responders based in the Bay County community. The training exercise will conclude medical personnel responding and rendering first aid along with the search and rescue of victims.

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The training will transition into a recovery, trance training, which would include numerous dive teams from the southeast Michigan dye Group, which is comprised of approximately 250 divers, making it the largest Mutual Aid response diet group in Michigan and one of the largest in the country.

E

While the training exercise is being conducted, the DNR boat launch in Bangor Township will be closed to the public traffic. So thank you.

A

I have an announcement for a formation of a standing, Budget Finance committee, so we plan to have some meetings with department heads right now, I'm going to make uh commissioner nimi Mr manager and myself the three, because we only have three at the meeting at a time. But we've there's eight hour sessions like 31st of July. The first see not the first second third and fourth of August, so we may need some some subs to fill in. So if you're available I'll be in the holia, so that's coming up appointments.

A

We have the October Land Bank Authority two three year terms from the city of Bay City to applicants, Bay County, Department of Health and Human Services, one three-year term and jury commission, one sixth year term December we have a Bay County Veterans Affairs committee, one four-year term department on Aging advisory committee. We have four two-year terms: districts, one three, five and seven- and that's up to each commissioner to to contact a person. That's in there now to see if they're still interested or if they want to.

A

Somebody else would like to do it and in closed session. Do we need a closed session yeah, otherwise emotions.

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Mr chairs, oh yeah, sorry I didn't want to be rude and interested, but announcement with the shelter we are have empty the shelter going on. Currently it started yesterday, the 17th through 31st and uh probably at Southern cat school yesterday, five more today, but we're currently about 126 animals. So um probably 100 more dogs came in this year already than last year, so we're having a lot of animals, um sadly being dumped and dumped off Strays. So we encourage everybody that anybody would like the animal to.

G

Please comment this affordable time to get one and share it with friends and family. You can keep up on our County Facebook site, we're always talking about everything going at us. So if you could share that with the public to help get some animals uh their forever homes would be greatly appreciated. This time the price is fifty dollars for a dog and 25 for a cat at this time. If that helps, we also have another really cool event, we're just starting out on Friday the 28th um we're getting veterans.

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um It's called vets and pets. I have some veterans that came in and started taking on dogs and rehabilitating them and getting of the public. So talk to this gentleman named James and he just started coming around last. We had three meetings already we're gonna start on July 28th and have all veterans that care about animals want to come and just talk about veteran type things and have coffee and donuts and start walking dogs. It's a little program with just it's just starting on 28th, so any veterans I'd be interested in that I.

G

Think it's gonna be a great opportunity to start getting animals out and maybe adopted that way too and I'll talk more about it. It's just a first one, so I'm just kind of see where snowballs system, two announcements.

A

Thank you being a veteran. If I go there and I find a nice dog and I, take it home, I'm hoping I'm hoping it happens, we'll.

F

See in Goodman's there.

G

Well, thank you every time, Mr.

E

Chair, yes, that Matt, what's that 25.50 is that include all the shots or yes,.

G

Okay, they're already been spayed and neutered, and it helped they'll have the rabies shots, license everything: okay,.

E

Though, okay, thank you.

F

Yeah to sort of describe this for some of the new Commissioners normally to adopt a dog like, for example, and I, adopt adopted, Benji and also look at our cat was like about 500 bucks 400 for a cat with a partnership we have with all about animals and Bissell Foundation.

F

As long as you adopt those pets out, Bissell reimburses, Bay County, every penny for spaying, neutering, vaccinating and I'm, not sure on the microchipping I think Bay County pays for that yeah we do microchips, but that's to reunite the animal with their owners should they get lost.

F

But it really has been a wonderful collaboration with the Bissell foundation and they do it Beyond Bay County, but we that's the only way we could achieve a no-kill status in adopt 97 of our animals, because the cost on adopting a pet I, remember, I, think our cat had kennel cough and it was four or five hundred dollars in vet bills, plus spaying neutering. Vaccinating.

F

You know you're looking at used to be about eight nine hundred dollars to adopt the cat if they had a medical issue like kennel cough, which is a respiratory issue, and so we've we've really combated that by changing the you know, separating with the wall, the dogs and the cats, because the dogs, continual barking, will cause stress to the cats and that depresses their immune systems and makes them susceptible to kennel cough, which is a respiratory issue, but with our new shelter and we're hopefully going to be making progress.

F

Hearing about where we're at the process on a management team to begin that process for a new shelter.

F

We, you know we're we're going to be in great shape, because HVAC is critical and separation of the animals and the shelter we have now Tam and Commissioners fellow Commissioners was a mosquito control. Building that was converted was never designed to be an animal shelter. It's very small and the staff I was over today took out a big load of some blankets, a lot of towels that I had access at home and comes in handy at the shelter but staff's working very hard and we're very busy with calls coming in.

F

But it's going well and sounds like we're, adapting quite a few cats we're chipping away at the dogs and part of the problem too. You know, Matt mentioned people dropping off dogs.

F

Some people feel really bad, but a large dog can consume now about a hundred dollars or eighty dollars worth of food in a week, and so some people are feeling Financial pressure and they feel they can't can't afford their pet anymore and they're, dropping them off or or they're being lost in neighborhoods or leftist Strays, and so, if a lot of activity out there- and we can't wait till we get that new shelter underway and get the planning together for that. So that's all I have Mr Jefferson. Thank you. Matt.

A

You're doing it, thank you. Thank you. Was it somebody's birthday today, Jim's.

E

I would like to wish Matt Beaver a happy birthday.

A

To you, by the way we pay, we pay him not to sing at the Lion's Club. Thank you.

A

Explosion to adjourn with the game owner a motion journalist.

I

A

Yes, all in favor, say aye.