\* This transcript was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning. 0:00 Ladies and Gentlemen, like to call the meeting of the Bosque Central Appraisal District to order at 6o'clock We have a forum. I'd like to thank Chris and Justin for helping us get this all done, because they've been in review board meetings all day long. That's that time of year at the Bosque Central Appraisal District. Found an interesting fact you might find interesting. More than half of the people who file protests on their property do not show up for their hearings, so we pay that. We pay the ARB to be there. They have to take their time to get ready to prosecute the side of the county, and half the people don't show up all right. Just a little bit of trip at Central Appraisal District trivia, its that time of the meeting, it's that time of the meeting where we both, by desire and by law, have to permit the audience and individuals to make reports, requests, comments. consider complaints, and we do that willingly. Members of the public may address the board here by completing a participation form, which four people have done. That each member of the public may speak for three minutes regarding the topics addressed, 15 minutes on a common subject, which they're all on, seem to be on the same subject, but everybody's gonna get to talk. No action is taken, no response will be made. I used to get very angry with the people at this at the county, because they would never say anything to me when I talked to them, but they can't by Open Meeting Act law, they're not permitted to speak, and I would get frustrated, but they'd never respond. It's like you won't talk to me, but we can't do it, because the way the rules work is has to be on this agenda before we can talk about it. And since you might bring up something, or that this way law works, we'll bring up something that we haven't got on the agenda, it doesn't give notice to the world that we're going to talk about that, so we will sit here and Ishere? 2:42 Air Force spent six years security manager going to San Antonio program. Why y'all need to know that? Because I'm going to talk about players, and that's something I do, somebody been doing for over 35 years. Current budget that I run is $20.8 million I have to be accountable for every single penny of it, FEMA, of all places. So I'm aware of how budgets work. Part of that budget, part of those responsibilities, also has given promotions, raises, and bonuses. That's an annual thing that we go through as a team. The way that we run things, where I work, the way that I've done things for the past 15, 16, 20 years is to start the bonus promotion raise process, you have to start with an evaluation. You can't do anything for a bonus promotion or raise without having something to base it off. It must be very base. Just because you have money in a budget doesn't mean that you just give it away. You've got to base it off America, the evaluation itself, performance evaluation, you have to set goals and objectives for it. They have to be measured. The supervisor says that now, supervisor, Chief Appraiser, obviously we need to set those goals and objectives for the person who's asking for the one that you meet think needs a raise or promotion. These ratings fall into three categories: they either exceed the standards, they meet the standards, or they do not meet the standards. Very simple. If you meet your goals and objectives, congratulations, you deserve receive a paycheck every day. Nothing special about coming to work and doing your job. That's just way it is. If you do not meet your goals or objectives, replace you on a performance improvement plan, and you get re-evaluated in six months. If you still do not meet your goals and objectives, you can go find your passions elsewhere. If you exceed your goals and objectives, then you are eligible, and I say ineligible for a merit raise or promotion or bonus in my area, the manager submits that that employee to me as a recommendation, and I make a decision on it. If there's money in the budget, I can approve it. I can also get one-time bonuses. A bonus or raise is never more than 3% Never. The only time I saw a raise more than 3% is when I was a young troop in the Air Force, and Ronald Reagan was the president. That's the only time I saw raise over 3%. 2:56 Raushenberger, if we wrap it up. 2:56 Yes sir. 4:36 Another piece of this evaluation process I think is key is to get buy-in from the citizens to think about this for a couple of days. One way to do that, send out random anonymous surveys, maybe a month. Take a sampling from it from the county on what they believe is a performance of cheap appraiser. you give a raise that isn't very faithful, while not using an evaluating process, just because there's money in the budget is a parcel, and anything more than 3% is an insult and a slap in the face to every tax-paying citizen in this county whose bag you use is to give praise. 4:49 Sandy Raushenberger, 4:49 she's 6:20 me yesterday. I want to give them my skill to you about doing your due diligence, possibly taking the decision on the budget tonight until before the review will be done, and I'm just here tonight just ask you on behalf of the Bosque County Citizens to be good stewards with our tax dollars. We put our tax dollars in your hands to make good decisions. The citizens are already under a lot of stress tax wise, so we're building trust with the new, we're asking you to earn that trust, and tabling the decision on the budget for a little bit is helping build that trust. So I would hope that you listen to the citizen and tonight at least just table it to have a little bit more discussion. 7:56 Good job, Rhonda Raines. 8:14 No, it's illegal for a server violation of professional status for a licensed appraiser to intentionally undervalue their own home also constitutes fraud and violates the local, federal, and state provisioning regulations, conflict of interest the uniform standards of professional appraiser USdAP strictly proverb prohibits the framer for value of any property for which he has partial interest unless they explicitly disclose. Furthermore, that next rule mandates that appraiser thus partially adjustedly with independence. I will, we have the right to have justification for raises if citizens do. We have rights to go with justification for what, how people help either praise things, which he's not even supposed to be. I think he shouldn't even have a job to start with. So, we should shut that head off. My question is, we're not actually going to do the law, and y'all won't think and trust its trust. Don't have it's earned. Y'all have no credibility right now. 9:56 Yes, 9:56 Mr. Harris, 9:52 I wasn't over this speech, but I guess 9:58 I'm Jim Harris. I currently live in Bosque County, Valley Mills, Texas. I'm going to tell you, I don't understand how anybody can just give somebody a raise. I've been in the workforce - I'm 63 years old, about 64 now. My daughter, my sister-in-law - she's on Medicaid and Social Security, I'm drawing on Social Security. I got a pacemaker defibrillator, and we, we paid our taxes this year, and they told us that we were going to get a refund because it went back three years, because of some discrepancy, we haven't seen no checks yet, but I often get a check from every golf course. All I'm saying is America, we as citizens of Bosque County cannot afford taxes, go keep going up and up and up, and they want to raise for what y'all not doing anything, but raise our taxes. All right. 11:14 Let's take the second. Third item is the presentation discussion, and take possible actions on bids for general counsel for the district. We have two bids, one from the law swinging firm and one from the Elsa Moser firm. I know it's pretty easy to figure out who they are. We have two lawyers in the office, I mean, in the audience, they've come to speak. I think what we'll do is I ask them to come up one at a time, and then if you have any questions of them, of the board to speak to that, and then we'll have a discussion amongst ourselves, and often we'll make a decision. We've been without the general counsel since, I mean, we took five or four of us took this job in in January, and about the first thing I heard was the general counsel quit, so we've been without them for a while. So, mr. Olsen, would you come, please introduce yourself and your law firm briefly. Everything's briefly around here. 12:17 Is that Moser? Why does Chris Moser have a job? 12:23 Hey, we're not putting up with that. We're not putting up with any outburst, not one 12:28 rude and hateful enough as it is. 12:33 Welcome to the appraisal, Mr. Wilson in Bosque County. 12:35 Olsen and Olsen, has been around for over 50 years. We do nothing but represent local governments, cities, special districts, a very impressive district of general counsel and have special education. I'm here to answer questions about it. I went to Baylor. My family's from Waco, so we spend a lot of time in Portugal in Houston, based out of Houston. We're here to pass by any needs you may have, or get a little pleasure on the board, no contracts. And happy to answer any questions you may have. 13:17 I have some questions, just because he lives in my rural, but you guys have any questions. No, a couple of things, and maybe it was in your presentation, but I don't know. Since you're in Houston and we're in Bosque County, I've come back since I got involved in this on having counsel at all these meetings for this unnecessary, it's just an unnecessary expense, and but how do you, how does your firm handle travel time? If we need, 13:46 We would bill for to and from, but it doesn't make sense in your case. So, I think I have family, my sister and her family live with McGregor, so I mean, I have excuses to come up here. So, I think if anything, I probably wouldn't charge travel fee 14:03 and when these guys call, most of the calls are going to come from them and not me, but I may have one, or somebody on the board may have one time to time. Are we going to have, like, a relationship partner or relationship lawyer? Are we just going to get one of the 20 14:23 that doesn't work that way? I mean, we would assign you a lead counsel, as well as an assistant general counsel, and then have a team assigned for personnel matters, you have the HR question, Sherman, things like that, open meetings, stuff like that. Then also, obviously, there's a side of potential litigation associated evaluation cases, so we have a whole team of people that handle those kinds of 14:51 litigation side is the more defined side. It's that day to day. What we do here, what does the code say about this? That's the kind of question. 14:58 It would usually be myself or Tony, and do that kind of stuff for us. when 15:05 it comes to litigation is that you can't do everything, so don't I know better. 15:14 We have about 40 lawyers in our office, and about 25 of them are assigned solely to Harris County appraisal district cases and other special cases to handle for appraisal districts, all the same thing. So, there's there is a team of people that specialize in everything, every kind of industrial use you can think of, residential desserts, everything you can think of. There's a couple attorneys are office who handle those, okay, 15:35 In your last question, in your organization, this I've only learned in the last six months that the tax code and government code with regard to open meeting and also to the appraisal district curr is the ultimate fight guard in law, and so I'd like to know, in your firm, how many lawyers you have, just off the top of your head, that that really have engaged in that for a significant period of time and can speak to those issues you talk about government, the whole council. Yeah, all right. Thank you, Strawson. Thank you, 16:38 James. Yes, mr. James. 16:47 Thank you for having me. My name is Ryan James. I'm with the law firm of Low City Evans. We're based out of Cedar Park, we started the firm about eight years ago. All of our partners came from other law firms in appraisal districts, so cumulatively we have, we have a lot of experience, experience our partners, Jim Evans and Frank Swinney, both have more than 30 years experience representing appraisal districts. My partner, Gary Gaines, was at the Harris County Appraisal District before she joined us, and has over 10 years, and I have over 10 years of experience as well. We're a firm of 12 attorneys. We represent about 70 appraisal districts throughout the state, lots of appraisal districts that are similar size to Bosque County. We also represent 20 appraisal review boards. We represent a couple of special districts, but we do appraisal districts. That's what we do. We work in the tax code, our public information at open meetings, that procurement, whatever affects appraisal districts by answering questions. 18:07 I got some questions. Yeah, once again, Cedar Park is a lot closer than Houston. I don't know how you deal with travel time. I mean, again, I don't like having mortars up here to travel up there necessarily, but we will have that need, and we will certainly in the litigation pending here. So, 18:25 yeah, we have a lot of clients that where we need to travel to them. We typically charge $125 per hour, maximum rate for travel per hour. If we are working while we are traveling, then we're going to bill to the other clients, my law partner, Clark Sweeney, who travels a lot. He hires a driver that works while he travels, so sometimes that is reduced due to working. If you have an associate who's traveling and that, for some reason, has a rate below $125 an hour, they would not charge you the additional 19:01 favored nation once again on the relationship between your firm and these gentlemen, principally maybe some of us. How are you going to structure that when it comes to the relationship 19:17 in the proposal? We listed Curt Sweeney and myself as the as the initial contacts, frankly, over the long term, I hope that you know projects come up where Chris and Justin work with other associates and they think they can pick up the column called the associates, because you know the partners can't do it all, so we'd like to grow that relationship, but initially it would be partners, and we're not just going to pass along to someone who doesn't have the experience to answer the public information question, or whatever it would be initially, 19:56 besides yourself and mr. Swinney, I other experienced lawyers who have experience dealing with the tax code and the government code and those kinds of day-to-day regulatory questions that affect us more than the two of you. 20:15 It depends on how detailed the question you're asking. There are a lot more than us do. Jim Evans, ask associates that they can answer a lot of the questions, maybe not some of the more detailed ones that you probably follow, and they know to ask it if they can answer the question. 20:38 I just had a bad experience with the last one, or very early on. I had a million questions, as you might imagine, just coming into this, and I wasn't able to get much of an answer. So, I - this is what's important to me, anyway, to be asking that I've got contact with someone like you. 20:55 What's the biggest case you've had for a CAD? 20:58 What's the biggest case? 20:59 Yeah, how did it turn out? 21:06 We handled in a high number of power plant cases. The last power plant case we tried was somewhere around I want to say, valued about 150 million on the appraisal rule, and we got a good jury verdict that favored the appraisal district, who were in favor. We just handled a oil field in West Texas that we got to the week on trial, and we were able to settle it, fortunately, which is a better, better result than going to trial and getting the verdict. So we have been, you know, ideally we're settling the case, but we may be involved. The reason my partner, Eric Sweeney, is not here right now is because he's in a trial on a on a Lincoln case. It varies, usually the usually the smaller cases aren't going to go to trial because it just don't make sense. 22:00 Thank you. 22:00 Thank you very much. Appreciate you being verymuch, Chris. Either you or Justin have, we're gonna have an open discussion for these guys, but only way of doing, because I want to get it done. Yes, you have comments about how you'd like to go with this, you're going to be the one. 22:23 I feel confident in both firms. I think I've got two firms that can get this work done for us, both of them very good firms. I've witnessed the low Sweeney firm first hand in educational seminars and board of director training, specifically very gains and have been very impressed with their work, and also Olson and Olson. I've seen them do magnificent things in the industry, so I just feel very confident that both of these firms can handle this workload professionally. The monetary side of it, I didn't most see much difference on it, but I agree, we need for need attorneys. It is a critical thing that we have to have a day for day-to-day operations. So we need to get this done, regardless of who the selection is. 23:13 Just out of curiosity, what's probability that big capital investment projects like the data center end of in litigation, 23:21 it's a probability 23:22 high, better than 50. 23:24 I wouldn't say high, but yeah, 50/50 Also, solar farms could be an issue going forward, residential as well. We do have some residential activity in the county, high-end homes that we have to stand our ground on. The only option for a property owner is to follow lawsuits. At some point, we have to have seasoned attorneys to represent us, and the board 24:03 Yeah, kind of bounce all this out. I think the proximity of the Los Winn Farm is important with Dream Cedar Park in here. They all have basically the same kind of experience. There's probably more depth in the bench in Houston, but the rates are higher as well. So, I mean, I'm glad motion to that effect motions made and seconded for the board to engage and employ the firm of Low Swinney as general counsel for BCAD, and it's been seconded by Justin. Is there any further conversation? Communication. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Thank you. We'll go with Low Swinney. Item number four is to discuss and take possible action on an entire raft of board of director policies and governance documents by resolution, and this would be the adoption resolution number 2026 001 omnibus ratification of miscellaneous policies, and Exhibit A, Resolution Number 2026 001 RMO, the Records Management Policy, the Resolution Number 2026 002 and omnibus adoption of the 2026 policy suite, which is comprised of the board of directors policies, public relations manual, cyber policy, and disaster recovery plan. And just to try to summarize this and make this make sense for everybody, these policies, to some extent, are not the cyber policy, probably were already in place, needed to be updated, needed to be aligned with changes to the law over the last several years, needed to be, have just even the reference to the simple appraisal district was wrong, and some of them, so this is just this massive kind of cleanup and restatement of policies that we have that govern the board govern the appraisal district. I know that Doug Kieta took the policies with him on an airplane and edited them and submitted his edits to Justin, and Justin was generous in working with him on that, so they haven't cleaned up a little bit to the extent they've made those changes, which is his nature in the school. Does anybody have any questions about these? I'd like to pass them all as one, okay? Hearing none, have miserable reading. It's miserable reading, that's right. But you got to have something that tells you how you run organizations. I need a motion. I'll make a motion to pass at June item four. Rusted second motion has been made by Justin Blake to pass item number four, which is this cumulative group of policies, seconded by Rob Clark. Is there any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Okay. Item number five is that discuss and take possible actions updating the Central Appraisal District's wildlife management guidelines. I have to the board. I've been informed that there's some question about whether we have the right to do that, or whether it needs to follow a little different path through the Ag Board and appraisers. So we're going to table item number five, so we don't make a mistake or do something and have to go back and undo it. This was kind of my idea, and then I didn't - I just kind of got out of my speech too quickly, so we're nothing pending about this, nothing that has a timeline or a deadline, so we're just going to take another call. Okay, number six is to discuss and take possible action on a 2027 preliminary budget, so I'd like to make some comments about that. Then we will have the board discuss that, see where we go. My first comment is in somewhat in response to comments that were made by the public. This is just a budget, it's we're not giving anybody raises, we haven't done performance evaluations, except for last yesterday, we had a performance evaluation discussion, but certainly not at the depth that we would want to do, or any business would want to do. That typically occurs at the end of the year, process for that, and a discussion of those kind of elements. Several of us have been actively engaged with the members of the district, since we started, and so we have an operating working relationship with how they work and what they do, but certainly that's not the kind of evaluation we're going to do at the year. So this is a budget we are required by law to pass a preliminary budget by June the 15th, so that's why we're doing it now and not at the end of the year, and not after some other part of the process. It is preliminary. 29:27 It will, if passed tonight, it will go to the taxing authorities for their review and comment for discussions between the taxing authorities, if they have any questions, and the appraisal district changes may be made, discussions may be had, and the like, and then finally a final budget will be blessed and pressed and feel the I'm going to steal the headline on the budget, just because I'm so happy. We're going to justify, make sure why we're spending the money, and that we need to spend the money. So we did that. Actually, I didn't do it, but Doug Kieta did it. Doug Kieta, if you don't know him, has a life's work in building, managing, operating, including budgets, major power plants all over the world. So, in early February of this year, I mean, right after we got started, I knew that this budget was going to be an issue, and I knew that the compensation and the salaries in the budget, which is the biggest part of any service organization, there is your compensation is your people. I knew that this was going to give some attention in the county, and I wanted to make sure that this board did the right thing, as best I know how to do, to understand as best we can the information relative to salaries in our organization and in the market, because regardless of what people may think, your salaries are governed by the market to some extent, it's a factor, because if you're too low, nobody wants to work for you, and they'll go work for somebody else, if you're too high, they all want to work for you, so I asked Doug, in this February, excuse me, to undertake this job of principally doing a salary survey, and he has no historical ax to grind with the board of the appraisal district. He has this huge background in business administration and operations, and so he gladly did that and conducted a - I'm still a little bit of his thunder - but conducted a survey of 30 different counties, and they asked him for information, and he didn't just ask for information, and he didn't just go on their website and pull off some number that he didn't understand what it was, he wrote them and talked to them, he had conversations with them and email exchanges with them to develop a rather comprehensive understanding of what they're doing, what they're paying, their size, all the things that factor into the complicated aspect of how you pay people in an organization and in a market, and I'm going to let him explain more about that in a minute, but so please understand that our discussion tonight, and this act tonight, can't be tabled because we have to get it down by june 15, and I think we pushed it right up to the as close as we could, because there is an enormous amount of work going on at that appraisal district right now, and then please understand we're not giving anybody a raise today, but we have to budget based on something for 2027 Nobody would get a raise tonight, and even if we pass it, none of the supplies until 2027 So I'm going to turn it over to Doug, or I mean, actually to Chris Quick, is going to present the budget and let you do that in a summary fashion, because this 130 40 pages is the budget and the salary survey, and for your information, this is online and public information, any one of you can read it and study it and understand it and see what we did to go through and analyze both the operations of the organization and also this is a 62 page salary survey and analysis that decisions tonight are going to get made on and possibly in years to come, Chris. 34:43 Yes, sir. Thank you. So we should begin with the salaries line 500 and if the board would turn to the page about halfway through the big document of under 50 pages on page 39 that's where the real meat and potatoes of the budget is, and I'll give you a moment to get there, 35:06 Mr.Kieta. You may start on the salaries, 500 501 through 500 if you'd like to talk about that, or any of the other board members, but those salaries are right there, present. Looks like a 10 and a half percent total aggregate increase if you look at the bottom line from year to year and I'll turn to the board from this point. 35:27 Well, just make a comment. I sent out the 32 emails to the heads of the Chief Appraiser, a whole bunch of CADs. The only one I didn't think was a very valid piece of data was Loving County, in about as far west Texas as you can get, because Loving County only has 52 people, but surprisingly, there's their appraised value of their properties is about twice Bosque County, but I divorced that statistic because I didn't feel it was representative. Pardon me, I can't say I know Steve Jones, but I did get an answer from Loving County anyway, so I compiled all this data, and really, because you'd have to be deaf living in Bosque County not to know that there's some people who don't appreciate Chris, I happen to not be in that camp, but that's beside the point. The point is, I want to find out, I've hired a lot of people in my day. I've had payrolls of 1000s, and I know that when you're hiring people, it's difficult to procure them. Once you train them, you've invested in them, you hate to see them go down the road because you didn't pay them adequately. And that's just the free will and liberty of America. That's why America works. So I asked for specifically Chief Appraiser data, deputy Chief Appraiser data. Surprisingly, many of the CAD sent me their whole operating budgets. They're very, very free with the information, and so when I compiled it out of the 32 that I sent it, I got 21 responses, which I felt were representative, some were like next door to Iran, Fannin County, just counties all over all over Central Texas, and what I concluded, and what I have helped work into this budget is our people are underpaid, and the interesting thing that the feedback I got, the unsolicited response to a question I didn't ask from many of the chief appraisers was, if you think you're going to replace your Chief Appraiser, you are crazy, because nobody wants this job. It's just a fact. I've got it in writing from three or four chief appraisers saying I don't know what road the guy, one guy said, I don't know what road you're going down, but if you think you're going to go hire somebody to replace whoever you've got now, you want to have a second thought about that, because it's a miserable, stinking job, and I can summarize it, I had to give a talk to the Clifton School Board a couple weeks ago about this process, and another change that we are going to propose to make, and what I, what I said to them is, when you're on a school board, you get a nice phone call, man, your football team is really, really doing great, and I was on the school board for six years out of the Cranfills Gap, and so I know the kinds of calls that come into the school board when you take a job where every call that comes into somebody that hates you, because that's the environment these guys live in. There's nobody, there's not one person in this meeting that stand up and say, Chris, you're doing a great job with this county, but there's plenty of stand-up say you think you're yesterday the lady was forget what she said, but it wasn't very pleasant, very unbecoming. So, my point is, I did an honest survey, I looked at real data, and I concluded our people are underpaid, and if they would decide to go and get another job, we'd be in a world of hurt to replace them. And if you're in a world of hurt to replace them, what happens next? What happens next is the state comptroller comes in and starts taking over your appraisal process. I don't think anybody wants a state of Texas dealing with Bosque County. I certainly don't, so that's the background of the data that it's online. You can read it. I would encourage you to read it, and we have built the survey results that I got into this budget, and doing that, we're still under last year's budget, which I think is from a business standpoint pretty phenomenal. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. 38:31 You guys got anything else you want to add to it? 35:27 I do. Are we going to ask this out to the public? 35:27 It's online. It's online Tuesday. so 38:32 I spent probably five hours today reading this. I just got yesterday. Doug is very thorough data analyst. I do see that fear of replacement seems to be the primary lens that we're looking through here, when I optimize for population parcel size, and what I think is the most important, probably variable in the compilation of this data, appraised value relative to salary withdrawal, which would be burden of the taxpayer relative to county size. The numbers come out a little bit different. I like the principle that we look at and compare apples to apples with what replacement value would be. I don't like how the market rewards people who are transient, but my fear is without doing, there's a lot of data in this book that's filtered through the lens of how long the drive it is from here, and their radical differences in employee compensation within appraisal districts, even on an apples to apples basis. So, I think more time and more analysis is what I would like to see. Unfortunately, we're up against a time limit. I'd like to say that since I've been on this board, dealing with Justin and Chris has been phenomenal. They have responded to everything I've asked them to do. They've taken time out of their day to sit down and inform me on things I haven't understood and that's, you know, until that's the public perception. I don't know that we can look at fear of losing them as the main one of the main drivers for how we determine what compensation should be. I would hope that we could give raises, ideally in a fluffy world of pink butterflies, and the public is super excited about it. We want to compensate our people who work for us in our county. I don't think anybody's against that, but I feel like further discussion is needed on this budget. What's going to happen is, if you pass a budget public and the taxing entities don't agree with it's not going to be on bus, you guys come after, maybe somewhat, but they're going to take the blow back to the community. The social media outrage, I'm a little concerned 43:40 Doug has worked really hard at this, and every year I voted the budget down, and yesterday I made my opinion clear of what I thought about it. I went home, and I thought long and hard, because it was a good meeting yesterday. But then I started thinking about different stuff as well. We're in the 220th district for our county, then other two, which is Comanche and Hamilton, is not on this, and I will. They didn't respond to you, or I didn't solicit Command. So, Comanche and Hamilton is in our district, and they are folks we are either at that level or above that level. That's my deal on that issue. So, we're not way behind in my, in my opinion, I respect everything you are saying. So, another thing, last year we got a bunch of bunch of them here from the cities and entities, we had everybody representing our citizens in amenities sending in that they're disapproving the budget, it wasn't on the right form, it wasn't on this, it wasn't correct. Instead of going back to and telling them, hey, we're not taking this, because even though we know you are not approving this, we just put it through. To me, that's unethical. That's the people that we're supposed to be taken care of. They're trying to take care of us. I'm totally, they pushed their own raises through last year. I, for one, and totally, and again, like I said, I went home and thought a long part about it. After listening to y'all, I do not agree with one penny this year with the way it was done last year, 44:28 obviously you have the right to say that 45:44 And like I said, I respect everything you work hard, and but the two that are in our district, I know one of them is under us. What is Hamilton Chief Appraiser? 45:55 You know, I'm not sure what they make. I know that I believe they were the person was hired two to three years ago. 46:03 Last year 46:05 they were paying more off day one that I was at the time they were hired, and I was already in the office for three to four years. Now I don't know what they make 46:16 And I would say comparables like our Somerville County, Chris is underpaid compared to Somerville, and Somerville is smaller in population, smaller in parcel, smaller in office staff. They has more tenure, right? He does, so that, that, that is a closer apples to apples comparison. But then, if I compare it to about other counties that were quite a bit different, 46:40 way higher, 46:41 some of him, excuse me, he is underpaid, and stuff that that you printed out, for sure. But then I don't know how many of them, their family get their insurance paid for, because you're the only one that was before this group, but you're the only one in this whole county that gets your family paid for. It's extra. It was 10 when it got approved the last time, as it went up. It's not listed here, it's broke down. 47:07 I think it's cost out of pocket about 7500 47:10 anymore. 47:12 I think that was the budgeted amount, but it was never that was one of my compensation package, pretty much the only thing I've asked for since I've been employed by the county, that's it. It also made sense to do that because of my pay rate. I was paid so low, like the other employees on this list, that I qualified for Medicaid for government insurance, and so it wouldn't, I mean, it's true, it wouldn't have made sense for me to be promoted and to be the Chief Appraiser with my, with the amount of money I take home, just so personally, for me, if you look at where you're sitting at, my, my insurance would have been covered by the governor, because I paid so low, me taking a promotion, actually 48:00 At 80 something 1000 a year it would've been? 48:29 Yes, yes that's correct. Thats like the threshhold. If I'm making a little less than that, let's say if I was just a regular appraiser making 50,000 I'd qualify for medicaid and so for me to be promoted and still take home the same amount of money and make the job worth my while that would be one thing, the main thing that I wanted for me as an employee, and that's why I asked the board and the board understood at the time, I think you voted for it, Kyle as far as I can remember. and I'm very thankful for it. 48:31 There was two of us that didn't only because nobody else in the county and Justin didn't get it. 48:37 No, he don't. I'm the only employee that it made sense for as well, because the rest of them make a lower amount of money that they qualify for Medicaid. 48:45 First of all, this is approval of a preliminary budget, speaking to your question of further discussion. If it was passed tonight, it's still going to be discussed before it's a final budget, so there's I think that's like a month or so, maybe longer. Yeah, I mean, but we got to get it to the final budget, right? The final budget goes out. I mean, there's a, there's plenty of time for the discussions, september 15, but I don't set up this statutory scheme. We'll just have to deal with it, this so I wanted to comment about that. There's plenty of time for us to continue to meet and talk about it, but you got to start with something, and I respect your points about that. The comments you make, Kyle, about Comanche, Comanche doesn't even have a Chief Appraiser, and they haven't been able to hire one for a year because their rates are normal, so there's just a hard one to compare against an ongoing operating guy with the level of experience that these two guys have, and this issue I talked about it in the second meeting that we had, and I'm going to talk about it again. This issue about the taxing authorities have a right to veto this budget or any budget, and and there are questions about how that happened, and I checked it out personally. I went to the former Board of Director Chairman Sydney Carlisle, and I asked her, and she said it was her decision not to represent to redo the budget, because she didn't feel that things that she had received representing a rejection of the budget were adequate. It's not made by him, not made by him, it's made by Sidney Carlisle. And I looked at what she showed me, and I had any argument with it. Yes, and I said in that second meeting I'm not going to treat people that way, if somebody wants to, they want to reject it, they don't quite get it right, we're going to help them get there, but that's not our, wasn't our decision, and it wasn't their decision, it was the former force decision. Okay, so here's my big speech. Look, I think our duty as board members of this organization is to you and to the taxing authorities, and they, because they pay for our budget, and I'm a small government guy, so my approach to this is spend the lowest reasonable amount of money you have to accomplish the delivery of a first class service to the consumer, or this case, the citizens, that doesn't mean we're going to be cheap. It means you got to understand as much as you can about the situation, spend conservatively and wisely. And so, even as this is drafted, even with the increases, the increasing budgeted window we have to work with going into 27 This budget is lower than last year's budget, and I don't want that to get lost on the fact that somebody invested a great deal of time to cut this budget, so we would have room for those kinds of movements. And I'm proud of that, and I'm proud of these guys that did it. I didn't do it, but my hat is off to Doug and to Chris and to Justin for doing that. I as to this salary survey, I hope you'll take it, and I hope you'll spend five hours with it. It's in depth, it's not just a few numbers thrown together over a weekend or a week, and cherry pick from the best, lowest counties around to show that our people are either overpaid or underpaid. It's in depth, it's honest. As Doug expressed to you, he had entries that he did not include in the survey, and but he gave you why. He told you why they're just outliers. Loving County just shouldn't count, whatever their numbers are. They're just, they're so weird. They got 52 people in the whole county, and they got $20 billion worth of property. It's accurate based on a tremendous amount of work to get the numbers right. It's thoughtful. 49:32 It takes into account not just these numbers that are in these other counties, but it takes into account the market, because whenever you hire somebody, you have to be concerned about whether somebody else can hire them too, and so I look at these jobs and I say, you know, it's thoughtful, it thinks about the market, it thinks about where could he go within an hour, where could he go within an hour, where could he go within two hours. What does that competition look like? Because the walk away is there, and for most of the people in this room who may not like these two, you know, you'd probably be thrilled about that, but let me tell you, there's a terrible consequence coming from that. These appraisers reported to us that replacing them, and Kyle made a comment the other night to me, just, you know, shouldn't, shouldn't we be able to find somebody to fill the job, and I just don't, I think that evidence is there that there's 253 counties in the state of Texas, and not all, there are many Chief Appraiser positions vacant people don't want the job, and on top of that, to do it well, look at their certifications, or look at the people who do these in these county certifications, and they have a tremendous amount of training. Then the law changes every time the legislature gets in and figures out some other loophole we've gotten around, they changed the law, so it's a complicated, hard job to fill, and we will end up with doing one or two things. Either the state will come in here, and they'll have somebody in that office one or two days a week, and if you have a problem, you want to ask about something, you want to contest your appraisal, you want to meet. Good luck, and I don't have no idea what that's going to be, and certainly any sympathy, empathy affiliation that they're going to have at Bosque County is going to be much lower than two guys who have been here for 14 years. I've heard people say that if he gets paid this much money, he'll be the highest paid civil servant in the in Bosque County. Sheriff should be paid more money, or the what have it. What happened? Different jobs are worth different amounts of money. Why does someone pay CPA from Dallas $500 an hour to look at numbers and pay a heavy equipment operator $125 an hour? How does an MLB pitcher who's just above average get paid $13 million a year to throw 25 games, or a guy get paid $30 million in baseball to be good 30% of the time. It's just different jobs are worth different amounts of money, and this is a hard job. It takes a lot of certifications. There aren't very many people who will do it, and so if we lose these guys because we're not paying them within a window that we're keeping here, we're going to be on the march to replace them at a much higher price than anybody's talking about right now. So I support, no, ma'am, this is not a public meeting without any conversation. I'd be happy to talk to you afterwards. Okay, so I'm just telling people on my board I support the budget as it's drawn. It reduces the overall spending of this organization by $15,000 It accounts for the need to try to hang on to people who are clearly competitively being approached and are approaching other organizations because they are paying extraordinary amounts of money over what we're paying and once we get to the end of the year we will look at merit and performance and the accomplishment of what they've done with this organization and understand the broader market and will listen to citizens concerns and complaints, which I have done and I have responded to repeatedly since I took the job, and I've also heard citizens' compliments and contentment with what's going on at the appraisal district, I read as I spent probably more time over there, maybe not Doug, than anybody, and the professionalism up and down the road, down to the office door. 57:52 I am, I'm, I'm very happy with I ran a service business for 50 years, and I insist that you take care of the people you deal with, and I felt that way every time I went over there. So the salary survey, when you read it online, your hair will go on fire on the first page, because there's a proposal in there to enter into a contract with our people for a period of three years, and then there's the budget proposal just to approve preliminary budget for discussion later in the year for 2027 I do not support the three year contract issue. I don't, sure, we can do it, because we have to go every year to the taxing authorities and ask them for our money and justify our money, so I don't want to put, I don't want to contract with a, with an employee and then not be able to pay them contract amount. Secondly, I think, as mentioned by Mr. Raushenberger, you need to look at these people every year, and every six months, even we can't get it six months in, so busy the first six months, but every year, and make sure that what you're doing with them, compensation wise and benefit wise, matches up to what they're doing, how they're doing it. I agree that we should need benchmarks as to what they should achieve, but please, with you, read it with your friends, read it, and they say, have you seen that proposal for a three year guy? Just forget it, as far as I'm concerned, I can't see us getting there. I'm interested in it, and I'm interested in the benchmarks that are set by this document, because, and I'm interested in knowing more as to whether we, as a board, should be targeting those benchmarks over three or four year periods, so there's not a great strain on any of us economically, and I want to spend more time on that in discussions, but I'm not ready to prove that tonight. So that's where I stand. I would, if you have more things to say about that in the budget, nobody wants to talk about office rent and postage, but if you think we're ready, I would like a motion to approve preliminary 2027 proposed operational budget, and we'll take a vote and see where we stand. 1:00:02 I make the motion that we approve the preliminary budget for 2027 1:00:01 I'll second it. 1:00:14 Okay, a motion has been made, seconded to approve the 2027 proposed operational budget by Robbie Clark and seconded by Doug Kietta. All in favor, maybe raise your hand, so I know how this will turn out all right. And all opposed, the motion passes by majority vote. Did you vote? 1:00:35 I abstain. 1:00:37 I went three four Robbie Clark, Steve Harr, Doug Kieta four Kyle Williams against, and Justin Blake abstained. All right, once again, for people who are here and interested, this document is online on our site, not on Facebook, on our site. Should be very informative, hopefully be informative to you. 1:01:10 Item number seven is discussion and approval of the TCDRs plan changes to make a one-time payment of $28,000 to reduce this organization's unfunded liability. Somebody explained the TCDR S. I keep saying that, but I'm not sure what it is. I think it's a pension plan payment that we're behind on. 1:01:30 That's correct. That is the employee. employee's retirement plan. The difference, main difference in ours and the counties is the counties is, I think, overfunded. They invested a lot of money in the plan, therefore their contributions are lower. That's what we're trying to do here, is install that amount of money, 28,000 to reduce the unfunded liability. That's going to reduce it all yearly. I would definitely recommend that we do that. We need to try to fund this retirement plan. The other thing that I would mention, just for the public and for the board, is that the employees of the appraisal district, we don't get social security, so this is the only form of retirement that is there, and it is pretty much a common plan and matches all the other districts in the state, 1:02:24 and as I understand it, every other governmental entity is paid, they're paid, we're the only ones. Have you heard that? 1:02:31 I have not heard that. The only one I'm interested in was the county, and I just know that they've overfunded their plan, therefore their contributions are really low. 1:02:39 And the second question is, this money is coming out of our reserve, not out of a future budget or anything else, is that right? We're just paying it out of money we have on hand? 1:02:58 that's correct. 1:02:50 So this is the retirement opposite for the 28,000 to fund their retirement. so we're 18,000 under, but we're actually 10,000 over what we were last year by paying the 28, is that right? 1:02:59 Somebody explained, 1:03:05 judges as a pension to CDRs 2026 with 85 570 This year is only 67 416 the difference of 18 154 but if you're paying 28,000 now, is that what you're saying? We're still 10,000 over. 1:03:22 So, what it was, is there was some changes in the demographics and the rate, so the rate for the percentage that we had to pay, if you look at the percentage of the week, it should just be 10 or 10.89 you see, right above that on the budget. What was it for 2026 Was it above that? It was just a different rate they had. Okay, so they assign us a specific rate, and that involves all the demographics and everything else that you have to pay. So, on last year's plan, it was actually your unfunded that number you're seeing is related to the salaries and the percentage that you have to pay. 1:04:20 What is the percentage of those county matches? What is that for ya'll? 1:04:24 The county's is 200, do 250 The county gets social security, we do not. 1:04:28 Sorry, say that one more time. 1:04:30 Sorry, the county does all county employees in social security, we do not, they get a 200% matching, ours is 250 and that's that's the reason why, is because I believe county employees, from what I've studied, when they retire, they get 60 to 70% of their total income when they leave, and in this plan we get 99% of our pay through the Texas retirement system, 1:05:00 but that's not, that's not through the contribution rate, that's not through the employer matching rate, that's through the deposit rate, the county only requires our employees to down 5% ours is at 7% so that's the reason for that, but everything else is almost exactly identical to the counties. It's just they're over funded, so that's why their rate, whenever you look at it in their budget, is really low. 1:05:45 I just think it's an unfunded liability, we need to clean it up, somebody want to make a motion? 1:05:47 I'll make that motion 1:05:47 I'll second. 1:05:47 Doug Kieta made a motion to approve line seven, which is to make a one-time payment of $20,000 to reduce BCADS unfunded liability, seconded by Justin Blake. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? All right. There's no executive session tonight. The I just wanted to think out loud a minute about kind of what's coming, where we are in the year for what's coming up. I know, tell me 1:06:23 we need to be concerned about our reappraisal plan coming up at our next meeting, and the final budget that will be sent in the ending. Those two items are critical, and then also contract with the new firm when you need to go under contract. 1:06:41 What should go to work? 1:06:51 Chris, do you mind sharing just the budget process, real quick. This is preliminary. Let's go into the testing entities. Yes, if they shoot it down, what's next step? 1:06:58 So this point of the year, this budget is being sent to the entities, so they can budget. They have to fund the appraisals. That's why this process works. We need to get this budget to them early in the year, because that's when the entity, the city, the county school, when they start developing their budgets, they're going to know what amount to put in to pay the appraisal district for this process. That's the main thing, that's that's 1:07:28 give us the timing, though. When, because I'm kind of of the mind, and I'm kind of promising Justin, we're gonna have further discussions about the preliminary budget. So, obviously, I'm on a meeting to talk about reappraisal plans and the contract, and then I guess the final budget, so that you guys know you got a final budget. What is the timing of when we need.. I guess the real. I know the I know the reappraisal plan is September one 1:07:57 15th the budget as well. 1:08:00 the budget as well. So sometime later in the summer we can, we can, we could get together and grind on this a bit and still get it to them in time. 1:08:09 It's a lot of work with the reappraisal plan. It's biennial every two years. This is the second year. 1:08:14 Well, we're sending it out now, aren't we? 1:08:14 Preliminary 1:08:15 No, no I'm talking about the budget. Oh yeah, after june 15. Yes, yes. This is 1:08:20 It goes in the county. The county looks at it and says we hate it, right? 1:08:30 So, are you sending the preliminary out to them? 1:08:33 Right now 1:08:35 for comment? 1:08:36 Yes, that's the june 15 deadline. 1:08:39 No, no, 1:08:40 only for the preliminary, 1:08:41 for the preliminary. 1:08:42 Yes, sir. That means that. 1:08:44 So, what happens if they keep denying it? We're talking about this, 1:08:47 they can only deny the final budget. And right now, I wouldn't say we need that feedback from the entities in between those two times that we've asked for it before, I can tell you that we haven't. We've never received feedback from the entities in this time period, and so this is critical that we get that instead of denying it year to year. We need that feedback now. Come back when we do the preliminary budget in a month or two and say, look, these entities say this, and that's never happened before. The prior meeting, prior year, the question was asked to me, what feedback did you get from the entities on the preliminary budget? The only feedback I got was the county judge said I did a really good job compiling, and it was denied. 1:09:28 So, just make it really simple, you're going to send out this preliminary budget to all the taxing authorities, we're opening it up for conversation. They can respond whenever they want to. We went back together, come to a final budget somewhere, 1:09:40 that's what they know they're taxing against, or that they're going to vote down. 1:09:43 It gives us the opportunity to work together. 1:09:45 Right, and we want to have conversation. 1:09:47 for sure. 1:09:48 So, if it's voted down and we can't come to the agreement, what happens to stay the same as.. 1:09:51 they have the right to deny. Yes, sir. For sure. 1:09:55 If everything's sent back properly, so I mean we were talking about this, yesterday that's why I'm asking. 1:10:00 Yes, sir. 1:10:01 We didn't know how many times we had to go back and forth. 1:10:03 Only the final budget.. 1:10:07 Thats his number one question. So, before the building tonight, 1:10:10 Real quick just also just closing the full budget process on page 31 publicly, you can see that yourself. 1:10:25 All right, anybody got anything else off for a future agenda item they want me to keep in mind? So our next meeting will be, 1:10:33 we need to have it before september 15, I think. August, the month of August is a good time, and I'll try to wrangle you all together a Thursday night. 1:10:40 We need to have it well before september 15, because that's kind of the August. Give it to them, and then they have 30 days to respond, correct? I don't want to cut off their 30 days 1:10:51 sometime in the future we need to put a forward plan about space, office space. 1:11:09 Anything else? 1:11:10 The date of the next meeting, I think, just somewhere in August. 1:11:13 Yeah, let's just leave it flexible. We'll call. Somebody ajourn this thing. 1:11:20 I make a motion to ajourn 1:11:20 I'll second that 1:11:18 Justin Blake made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Doug Kieta, All in favor say aye Transcribed by https://otter.ai