Um, you can't do that.

Study commission to order, please, if we can have the pledge of allegiance, or excuse me, roll call.

Laurie Casey.

Matt Steppen.

Here.

Ben Thielen.

Here.

All right.

Can we have the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer, please?

Okay, thank you all.

First item, public comment on any item on the agenda.

Okay, hearing none.

Um, second item public comment on anything not on the agenda, but within the jurisdiction of the study commission.

Gotta push the right button.

Not gonna make friends tonight.

Are every boundary of 261 on Grand Avenue?

Public comment on any item not on the agenda.

This ingenuous comment at October Zero Sixth.

Local government study commission meeting.

The ex-council commissioner commissioner who made that comment is fully aware that a proposal is needed to hold a proper public hearing rather than a listening session.

She had awful opportunity at several meetings previous to the public hearing to request discussion on which preliminary proposals should be brought up at the public hearing.

The only one with a hidden top-down director and dictatorial government advocate support agenda was the person that made the comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other public comment on anything not on the agenda.

Hi, I'm Karen Sargent, 3021 Josephine Street here in Butte.

Um I have 30 years as an emergency first responder, three decades worth.

Twenty-seven years of those have I've been a firefighter on five different departments, two here in Montana.

I've participated in structural and wildland fire, medical and all hazard incidents, including vehicle crashes, it during those twenty-seven years.

These are my certificates that I have achieved in my trainings.

Okay.

Um they are all professional level certifications from the National Fire Academy from FEMA and other national and state organizations and agencies.

Uh, that I'm very proud of.

So all of these certificates, I'm nationally certified.

So I can go anywhere in the nation with these certifications.

I am nationally certified in hazmat operations, wild land fire suppression, wild land fire finance, public information officer, instructor, and many other smaller topics.

During my uh I I am a professionally trained firefighter in every sense of that word.

During the three years in Butte, I have shown the career department here in Butte Silverbow, nothing but respect.

I have treated the officers with the respect that I give all of my commanding officers, and I am very versed in the incident command system.

In return, in the three years that I've been here in Butte, I have received a high level of disrespect and disdain.

They don't know about my qualifications.

Because they never asked.

And they make assumptions about me that I don't particularly care for.

If they ask me, I will be happy to show them and happy to tell them.

The reason I'm speaking to you tonight is because there's a simple thing that you could do as the government study commission within your purveyance.

And that is to strike every reference to the volunteer firefighters in Butte Silverbow out of the charter.

It's a simple thing.

Just a strike through the line.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Sargent.

Any other public comment on anything on the agenda but within our jurisdiction?

Okay, so seeing then, um, can I move to approval of the minutes of the meeting held October 6th, 2025?

I motion to approve the October 6th minutes.

And being that we have exactly five members, I'll take a vote.

I mean that approval and that second all in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you for that approval.

Motion carries.

Correspondence and our study commission update.

Ms.

Boyd.

Um, so we're just talking about the volunteer log sheets, which I got a few today from you guys.

I got um some from Cindy Shaw, Mary McCormick, um, City Purdue Dolan, and Lori had sent me some.

So I just need from the other members that haven't turned those in.

They're just requesting that we get those from July until through October for your volunteer logs.

And you guys can email that to me too.

And I actually have the sheets too if you don't have them.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thank you, commissioners, for getting that work updated, and I will have mine too tomorrow morning.

Okay, moving on to unfinished business.

I think it's you again.

Um so we McKenzie and I had tried to contact Anaconda Fire and the chief to get some information and have them come and give a presentation or talk to you.

I talked to, he's a new fire chief in Anaconda.

Um, and he referred us to the chief executive over there because he's so new, he wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and we have not heard back from their office to give you any more on that in the presentation.

And the same with Mako, we tried to get hold of them to give us information, and they have not returned our calls either.

So we're kind of on a standstill on those.

Um and commissioners, with the Mako update, the information that we were looking for was related to the salaries of paid um or excuse me, part-time and full-time commissioners who are county or city commissioners.

And then um prior to Ms.

Conn leaving, she did send us that information that she had pulled together, so I think that's a good basis to look at in terms of um salaries, and then incidentally, I think there was a notification for um a new city manager call um for applications out of Helena on LinkedIn, and their their rate was something like 110 to 130,000 for that position.

So we'll continue to try to suss this out to get us good information with regards to the salary amounts and what other counties are doing.

Um looks like we're kinda limited to what Kim was able to pull together so far.

And I'm we're certainly open to other suggestions with trying to find that information.

Any other discussion regarding Anaconda or Mako update?

Okay.

All right, moving on, our party line is um October 29th, and we had our three volunteers from last meeting.

Um Dan and Chad and Ben, or excuse me, Matt.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate all the sign language.

I I love that.

All right.

Um and then moving on to discussion of changing our current timeline and preliminary report due date.

Um I'd like to um call Mr.

Enruth uh to kind of visit with us a little bit because part of the change in our uh timeline with and preliminary report was thinking about ballot questions, number of ballot questions, and then what needs to be included in terms of either recommendations or things that we would put forward to voters, and he's completed his research, so if he could kind of update us, I'd appreciate it.

Council members, I'm gonna stand down here so no one has to look at the back of my head when they're talking to me.

Uh yes, Chairwoman Brandle is correct.

Uh we were able to decipher what can and cannot go on the ballot.

Uh that was through pulling the old statutes out of the old case law books and things like that.

So nothing has changed.

However, the way they worded the law back in 2006 and 2004 gave us some clarity.

So specifically, when you're looking at the the three the three question rule that everybody's got in their head right now, when you look at uh the law on that, it specifically states that ballot requirements and the treatment of suboptions on an alternative form or plan of government recommended by a study commission is limited to three options.

There can only be three questions on uh the ballot that relate to the form of the government.

So that means whether or not you want to do, you know, you're gonna recommend uh a mayor style form, how many commissioners are associated with that form, the number of years those commissioners would serve.

So when you go back and look at that uh email chain that I provided you from Mervalley County, if you look at the questions that they were asking, that's what they all relate to, the form of the government.

Um how many commissioners there will be their terms.

So that is limited to three.

However, if the uh commission wants to review those other little parts of the charter, um Mr.

Peterson and myself and a couple other attorneys have determined that based on you know uh the case law and the attorney general opinions, those are not limited.

However, I would recommend limiting them because obviously you have limited amount of time.

So when you look back at the uh certificate that was establishing the official ballot for the Butte Silverbow County special election, you know what they did with that first one where they had seven on it.

If you look at the questions they asked, none of them related to the form of government.

Question number one was you know, for the uh adoption of the amendments, the Butte Silverbow Charter, deleting transitional language, clarifying out-of-date references, and adding limited stylistic changes to our charter.

Um they did that under one question.

Uh it was provided to uh the citizen of Butte Silverbow, what changes were going to be made.

Um, and that was allowed.

Uh, in addition to that, if you're looking at uh they had the auditor in there, they had you know some human resources stuff, but none of those questions directly related to the form of the government.

So you get three cracks at the apple with regards to form of the government.

So uh what that is gonna include, uh you know, off the top of my head is gonna be you know, number of commissioners, years they're gonna serve, when they're gonna start, what type of government, if any, this commission chooses to recommend, you know, that we uh change our charter to the issue that Rivalley County had was they broke all of their questions down into individual ones.

The the best example is the number of commissioners.

They were at five and they wanted to go to seven or vice versa, I can't remember.

But they said, you know, we want to go to X amount of commissioners, and then we want them to be, you know, elected this many years.

Rather than breaking those down into individual questions, we can turn that into one question.

X amount of commissioners for X amount of years starting on such and such a date.

We just have to make it a nice clear, easy question.

Um so that way when we keep it to we can keep it to three.

Uh and in those three questions, obviously, you know, kind of you've got three or four questions or not, you know, in the one itself.

Uh so if it all relates to number of commissioners, we can present that in one.

If it all relates to the form of government, uh not in the sense of a charter form, but in how the government functions under the charter, we put that in one question.

If this commission sees fit to change anything with uh the coroner, with uh the fire department, with stylistic changes in the charter, those questions are not limited in my opinion.

That also leads me to something else that you have on the agenda tonight, which is a forensic audit.

Um specifically, this commission does not have the authority, in my opinion, under Montana law or statute to request a forensic audit.

What you have the authority to do is uh present it to the people of Butte to put in the charter to be done and how you want it to be done.

There is already audit information in the charter, which I believe uh the director Hassler will probably speak on tonight.

But um there is an audit procedure already in place.

Uh I can go through all that with you, but yes, you do not have the authority to request a forensic audit, but you do have the authority to present to the citizens of Butte Silverbow if they would like one done, and if it becomes part of the charter.

I hope that answered a lot of everybody's questions.

So now that you can proceed forward with your timeline, present your questions, and then when we look at what you were uh wanting to put on the ballot, we can determine whether or not that is a question with regards to the form of government or more of a question of just modifying something in the charter that doesn't directly relate to form of government.

Thank you, Mr.

Enruth.

I appreciate that breakdown for us.

And so I I want to make sure I've got this captured correctly.

Um so when we're looking at some of those language changes or things that we noticed in the charter that might be difficult because 20 years ago the language was different.

Um those are stylistic changes that we can make without it being um in our limited three.

Correct.

Okay.

And then um our limited three would be things like the city manager, the number of commissioners for part-time, and um I think that was the two that you said, and maybe the term limits.

Things like that that directly relate to the form or function of the government in that manner.

Yes, okay.

And then cur coroner, fire department, those are in the other section.

Yep, because if you can look at the other ballot questions that were presented that I provided you before, um, you can see that some of those questions were likely directly related to that, such as you know, human resources department be established and maintained.

Um community enrichment coordinator, you know, reporting directly to the chief executive.

Uh you can remove the uh coroner from the charter, and there's another section under Montana statute that allows us to use the sheriff's department and people that are specifically able to complete those those uh you know that job through the sheriff's department.

So we don't have an elected coroner anymore.

We can have uh an appointed corn uh coroner, uh, how many people are in that department, you know, that all goes through the commission at that point in time.

But yes, you can there you can it's I would say unlimited uh in the sense that you can look at uh all of those things and request to change them, but again, based on your timelines, uh you're gonna have to probably knock it down to you know, probably I'd say less than ten.

Especially since the the main part of this commission really has been looking at changing the form of government.

Uh when you look at the two previous study commissions, you know, one had five, one had seven uh questions on the ballot.

Um, a lot of, you know, there were no form of government questions in those.

So you guys have you know a really heavy hand on this side and then some other changes that you can make here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions for Mr.

Enruth.

Ms.

McCormick.

I just want to clarify that you said that between five to ten non-form changes.

Just the recommendation.

Recommendation, okay.

Yeah, based on your guys' timeline, um, having to get them, you know, out to the public, voting on them, having some good discussion on them.

I mean, I can tell you right now, I probably think of the five or six that everybody's gonna be talking about.

Um, but the good thing is is like you know, stylistic changes.

That's gonna be one.

And we're you know have all these are all the stylistic changes that are going to be made to the charter.

Please vote yes or no.

Um similar to uh the coroner, you know, uh removing the coroner from an elected position.

Now that question becomes a little bit different because we're talking about an elected position going to a non-elected position, and does that directly relate to how our form of government functions?

That's a question Sean and I will have to determine and ask, and eventually it will be you know presented to uh the state, and they may have a different opinion on whether or not that goes to one of the three questions or one of uh you know the other questions just you know modifying something within the charter.

But the nice thing is is based on uh uh you know, we went and dug up the old books because uh that'll that old law is not online, and uh they just had it worded slightly differently back in 2004 and 2006, and like, well, that makes that makes absolute sense to me.

Um, and then going forward, uh when you look at the way the law relates to itself where it states that you know these alternative forms of government must uh conform to the petition style, which is not the study commission style, which is the you know the city of Butte presents a petition.

This is what we want to change.

You're only looking at those the three things, the forms of government.

You wouldn't get a petition from the citizens of Butte to change the stylistic issues within the charter.

Okay.

Excellent.

Yes.

Other questions?

Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So um, Matt, to your point about uh forensic audit versus audit, um, that can be one of the other forms or other questions on the ballot that's not included in form.

And um a ballot question for addition to the charter, um adding the word forensic, because you said the audits already in there, and those are two very different things.

So um that could be on the other list, correct?

Yes, okay.

Yeah, we can just for the simplification purposes, form of government questions, general questions.

Okay.

You know, and yes, I would say that that would be a general, you know, one of the general questions that you could add to the charter under the audit section itself, because right now the commission has the authority to request an audit.

I believe an audit is actually normally done uh in general because of uh the way a forensic audit works, um, it's a whole different beast.

And so you could that could be a section in there how the commission wants to word it, um, you know, whether that it gives the council of commissioners authority or whether it's mandated every so many years, that is completely up to this commission.

Thank you for that.

Just quick follow-up, if I could.

Um just to say um, yeah, we're still getting information, so we're hopefully gonna get that and and figure out that additional group of um questions if you know we're still working on that.

But thank you, Matt.

Yes.

Mr.

Steppen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh County Attorney and Ruth, just for clarity, when you when you use the word options, three options.

Is that to say that when the voters are looking at this, it is option A or option B or option C.

Or is there three different questions that can be asked to form of government?

Uh Commissioner Steppen, that is correct.

It's the three different questions.

So it will be you have three different questions, and under each question you have two options.

And and so it's you know uh, for example, um, you know, does this it is however you want to phrase the question or form it, and there's a specific way you do that.

It's in the statute.

In fact, actually have it right here.

Um it says the question of adopting an alternative, an alteration or an existing form of government proposed by a petition shall be submitted to the electors in substantially the following form.

Vote for one.

It's gonna check box for the adoption of X type of government, you know, specific to this local government as proposed by the people or option two, keep the existing form of government.

And so you get three different questions, and underneath those questions is adopt it or not adopt it.

Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to ask you, um, can we ask a question about timeline or we just next thing?

I just want to ask about that.

Yeah, so rolling into the to the timeline.

Um we started to look at um our reporting structure, and then when our preliminary report is due and wanting more time to deliberate other issues and think about things that were also emerging.

And so um I drafted a timeline for folks to look at.

Um and then just Mr.

Enrith, I appreciate your opinion on this to make sure I have it correct.

So we're thinking that you know, as we come forward from tonight, we would start looking at our deliberations on the various issues, and then um we would draft that preliminary report.

Then in um January we adopt a preliminary report based on what the findings of this group are in terms of you know, these are the things that we're considering, these are the ones that we would consider to bring forward to option or to the ballot or not.

And then we would go through another round of public listening and likely a and very much so another public hearing.

And then at that time, after that public hearing, we would then this commission would then vote on which issues we would want to bring forward to the ballot.

Do I have that correct in deliberations?

That is correct.

And then the statutory and then the guidelines for that are statutory and they're very clear, and I'm sure that's what you were looking at.

We just have to make sure that we fall within the correct deadlines to be able to get them to the Secretary of State, and then on the ballot, and they have their own deadlines as well, because they review and look at the questions that are going to be proposed, you know, the manner in which the questions are presented to make sure we don't have any issues that need to be modified.

But I believe that you are correct there, yes.

And I think that drop deadline dead late dead date is July 7th, where our final report has to be to everybody involved.

I will defer to you on that because I don't know off the top of my head, but that sounds about correct given what's you know, looking at at how our elections in the state of Montana work and our timeframes.

Um I can tell you that in the research I have done with all of these uh setting you know a sooner deadline is better uh you know, sometime in June, uh just in case we do have any issues, uh we can get them submitted, and we have plenty of time to work within that.

So we're not running up on any deadlines or missing anything.

Ms.

Dolan, did you want to take it from here?

Thank you, madam chair.

Um I just want a clarification, and this is probably very rudimentary, but um looking this over um for December 25, it says preliminary report drafting and adoption of a preliminary report in January of 26.

So I'm guessing that is um from the dissemination of all the information we've gotten thus far, to put in a preliminary report, and then in February of 26 to go back out to the public and say, here's what we initially came up with.

What do you all think about this?

Is there anything we're missing?

Um let's say someone comes forth and says, Hey, I've got this great idea, I haven't done this yet.

Um there is time to squeeze that in if we all you know figure, oh, this is a wonderful.

We hadn't even thought of this idea.

So there is that wiggle room and and chance to do that.

Yeah, I I believe so.

And that um looking at our timeline too, thinking about that, Ms.

Dolan.

I wanted to make sure that we have enough time to go back if in those public listening sessions and the um next public hearing, we indeed want to change a strategy or add something, uh, we would have time to do that.

And this is ambitious again because you know, looking at um March to late June to finish that final report is is a quick turn, and especially for us to go through another round of deliberations and and voting for what goes to the ballot.

I think um we'd be do we'd do well to work quickly.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Steppen.

Is there any other questions or excuse me, Mr.

Andrew?

Mr.

Steppen, you wanted to talk.

He's he's balder than I am.

You mixed us up.

Any other questions for Mr.

Enroot?

And I would just say that that I know that you guys have a lot on your plate, and there's a lot that people want to change.

Um, but I would as of you know, starting now, really start look at boiling it down to something in the five to seven, eight range, including your three big questions.

Um I think you can fit it in with within that amount, and I think then that gives you guys uh ample time and it gives my office ample time to also address any issues you want because there are some heavy hitter topics, even in what we're gonna call the general questions that we want to make sure are fleshed out correctly, done correctly, and then presented to the um you know the citizens of Butte in a manner that's that everybody can understand, not some complicated legalese question on a ballot.

We don't want that.

I appreciate that perspective.

I was thinking too, if we had too many things, we might dilute important things.

And so that five guidelines seems like a good one to five to eight seems good to me as well.

And that's just my personal opinion from you know the 10, 15 hours that Sean I've got, Sean and I have got, and excuse me, deputy county attorney Sean Peterson and myself have into just reviewing, you know, how these have functioned in the past, you know, what has happened.

The nice thing about today's day and age is we are computer-based, you know, sending things back and forth is no longer through mail, so we are a lot quicker that way.

Um we can obviously adjust a lot faster as well.

So that's just my suggestion based off of you know what we've read, and again, you know, based off of the topics that have been from been brought in front of this commission.

I think I could come up with the eight right now that you're gonna be looking at.

So there's no other questions.

I'm gonna go to football.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so moving on to the change in the umeline.

In your packets, you have a draft timeline to review, and I would take any questions about that, and then we can have further discussion in terms of if if this timeline is gonna meet our needs, and then I would um ask for us to vote on that timeline and have it republished.

I suppose the the big changes were um in November, we had originally said we wanted to adopt our tentative report.

Um I've changed that to say deliberations and fact finding on items to be put forward for consideration in the preliminary report.

In December, the report drafting is really the work of this body to to create that um draft report.

So giving us time to do that both in meeting and then via subcommittee if needed, and then in January adopting that preliminary report so we would bring it back to the body for a vote that this is the report that we'd like to adopt, and then public listening and public hearing, and then um moving forward to that final.

So Ms.

McCormick.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, for me, this is you know where the rubber meets the road.

We have a lot of hard work ahead of us to um flush out what changes we want to make, to debate those changes, and to write a report, preliminary report.

That's a lot of work, and we're gonna have to stay extremely dedicated, extremely focused to get that done by January.

So I I mean there's absolutely no way in my mind that we I could see where we could possibly get this work done by November.

We have you know, we have a lot of discussions, a lot of debate to have among ourselves to you know decide what we're gonna do.

And so I just think it's just imperative that we approve this new timeline.

I had another idea.

Thank you, Ms.

McCormick.

Um, and I I had another idea too, in terms of how to put guardrails, if you will, or or direct our discussion on the deliberations that maybe we pick a topic or two and take that per meeting.

And then it also provides some um clarity to the citizenry in terms of we're taking on the issue, for example, of city manager versus chief executive first, and then we're going to deliberate that people could come and visit and talk about that, and then moving forward in terms of you know, breaking it down by meeting and issue.

Um, I think it could help us direct our work as well, and I would entertain conversation about that, or or you know, we could definitely even list those dates out if we want to so do that as well.

Ms.

McCormick.

I think that's an excellent idea, and I think it's really about the only way we can move forward efficiently, and that we're gonna stay committed to if we have a topic, the agenda is like the change from chief executive to city county manager that we stay on point and stay on the topic and just do everything one by one instead of like this.

So I think that's excellent, and I very much appreciate your hard work and effort, Madam Chair.

Other thoughts or considerations?

Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, madam chair.

Yeah, I I agree, Mary, and we've got a lot of work ahead and a lot of tough discussions to have, but I'm looking forward to it.

I think it's gonna be great.

Um, but I also want to say that um it has to be in tandem, and it might be a kind of long meetings between now and January because we're still doing information gathering as well, and we can't put that on the back burner.

We have to kind of do it simultaneously with other, you know, information that we can gather and then disseminate and give to folks um around Butte Silverbow.

So and then obviously at the next round of public listening sessions.

Um I would also mention too, um Madam Chair, for between March the timeline between March 26th and July 26.

If we want to maybe make those boxes um so we can fill in because it goes from March to July, but you know, we have April, May, June to do lots of things just as kind of a housekeeping thing that might be able to easier to plug in things if we need to do it.

Um but yeah, I'm I'm excited about this timeline.

It's gonna be tough, but it's gonna be worth it.

Thanks.

Other thoughts or questions, Mr.

Steppen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um is there a cause for discussion to look at our frequency of meeting throughout this time?

Yeah, if I didn't want to be the one to ask that question.

No, I think last last session we we had consensus that we were just still on every week because we weren't quite where we needed to be.

And I think that as we come into December with the holiday season, we're probably likely gonna have two meetings and not four, based on the calendar and looking at ahead of that.

So if I don't think we need to vote on it at this point, I think that we are on a weekly schedule at this point.

Other other thoughts.

Ms.

Dillon.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It might be something that we'll need to discuss down the road because of the holiday season, November and December, to maybe have a work session on a Saturday.

I mean, I hate to take people's weekends, but we're on statutory deadlines and we don't want to, I don't want to miss any opportunity to update the charter or update the you know the ballot questions, potential and all of it.

So just throw that out there.

I know that'll be tough, but it'll be worth it.

I think that's actually a pretty good idea to see if we can workshop some of these questions, especially I'm thinking about language that we would want a workshop related to, let's say we have consensus on city manager and you know, workshopping that might be important because the language is going to be difficult.

It's not um necessarily all right there.

Um so maybe um we can kind of poll each I'll do a poll and see what people are willing to do in terms of a workshopping session where we um work together for a few hours and maybe at the um emergency operations center or somewhere that's a little more friendly without this on any RIL time.

Okay.

Other thoughts or discussion on this timeline.

Okay, I would like to get the amended timeline um moving forward.

So if I could ask for a a motion to approve.

Mr.

Thiela makes the motion.

McCormick seconds all those in favor.

Any up motion carries thank you all.

I appreciate the um circling back to this.

It it was thoughtful and I appreciate that process.

Okay, moving on to our new business.

Um I did ask our um excuse me.

Sorry, madam chair, I just wanted to add two things with the unfinished business.

Um I did speak with Fritz Daley about the superfund coordinator idea that he had.

Um he's thinking about possibly coming up and giving us a short presentation.

Um, but he said he'd think about it.

Um so more to follow on that.

And then I did um speak with uh Mr.

Commissioner Dan Haggerty, he's a commissioner over in Jefferson County, and he actually used to be Sheriff Coroner over in Jefferson County, and he's more than willing to come over here and give us a brief about his role.

He and I told him it wasn't necessary.

He said, I can't really go into budgetary questions.

I said, but that's out of our peer purview, so you're good to go.

Um if we could just learn from you what that entailed as far as work as a sheriff slash coroner.

So um he said that you know, if we could give him some dates um that would work.

And I'll I can follow up with you after the meeting, Annie.

How about that?

So just wanted to give you those quick updates.

Yeah.

Thank you, Ms.

Delanyu told me this, and I apologize I skipped.

Okay.

So moving on to our new business.

I did ask that um Ms.

Hasler come tonight and she also invited um Ms.

Lori Baker Patrick to talk about our discussion of auditing procedures and buttes of Verbow.

I wanted to hear about um auditing as it exists and under the current charter or the current charter language.

And then um if we could, we would move to uh Mr.

Woy in the discussion of the forensic audit, and he he requested that we have questions for him and he would come up to answer those regarding what forensic audit is rather than giving us a presentation.

So um Ms.

Hassler, if I can have you come up, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the study commission.

Um I believe what is on the agenda for tonight is a question about regarding Butte Silver Bow's current audit procedures.

Um I don't know if anybody has any questions before I get started.

Um so generally uh what we do is we sign an engagement letter with um an auditing firm.

Our current independent auditor is Newland and company.

Um this is the second and final year of our current um term under uh the agreement or contract that we have under our engagement letter.

Um planning for our audits generally starts pretty early after the end of the fiscal year.

Um so around September, October, we start um providing our auditors.

They give us a list anyways of things that they require.

So we provide a list of claims that we have, which are our invoices that are paid out, high dollar claims, which is any claim over $50,000.

They give us a sample of payroll.

So different employees they request payroll records to ensure that we're calculating payroll correctly.

We're also required to have a single audit based on the our federal awards.

Any uh federal award that falls under an assistant assistance listing of more than a million dollars is required to have a single audit, which is a more in-depth audit, but they also audit our other federal funds that we receive by grants.

Um this starts generally in about in October and it goes through December.

Um our final audit is due to to submit for the certificate of excellence for the general or government finance officers association, it's due by December 31st.

And then we're also required to forward all of that information on to the State of Montana Department of Administration.

Thank you, Ms.

Hasler.

Questions for Ms.

Hasler.

So uh Ms.

Hasler, a quick question.

So when you read the charter looking at that language and the procedures that we have in place, I think the question of the forensic audit is trying to get at transparency and looking at you know, how does a person in Butts of Riverboard or a voter know how their tax dollars are being spent?

Can you maybe speak to that a little bit?

Like how would I access information to know?

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, first of all, I I have to say that all of our financial information, our audits, our financial statements, our everything is available online.

Um through our regular processes, we have segregation of duties.

So there are several levels of review as well.

So if there is a question about something and expenditure or how a department is spending money, it goes through several levels of review internally before the claim is paid.

So if you have something that is coming through public works, um, an invoice is reviewed by the director of public works and signed off on before it comes to the finance and budget office to be approved, before it goes to a subcommittee of the council of commissioners, which is the finance and budget committee for approval.

Um so it goes through several layers of review before it is approved.

All of the expenditure lists are also uh provided online every single week.

So if somebody were interested in seeing how local government funds were spent, it is completely available every week, every expenditure report.

Um we also have our audit book, it's called the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report or the ACFR that is uh produced as part of our audit.

I believe that there's copies up there on the commissioner's desk if anyone would want to look at them.

It's 400 pages of information.

It's um it's a lot to digest.

And so uh if anybody were to have any questions, um, first of all, I guess they could contact us.

We don't have very many members of the public call and ask questions about why we paid somebody X amount of dollars.

Um I think that the best place for somebody to start would be the expenditure list because it talks every week it gives by department and by fund how much money is being spent into who.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any follow-up questions for Ms.

Hassler.

Go ahead.

I I guess um I do have a question, maybe for you to answer.

Um, when I was um contacted by uh Madam Chair Brandle about uh discussion about forensic audit, um I I just want to make sure that I understand uh what the intent is here because a forensic audit by definition is a specialized examination of financial records to uncover evidence of fraud or misconduct.

Um it involves a detailed examination and evaluation of an individual's organizations and financial records.

The primary goal is to derive evidence that can be used in a court of law or other legal proceedings.

Forensic audits are typically conducted when there is suspicion of fraud, embezzlement, or other financial crimes.

And so by saying forensic audit, it implies that perhaps there is some suspicion of misconduct or misuse of funds by the local government.

And so I guess I would just like to know if that is the intent.

Thank you, Ms.

Hasler.

I'm information seeking to understand what our procedures are within county government that exists already.

I think last meeting we we did have some sidebar conversations between the membership about what we meant by forensic audit.

Mr.

Denahy brought that up.

I think I also did.

And then tonight, Mr.

Thielen had um invited Mr.

Wy to describe what forensic audit is.

Madam Chair, thank you.

Yeah, Karen, it's nothing that is pointing the finger at anybody.

There's certain criteria from what I understand that needs to be gone through before there can be a forensic audit.

And the reason I asked Mr.

Roy to come up, excuse me, is because everybody's kind of in the dark about it.

So Mr.

Roy is going to explain to us the nuts and bolts of how that works, if you would.

So it's nothing other than what people in the community are asking for.

So it's not pointing the finger at anybody.

Ms.

Dolan?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, yes, uh what Ben said, but also um in our conversations and discussions about going from part-time commissioners to full-time commissioners, and possibly going from chief executive to city manager, we understand as a study commission that the decisions made here have budgetary consequences.

And so when Ben brought up the um forensic audit idea, and actually uh I think we discussed this last week with um it would go hand in hand or um in conjunction with what we're doing so we because a lot of people follow up with us when oh thank you, Matt.

Um with you know those possible changes and the fact that they do have budgetary consequences.

The next question people have is how are we going to pay for it?

So the idea of a forensic audit will showcase, and I think Mr.

Woy can can uh explain to us uh the intricacies of that, but also to say we might be able to find money, move money around, and again, this is out of our purview with this will be for the council of commissioners, but if we're able to go through a forensic audit and see where all the money is and where it's sitting right now, and it may be something where the council of commissioners can say we can maybe move money around and hopefully make it closer to budget neutral.

So that's the impetus, nothing like a you know, oh somebody's doing something wrong.

No, this is just a idea of where's the money, how much money do we have, is that you know, with what we're doing, um making it easier in 2026, 27, and 28.

Hope that is helpful.

Go ahead, Ms.

Hasler.

Yes, thank you for the explanation.

Um I also spoke with our independent auditor regarding um this request for a forensic audit um and the former budget director of Danette Gleason.

Um forensic audits are generally very limited in scope and they are used when you find an irregularity that you're looking for something in a very specific area, they're not broad and overarching across the whole general government.

Um that would be very time consuming and very expensive.

And so that was my question why I was asking about the definition of a forensic audit is because it is very limited in scope, not something where you can look at the whole government in an if in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Ms.

Dolan?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, and to answer that that statement is the fact that you know we've been talking about how AI has made things a lot quicker.

And yes, uh forensic audits, and again, Mr.

Warri can can speak to this, because I want to learn as well.

Um but the idea that things are much quicker with computers and AI to disseminate all that information a little bit more quickly.

Um but the cost question is a good one, and hopefully Mr.

Warri can illuminate the the costs involved in that.

Um but one follow-up question for you, Karen, um, is uh when you do a regular audit and the auditors, the independent auditors, they're just making sure that all the numbers add up to what you say they were, you give them your documents, and they just make sure everything adds up, all the boxes are correct, and everything's Copus Edit.

There's not anything missing.

Is that correct?

Uh thank you.

Uh no, um that's not what they do entirely for our federal awards.

They have to ensure that we spend the money according to what is allowable and unallowable in our um award documentation.

Um we also have um limits on what we can spend general, like general fund dollars for versus enterprise dollars.

They they don't just we don't just print out the fan financial statements and they say, oh yep, this matches, and we're gonna move on to the next thing that's more in depth.

Um so kind of circling back to I think there was um some discussion about adding the words a forensic audit to the charter, because we we did discuss last week too that it wasn't in our purview to request a forensic audit, that that would be something that the Council of Commissioners requests.

Um but then we moved on to discussing the language in the charter as being adding that those words to the charter or um adding some layer of forensic auditing to the charter.

And I think tonight is a partially about um investigating if that's necessary, needed, um, and then also what maybe the um cost consequences are of that.

And then so we appreciate you bringing forward those those pieces of information for us.

Um are there any other questions for uh Ms.

Hassler?

And then if not, I'm I'm gonna go ahead and have uh Mr.

Boy come up and we'll ask some questions related to uh his expertise with forensic audits in particular.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

Hasler.

Just take a hot seat because you might be back.

Thank you, Mr.

Wei.

Right there.

I'm uh CPA uh retired, but I spent 40 years auditing for a firm in Butte, Anderson's Mulan.

Um I also teach up at Montana Tech auditing, and I've been doing that every year since 1988.

So I have a great deal of of understanding and how to communicate to people what a financial audit is and what a forensic audit is.

And what I've heard tonight, I'm impressed.

Cindy's definition of a forensic audit was right on.

Everything she said was exactly what one would say if you could describe for me a forensic audit.

What Ms.

what commit um would it be how commissioner?

How do are you guys referred to as commissioners?

Or Ms.

Dolan?

Um Cindy.

She was absolutely right as well by bringing up AI.

In today's audit world, technology allows far more what I would call detailed investigation of particular areas within, say, a budget office.

Specifically, as I heard uh Cindy mention earlier, yes, she would think one of the first starting points would be expenditures, payments made out and using taxpayer dollars.

But I really do not believe that a forensic audit makes any sense at all unless there has been some kind of allegation of fraud or misuse of funds or noncompliance, but I just will tell you that there's just you know it would take almost some type of a um allegation, like a whistleblower, someone who would come forward and say, we believe there's a problem here in this area.

A forensic audit would be considered a reasonable way of determining the degree of that of that allegation.

Mr.

Thielen?

Madam Chair.

Jim, so what you're saying it'd take a whistleblower or somebody to come and say something about that.

But also at the same time, couldn't it be a protection?

Couldn't uh a forensic audit protect the county or certain departments or all of them?

It would be just very expensive to conduct such a wide-scale forensic audit, because really what a forensic audit does is it it really drills down to the real specifics surrounding the allegation of either mismanagement of funds, fraudulent activities, noncompliance with federal, state, you know, local uh ordinances and and regulations.

I can assure you that I would never, I would never um recommend that there be a quote unquote forensic audit over Butte Silverbow.

It would it would only come to pass in my judgment if there had been a certain allegation, a concern being raised.

What I really encourage uh the Commission to consider is utilization of what is out there in terms of audit software and other forms of AI, artificial intelligence, to rapidly go in and decipher mass amounts of data that you don't, you know, in the old days you would have to hire 20 auditors to sit in a room and do this all, you know, pen and paper.

And with today's technology, you can get a little better understanding of where your dollars are going, where they are coming from.

But but I do feel that the term forensic is probably not the term I would be using uh given everything I've heard today.

I would just say more of a of a an and and if I could just go back to what Cindy said about the normal audit.

A normal audit, okay, that is conducted annually, and and Butte Silverbow undergoes an annual financial audit.

An annual audit is simply uh where the auditors come in and form an opinion over the financial statements of the county.

And they're very complicated financial statements.

The citizen in this city and county don't understand those financial statements.

They're very complicated.

I mean, I I taught local and state government accounting for a number of years, and I had second and third year college senior, you know, college kids that couldn't couldn't understand fund accounting.

And now we're asking, and they've taken all the various accounting classes up to the point they were taking my class, and I can assure you it's it's not an easy thing to really read and understand.

But uh the auditors that come in and audit, they're there have one objective, and that is to form an opinion that those financial statements are stated in accordance with government accounting principles.

And when it comes to federal grants, they form an opinion on compliance.

But Silver Bows compliance when they are can you know actually working those grants and spending the grant money.

But it has that type of auditing is not what, in my opinion, would be an objective of this commission who wants to kind of get a broader view of where the budget dollars are coming from and where and where they're going.

And I think deploying some AI would be would be something that could be done very cost effective, but yet not specifically based on allegations of any kind of wrongdoing, unless unless there is, you know, and again, I I don't know, but so that's kind of how I would see it.

Ms.

Dillon?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Jim.

This is very interesting.

And so let me ask you this question.

Um if we if if folks in Butte Silverbow and the Study Commission want to know, have a better sense of all the money that's out there, and to the point in the question of, you know, doing these questions that have budgetary consequences like commission number changing full time, part-time, those kinds of questions.

Is there some process for transparency that we can do and utilizing this audit software?

Um, what does that look like to have the different departments in Butte Silverbow access access that and do that process, but then again, we'd be asking them to do something in addition to what they're doing currently.

Can you give us a sense of what that is and take the word forensic out of it?

Right.

I I would definitely take the word forensic out of it.

But what technology today in 2025 allows auditors to do is to look for anomalies within particular, you know, we could just say particular departments here at Butte Silver Bow.

You've got the road departments, you've got you got various different departments, and and with the ability to utilize this this technology, auditors are able to, you know, put so much less effort in scanning and and reading these documents, but rather get exception reports on you know things that that don't seem to make sense, if there are any.

Uh actual audits.

We used to spend hours and hours on projects that today can be done in minutes.

It's pretty impressive.

It's pretty impressive.

But but I th but I get a sense of kind of where you're heading.

Because I asked Ben when I first offered to come up.

I said, what why are we talking about a forensic audit?

Quite honestly, is that part of your purpose?

I just don't think the word forensic audit should be here.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Boy.

Um Mr.

Thielen.

Madam Chair, thank you.

Well, Jim, thanks for that, because you've enlightened me and you know the people that have been asking me about that, I can surely relate that to them.

And so a forensic audit would definitely be off the table.

I believe from everything I've heard, I surely don't want to say it's off your table.

I just would say, from my understanding, and and I think Cindy said it so well, she basically read you the definition.

Now, now in the real world, I've been part of forensic audits and and I've been involved for purposes of not just wrongdoing, but but allegations of noncompliance with various contracts or divorces, some pretty big divorces where you have marital assets and you've got people one side of the on the in the divorce wanting to hide assets from the other side in the divorce, and so you have forensic and you know, it's all about how you interview, it's all about how you set up risk assessment to to get down and in in and then write a report that could basically stand up in court.

Uh you heard Cindy talk about it ultimately the purpose is to present a report that that could be basically brought into the to the courtroom and and held up with some uh with some confidence.

Okay.

Quick follow-up.

Um yeah, just to correct the record, it's Ms.

Hasler, it's Karen, I think is who you're referring to.

I'm not about I've been saying it's okay.

Cindy K.

I think that's a good question.

I just want to make sure that um Ms.

Boyd is getting the right reference.

Sorry, Karen.

No, okay.

Mr.

Thielen, follow-up.

Uh that that was pretty much it.

Thank you.

So um uh Mr.

Way, I appreciate you coming up and uh um adding your expertise to our conversation.

Um to kind of capture this.

I I think I understand where we're coming from in terms of wanting to understand the fiscal impact or potential fiscal impact if we make changes that are related to offering salaries, and I think we've had this discussion before too, in that um in some ways that's not our job or even in our purview, but in terms of educating the public and helping them understand what could be a fiscal impact of their vote, um, likely we would need to do some research and investigation, and I would I would turn it back over to the team sitting at the back of the room to help us uh maybe understand what that process might look like if we could.

And I would I would turn it back over to the team sitting at the back of the room to help us maybe understand what that process might look like if we could.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, Mr.

Boyd did mention that there are audits of financial statements and our single audit up in our comprehensive report or our financial statements.

There's actually a third audit opinion letter in there, and it's on internal controls.

So internal controls talks about how we function internally, the controls, the segregation of duties that we have that ensures the safety of our public funds.

So we monitor the expenditures, the treasurer's office accepts the funds.

We have the clerk and recorders office that pays out the funds.

We have different people collecting money than are taking that are reconciling the bank accounts.

And so we have all of these internal controls to help ensure the safety of our public funds, which we received an unmodified opinion, which is a good.

It sounds unmodified as kind of a people hear that and they think what is that?

But that that word means that we are in compliance.

If you're talking about additional auditing, we would have to look at, you know, what type you ultimately decide or the public ultimately decides that they would want if it is something that is an AI program.

What does that look like?

That's not anything that you know we currently use.

We don't know of any other local governments that are currently using it.

So putting a price take to that, you know, would just take a little bit of you know cut data collecting on our on our part.

Um I also wanted to mention we talked about engagement of the public and how they want to know how our public dollars are spent.

Um we have several different documents out on Butte Silver Bow's website.

One is called the performance budget that specifically lists by department um by fund, by function, by department how those dollars are spent.

Um in our financial statements, it also talks about a tax dollars.

Um it's broken down by function and also by fund if it's spent on public safety, public health, public works, social and economic services.

Um it's all out there for people to digest.

Um it's so complicated are we because we are county and city combined, um, it's a lot of information, um, but people have to either ask where to get the information, ask how to decipher the information, but it's all there for people to see.

We're not we're completely transparent.

We don't have anything that isn't available to the public.

Um it is complicated, I'm not going to lie.

But in the sec in the financial statements in the annual comprehensive financial report, there's a section called Um Management's Discussion and Analysis or MDNA that breaks all of that information down.

And it might not be something that you know that you want to read at nine o'clock before you're going to bed because you have to be really interested in it to keep engaged, but that's if if we're talking about engagement with the public and them wanting to know the information, um it's it's out there.

Um for the record too, I've personally um benefited from both um you and Ms.

Ms.

Gleason, who was the former you and um uh treasurer um Baker Patrick and helping me to learn um our budgets and looking through that performance budget, and it is rough, but it's doable.

Um can I ask you a hypothetical?

And it's okay if you can say you don't have an answer to it.

Um let's say that we we come through this process, we want to have five full-time commissioners and we want to pay them a grand salary of a hundred thousand.

I don't know, I'm just making this up.

That's totally not the I'm just making it up.

What would the process be?

Would would you go investigate and kind of look at where we could pull from or or would you have a fiscal um note for that, or would that be something the commissioners would direct?

Could you maybe walk us through how we would possibly answer that question?

I think it's mostly on the commission to find the money if the voters decide that's what they want.

But I think to um Ms.

Dolan and Mr.

Thielen's point here, the voters also want to know if it's going to cost them more tax dollars if their taxes are going to go up.

Do you have a off the cuff response to that?

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

So in our budget process, uh everything that is administrative regarding the county uh generally comes out of general fund dollars.

So your county attorney, your finance and budget office, um chief executive's office, council of commissioners are all funded by tax dollars.

And so um it would be at the ultimately it's the chief executive's budget that becomes the council of commissioners budget.

It would be at their pleasure to determine um if where where the money was coming from.

If they didn't take it from somewhere else, it would be an increase in the amount of dollars that would have to be levied to balance the general fund.

Thank you.

Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for that, Karen.

Good really good information tonight and um learned a lot.

Um but my question is with regard to um going back to the transparency question and process, it sounds like and and again hypothetically, it sounds like maybe to add um to our list, because we have the ideas of trying to figure out what's going to be on the ballot, and then a list of what recommendations we can give to the county commissioners for different things that may or may not need a um a ballot um referendum from the voters to vote on.

But um maybe the you do and I want to get your opinion um to possibly ask the council of commissioners uh on our list of recommendations for uh to utilize um AI and audit software to help you.

Um the only reason I'm saying that is because I used to be a council of commissioners, commissioner, and going through those performance budget and the line item budget.

I mean, this is huge.

This is how big our budget is.

And it's not only intimidating, but it's very difficult as a former commissioner.

I would spend hours and hours with the highlighter trying to figure it out.

So it's really hard to get that information.

Just to be honest, it was really, really difficult because I'm not a numbers person, um, to try and digest that and figure out what those numbers meant.

Um so I'm trying to figure out a way.

Um, and and the reason this all came up is to try and get that transparency to the voters because or the residents of Butte, because they're trying to figure out where does all our money go?

So that's kind of the impetus for that.

Sure.

Um, and I thank you for that comment.

Um again, I have to point back to those other documents that um they're not the line item budgets, they're not just lines of numbers.

There's it's it's a discussion, it's management's discussion and analysis that is written like a book that talks about um our tax dollars, um, our non-tax dollars, how we spend our money, where we spend our money by fund and by function, um, and by uh object, which is um is it payroll and benefits?

Is it um operations and maintenance?

Is it capital?

Is it debt service?

Um there's lots of good explanation in there that isn't just lines and lines of numbers that may help people understand um more thoroughly about how our finance works here.

Other questions for Ms.

Hasler?

And I see Mr.

Way would like to add to give everybody an example.

Go ahead and come to the microphone, please.

I think this would be kind of an interesting real life example.

So we were hired about I don't know, seven or eight years ago by Northwestern Energy.

Um actually it was the Montana Power and it was Western Energy, it was right, it was right at the after the implosion of of that particular uh utility.

But there was a time when there was a pipeline uh, you know, a fiber optic cable being built from uh Spokane or excuse me from Portland, Oregon to Denver, Colorado.

And there are all these subcontracts that had overtime pay, they had per diemes, they had in every union that they were utilizing as part of you know the men, the manpower to build this fiber optic cabling system was was, you know, they there were just all these different contracts.

And I know, you know, contracts can be complicated, but we created a database and a mask, and we scanned in all these subcontracts, all these agreements, these union agreements, and we queried it for uh you know any oddities that were, you know, the contracts said they would pay X per diem uh and the billing, and then we put in all the bills from these subcontractors, and we found significant discrepancies.

They were paying way more than what the contract stipulated, uh the subcontracts stipulated, and it was because they were being inundated at the utility company with all of these subcontracts, they were just paying them without doing a real good job of verifying that the that the invoices were in agreement with the underlying subcontracts.

Would it have taken weeks and months to do this manually?

We were once we built the software and and the mask and fed all that information in it, we we got the answers were so several hundred thousand dollars was actually found to be overbilled on this on this work between Portland, Oregon, and Denver, Colorado.

So as an example, that that's the utilization of technology.

And CPA firms are are applying this technology, and and I don't know if uh Karen uh has ever asked the audit firm if they are utilizing like idea software for certain you know uh types of audit procedures, but it's out there.

And and again, it's just identifying where you might want to try to, you know, get a handle on where the budget dollars are going, and uh is just an example, but but that's what I wanted to clarify.

I did also want to make one comment too with on the comment Karen made about the third type of an audit.

She's right.

The the compliance audit of the federal funds, we form an opinion on compliance with internal controls that that go into their administration of the grants.

However, we give a negative assurance on overall internal controls, like over general fund expenditures and and you know, proprietary funds and you know, enterprise funds.

We we don't form an opinion on internal control, but we give negative assurance by saying nothing has come to our attention during the course of our financial audit to indicate that the that there is a problem.

And if we see significant deficiencies in internal control or material weaknesses, we would communicate those.

But but we don't form an opinion, other than we do form an opinion on internal control as it relates to compliance with federal expenditures.

Just wanted to clarify that third type of compliance audit.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um there other questions to kind of wrap this, Mr.

Steppen.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Uh, and this is for for Karen, and and I think you asked it, but I'm not sure that I heard the answer that I was maybe hoping for.

And first, this was extremely helpful and enlightening with respect to terminology and objectives of audits, and I think that I hope the people are listening to where they can find the information, because I think that's sometimes the biggest challenge is understanding where they can find it.

I think as long as you have a free democracy, people have opinions on whether any particular administration's prioritizations of funds are right or not.

But it was extremely helpful.

The question that I have is if we are looking at scenarios, say going from part-time commissioners to full-time, can your office help us with what the budget implications would be so that we can and I understand that that's a tough balance for us that it's may not be our objective or our prerogative, but I think it's helpful to understand what the total budget implications, even if it's the commissioners' responsibility to make it happen, if that makes sense.

But is that the appropriate places through the budget office to get those implications?

So uh thank you.

Um Mr.

Steppen, yes, it would be um, especially in regard to you know uh a change in the number and pay of the commissioners.

Um we have their current pay um as well as uh calculated benefits, it would be just a matter of determining um how many and uh what pay scale, and then we could determine um the associated benefits that go along with that.

But for clarity, that would be just what the the note of that change would be.

It wouldn't be whether or not there's other monies that could be moved around.

That's in the commission, the council commissioners purview, correct?

Yes, uh Madam Chair, we would not, that is not at you know, at our discretion where they would find the money um if they determined that they needed to raise additional tax dollars to fund those positions.

I mean, we could say how much in additional tax revenue, but it would not be, you know, our um place to say where that money would come from, other you know that's that would be their decision.

Mr.

Thielen?

I'm sorry, that's uh as Dan said, and he's not here to defend himself, but he had stated before if we find something, it's up to the commissioners to find where that money comes from.

It's not up to Ms.

Hassler.

Yeah, it's not very satisfying because we might have ideas of where things could be moved around, but truly it's not our duty, nor is it our purview to to find it.

Um so the answer is not satisfying to to folks.

We'd have to say it will cost this much, and we leave it to your commission to figure out where to balance that budget.

That's correct.

All right, Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to say thank you to both of you, you and uh Karen and Mr.

Roy for coming up tonight, and for all of you in the back for also taking time out um to come tonight because I thought this was really good discussion, and um I learned a lot and uh GL is really good.

So thank you again for coming up and thank you both for what you do.

It's important.

And I think like Matt said, it people are gonna learn a lot if they tune in to uh the the stream tonight or in the coming days with this meeting to get that information from both of you.

So thanks.

Thanks.

Other comments.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Hasler, and I agree.

Um I appreciate everyone's time and thank you, Commissioners, for bringing the issue as well for us to investigate and try to come to some consensus around.

Um and perhaps, Ms.

Dillon, it to your point that maybe this is um a recommendation that we put in for our council of commissioners to investigate use of other softwares that could help our budget and our treasure, our budget officer and our treasurer's office and our um auditor's office, everybody.

Um but I appreciate the conversation very much.

All right.

If there's no further discussion, I'd like to move ahead.

Um we do not have a public hearing tonight, but we do have a public presentation, and because our IT has been uh scrambling all day uh with this this um slowdown from Google and whatnot, uh we have a printed copy of the Greeley Neighborhood Community Development Corporation's presentation.

So, Mr.

Banderob, it's easier to get here with that.

I will give you my name for the record in a in a bit.

Actually, in that a written request was made for time on the agenda.

My name, who I am representing, and the complete title of my presentation should already be on the record.

I know that you all are in brain dead and in go home mode.

But I ask that you please pay attention, listen, and hopefully hear what the people by not being here are trying to tell you.

What are the goals, objectives, and purposes of a neighborhood community improvement council?

For the Greeley Neighborhood Community Development Corporation Inc., they are seeking common solutions, the common concerns for the common good, thus making our neighborhood, our community, a safer, healthier, happier, harmonious, and a more attractive place in which to live, work, and play by working with our local government.

What is the level of importance of community councils?

Our local government does not have the structure nor system in place for a bottom-up from the government.

Ah hell, excuse me for missing.

Our editor Bandrov 2601 Grand Avenue will get back to the top of what you've got now.

For and on behalf of the Greeley Neighborhood Community Development Corporation Inc., a triad of concerned citizens, and 447 petition signatories.

Therefore, I must take issue with the statement that just because one person comes up here every week, community councils does not rise to the level of being considered as one of your priority Butte Silver Bowl charter change issues.

No neighborhood councils are not included in the Butte Silver Bow City Carter County Government Charter.

That point was made emphatically made clear in 2014 by the then Butte Silver Bowl City County Attorney.

Therefore, I must also take issue with the statement that neighborhood community councils are already in the charter.

Our representative government is intended to be a for from the bottom up of the people, by the people, and for the people, based on the principle of doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people form of government.

I'll see if I can get the right page this time.

Our local government does not have the structure nor system in place for a bottom-up form of government.

If you agree with the Butte Silver Bowl that Butte Silver government should be a government of the people by the people and for the people, then there must be built into the Butte Silver Bowl Charter a mechanism by which to determine the coal east will of the people.

In that your first op-ed suggested priority is to encourage the public participation in the actions of our local government, in that on March 10th, 2016, petitions with 447 signatures of 500 residents of the Greater Butte Silver Bowl Community surveyed were placed on record with the Butte Silver Bowl Council Commissioners requesting the implementation of a community council system.

The 500 sample size and the 447 signatures is well above the 379 needed in a random sample survey of a population of 30,000 to show with a 95% confidence allowance for a plus or minus 5% error factor that an estimated 89% of the total population support the implementation of a community council system.

That's much more than one person.

Let me repeat that 500 Butte Silver Bowl community residents were talked to one by one.

Four hundred and forty-seven were willing to give their address and sign their name, indicating that of a population of 30,000, an estimated 89% of the total population support the implementation of a community council system.

It was not a blind internet survey.

And that you seem to have as one of your priority issues reducing the number of council commissioners to six full-time paid commissioners, and that you can only terminate an elected official by recall ballot.

Thus, you are probably going to have to have six districts and six commissioners at least in the transition period.

The current youth silverbow city county attorney has tried to point that out to you on several occasions.

And that to justify, I don't know why you're worried about what it's going to cost.

I think you should be worried about justifying it.

Six full-time paid commissioners, as you have been told by the at least a half dozen of the present commissioners, you are going to have to stipulate in the charter more responsibilities for the commissioners.

In addition to the current powers and duties now designated in the Butte Silver Boat Charter the Ma in that the major issue in the structure of the local government is that there is not a clearly defined channel for communications between the people and their government.

Therefore, I must also take issue with this statement that community councils does not rise to the level of being considered as one of your priority Butte Silver Bowl charter changes issues.

Given the national polarized situation, the issue of neighborhood community improvement councils and a greater Butte Silver Bowl Community Council is a fundamental issue, and is at the level to be considered as the first priority issue of the Butte Silver Bow Charter change.

No, politicians do not want a system that coalesces or draws together the will of the people.

Yes, after considering considering all the major issues, it is up to this commission to discuss and decide which three main government function issues you are going to change, but you might consider that neighborhood community councils are not a government function, but are a part of the government, and then you are going to have to discuss decide what to include in the in the chamber and the charter changes.

Are there any questions?

I put this on as a presentation, so it could so you could ask questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Banderob.

If I could, I'll lead us off.

And not to defend the statements made by myself and other commissioners last meeting.

But I want to clarify that we are running under the assumption that we could have three total questions all together.

And tonight we received different opinion from the county attorney after more research that we can add other pieces to our questions on the ballot, which changes our deliberations a bit in terms of prioritizing which things need to go to ballot and which do not, or which we cannot.

So I think again, speaking for myself, we've all appreciated the idea of community councils.

We've reviewed the information in other charters and how other charters are structured to employ community councils as a way to increase public participation.

That was a concern that's been raised.

Again, speaking for myself, um in terms of what I've heard from this commission, I don't think people are opposed to the idea at all.

We want to make sure that they're effective, and we want to make sure that they're they're used well, and then if we had to prioritize, we would we'd have to look at those those structural governmental changes that we were talking about tonight with County Attorney Anne Ruth.

Like I said, between last week and tonight, things have changed.

Um we do have more room if this commission wishes to pick up um adding language to the um charter that further describes how to use those councils, whether or not we put that language in the commissioners' duties and responsibilities, etc.

That's stuff that we can all deliberate for sure.

Um so anyway, I guess I'd just like to make that statement for the record and for people listening and um and for my fellow commissioners to make sure that I've you know captured it correctly.

I please do ask questions and we can continue on with the conversation.

Um, Mr.

Banderoban, I would like to re make a comment relative to that.

Uh it is obvious that you have not been looking at my emails and communication.

You use the word mandate.

If you look at what I've sent you, the word mandate is not there.

I have read some of the others, and yes, they mandated the number of of community councils, they mandated the areas, etc.

If you will look at the 14-8 proposal or communication to the Butte Silver Bowl Council of Commissioners, it outlines a voluntary form of forming neighborhood community councils, and that was the problem because we brought it up as neighborhood community councils, and that is not what is in the charter.

What is in the charter is the Greater Butte Silverbow Community Councils.

If you will look at what I've sent you, you will see a system similar to Iceland's assemblies, a lower local neighborhood council, a assembly of the councils within the district to choose a representative or a delegate to the Greater Butte Silver Bowl Council.

So that is the only one that has a mandate, that that procedure.

But what you decide to do, of course, is up to you.

The commissioners know their areas.

They should be the ones that should be instigating, encouraging, facilitating the community councils or the neighborhood community councils, but they should not have, if you hear again if you read what I sent you, they should not have a vote.

They should not be a participant, but they should be instigators and coordinators at no additional cost to the taxpayers.

Any other questions?

Ms.

Dolan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ed, for all of this.

And I do want to say on the record, we do read all your emails, and we do read everything you send us, at least I do, and I think everyone here does as well.

But I want to make one comment and I have a question for you.

With regard to the community council system, I think with regard to neighborhood councils within the districts, whatever those districts end up being, um, and having the commissioners of said district to be the helper with that community council or the neighborhood council, that's a great idea.

What I have am having trouble with is I don't want to take anything any recommendations from Iceland, thank you very much, or the United States of America, and where Butte Silverbow.

And with that, the the hierarchy of your neighborhood council and then your Greater Butte, Silver Bow Community Council, that's enough, those are layers of bureaucracy.

So I have to say that's what I believe them to be, and I'd rather just have neighborhood council to give information and have that direct information of the community and the folks that live in that neighborhood to the commissioner to help them make those decisions and what um the priorities are.

But my question then is going back to your signature gathering, and I know that's a tough deal, so thank you for doing that.

But you said that it was back in 2016.

That was nine years ago.

I'm wondering if you've done any follow-up with those 447 folks.

Do they still live here in Butte Silverbow?

Do they still feel the same way?

Because nine years have passed, and that's a long time.

I'm just curious.

Well, as you see, a thousand people protested, but none of them are willing to come up here and say a word.

I guess where am I going?

Repeat your question, please.

I gotta give them sure.

I'm sorry, let me get a little closer to the mic.

Yeah, just the question.

So you gathered 447 signatures back in 2016.

Have you done any follow-up with that number because some folks have moved maybe?

Um, nine years is a long time.

Um, any, you know, maybe change their opinion, but I'm just kind of wanting that follow-up.

I agree with you.

There has been a lot of change in our society since that survey was taken.

Unfortunately, our society has become more polarized.

No, I have not made any follow-up, but I have been working for 13 years trying to get this put in to the charter because I am fully aware that people threw up their hands four years after we had a viable Greeley neighborhood community development corporation functioning because there was not an official recognized channel of communication, and yes, actually you are right, they should be working through their commissioner, and the commissioner should be working through the chair of the council to the to your city manager and to the departments.

So the commissioner is the person who should be following up.

I don't want what we have now, thousands of individual citizens trying to go directly to the different departments and getting something done.

That's what I tried to do.

There was yes, the center bill group that did that, but since the the instigator and Ramrod of that center film group lost her husband, she hasn't done a thing.

But since the the instigator and Ramrod of that center film group lost her husband, she hasn't done a thing.

So that's why we need it in the charter.

We need a functioning system.

Ramsey did great.

But when I talked to uh Peter, I think it was, I can't remember names.

He says he's got the same problem.

Nobody wants to do anything because there is not a recognized channel.

And I'm not saying that they should go around the commissioner.

I'm saying they come to the they have an organized system of working with their commissioner to move the issue forward.

We had uh the example we had one project done after the fifty million dollar or fifty thousand dollar uh studied on the in the Greeley area.

And we went, I went as chair of the Greeley neighborhood to the uh CEO, and to the community development director, and we did a survey and got got what we needed to get some additional funding from the Department of Commerce from Montana, and we got one project done.

But could you see if we had five or ten different neighborhoods, community organizations within a community, and we have to have more than one because the greeley is across the tracks from the racetrack.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, we live on that side of Grand, they live on that the other side of Grand.

We have specific issues and problems.

They don't have the same issues and problems, so we dilute what we're trying to do if you mandate one community council for the entire district.

It has to be a half a dozen or a do different if you have to come if you combine the districts, you're gonna have a larger district, you're going to end up with maybe a half a dozen different neighborhood community council, and it's going to take ten years to get that far.

But that goes back to your question.

Are those people going to be willing to do something?

They're the ones that have to first, as the gal said, we should have first organized the community neighborhood improvement councils, and then did the $50,000 study.

Any more questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Banderob.

Any other questions from commission?

I'll be back.

I bet you will.

I look forward to seeing you next week.

Um I have a thought, Annie, in our review of other charters, uh, Missoula has named community councils or neighborhood councils in there.

I'm wondering if we could reach out to someone in Missoula regarding efficacy and structure.

And specifically, I'm kind of thinking about that question that we've been wrestling with.

Like it seems that these councils are really effective when there's something seriously wrong and they want they like Ramsey, for example, they wanted something done and they're they're trying to work really hard, but then when it's day-to-day operations, they kind of wane.

And you mentioned that you know getting people to volunteer is is hard, and getting them to be volunteers for a little board is can be difficult.

So I just would like to get some information about from Mozilla, and I think Helen also, you know, what they what they found in practice, you know, how they work, uh, where their uh structural flaws might be.

And I can follow up with you on email in terms of other questions that you know, maybe the rest of the commission would want to chime into that we we might have somebody come present if if we can get that happening.

I know it's we're getting out of time and we're doing a lot of research, so if we can't make it happen, it's no problem.

They could even answer an email if there was an opinion.

Um but I think that would help us too.

Okay.

Do you have another question, Mr.

Banderab?

Uh that is the point why it is important that we have the commissioners functioning as the coordinators.

Because the people understand that that is the way that you uh you should go.

And if they're there that you can talk to.

We had commissioners show up at our meetings, and we worked through them.

I talked to the gal in Missoula ten years ago.

When I was trying to get it through the first time.

And she said it was a constant battle to keep keep it going.

So that's why.

When uh when we put it in the first time, we ended up with a hundred thousand dollar management counter thing.

And that's not the way to go.

That's part of the problem.

If you really will excuse me.

Mr.

Thielen.

Yeah, it's a little bit off subject here, and I apologize, but um I just received a text message from Mr.

Wo.

And when he discussed the using of the specialized software, uh, he mentioned Northwestern Montana power and Western Energy.

And he was just wondering if those could be stricken from the record, and uh just go ahead and correct it by saying uh utility engagement and not name the names.

In our notes we can, but this is live broadcast, so he is unfortunately on the record with those statements, but we can strike it out of notes.

I think that's always asking.

So thank you.

Okay, any other questions for Mr.

Banderob?

If not, I'm gonna move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, other scheduled matters.

Um I guess um just circling back to the beginning of this conversation.

I will um draft a hypothetical timeline of deliberations for us to consider and then we can bring that back and um have a kind of discussion about those priorities and then add anything to that list that we'd like to deliberate um if that works for everybody.

And then announcements will be we meeting again next week on November 3rd.

And then um I don't think there's anything else for the good of the order.

If I could ask Mr.

Thielen to make a motion to adjourn.

So Miss Mr.

Thielen has made a motion to adjourn and uh Ms.

Dylan is seconded.

Anyone opposed?

Okay, thank you all.

Um we'll see you next week.

And those of you on party line I'll be listening.

Oh, we have a correction, Annie.

Our next uh study commission is the 27th of October.

Yeah, thank you.

Because we were on that every other week, but we're gonna be weekly.

Just forget about it.

We're never taking any breaks.