I'd like to call the Butte Silver World Council of the Commissioners regular meeting for Wednesday, March 18th, 2026 to order.

Clerk, can we please have roll call?

Ten present, two absent.

Ten present, two absent.

Please note that Commissioner Fisher and Commissioner Callahan are absent from tonight's agenda.

Next, I'll move on to any public comment on any item on tonight's agenda.

If you'd like to speak on any item on tonight's agenda, please come forward, state your name, your address, and the item that you would like to speak about.

Seeing none, I'll move on to the approval of the minutes from the March 4th regular meeting.

Could Commissioners please vote?

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

Uh I'm finalizing the details about that.

The group will leave Thursday, um, have a full day Friday in uh Quincy meeting with uh a tour of the site, then meeting with um community officials, and then uh returning back on Saturday.

So um for all those that will be traveling, I'll be getting out uh uh uh itinerary and agenda for you so everybody understands what that's gonna look like.

So uh look for that soon once I finalize all the details of that.

So um and with that, I'm gonna make it a quick chief executive's report.

We're gonna move on and uh move to section one, bid openings, public hearings, and and our presentations.

We have a couple public hearings and a presentation tonight.

Um start off with item number one, communication number 2026-99.

Kara Mullachney, Butte Silver Silverbow Officer requesting council commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on March 18th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 2026 budget to support the purchase of lab equipment for family planning, utilizing grant funding from bridge bridge care via the sample foundation.

County attorney and root, do we have proof of publication on both of these public hearings tonight?

Chief Executive Gallagher, Commissioners, we have proof of publication on both communications.

Thank you.

Welcome uh Director Malchney.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, members of council.

Um for the record, my name is Karen Mullachney, Health Officer for Buck Silverbow, and I'm here this evening to ask your permission to amend the 2026 fiscal year budget to accept uh uh funding from Bridger Care via the sample foundation and the amount of five thousand dollars.

This will help us purchase um uh equipment for our family planning um clinic, which is very outdated, and we just hired a new nurse practitioner, so come and come in good use.

Thank you.

Do commissioners have any questions of Director Malchny?

Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing.

First call for proponents.

Ready for us, 2000 Roberts Avenue.

I am in favor of this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Frost.

Second call for proponents.

Third and final call for proponents.

Next I'll move to Opponents.

First call for Opponents.

Second call for opponents, third and final call for opponents.

I'll close public hearing.

Next we'll move to item number two, communication number 2026-100.

Caramel Lochnum Beach Silver Bowl Health Officer requesting council commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on March 18th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 2026 budget to support HIV prevention services, delivery of HIV treatment, outreach support of viral hepatitis and HIV services.

Director Malchney.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, members of council.

Um again, I'm asking to amend the fiscal year 2026 budget for an amount of uh in 25,000 for our HIV prevention services.

And there in this grant there are no matching funds required by Butte Silverbow.

Thank you, Director Mulchney.

Are there any questions of commissioners?

Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing.

First call for proponents.

Ready for us, 2000 Roberts Avenue.

I'm also in favor of this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Frost.

Second call for proponents.

Third and final call for proponents.

First call for opponents.

Second call for opponents.

Third and final call for opponents.

I'll close the public hearing.

Next we'll move on to presentations.

Item number three, communication number 2026-113, Karen Hassler, Finance and Budget Director requesting council commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on March 18th, 2026, present the fiscal year 2025, annual comprehensive financial report, schedule the federal awards, audit findings, and related autumn audit opinions.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, members of council.

Thank you for allowing us time on tonight's agenda to present to you our fiscal year 2025 annual comprehensive financial report and related um audit opinions and findings from Newland and company.

So in um placed on your desk this morning or of this afternoon is a very uh summarized packet of our financial statements.

Um it's roughly 90 pages.

Our full financial um report is 400 pages.

So this particular report starts off with our pages, the numbering isn't exact.

It's not one, two, three, four, five as their excerpts from our larger report.

And so we're going to start off with it says page 18 is the independent auditors report, and that's the auditor's report on the financial statements.

Our auditor here, he's the lead auditor and partner for Newland and Company, Pat Burt is here, and he will discuss these audit opinions with you after I just give a brief summary of our financial statements.

The next page that I would like to direct your attention to starts it's page 36, and this is the management's discussion and analysis or the MDNA as we call it for short.

And this section of the financial statement summarizes the financial information and highlights any changes from the prior fiscal year.

It provides valuable insight on our financials on the financial position of the local government, such as changes in our assets, our liability, net position, details of significant changes in the financial statements from the prior year.

This is the really the meat of the financial statements.

This gives you the majority of the detail that you would need without diving into some of the other particular fund level information.

So the first page, this I should also mention that the MDNA has a lot of charts and graphs in there and comparative information for the prior year that helps the public or even yourselves understand in greater detail the changes from year to year and kind of brings into focus things that are of particular interest.

It also explains a lot about our structure, how the government that we call the general fund is our major fund.

We also have the ARCO Redevelopment Trust Fund, which is sometimes known as SARDA.

We have ARPA funds, and we have the Hard Rock Mind Reserve, are also major funds that are at the front of the report.

They give those are considered statements, whereas non-major funds are considered schedules and they're found towards the back of the financial statements.

Those are pretty voluminous.

We have a lot of special revenue funds that are not considered major funds, and other debt service funds, capital improvement funds, and enterprise funds.

Those are towards the back of the full financial statements.

Everybody will get a copy, and then we'll also have them available on the website when once we get the final opinion letters from the auditors.

The opinion letters that are in tonight's copy are just drafts.

So then we move to page.

Sorry, 79 is the beginning of the basic financial statements.

The first statement that you'll see there is the government-wide statement, and this combines all of the activities of the whole government together.

So it has all of our regular governmental activities, our enterprise funds.

The only thing that we do is we exclude any intergovernmental business or transfers or transactions in these particular funds.

After the government-wide financials, we have just our governmental funds where I talked about our major funds, and then it also combines our non-major governmental funds.

We have our enterprise funds, which is our business type funds.

Those are our water, metro, sewer, landfill.

Those are funds that operate more like a business, but we don't consider them business.

They're just enterprise or business like.

We just act as the collection agency, if you will.

We bill for the funds or levy taxes, collect those, and then we disperse them out to the proper agencies.

So after all of the financial statements in this particular packet, it we go to the single audit section.

And the next section after that is called our schedule of federal awards.

And this is a list of all of the federal funding for programs that we receive.

And they all have very specific assistance listings numbers.

And this helps our auditors determine which funds are considered major funds and which will require a separate audit of those major funds.

Any assistance listing that has more than $750,000 requires a more in-depth review and audit by our auditors than say a fund that maybe only has $50,000 in funding received.

So all in all, Butte Silver Bow has been awarded $60,550 or $60,559,497 in federal funds.

Cash receipts recognized were $8,473.

Cash expenditures, $15,823,000.

The reason that the cash recognized is less than the expenditures is due to the ARPA funds, where we've been holding those funds and recognize them as unearned revenue until the point that they're expended, and then we recognize them as an expenditure and a revenue at that time.

So after the schedule of federal awards, um we have a couple of different auditors' um opinion reports, which again I'll let Mr.

Burt um talk to you about uh what they what conclusions they came to what they found during their audit.

And then we also have at the end um our office is required to respond to any comments or findings that uh Newland and Company has um discovered during the course of their audit.

And so after Mr.

Burt um discusses uh his opinions and those findings with you, uh I will discuss our management's response um to those findings and comments, and after that, we will take any questions from council.

Thank you, Director Hassler.

Um we'll move on to Pat.

Are you ready?

Welcome, Mr.

Burt.

Thank you.

My name is uh Pat Bird.

I'm a managing partner and director at Newland and Company, and I'm the auditor in charge uh as I have been for the last several years of of our audit.

So uh what I want to direct you to initially is page 18, which is our audit opinion.

Uh and this is what we call an unmodified opinion.

And in our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly all material respects, the financial position of the government act governmental activities, business type activities, and discreet presented component union unit, each major fund and aggregate remaining fund information.

This is what we call an unmodified or clean opinion that your financial statements are fairly stated.

As I'm sure most of you are aware, uh Butte Silver Bow is uh achieves the highest level for financial statements through the uh GFOA certificate program and and has received that uh that financial statement assurance for uh multiple multiple years.

So again, the financial statements that you have in front of you are really at the highest level of government financial reporting.

And and that's a credit to to the staff of Butte Silver Bow to be able to produce those type of financial statements.

Uh again, back to our opinion.

Uh I won't I'll be brief on it.

We we discuss the basis of our opinions, obviously responsibility of management.

Uh management provides to us as auditors a complete set of financial information, which includes footnotes, disclosures, all the separate reports, uh that totals 400 pages.

Matt your your management prepares that entire report itself and we audit it.

Uh kind of unusual because in in Montana because the small size of local governments, there's not very many governments that are able to prepare that type of financial uh statement.

The uh next uh I'm on page 19 as a brief section on our auditors' responsibilities.

And in on this federal schedule that Karen just discussed, we we provide an unmodified opinion on there in that your federal dollars are fairly presented in federals.

So then I would go direct you to the very back, which is after the scheduled financial assistance, under the single audit section.

So again, unfortunately it's not page numbered, but the section that says spin single audit section.

And as again, this this board is well aware is that you have you have been able to utilize ARPA funds and and uh during the year ended uh our audit procedures are uh basically on funds expended and you had in in excess of 15 million dollars of funds expended, and because of the ARPA program, uh we're we were required to uh perform additional procedures on 13.6 million.

So our audit was uh covered a very significant portion of your total financial expenditures, and and I think as you're aware, you uh because of the major construction type programs uh utilizing ARPA funds, uh the majority of that was under one federal fund number.

So we were required to perform those audit procedures.

So uh and again that was an unmodified opinion.

Uh very unusual.

I think you know, if you look at the schedule of federal financial assistance, you're down to about uh five point six million dollars of of the ARPA fund essentially it's not all but of the ARPA funding left, which will probably be totally expended in the in the fiscal year we're in right now.

Uh next I would direct you to uh after that is two separate uh reports on internal control.

Uh the first report is on uh R out of internal control in in accordance with government auditing standards, and we did actually have two findings related to that that are required to be reported and are in the auditors' comments section.

Uh these these we considered to be what we call significant deficiencies in internal control, and thus are required to be reported and and notified by the board uh uh by by the council, excuse me.

So uh the next internal control report is uh uh an independent report on major programs required by what what the government calls uniform guidance, and that is an unmodified, we've had actually no findings related to your expenditures of uh federal governmental funds.

And and that's on page, it's numbered 243, but that's right after.

Uh and then next I'll uh I'll I'll go to what our audit findings were.

And uh as I've stated in previous meetings and and Buttsilver Bow actually has several departments still that we find that internal controls because of lack of segregation and duties uh at the parking commission, the civic center, and the landfill.

And basically the governmental auditing standards and and accounting standards require that you have adequate segregation of duties anywhere that you're really collecting cash collections.

Uh I I will uh let you know that and again we we don't look at every small office, but we do it on a rate rotation basis.

Uh the parking commission, and I again I think as you're aware, just implemented new new internal controls, new accounting structure, and and a contract with an outside agency.

Uh my review included that new program and new organizations, and you do have strong controls there.

Uh it is they do a good job.

Actually, and from a cash collection standpoint, uh it reduced your risk significantly because the majority of dollars collected now by the car parking commission go directly to the outside contractors.

So those dollars are collected and paid directly, and then But Silver Bow receives after a fee the net reimbursement.

So that's that's uh really mitigated your risk of cash collection dollars and the internal controls.

And and I did review that program and and had questions there.

But unfortunately, you have small staff there, and at a certain point uh the staff actually the staff the individual in charge of doing the reporting at some times asked to collect money, and that that's the segregation of duties issue.

Uh the same is true of the civic center and the landfill.

Uh as part of our audit, uh, and Karen can speak to that a little more.

We uh we know this is multi-year issues, and uh there's actually a couple of transitions in these small offices that uh we will discuss and Karen has discussed and and I will look at obviously of trying to eliminate some of these final uh audit findings related to internal controls.

And I you know, uh hasn't been done yet, but what we've Karen and I have discussed as methods, how how do we get rid, you know, your question obviously is how do we get rid of these comments?

How you know we see them every year.

Uh there are multiple, and unfortunately, they're multiple year content comments.

I can tell you if you go back five years, they were probably three times, you had three times the amount of small offices that had internal control issues.

So the government itself has has worked very diligently to eliminate the majority of those those findings and and questions.

And again, we recommend our recommendation is the Butte Silver Bow investigate feasibility of improving internal controls over cash collections and outside offices.

Uh this is what we call a repeat findings.

These these three items were were actually on there last year and in previous years, and we call that a repeat finding that that essentially there's still no change uh and we are looking at from a standpoint uh I'm always glad to review internal control suggestions by by your government and give you my opinion on an interim basis rather than waiting to till the end of the year till I come into audit.

So uh we we have had discussions related to that.

Uh the next item on the comment is is again a repeat finding, and during our audit, we noted the immunization department does not reconcile billings collections and adjustments to the subsidiary account on a monthly basis.

Uh the control process does not allow for a complete reconciliation of monthly activity.

In addition, the immunization part department was unable to generate a subsidiary detail report at year end that reconciled to the amount recorded in the Butte Silver Bow General Legend.

Uh this is a unfortunately an ongoing software problem that that they've struggled with for a number of years, but uh it's again a multi-year audit finding that when we come in the the reports that are generated don't reconcile at the end of each month.

So uh again, our recommend we re our recommendation is we recommend that Butte Silver Bow implement proper procedures to reconcile immunization fees and related receivables on a on a monthly basis.

Uh our final audit comment relates to uh retainage.

Uh as part of our audit, and uh we we normally look at high dollar uh items and look at the construction contracts, make sure bidding requirements make sure all the proper procedures uh uh during our audit.

We noted that management did not require retainage and unfortunately did not put it into the contract to require retainage on a significant number of construction contracts.

To give you some history, uh it was never a formal policy, but Butte Silver Bow in past years, it's something we look at as auditors every year.

Butte Silver Bow had always actually had a retainage clause and withheld retain each.

Unfortunately, uh the cause of that in uh is was a change in personnel.

You know, there was new personnel in charge of the thing.

Uh when we when it came time for us to look at the contract, there there was quite quite a large number of them that had no retainage, and these are significant dollars.

So uh, you know, we recommend that butte silver bow develop a formal policy and procedures to require retainage on all major construction projects to ensure contract performance.

And I'll let uh again this happened during the course of our audit, and Karen has been very proactive and she can discuss uh she's already developed a uh a formal policy related to retainage.

Any questions, comments?

Okay.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher.

Thank you, Mr.

Burt for um your work.

It's always very fascinating.

And shout out to the budget and finance office for the great work you guys do.

Mr.

Burt, I was just looking through this, and there's it talks about a day minimis rate and that we elect a 10% rate.

But how I understand it that it could be up to 15% is what is the what's the basis for the decision on the 10 versus the 15%?

The b basis decision for the decision generally is uh the state contracts that you deal with, the state federal contracts.

Uh what a diminished rate does is you're automatically if if you receive a million-dollar contract, you automatically can charge 10% of that contract balance.

Unfortunately, the m quite a few of the grants that you receive give you an actual line item budget for salaries, you know, it it's not a uh you know uh majority of your grants come from the state of Montana as a pass-through.

It's not something they generally put in.

Uh if you look at at the individual grants that Butt Silverbow receives, the majority of them have line items for supplies, light items for expenditures, and that's the difference.

One is a straight 10%, and one is these grants all have a budget for administration that is supplies advertised, you know, uh all those items separately.

Uh so it it's just not common uh would make everyone's job easier, obviously, but it's just not common for the state grants you're receiving and the federals to say uh yeah, you have no budget, we'll give you an automatic, and that's what it amounts to, an automatic 10% of the grant award.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Burt.

Any other questions of uh Commissioners?

Seeing none.

Thank you for your work and the report.

Thank you.

Yeah, very informative.

Bring Karen back up.

Director Hassler.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, members of council.

Um I would like to take just a minute to talk about our response to the findings that were um just discussed by Mr.

Burt.

Um the first is the uh finding um 2024-0 and one, the internal controls and offices outside of the treasurer.

And again, this is a multi-year finding, and we've talked over the years about um the the risk and the benefit and potential costs of you know, hiring people to go out to the landfill and have one person collect the money and have one person prepare the deposit.

And it wouldn't just be one person, it would be two people that would have to be hired because they have different shifts.

There's usually there's only one day when there's two people there, the rest of the week there's only one, so you'd have to hire two people.

And it's salaries and benefits at roughly you know 75,000 times two, 150,000 cost to the landfill, um, when they're really only collecting about 10,000 in cash because the majority of their revenue is based on contractor um accounts receivable billing that go out at the end of the month and then they pay by check.

So the and a lot of the people that are coming across the scales that are um having to pay also use a credit or a debit card.

So there's really not a lot of cash exchanging hands.

Um as far as the parking commission, um, as Mr.

Burt um talked about, they are collecting majority of our parking tickets, violations and permits now through the MPS uh ticketing system.

So when they receive a ticket, there's a QR code on there or a website, and they can scan it with their phones and pay it directly that way.

Um but there is still um some risk associated because we still have people coming into the office and paying.

We have um one employee there to collect, um, but he at times is also the same employee that is you know wrapping up the till at the end of the night and preparing the deposit.

The amount of money that he's actually collecting, um, I just pulled a report that we get from MPS, which is the new um parking software, and of the 56, 57,000 in revenue that they've collected, only $10,000 has come through that office in cash or check form, and it could be even by credit card.

That's just the amount that we've collected as opposed to the amount that has been collected by the software company themselves through uh the QR code or through payments online.

So we feel like we're mitigating that risk um fairly well just by having that new system.

Um and then at the Civic Center, this is also a topic of discussion.

You know, they do have events where they bring in large amounts of money.

Um, but generally what happens is if it's a concert, they're selling tickets well in advance, and people are going out onto their website and buying their tickets and paying for that by credit cards.

So there again, no cash is being exchanged.

Those credit card payments go directly into the bank account, and those accounts are reconciled monthly.

And so where we do have cash being collected a lot is through the concessions.

And so people are paying by cash, that cash is being collected by the assistant manager.

She's reconciling those tills and she's making those deposits.

And so, but that is sporadically when they have events down there.

It's not an everyday occurrence.

So one thing that we did talk about is potentially introducing additional manager level reviews, and especially as we have some staff turnover in these managerial positions that we're training the new managers and then also the people that potentially are coming on about the sacredation of duties and how important it is, you know, to have one person balancing tills and then a second person signing off reviewing and making the deposits for those.

So trying to mitigate the risk just by implementing some new policies and procedures.

Um is something that we've worked on for several years.

Medical billing is not easy by nature.

There's adjustments, there's insurance billing, and so that adds a little bit of complexity to their reconcile or reconciliations every month.

Um but the reports and that are coming from this particular software vendor are not user-friendly.

And then you go and add the privacy and the HIPAA rules that they have to completely black out a lot of the information, and so before it even comes to us.

And so the reports aren't aren't easy to read, they're not easy to use.

And so as part of the response from the health department, they are looking at a new electronic health record for something that is more user-friendly, and will help them with their ability to reconcile these.

We do have to respond to these comments.

We send them to we upload our financial statements into Emma, which is the electronic municipal market access, I believe it's called, and they get to see all of these comments as well.

But in the last couple of years, we have had uh correspondence with the Department of Administration through the state of Montana where they are questioning why we're having these repeat findings.

And so hopefully last year we had a finding on family planning and immunization.

We were able to get family planning reconciled for this year.

So hopefully, with just one particular department at the health department and a new electronic health record, we can get this resolved.

Granted, we only have three months left in this year, but we'll sure try, you know, everything that we can do to get this off.

Um the final comment that I have on the major construction projects is we did um when the auditors brought this to our attention, we had some large construction contracts that generally don't happen in these departments.

So we had window replacement, we had fire suppression at the mother load.

Generally, our large construction contracts all come through public works, and they're accustomed to having that 5% retainage.

Um so this was an oversight uh through the contract process and also through the pay application process when they come before us, you know, we review those and nobody picked up that we weren't withholding retainage.

So we have um prepared a policy for retainage of all contracts that exceed 80,000.

The reason that we chose 80,000 is because that is the threshold to go out to public bid, and it's also the threshold to withhold 1% gross receipts tax.

So that should be a trigger in in anybody's mind when we send this policy out when they're creating their contracts, um, looking at construction projects that if they have to go out and have a project that is publicly bid, and if they have to withhold one percent gross receipts tax, then it has to be in the contract language that they have to withhold 5% retainage as well.

So that's the conclusion of the audit report and the findings and our management response.

So I'm happy to answer any questions that council may have.

Thank you, Director Hassler.

Are there any questions of commissioners?

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chief Executive.

Thank you, Director Hassler, for the the uh responses there.

I I see there one there's one comment here on the on the recommendation for the finding 2024 001, the um cash uh related finding.

There's a recommendation here to that we might be able to use the services of the city county auditor to assist in the segregation of duties.

Can you just talk a little bit more about that and if that's how that might work?

Commissioner O'Leary, Director Hassler.

Uh thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, Commissioner Leary.

Um, our auditor does do several independent audits and um reconciliations of bank accounts that aren't related to the treasure.

We do have um a couple of departments that have outside bank accounts, and she does assist in the reconciliation of those accounts.

Um I I don't know if having her reconcile the accounts and being part of the separation of duties would be feasible.

Is that yeah, please, Mr.

Burt.

Mr.

Burt.

Yes.

Uh so just so that you're aware, actually, the uh the county auditor uh be because I've been doing this audit for a long time, has really significantly improved because of the individuals who uh the actual reconciliation and audit procedures you do, bank reconciliation.

She's become a crucial part of your internal control.

But but the to answer your question, the real key there is uh it's really difficult because it's always after the fact.

So you you could assign that to the auditor, but short of her having to go down to the civic center or go there, that's where the control is.

Is the the control the necessary segregation is someone has to who's who's uh not collecting the money has to perform that second procedure.

So again, it would be you know, Saturday, Monday, what whatever is when the actual count, you know, deposits are made, the accounting uh reconciliations are made.

So probably probably not feasible for to try and you know, and then we're we actually are start talking about three different departments too.

So uh the real crucial control is having some that someone there who can do that uh on a uh real current basis.

So thank you, Mr.

Burt.

Thank you.

Any other questions of commissioners?

Seeing none.

Thank you for the report.

Thank you, uh Director Hassler, Mr.

Bird for for this report.

The work that is put into this is you know, we summarize it in a short uh short presentation.

We wasn't totally short, but I mean for the work that's put into it, uh it was short.

And so um I just want to thank you and your staff for the time and effort and also for the for the department heads and staying and working hard within their budgets because it takes a team to do it all.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, uh Chief Executive Gallagher.

Um, I would also like to thank my staff, particularly uh Danielle Wood, she's the um assistant finance and budget director.

I think um, and I'm guilty of this myself when I first came to the finance and budget office.

I had no idea that this entire 400-page report was prepared in-house.

Um this isn't a program that is printed out of our accounting.

This is an Excel spreadsheet.

Every single number is typed in balanced and reconciled by hand.

And it is during the very it's the most wonderful time of the year during Christmas, and everybody is at home with their families and our staff is busy working on nights and weekends, and it takes a village.

And I I don't know how it would be possible without the hard work of every one of our staff members, and I can't thank them enough.

Thank you, Karen.

All right.

Um, so move on to Section 2 Consent Agenda.

Commit A, community reports one through four, and B communications one through 27.

Commissioner Morgan, thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

I'd like to segregate number 15 communication 2026-145.

That's item number 15 communication number 2026-145.

Are there any other friendly amendments and or segregations?

Seeing none.

Commissioner Morgan.

Wow.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

At this time I make a motion that we approve Section 2, the consent agenda A, the committee reports 1 through 4, B, communications 1 through 27, with the exclusion of number 15, 2026-145.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to can concur with tonight's consent agenda.

Is there anything on the question?

Could Commissioners please vote?

Just give her a second.

You're good.

Now commissioners, please vote.

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10, yes, 0 nay.

10 yay, 0 nay.

Motion passes.

Moving to item number 15, communication number 2026-145.

Julia Crane, Butte Silver Bowl Planning Director, requesting Council of Commissioners authorization to execute the updated scope of work and crawford cross-reference with communication number 2026-76.

Cross reference with communication number 2026-76 and place on filed.

Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

Um after re-reviewing this communication, the recommendation should have been to concur with communication 2026-145 cross-reference with communication 2676 as requested and place on file.

The concur part needs to be in there because they are asking for action on this communication.

So at this time I would just make a motion that we concur with communication 2026-145 cross-reference with communication 2676 in place on file.

Second.

Cross-reference with communication number 2026-76 and place on file.

Okay.

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10 yay, 0 nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to section 3 communications to be read and acted upon.

We have one communication number 2026-143.

Um Jason Perry, Speech Silver Bowl, Coroner requests the council commissioners' authorization to approve raising the salary commensurate with the full-time position beginning with the new fiscal year, July 1, 2020, 2026.

Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

Just at this time I would ask that Mr.

Parrish present what he wants to.

Thank you, uh Commissioner Morgan.

Coroner Parrish.

Excuse me, I just bit my tongue as I was coming up here, so I'm stuttering.

Thank you so much for entertaining my communication.

Currently, the coroner's position in Butte Silver Bow is funded as a part-time position.

If you read the communication, I left a log of the hours I've been uh dedicating to the office since I took over.

I talked with uh my predecessor, Dan Hollis.

Um, and he concurs that the hours are roughly accurate as to what is per uh projected to and to continue.

What I'm asking is simply a moving into a full-time position.

I'm not gonna drop a number out there because that's not my uh forte.

Um but to have a coroner who is willing and able to work full-time, dedicating it himself or herself to the office in a ethical, legal, and uh sincere manner to prevent the well the litigation that can come about and has come about is essential.

Uh it is when you bifurcate your focus and having to work uh a different job to make up bills while you're uh also handling the coroner's duty.

It can be a little disingenuous for uh your work.

It is definitely exhausting.

I've tried it, we've seen how well that worked.

Um and others have tried it in the past, and it is one where it can be tiresome physically, mentally, and emotionally, but moreover, it's makes it to the makes it where you are not paying attention or can.

Uh other areas in the uh that are comparable to our county size and with the similar case structure and similar coroner structure, uh Kootney County, Idaho, uh other places in Montana, their coroners are also uh paid on a full-time basis.

All I'm asking is, and this is my in my interest, definitely, but for those who come along after me.

Um I want to make sure that this office stays strong, um, that we are not bifurcating our our vision and that we are not exhausting our people to the extent that working 24-7 already, you don't want to have to look at another 20-hour job, 30-hour job to make up.

Um just a little something to to assist us in making sure that as a coroner's position and coroner's office is growing, and you'll see a presentation coming up about where we're moving on next week.

Um we need somebody who is willing and able to stand there and fight where we need to fight, be caring where we need to be caring, and not be worrying about you know if there's too much month at the end of the paycheck.

So uh that that's the best I can give you at the moment.

Thank you, uh Coroner Perrish.

Um and I will say that um Jason and I have had conversations about this.

I I think that um coming up into the next next fiscal year budget that I would advocate for the we didn't uh uh have this in this year's budget, it would be hard to to make that adjustment now.

But I do think that um based on what we've seen in the past, the the situations that have happened and as we talk about some of the legal legal implications of um the position the or the coroner takes on, I think it it's probably time that we do um treat this position as a full-time professional position, and so uh from my standpoint I think it's a good move for the county.

So um Commissioner Morgan, did you have a question?

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

Um this isn't really a question, but kind of a statement, I guess.

So I know the communication that's before us is asking us to approve raising the salary, but I think the proper way for this to happen would be more for a budget type of question where we would have to put the money into the budget and and just trying to think about that process.

I have a couple of questions.

One, I would think that the chief executive would put it in the preliminary budget and then it would be transferred to the council to go full full adoption.

Um because as we all know, any elected officials salary is is uh defined by a resolution that this body would go through and adopt.

And so I think if I'm understanding that correctly, that's that's how that would go.

Um this has been a position that I've always questioned how it was in that part-time capacity just because of what you guys do or what everybody in that position has done.

I mean, timing-wise is kind of of the essence.

Um couple of couple of things that I I think you know we need to look at.

I I did reach out to our HR director just to see if there was a salary comp that we could go through and adjust.

And it looks like based on the other elected positions that if you take the salary that you're currently at and double it, that would match up with the rest of the elected officials um salary.

So that's probably something that you would be looking at.

One one question that I I do have, and and again, I don't know who to ask this to, but being that this position was an elected position that the individual signed up for knowing what the position was and paid, is it is it possible to change it mid-stroke after accepting the position?

I I just don't know if that would change the scope of the job, you know, for an elected position if if it would allow another person to run for the position, knowing that it was a full-time position rather than part-time.

I just don't know if that is something that we need to consider as a body, you know, as we as we move forward.

I I did look at the charter um last night to try to see if it was defined in there that it was a part-time position, and it's not in there as a part-time position.

I I did look at the charter um last night to try to see if it was defined in there that it was a part-time position and it's not in there as a part-time position um so there's no charter change that would have to go through it it strictly is a financial thing but th there's just things like that that I I think we need to kind of work through you know as as we start making these decisions on on what to do because I I'm concerned that if if if somebody can get elected to this position and then just come in and and change the scope of it you know right in the middle of it you know what would present the council to say you know we want to be full time instead of part-time which in the charter it might say that they're they're part time but you know how would we adjust their salaries to to do that and and I'm just f afraid of that that we'll be setting a precedence on it.

So couple of things just to consider again um full support of it I've always questioned question this I just want to make sure that we're doing it right and and I appreciate you bringing it forward for sure.

Commissioner Morgan I think that brings a good question.

I think that you know we probably should also contact the state elections office to make sure that because we're changing potentially the salary and that would that have allowed other people and that's uh I'm totally supportive of Mr Perry Shares and was where he's at but does that change and would that have allowed somebody else to enter into that I think that that's a question we're probably gonna have to ask the state um on that because it does change the you know the at least the financial picture of what that is and so um I think there's some questions to be asked so this is not a bad time that you're up here at least presenting this to us so that we can answer those questions.

Are there any other questions with Commissioners?

Commissioner Shea Thank you Mr Chief Executive I'm wondering if Director Hassler or Director Worm has any information about why this was this was in it's been in the budget resolutions as 0.5 rather than full time 1.0 Commissioner Hasler I saw you shaking your head so you want to come to the mic say that Director Hassler I don't know if you have any insight.

Just because you you specifically asked I I don't it's always just been um at we have our elected officials pay and it's been at half of a regular full-time elected official so I don't um the only thing that maybe I can say is um you know our our full-time elected official people have offices at the courthouse they're available eight to five and I think that the coroner's position was considered an on-call position and wasn't you know spending a regular time in an office much like the rest of our elected officials but that's my assumption I can't say for sure.

Thank you Director Housler I I will say that I I know talking with um a former coroner or you know interim coroner Hollis he uh indicated you know it was halftime when he was there and then as so I I don't know when that was established but um it it's interesting we could probably look back at the history of that.

Commissioner Larry I'm sorry a follow-up Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

I'm wondering I'm sure that Director Hassler could probably answer this or I could I could look um what the budget is for deputy coroners because I do know that we had relied in the past so the coroner received their salary and um and then there were deputy coroners that were regularly dispatched and I know they were also paid um so I'm thank you for pulling that budget book out.

Commissioner Shea Director Hassler uh Chief Executive Gallagher Commissioner Shea um there are it's what we call a a bucket of funds um where it says it's 1.0 FTE but it could be any number of deputies because I think um over the years you have people who say oh yeah I'll be a deputy and then they might work a shift or two and then like no it's not not not for me.

So we've had several and so they're paid an hourly wage for the hours when they're they're called out or on call.

But there's no I mean the amount even that we have I I want to say it's like three dollars and fifty cents an hour for on call pay and it's been that way for several years.

I think that there was an increase in that pay which I know everyone says that's not minimum wage but it's not it's like an on-call stipend.

Yeah.

Thank you, Director Hasler.

Um I think I mean for me this is an equity thing with with the other elected officials who are similarly situated, they're on a salary.

Are they available eight to five?

Sure, probably maybe.

They don't have to be though, if they're elected.

Um there's no requirement for that.

I think that um this county, city county, um, with the things that have gone on in the past related to uh the coroner's office, um, I think we're we're in a in a great position to have uh an interim who is committed, and the data that was provided really it really helps me, you know, kind of kind of make make up my mind.

Um and I think that if we are to be fair to the work that that is being done by the current coroner, um I'm not saying that this is something we should do, but I mean I think an hourly rate is more appropriate for the work that Mr.

Parrish is doing than a halftime salary, and and I don't know how we you know obviously we'd have to look at where we would get funds for that and where we would pull funds and make that happen.

But those those are just my thoughts on on the subject.

And and I know there's a lot to being a coroner.

Um I was very um shocked to hear all of the things and all of the compliance that goes along with being a coroner, and I do appreciate that education as Mr.

Parrish was applying to be the coroner.

Um I think if we if we want to do the right thing, I think we need to just do the right thing.

Um I I would have assumed that maybe some of the folks who were interested in in filing for that office may have filed for it already.

But um yeah, I just think it takes a special person to be a coroner.

Um yeah, I get that it's elected, but I think commensurate with the other elected officials, I think um we really need to look at making it right as soon as possible.

Thank you, Commissioner Shane.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher.

This is a question for Mr.

Parish, if I could.

If if this position uh goes to a full-time uh role, do you envision any kind of change within the coroner's office as far as deputies, the the need for deputies and and how they would respond versus how you would respond as a full-time uh coroner.

Commissioner O'Leary, um coroner parish.

Uh Chief of Executive Gallagher, uh Commissioner O'Leary.

Honestly, let me first of all say that my deputies are amazing.

Um I could not do this without them.

Uh and what they get paid is something we're going to address later.

Um to to just backtrack a little bit.

They get three dollars an hour for on-call.

If they get a call out, it's fifty dollars.

And that doesn't that it could be a one-hour call or it could be a five-hour call.

It because there's some investigations that are just going to take a lot of time.

And then there's uh transport costs if they're taking uh a decedent to the crime lab in Missoula, they get 125 dollars for their time.

And that's back and forth plus uh if they are going to observe the autopsy.

So that's not a lot of compensation for what they do.

As far as uh how I will change using them.

Right now I work Monday through Friday.

Well, actually Saturday or Sunday from 1700, so five o'clock in the afternoon through Friday at about 1700, where I have a deputy who takes the weekend for me.

Uh doesn't always happen.

Sometimes my deputies need time too, obviously.

And I'm in fact, this last weekend I uh doubled my shift for them and uh made sure that they were able to spend time with their grandkids.

Uh it we work together as a great team.

We uh tag team everything, so I will just make sure the only thing that's going to change is my advocacy to try to get uh a better wage for uh for them and make sure that they have the the support they need, both in terms of financial equipment, PPI, and uh emotional support, because we do uh see some tru uh traumatizing things and uh we we really appreciate our uh counseling services provided.

So thank you, Mr.

Parrish.

Are there any other questions of commissioners?

Commissioner Gerbert.

Yes, Chief Executive Gallagher, and I'm not sure who to address this to, perhaps to our legal assistants.

We commissioners cannot work for the city county.

It's prohibited, and I'm wondering whether that's the case for other elected positions.

Now I know that Mr.

Parrish used to work for the county, but no longer does, I think.

But but just in general, um, how does uh does that apply for other elected uh positions also?

Commissioner Grubrant, uh County Attorney Anne Ruth.

Chief Executive Gallagher, Commissioner Grubant.

Uh specifically in the charter, uh certain elected officials are precluded from holding uh other elected offices or offices within the county.

So the council of commissioners is specifically one of those because of all of the issues that you guys deal with within the county.

Chief Executive Gallagher is one, I am one as well.

Uh the coroner was not one of those specifically prohibited in the charter from holding both positions.

And it's due to uh you know the the basic conflict of interest that can easily occur if a council member is also in budget and finance or somewhere there because those are the the you're the decision-making body, you are the legislative body, chief executive gallagher uh you know, is executive, I'm judicial, and so that's where you get those overlaps.

But no, the coroner was not one of them.

And then also to kind of answer everybody else's questions, Montana law and our charter is specifically vague on the whether or not the salary is full-time or part-time, because it's it is a budgetary question.

That's that's the simple answer.

Um quick research and in review reviewing our charter, there is nothing that would prohibit uh this body from raising the salary of the coroner's office from part-time to full-time, just as nothing is prohibited from raising any other elected officials' salary uh during uh the course of their term before or after anything like that.

Um I know we do it through resolution, but just so everybody's clear the charter says ordinance.

I just read it.

I I know we do it through resolution, that's how we've always done it.

The charter does say ordinance.

Um, but uh I do think that it's it's it's a budgetary question, and that's it.

And I do think we can call you know the state if we need to.

I think we're gonna get the same answer that's it's we're not there's nothing strictly prohibiting it, and there's it's it's intentionally vague to allow counties, particularly like if you look at rural counties, they might have a full-time elected county attorney whose salary is set by statute, but you don't need a full-time coroner because you're a small county.

If you want to pay a full-time coroner, you can't.

It allows for counties to do that.

Thank you, County Attorney Ann Ruth.

Uh Commissioner Shea.

Just a super quick question.

I I think I think I already know the answer to this.

Um the coroner is on the ballot this time because they are elected.

Correct.

But their regular term, so be it the four-year term would be in 2028.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

That's correct, Commissioner Shea.

All right.

Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

That just reminded me of when people sign up for these positions, it doesn't state that it's a part-time commissioner.

It just simply states the salary that they would be looking at.

So that reminded me that it's not defined by part-time, full-time.

It's it's a salary that they're willing to accept for it.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Morgan.

All right.

Seeing that this says that it's a communication be read and act upon, so Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

Don't take my motion um to heart.

Um just right now.

I mean, it's it's not this body's decision to move forward with this, but it's definitely worth getting it on the floor.

And so I I'm just gonna make a motion to note communication 26-143 and place on file.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to note on place on file communication number 2026-143.

Is there anything else on the question?

Could Commissioners please vote?

Thank you, Jason.

Thank you all very much for your time.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10, yea, zero nay.

Ten years, zero nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to section four resolution and ordinance to introduce to judiciary, and please note those two.

Uh moving on to section five resolutions and ordinances for suspension of the rules, we have one resolution number 2026-15.

Clerk, will you please read the caption?

Whereas the Silverbow County Attorney has requested prosecutorial assistance in the case of state versus Jerry Haxby, and whereas it is desired and deemed appropriate that a special deputy county attorney be appointed to assist the prosecution of the aforementioned case, and whereas Montana Code and 44-4-111 authorizes and contemplates that the training coordinator for the county attorneys and the Bureau Chief of Prosecution Services Bureau, together with the deputies within said bureau, act as special counsel on request of the county attorney and upon the approval of the Board of County Commissioners, and whereas Montana Code and 2-15-5016 authorizes the attorney general to provide assistance to county attorneys and the discharge of his or her duties.

Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

We're gonna have two motions on this one.

The first one I have to make is to suspend the rules for the purpose of passing it without reference to the judiciary, and then we'll make another motion to to move forward.

So at this time I move for the suspension of the rules for the purpose of passing council resolution 2026-15 by waiving subsection 7 of Rule 36 of the rules and order of the Council of Commissioners, thereby having it considered for advanced passage without reference to the Judiciary Committee.

Second.

We have a motion and second to suspend the rules.

Is there any anything on the question?

Could Commissioners please vote?

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10, yay, 0 nay.

10-year-old nay.

Motion passes.

Moving back to resolution number 2026-15.

Uh Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief Executive.

As the clerk just read the caption, I would make a motion that we move to place council resolution 2026-15 on final reading and pass having been deemed fully read at length.

Second.

We have a motion and second.

Um placing resolution number 2026-15 on final reading.

Is there anything on the question?

Could Commissioners please vote?

Commissioner O'Neill.

Okay.

And would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10, yay, 0 nay.

10, yay, 0, nay, motion passes.

Moving on to calendar and other meeting in advance.

Please note the dates and times of all of those.

And then next we'll move on to any public comment on any item not on the agenda tonight.

Chief Executive Gallagher, members of the council, my name is Evan Barrett.

I reside at 807 West Silver Street.

I'm retired.

I'm also a member of the Board of Directors of Butte Watchdogs for Social and Environmental Justice.

And as you all move forward on making decisions about what to do about data, including the trip out to Quincy.

The more information we have, the better the information is, the better the decision making.

This is a written by a person who has uh gone through a significant uh additional education that deals with quantifying job data and uh actually is quite informative.

Uh she uh she does bring up that uh there are 23,000 people working across the United States in four 4,000 data centers, which is an average of actually on the payroll, six persons per data center.

So it doesn't seem to ring true with some of the numbers we hear.

And we're dealing with a lot of talk and a lot of rhetoric, but we need data.

It talks about uh maybe maybe 20 permanent, and we know that the ad hoc committee has a 20, it has 40, you know, there's a lot of different numbers floating around.

So I would rec recommend you take uh I'll submit this to you uh for you to take a good close look at and uh uh and see how she talks about how there are ways to get this, including getting payroll records and having personal information redacted, like person's name and social security numbers, so we see real stuff.

So this might be useful to read and consider before you go out to Quincy.

Uh on the Quincy thing, I like to recommend this.

I'd like to recognize I'm glad you're going out there.

Uh I remember going out there with uh ASMI.

We took our own car and four of us got in it and went all the way out there just so we could take a look at the situation.

It's always good to see that.

But I would recommend that you think about reversing the trip and making sure that SABI comes before this body in this room and answers questions, make a make a presentation, but also that they be put in a public forum where they can answer questions of the interested public.

The thing that was at tech a month ago was not well constructed for that.

Uh I stood at the table and asked questions of the SABE folks.

Nice meeting, but uh I think it would serve the purpose of doing it out in the open for transparency.

Thank you.

And I'll distribute these things.

Thank you, Mr.

Everett.

You can leave them there and we'll distribute them if you want, however, you'd like to do that.

Thank you.

Um with that, I want to before we adjourn this meeting.

Is there any other public comment before we adjourn?

I've got some sad news that was sent to me as we were in the middle of the meeting tonight.

Um today we lost a legend in in Butte.

Um Don Peeple Sr.

passed away this evening.

And um I'm just you know, he he's been a mentor, a friend, um, uh a leader of this community for for years and years, and so we we lost a true legend in our community.

And so prayers to his family to all those that are impacted by this loss, but we we truly lost a true legend today.

So with that, I hate to end a meeting on such a somber note, but it it we it needed to be noted.

So um with that, I would take a uh motion to adjourn.

Second.

We have a motion and second.

All in favor, signal by aye.

Opposed.