All right, good morning, everyone.

Welcome to our special call finance audit and budget committee uh chaired by myself, Commissioner Ted Terry, joined by committee member Commissioner Michelle Long Spears.

Uh Commissioner Shakira Johnson has an excused absence, um, so she won't be joining us today.

And then, of course, we have our um COO, County Attorney, and Budget Director here.

Uh today we are just going through the um constitutionals and judicial uh departmental request requests for FY26.

So we'll just go right here in order.

Um, and actually, I guess let's do the meeting minutes from February 10th.

Um, move to approve item 2026-0399.

All right, I'll second all in favor of Chairboth sign motion cares.

Okay.

All right, so we're just gonna go right here in order.

Uh we'll start with superior court.

Judge Shaundina Morris, come on down.

Welcome.

Good morning.

PowerPoint and a print out right there, Commissioner.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

This is great.

And if you all don't mind, Lenora is gonna click for me because I cannot multitask that well.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Well, first I'd like to start by saying just really thank you all for everything that you all have done to assist the superior court.

And I want to really say thank you for 2025.

So some of the things that because of your assistant assistance with our budget, we were able to accomplish in 2025, are as follows.

Well, first, we had the positive change in um our circuit's name.

So we are now as of January 1st, 2025, the DeCAAP judicial circuit.

We were initially the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit, and so now we are DeCab Judicial Circuit.

Also in 2025, we had the budget restoration for court reporters and interpreters.

You all gave us a substantial amount of funding for that, and that has significantly positively improved our access to justice and made it much more efficient for our courts to run with our interpreters and our court reporters.

In addition to that, last year you all funded our judicial security measures.

As you all are aware, threats uh among the judiciary, elected officials, and a whole host of people has increased like five times what it has been.

Um there was um recently within the last two months, um, because of judicial threats, there was an attack on a judge in Indiana.

He and his wife were shot uh right at their front doorstep at their home.

And so, because of your efforts in assisting us, it has helped to assist our DKAP Superior Court in terms of judicial security.

Um we've had the completion of the parking deck renovations using over 12 million in SLOSS funding, uh, which was able, we were able to provide the license place plate readers, which made it much safer for everyone and much more efficient in going through the park index.

So thank you for that.

We've had the upgraded security cameras, which also makes it uh more efficient and safe for us than our interior and exterior.

And so you all were also funded our jury management.

Um we had last year, 2025, over 210,000 jurors that were summoned.

Superior Court completed, I believe it was a hundred and twenty jury trials, so that is really really significant.

So what you all have done for us has made a significant impact for us being able to efficiently and effectively move our cases.

Uh in addition, we have our DeCab County Accountability Courts, our wellness court, which is mental health court, veterans court, drug court, and parent accountability court, our project pinnacle.

So thank you all very much.

Um just a little bit about um some of the things that we have in terms of the superior court's clearance rates for 2025, with only 10 superior court judges in DeCab County with approximately 770,000 residents.

We closed across all divisions 15,861 cases.

We had approximately 104 clearance rate.

But what I want to really highlight is the fact that with our murder clearance rate, it was over 133.5%.

So with just the 10 of us, we are trying to ensure that everyone that wants their day in court, whether civil, domestic, or criminal, that they've received them.

Just a little bit about Superior Court.

I think you all know this, but Superior Court has exclusive jurisdiction over certain cases.

And so those certain cases are domestic relations, your divorces, custody cases, all of your felony cases, felonies in which it's anywhere from one year to life, life without possibility of parole or the death penalty.

So all of those are exclusive of Superior Court, and we have general jurisdiction over your civil law matters and some appellate reviews.

In addition to that, we have exclusive jurisdiction in terms of election challenges, contests, and as I stated, felonies, title and land and equity.

So believe it or not, all we are asking for for this year.

We're asking that that be reallocated back to us for our IT computer software and services and equipment.

And we're also asking for $15,000 for our senior judges.

They assist us in moving a number of the cases.

And so you all provided us with $85,000.

I believe we asked for $100,000.

You all provided us $85,000, and we're just asking for $15,000 for our senior judges, $254,000 be reallocated back to us for IT and the software with what we're trying to do.

And that's all we're asking.

So thank you.

Thank you so much, Judge Morris, for all the great work you're doing and all the judges and the team.

Okay, great.

Commissioner Long Spears, any questions, comments?

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you again so much for being with us, and I'm glad that the funding really helped you all be more successful last year.

That's certainly what we want to hear.

Does relate to your overall request?

So you're requesting a total of 269,000, 254 for the restoring of the technology funding.

Correct.

And another 15,000 for the senior judges.

Could you provide a little bit more detail on both of those items?

Okay, so in reference to, I'll start with the ladder and go up.

So with the our senior judges, so as I stated, there are currently 10 superior court judges.

Of the 10 superior court judges, we have over 10,000 cases, and so what we have been able to do, the ARPA funding is gone.

So to assist us with moving those cases with our criminal backlog of cases, our senior judges have been able to assist us.

So we're in theory able to run two courtrooms at the same time, but give people the opportunity of defendants who have been sitting in jail for quite some time that need some movement.

So we can keep that flowing going.

As you all are aware, I think all across the state with our jails, so with the jails, you have a number of inmates that are waiting trials, and that's just the nature of the beast.

But if we have our senior judges who are able to assist us, then that greatly, greatly helps it to be more efficient for our sheriffs as well as for the courts, the defendants, the prosecutors, and our in the public in the community.

So that's why we're asking for that additional 15,000 for senior judges.

And in terms of with our IT and our computer software, well, as you know, that from last year there has been challenges with obtaining and with obtaining uh court reporters, and so with our software system, the technology runs everything.

So with the court reporters and the systems that we're having in place because there's the shortage of court reporters, that funding goes to assist having the technology and the software where we can do digital recordings to back up.

In addition to that, when you have the systems that we have with Odyssey uh through Tyler and the various things, that is uh specific to each holder, each stakeholder.

So you've got your superior court judges, state court judges that run on Odyssey, and then you have your clerk of court, but all of that we needed, and we need it to stay with the justice system so we can manage that flow efficiently.

Thank you.

So I'll go back to number two, um, the senior judges first.

So you have 10 sitting superior court judges.

Correct.

In essence, you are subcontracting with judges, I guess, who are retired or no longer practicing.

Um well, they are retired, and so uh in order for one to be a senior judge and have the ability to sit by designation, uh, they have to get that approval through the governor through the governor's office.

Um, and so they are able to come back and assist us in various matters.

Okay.

And you're asking for an addition of $15,000.

How much is currently allocated in your budget for the senior judges?

Uh you all allocated uh last year, I believe we asked for 100,000.

You pro you provided us with the 100,000 and we had the assistance of ARPRA funding.

We do not have that anymore, it's just gone from the state across the board.

Um this year, you all I believe have uh allocated 85,000 for us, and we're just asking to put us back where we were last year to the 100,000.

That's what I was getting at.

Okay, absolutely.

Thank you very much.

That's perfect.

Thank you so much.

So we gave you eight 100,000 in 2025.

This year there has been a recommendation of only 85.

Correct.

So you're just trying to bring it back up to the 100, and that's to obtain and compensate the senior judges that have been approved by somewhere at the state level, the governor's office or someone to come in and support so that you can process more cases.

Yes, correct.

I think that makes a lot of sense, and I would be in favor of that.

Um the 254,000 for um the computer equipment and computer technology and software funding.

It sounded like um in the absence or shortage of court reporters that you're trying to leverage.

That's just one area.

Okay, that was one area, the 250 to leverage um technology to help you do the same thing and be efficient and keep the court running.

Um the I guess the other pieces of that 254,000, or are they more hardware computers themselves?

Um printers, just I'm just trying to get a sense of what that's I mean, it's a it's a modest request, and I appreciate that.

Yes, I mean, it is all of the things that we need uh that we would not receive from across the city from IT, so such as the computers, laptops that uh we use that our assistants use, that our judicial assistants use, our civil and criminal case managers, and across the board from our system.

Great, thank you.

Um I appreciate this.

This to me again is modest and seems reasonable.

I yield back.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Commissioner Long Spears.

Um Zach, TJ, do you all have any thing to add to that?

Okay.

Okay, great.

All right, thank you, Judge Morris.

Okay, appreciate that.

You all have a great day.

Yes.

All right.

Um, just going here in order.

No particular order here, other than what's printed, uh, juvenile court.

Hello.

Welcome, Judge.

Good morning.

Good morning.

It's good to be here.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask for our uh budget reconsideration items.

Presentations, the blue one.

All right, go right ahead.

And so I I won't recite our mission, but I will say that I am very appreciative on behalf of the court and and my fellow judges uh for all that you've done previously to help us fulfill our mission.

Uh in 2025 in particular, uh, we were given um funding for uh a judge's parking deck, and as Judge Morris mentioned, security for judges is is very critical.

So we're grateful to have that in place now.

Uh we are completing our sixth courtroom build out, um, which will allow us to continue to be a high volume court and process all of the cases um to assist our children and families.

And um let's just talk a little bit more about our budget.

And so we're the increase that we're asking for um is going to allow us to continue to have um over 10,000 hearings per year.

Um that includes both dependency cases as well as juvenile justice cases, and uh we're already on trend to exceed uh the number of cases that we had in in 2025.

Uh essentially our caseloads have doubled in the last five years.

Um and so we are doing uh aggressive data collection to kind of determine uh the reasons for the surge, so to speak, but I think it's really just uh a sign of the times, and there are so many more young people in need of intervention and families in need of assistance uh based on just things that we're seeing in the economy and in the community in general.

And um, Chief Judge, what is the pro temp?

Oh, I'm sorry, so pro temp judges are essentially uh substitute judges.

Okay.

Uh uh we do uh assist in superior court from time to time, or when we're away at training conferences um or you know, on leave, uh we have to have our hearings go forward just based on uh statutory requirements that hearings are held in a timely manner.

So the work never stops.

Okay, great, thank you.

And so uh this slide here really just shows uh the new cases that we're getting in.

So in addition to those matters that remain pending, uh, because honestly, some of our child welfare cases last four years.

Um these are the new cases that we get or that we have gotten on top of those that are are currently pending.

And again, we're on trend to exceed our numbers from from 2025.

And uh it's it's no secret, the vast majority of our budget uh goes towards staff.

We have uh 86 deaf persons and um attorneys fees.

We do pay quite a bit of money for attorneys uh that represent parents and children.

So that is a large uh bulk of our of our budget, and uh we are grateful for the treatment funds that we received last year.

That that also was a big help in towards us fulfilling our mission.

But alas it still only accounts for one percent of our budget.

Okay, and the treatment remind me of the treatment funds.

Uh we got a hundred thousand dollars in treatment funds last year.

Okay for the for the first time ever, and that helped us to uh account for the loss in in state and federal funding uh that we had previously been relying on.

So uh for today's purposes, we do have three items that we're asking for reconsideration on.

Um we are asking for a deputy court administrator position.

Um Mr.

O'Denny Bow, whom who most of you know have been serving, has been serving faithfully for nine years.

Uh he actually had an emergency medical leave last year that was very eye-opening for us.

Um it just honed in on the value of his leadership and how much uh his role goes towards the efficient court operations and um just a continuity of of what we do day to day.

So this position uh is essential.

Um there's no other court in the metro area, no other court in any class of court, I don't believe that doesn't have a deputy court administrator, and we really need one just for succession planning.

I mean I'm not putting him out to pasture at all.

Uh but we need to maintain the stability of of our court leadership and make sure that our operations are are efficient uh in the event that he has an absence.

Uh we expended quite a bit of money to contract with someone during the 90 days that he was on on medical leave.

Uh and I think that would essentially pay for half of an annual salary of a of a full-time person.

So our next request is for building maintenance.

So the juvenile court is uh, I mean, maybe I'm biased, but I think it's a flagship uh in terms of buildings um and an asset to the county.

It's LEED certified.

Um and I was actually there when we had the grand opening back in 2007, so that was 19 years ago.

So it's got a little bit of age on it, uh, but we have been very proactive and um and preventive in in maintaining it.

Uh we do have um a maintenance person on staff that was approved uh several years back.

Uh but we need uh some more money to ensure that we're able to to keep the building you know functioning uh because we have you know the six courtrooms, eighty-six staff persons.

We also house several um justice partners.

We have offices there for the public defender, the um district attorney's office, juvenile division, the child advocate's office.

Uh we do programming six days a week.

Um so we want to just keep the county's asset in in good working order with uh the requested funding for building maintenance.

Um last but certainly not least, we are also requesting in-grade adjustments for those employees who did not get the in-grade adjustments last year.

Um we really just want to continue to ensure pay equity.

And of note, we have not had any employees resign in the last three years.

We had well, one person who resigned two weeks ago.

Um, but it wasn't because she didn't like her job, she's going into a totally different career field.

But I think as long as we're able to retain and keep motivated and qualified personnel, we can continue to fulfill our mission.

Uh so we're asking for 81,000 for in-grade adjustments.

Um the bulk of that would actually go towards employees in um the areas of our intake department and also our juvenile court uh programming staff.

Uh, just want to make sure their salaries are on par with their counterparts and other jurisdictions.

All right.

Oh, and I misspoke.

We actually have 87 uh employees now instead of 86 because we did get approval for uh an additional IT person, which is what we asked for last year, because again, when our IT our one IT person went out on emergency medical leave, we were in bad shape.

So um our new person is starting March 2nd.

Okay.

And just to give you um some highlights of uh some capital improvements that we've done.

We have our courtroom, our sixth courtroom, which is currently being uh finished up.

Actually, it's 99% finished, uh, and that accounts for $1.6 million of our capital improvement projects.

Um we just want to continue to fulfill our mission and uh focus on employee training.

Want them to be well paid and well qualified to do their jobs.

Um and here's some pictures that we wanted to share.

This is the the new courtroom, and it's gonna be ready for action then the next 30 days.

Uh this is the the judges parking lot that was opened uh last year, and we also had some renovations done to the walkway for safety issues.

The railing was kind of shaky.

So that has been uh repaired and and in good shape again.

And that would that's one of the things we would use the maintenance funds for to just troubleshoot around the building and make sure um everything is safe and in good working order.

So with that, any any questions?

Great, thanks, Judge Murray.

Appreciate the presentation.

Um want to recognize that we've been joined by our Super District 7 Commissioner and Deputy Presiding Officer Ladina Bolton.

Thanks for being here.

Um we'll open it up to uh questions, comments, Commissioner Long Spears.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Terry, and we appreciate you being here today with your presentation.

So um your second, no, I believe your third slide where you have listed the juvenile court budget.

And so I looked at the numbers from FY25 to FY2026.

It looks like it's a request of 353,480 additional dollars.

Yes.

And then on the one, two, three.

Slide seven, which is a juvenile court request for reconsideration.

You have three basically line items.

The deputy court administrator, the building maintenance, and the in-grade salary adjustments.

Could you break those down for me and let me know specifically how much you're asking for deputy court, how much you're asking for building maintenance, and I'll have a follow-up, and then how much you're asking for in-grade salary adjustments to equal $353,480.

Thank you.

Um, so the in-grade adjustments, the total request on that is $81,000.

And I'm sorry.

Mr.

What is the salary on the maintenance?

And I will use my calculator.

And it's not only is $125.

$353,480.

And that's a difference from in 2025 $11,543, $117 to what the requesting for 2026, $11,896,597.

So the deputy court administrator's salary is $125,000, and we were asking for an additional $20,000 for building maintenance and then $81,000 for that in-grade salary adjustments.

That math is a mapping.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it's actually quite adding up.

And if we if you can just send us kind of like the line item spreadsheet for TJ and Zach's purposes you can judge.

I will do.

We'll get that to you today.

Yeah, that was what you just mapped out for us is only $227,000.

So it looks like there is a disparity of about $125,000.

Yeah, I think we'd have to do that.

She stated one deputy court administrator, building maintenance and in-grade salary adjustments, Commissioner Bolton.

It's on slide seven.

We'll get it to you today.

That would be good.

All right.

Um so I'm looking forward to receiving that information.

But the 353,480 does sound about right to you?

It does.

Yes.

Okay.

We just need more detail on the specific line items.

The building maintenance, uh it says here what you just said was 21,000.

I understand that mutt number might change and you'll be providing additional information.

Is that not something that can be managed by facilities?

Why would we have to give I mean not that I'm opposed to it by the way?

If things are falling down or you have a shaky handrail, number one is safety, and it always will be.

Um but why can't we rely on our facilities department to make these repairs for you?

Um well there's just been um a a long lag time typically when we have to wait for facilities.

And some of these, excuse me, some of these are just um easier if we have someone already on site and it's actually more cost effective for the county uh to have us be preventive rather than calling over facilities after there's a problem.

We already have someone on site who just does a um a check on a on a daily weekly basis, and so we're able to just kind of be proactive and and not let things fall into disrepair.

Understood, and thank you for that.

My next question actually will go to Mr.

Williams then.

So um based on what she just said is that obviously their maintenance meet needs are not being met by our facilities department.

I think it's a slippery slope if we start giving funding to all of anyone who comes in, whether it's a court or an outside entity, giving them maintenance funds to do our job for us.

So what is your response to that?

I mean, are you aware of any facilities lags?

And she used an example of a handrail.

So yeah, I would need to see the specific what is desired to accomplish with the $20,000.

And maybe be able to have a look back in terms of work orders and how long it took to get them done.

Uh the judge did mention that I guess you have a person there who is doing this sort of thing.

Yes, there's a person on their staff who does this sort of thing.

Um like maybe health departments and stuff.

So it depends.

If we're talking about changing light bulbs, uh it may be more practical for that to happen out in the field.

If you're talking about building repairs, typically we want facilities to do that.

I would think a handrail would be facilities.

That's a huge safety issue.

Did facilities do the handrail?

Um that was that was Mr.

Bayet, wasn't it?

They did.

So I have a out of a more recent example though.

So um, again, the building being 19 years old, we've had uh quite a few uh HVAC issues uh with the winter weather, and um I think it took about was it six days?

It took about six days of unvariable uh temperatures.

Some courtrooms were really, really hot, others were really cold, and some staff had to be set home just due to the uh kind of unbearable temperatures in the building.

Sure.

Um that it took six days to resolve and that kind of interfered with our efficiency.

Understood.

I can certainly see how that would happen.

Um my just in summary, my point relating to building maintenance is that I think it is a very slippery slope.

If we're constantly appropriate and allocating funds outside of our maintenance department, our facilities department to do the work that they're supposed to do, because at some point I feel like, and I'll go back to the handrail because that's just you gave me a really easy example, quite frankly.

And then you might have our facilities department also going out to tackle the same problem that's inefficient.

And then one party is spending money, they needlessly need to spend.

So I'm not opposed to it.

If you require these dollars to maintain a safe environment, I gotcha.

And I I I applaud you for wanting to do so.

But I think for the administration, I think you need to take a hard look at, you know, if these lags are causing our courts not to be as efficient and effective, we need to get to the bottom of why.

Understood.

And thank you.

Just citing the example that was articulated the handrail.

I believe they said facilities did repair the handrail.

And as it relates to the HVAC, we'll take a look.

But you know, a lot of times it can be parts and things that are beyond our control.

So six days is not abnormal.

Well, again, my point is the fact they're having to even ask for money for maintenance that should be completed by the county.

If it was only one incident, the handrail, as she stated facilities fixed it, but I don't think that they would be coming here asking for a building maintenance request if all of their if they feel that all of their maintenance needs have been resolved in a timely and efficient manner.

So again, I think it just deserves a little bit of looking into thank you very much.

Yield back.

Okay.

Green.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Um Commissioner Bolton, any questions, comments?

Okay.

All right.

Um and so um so Judge Murray, we'll get the the detailed request um so Zach and TJ can kind of you know have that um available for their review.

All right.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Um next we have the sheriff's office.

See Chief Atkins here.

Hello, Chief.

Sheriff's coming.

She's next door.

Oh, okay.

All right, come on in.

All right, I think it's um in this folder right here, Commissioners.

Hey, Sheriff, come on in.

Are there congratulations in order for you?

Thank you.

Yeah, okay.

She can announce if she wants, I don't know.

I don't want to spoil it.

All right.

And uh welcome, sheriff.

And so we have your uh we have your PowerPoint uh printed out here in the folder.

And um it's on the screen, so take it away.

Okay.

Welcome.

Can they can you hear me?

Can everybody hear me?

I want to make sure that's the same.

Yes, I believe we can go online.

Thank you.

Well, first of all, let me thank you all for the opportunity to be here.

I just want to um again a couple of things before I even start.

They are working on the roof, so thank you.

Um we're doing doing it in sections.

I'm so excited about that because that's a start to what we need at the sheriff office, and I'm very grateful.

Um, but there are a couple of things that I want to go over, and last year our budget, and I made sure that I brought my team here with 106, which is 106 is up here, you can see it there.

Um, 531628.

And of course, the recommended was 103.

Make sure 103505540.

And we're saying there are a couple of things.

If anything, put us back instead of going down on our budget, we'd like to increase, but we would like to go back to where we were with the 106.

And I'm going to explain from FY25.

Yes.

Okay.

And I'm going to explain why those, you know, there are several things that are um needed that I wanted to talk about.

And that is that we have some things that are in place, and as you all can see in your handouts there.

We have our camera system, which is an addition because we have to have new servers.

As you know, we have to upgrade things.

We have to stay up to date with technology, keeping our cameras in order so that we can keep our constituents and everyone safe.

We have the, and I'll go back to the conversation increase, but the carry for weapons.

We've updated, we have to every so often have to update our weapons.

The weapons have already been ordered.

We have received those weapons.

Okay.

We need that money to go ahead and pay the vendors for those weapons they have that were already ordered.

Okay, so carry forward, you just mean that we ordered them last year or we ordered them.

Now you gotta pay for them this year.

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

Um new servers, as we spoke for the juvenile court and superior court, that's money is needed.

And our office of professional is training and standards.

And for those, that's a 24-hour call, those are individuals that when we have investigations, they have to respond out.

They're the ones that go out to make the notifications.

Um, if there's an emergency investigation, they have to jump in those vehicles and be able to respond to those calls in an expeditious manner.

And these cars are updated, outdated, worn out.

We need new vehicles in order to keep us functioning.

Our 804 Trism Prison Transport contract increase, and that's only because the owner reached out and stated that the assurance had has gone up.

And this would be if we don't keep that, that's gonna put us make us go backwards in our work for the sheriff office.

So we need to keep that transport wanted.

So that's just an increase in the insurance for the 804 transport and the expired grant, which there was a grant for the medical transport.

So we no longer get that that grant anymore that 282.

But I wanted to go back and talk about the revised 5% compensation increase.

And that goes back to the employees.

Now I want to be clear that there is no um that you know I I was a police officer for 10 and a half years with the Cab County Police Department.

So I worked the streets, I know what it is to answer those calls, but I also know what it is to work in the sheriff office as well because I worked at the sheriff office before even becoming the sheriff.

But I think that when we talk about public safety, public safety consists of all of us.

One cannot function without the other.

And there are some things that have been given to the CAB County Police Department, which net have the sheriff office has not been privy to.

And I'm only asking for not the additional things that PD is getting, but for the 5% increase so that I at the end of this year that I can compensate my employees for the great work that they have done and will continue to do.

Um I think we've proven ourselves worthy.

We have our mishap and things happen, but at the same time, we come to the table and see how can we mitigate a lot of that from happening.

As you can see, police gets uh county paid medical insurance, they're getting triple overtime housing allowance.

I don't know how the where the triple overtime is coming from, or even if you know how that's working out, they get a housing allowance up to $500 monthly.

They get uh the poly POAB, which is the police officer's annuity benefit fund, they're getting paid into 6% of the 401 county contribution, and they um they get a hiring bonus, 3,000 for those with no experience and 5,000 if you have two years experience.

We're just asking for that money to be put back into our budget so that we can compensate our employees for their work.

So we're just asking for our budget to go back instead of going down to the 103 to put us back at the 10651, which will allow us to move forward with our acts for the rest of the year.

Okay.

Okay, okay, great.

Thanks, Sheriff.

Um, and uh just to I'll open up for questions a second, but just a quick follow-up.

So um could you go back to the camera system additions and new servers?

Would this be camera system like new camera systems or is upgrading?

Just give talk about that real quick if you don't mind.

Sure.

Do we have tone is tone with okay?

I'm gonna have because this is the expert the the more knowledgeable on the camera and what's needed and everything that's enhanced.

Okay.

Could you all advance the slide by one to the FY26 additional funding considerations?

Thank you.

Yes.

Is that good?

Um, yes, ma'am.

I think we do have an extra chair or we have a way to just uh borrow a chair there.

Well, I think you are just scoot on up there next to the sheriff.

Okay.

Sure.

I just want to make sure people have their voice in this to be able to explain a little better.

Yes, all right.

Come on, go introduce yourself.

Um, Anthony Saunders.

Anthony Saunders, Ice Manager.

Um, so basically, we currently have um the project is an upgrade to our existing camera systems right now.

Most of our cameras, we have two cameras in every pod um housing unit for the inmates, and they are end of life, basically.

They've been installed over 10 years ago.

So we recently did some uh upgrades to our servers, which house uh which stores our camera footage, uh, which was a necessary, it was a need um because those servers were out of date as well over five years old.

So um this would be an upgrade to add new additional cameras.

We initially started with a phase one in 2025, um, where we upgraded 13 pods already with new dual head cameras.

So currently we only have two views within the camera within each pod, but these new dual heads gives us an additional two views.

So we have a total of four camera views, and we decided to keep one of those older uh views in there just to until we uh can eventually swap that out.

Um and part of the initial project was to um replace any old um or cameras that had a consistent blur.

Um and we identified 12 of those pods in 2025.

So this portion of the the second phase um basically allows us to look at all the uh the uh the remaining 107 pods in the building um on every floor to upgrade those with the new doorhead um uh set out.

Gotcha.

Okay, great.

All right, I appreciate that description.

Okay.

Um let me open it up to uh Commissioner Long Spears.

Questions, comments?

Yes, absolutely.

Um thank you very much, Commissioner Terry, for asking the question related to cameras.

I have um a few other bullets on your PowerPoint to ask a few questions about.

The first one is the transport expired grant of 282,625 dollars.

What was the funding force?

The HARPA grant.

ARPA, you said ARP.

And it expires October the 31st.

So the 282,000 we need gap funding?

Yes, because the even though the grant, although the grant expires October 31st, the funding will expire mid-April.

So we need funding from mid-April to December 31st, and that's the 282,000 dollars.

Okay.

Oh, sure.

Thanks.

Absolutely.

Make sure you stay in here.

Yes, thank you.

And who you are, and then my name is Carla Campbell, and I serve as the fiscal officer senior for the sheriff's office.

Wonderful.

Thank you for being with us.

Would you mind repeating, just repeat that again just in case anyone watching at home missed that comment?

My name is Carla Campbell, and I'm the senior fiscal officer for the DeCAP funds.

Okay, but then answer the question again, sorry.

Okay.

So it was an ARPA grant that we received, and the funding expires on October 31st.

But the funding will be expended by mid-April.

Okay.

So the grant expires October 31st, but we are going to expend the funds prior to that.

Understand.

So on top of what you're currently receiving with the ARPA funds, you're asking for addition starting in April through the end of the year.

Right, because the grant is going to be going away, yes, ma'am.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Um my next question goes back to your five percent compensation adjustment.

Yes.

Um, Madam Sheriff, you did mention several benefits that our police receive that you don't.

So I captured a few of them.

I believe you said that police are able to um get triple overtime.

Is that correct?

That is correct from what I um aware of.

So the max you do is double overtime for holidays?

We don't even do that.

We just do over whatever the overtime our time and a half for the um deputies or the employees of the DeCab County Sheriff Office.

And let me tell you why we're we're good with the triple overtime.

We don't get the triple over to do the triple overtime anymore.

And that's because we've been recruiting aggressively, and we've been able to retain, and we've been able to retain because our salaries have now been um we've been rising.

We're still on the low end, but we're trying to remain competitive just like everybody else is.

Unfortunately, law enforcement is not the career that a lot of people want to go into anymore, but we're trying to make it attractive by at least giving them a decent salary because it's a big big difference, um, Commissioner, with answering of the 911 calls and then having to sit in a facility 24 hours, 365, seven days a week with these individuals and have to deal with in you know, people throwing feces on you, wanting to fight you, assault you, and those things of the nature.

So we try to make it as attractive as possible.

And this is just one of the things that I want to be able to do at the end of the year to um to make it to keep it attractive, but to also acknowledge the work of the DeKav County Sheriff um uh employees.

They've been doing an amazing job and they continue to do amazing job, not just inside of the sheriff office, but outside in the community as well.

I think all of you can attest that any time that you need something as far as safety and security is concerned, you reach out to me at the sheriff office, and we're going to make sure that it happens.

Yeah, absolutely.

You've always been responsive, and I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um, you also stated that police gets a housing allowance and a three or five thousand dollar hiring bonus.

So the sheriff doesn't offer either of those?

No, we no, we do not.

Okay.

What we have we have to fund we funding.

We don't have funding for that.

What other benefits does police receive that sheriff does not?

You had said a few more items, I just couldn't capture them.

We have the uh housing allowance, and I get this.

We have our recruiting um commander here as well.

A housing allowance up to $500 a month, and of course they must live in DeCab County.

Their insurance premiums are being paid um by the county from what I am told as well.

And our county medical the county medical insurance, let me say that, and it's free for employee and family, which is the uh dental medical vision.

Okay, so police are receiving a hundred percent coverage for the employee and their families for medical, dental, and vision.

Yes.

I didn't realize it was all of that.

Okay.

All right.

Um if not I can stand corrected, but I did um I did check.

I did um check into that.

And one of the things I also want to make sure that when I do for the sheriff, I don't do just for the sworn, I do for the whole sheriff office.

I believe in compensating everybody and not just one particular section or area of the department.

Thank you.

And when I'm done with my questions for you, I will ask you gentlemen regarding the police benefits.

Um also, sheriff, you're asking for 5% compensation adjustment.

Do your the entire sheriff office, not just those sworn, also receive COLA on an annual basis.

No, we get when basically what I'm doing here, I have to come and ask for the money to be put into the budget in my budget so that I can give them the employees a raise.

And prior to me even arriving at the sheriff office, it had been several years.

I think uh so many years before raises, I'm just going before I even came in, before they even got a raise, it wasn't until I came in that I was able to give them the raises that they so deserve in the sheriff office.

So your your sworn and unsworn personnel for several years did not even receive a cost of living adjustment increase.

Because I know that the county, not every year.

They funded.

I think I don't know what how much it was or exactly how many times it was, but they do get it if we are included in from the county, if we are included, included in on it.

Yes, we do, if we are included.

But I think what's happening is that because the sheriff office, we have a separate budget that it differs and you know, I get to spend it where I want, but the way I want, but I make sure that I do what is right and with good being good steward to taxpayers' dollars.

So we do get it if we are included in it, and we try to make sure that I try to make sure that I reach out to you know, Zach and whomever, and which has really been good.

We have a good relationship to reach out to him to make sure that we are included in those bonuses and/or raises.

There have been a couple of bonuses that have been um allocated and for the county, and we made sure they make sure that the count uh the sheriff office was included in those bonuses.

Thank you.

Mr.

Williams, Mr.

Sigler, could you all put together and email it to committee members and perhaps other commissioners as well.

The benefits and compensation that police have in comparison to what the sheriff is able to do for her sworn and unsworn personnel.

If you could also go back and maybe over the last, say decade, eight to ten years, um the COLA increases for the county.

I believe that there was not a COLA increase last year, but there was at least two years prior to that.

That's right.

Under CEO Thurman.

I think this is my fourth year.

So I remember my first year, my second year there were COLA increases.

I recalled last year there was not.

But there was a bonus.

But there was yet this.

A dollar, like a dollar, you know, a thousand bucks or whatever.

Okay.

All right.

So, Mr.

Sigler, is that's information that you could provide?

Yes, we're we're pulling that together right now.

Oh, probably in real time.

All right.

Thank you so much.

That um does conclude my questions for now.

Yield back.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Um Commissioner Bolton, any questions, comments?

No, actually, both of you asked my questions about the cameras and the cola and so we're all in alignment with some of the things that we need a clarification on.

I yield back.

Okay.

Um Zach or TJ, anything else you want to add to the conversation?

Have we covered everything?

Mr.

Chair, no, I think this was very helpful.

Um, and we'll take a look at these uh you know, I think the request, if I'm correct, uh, Sheriff, it's about three million dollars.

Correct.

Understood.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um I do want to take uh just a moment to um thank you, Sheriff, um, for uh Mr.

Kareem Martin uh working on with Claritel on the Diversion Center um sort of plan.

I know that's kind of like a medium-term plan, but um I thought that was a very um uh considerate uh presentation considering that we're you know we have a lot of budget requests and and in your thinking about how can we find efficiencies not only with you know just how we house individuals of the jail and the process for those who are homeless, um criminal trespass um are treated in the system, um the the the cost with that, but also the dignity of recognizing those there are some individuals that probably would have a better outcome if they were treated in another facility other than the jail, but recognizing that there's a a lot of I think the Kareem said there was like 29 million dollars just for that criminal trespass kind of demographic that maybe could be in another diversion center.

So we're gonna keep working on that this year.

I think um Zach, that's something that we're gonna keep exploring and trying to, you know, really kind of figure out are there cost savings within sort of that space um, you know, short term and then long term.

So um let's keep working on that as we move forward.

Absolutely.

I'm excited about that.

So thank you.

Um if I may, I and I just want to make sure that you all know too, with everything that the sheriff office has been done and been going through, um, that we remain committed to our community, and that you know, there's 3,058 sheriffs throughout the country, and only a hundred are triple crown accredited, and that's big.

And we are one of the 100 that remain triple crown accredited.

We just got our colleer certification again, and we're excited about that, and that comes from the great work that these men of the CAB County Sheriff Office do.

I may be the sheriff, but they are the executors of the vision that is being carried out, you know, that the sheriff gives them.

So I want to make sure that, and that's why I'm here to fight for this for my agency and for the employees here because they're they're doing a great job.

They have done a great job, and I appreciate and I appreciate appreciate the work and relationship that we have here also as the commissioners in our community, and we will continue to do great things.

So I'm just asking that that is to be taken into consideration for the extra, you know, to keep our budget the same where it was the 106, so that we can fulfill you know our obligation, especially for me as a constitutional officer, fulfill those obligations as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Sheriff Maddox.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you to everyone.

Thank you.

All right.

Um next is Solicitor General.

Hello.

All right.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Good morning.

All right, and we got our presentation right here.

All right.

Well, good morning.

Good morning.

Um thank you all for having me here this morning.

And before we get started, I do want to thank so many of you for reaching out during uh this very difficult time for my family.

Uh my father was absolutely committed to this county and committed to the work of this county and recently served on the housing authority board before his passing.

So thank you.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers and wishes.

Yeah, thank you.

Um the budget for this year.

Well, let me take a step back and thank you all for something that we are going through right now because of the um the approval of it for last year.

Last year you walk you guys approved CARP Hill for my office.

Okay.

Carpel.

Carpel is a case management system that we brought before this body.

Um it is an internal case management system.

And we have begun that process.

Um we are working diligently, preparing all of our attorneys, investigators, uh, working with that company, and we are excited about being able to go live later on this year.

But it is because of the funding that you all provided us last year that we're able to have a more efficient and a case management system that we believe will help us move forward in dealing with all of the courts that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

So thank you.

Um that was a big improvement to our office, and we're looking forward to continuing to implement that.

As far as this year for uh fiscal year 2026, if you will, and I'll move past the mission.

I want to talk about the office in and of itself.

In 2025, we had more than 29,000 cases handled in our court calendars in Division A.

Division A, of course, is the the primary jury trial division that is staffed at the main courthouse.

Uh Division B is the traffic division, also state court.

We serviced over 46,882 victims.

Um victim services provided to over to more than 10,000 victims.

We have uh, and I still believe that this is one of the things that it's you you hear it, but I don't know if you really understand it.

Our diversion programs, we have the largest amount of diversion programs in any solicitor's office in the state of Georgia.

That's not something to, you know, we're we're proud of it.

We're extremely proud of it because we know we're doing the work of reviewing cases and the cases that we've decided should be diverted.

We have the ability to do so.

So in 2025, 2480 defendants were uh seen in our divergent programs.

And with that, there is a collection that is required, and in that case, in 2025, it was over 200,000.

Um that, by the way, and let me be clear about this, that goes to the general fund.

A lot of people say, oh, you collected.

No, no, no, no.

We may have collected it, but we never saw it.

It went directly to the general fund.

Umforcement citations closed through our quality of life division.

I will get back to talking about those numbers later in my presentation.

Over 63,000 total cases managed in division B, our traffic division.

Um it is important to note that that is a large number of cases, and understand that we now have jury trials both at Division A as well as Division B.

So understand those are attorneys who are now dealing with jury trials right across from the jail, where at some point there was that's that's new.

This is just something that has been occurring only for the last two years.

And finally, of course, you all know that there have been a significant number of animal cases.

Those numbers are still increasing, but we are managing them.

And in fact, in 2025, um worked extremely hard to move those cases and move those um those cases through our system and resolve those cases at a much higher rate than in years before.

Um quality of life.

In our quality of life unit, we're asking for two attorneys, both attorney one positions for this unit.

Let me explain the reason.

In the last half of the year, our calendars and our quality of life unit doubled, which means that our attorneys were not only dealing with the cases that have were already in the system, uh they were dealing with new cases at a higher rate than they had ever seen before.

Umenders were more than 250 cases on one calendar.

In fact, in August, September, and October, those were calendars that had over more than 400 cases on a calendar in one day, which meant that the attorneys, and right now there's only two attorneys who are assigned to that unit, were in court typically from 830 and would be in court after 5 o'clock.

They would also be in court four days a week.

That is a significant amount of time in court, which does not allow for out-of-court prep time.

Uh we knew last year we were going to have to increase and add people to that unit.

We did not realize that it was gonna we were going to need two additional attorneys to address those cases.

So at this time we're asking for two attorney one positions.

And um Solicitor General Um Clone Tribling, the um you mentioned the 10,000 cases, or there are we are we having more code compliance cases?

Absolutely.

And that's that is a lot more last year, right?

Absolutely.

That's a significant increase in the number of cases.

Okay.

Um and then if you move on to the next slide, uh we are also asking for to add one attorney to position for our misdemeanor first appearance.

Earlier, this in fact it was just a few weeks ago, we presented to you all with regard to misdemeanor first appearance.

This is where the attorneys are dealing with individuals who were just arrested maybe last night.

And so we have individuals who are already in handling those calendars.

Um, however, last year, after the close of budget, there was an additional calendar placed by state court division B, which kind of pulled out some of those cases, which meant that our attorneys now have to be in two different places at once.

We were never able to staff that.

So we're simply asking to staff a calendar that has been separated so that I don't have an attorney who has to move back and forth between two different calendars at the same time.

Um that's just for that's one attrition, one additional attorney to be added to Mr.

Meeter First Appearance.

Okay.

And since we've already kind of talked about this a little bit in the previous FAB meeting.

So this is a way for us to have those first appearances so individuals in the jail have an opportunity to, I guess, get bonded out.

But if there is a delay, then they might be in jail longer than otherwise.

It is correct, but I don't want you to believe that that's not already happening.

These calendars already exist.

The judges are there, we're already present.

This is something that was put into place in 2022.

Okay.

So the seven days a week, anyone who has been arrested in DeCab County on a misdemeanor can be seen before a judge to handle these cases.

What has happened is that because of the different types of cases, some judges hear a certain type of cases, other judges here a certain type.

So they've separated those cases.

Okay.

Our attorneys are in one courtroom, but not necessarily in the second.

And it's necessary for us to, we we believe if we're going to be there, then we need to be in all the courtrooms.

And I just I can't require an attorney to click off of one court and then go to another court.

Okay.

And at the same time.

Okay, understood.

Okay.

Thank you.

The next slide addresses our investigator positions, and I really want to bring a lot of attention to this particular area.

At this time, we're we're asking for an additional three investigators.

We've actually increased investigators in this office.

This is probably one of the areas I've had some of the greatest increases, but I still see a need for more.

And the reason is because the investigators just have a different job than when what they had 10 years ago.

With the increase of body warrant camera, the increases of the different types of cases.

It is a the job is very different than it used to be.

On average, we usually have about 400 body warrant camera to look at.

That is not something that can be done overnight.

That is not something that can be done in a week.

And in order to address them and address them properly, to realize which cases may need to be dismissed or diverted, they have to review all of that information.

And so the times are different.

It's necessary to look at every single individual case and to do that level of investigation.

And with that, I need people and time and the resources to do so.

And additionally, I think it's important to note that one of the cases, groups of cases that we've had an increase is an animal cases.

The animal cases are typically brought to my office with through animal enforcement.

There is no detective with DeCab County police that actually does animal investigations, which means that if a case comes up from magistrate court to our state court, my investigator is having to do that particular level of work.

So it kind of transposes where that work is being done and is falling within my office, and we need those resources.

And with that, we're asking for three additional investigators in order to address just the increase in those types of cases, the increase in the numbers of cases that we're seeing in that particular area.

Okay.

Okay.

On the next slide, I'm asking for a reclassification of investigators.

There are five investigators.

We believe that we should have five of our investigators go from investigator two to investigator three.

This is this is basically a new type, a new position that can be added to the office.

But there aren't any in the solicitor's office and the CAPS listers office.

And notably, we notice them around the state.

We notice them in other offices, and we believe that we have the same level of cases, the same complexity of cases in order to add investigator three positions.

Okay.

Paralegals, same same concern.

These are simply we need people, and we have people who've gone to receive additional education in order to provide a different level of service in the types of cases that we deal with.

My office deals with some of the most impactful, most complex cases in this state.

I think next to us, of course, Atlanta has some of the highest uh complex misdemeanor cases, but DeCab is right there next to them.

And so we um we need paralegals to address some of the concerns, some of the cases, some of the issues, and do some of the work that is required in these cases to assist the attorney.

So we're asking for two paralegals.

We do not have any paralegals at this time.

So this is an addition to the office, and we have people right now who've already received their paralegal certificate so that they can receive do this type of work.

Legal interns.

Um last year we were in in previous years, we've been very lucky to have legal interns throughout in our office over the summer, and we're just simply asking to restore that funding to the office so that we can hire legal interns over the summer.

We're always preparing our youth, preparing our um college students, law students to do this type of work.

And they bring an addition and quite frankly, a different view to the cases.

So we understand how how important it is to continue that.

Finally, and probably one of our largest asks is the cubicle replacement, understanding that our trial assistants and our support staff is the greatest part of our office, um, and the cubicles that they're in are to be quite honest, they're they're not up to standard.

Um we would like to bring them up to a professional standard within the office, somewhere where they can hold their files discreetly and ensure that we are following the rules that we're required to follow when keeping our particular files in our mandated uh format.

So we're looking for cubicles, cubicle replacement to provide for our trial assistance and hopefully our paralegals.

Okay.

I don't know why I says something different than thank you.

But it was supposed to say thank you.

Well, thank you.

That's all right.

Thank you, Madam Solicitor.

Uh, appreciate the presentation and for explaining all that.

Um questions, comments.

Uh yes, sir, thank you so much, and appreciate you being here, uh, Madam Solicitor, and I'm again extend my deepest condolences to you and your family.

My question um relates to what you imagine I'm going to ask about related to our animal cases.

Yes.

And so um we had a period of time last year where cost of care was not being filed, and this year our interim county attorney has agreed to find efficiencies and solutions so that we can start to continue to file cost of care and then also increase efficiency.

One of the suggestions that was made about a year and a half ago and was actually approved in our mid-year budget was for a role for a court held dog coordinator positioned within our county attorney's office with the purpose of, unless our interim county attorney sees it differently, but as a non-legal person, the way we were looking at it was to help process these cases faster, just get the ball rolling, and also with the cost of care petition.

So, really just kind of handling everything related to specifically the court held dogs, so they're not perishing and dying and our animal shelter for being stuck there and going cage crazy for years in cases.

So, one of the thoughts I had over the weekend as I was going through our budget and thinking about what can we do?

How can we improve the process?

How can we be more efficient with the goal of processing these dogs as fast as we can?

We know that there's a cost of care petition is an option there, and once they I guess dispose of, I hate that phrase by the way, but once you dispose of the animals, so not kill them, but allow them at that point to be adopted out, it ends up costing the county a lot less money because they're not being stuck in our shelter for roughly $38 a day.

38 times 365 times 500 dogs, do the math.

That's a ton of money.

So, as he's considering this position, and I hope he does it.

Would the Solicitor General's office also consider something like that?

So the work I did over the weekend was just proposing a pilot of something along the lines of like an animal cruelty case coordinator or animal abuse case navigator to see if if there's a way if you had an extra position, which I would advocate for to help process specifically the animal cases, but even if you honed in more is around the dogs that are or they are mostly dogs, but actually right now there's a turtle that I may actually foster because I have another turtle.

But um so majority of them are dogs, but they're not all dogs.

But is that something that you could mull on for a while, or maybe we could even have a side discussion, and I'd be happy to come back and support an additional position in your office to help process these cases.

Because again, spending two years in an animal shelter is kind of unheard of around the country.

And while we have made so many leaps and bounds with the commissioner support, the CEO support, y'all support our red shirts, everybody who's involved with this, we have.

We've had so many successes, with our pet neighborhood, the litter registry, but the one area we keep struggling in that these court dogs and processing them out as fast as possible so they can have a chance at a better life.

And then for those who don't like dogs or don't like animals, you can also have the bottom line argument that ultimately it saves the county money.

So I don't want to put you right now in a position.

Okay, all right.

So one of the things I I think it is important, because there has to be some education piece about what process means.

Uh not providing rabies tags, or um neglect or something along that line, right?

So that is the role of the solicitor's office to deal with the individual who was charged with doing the harm to the animal.

That's one thing.

On the other side is a you talked about cost of care petition, which is simply asking the individual who was charged to now pay for the cost of the animal being in the shelter for however period of momentum.

Or surrender.

Or surrender.

Yes.

Correct.

I deal with the prosecution.

I do not deal with the funding aspects that you're requesting.

Okay.

So those are two different things that I think keeps continuously becomes convoluted in these conversations.

The other part about that is, and one of the reasons why I mentioned my investigators are receiving cases, right?

Over at magistrate court.

That means that the person, they're saying that the person has simply committed a county offense.

That's it, not a state offense.

State offenses are investigated by law enforcement.

But you're investigating the ones that are going to magistrate court, I think is what you said earlier.

Well, I'm investigating any case that we believe we have now just discerned should be a state offense, such as a neglect or a cruelty charge.

Okay.

But that's not happening because there's no one, and and of course, everyone is dealing with trying to get employees and employee and people in those positions.

But the point is, for the last, I believe it's been four years, there's been there is no, there's not one detective at DeCab County Police Department who is assigned to animal cases.

So we get a case, we either decide it's a magistrate court case, it's a county offense, which is typically not a case where you take an person's animal from them.

Both the expert, and if I'm correct, Commissioner Spears, her name was Claudette Claudine Wilkins.

Claudia and Wilkins is expert, yes.

We had a discussion about this last year when she came to speak, and she absolutely understood it.

She and she agreed.

She said, you're right, law enforcement should be investigating those cases that come to you in our state offenses, the ones where you think an animal should be taken from the individual.

But since that's not happening, my office is being caught in the middle to have to now take over that process.

Well, thank you very much for clarifying that.

That does still be able to do that.

Does that help?

I've got to follow with her and then I'll go to you.

Okay.

So let me ask the question another way then.

Because again, as I stated, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a judge, I'm not a legal professional, but I'm doing the best I can from my position, my role to help address the court held dog challenge.

Yes.

It's a failure in our system, no matter what way you look at it.

We're failing these animals.

And so I believe that there's there are lots of how do I state this?

But there are many folks, right?

Positions, not you as a person, but you as a position.

So the magistrate court judge, now we're looking at uh issues with law enforcement, not having even one detective assigned to these animal cases where you have to pick it up.

Another piece of solving this big challenge is having someone in the county attorney's office just to process a little bit faster.

But from your perspective, is there anything the Solicitor General's office can do to increase the efficiency or the processing of how you process these cases?

And where I'm really getting at is there a role that we can include in your budget request that would help us help these animals and process quicker.

Is there a position at all?

Because the way at least I it sounded to me is it seems like law enforcement might be able to do something, hire an investigator, make it the role of one of the current investigators, and maybe there's something the magistrate office can do as well.

I don't know that one, but I've certain certainly heard you loud and clear about our police.

Is there anything, any efficiencies, a position, technology that you think we could include in this year's budget to help us process these cases faster?

What I will say is that we have we have attorney, an attorney, number one, um, who is designated to these cases.

That is something that we've already done.

Is that attorney?

Are you able to share?

His name is Cliff Dorson.

He has been D O R S E N Thank you.

And he has been incredible at not only the resolution of the cases, at uh requesting surrenders in cases where we may be able to get a surrender, evaluating the cases.

Um, but that doesn't change it.

We what we can't do is ever change the actual evidence.

Right.

And it is so important that as we proceed with these cases and we have these conversations about it, that we recognize every single one of these cases have to be as we are in a criminal justice system.

Due process is still required.

Um we do not trample on defendants' rights.

We ensure that as we move through this process, we are doing it both both judicially, um expeditiously, and he moves those cases as fast as we can with the amount of information that we have.

Um but we certainly know that in a criminal justice system, we have to be fair.

We have to be procedurally appropriate, and we have to make sure that everyone's rights are protected.

So I think that we've done it.

Um as we continue these conversations, we recognize every department's role and responsibility in doing because this they're convoluted cases because there's so many entities that are involved.

Just as if just like you presented cost of cares to me, and that's just simply not my that's not my wheelhouse.

That's not that's not our role.

So it it becomes convoluted because there's there's this education piece that people are still they get they get really confused about it.

Uh my office works on these cases, the county attorney's office works on these cases, um, the animal shelter, they're the ones who have the information about hey, which which animals are held, how long they've been held, and all of this information.

So there's just so many different stakeholders who are involved.

I will say I do think that we've had a significant change in that.

And we've increased our, we've actually increased what we've done in these cases.

I think there's still some movement to be made, but I also think that we have to recognize that this is a larger, that's a larger problem.

And uh we will continue to work on it.

And I'm certainly not suggesting that we trample on anyone's rights or anything like that.

So again, let me just ask simply is there anything the solicitor's office can do to help us process these cases faster?

Does it sound like, in your opinion, there is.

There's no additional position or role other than the increase in investigators.

That's the one suggested earlier.

That's the one that's in my office that I do believe can assist in this.

And that's why I put it in my presentation.

Because you did say that's really a law enforcement for police would have an investigator to handle those issues.

Would you still need that individual in your office?

And I'm not trying to take anything away from your budget request.

I'm just trying to understand if police was able to do their job, and this it sounds like if you submitted that to us is that they're not, and they need to.

So to pick up the Slack, you are doing it.

But if they were able to do the work, you know, would you still benefit from having an extra investigator in your office to process these cases?

The investigator is not designated to just these it's one of the cases, but it's not the only types of cases, which is why I mentioned the body warrant camera, the protest cases and the other significant cases that we have in the office.

So yes, I would still benefit.

Okay.

So I guess the answer to your question then really is no, is that there is no position that we could add to your budget to help us process these animal cases.

You're already kind of doing it with the investigators that you currently have, and then you will be able to do it more with the addition of the three investigators you're asking for, at 90,000 each.

So we make sure I clearly understand.

Okay, because you say so your answer is no, but then you say it with this.

So my answer is But it's not specific to animals.

Your investigators That's really where it is going.

So you wouldn't consider having an investigator specifically for animal cases.

I would absolutely consider it.

The problem is that if in fact I do, the question is, are you still considering placing the real role in that work under you or police?

Because my investigators get the case after it's done.

Well, I will say this is that myself as an animal advocate and all of the animal advocates in our community, they may not like myself, right?

This is you said it's convoluted.

It is convoluted, and there is education that is needed, but I also think it's the experts such as yourself, our county attorney that do need to educate us on how this works.

And that has not been done effectively.

Otherwise, there would not be this gap in information.

So that's point number one.

Point two is that at the end of the day, we want these animals processed.

So that's an extra position in your office, great.

If an extra position in police, wonderful.

If our interim county attorney is still supportive of this position with his office, we're making one step to to fixing the problem right now.

So that is good.

And I hope that you're considering that still.

But you did request to speak, so go ahead, sir.

I did because I I think it's really important, Commissioner, to understand as our solicitor explained, there are many elements to this large puzzle.

With all due respect to her, I would offer with with her approval, there are even other prosecutors who get involved from our perspective on cost of care, since that's the example you gave.

That is a civil filing that we handle on behalf of the county.

We, the county attorney's office, and we do so in conjunction with the prosecutors.

We've had a city prosecutor that we've looked at in 2026.

We've looked at the solicitor's office and received their assistance in the cases we're working right now to file on.

As we go through this process with respect to the additional position in law that will be an animal court coordinator, one of the pieces that was left out of this discussion with the solicitor is the reporting component, which would help tremendously with the education.

We've gotten away from that.

And that is a part of what I envision our office handling through this position.

So we will monitor the animals that are associated with court cases, and we will provide monthly or quarterly reports.

We'll work that out as the position evolves.

But that reporting would go both to our solicitor and other prosecutors and to our internal stakeholders, the governing authority, our COO, so that you all could see what's happening and monitor it as we report.

And the pieces I think will then begin to make sense as they see the regular reporting.

You'll hear other educational pieces from our office and from the other participants, and this will start to take shape as we do it that way.

I think that's important context as you ask folks like our solicitor how they're going to serve in their role as one part of the larger puzzle.

I hope that's fair.

And I do want to mention that in 2024 as well as in 2023, my office put forth two different um opportunities and in the two areas, we educated the community as well as all of our partners on our role in animal cases.

But I would be remiss if we did not mention it, invited all to come out to participate in those and continuously having these conversations, including with Ms.

Wilkins and the prosecuting attorney's council and other entities around the State of Georgia who handled animal cases.

I agree.

Quite frankly, it just does things differently.

In fact, I when speaking to other offices around the State of Georgia, none their animal cases are done completely different than how it's done here.

So I think it's important that when as we continue to have these conversations, and you spoke specifically about the need to educate.

But that that requires listening.

And that requires listening on all parties.

And just fundamentally understanding and remembering that in an office that is a I mean, I am an office that is a state office, county office combination, but still have to uphold the law.

Understood.

And I just want to make sure that I'm always here.

I'll continue to provide the information as such, but also to continue to be fair to every person in that courtroom.

Understood.

I'm sure Mr.

Chair wants to move on, but he is also an animal lover himself.

But just in closing, I would love to challenge all of our judicial leaders, several of y'all are here today, as well as our county attorney's office to get together and let's revisit the system, the overall system.

What can we do to process these animals faster so we can get them into a permanent home or even a foster home somewhere safe, but we're really looking towards permanency and also decrease the numbers in our shelter, which would decrease the amount of money that this county has to spend on animal services on an annual basis.

I yield back.

Thank you, uh Commissioner Long Spears.

Um I think um, and we have our ERPS chair here as well.

So maybe what we could uh begin to work on sort of as we move past the budget is FAB and ERPS, maybe having kind of a couple joint sessions to just talk about the interplay between the police side of things, public safety side, and then of course the courts, and then all of the prosecuting um offices to you know just work through the that tree of of how all things get you know allocated or um I can't remember the right terminology, but you know, they go to different, like you said, they sometimes go to magistrate, state court, so there's a lot of complexities there.

So I think um this will be an opportunity for us maybe to educate uh the general public on sort of how the system works, and then if there are efficiencies or um bottlenecks in the process between your office, um whether it's the police side investigatory and then with our State and Magistrate Court, um, hopefully that can help us illuminate ways we can support that.

And I I I'm completely in favor of that.

Um I'll just I'll just end with this.

When I look at that board and I look at the fact that we provided 46,882 victim services to approximately over 10,000 victims in DeCav County.

Um I want to make sure, because it is so important when we talk about all of these cases, animal cases are absolutely important.

My attorneys, my investigators are dealing with the animal cases.

They're dealing with, of course, all the misdemeanor cases, but they're DV is one thing that we haven't mentioned in this forum here.

And when I look at those numbers, our victims of domestic violence, which is about 10,794, is something that we focus on too.

So I I it is important that as we sit here and we have uh constant victims have constitutional rights.

They have Marcy's law.

Yes.

29,000.

A third of those are victim of DV cases.

And so our it is important to me that you know that the people in my office are working very hard every single day for everyone here in the CAP.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

Well, um, and Madam Solicitor, let's let's keep talking about that as well, because I do remember the last time I was at the um uh the uh women's resource center um event, there was discussion around how um housing um is sort of part of the picture and that is something I know Madam CEO and the administration has been working on to sort of expand housing options, and I think there's a lot of layers to which we can be supportive of what victim services is you know what you all are working on and how you're supporting this those um individuals.

So let's keep that conversation going and talk about how we can support that.

Um just to follow up on the court held dog coordinator, um, Zach and TJ, I believe you all are planning to put that in the budget to support that, whether it's public safety or county attorneys, is that right?

That's correct.

Okay, so Commissioner Long Spears, so that is in the proposed amendments that there um so you know it'll be a line item, but we need to obviously figure out how that actually works.

Yeah, okay.

Uh Commissioner Bolton, any questions, comments?

Um not so much a question or comment, but just really quickly, I wanted to co-sign and acknowledge a few things.

Um I like your idea of us getting together to having some chats because what I'm noticing as well, because of gaps in services between different units and departments, we're getting more and more requests to compensate for those lacks, like what you guys are attempting to do.

And so, for example, since we were talking about animal services, we went from I think traditionally the request has been about 9.9 million dollars a year.

Um so over the course of two years, about 18 or 19 million to now 22 million dollars in requests for this year for 26 in order to be able to service those additional dogs that are being held.

And so um if we can get together, identify those gaps and see how it may be more affordable for us to get someone in the police department to do the investigations as opposed to how much it may cost in your office to get someone to do the investigation.

So I do really like the idea of that.

But a conversation I think we were having in ops yesterday about presentation of budget.

So I'm gonna give you kudos and use you as an example.

This is so convincing and very clear to me what the need is, why it's needed, and the difference between the previous year and this year, and even if we are unable to do all of this, it's very clear where the money is going.

Extremely clear, no questions, easily tracked, and easily reportable to the community when they ask about the increases, yes, sir.

With all due respect to our esteemed solicitor general, I'm biased.

She is a master influencer.

She does this for a living, Commissioner.

She presents in a way to persuade and get her audience to answer the way she wants.

Of course, her budget presentation is convincing and easy for you to follow.

I think it can serve as a model to other departments who are less talented and skilled in this area.

But I needed to caution you with all due respect, Madam Solicitor.

I participated in yesterday's discussion about trying to have some uniformity in how things are presented.

So now you've thrown a complete curveball by being so persuasive in your presentation.

Well, thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to say you made it difficult for some other people.

Now I have questions.

Okay, absolutely.

All right.

Well, um, I totally agree with that.

Um, and I think maybe just for, and just to want to add one little layer to that for maybe Zach and TJ is for um all of the presentations to have kind of like the spreadsheet version.

Um I think that would just help their process to have it sort of actually in the in a in one spreadsheet document just helps for them to organize it better.

So um what you put on the PowerPoint is great.

If you don't mind, send over kind of the line item.

Not a problem at all.

We'll make sure we do that.

Yes, sir.

Okay, great.

All right, thank you, Madam Solicitor.

Thank you all for uh for your time.

I know we had a lengthy discussion, but hopefully uh we have clarified some issues and we look forward to continuing to work with you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Um we've got two more commissioners.

Um we have state court next and then magistrate and um at 1230.

Okay.

All right.

And um I don't think we're gonna vote on anything today.

Okay, gotcha.

Okay.

Okay.

Um and just uh FYI, Commissioner Long Spears does have to leave at 1230, um, but we are able to continue having the committee meeting.

We're not planning on making any motions or votes today, so um, but you know, uh just keep that in mind, Judge Jacobs.

All right I well, I hope to actually be able to keep it short.

Okay.

Um first of all, on behalf of the 10 judges, we are awaiting the appointment of an 11th judge from the governor in Division B.

Hopefully that'll happen in the next couple of months to replace Judge Ramsey who passed away.

Um and the uh more than 350 employees of the DeCab County State Court.

Um I want to uh thank you very much for having us here today.

Um I I mentioned the number of employees just to underscore what a large operation we are.

Um we are um certainly the highest volume court um in in our um judicial system, uh, together with the magistrate court, of course.

We do there is a fair number of employees that are shared between the two courts, but um our court does include uh uh a very large clerk's office, um DeCab County State Court probation and chief probation officer Jamani Davis is here with me today, and the Marshal's office and Marshall Marshal Kevin Richardson is here with us today.

Also want to recognize uh uh new as of the last time I appeared before Fab, um, our court administrator Edwin Bell, who has been doing a phenomenal job um organizing things for our court, and we're very happy to have Mr.

Bell um on board with us.

Um I'm here to say uh first of all that in general our court is satisfied with the CEO's budget request, except in two areas that have been placed on hold.

One of those is probably the most obvious one, um, which is technology.

Um we are, as I mentioned, a high volume uh uh operation with a lot of employees, um docketing, filing, organizing court calendars, uh conducting court sessions, all of that uh involves heavy reliance on technology.

Um so having obviously the courts, um we we we take a deep breath, perhaps maybe there's a gasp or two when we see that the technology request is uh is placed on hold.

Um it was last year and is it it did come through last year, but um is on hold again this year, and uh we would very much appreciate that it comes through.

It is absolutely um necessary to our operations.

Um and then the second area that has been placed on hold is uh our vehicle request for probation um and um and the marshals office.

Um I think it's important to note um that probation and the marshal's office uh have they are both um uh uh you know certified law enforcement agencies and uh have heavy vehicle needs, uh, both departments.

Um the there are a large number of vehicles um in both of those departments that are uh very old and have very high mileage.

Um of those uh were purchased uh for lack of a better way to put it, eons ago and stayed with the the departments um up to this time, and others are actually hand-me-downs um from the police department.

So uh those vehicles uh you know, at the time were not suitable enough for the police department, they are uh now still in service with us and even less suitable for uh uh for the departments that they are currently being utilized um for, which is the Marshall's office and the and probation.

Um I uh you know, just looking down at the list for probation that is sitting in front of me.

The oldest vehicle here um is a 2007 vehicle with more than 218,000 miles um on it.

I will just note for the record that 2007 is only four years after I graduated from law school.

Um and you see how much gray hair I have now.

Um it's been a minute um since that vehicle has been um in in service and and certainly we are looking uh to do some very important maintenance in both departments um uh uh in terms of uh uh updating uh the fleets that those two uh important law enforcement agencies um in DeCab County uh currently have in operation.

And so for that, um I have brought um uh uh Jumani Davis and and Kevin Richardson here uh today.

I asked them uh uh uh you know who has the oldest vehicles, um, and the winner of that distinction was Chief Davis.

Um so I would like for him to present first and then he'll be followed up by Marshall Richardson on that request.

Okay, all right, yeah, go come right up to the good morning.

Um just to give you a little time lapse.

You know, our department has been in existence for over 33 years now.

We first um prior up to up to 2011-2012, we were still doing the same um functionalities and capabilities as we are doing now.

We were just doing them in our personal our our personal vehicles.

Um since 2012, we have gotten units from the Marshall's office um from a collaboration standpoint, and we've used those vehicles throughout the tenure and now.

Um I am very grateful, and especially since I became chief in in January of 2024, that um you graciously um gave us eight vehicles in in 2025's budget.

And um that's part of a foundation of what my um what I'm trying to do as far as phasing out our old vehicles.

In 2025, we had um five vehicles, six vehicles taken away from us due to AIDS, high mileage, and and things of that sort.

Um right now I have out of those, I have seven pool cars remaining that you know are in, you know, are use usable, but at the same time, my biggest thing for my officers are um is their safety.

While we're in the um neighborhoods where we're the we're doing knocking on doors, serving warrants, aiding other law enforcement agencies um in the um uh in the official capacities of our duties.

We also have a responsibility um in the courthouse.

We transport our own prisoners that that that we take into custody.

So there are a number of factors why I'm asking um just to replace really the six vehicles that that were taken away from us.

Um I'm not trying to be gritty, so to speak, you know, but I do need to um you know ensure that my officers and every um every official um capacity of their duties that they're safe while we're in these vehicles.

Um my justification, you know, also from a cost perspective, you know, law enforcement across the country, you know, mainly use Tahoes and things of that sort.

Well, with the money that was given to us in 2025, you know, I went in a little different route.

I purchased the Seri Traverse, which is like a 10 to 14,000 cheaper um price point that we could still use, you know, in our department.

They are able to be emergency vehicles, and for what we do, we're not patrolling every single day, but we do we are a part of the law enforcement community when it comes to the Cab County public safety and government.

So, you know, that was a a big thing for us.

Also to upfit those, of course, where they um a little bit cheaper price point from an overall perspective as far as um you know what our needs are um you know for the county and and what we do.

So again, I'm just trying to phase out these remaining, you know, to replace the um six that were taken away from us due to, you know, they would cost too much just to you know just to fix, and to eventually phase out these older um units from 09 to 2012 from a you know from an ACE perspective to um you know further what I'm trying to do is just um re-gentrify, you know, um my infrastructure with with my department.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, great.

All right, thanks, Chief Davis.

All right, and uh before you just any any question questions, comments on the vehicles, Commissioner Bolton.

Just um clarification really quickly on the eight vehicles that you purchased last year, were those replacing some that were um that had to be removed or taken away as well?

Prior to, yes, ma'am.

Okay, we have lost more prior to those, you know, previous years.

But yes.

Okay, so the eight will be replacements, you're asking for six, but you're keeping the remaining pool of the vehicles active.

Well, the old saying I'll use them until the wheels fall off because they still aid in what we do, you know.

I just needed to be from a safer perspective, if that makes sense.

This unit 11, 351, I'm gonna let you look at it.

2009 with 188 miles.

Uh lower 188,000 miles.

What type of vehicle is that?

Because that's a running wheel.

Oh.

That is what that is 11351.

That is a um that's a um a Crown Victoria.

Okay.

And that's not to say, you know, it's not on this last mile, but it's still, you know, doing what we needed to do.

Um, of course, you know, what I also spoke about was just the maintenance that we have to do as far as these vehicles breaking down and things of that sort.

So for from overall perspective, again, I look at it from a county perspective, a liabilities per perspective when we're dealing with the Cav County citizens, and most of all, just keeping our probationers um accountable for us being in the field doing what we need to do as the top um misdemeanor probation um office in the state of Georgia.

I'm just trying to keep that going, you know, outside of felony um probation, and we rival them, you know, as a misdemeanor agency, and they are a state agency, and we have been the model for a lot of misdemeanor agencies in the state of Georgia as far as you know what we've been able to do and accomplish in our 33-year history.

Okay, thank you so much, sir.

I yield that.

Great.

All right, Commissioner Long Spears.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I appreciate y'all providing as much information as you did.

It's really helpful.

Yes, ma'am.

Trying to deliberate and debate on our annual budget.

So for the initial discussion item, which is the State Court on hold technology items.

Could you tell us again?

I I remembered passing this, the 200 and some thousand.

I don't remember if it was exactly the same amount last year.

And so that's still on hold from last year?

No, no, no.

Okay.

I as I mentioned that came through ultimately.

It was on hold at this stage of the process last year.

So ultimately came through.

Okay.

And you're just asking for additional technology needs this year.

Right.

There is always technology maintaining.

Oh no, I totally understand that.

I just wanted to confirm what you said to make sure that everything we did appropriate to you last year was received and purchased.

Unless he has something else I have to tell you.

Commissioner, if I may, uh well, I wasn't involved last year.

However, I can tell you that the monies that the Board of Commissioners appropriated last year, there was a portion that was that went unutilized by the end of 2025.

What portion is that?

Is it actually um listed as a line item on here?

It's probably not listed as a line item.

Okay.

There was a significant amount of probably exceeding 100,000 that uh was appropriated by you in the 2025 budget that did not get used.

So it went back to general fund?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification point.

Um my next question goes to your request or actually the statement that you wrote on page one of the new vehicle justification.

And again, this was very helpful that y'all did this.

Um you spent $9,000 last year on repairs.

Do you and this could maybe be a question for CO Williams?

Is that something where y'all can send your vehicles to our fleet department and have them make the repairs, so therefore you're not having to absorb that expense?

Well, Commissioner, um, yes, any time our vehicles need repair, they go straight to motor maintenance.

Okay.

So that is who fixes our um our cars, unless they have to um ship it out to the dealership for something that they cannot do, but 90 percent, you know, and that just came out of uh out of my cost center, you know, as far as what we had to use or what they had to use to repair those vehicles.

So you send it to fleet main maintenance or fleet management, which you called motorcycle.

Motor maintenance, yes, ma'am.

Motor maintenance.

They made the repairs and then they just bill you for those repairs.

It comes out of my budget, yes, ma'am.

Okay, all right.

And um it is a little eye-opening how old some of these vehicles are.

So thank you for pointing that out.

Go ahead, TJ.

Yeah, I um thank you.

I just wanted to make a clarification about the vehicles and how they they work.

So and I appreciate Chief Davis giving us the history that you said prior to 2012, they had no vehicles.

So what they had done is they were utilizing what we call pool vehicles.

Correct.

So they were vehicles that were used by another department and then had been replaced, and instead of taking them out of service, they were designated what we call pool vehicles.

So that means that you know they can use them and fleet will repair them.

And uh we do put funding in the budget for uh fleet services.

So I mean um although it does come out of their budget, we typically try to do two budget for maintenance as part of that cost.

Um what we did last year that was different is that was for the first time they got vehicles that were part of the fleet that'll now be part of the vehicle replacement cycle.

So these other vehicles that they're they're looking to replace, um the reason why they're they're so old and they have so many miles on them is just that they were not part of that vehicle replacement cycle.

Understood.

Okay and so once you know, if they if they receive new vehicles as additions to the fleet, then they'll be part of the regular cycle for replacements.

All right.

So uh I guess what you're ultimately saying is that we won't have to experience such an old fleet moving forward because we're slowly transitioning all the old ones into newer vehicles, which would reduce our maintenance costs.

Right.

So if they're approved for additional vehicles, that's the same.

That's what would happen.

Okay, correct.

Thank you very much.

I yield back.

Okay, great.

Um, sorry, so thank you, um, Chief Davis.

Um Chief uh Marshall Richardson.

Good afternoon.

Uh I've he said pretty much everything except for the Marshal, and he's with probation.

But we're in the same boat.

I mean, we over the last three years we've grown significantly.

Uh we've took over all of court operations as well as we've enhanced evictions and allowed more people to go to evictions to try to get our numbers down.

Uh so in doing that, I've had to keep pool cars.

Uh I've been trying to transition through the years to replace the pool cars.

I think last year I asked.

Well, I didn't ask for there was money for seven put in my budget.

Uh I didn't ask because it was put in my budget, but then it was taken away because I didn't ask.

So that's why the number is 13 this year.

So my goal was to do seven last year.

Six this year to replace the caprices that I did get from the police department.

And I do have an additional six that would be replaced, I would ask for next year, which would get rid of all the pool vehicles and put me back on a regular replacement schedule.

Okay.

So I've tried to phase it in over time because the vehicles are still operational.

The ones I'm asking for now are at their end of life.

So when they go for repairs at fleet, uh they just take them away and we don't get a replacement for them.

Okay.

But to continue operations and to maintain the service that we've given, we're desperately needing vehicles at this time.

Okay.

Okay.

Um TJ, same response generally.

Anything different there?

No, it is basically the same response that it's um, you know, something that in the past they did not have any vehicles that were part of the the fleet that were due for replacement, so that's why they relied on these pool vehicles.

And so moving forward, if they're approved for new vehicles, they will be part of the vehicle fleet that will then be part of the vehicle replacement fund.

Okay.

Um, great.

And so um Chief Davis and Marshall Richardson, it looks like we do generally have the actual budget request for the vehicles.

Um would you all mind um just putting that into a spreadsheet?

Um just to kind of break it out for us um for TJ and Zach purposes.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Um, Judge Jacobs, anything else on your side you give you give us a spreadsheet.

Yes.

Does would you mind um is this um capturing what I think uh Mr.

Bell said about the funding request from 2025 not fully being expended, or is this making is part of this fulfilling that hundred thousand?

It does.

It feels that it fills that gap.

We ran into some procurement uh challenges which didn't allow for us to procure certain items before the cutoff at the end of the year.

I think we're working through that um this year so that we won't run into that again.

Okay.

Um the need hasn't gone away, and and quite frankly, the need's gotten a little bit worse, but we can manage this year so as long as uh uh the the full funding is restored to our 2026 budget.

Okay.

Okay, gotcha.

All right, thank you.

All right, um, Commissioner Bolton, anything else?

Questions, comments.

Umly to say I really like the idea of the pool program.

I think that was pool vehicles.

I think that was a really good idea.

I do want to note that the commissioners do a lot of driving as well.

And so if there are some vehicles, a pool vehicle.

We'll uh we'll take one of the uh probate court uh or the probate um offices.

So the Crown VIX.

I yield back.

Um okay, great.

Um Judge Jacobs, anything else?

Yeah, just as some final remarks.

Well first of all, I'll note that actually the the 2007 car came out of service last year, so it's 2008, five years after I graduated from law school that's still in service, but that's still a long time ago.

I I also do want to just note what a blessing it is to have in-house probation in DeCab County.

I just I know from talking with my colleagues all across the state of Georgia what um how challenging and problematic it is to have otherwise servicing the state courts in Georgia.

So we are very blessed in DeCab County to have an in house probation department.

It keeps us justice focused and I think that that's a great thing for the citizens of our county.

And then the last thing I'll just say is thank you.

This is my um uh final uh time appearing before Fab as the chief judge of the state court next year you'll have Judge Kimberly Anderson in front of you um so we rotate every two years so it's been a pleasure uh last year and this year and and thank you very much on behalf of everyone um in our court absolutely for your service thank you appreciate it judge jacobs um all right and while um judge anderson from magistrate court is coming up um one thing I just did want to mention this is for everyone who's requesting a vehicle um and Zach and TJ so you know one of the things I think that you know we've done to sort of set our um goals of transitioning to electric vehicles um part of that philosophy is that the total cost of ownership of a vehicle is less for an EV than an internal combustion engine and a lot of that has to do with fuel costs and maintenance but there is significant investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure which can be sort of an upfront cost.

So I think one of the things we're hoping over the years is that the departments that are requesting vehicles you know just run the numbers of how many miles a day and you know sort of how when you know if you were to get an electric vehicle and you had a charging station or stations you know where you're wherever you're parking them just help us kind of true out whether an EV would work you know look at the the range look at sort of that um that maintenance and fuel cost um because I I think over the time I think what we're finding is the EVs are a better deal for the county in terms of vehicles but also understand not every situation of an electric vehicle will suffice.

But when it does suffice just kind of keep that into your in your mind in terms of uh requests thank you all right Judge Anderson good after good afternoon thank you all so much for the opportunity to be here this afternoon I've got about a five hour presentation that I'm gonna do in I'm gonna take about three or four minutes and then I'm gonna pass on um the rest of my time to my court administrator Mr.

Bell.

So just a very brief overview of magistrate court I am the chief magistrate judge I've been the chief for 16 years.

There are 31 judges that serve the court we could always use more we work out of three courthouses.

I'm very proud to note that we have the oldest misdemeanor mental health diversion court in the state of Georgia and this year we will celebrate our 25th year and I also run uh the Office of pretrial services thank you I want to thank Madam CEO for the budget recommendation.

There is one matter that as I said I'd like to yield to Mr.

Bell it's a technology piece that I'd like to ask you all to please um consider reinstating technology is very important to the court and it took um the actual pandemic for us to realize that so if there's an ice storm we can switch on a moment's notice and court does not have to stop.

And we currently handled about 1000 court hearings each year.

I do want to just give you a brief heads up that I may be back before you mid year.

There is some legislation being considered and I understand they're actually having hearings today there are two bills moving at the same time under the dome one is House Bill 792 which is making the request that our small claims court and magistrate court we currently have a jurisdictional limit of $15,000.

So if you have a case and it's $15,000 or less we hear those cases we hear about 33000 cases a year today.

So the legislation is asking that that jurisdiction increase under House Bill 792 that it double to $30,000 I think that's worthy of repeating that it double to $30,000.

We have 18 small claims calendars per week.

I think that bears repeating.

18 per week currently.

And that's with the $15,000 jurisdictional limit.

I'm glad everybody is sitting down because under Senate Bill 405, they're proposing that we go from $15,000, a $15,000 limit to a $50,000 limit.

Those discussions are being had as we speak.

Yeah, yeah, it's worth I I think I'll repeat it again.

Senate Bill 405 is asking that our $15,000 jurisdictional limit be increased to $50,000.

So that's competing legislation, one is $30 and $150,000.

Yeah, and I think that's a good thing.

I believe we know that sausage is being made, but it'll probably land somewhere around $30,000 or $35,000 are the projections.

But if we're at $15,000 today, and we have 18 calendars a week, can you imagine the volume that we are going to have when that limit is increased?

So I just want that to leave that with you all to think about it.

And $15,000 is going to State Court.

State court.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

They're busy.

But that's a huge increase.

And it's something that's been discussed for the last four or five years.

And it looks like it's actually going to happen this year.

And so I don't have a crystal ball.

I don't know how much, but I can promise you that I will be back because it will significantly impact how we handle small claims cases at the court.

So anyway, so I will be back and just wanted to make you all aware of that.

And then I yield the rest of my time to Mr.

Bell so that we can talk about technology.

And again, I thank you for the opportunity and for all of the support that you all have given Magistrate Court, and whenever we show up and there's a need, you come through every time.

And so thank you so much for what you do.

Mr.

Bell.

Mr.

Bell?

Sure.

Thank you, Commissioners.

So the technology request that was placed on hold in the 2026 budget recommendation, the original request, I believe, was about $76,000.

However, we have a need that has come up since then, an additional need that's more time sensitive.

And that's for an additional $150,000 to support our pretrial services division.

That unit, as many of you may know, provides the pretrial supervision of criminal defendants.

And so there's currently a software that we use to manage those cases.

That software is scheduled to sunset in December of this year.

The challenge with the sunset of that software is that while it may still be operational, the support, the security patches and other features that we generally enjoy will be no more after December of this year.

It takes approximately 12 to 18 months to implement a new software.

So if this funding is provided, the $76,000 for our general technology needs plus the $150,000 for the software itself.

If this technology software funding is provided, it will take us 12 to a maximum of 18 months to fully implement it.

And so what that means for us is we'll have a period of time where we won't fully receive support from the current technology vendor that we use.

This is something that was unfortunately sprung on us at the last second.

We were unaware that they were planning to upgrade their software apparatus, which directly impacts us.

So this is a surprise to us.

Okay.

All right.

Commissioner Bolton?

No question.

Is the total.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, and just to make sure I got this.

So the um your so the Tyler technologies is what we you want to switch over to?

We're currently using Tyler technologies, but they're the current system that they provide is being sunset at the end of the year.

Okay, so the update.

So there's sort of an upgrade.

It's still with the same vendor, just an upgrade in a software system.

Okay.

And so they want so we got to we have to pay twice this year for if it the current software ends in December.

You would start onboarding the new software now.

Yes.

So we're the current software, we're we're not purchasing it.

We pay an annual maintenance fee.

Yes.

So that is something that we would have that is been paid, has been paid for 2026.

Okay.

And then the 150,000 is to migrate the data and all of the other bells and whistles that are necessary to move the information from one platform to another.

Well, that's a nice trick they do.

It is.

It is.

I agree.

I get you locked in and then Oh, we got to upgrade it.

We change something.

Okay.

Um the 150 for request for this year is so Tyler, the vendor can migrate to the new software that will come online after December.

Correct.

It will not come online at the earliest, we're thinking April of 2027.

But it could be a little longer than that.

But it takes easily a year to complete a migration, but they like to build in a few months of wiggle room just in case there are some challenges.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Um Zachary TJ any thoughts on that?

The total is 26,000.

226, 755.

That includes the other just monitors and laptops and things.

That's correct.

And also includes our warrant application.

Uh as you all know, we issue warrants seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Okay.

And so uh there's a maintenance cost for that.

But that's included in the 226 figure.

Okay.

Um ahead, Commissioner Bolton.

The anticipated growth, does that have to do with House Bill 792 or SB 405?

Not directly.

Okay.

Um as some of you may know, uh, we will be building a um self-help center uh in the courthouse.

And so that office requires technology.

BIS Digital is the primary or if not the only technology provider for courts for for our courts here in DeCab County.

And so we anticipate that's an approximate cost to uh outfit the self-help center once it's fully constructed, which we take we anticipate will take uh anywhere from four to six months.

And when you say self-help, that's self-service where folks can go in and do things on their own.

Judge, would you like to take that?

No, I that it's an access to justice center.

We're going to pilot it.

Starting with dispossessory cases, you know, the landlord tenant cases.

Um we do not currently have enough assistance for individuals who are self-represented.

And so what we envisioned and we got a grant to assist us in in uh pulling all of this together is an opportunity for individuals who are facing eviction to have some brief service with an attorney to assist them in knowing which box to check.

There are so many individuals in DeCab County who face eviction because they just didn't they didn't know which box to check.

They were trying to navigate this process on their own, and they ended up getting evicted.

And so um it, in my opinion, helps level the playing field and those individuals who don't understand the complicated legal process.

Uh oftentimes there's an attorney on the other side representing the landlords and the apartment complexes.

So it gives them an opportunity to have some brief legal guidance in um in filing an answer and dealing with their case.

I think that's much needed.

I appreciate you guys piloting that.

Is that just for folks who are under corporate landlords?

Is that any rentals?

It's it's gonna be for any rentals initially.

And again, it has to be a pilot project because the the volume is such that we have an excess of 30,000 dispossessory cases each year.

Um I don't want to go too deep into it.

So but if you know which box to check, yeah.

Um whether you file an answer or not depends on whether or not you get a judgment against you.

You may have to move anyway, but do you have to move and have a judgment?

So anyway, yeah, um as judges, we can't be their lawyers.

The clerks can't be their lawyers, and I can tell you that my office and the clerk's office is bombarded by people who are desperate for some help and for some answers.

Yes, I've got two emails this morning.

And Atlanta legal aid cannot help all of them.

So anyway, so that is my answer to that, and it's something that I'm passionate about and hope to see um come to fruition this year.

And the National Center for State Courts has provided us with a grant to help us navigate this complicated process.

And this is through December 26th, the pilot.

I hope so.

I hope that I would love to do that.

I want to put that out there in the universe.

I hope that we can launch it by December 26th.

Yeah.

I would love to see you guys come back and share with us how it's improved or help the outcomes for decabress.

I would love for them to have this in to them to report back.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I yield back.

Thank you.

And I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask about that.

So the I think the report came out, I think it was yesterday from the eviction lab.

It said that um the five Metro Counties eviction filings were 155,000 last year, and so it went up last year compared to previous years.

So there does appear to be a need in the Metro counties.

Obviously, you mentioned how many in DeCAB?

Is it 30%?

You want the exact number?

You said 30,000?

Yes, it's in excess of 30,000.

Okay, so we're a big chunk of that.

Um the report that we got on the extended stay hotel uh count survey, about 30 percent of the individuals in extended state hotels, and we were really talking to families primarily, uh, was that they had a an eviction on their record.

And so they had the money, but they couldn't get an apartment or a landlord to lease to them because of that eviction, you know, they call it the Scarlet E, right?

And I can't remember how many, I think it's like six years or something that sort of is on your credits record or something.

Seven years.

Sorry.

Um so Zach, this was something I did put in the budget request, and I know District 5 has talked about it as well.

Um basically the request was for a T Lak 2.0.

Um it's great that Judge Anderson is talking about this self-help center because I'm now I'm just wondering if we stood up additional funds for the sort of the T Lak system like Atlanta Legal A, DeCAP Pro Bono, to work hand in hand with what you're standing up.

I mean, would that would that be complimentary?

It would absolutely be complimentary.

Um but it will be set up so that they're you know you gotta we've got to understand the structure because the court is always neutral.

Um we have to remain neutral.

So we I envision attorneys that are contract attorneys that will be working for the center.

And so it it it will benefit everyone in the long run.

And so yes, absolutely.

And I think and and this was something that um chief housing officer for Ferguson had mentioned as part of the the housing initiative that one of the strategies of that fundamental is to keep people in the homes.

Keep people at homes or just to help them if they do get sort of the the disposissory.

The dispossessory the writ.

Oh, the writ.

Um it it appears that when the tenant has legal representation, um I guess sometimes it gets worked out where they might still have to move, but they're not having that eviction, I guess, on the record.

Is that my understanding that right?

I think it's fair to say in any type of case, any time you're before a court, if you can have the benefit of an attorney, your outcome is going to be better.

Okay.

Even a bad outcome will be better because you have been represented by an attorney.

Yeah.

And I and I think you know, the the key point that I'm gonna harp on is that those individuals are ending up in the shelter is seeking housing assistance.

Like they're already paying for it.

But it's a lot more expensive after they've gone through that, and so we can be proactive in providing that legal counsel.

So you're exactly right, y'all can't be their lawyers, but if we can support the groups that provide that legal assistance to work in that system you're talking about, you know, then you can basically have someone to refer them to, in essence.

Is that fair to say?

Okay.

Um and Zach, I think we were I and this is I know uh you're standing this up as a pilot, and I think the initial request was 250,000 to support that legal assistance.

Um is that something that y'all could consider that would I think and it's really good.

I'm glad you mentioned that because I really think they would be complimentary.

Yeah.

Yes, and to your point, I think this is something Dr.

Ferguson has been talking about.

So I think this is part of the overall uh housing affordability and housing sustainability uh discussion.

Okay.

Okay, very good.

Um please keep us updated on how the self-help center is going.

I will do that.

And maybe just a little bit of data on how many cases have no legal representation, just so we're aware of the scale, because I I imagine it would be millions of dollars for everyone to have a an attorney.

Uh but I think right now it's fair to say that legal aid in their voluntary capacity is only getting through a small percentage of that.

That's a that's a very correct statement.

Okay.

I'm an old Atlanta legal a lawyer, and so we could only scratch the surface of the need and decap.

So yeah, I am young, yes.

I'm seasoned.

Yeah, but um yes.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, great.

All right.

Well um all right, we're gonna keep working on that.

So um thank you, Judge Anderson.

Thank you all for the opportunity.

Okay, very good.

Um well we did lose our uh committee member, Michelle had uh long spears had to leave um so we won't necessarily need to adjourn per se.

But um Zach TJ, I think you got all the information.

We'll try and get the spreadsheets from everyone.

Jessica help kind of correspond and air traffic control that so we can get all the spreadsheets.

Um and then um we're gonna have the final special call fab meeting on the budget on the twenty-fifth.

So I think the goal is by Monday to have kind of sort of the most up-to-date recommendations uh for all the um for the committee and the commissioners.

Is that sound good?

Yeah, I think so.

Uh Monday.

Yep.

Monday.

I close a business.

Monday we will have an opportunity to go through each of these.

Okay.

Um but we got it.

Okay, very good.

All right, very good.

All right, well, we'll go ahead and uh close out this meeting.

Uh thank everyone for joining us and have a good rest of your day.