Good morning, everyone.

I'd like to call um the Public Works and Transportation Committee to order today at 8 30 a.m.

on October 21st, 2025.

Calling to order the Lake County Board Financial Administrative Committee at 832.

Time flow.

Could you join us in the pledge, please?

I pledge to the flag of the United States of America.

And to republic which it stands.

One nation under liberty and justice for all.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Yes.

Member Caskins?

Here.

Chair Clark.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Member Hunter.

Vice Chair Maine.

Member Roberts.

Yes.

Member Wasek.

Thank you.

FNA roll call.

Member Clark.

Here.

Chair Frank.

Here.

Member Hewitt.

Still here.

Member Maine.

Vice Chair Park.

Member Peterson.

Member Balenci.

All right.

All right.

Is there any addenda to the agenda?

There's not.

Are there any public comments today for items not on the agenda?

There's no public comment.

Under chairs remarks, I want to welcome everyone here today for our budget presentations.

And I did want to um give a uh reminder to members.

Apparently it's very tough to hear us on uh remotely.

So if we could make sure and speak more right into our microphones, um, I think that people would really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I'm just gonna take the opportunity to share a couple of thoughts from uh yesterday's conversation.

So I want to thank the members of the FNA committee for a very long day of work.

And uh I want to go back to the item where we created uh some additional budgeting in the clerk of the court's office.

And um, you know, it was a long day and it was a long conversation, and I cut it off.

And my uh intent in cutting it off was to get us to move on because we had other business that we need to attend to yesterday and today, is not to say that anyone's remarks were invalid or inappropriate.

I wasn't trying to say that um, you know, that that the questions were without merit.

Member Roberts, member Volitzik, Chair Hart were all asking really good questions about how is it possible that we had revenue that was collected and unbudgeted for a long time and what was the plan?

Those were great questions.

They were important.

We needed that.

Um, but it was also clear to me that we weren't gonna really get solid answers at that point, and so that was why I needed to move on.

And so, Chair Hart, I was just mentioning that one of the reasons I I I cut off the conversation yesterday is because I did I didn't think we were getting to the bottom of the questions, which were valid and important.

So the action we took yesterday was directing the creation and the budgeting of the funds that had been previously collected and will be collected this year in that office.

And so we corrected uh a serious problem, which was that funds were unbudgeted.

And so going forward, we're gonna have that budgeted and and we'll have um the appropriate amount of oversight and transparency over that.

So thanks for indulging me uh in in uh further comments on that this morning.

All right.

Um finishes.

Okay, new business, our regular agenda.

And so should I present the budget again?

Or uh so item 8.26 budget.

Do we do a motion in a second?

It's just a presentation.

No, just a presentation.

We had it yesterday, and so um, if members would like, I know we can watch it on video or um or we could do a short overview.

Yes, sir.

There are there are members here who were not here yesterday at all.

So that's we think that's why we're thinking about doing just a short overview.

Yeah, we could have that.

Thank you.

I I think especially if I may relate it to the new program request.

It would be really important for everyone to be on the same page because I think we got off the page at times yesterday.

Sounds good.

Okay, good morning.

Uh Michael Wheeler, budget manager.

Good to see all of you again and welcome to those who weren't with us yesterday.

Uh I'll try to be brief and just kind of go over some of the highlights.

I guess the first thing I want to point out is just where we've been and where we are.

And the green, really the second green box in the lower right-hand corner is where we are.

You know, we've we the history is there was the county board policy guidance.

There is the there was uh what was put out by uh administration and finance in terms of the budget preparation guidelines through departments and agencies.

And moving through all of that, the recommended budget document is what you have before you today, whether that's you know hard copy or digital.

And this is these are the conversations with the deliberations in the blue box there, and then finally county board approval, which is currently scheduled for Thursday.

Oh, excuse me, Thursday.

No, that's tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 18th.

So just wanted to give a sense of where we've been and where we are and where we're planning to go.

Um next slide, just short, high, short and sweet highlights are you know, we're trying to be consistent with the strategic plan.

Uh, this is the first year that the compensation study uh increases are actually in department budgets.

Some of you may remember that last year, because of the timing of the approval of the compensation study, we kept those dollars largely in contingency and the general operating expense.

This is the first time that they're actually distributed in the department budgets.

So when you see some increases related to personnel and benefits, the labor costs, they might be more because this is the first year that that is actually in department budgets.

Um we did a review of positions as we were working with departments.

Uh there were new program requests were accepted, and I'll speak to that more on the next slide.

Uh, coming back specifically to what member Maine was commenting about just a moment ago.

We talked to departments about revenues, tried to kind of talk about whether the numbers should be high or lower, understanding the history.

We had those conversations.

And one of the highlights that's good this year is that the operating contribution to capital, the policies require that that should cover at the very least the facilities maintenance request, and it does that and then some and nearly covers all that's in the capital improvement fund, which we'll also talk about later today.

Um the new program request process.

This was something that I think was largely kind of the vision of the county administrator, which was kind of a collaborative peer review process.

This was the first year that uh, in addition to departments submitting NPRs based on the criteria that uh were laid out.

Uh, it's they came and met in a session just like this, but it was all department heads and/or department representatives, and basically presented their requests to their peers.

And then as part of that process, they answered questions from their peers, they uh had some dialogue, explain what the need was, what had changed, why they felt the new program request was important to their function, their operations.

And then departments were actually asked to provide feedback, recommendations, and those are all submitted to the county administrator.

Now, it's still the county administrator's final decision, obviously, and those are the NPRs that are recommended in the budget, and they fall into one or four categories.

You know, there are some that are funded and included in the half of the allowable uh tax increase, property tax increase.

The second is that they're recommended in scenario two.

I think that's on the agenda for discussion later today.

And then there are some that are listed as being considered for funding in the second quarter of fiscal year 26, and then there's some on the final page when you look in the NPR section that are not recommended at all.

So this was the first year we did that process, and I think you know it felt very good.

I think it was great to have departments be able to look around and see, okay, I'm asking for this, someone else is asking for that.

We have a pot of money, the pie is only so big, if you will.

We have to make some tough decisions.

So that was one of the highlights from this year.

Um moving on to kind of the budget approval.

One of the things that we want to make sure that people remember uh or know is that the budget approval is at the category level.

So you see there, particularly in the bottom half of that screenshot, you see A5X personnel.

You know, that will include accounts like regular salaries and wages, permanent part-time, overtime, holiday pay, number of other things.

You're not necessarily approving how much is going into overtime or how much is going into regular salaries and wages.

You're approving how all of that rolls up to the personnel level for a given department agency or fund.

Same thing for commodities.

You'll see office supplies, office equipment, you know, commodities speak to the stuff or the goods that we buy.

And so it's not the office supply budget, it's not the office equipment budget.

It is the commodities budget into which those roll up for a given department.

So we just wanted to remind you of all of that.

And something else that I wanted to point out is uh you probably see in the reports, the A in front of a lot of the account numbers.

Our system automatically generates that.

The A just simply stands for account.

So there's no, there's no secret there, right?

It's pretty straightforward.

Um moving beyond that, revenue budgeting, the highlights are finance department entered all property tax amounts.

Uh, and as you can see, it's consistent with the estimate that was prepared that was approved by the FNA committee in September, according to state statute.

The final distribution will occur after we have these budget hearings uh and a separate property tax ordinance for those who may recall from last year, those are approved when we get to the November committee meetings.

Uh interest that was determined by the treasurer's office, and in some cases with input from finance and all other revenues, your fees, your intergovernmental revenue, charges for services, miscellaneous revenue.

That can be things like copy charges, where that's applicable.

Those are all budgeted by the department.

Getting to expense budgeting, departments put in mostly non-labor expenses, the commodities, the goods that we buy, contractuals and professional services, that could be trips and training, that could be consultants, that could be other kinds of services and capital expenditures, whether that's furniture replacements, um, could be things related to computers or vehicles, all of that's put into capital.

And for the most part, uh, not everywhere and always, but for the most part, those are entered by uh departments.

Departments do enter some labor numbers, like overtime, special pay, sorry that that's in there twice, judges of election, those are all there uh based upon a specific department's operational needs.

When we get to uh other things the department did, as I mentioned earlier, we talked about positions, uh, they submitted new program requests, and they provide performance information for the performance metrics that are on uh some department and agency and fund pages.

There it goes.

And so uh on the expense side, we in finance kind of did a lot with personnel and benefits.

I want to thank Nick and V over here.

They did a lot of work with that to prepare that for all the departments.

Uh and as we have done in the past, vacation sick payouts for departing employees are not budgeted.

We expect that to be absorbed through the normal turnover that occurs in a department and vacancy savings, which we include every year, count for the fact that most departments are not 100% staffed throughout the entire fiscal year.

So we do a calculation uh of that kind of based on recent history, whether it's the current fiscal year, the last few fiscal years, and just a couple of things to note there.

One, they're budgeted at lower amounts for most departments, as we've seen hiring and employee retention kind of stabilize, and some departments will speak to why that is.

I think a couple yesterday actually spoke to that being as a result of uh some positive uh things coming out of the compensation study and the pay increases, and we net those out of the salaries and wages account and out of the benefits line items.

So and uh the salary and wage increase, just so that it's uh clear to all, there is a 3% increase as a lump sum for non-union employees.

And as you may recall from the board meeting last week, what was approved was a change to the budget policies or the finance policy speaking to budget was that there is a 1.75% increase to the wage table, kind of speaking to a recommendation coming out of the compensation study last year.

And individual employees can get between 1.75% and 4%, but a department will have a budget amount, making up a number, let's call it $60,000.

They can't exceed that lump sum amount.

So they can give, you know, if you have a star performer who just basically walks on water, that person might get 4%.

If you have someone who's not quite doing that, it can be somewhere in that range.

So it allows the department to really recognize those who are exceptional, but they have to stay within that budget.

Um, for employees who've been with the organization for less than six months, the most they can get is 1.75% based upon our HR policies.

And we also have included collective bargaining unit schedules.

So, you know, labor uh excuse me, union wage increases are factored in.

Uh our 26 benefits, I'll just say as quickly, IMRF went down slightly.

Uh the uh sheriff law enforcement pension went down slightly as well, which is great.

At the same time, we had health insurance go up across our HMO and PPO plans, about 7.4%.

So while it's great that we saw our IMRF and SLEP contributions go down, it helped to offset that, but we still had to eat, figure out a way to work into the budget, the health insurance increase.

Where does our money come from?

I think we've seen these graphs before.

I think it's actually was in the county administrator's presentation FA a few weeks back.

Uh property taxes, a little under about 28%.

Other taxes are 23%, and you can see the others on the pie chart.

Intergovernmental revenue is 14%.

That's you know what we get for state grants and federal grants and such, largely, or from other communities, like in a case of planning where they may have some revenue coming in, charges for services that we provide, 13%, transfers are 10%, miscellaneous, that's everything else.

And then there's a small amount there for licenses and permits and fines and forfeitures.

So, but you can see the where the majority of it comes from, and it's up about 3.5, almost 3.6% from the FY25 adopted budget.

Similarly, where does it go?

Uh, we've got a 2.2% increase, and as we've all known, personnel and benefits.

So that's going to be all of our labor costs, they constitute about 42% of our budget.

The next biggest piece are services and contracts, capitals right after that at 17%, debt services, 14%, and commodities is actually fairly small.

That's only about 2%.

So just to give you a sense categorically of where our uh the county's money goes.

And so in the budget book, something I want to point out here is you see all of these lines, and hopefully this is fairly legible to you.

If it's not, I apologize.

We talked uh earlier about personnel costs being or in commodities costs, that's the account class.

So, as in this case, you see regular salaries and wages, you see overtime and special pay, all those accounts at the top.

They all roll up into the personnel line item, and that is the number, that's the level at which uh you all are approving the budget.

We see on the far right, there are two columns.

There's the department request uh, and then there's the county administrator budget.

The department request budget for the most part presents what the department initially requested as part of their budget submission.

It may include some changes that when the department met with the county administrator.

Hey, I think you could do this with office supplies.

I think you could do this with trips and training.

Those tweaks are made.

So it's not going to be exactly what they put in, but it represents what departments are comfortable with having represented as their original budget submission.

And then the far right column, county administrator budget actually represents the adjustments that were made to be that are reflected in the book that sits before you now.

So you can see the difference between what they asked for and what um what was eventually decided upon as a recommendation.

So just wanted to point that out to you.

And then uh there'll be conversation about this later today.

The alternate budgeting scenario.

If you choose to take some portion or all of the fully allowable property tax growth, uh that's an additional 2.66 million recommendations that the county administrator has included are seven new additional, or excuse me, seven additional new program requests.

And those are also listed in the new program request section in the back.

I don't remember the page, I apologize.

And then some money for additional contingency.

So having said all that, I hope I didn't go too fast.

If there are any questions, let me know.

But I believe I'm at the end.

Many questions.

And thank you.

I'm always every year.

I mean, you take such complicated things and make it so that everyone can understand.

For I think all of us here and for the members of the public.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

Um, and for our agenda for public works, I'm going to take all the public four public works items together in one motion, and we'll have a discussion on all four.

So, item 8.1 is a joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for public works.

Item 8.26 budget for public works capital.

Item 8.

Is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the special service area 13 tax exempt 2007A.

And item 8.4 P4 is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for special service area 16 Lake Michigan water.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by Wasick, second by Hunter.

Committee by member Bolittic, second by member Guevant.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Nick Principali.

I'm one of the budget analysts.

I'll just be providing brief introductions for each department's budget as they as they come up.

So with the public works budget, it you can find that on page 323.

The public works department is projecting a 4% increase in revenue for the upcoming fiscal year, which is just over 2.1 million.

This increase is driven by an increase in revenue from user charges and interest income.

Expenses, which are also expected to increase, reflect wage increases for both union and non-union employees, as well as rising operational costs, including chemical supplies, sign and safety supplies, software and online services, and biosolids management services.

The expense budget also reflects increased maintenance and repair costs for the for the department's lift stations, pumping stations, and related equipment.

One thing I'd also like to note is that this is the first year that there's a budgeted transfer from the public works operational fund into the public works capital fund.

Previously, that transfer has been performed as a separate county board action during the fiscal year.

And that transfer accounts for a 9.29 million dollar increase in the expenses in the public works operational fund.

Um, and you can see that on the revenue side going into the capital fund.

The department did not have any new program requests, and with that, I will hand it over to Austin.

Good morning, committee members.

Um Austin McFarland, uh public works director.

Uh with me this morning is Mike or Thornton, the uh finance uh manager.

Um I just want to thank uh Nick and Mike and the finance team for preparing this budget.

They do a fantastic job working with our department each year, and so I'm just grateful that we have them on our team.

Uh department uh continues to make significant strides and great improvement.

We have maintained our regulatory compliance both with drinking water and wastewater.

We continue to improve our infrastructure to ensure that our customers continue to receive um continued service.

We have maintained our safety program.

We've uh moved ahead and improved our SCADA and GIS functions so that staff in the field can have access, remote access to our facilities.

We are on track with our ARPA projects, and most all of those should be completed by mid-26.

We continue to work with all of our partners and municipalities to ensure that agreements are in place and moving forward.

We continue to look at new technology to make us smarter, better, and to create efficiency where possible.

And then we continue to be creative and strategic and look in tackling the unfunded mandates that we encounter on a regular basis.

The budget before you present, therefore, our plan as a department to continue to do this good work.

And so I'll pause there and take any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

And it's always so good to see.

I know the strides that we've made you've made in the last couple of years on making our water and sewer network more resilient.

These investments, these capital investments, and um the day-to-day investments from between water storage and uh cleaning the straw uh all of our sewage water and things is been really impressive.

So it's good to see this all budgeted in here.

Is there any questions?

Member Wasick.

What exactly you're doing?

So that is something that is at our east main plant.

There's some erosion there on uh against the property from that creek.

And so we're we'll be working with a consultant to take a look at that to see what sort of remediation can be done to improve not only the property, but um any adjustment that can be made to stabilize the grounds there by the creek.

So is erosion from the outflow?

Is that it's not an outflow, no, it's just from the creek itself eroding all the property line there, and and the the fence line is just damaged and caving in.

I think east main facility, the pump station, I believe it's right off of um 134.

Thank you.

Any other questions from EWT?

All right, all yours.

I have a question.

So underneath the goals, uh, Director McFarland, talk about launching the smart meter program.

It's not a new technology, it's been around for quite a while in some utilities.

We've never done this here before.

How many customers are we seeking to transition to smart meters?

Can you just sort of talk about what that looks like in terms of investment and does it provide us any headcount savings long term?

So, what a smart meet is the whole goal of the smart meter is to look at ways that we can improve currently with our meters, we're able to trap about 95, 90 percent 95% of our customer reading without having staff to go out and do actual reading.

The smart meters will be a little more improvement on that, where we can be able to detect um leaks, we'll be able to do automatic turnoffs and and some more functionality that will enable us to have those at our fingertips.

The plan going forward is to work with the consultants that do make these uh the vendors that make these products and do a pilot test within our system.

We want to make sure that it works before we do actual broad testing on our customers.

So we've had some strategic points in our system that we have we're planning to have these meters installed and allow ourselves the time to investigate it properly before we roll it out.

So the the reason for my question about the head count savings is because in theory, as it was described to me a long time ago, is that the the data from the smart meters is transmitted electronically instead of having to someone get out of the vehicle and go and read it.

See where you're going.

So we did that well, about maybe 10 years ago.

We we did have a meters department.

So that that we've already done.

Yes, so we've we have eliminated that meters department from the meters, right?

Thanks for the explanation.

It's just making them smarter.

Smarter.

Love that.

Other questions from finance committee members.

Just checking on and make sure we don't have any hands up.

No hands.

All right.

All right, all in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Finance.

All in paper say aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot.

All right, on to division of transportation.

I'm going to take those all together in one motion.

Um, but we can discuss any of them.

Uh, item 8.5 is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the division of transportation.

Item 8.p6 is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the county bridge tax.

Item 8.7 is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for matching tax.

Item 8.8 is joint committee action, approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the county motor fuel tax.

Item 8.9 is joint committee action, approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the county option motor fuel tax.

And item 8.10 is joint committee action approving the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget for the RTA quarter percent sales tax for transportation and public safety.

Can I get a motion and a second motion by Roberts?

Second by Kasbin.

And it's committee motion by Hewitt, second by the World City.

All right.

The DOT budget can be found on page 148.

For FY 2026, the division of transportation has maintained a largely status quo budget for the special revenue funds managed by the department.

The motor fuel tax county option uh features an increase in projected interest income while the motor fuel tax uh county option fund includes a decrease in intergovernmental revenue.

All the special revenue funds managed by DO2 DOT, including the RTA quarter percent sales tax continue to support the county's transportation improvement plan while bridge and matching taxes fund essential infrastructure maintenance.

With that, I will hand it over to Shane.

Good morning, uh committee members.

Shane Schneider, DOT director and county engineer.

I have with me uh Mary Crane, DOT's director of finance and administration.

Um thank you for the time this morning to hear about our annual budget, and thank you to the budget team for assisting us again this year.

As Nick mentioned, we are presenting a status quo budget for 2026.

The annual budget provides the funding necessary to operate and maintain a safe and efficient transportation system across the 300 miles of county highways and 65 miles of bike path.

DOT's operating funds are largely from the county highway tax or fund 214, which is agenda item 8P5.

Uh we also pay for vehicle fuel and maintenance costs for all county departments from fund 214 and then seek reimbursement from each of the user departments throughout the year.

Umt's capital funds, which are uh items eight P6 through eight P10 on the agenda are tied to projects in the five-year transportation improvement program, which was adopted by the county board earlier this year.

I believe uh you should all have a handout of the projects for each of these fund sources.

Revenues are largely expected to stay flat across our capital accounts next year.

Uh, we currently have 71 million dollars in federal funding program for various projects in the five-year transportation improvement program, and we're not aware of any impacts to those funds at this time.

Um DOT has no new program requests for fiscal year 26, and our head count will remain the same.

One of our primary objectives for next year will be to develop uh the update to our long-range transportation uh plan envision 2050.

And with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

I have to say I especially enjoy this part of your uh budget where it shows that I think it's important to point out that we have 75 miles more miles of bike paths over since 2022.

And I really I want to thank you and your staff and our board for really focusing on these non-motorized improvements and seeing it in um you know, seeing the difference that it is making and continues to make for the safety um and really well-being of our residents.

And also, you know, that having that county option motor fuel tax, I know we're discussing that too, really gives us a lot more flexibility, and it's important for this you know, these investments in our roads.

Um, and just uh just remind everybody to fill out the survey for envision 2050 to make sure that we are all putting our uh thoughts into the long range plan.

All right, is there any questions on yes, Vice Chairman?

Uh thank you.

And my question is on um page 260 269 with the RTA quarter percent sales tax, which um that is possibly what our our largest source of funds 46 million.

Yeah.

Um, I was just curious in the fund purpose.

Um kind of go part way down.

It's a little history and says the guideline for the purpose, the guideline for the transportation use over the short term is the Lake County Board endorsed plan for the blah blah blah.

Um, I was just wondering about the the use, the use of the phrase use over the short term and why it says use over the short term.

We've been using it this way for almost 20 years.

It sort of implies that something else is in mind.

I just wondered where that came from.

Um, from DOT's perspective, we haven't made any changes to that text.

So I think it's just carrying over year to year.

I don't know if the budget team has anything to add.

No, I would agree.

I think that's exactly it.

So that's language we can update for the final book, it's gonna be for sure.

All right.

It just, you know, if if we have a commitment for that, short short term to me seems like a few a few years and and we with the our five-year plan, and they go out and we've got the 2040, the 2050.

You know, we're we're creating long-term plans.

So I'm I'm just concerned about the use.

Maybe that's a conversation for later.

Um at a PWT or something like that.

But um, I'm concerned about the use of that, the short-term use.

So the one sentence, the guideline for the transportation use over the short term is the penny board endorsed plan.

So is this plan?

Do we still use this plan or is this the original plan when they originally did the it was the original plan from I think it was 2008 or 2009?

It's largely been fully implemented.

So maybe we just take that out because that's been implemented and then leave the rest of the language, which shows the uses.

Well, because is this binding this language?

I guess this is would this language the intro be binding for the fund purpose?

No, this is language that obviously is just there for informational and educational purposes.

So it's our bad for not working with the department to make sure that it was accurate.

So we can change it so that it better reflects what the department wishes the fund purpose to be.

Uh and if I may, yeah, yeah.

And that was uh at that time, because there are options for how that money is used.

That was a board decision.

And so if our if this board is still committed to the use of the quarter percent um RTA sales tax, I think it would be better to not have the use, not have that phrase use over the short term.

Yep, okay.

But we will still keep the rest, maybe use for transportation, paratransit, and public safety purposes.

Because I think that's in the description of the tax fund.

All right.

Thank you for my line.

Any other questions?

I have a question.

So on the last topic that member main just raised, if you could just clarify, Mr.

Sutton, that that decision on how those funds are used.

Where does that lie?

Is that uh is that board finance policy?

Is it an ordinance?

Like, can we just clarify where that is?

Do you want to stick to it, Shane, or do you want me to um I I mean, my recollection is it's um it's within an ordinance that the county board passed at the time that the the uh RTA Sales Tax Act uh was passed by the general assembly, then the county board took action to state how they wanted to use those funds by ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

Questions from FNA members, member Bulitzing.

That's all um really great.

I had a question about the recycled materials used in new pavements.

Is that those percentages?

Is there a ceiling on that based on like available materials?

Is it 30 percent?

Yeah, it's kind of market-driven somewhat.

Um, there are specifications within the design of the pavement material.

Um if you have too much recycled content, then you have to heat it up to a temperature that actually can deteriorate the integrity of the of the pavement.

So there is kind of a max end, but a lot of it is market-driven.

How much can the contractor get in a given year recycle it and then put it into the new pavement?

So we're kind of at the sweet spot right now, right below 30%.

That's still a significant amount of pavement that's being recycled.

Yeah, that's that was great to see.

I was just curious.

Um, so thank you.

That makes sense.

Um, and then one more question.

I know this might seem like a policy thing, but I'm thinking about it truly as uh in terms of what we invest in um bike lanes and bike friendly shoulders.

The term bike friendly shoulders, I know we've talked about it.

I think your committee has talked about it and we've talked about it.

Is that still an industry term that you have to use?

And does it need to be used to obtain certain grants or funds?

Or can we be more what I would call accurate and like even just calling it a wider shoulder or a 10-foot shoulder, whatever it is?

Yeah, there's no uh requirement for for funding purposes to call it that.

We I think we originally started doing that just to let people know that there's another option out there, and it's mainly you know, for your hardcore bike enthusiasts that want to be on the on the pavement anyways.

So we're giving them a spacer, uh a safer space to ride.

But we have been referring to it more recently as just a wide, wider paved shoulder.

Okay.

You know, when you look at it compared to like a state route where it basically drops off at the white edge line to gravel, you know, we're giving them four or five additional feet to use.

Yeah, and it's valuable.

Don't get me wrong.

I I agree.

I just bike friendly, maybe not so much.

At least for a family.

And that's who we see using it.

It's usually the packs of uh bike riders on the weekends.

Well, I'm sorry.

Oh, packs.

Oh, Peloton, okay.

Spandex riders, people.

They like that.

Yeah, not arguing on that.

Yeah.

Oh, uh, I was gonna say the um bike maps often color code routes differently.

And so those bike friendly ones, um, that the they will be co color coded differently, not necessarily that.

And I believe sorry, I didn't know if I could respond.

I I was just I'll say my other point that I'll be and I was gonna I was gonna say I believe it was a resolution, not an ordinance, but I could be wrong on the previous on the previous stuff about the use and use of the document.

I'm 85% sure.

We will find out.

Did you have another comment?

Okay.

And bike paths uh in terms of the numbers, but I see that the amount of material that's reused or amount of recycled material used in new asphalt is is pretty flat.

Is there any way we could increase that?

Um it's just how do we move the needle on that?

I know it's more of a policy question, but I couldn't help but notice that.

So is that the number that's right around 28, 29?

Yeah, it's about 30 percent if you round up.

Yep.

So um member Belitzik asked uh a similar question.

So we're kind of at the point where that's about maxed out right now, just because of how much recycled content you can put into the material and still retain its integrity, and then the other part of that is just how much material is available in the marketplace uh in a given year that a contractor can recycle, but 30% is is about as high as we we can get.

Okay.

Yep.

All right.

Any other questions?

Okay, you good?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Finance, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motions are approved.

All right, maybe the county administrators report.

All right, there's no executive session.

Any members' remarks from PWT?

All right.

Well, then I declare our committee adjourned, and our next meeting is October 29th, 2025.

Thank you all this morning.

Thank you.