95th ANNUAL
CONFERENCE
MONTANA
ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES
Missoula, Montana
MONDAY,
SEPTEMBER 27
GENERAL SESSION
Carol Brooker, MACo President, Sanders County
The
95TH annual Conference of the Montana Association of Counties opened
at 9:00 am. President Brooker led the
delegates in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Kristie Ostlund, Billings, sang the National Anthem. President Brooker introduced the head table:
Bill Kennedy, First Vice
President, Yellowstone County
Doug Kaercher, Second Vice
President, Hill County
Bill Nyby, Fiscal Officer
(Finance Man), Sheridan County
Jean Curtiss, Urban
County Representative, Missoula County
John Prinkki,
Parliamentarian, Carbon County
Rev.
Tom Krantz, Church of the Nazarene, conducted the Invocation.
“May we see in every
calamity an opportunity and not give way to the pessimist that sees in every
opportunity a calamity. When we are
wrong, make us willing to change. When
we are right, make us easy to live with.
Help us to show others what America is really about—an America that
wants fair play, honest feelings, straight talk, real freedom and faith in
God. Make us to see that this cannot be
done as long as we are content to be coupon clippers on the original investment
made by our forefathers. May we have
love for our fellowmen and something to deposit on which young people of
tomorrow can draw interest. Help us
when we want to do the right thing but know not what it is. Help us most when we know perfectly well
what we ought to do and do not want to do it.
Teach us that liberty is not only to be loved, but also to be
lived. Make us see that our liberty is
not the right to do as we please but the opportunity to please, to do what is
right. Teach us to listen to the
prompting of God’s spirit and thus save us from floundering in indecision that
wastes time, subtracts from our peace, belies our efficiency and multiplies our
troubles.”
Mike Kadas, Mayor of Missoula, welcomed the delegates and encouraged the Montana League of Cities and Towns and MACo to work together to develop and protect the flexibility to address local problems in local ways. Commissioner Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County, responded with gratitude for the hospitality.
William Marcus, Director of
the Broadcast Department, U of M, presented an historic video about long-time
Montanans and described the work done by public broadcasting in Montana.
Special Slide Show and Music
Presentation
Doug Kaercher, Hill County
We had a large delegation going to NACo this year in
Maricopa County, Arizona. This slide
show is to show what we do at NACo Conferences. And rather than just a slide show, I’m going to do “Name that
Tune” with each slide. The tunes are
all on Beatles albums. I actually have
a prize for each one of the slides.”
(Slide show, music, prizes and laughter ensued.)
ROLL CALL
Bill Nyby, MACo Fiscal
Officer, Sheridan County
After the call of the roll, Nyby announced quorum present
to conduct business.
MEMORIAL RESOLUTION
Bill Carey, Host, Missoula County
The seconded motion to adopt the Memorial Resolution passed by
unanimous consent.
RESOLUTION IN MEMORIAM
WHEREAS,
the members of the Montana Association of Counties, with great sorrow and a
deep sense of loss, wish to remember and honor those members who have been
taken by death since the last annual convention of our Association; and
WHEREAS,
each of these county commissioners has rendered innumerable public services to
his or her respective county, to the State of Montana, and to the people thereof;
and
WHEREAS,
the absence of these persons is keenly felt as a great personal loss to their
families, friends and colleagues,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED by the Montana Association of Counties in convention duly assembled in
Missoula, Montana, this 27th day of September 2004, that the Association does
hereby pay tribute to the memory of Commissioners
Jerry Allen, Ravalli County
Kathleen Alley, Dawson
County
Eugene Iverson, Richland
County
Earl Knight, Powell County
April Milroy, Garfield
County
Alvin Torske, Big Horn
County
Bob Kester, Hill County
and on behalf of
its members and the citizens of the State of Montana, does hereby express
gratitude for their achievements and contributions to the public good of
their counties and to Montana.
PRESENTATION OF RESOLUTIONS
Mike Murray, Chair, Lewis
and Clark County
“If your county wishes to have a resolution segregated
so it may be discussed, rather than slam-dunk approved, I need you to yell out
today or on Wednesday.
The first resolutions are “high” priority. A high priority resolution means that it
affects every county in the State of Montana.”
The high priorities are:
2003-4 County Attorney Pay Increase
2004-2 Increased water levels at Fort Peck Lake
2004-6 Workforce Funding Governance
2004-7 Soft Drink Tax
2004-8 Historic Road right of way Policy
2004-9 Legal Notice Advertising
2004-11 Clarifying Fences attached to Bridges
2004-12 Support Clawback Provisions in Tax Law
2004-13 Support MEDA Legislative Proposals
2004-14 Local Option Fuel Tax
2004-16 Rural Improvement District Notice
2004-24 MDOT to maintain all State secondary roads
2004-27 De-listing Gray Wolf
2004-28 Uniform Zoning
2004-29 Repeal credit for incarceration
2004-30 County Official Bonding
2004-31 Water Rights Adjudication Funding
2004-32 Victim Witness Surcharge
2004-33 Election Administrator Compensation
2004-34 Indirect Cost Allocations
The medium priorities are:
2003-2 Exemption to Nepotism Rules
2004-1 Motor Home County Processing Fee
2004-4 Optional voting on Road Levies
2004-5 Montana Land Information Act
2004-10 Airport Land Use Act
The low priorities are:
2004-17 Oppose Changes in Bentonite Mine RoyaltyTaxes
2004-18 Civil Attorney Legislation
2004-19 Household Fee for Conservation Districts
2004-20 Remove Opt-out Provision for Park Districts
2004-21 Amend Zoning Law for Mineral Extraction
2004-23 Household Fee for Parks and Recreation
2004-26 Subdivision Regulations—Parklands
“Do not pass” recommendations:
2003-1 Utility Rate Crisis
2003-3 State Lands Rights of Way
2004-3 Mosquito Control District Creation
2004-22 Allow Summary Reading of County Ordinances
2004-25 Amend Government Liability for Damages in Tort Claims
2004-15A Equitable PILT Distribution
(2004-15A replaces 2004-15. 2004-15 no longer exists.)
MACo Resolutions for re-affirmation
High priority:
2002-19 Communities as Focal Point for Mental Health Services
2002-24 Involuntary Commitment Expenses Paid by the State
2002-25 Mental Health Pre-Commitment Costs
2002-35 State Public Defender System
2000-25 Detention Costs for Department of Corrections Inmates
Low priority
2002-15 Exempt Levies Pledged Against Indebtedness
“Do not
pass” recommendation
2002-1 Wireless Communication Standardized Regulations
2002-20 Retain Control of Substance Abuse Funds
Delegates requested the following resolutions be segregated
for discussion:
High Priority
2003-4 County Attorney Pay
2004-7 Soft Drink Tax
2004-13 Support MEDA Legislative Proposals
2004-16 Rural Improvement District Notice
2004-24 MDOT to Maintain Secondary Roads
2004-31 Water Rights Adjudication Funding
2004-33 Election Administrator Compensation
Medium priority
2004-1 Motor Home County Processing Fee
2004-4 Optional Voting on Road Levies
2004-6 Montana Land Information Act
2004-21 Amend Zoning Law for Mineral Extraction
Do-not-pass recommendation
2003-3 State Lands Rights of Way
2004-3 Mosquito Control District Creation
2004-15A Equitable PILT Distribution
Re-affirmation, “do not
pass” recommendation
2002-21 Retain Control of Substance Abuse Funds
MACo
By Law Proposed Amendments
By Law change #1, which is to add past presidents to the MACo Board of Directors
By Law change #2 is the dues increase
By Law change #3 is one county moves out of District 5 to District 4—Chouteau County.
Carol Kienenberger, Phillips
County
Do we treat these changes the same as we do
resolutions—so if we want to discuss one separately we would ask to segregate
it?
Murray: No, each one will be discussed and voted on separately.
FISCAL REPORT and FY ’06 DUES PROPOSAL
Bill Nyby, MACo Fiscal
Officer, Sheridan County
FISCAL REPORT
The Fiscal Year 04 Audit was
presented at the Board of Directors meeting and the Board approved. All county dues revenue has been received
for FY 05 and the FY 05 budget is running along smoothly at the present time.
DUES PROPOSAL
On the back page of the dues
proposal is the PILT Assessment Proposal for FY 06. This proposal has been well presented at all the District
meetings.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone
County
In the last legislative
session, Senate Bill 370 (Title 7 Chapter 32 Part 22, Section 3) on prisoner
medical costs in your county jails was passed.
If you send an inmate from your county jail to the hospital, they will
bill you 70% or the Medicaid cost. Some
counties have said that they pay 100%.
That’s up to you, but you do have an opportunity to have a discount on
your bill. We have used this bill and
have saved us thousands of dollars in Yellowstone County.
Also in the new law, the hospital has to look for the
first provider, if they have other insurance.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S ANNUAL REPORT
Gordon Morris
This past year has been a very good year for the Montana
Association of Counties, particularly
because it has been such a pleasure to work with the Board of Directors and
with our MACo President Carol Brooker.
I’ve been acting as Executive Director since February of
1984. Every once in a while, I look
back and I gain a lot of confidence that MACo--over the course of that 20 years
with Board members and the presidents you’ve chosen--has moved forward in a
very sound, positive way.
When I was chosen as the Executive Director, we had 51
member counties, with only one urban county--Missoula. The others had formed their own coalition of
urban counties. It was a very divisive
era. It took approximately four years
before the urban counties came back into the Association. I don’t see that divisiveness today. I think we are much stronger as a
consequence of that.
Our accomplishments are many. Most of them can be attributed to the membership, the Board and
the leadership. In 1927, MACo had
resolutions to support state assumption of welfare. In 1947, MACo was speaking of state assumption of district
courts. Here we are—80 years later
almost--and we have state assumption of district courts and we have state
assumption of welfare. We struggled in
the early ‘80’s with property/casualty liability insurance. We now have a very viable self-insurance program. If you compare it with other state
association involvement, ours stands heads above. We continue to grow in membership in the property/casualty
liability program and we have a very viable, strong workers’ compensation
program. I think those are all assets
to the Association, assets that were imagined and dreamed of by county
commissioners.
About two weeks ago I spoke to the Local Government /
Education Interim Committee. They wanted a report on MACo’s legislative effort
for the coming session. I told them
that I was reporting based upon actions not yet taken by the Association,
because we would be going into our 95th annual convention in
Missoula. Somebody in the Committee
said, “Well, have you been there all 95 years?” I said, “No, but there are times that it feels like it.”
With that in mind, I want to advise the membership that I
have given the Board of Directors a letter dated August 16th
indicating that it is my intention to stay with the Association through June
2006. That allows the Board of
Directors time to make decisions as a consequence of that letter. I am assuming that the Board would advertise
the position in July, 2005, with the hope of filling the position by January
2006. I intend to seek to stay on until
the end of June, during the six-month transition period.
It’s a bit like golf.
In golf, you make the turn and you head for the home holes. I characterize that in terms of where I
am. I’ve made the turn and I’m headed
for the 18th hole.
I’m looking forward to the 2005 legislative session, this
being the 21st session I’ve been involved in (not to ignore all the
special sessions) and this being my last.
It’s been a tremendous pleasure and it’s going to be sort
of heart wrenching to step away from the position that I’ve held for 21
years. I thank everybody for that.
I do think that the Association today is stronger than
it’s ever been. We have more
involvement; we have more participation; we have good leadership. Everything about the Association is better
today that it was in 1984. You can all
be proud of the Association.
I’m going to be very involved over the course of the next
15 to 20 months. We have some very
ambitious plans. In brief, I’m working
on behalf of both the Insurance Trusts concerning bringing claims
administration in-house. My early
conclusion is that it makes sense from a financial perspective. Working with the Trustees, I’ll be putting
together a recommendation to present in November. They will make the decision.
We can’t accommodate this without some major
changes in our building. So the
Trustees might consider providing a building for the insurance program
administration and for our legal defense team.
That would occur in January 2006.
I would like to stay on for the transition of
a new executive director and for transitioning claims administration. This all depends on the decisions of the
Trustees. This doesn’t involve the MACo
Board of Directors. That is solely a
trustee action on behalf of their clients--you and your counties.
This has been a tremendous pleasure. It’s going to continue to be a pleasure—I’m
not leaving today. However, you all
need to be aware of all of the things that have to happen.
There are probably three things in
everybody’s life that you can take pleasure in. First and foremost is family.
My wife is in the audience. I
want you to know that my family is exceptional. Any time you have a family and children that grow up and make you
proud, what more can anybody really ask?
Second to that would be a career. And what a career it’s been! I’ve said many, many times over the last several
years that this is the best job in Montana--the best and most rewarding
job. You can’t ask for anything more
than a job you really enjoy.
So I have family and job and--my health is
great. I am actually looking forward to
that so-called 19th hole and going on to some other endeavors. My wife and I have laid out a plan. We are going to be involved in Elderhostel,
try to do a little more writing, even approach a couple of the Montana
university systems to teach public administration, political science, American
history, Russian history, who knows.
I look forward to the next 15 to 18 months
serving at your pleasure.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE REPORT
Carol Brooker, President
The Executive Committee
nominations are:
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County, for President
Doug Kaercher, Hill County, for
First Vice President
John Prinkki, Carbon County, and
Frank Nelson, Madison County, for Second Vice President
Carol Brooker for Past President.
SECOND
VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATES
John
Prinkki, Carbon County
“Thank you for the nomination for
MACo Second VP. It would be a real
honor and a privilege to serve as MACo leadership and guide the
Association. You would think it would
be easy for me to come up here and talk to you and ask you for that. I’ve been a commissioner for almost 16 years
and I know a lot of you very well. In
some ways it is all the more difficult.
When I look out in the audience and I see all of you, I think any one of
you could serve in this position, including the new commissioners like Bill
Leach. I hope that you would step
forward some day and take a leadership position. That is why it is hard for me to ask you, as peers, to vote for
me as your leader.
I sent out a letter about a month
ago to explain to you I am. First of
all, my first commitment is to my family; my next commitment is to Carbon
County. Many of you know I’m also
involved with Beartooth Electric and Southern Montana Electric Generation and
Transmission Company. Those two
commitments will take a fair amount of time and frankly, they are a lot of fun
right now. We are going to build a $470
Million coal fire generation plant in Great Falls that will serve about 150,000
Montanans with low-cost power. Right
now, we are able to provide the City of Great Falls with power for $.05 a
kilowatt less than they are paying Northwestern Energy. There is opportunity for counties to be able
to aggregate a load and be able to buy power as well. I will work, whether I’m second VP or not, to accomplish
that.
I am going to be busy, but I think I
can handle it. It’s going to be a
matter of scheduling and delegating authority; I need to make sure that you
understand that. Either way, I’m
looking forward to the ride and whether you choose me or Frank, MACo will be
very well served.
Frank
Nelson, Madison County
This gives me a chance to publicly
thank the people who are supporting me.
I really appreciate this. This
is a high point in my life. It also
gives me a chance to convince you who are not supporting me that you
should.
I believe in MACo. We are a very strong organization. We advocate what is right for the State of
Montana. I believe that strongly.
I’ve been a commissioner for about
5½ years. Over the past several years,
I have noticed the progress in MACo. We
are learning how to deal with people; we are learning how to deal with the
legislature; we are learning how to deal with the Federal Government. I feel very strongly that we are a very
positive influence in the State of Montana and at the national level. We are also dealing with federal agencies
in Montana and influencing them in a positive manner.
My goal as second vice president
will be to continue to increase that influence and to continue our learning to
do things right for the people and the State of Montana.
I think and I hope that I would be a
good second vice president and I believe John would also be a good second vice
president. Over the past three or four
months I’ve gotten to know John. I
believe either one of us will do a good job.
CONFERENCES FOR 2005 and 2006
Carol Brooker, President
The 2005 Conference is in Yellowstone County.
Two counties have bid for the 2006
Conference—Gallatin County and Cascade County.
BY LAW AMENDMENTS
Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County
Proposed Amendment #1--Past Presidents on Executive Board
The
first proposed amendment in Article IV, Board of Directors, Members:
“c) Every past president of the Association may
continue as a member of the Board of Directors as long as such past president
remains an incumbent county commissioner.”
The estimated cost to the
Association for this change 41,500 to $2,000 per year.
Carol Kienenberger, Phillips County
Phillips County has discussed all the resolutions and we discussed the changes in By Laws. For this change we are standing in opposition. It’s hard to do that when all the past presidents are your friends, but we feel that the board makeup initially was set up with a pretty good balance—geographically especially. This would be adding approximately an unknown number of at-large directors. I’ve heard people speaking about the valuable resource that our past presidents are. They can still contribute to MACo through our committees. I don’t think you need to sit on the Board of Directors to contribute to MACo.
I understand this is patterned after NACo’s Board of Directors which is really quite
large. We feel that the makeup of our
Board has been designed to be a balanced Board and we feel that this would
shift the balance. Past presidents can
use their knowledge and support in other ways.
Joan Stahl, Rosebud County
I value the input past presidents have and I think I
have used them as a resource myself several times. I don’t think we are kicking them out. I think the balance of Board is correct now.
Bill Nyby, Fiscal Officer, Sheridan County
I want to clarify a couple of things with this
amendment. If it does pass, they do
have voting rights. The other is, with
the word “may”, it’s their decision as the past president whether they want to
continue on the Board or not. They
would have that option.
Proposed Amendment #2—Dues Increased by Board
This proposed change affects the duties of the
Board:
“Duties and Responsibilities: … as
authorized by the members in conference in 2004, the Board may increase the
dues schedule in an amount up to the annual COLA in any one year. Any increase above the annual COLA must be
approved by the membership at the annual conference.”
Todd Devlin, Prairie County
From a county standpoint, when we are looking at
COLA, we are looking at salaries. Are
you looking at the entire budget? Would
you multiply your entire budget or would you just be talking salaries?
Nyby
We are talking about increasing the dues by that
percentage is all we are talking about—not the budget, though that is tied in
with it. It’s a mechanism that we
wanted to put in there to increase the dues.
HOW TO INFLUENCE CONGRESS WITHOUT LEAVING HOME
Jeff Arnold, NACo Deputy Legislative Director, Washington DC
The
slides from the power point presentation are available for viewing at www.naco.org
Members Only (on NACo Home Page, upper right side)
Advocacy / Media
Relations Tools (on Members Only Page,
right side)
Advocacy
Tools (lower left list)
“How
to Influence Congress Without Leaving Home”
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 28
MACo COMMITTEE MEETINGS
Agriculture Committee
Kathy Bessette, Hill County, Chair
Our Committee encourages all counties to establish a
drought committee. We also feel that
the weather stations are a valuable tool.
If you have questions about the weather stations, Ed Diemert, Tom Gordon
and I can help you. I will give you
other names of people to contact. We
can use these to affect federal policy.
Several different people are working with our congressional delegation
to find funding to help counties do this.
Hill County has five set up and we have a representative who is on the
committee, working to find a provider to carry the data.
We went through the resolutions that
were assigned to us. We will support
2004-4, road levy election; 2004-11, the Madison County
fences-attached-to-bridges resolution; and 2004-31. We dislike the wording in 31A, so we support the existing 2004-31,
dealing with water.
We had a report from Dave Shultz. He said the draft weed management plan
should be out in December. He plans to
get that copy to the Ag. Committee and to the Public Lands Committee, so that
we can participate. Jim Sparks gave his
input regarding noxious weeds.
We would also like to deal with the high cost of
energy regarding ag production, fertilizers, fuel, alternative sources of
energy, etc. We would like to have a
workshop to address growth policies and ag. concerns. We would like to meet jointly with the Public Lands Committee,
the stockgrowers and the graingrowers to see what they have in store for this
upcoming legislative session, so we can work together or address problems
before they grow.
Economic Development Committee
Anita
Varone, Lewis and Clark County, Chair
We thought it was important for us
to explain what we’ve been doing over the last 20 months, and talk about our
vision, our mission and what role county commissioners play in economic
development. So, we will be meeting
with the Montana Economic Development Association at the University of
Montana. This is a continuation of a
two-year relationship we’ve established with MEDA, Montana Ambassadors and
M-RED (Montanans for Responsible Energy
Development). So, we want you to be
there. A bus will take us over there
and we will be back in time to go to any of the meetings later afternoon. We will be sampling made-in-Montana foods.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE
Bill
Kennedy, Yellowstone County, Chair
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Mary Sexton, Toole County, Chair
Of our three main items, first was the
Montana Land Information Act and funding for GIS activities, Cadastral, and
other. The state, as well as counties,
is considering $1 fee on all documents that are recorded in the clerk and recorders
office. This $1 fee would be split 25%
to counties and 75% to the state. We
did discuss how that split could be changed.
We do benefit from the state doing the GIS work for us, if we don’t have
GIS folks on staff. Jim Larson,
Stillwater County GIS coordinator, can tell you about this bill and what
benefit GIS is to you. Jeff Brandt and
Stu Kirkpatrick, who deal with GIS information for the State are here. Please talk to them. Our IT Committee sponsored the resolution
that there be a funding source for this, to help economic development, real
estate transactions or any number of activities. It’s very critical that GIS be available.
We also had an update from
mylocalgov for electronic financial transactions. At this point, only one county has implemented this—Lewis and
Clark County. Dave Hughes, from Lewis
and Clark County, is here. I know that
some of you are looking at “Official Payments” and other counties are
interested in mylocalgov. So far the
implementation has been slower than we expected.
We spent a good deal of time
discussing the reorganization of the MACo IT Committee and joining with MACITA,
the county information technology technical people. We decided that the most efficient structure is to have these two
groups merge into the MACo IT Committee.
It would be a MACo Committee, which would have commissioners and IT
people. We already have one clerk and
recorder on the Committee and we suggest that there be up to three people who
represent clerk and recorders and treasurers.
We also suggest there be a person who uses GIS with roads, law
enforcement and DES. So we would expand
the committee as far as representation and interests. The focus of the committee would not only be policy, but also
looking at education issues in IT, reviewing proposals such as the mylocalgov
proposal, and encouraging collaboration with the State, private industry, and
local co-ops.
JUSTICE AND PUBLIC SAFETY
COMMITTEE
Roddy Rost, Fallon County, Chair
The Justice and Public Safety Committee kept discussion to the resolutions. Resolution 2003-4, County Attorney Pay Issue, we support with an amendment, “Whereas the County Attorney Association will work with the Montana Association of Counties and the Justice Committee…” There are some problems with the 90% that will come up in further discussion.
Resolution 2004-29, Repeal of Credit for Incarceration Prior to Conviction, we support with an amendment. We ask to amend in subsection 2 to change from “must “ to “may”. The judges will have the discretion of placing a fine so we do each receive monies from that. This would be more consistent with what the County Attorneys Association supports.
2004-32 we voted to support increasing the victim witness surcharge. The County Attorneys Association is in favor of this, also, and we are going along with them on that.
2004-18 is the civil attorneys legislation. We voted not to support this. We feel there would be more complications and cause more problems than leaving it the way it is.
2004-24 on detention costs for the Department of Corrections inmates, we voted to support. This is costing the counties and we feel the state should be responsible for some of this payment.
2002-35, State Public Defender System, we voted to support but we still have problems on that.
LAND USE PLANNING AND
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Howard Gipe, Flathead County, Chair
Myra Shults spoke this morning.
We had legislation to revise part of Montana Subdivision and Platting Act, which was approved by the full interim committee and Senator Laible, I think, will carry it. As soon as we get the draft on that, the Land Use Committee will meet. Also, Senator Laible said he will the legislature to fund another committee to look into the subdivision laws themselves.
We have several resolutions. The Montana Airport Land Use Act—that’s land use around airports; that’s not zoning. The per-household fee for conservation districts—it says districts, but it’s actually easements 2004-21, the new zoning land regulation and mineral extraction—I think this is about gravel pits. In Flathead County we have one gravel pit that has something like 59 acres and goes 100 feet deep and is right next to two big beautiful subdivisions. So, those people sitting there with $3 to $400,000 homes have a problem being next to a 100 foot deep gravel pit. 2004-26, to amend the subdivision regulations for park lands, we are not going to recommend anything on these; we want you to take a look at them.
PUBLIC LANDS COMMITTEE
Connie Eissinger, McCone County, Chair
We support what the Resolutions Committee does and the recommendations for do pass and high priority for the Fort Peck Resolution 2004-2 to increase water levels, 2004-8 the State Right of Way Policy, 2004-27 De-listing the Gray Wolf, 2004-31 Water Adjudication Funding, and 2004-35 to support I-147. 2004-15A, which the Resolutions Committee recommended “do not pass”, we agree.
There are
two different plans that are out now for comment. One is the grizzly bear plan for which we are concerned about
impacting the local communities economically.
We are going to send comments on that one. We are also going to be sending comments on the elk plan. The elk plan is on the Fish, Wildlife and
Parks website; and the grizzly bear plan is on the Forest Service website.
TAXATION, FINANCE AND BUDGET
COMMITTEE
Bill Nyby, Sheridan County, Chair
EDITORIAL NOTE: Unfortunately the recording of this report
is not available for transcription.
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
Vern Petersen, Fergus County
EDITORIAL NOTE: Unfortunately the recording of this report
is not available for transcription.
LEGISLATION OVERVIEW
Gordon Morris, Executive Director
There were a couple of special items--tax reform efforts of the Interim Committee and the status of the public defender legislation.
The Tax Reform Committee had their final meeting. Representative Jim Peterson is looking at a 4% sales tax, proposing to eliminate the 101 mills and proposing to eliminate locally based school funding levies, approximately 58 mills. That is a combined total of about $289 Million in property tax reductions. He is also proposing to increase the individual tax deductions by $4,500 to a total of $5,990 and go to a flat tax rate of 5.75%. This would actually pay for the tax reduction that was enacted by the last session of the Legislature and take it one step further. Based on feedback, he chose tax elimination as opposed to the tax credit approach. He took just about the entire set of recommendations from the Low Income Coalition.
What he does in the next session depends on whether or not he gets elected. I think the real question he has is what happens to the House and to the Senate—Republican control or Democrat control. If he is in the minority party, he doesn’t appear to be interested in carrying the tax reform package. He speaks as being on the diving board with people getting ready to push him off the end into an empty swimming pool. He’s been very good to work with.
He originally had an implementation concept in 2005 with a vote in 2008. If you enact the property tax reductions from the 101 mills and the additional 58 mills in January 2005, taxpayers will see that in the November 2005 and the May 2006 tax bills. There would be a vote on the sales tax in 2006 at a special election in June or the general election in November.
The only way you can get a major tax reform bill like this passed is by putting together a good strong viable coalition. I think that is what we have been doing over the past four months.
The Law and Justice Interim Committee formed a subcommittee to look at the public defender legislation for 2005. The state has responsibility for all public defender costs in district court right now. The Committee is recognizing a problem. They have chosen to expand the State Public Defender system to those public defender costs that arise in JP courts and in municipal courts. Based on some assumptions, they came up with an $80 Million estimate of public defender costs in JP courts. About a month ago we sent out a flash request for your analysis of public defender costs in justice courts in FY04. You did a great job. Most of the counties got that information back. That survey determined that in FY04 there were only $1 Million worth of costs. So that is an important factor.
They are using a Wyoming model. The Wyoming model assumes that there is a percentile sharing arrangement between the state-assumed portion and the local portion—the local portion that would be paid by counties for JP courts and the local portion paid by cities for municipal courts. Their bill draft has an undetermined percentage being allocated to counties and an undefined percentage allocated to cities and towns. They don’t have any rational basis for coming up with a percentage. If you assume that the local costs are a million dollars, then they need to get a million dollars from us. So, why do you need a percentage?
We do need an amendment that would take out the potential for spikes for any one county. So, we recommended taking the dollar amount necessary (a million dollars), taking the case load per county on a statewide basis, and using the percent of county case loads in the state total to come up with the dollar amount. If you had a thousand cases statewide and you had 100 of them in Missoula County, then Missoula County would be billed 10% of the million dollars or $100,000. On that basis, you take out those spikes.
So, you open the defender program very carefully and take out a million dollars and send that to the public defender system. A county, then, would have fewer dollars in their entitlement program. It’s not a money transfer, it’s taking the money out of the Entitlement Program. You keep the money that you would have spent on that cost before, and it is now free to spend some place else. The state gets the money and you keep your money. It’s win-win.
We are going to have to work really hard on that concept. I really am pleased with the approach the Committee has taken.
The court commissioner and our friend, Jim Oppedahl, has a $4Million supplemental request for district court expenses for the biennium. We always said that the State is going to be in the same position that every county in Montana was when a Duncan McKenzie case hit your doorstep. What did you do? You did a supplemental. You went to your voters and taxpayers and came up with the money. Well, the State is in the same position now.
Paddy Trusler, Lake County
Under the proposal how would that million dollars be handled in subsequent years? Would it be a one-time $1 Million from the entitlement or would it continue to be $1 million dollars?
Morris
It would be handled exactly like we did with the district courts and with welfare. We had our entitlement pot, $50-60 Million. We reduced that pot by $18.6 Million and gave that to the State for the district courts. We did the same thing with welfare. We gave them almost $10 Million out of our entitlement program. The two reduced our overall entitlement by about $28.6 Million. We would do the same thing with this million.
Lance Olson, Cascade County
Has the Committee addressed personnel and equipment, such as the computer system?
Morris
Yes, they have. They are taking the approach very similar to the approach with district courts. One slight difference is when they hit the life span of any equipment or any fixtures, then it reverts back to the county. They also have a similar provision for termination of employees from county employment to state employment and the transfer of those accruals. We did have a two-year time frame to pay off those accruals for those public defender employees.
I think Sherry Hefflefinger has been instrumental in crafting this Wyoming model. The Committee is convinced that this is the way to go, as opposed to our approach. They did meet with Judy Paynter and had a full explanation of how that would transition from entitlement to funding the public defender system. I’m optimistic that we can still get there, because I don’t want you to be in the position where year after year after year you have to hold your breath until somebody determines what the budget is and what your fair percentage is.
One other thing that they are intending to do is to pick up the involuntary commitment costs that are currently not under the district court assumption bill. I don’t know if that will take care of our problems with involuntary commitment costs or not, but it might.
Carol Kienenberger, Blaine County
Looking at the Justice of the Peace public defender program, are they also including combining the municipal judges with the justices of the peace?
Morris
They are not doing anything about combining.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Peggy Beltrone, Cascade County
North Central Montana poverty project has recently been designated as a special region in the IRS initiative on Rural America. We are going to be a learning laboratory for the IRS to understand better how to reach frontier and Native Americans for the earned income tax credit. There is $99 Million that comes into the State of Montana for this credit each year. We think there is quite a bit more that isn’t asked for. In addition to being named in the Rural initiative for IRS, the North Central Montana Community Ventures project has very good likelihood of getting an $80,000 grant to do earned income tax credit outreach in our area.
That would not have happened had I not been at a NACo meeting in Washington DC in February and wandered into that workshop. This is an example of how a kernel of knowledge that you get at a national convention can really bear fruit back in Montana.
People who were on that panel in Washington DC have come to Montana for our workshop. So, we are pleased we can have good speakers come to our state meeting.
The afternoon sessions featured the following workshops:
State
of Aging in Montana
Susan Kohler, Director of
Aging Services, Missoula
Getting
in Front of the Growth Curve: Planning
by Design and Not by Reaction
John Horwich, University of
Montana School of Law
Montana
Transportation Partners
Marlene Dinsburg, Regional
Planner, Mental Health Services Bureau
Deborah Swingley, Executive
Director, Montana Council on Developmental Disabilities
Mike and June Hermanson, Montana
Transportation Partnership, Billings
David Kack, Research Associate,
Western Transportation Institute, Bozeman
Mike Mayer, Executive Director, Summit Independent Living Center, Missoula
Wind
Working Group
Van Jamison, Consultant, POWAIR, Helena
Tom Potter, Wind Consultant, New
Center for Rural Energy Development, Denver CO
John Stulp, Prowers County, Lamar,
CO
Mike Constanti, Power Procurement
Group, Belgrade
Jim Durgan, Park County, and Ed
Diemert, Liberty County
Economic
Development Committee
MACo Economic Development Committee, Anita Varone,
Chair, Lewis and Clark County
Tour
of Missoula County Development Park
WEDNESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 29
GENERAL SESSION
President Carol Brooker,
Sanders County, presiding
The Urban Counties re-elected Jean Curtiss of Missoula County as the Executive Board representative. Missoula County is not a member of the JPA Workers’ Compensation Trust, so there will be an election for the JPA Board of Trustees position.
ROLL CALL
Bill Nyby, MACo Fiscal Officer, Sheridan County
At the call of the roll,
quorum was present to conduct business.
PROXY VOTE
John Prinkki, Carbon County, Parliamentarian
One proxy was presented for
Phil Hill, Garfield County Commissioner.
Acceptance required a suspension of the rules by a 2/3 vote. The seconded motion to suspend the rules passed
and Chuck Egan, Stillwater County, held the proxy vote.
“Next year there will be a
by-law amendment proposal to allow for proxies. Candidates will have to have registered at the meeting but if for
some reason they have to leave, they can offer their proxy. It is important that they at least show up
and they know what the information is, then they can lend their proxy like we
are doing today.”
RESOLUTION OF APPRECIATION
WHEREAS,
the 2004 Annual Conference of the Montana Association of Counties is the 95th such
meeting; and
WHEREAS,
attendance of member counties marks its success; and
WHEREAS,
the fine facilities in Missoula and Missoula County made us feel welcome;
NOW,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the 95th Annual Conference of the Montana
Association of Counties express its sincere appreciation for the sponsorship of
this convention to the Missoula County Commissioners , spouses and staffs:
Barbara and Allen Evans
Bill Carey
Jean and Brad Curtiss
The seconded motion to accept the resolution was
passed on voice vote.
RESOLUTIONS
Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County
The Resolutions Committee
and Commissioner Albert Brown, Carbon County, proposes that the letter be sent
to the Florida Association of Counties indicating and offering our support and
prayers for their citizens’ well-being--physical, mental and financial and have
the letter signed by our President and our Executive Director.
Albert Brown, Carbon County
“I appreciate your support
for this. There are many ways to help
people in times or crisis, whether it is by donation of your time, money, or
your prayers. It is comforting to know
others care. As most of you know, my
children and my grandchildren live in the Tampa, Florida area. I am thankful they are all safe and damage
to their property can be repaired.
There are a lot of people down there who weren’t so lucky. I appreciate your support for this act of
kindness.”
The seconded motion to allow
this letter to be sent passed.
Resolution 2004-35 Cyanide Heapleach Mining was presented to the Resolutions Committee by the Oil, Gas and
Coal Counties and the Montana Association of Hardrock Mining.
Jack Holstrom, MACo Personnel Service
Administrator
“I was asked to review the
language in the resolution. My
understanding of the resolution is that it is in support of an initiative. Ed
Argenbright, who was Commissioner of Campaign Practices, wrote a number of
opinions to the effect that you can’t add a statement for or against. All you could do, under his opinion, was to
indicate what the impact would be on your constituents in your particular area
or your county. You can’t say “vote
for” or “against”. A law was passed
when the Legislature decided that it was inappropriate when the teachers would
send flyers home with the kids, that were produced on the school equipment,
saying “vote for this mill levy.” The
legislation was broad enough to cover all other situations. Just recently the
Legislature codified an amendment in 2-2-121, which specifically addresses that
situation. It says that we can’t use
public time or equipment, supplies, personnel or funds in support for or oppose
legislation or initiatives. It
specifically talks about ballot issues.
It says, “With respect to ballot issues, properly incidental activities
are restricted to the activities of a public officer, the public officer's
staff, or legislative staff related to determining the impact of passage or
failure of a ballot issue on state or local government operations.” So in essence, the Legislature clarified
that you can’t have a bottom line supporting or opposing; you can say what the
impact would be for your local government.
Murray
We would have to suspend the
rules to allow this resolution to be introduced anyway (late resolution). I believe that suspension of the rules is unnecessary
because the resolution as drafted is illegal.
If anyone objects to my interpretation and Jack’s legal opinion, you are
welcome to move to suspend the rules.
Elaine Allestad, Sweet Grass County
Could I ask the Oil, Gas and Coal Counties to talk to us about this?
John Prinkki, Parliamentarian
You certainly could do that
and you could always move to suspend the rules and introduce it. You might visit with Ronda Carpenter who
thinks that their efforts to promote I-147 would be better served if we did not
put our name on it, because then it would cloud the issue and just give the
opposition ammunition.
Murray
So, unless I hear
differently during the resolution discussion or you take a motion after the
resolution discussion to have your leadership suspend the rules, we will just
disregard that resolution for the time being.
Further resolutions
segregated for debate:
2004-11 Clarify
the Status of Fences Attached to Bridges
2004-12 Support
“Clawback Provisions” in Tax Law
2004-14 Local
Option Fuel Tax
2004-19 Per
Household Fee for Open Space Funding
2004-23 Per
Household Fee to Fund Parks & Recreation
2004-26 Amend
Subdivision Regulations to Improve Parkland
2004-29 Repeal
Credit for Incarceration
2004-34 Indirect
Cost Allocation
HIGH PRIORITY RESOLUTIONS
2004-2
Increase
water levels on Fort Peck Lake
2004-6 Workforce Funding Governance
2004-8
Historic
Road Right of Way Policy
2004-9
Legal
Notice Advertising
2004-27
De-listing
Gray Wolf
2004-28
Uniform
Zoning Penalties
2004-30 County Officials Bonding
2004-32
Victim
Witness Surcharge
The seconded motion to
approve these resolutions passed.
Resolution 2003-4, County Attorney Pay Increases
Carol Kienenberger, Blaine County
We are in favor of the resolution. We do not support the concept paper on the
back of this. The resolution reads “now
therefore be it resolved the Montana Association of Counties shall work with
the Montana County Attorneys Association to develop a joint legislative
proposal to fund and pay for county attorney salaries”. We do support MACo working with the County
Attorneys; we do not support the concept paper on the back. I just wanted to clarify that.
Unknown Commissioner
We visited with our county attorney and the impact
in that office would be a $14,000 increase on his budget for his wages. So I guess I am real concerned if we all can
afford this resolution.
Murray
The resolution as proposed, Commissioner, calls only
for us to cooperate with the County Attorney’s Association. The dollar amounts, I believe, have been
removed.
Marty Lambert, Gallatin County Attorney
I am looking forward to working with the Justice and
Public Safety Committee to develop a plan we can take to the Legislature. We are faced with the situation where we
have at least a $20,000 discrepancy in pay from the highest county down to some
counties which are, I believe, around $7,000 a year. That inequity is a real concern to us. At our meeting we were very, very firm that we address these
inequities and inconsistencies in county attorney pay across the state. I am looking forward to working with the
committee, my Association and MACo to come up with a resolution to the problem.
Kienenberger
I guess I should have mentioned why we were opposed
to the concept paper. For the previous
speaker’s information, there are inequities in benefits as well. Phillips County does have a salary that our
county attorney is very happy with because we do pay 100% of his medical
insurance for him and his family, which is about a $10,000 a year benefit.
Also,
some county attorneys do not respond to their other county entities as well as
they would like them to. The county
attorney is an elected county official and the county attorney’s salary would
be set by someone other than the county.
Elaine Mann, Broadwater County
For smaller counties that have part-time county
attorneys, the caseload is different.
Sometimes that’s part of the reason for the salary difference.
Nancy Espy, Powder River County
We have a big concern about the responsibility to
our other employees, elected or not. We
do not have the money we would all prefer to have.
Ed Tinsley, Lewis and Clark County
On behalf of the recommendations from the Justice
and Public Safety Committee, I move that we add after “Montana County
Attorney’s Association” the words “and the Justice and Public Safety Committee”. That motion includes removing the back page.
The
seconded motion to amend the resolution carried.
The seconded motion to
approve the amended resolution carried, following a show of hands.
Resolution 2004-7 Soft Drink Tax for Aging Services
The staff, the Health and Human Services Committee
and the Finance Committee reviewed this.
From the Health and Human Services perspective, while we support
increasing funding for aging services, we didn’t want to tie our hands with
only the tax on soft drinks to be the method.
So we proposed to change,
first, the title to read, “Increased Funding for Aging Services in Montana
Supported”. The intent would have to
strike “imposing a tax on soft drinks sold in Montana with the proceeds being
dedicated” and add “It is the intent of the Montana Association of Counties to
support legislation designating revenue sources to support aging services in
Montana.”
On the second page, the
second “Whereas” from the top, strike
“Numerous proposals for tax reform have all failed.” The next one, we amended to say, “Whereas,
there is--strike “Little hope that a political consensus exists” and insert “a
need”, so it would read, “There is a need for increasing state revenues in a
broad-based tax reform proposal sufficient to meet the current and anticipated
needs in aging services”
The next “Whereas” we left
alone. The last “Whereas” we
struck.
We
amended the resolved section to “Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the
Montana Association of Counties support legislation” strike everything after
that and insert, “to designate revenue sources to finance expected senior
program cost increases attributable to the increasing number of aging Montanans
and encourage the revenue to be found through tax reform.”
We know the aging services
council has proposed the soft drink tax.
It’s not the first time it’s been presented. It hasn’t been successful.
The soft drink industry, of course, is not in favor of it. We also didn’t want to tie our hands so that
would be the only thing we could do to help finance the program. We recognize, as we look around the room, we
are all getting closer to needing those services. We do want to support funding those programs but we believe that
tax reform is really the best way to do it.
I was very clear when I reported back to the aging services board here
that it would come to the floor, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be amended
here. So, hopefully this is an
amendment you can support.
Gary Hall, Flathead County
I am very much in support of this. After the discussion this week, the new
resolution makes a lot more sense. I appreciate MACo’s support of this and
hopefully this legislative session we can do something proactive to deal with
the aging issues that are coming up.
I’m going to work hard on this and hopefully with the changes in this we
have more of a chance.
Ken Evans, Chouteau County
I am involved with the Area III on Aging and our
area was short on the budget for this year.
When we have to have bake sales to raise extra funds to keep the program
alive, we have to do something else to increase the funding. I’m in favor of a tax on the soft
drinks. I do not see any resolution
other than that.
Elaine Mann, Broadwater County
The amendments are fine but I would like to add that if tax reform doesn’t happen, we go for a soft drink fee. We don’t have a lot of money in our county and we have to help our seniors. How many tourists do we have that pass through and buy pop? We would be able to pick that up.
Judy Stang, Mineral County
I guess we can support the concept of supporting
senior services with tax legislation, but the part about specifically putting a
tax just on pop has a lot of ramifications.
The business cost is going to be also added to the price of pop, plus
the tax, plus the ad prices to the consumer.
John Vincent, Gallatin County
I rise in strong opposition to this amendment,
having spent 16 years in the Montana Legislature. If we vote in favor of this amendment, you might as well vote against
the resolution, because it’s absolutely and totally meaningless. It doesn’t even represent what we mean
through tax reform. Many Montana
legislators would argue that they have been doing tax reform since 1997 and
that’s resulted in $550 Million of tax relief going primarily for economic
development. I know the implication of
what we mean by tax reform is a sales tax, but you will get lots of different
definitions of what tax reform means in the legislature. Right now the legislature is appropriating
about $1 Million every two years out of the state general fund for
seniors. That amounts to 2¢
a day for every senior in the state of Montana—woefully, woefully
under-funded. Any tax reform package of
any significance at all, that is going to raise enough additional money to
strengthen the general fund, is going to take years to implement. It’s not going to be something that will
change this under-funding around in a year or two or three. Any tax reform, unless the money is
earmarked, will disappear into the bottomless pit of the general fund. Within approximately twenty years we will
double our senior population in this state to about 350,000 seniors. We are going to have to accommodate
that. If we don’t encourage a fixed
stable revenue source for seniors through a tax such as this, then I can
guarantee you that the legislature will do what it’s always done—it will
transfer that obligation back down on the backs of local government. You’ve been there before. Let’s stand up and fight for
something for a change. If you loose,
you loose, but at least you go down fighting.
Carol Kienenberger,
Phillips County
We support funding for
senior programs but we do not believe a piecemeal tax is the right way to do
it. I support the amendments.
Mark Rehbein, Richland
County
I support this as
amended. Richland County has been
adamantly against any specialized taxes, but we do support raising more money
for our senior citizens.
The seconded
motion to amend the resolution carried.
The vote to accept the amended resolution, based on
a show of hands, passed.
Resolution 2004-11 Fences attached to Bridges
The motion to amend by adding “or abuts” to the
title was seconded was carried.
The seconded motion to approve the amended
resolution was carried.
Resolution 2004-12 Clawback Provisions
The
motion to amend by to dropping the second ‘whereas’ was seconded and the motion
carried.
The seconded motion to approve the resolution as
amended passed.
Resolution 2004-13 Support MEDA legislative proposals
Cynthia Johnson, Pondera
County
I’m on the MACo Economic
Development Committee and I think parts of this need to be discussed more
thoroughly, particularly Item #5. I
firmly believe that the voters should participate in economic development and the
funding of those efforts. So, I propose
to incorporate the MEDA white paper.
Janet
Kelly, Custer County
Is
the priority medium or high? I want to
make sure it’s in the right category.
Murray
The resolution is labeled
medium but it is on blue high priority paper.
Thank you for catching that, Commissioner. It always was a high priority and it’s high because it affects
every county.
I think this white
attachment is too vague for us to have a meaningful vote on it. Right now I ask you to vote “no” on the
attachment.
Anita Varone, Lewis and
Clark County
Our committee met on this
several times and I apologize if the Commissioner from Yellowstone County
thinks it’s vague. I was concerned that
it was too long, rather than too vague.
We think it’s relatively concise and gives a sense of what our committee
is thinking.
The
reason this was initially segregated was specifically page 7 and 8, and on Item
#5, Exempting Economic Development Levies From the Spending Cap”: “Currently, if a local government wishes to impose millage
to support local
economic development efforts, it can be done two
ways:” (It identifies the two
ways.) “In either case, the economic
development mills must fit within the local government spending cap or the
local government is forced to place the levy on the ballot in order to
institute it. MEDA believes that
economic development is so important to local areas that millage for that
purpose should be exempted by the Legislature from the spending cap. We should be making it easer for localities
to accomplish economic development, rather than harder. MEDA wants the statute to be amended to allow the
local governing body to pass up to a maximum of 2 mills for economic
development (using either statute) without a vote of the people, regardless of
the local government spending cap that may be in place.”
Our
response as a Committee is, “The Committee vote was divided on this proposal
but the majority (six committee members) supports this proposal, with
qualifications, now that language has been included to cap the mills at a
maximum of 2 Mills.”
That
was a request to MEDA from our Committee.
The six supporting committee members believe there should be language
added that indicates an increase can only be authorized once very third year.
Three
Committee members oppose this proposal.
They believe caps were put on by the voters and that statutes should not
allow additional permissive levies.
We
wanted that discussed today because our Committee was divided.
Johnson
Whether it was included
or not, several places in the paper mentions the legislative package. Does that mean it’s included with our
resolution?
Murray
We
have it in the packet, so it is included.
Mack Cole
I think this is a very
important issue here as far as economic development is concerned and I ask to
pass this resolution. It gives power to
the county commissioners to do this.
John Ostlund, Yellowstone
County
I want to clarify the
last line, “Now therefore be it resolved that the Montana Association of
Counties will accept the MACo committee recommendations and support the MEDA
legislative effort”. Are we saying we
are going to support anything they come with?
I don’t believe that’s a good resolution. I think each individual county needs to take a good look at this.
Unknown Commissioner
I do not see that this is supporting the world of MEDA. It’s supporting those items which we have in
the resolution, very specifically.
Therefore, it’s a limited resolution from that standpoint.
Motion to accept the amendment “as attached”
in the resolution clause, was seconded and passed on a raise of hands.
Seconded motion to accept the amended resolution
carried.
Resolution 2004-14 Local Option
Fuel Tax
Jim Deckert, Dawson
County
I understand that the
purpose of this resolution is to clean up the language in Section 301 by
striking the word “gasoline” and added “motor fuel taxes”. I do agree with cleaning up the language but
I don’t agree with expanding the tax.
Harold Blattie, MACo
Assistant Director
Everyone needs to understand
that the bill draft that is attached is actually Montana Department of
Transportation’s bill. It went through
their legal process and it will be their bill and be carried by them. We cannot change the language in the bill
draft at this time. We could seek
amendments after the bill has been introduced, but the language in the bill
draft stands.
Deckert
I ask that we do not
approve of the expansion from gasoline only to motor fuel taxes. I move to amend to add a clause to
the resolution that says we oppose the change in the draft. The portion of the draft that I would like
to change is under 7-14-301, second line from the bottom, where they have
struck “gasoline” and added “motor fuels excluding dyed diesel”.
Richard Dunbar, Phillips
County
We discussed this
resolution in the Transportation Committee quite at length. There are a couple things I want to point
out. The law allows ag. producers with
non-highway fuels to get a reimbursement back from the Department of
Transportation. That has been excluded
in the draft. So there will be an added
tax for some gasoline fuels at the pumps.
There will be some tax for non-highway use in this bill.
Seconded motion to accept the resolution as
originally proposed was passed on a show of hands.
Resolution 2004-16 Rural Improvement District Notice Changes
Jim Reno, Yellowstone
County
This is relatively a
simple action. If you have 100% of
agreement to create a rural Special improvement district, you should not then
have to go through a public notice and wait another 30 days. It delays development. It came to us from our clerk and recorders
office.
The seconded motion to accept the resolution
carried.
Resolution 2004-24 MDOT To Maintain All Secondary Roads
Vern Petersen, Fergus
County
The Transportation
Committee recognizes the needs that counties have, but we have no support in
the Committee for this. It would fly in
the face of all the testimony we gave when we had the secondary paving bill. We certainly don’t want to have our
credibility go downhill real fast.
John Vincent, Gallatin
County
I realize that we are
dealing with history here. But Gallatin
County wants to point out the problems we have. We believe that only about 80% of our roads are involved with the
MDOT jurisdiction. In our county we
have a number of paved roads with extremely high a.d.t.s—in a very dangerous
situation. People are dying on some of
those roads and it’s currently the county’s responsibility. We believe that MDOT, on those critical
arterial roadways that are carrying exceptionally high a.d.t.s, ought to be
responsible for those. Gallatin County
has, we believe, a very solid rationale in bringing this forward.
Seconded
motion for a “do not pass” recommendation carried.
2004-29 Repeal Credit for Incarceration
Sam Harris, Pondera
County
The Justice Committee
wanted some changes on this—on the word “Repeal” change that to “amend” and in
Subsection 2, change the words “must be allowed” change to “may be
allowed”. This would be more consistent
with the county attorney association.
Seconded
motion to amend passed.
Seconded motion to approve the amended resolution
passed.
2004-31 Water Rights Adjudication
Robert Goffena,
Musselshell County
I’m the chairman of the
Board of Deadman’s Basin Water Use Association and I’m on Judge Loble’s
Advisory Committee. I’ve been to the
EQC meetings and I’ve worked on the bill they are preparing.
In
1988 our river went dry. That was the
first time it went dry in my lifetime.
Since that time, we have all our users use measuring devices. We’ve put water commissioners on the
river. We have seven gauging stations
on the river so that we know how much water to replace.
We’ve
found great inaccuracies on the adjudication sheets. These adjudication inaccuracies are really hurting those people
who have senior rights and don’t get to use them. There is one instance where a man has a spring that originally
irrigated a garden under an 1889 water right that is now going to get 1,089
acres with that water right. Until
adjudication is completed, there is no way to let that water be delivered on a
more junior right.
It’s
critical that this adjudication is completed, no matter what changes we are
going to do to this resolution. The
crucial thing is to finish the adjudication and to fund it.
This
will protect our water from downstream states.
If we don’t do a good job, it will be done for us at great expense in
federal court. If we haven’t done it accurately, they have the means to make it
that way.
If
you know exactly what your water right is, you can add systems, you can sell
your ranch, and you know that the water rights will be the same no matter
what. The last thing you want to do is
to make expensive developments and ten years down the road have somebody say
you can’t irrigate because you don’t have a correctly adjudicated water
right. If adjudication is correct, you
will protect your water right. It will be
in black and white and be enforceable.
If district court ever puts a water commissioner on, you will have a
correct water right and you will not have to worry about having problems. Each right will, then, be entitled to
conditions on the source, tied to the day it was established. That’s very important because you don’t want
your conditions to change. A timely
and accurate adjudication can save
lawyer fees because it costs a lot more than $100 fee, which is proposed in the
bill--$10 per year for ten years for a water right.
Your
water right will be defined by adjudication, not by litigation. Whatever the bill is, I’m going to the
Legislature and support adjudication. I
don’t care how we fund it. It just has
to be done.
Gale Patton, Sanders
County
I’ve been on the Clarks
Fork Basin Water Task Force for the last 2½ years. Back in the early ‘80s we re-filed all our water rights and they
were supposed to be adjudicated by this time.
We are not even close. As this
is going on, tens of thousands of wells are being drilled. It’s kind of a case of the mule and a 2 x
4--we need discussion in the public and we need it in the legislature. A couple of months ago we went to the
Columbia River and the Grand Coulee where they irrigate 500,000 acres. They would like to irrigate another amount
close to that. With all the demands
downstream, we need to adjudicate and get our water protected, particularly
these new wells going in.
Kathy Bessette, Hill
County
The AG. Committee
thoroughly discussed this and we support the amendments to the resolution.
The
seconded motion to amend the resolution to address adequate funding, direction
and adequate procedures to complete the process passed
The seconded motion to approve the resolution as
amended carried.
Resolution 2004-33 Election Administrator Compensation
Murray
This resolution was proposed by the Clerk
and Recorders Association.
Gary Macdonald, Roosevelt
County
Roosevelt County
Commissioners feel that only the Commission itself or the local government
really understands whether or not the election administrator is doing work that
deserves this kind of increase. Some
delegate or pass this work on down to the employees. Therefore, I feel that Roosevelt County cannot support this
resolution as written. So, I move that
in law 13-1-301 the new section that was put in, where it says the word
“shall”, insert the word “may”; and in 7-4-2503, remove the word “must”
and insert the word “may”. This
will give the local government the authority to give this additional salary or
not.
Art Kleinjan, Blaine
County
As most of you know, I’m
an old tightwad, so it’s going to be really, really tough for me to support
this resolution as amended, but I do support it. I think that in many cases, the counties all wish we could hire
an election administrator, but that’s not possible. It’s a tremendous load on our clerk and recorder and I do believe
that we should compensate for it.
The seconded motion to amend was passed.
A
housekeeping motion to change the title from “administration” to
“administrator” was seconded and passed.
The seconded motion to pass the amended resolution
passed.
Resolution 2004-34 Indirect Cost
Allocation
Vern Petersen, Fergus
County
I move to amend
this resolution. The fourth
‘whereas’ does not involve local government monies, so we need to say that
it reduces the funds for the project.
In “now therefore be it resolved” we need to cross out “local
governments” and put “MDOT”.
The seconded motion to amend passed.
The seconded
motion to pass the amended motion passed.
MEDIUM PRIORITY RESOLUTIONS
2003-2
Exemption to Nepotism
2004-10 Montana
Airport Land Use Act
The motion to approve the resolutions as presented
was seconded and carried.
Resolution 2004-1 Motor Homes
County Processing Fee
We have three attorney
firms in Missoula County that set up LLCs for people all over the United States
to license their motor homes in the State of Montana. This puts a huge workload on us.
In Missoula County between September of last year and June of this year,
our motor vehicle department processed 664 titles and 852 renewals for LLCs
that are established to license folks that don’t live here. Some of these motor homes may be purchased
here. Many have never set a track in
this state. We have had attorney
generals from at least three states call our motor vehicle department and ask
why we are licensing motor vehicles in our state. The titles take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to process,
depending on how organized and completed the paperwork is. There is no part of the fee that comes to
Missoula County. If you don’t have a
motor home, you might not know that old wrecks like mine are charged $90 a year
and some of those big fancy ones pay only $275. Those of us who have an old klunker would only pay about a $9 fee
and the others would pay less than $30.
It’s not a huge amount but it would help the county. Right now motor homes are exempt from the
local option tax, which we do have in Missoula County. We think that this is an acceptable way.
Jim Reno, Yellowstone
County
Our county will vote
against this. This is no different than
what we talked about earlier with the pop industry. Why are we singling out one industry? It certainly is no problem registering those vehicles in our county. We sell a great number of the motor
homes. We did not single out the title
insurance companies; we did not single out the real estate companies or the
banks when we had a workload due to re-financing. We thought that’s what the courthouse was there to do, to provide
service to our customers. This is a
cluster industry, not only doing registrations, but doing sales, financing,
insurance. I hope that we would not
single out this industry. I hope you
will not support this resolution.
Bill Carey, Missoula
County
I differ with my friend,
Jim Reno. This is different from the
pop question. We weren’t asking
Missoula County citizens to subsidize the pop industry. Here we are asking Missoula County citizens
to subsidize an industry. The cost of
doing business is what we feel the industry ought to pay--their fair share.
The seconded
motion to approve the resolution passed based on a count of hands.
Resolution 2004-4 Optional Voting
in Road Levy Elections
Lee Iverson, Petroleum
County
In Petroleum County we
had a mill levy to buy road graders.
Some people were not eligible to vote on that because they did not live
in the voting district. This resolution
does not say you “must”, but that the Board of Commissioners “may”. It also puts the burden of proof on who is
eligible to vote on the individual. If
they live in another county in the state, they are eligible to vote, but they
have to come to the election administrator to prove that they are
eligible. The clerks do not have to
find all the people who are eligible.
This puts the burden on the individual.
It gives a county like Petroleum the option.
Sandra Boardman, Clerk
and Recorder, Blaine County (for information only)
What Petroleum County
wants is more like a rural improvement district for allowing landowners who are
taxpayers to be able to vote in a road issue.
In a rural improvement district, all taxpayers would be allowed to vote
in the election, not only just the ones who would be living there. They had to include the ones that might not
be residing in the county, but are still entitled to vote if it impacted their
taxes.
Murray
I believe the resolution
says you have to be registered to vote in the State.
Boardman
That is how it is
written—to vote in the state. I don’t
believe you can state just “the State”.
Vern Petersen, Fergus
County
As Chair of the
Transportation Committee I rise in support, recognizing the problems that some
of the rural counties have. It was not
unanimous in the discussion we had, although the vote did come out unanimously
in support.
Kathy Bessette, Hill
County
In
the Ag. Committee, we did discuss this resolution and we are in support of it.
Unknown commissioner
I move to strike after
“qualified if they are registered to vote” the words “in the state”. That way all registered
voters who own property, all taxpayers, would be eligible.
Unknown commissioner
I rise in opposition to
this amendment. The problem is how do
we notify these people? The way that
the resolution reads now, it is up to that individual to come to the county
with proof that there is the right to vote in the election. If you can leave that, I would be happy.
Unknown commissioner
I would oppose the
amendment if it affects out-of-state voters.
My understanding was that the resolution would being registered in the
State of Montana to vote. But if we are
including out-of-staters, then I am against.
Mary Sexton, Teton County
It just occurred to me
that in sewer districts, it talks about “qualified to vote” and I don’t know
that for consistency’s sake, you could not limit it just to the State’s
qualified voters and property owners.
Gordon Morris, MACo
Executive Director
I think the intent would
be to parallel what is currently in the statute for county water and sewer
district creation. I quote from
7-13-2212, “An individual who is the owner of such real property may not posses
the qualifications required of an elector in 13-1-111 (1)(c) provided that such
elector is qualified if he is registered to vote in any state of the United
States and files proof of such registration with the election administrator.”
The seconded motion to amend failed.
The seconded motion to approve the resolution
passed.
Resolution
2004-5 Montana Land Information Act
Mary Sexton, Teton County
I think you have a good
conceptual description of the Montana Land Information Act here in the
Resolution. This has gone through
scrutiny through the State. It has
support from private industry, particularly the realtors and other folks who
are in the GIS business. This is to
establish a permanent funding source to coordinate the collection of geographic
information statewide. Part of the
money would go back to the counties and there would also be grants available to
the counties. I think this is
absolutely essential for IT to continue to give benefit to users. So I would encourage you to support
this.
Jean Curtiss, Missoula
County
We believe that it’s
important for us to have a funding source.
GIS information is important.
The majority of the urban counties felt that because a lot of the data
has been gathered by some of the urban counties and others, we were in favor of
the counties receiving ¾ of the dollar and the state getting 25%. Our Missoula County GIS department asked
that we speak in favor of this resolution.
Jim Larson, Stillwater County GIS (for information only)
Our county uses a
tremendous amount of material that we cannot produce. About 70% of what we use comes for GIS comes from the state
operations. So, in our county we find
it really essential to cooperate with everyone to make this whole thing
work. Most small counties use the
Cadastral system, so it’s an important part of the whole system.
Sandra Boardman, Blaine
County Clerk and Recorder (for information only)
I’m representing the
Clerk and Recorder Association at this convention and we are not in support of
the funding source for this resolution.
Our concern is that recording fees are not a stable source of income.
Unknown commissioner
Sandy and I talked about
this earlier and she said that the Clerk and Recorders, this used to say
something about a dollar on everything filed in their office.
(At this point
in the Conference, the recording equipment failed. So, from here on the text reflects hand-written notes rather than
transcription from recordings.)
Richard
Dunbar, Phillips County
Dunbar
spoke I opposition to the resolution.
Joan
Stahl, Rosebud County
There
is no fee specifically mentioned in the resolution.
Sexton
This is a conceptual
resolution. There may be legislative
proposals that change it. It is
essential to establish a stable funding source.
Jim
Reno, Yellowstone County
This may become law. It specifies 75¢ to the state and 25¢ to
counties.
John
Prinkki, Carbon County
He
was uncomfortable not knowing the funding source.
Stu
Kirkpatrick, State ITSD GIS (for information only)
This is draft
wording. It puts a $1 fee on documents
now being recorded. 25% would go to
counties and 75% to the Department of Administration to follow the GIS
Council’s plan. This will benefit local
government. GIS must be a
partnership. The split may sound
inequitable but it is a partnership.
Harold Blattie, MACo
Assistant Director
This would be a $1 fee on
all documents that are subject to fees, not in records preservation fees.
Art Kleinjan, Blaine
County
I oppose a funding source
based on fees, but I do support finding a funding source for this.
Judy Stang,
Mineral County
2004-17
Oppose
Changes in Bentonite Mine Royalty Taxes
2004-20 Remove the Opt Out Provision for
Parks Districts
The seconded motion to
approve the resolutions passed.
Resolution 2004-18
Civil Attorney Legislation
Sam Harris, Pondera County
The Justice and Public
Safety Committee does not support this.
We think it is already covered under county attorney duties.
John Vincent, Gallatin County
I move a substitute motion
to table this resolution.
The seconded substitute
motion to table the resolution passed.
Resolution 2004-19
Per Household Fee for Conservation Easements
A motion was seconded to
deny the resolution.
John Vincent, Gallatin County
I move a substitute motion to approve this
resolution.
Gallatin County has voter
approval of open space. As long as the
voters approve, they should have the right to vote on an individual fee per
household.
The substitute motion was
refused by Chair Murray, based on opinion of the parliamentarian.
The seconded motion to deny
the resolution failed on a vote of 20 for the motion to deny and 23
against.
Bill Carey, Missoula County
This is about local control, allowing people
to vote to purchase easements.
Janet Kelly, Custer County
This will allow local control.
Gary Hall, Flathead County
The idea of local control
makes it a feel good resolution. People
with money could vote to tax a little old lady by putting more burden on
property owners.
The seconded motion to
approve the resolution passed.
Resolution 2004-21
To Amend Zoning Law to Regulate Mineral Extraction
Mack Cole, Treasure County
This seems to take private property rights
and sends a bad message.
The motion to “do not pass”
was seconded and passed.
Resolution 2004-23
Per Household Fee to Fund Parks and Recreation
John Vincent, Gallatin County
This is the same as the
resolution we discussed before. Polling
in our county shows support for this. I
would like to clarify that the vote of the people would decide to have
household fees, not the commissioners.
This gives a way to facilitate maintenance of parks. It would take a majority vote of the
commissioner to place the issue on the ballot.
The seconded motion to
approve the resolution carried.
Resolution 2004-26
Amend Subdivision Regulations to Improve Parkland
John Vincent, Gallatin County
This adds a section to allow
1% of the land being subdivided into parcels between 5 and 20 acres to go to
parks. There is no authority now in
minor subdivision law. We can still
exempt or accept payment in lieu of the land.
It would 1) not allow different
flexibility for 5 acres and 2) can require maintenance of parkland in the
“terms and conditions”.
The seconded motion to
approve the resolution carried.
RESOLUTIONS WITH DO NOT PASS
RECOMMENDATION
2003-1
Utility
Rate Energy Crisis
2004-22
Allow
Summary Reading of County Ordinances
2004-25
Amend
Government Liability for Damages in Tort Claims
The seconded motion to
approve “do not pass” recommendations was passed.
Resolution 2003-3
State Lands Right of Way
Troy Blunt, Phillips County
We are concerned that
counties would be detrimentally impacted in funding for rights-of-ways.
The seconded motion to
approve the “do not pass” recommendation passed
Resolution 2004-3
Mosquito Control District Creation
Earl Martin, Granite County
To require 25% of the people
to sign a petition will not be fast enough to respond to West Nile virus. We think this should be moved to a high
priority to allow commissioners to form districts.
Gary Hall, Flathead County
We could not get enough
signers on a petition. We support the
resolution and we want to vote no on the motion to approve the “do not pass”.
The seconded motion to
approve the “do not pass” recommendation failed.
The seconded motion to
approved the resolution with high priority passed.
Resolution 2004-15A Equitable PILT Distribution
Todd Devlin, Prairie County
We should have addressed this in 1995. NACo is considering this.
WIR has no alternatives. We should discuss this and educate our
Congressional representatives.
Elaine Mann, Broadwater County
We have been working on an
elk plan in response to HB 42. All we
want is to discuss this and get the same information out to all counties. Now is the time to take this to Congress. Forest Counties, Economic Development
Committee, Public Lands Committee, the Tax / Finance Committee and the
Congressional staff need to work together to find ways to change it.
Alan Thompson, Ravalli County
We are opposed to the flat
rate in the current formula. We need to
be compensated for large amounts of federal land in our counties. We would be giving up funds which would go
to other counties.
Devlin
This alternative resolution (15A) asks for
discussions.
Art Kleinjan, Blaine County
As long as we are careful
not to come up with a formula or flat rate, but merely discuss this, I could
support it.
The seconded motion for a
“do pass” recommendation with high priority passed.
RESOLUTIONS FOR
REAFFIRMATION
2000-25
Detention
Costs for Department of Corrections Inmates
2002-15 Exempt Levies Pledges Against
Indebtedness
2002-19
Communities
as Focal Point for Mental Health Services
2002-24
Involuntary
Commitment Expenses Paid by the State
2002-25
Mental
Health Pre-Commitment Costs
2002-35
State
Public Defender System
The seconded motions to
approve these resolutions all passed.
RESOLUTIONS FOR REAFFIRMATION WITH “DO NOT PASS”
RECOMMENDED
2002-1
Wireless
Communication Standardized Regulations
The seconded motion to
approve “do not pass” recommendation passed.
Resolution 2002-21 Retain Control of Substance Abuse Funds
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County
We have the funds capped and
coming back to counties, but we still need to address this in case there is a
run in the next session to take the funding back.
The seconded motion to
approve the resolution with a low priority passed.
BYLAW AMENDMENTS
By Law Change #1 Past Presidents on Board of Directors
Article IV, Board of Directors; Section 1.
MEMBERS
c) Every
past president of the Association may continue as a member of the Board of
Directors as long as
such past president remains an incumbent county commissioner.
Jean Curtiss, Missoula County
People have stated that they
did not want to affect the balance on the Board. We should vote against the motion to deny the change. Then we can amend to state that the positions
are ex-officio—they would have no votes, but we could use their expertise.
Dan Watson, Rosebud County
Regarding the budget
effects, it is not the usual case that the full board is at meetings, so this
proposal may not have as big a money effect as thought.
The seconded motion to deny
the proposal passed.
By Law change #2 Limited Dues Increase set by Board of Directors
Article IV, Board of Directors; Section 3, DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
i) as authorized by the members in conference
in 2004, the Board may increase the dues schedule in an amount up to the annual
COLA in any one year. Any increase
above the annual COLA must be approved by the membership at the annual
conference.
The seconded motion to
approve the By Law Amendment passed.
By Law change #3 Moves Chouteau County from District 5 to District 4
The seconded motion to
approve the By Law Amendment passed.
DUES INCREASE (See attachments on last page)
Peggy Beltrone, Cascade County
I think higher value
counties should have been broken down more.
Some have half the value, but pay the same dues as big-value
counties.
The seconded motion to
approve the dues structure and the PILT assessment carried.
ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Nominations for the Second Vice Presidency closed. Dave Reinhardt, Valley County, and Donna Sevalstad, Beaverhead County, were appointed to count ballots. By written ballot, John Prinkki was elected as Second Vice President. Candidate Frank Nelson moved to declare Prinkki’s election to be unanimous. The motion was seconded and passed. The MACo Officers for the 2004-2005 year are President Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County; First Vice President Douglas Kaercher, Hill County; Second Vice President John Prinkki, Carbon County; Fiscal Officer Bill Nyby, Sheridan County; Urban Representative Jean Curtiss, Missoula County; Past President Carol Brooker, Sanders County
CONFERENCE LOCATION – 2006
Following short
presentations by Peggy Beltrone, Cascade County, and John Vincent, Gallatin
County, the delegates selected Gallatin County for the 2006 location.
The
meeting was adjourned.
JOINT SESSION
MACo JOINT POWERS INSURANCE
AUTHORITY
PROPERTY AND CASUALTY TRUST
MACo JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION TRUST
Monday, September 27, 2004
Missoula, Montana
Gordon Morris conducted roll call. Quorum was present for both JPA and JPIA.
NOMINATIONS TO BOARDS OF TRUSTEES
Gordon Morris
On the Joint Powers Insurance Authority, the current trustees are:
Commissioner Vern Petersen, Fergus County, term ending in 2005
John Prinkki, Carbon County, term ending in 2006
Commissioner Mike Murray, term ending in 2004 (leaving an at-large position to be filled by nominations and elections at this convention)
Commissioner Ted Coffman, Madison County, term ending in 2006
Doug Kaercher, Hill County, Second Vice President
Carol Brooker, Sanders County, President
Gordon Morris, MACo Executive Director
The Workers’ Comp. Trustees are:
President Carol Brooker
First Vice President Bill Kennedy,
Second Vice President Doug Kaercher,
Fiscal Officer Bill Nyby,
Past President Gary Fjelstad,
Urban County Representative Mike Murray,
MACo Executive Director Gordon Morris
The trustees on the Joint Powers Authority Workers’ Comp. program are, in fact, the MACo Executive Committee. The Urban Representative who serves on the Executive Committee, Jean Curtiss of Missoula County, triggered the provision in our bylaws that says if one of the Executive Committee members is not a member of the program, then that position will be filled by somebody who is a member. Last year, with the election of Jean Curtiss as Urban Rep. not qualified to serve, we elected Mike Murray to fill the position as the Urban Representative on the JPA Trustees.
Chair Vern Petersen
Today we need one nomination for Trustee Mike Murray’s at large position. Then depending on the election on Wednesday, we may need more.
Mark Rehbein, Richland County, nominated Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County.
A previous nomination for Greg Chilcott, Ravalli County, was withdrawn in support of Mike Murray.
The call for further nominations remained open until the Wednesday meeting.
WORKERS COMPENSATION ANNUAL REPORT
Ray Barnicoat
As shown on the back page of the pamphlet, the JPA Trust has operated in a deficit for the four past years in a row. This current year we have turned that around. This is a result of rate increases we have taken consistently over the past three or four years. The first nine months are back in the positive. However, we are still in the hole at just over $1.7 million. The Department of Labor is our regulating authority. They get very skittish about an insuring entity that has negatives in its balance sheet. So, they are going to develop some administrative rules, not only for our pools. They will be looking for a net equity position of 125%. We are on a five-year plan that we feel confident will get us there.
You all received your notices of rate increases, which are at 5%. You will probably see 5% rate increases for the next five years in order for us to get to the net equity position of 125%. Back in 2000 we had a substantial amount of reserve. We didn’t need to charge a premium if we didn’t want to. We were making enough interest earnings to fund the claims at the level of that time.
Since then, 9-11 increased medical costs and health insurance had 14-16% rate increases. That and the increased cost of excess insurance have affected not only on our program, but programs across the nation. For excess insurance, in 2000 when we were paying $38,000 a year for coverage. This year it was $166,000 and next year is just under $200,000.
We also need to consider claim frequency. The number of claims a pool receives over a year is going to drive the severity over time. For example in 2002 we incurred 763 claims; in 2003, 790; this year, so far, 855. This year we will have over 1,000 claims, for the first time in the history of our self-insurance program.
The good news is the cost-per-claim is coming down. People are better at reporting; injuries are treated more aggressively and people are brought back to work sooner. The key is to do what we can to reduce the frequency of claims from our entity.
This is a teamwork effort because this pool belongs to you. It’s your program. Commissioners, you have your role and responsibilities--knowing what kind of claims and accidents are happening, why they are happening, what kind of corrective action has been taken to prevent reoccurrence, and insuring there is a pro-active safety committee to educate, motivate and investigate. The supervisor’s role is to insure that people are doing their tasks in a safe manner and using the proper safety gear, such as mandatory seat belts. How many of you have a policy that requires seat belt use when driving county vehicles? We had a death this year and an accident when two drivers in county vehicles were not buckled up. The employee’s responsibility is following through with the practices of the employer. Risk management has its roles and responsibilities to educate and motivate you, to help you get the right tools and the right information to people at the right time. Claims management has a role to act quickly when claims are received, set up appropriate treatment plans, and take actions to get people back to work as soon as possible.
I would like to introduce some of the other team players that are involved in your JPA pool. Norm Grosfield does our legal counsel work for JPA and the JPIA pool. Larry Zanto and Keith Stapeley are the claims managers for asc, and have a staff giving good service to every employee. My assistant is Emelia McEwen, who had been a real asset to the program.
PROPERTY AND CASUALTY LIABILITY POOL
VERN PETERSEN, Chair, JPIA
We now have 47 counties and 176 special districts as members, so we continue to grow. Our loss ratio as of June 30 was 68%, which is very good. However, that will grow, because the income is all in, but the claims are not. Our goal is 80% and we hope to hold it at that. Revenues are increasing and the net assets are growing.
In 1996 we made a major direction change that was due to Gordon Morris and his leadership with the Board. We made a decision not to reinsure close to $690,000 in insurance premiums. We never had a claim against that and those funds now stay with the pool.
In 1996 we were over $1 million and half in the red; we didn’t have the assets to cover the liabilities. We are over $2.3 million surplus now. That’s a tremendous turn-around and that was due in a large part to Gordon’s leadership.
We are looking at the claims situation now. I would really encourage you to pay close attention to that proposal. Gordon would not be bringing it to you if it weren’t a move that we ought to investigate. We need to take an honest look at it to keep your program viable.
Gordon continues to be progressive. He put together a nationwide meeting recently in Kalispell. We were there to hear and learn from each other and I would have to say that the others learned more from us than we did from them. I ask Gordon to comment on that meeting.
GORDON MORRIS
The meeting was held in Kalispell on September 7-8. As a state executive director, I belong to the National Council of County Association Executives. All of my counterparts in all the states meet annually and we get together at the NACo meetings. Years ago we would routinely discuss insurance issues. Most of the states have self-insured programs, just like we do. The last meeting about insurance we had was seven years ago. I really felt that there was a need to know what was going on in the other association pools, what their successes were, what their failures were, what directions they are taking with new program issues, what may arise so that they have to expand, etc.
We had seventeen states participate, with over 80 people. For example there were representatives from Texas, Arkansas, Washington, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia… Most of them have pool administrators in addition to the state exec. Some of them operate the pool totally apart from the state association. Some of them are just like us, where the pool is a service of the association. We are probably the only state where the executive director and pool administrator are combined. That’s a significant difference.
They were looking at bringing claims in-house. The meeting there just led me to conclude that if others found logic in it, then it would be logical for us.
For us, the major focus was on the work comp program—changes in medical costs, changes in excess insurance requirements. Kentucky had a delegation of four representatives there, including their pool executive director.
Kentucky, this past year, just went through a major financial crisis. The insurance commissioner’s staff—those people who are responsible for reviewing and approving the self-insurance programs—were not fulfilling their obligations and the Kentucky pool was in a deficit position in excess of $25 million. The entire office was fired by the governor and that pool now is under state administration.
I tell you this because Kentucky has been the model for the self-insurance program. We worked with them and we modeled a programs for work comp and property/casualty on some of the things they were doing. They are restructuring their program and they will survive. Back in the early ‘80’s, they were selling public bonds and were arbitraging them over and over again, compounding the interest earnings on them. As a result of that, the entire arbitrage provisions associated with public issuances was changed. Now, you cannot earn more than what you are paying out on the bonds.
On the property casualty side we are seeing an array of new coverage issues emerging. We are identifying risks that weren’t there five or ten years ago, for example, risks in zoning, risks in land use issues, risks in public safety. These have to be incorporated into insurance manuscript, whether you are self insured or whether you are insured through an insurance company.
We are seriously evaluating the feasibility for bringing claims in-house. Our claims administrators will tell you that this is a natural evolution. Other states have advanced to that level. Even our own counterpart here in the state, Montana Municipal Insurance Authority (MMIA) brought their claims in-house. Bob Worthington from there claims he paid back the up-front costs for the conversion within two years. We’ll look at the total up-front costs, the on-going costs, and the merit of doing it—to take a contract out for services or to bring it in-house.
My preference would be to have the claims administration staff on-site, but our on-site capabilities are not there. So we will evaluate the possibility of the pools co-tenanting a building. Hopefully we’ll be able to make a recommendation to the Trustees by November, with a decision being made in February 2005. Claims administration would co-tenant a building with the legal side—Norm Grosfield and his staff. They work very closely together, so it wouldn’t make sense to have the legal services downtown in Helena and the claims out at the airport. The building could be equivalent to what we have in our current building--occupy the one half of the building and rent out the other half for revenue. Our claims administration contract and agreement for work comp is October to September and our claims administration agreement for property/casualty is July to June. Those respective contracts could be renewed so that they would begin in January of 2006, if in fact that’s a decision made by the Trustees.
GREG JACKSON
Marketing Director, Joint
Powers Insurance Authority
We just went through a process of appraisals. I thank all of you for your patience in regard to this. We had to wait until the recent appraisals were done because the coverage has changed to a broader coverage. You’ll be getting the final figures soon, along with an invoice for additional premiums for any increase in values. The additional amount of premium is about $150,000 for approximately 60 entities.
A couple of years ago the Trust bonded for the re-insurance layer of the program. You are currently paying off the bonds. As a result we are not going to see any increase in our liability reinsurance premium, because we are not relying on any re-insurers. That’s another positive step that the Trustees made to make this program more financially stable. As Vern pointed out, our projected surplus, without being audited, is close to $2.8--$2.9 million.
The Trustees may be considering a target surplus amount as compared to premium. We will be asking what you think would be a reasonable surplus for the JPIA program.
Vern Petersen
You really don’t have liability and property insurance. Rather, you belong to a pool that handles your claims, replacing the need for insurance. You are the stockholders of your pool—your insurance company, if you want to call it that. Therefore any dividends go right back into the pool, lessening the need for premiums. There is a tremendous difference between a pool and insurance. If you are denied a claim and you feel it’s unfairly denied, there’s a process to appeal and tell your side of the story without depending on a claims adjuster. On top of that, we can design our coverage to fit our needs. If you see a gap somewhere or some risk, we can tailor it to fit. So if you have ideas, we need to hear them and try to adjust to your needs.
The meeting was adjourned.
MACo JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION TRUST
ANNUAL MEETING
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Secretary Gordon Morris announced a quorum to be present.
The current Board of Trustees are Carol Brooker, Sanders County, Past President
Bill Kennedy, Yellowstone County, President
Douglas Kaercher, Hill County, First Vice President
John Prinkki, Carbon County, Second Vice President
Bill Nyby, Sheridan County, Fiscal Officer
Urban County Representative, Jean Curtiss, Missoula County, cannot serve because Missoula County is not a member of the Workers’ Compensation pool.
Nominations were opened for an Urban County Representative. Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County, was nominated. There were no further nominations.
A unanimous ballot was cast for Mike Murray to serve on the JPA Board of Trustees.
The meeting was adjourned.
MACo JOINT POWERS INSURANCE
AUTHORITY
PROPERTY AND CASUALTY TRUST
ANNUAL MEETING
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Last year’s JPIA Trustees are Vern Petersen, Fergus County, term ending 2005
John Prinkki, Carbon County, term ending 2006
Ted Coffman, Madison County, term ending 2006
Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County, term ending 2004
Douglas Kaercher, Hill County, First Vice President
Carol Brooker, Sanders County, President
Two positions will be open: 1) Mike Murray’s at large position is open.
2) Carol Brooker moves out of the presidency and the position for an Executive Board member will be filled by John Prinkki, new Second Vice President. So, John Prinkki’s at- large position ending 2006 is open.
A unanimous ballot was cast to re-elect Mike Murray, Lewis and Clark County, into an at-large position to end 2008.
Nominations were open for the remaining two years of the at-large position, opened with John Prinkki’s election to the Executive Committee.
Carol Brooker, Sanders County, was nominated. With no further nominations, a unanimous ballot was cast for Carol Brooker to serve until 2006.
The meeting was adjourned.
BY LAWS
MONTANA ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES
BY‑LAWS
ARTICLE
I
NAME, MISSION AND OBJECTIVES
Section 1. NAME:
This
organization shall be known as the Montana Association of Counties (MACo),
hereinafter referred to as the “Association”. The principal office shall
be in Helena, Montana.
Section
2. MISSION:
The
general purpose of this organization is to promote the voluntary cooperation
and coordination of the sovereign counties of the State of Montana.
Section
3. OBJECTIVES:
The
objectives of the Association will be to:
a) Do all things necessary and proper for the
benefit of the counties of this state;
b) Provide
a forum for discussions of subjects vital to the operation of county
government;
c) Establish
and maintain lines of communication with the executive and legislative branches
of both the state and federal government;
d) Present
and promote legislation which county officials believe to be beneficial to
citizens, counties, and the state and oppose legislation which county officials
believe to be detrimental thereto;
e) Maintain
a permanent organization dedicated to securing cooperation among counties;
f) Maintain a central
office, with staff to coordinate the programs of the Association;
g) Collect,
compile, and distribute information about county government to county, state,
federal officials and Montana League of Cities and Towns;
h) Initiate litigation in the name of the Association to determine
rights or liabilities of county officials under any constitutional provision or
statute, and appear as a friend of the court (amicus curiae) in any court
proceedings wherein such rights or liabilities are to be determined; and
i) Appoint or employ
counsel for the purpose of furthering any of the objectives of this Association
mentioned herein.
ARTICLE II
MEMBERSHIP
Section
1. MEMBERS:
Members
shall be elected officials of counties which have paid annual dues in accordance
with a schedule of dues or assessments adopted by the Board of Directors and
ratified by the membership. Members
shall be entitled to all services offered by the Association.
Section
2. VOTING
Each
member county, pursuant to Section 1, has one vote. The Board of County Commissioners shall appoint one county
delegate and one alternate to have the authority to vote for that member county
at membership meetings of the Association.
The voting delegate and alternate must be elected county officials.
Section
3. AFFILIATE MEMBERS:
Affiliate
members are individuals, businesses and organizations that make proper
application to the Executive Director and pay dues adopted by the Board of
Directors and ratified by the membership. Affiliate members shall be entitled
to receive services as determined by the Board of Directors. They shall have no floor or voting privileges.
Section 4. TERMINATION:
Any
member county that fails to pay its annual dues or assessment within 45 days of
the billing date, July 1, shall have its membership terminated, unless prior
written request for payment at a later date has been approved by the Board of
Directors.
ARTICLE III
OFFICERS
AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Section
1. OFFICERS
The
officers are the President, First Vice President, Second Vice President, Class
1A County Representative, Fiscal Officer and the Past President, all of whom
must be qualified and acting commissioners of member counties. The officers shall serve as the Executive
Committee. These officers will be
elected at the annual conference by the membership. They shall hold office until their successors are elected and
qualified, so long as they shall remain in county office as county
commissioners.
Section
2. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF
THE OFFICERS
a) PRESIDENT
The
President shall:
1) preside
at all general and special meetings of the Association, the Board and Executive
Committee;
2) provide the general supervision of all
business of the Association in conjunction with the Executive Committee;
3) appoint
all committee members that shall serve during his/her administration;
4) serve
as an ex-officio, non-voting member of all committees.
b) VICE
PRESIDENTS
The Vice Presidents shall consult
with, counsel, and advise the President; and, in the absence of the President,
his or her duties shall be performed successively by the First and Second Vice
Presidents.
c) FISCAL
OFFICER
The
Fiscal Officer shall:
1) oversee the
financial affairs of the Association;
2) make a complete report to the membership
at each conference;
3) make
monthly reports available to members on request;
4) recommend
appropriate investments for the Association's idle funds;
5) counsel
with the Executive Director and the budget and finance committee on the framing
of the Association’s budget;
6) review
proposals for public or private grants to assure that the fiscal needs of the
Association are met. The fiscal officer
shall be elected to a two-year term following nominations and elections in odd
numbered years.
d) CLASS
1A COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
The Class 1A County representative
shall consult with, counsel and advise the president. The current class 1A
county representative shall call a caucus of the Class 1A counties (counties
with over 35,000 population) during the annual conference, for the purpose of
selecting a Class 1A Representative.
Section
3. OFFICERS’ VACANCIES
a) PRESIDENT - A vacancy in the Presidency
shall be filled by the First Vice President.
The First Vice President shall serve out the unexpired portion of the
previous president's term plus the year representing that in which he or she
would have succeeded to the Presidency; or
If the First Vice President declines the
appointment, then the past president shall make an appointment to fill the
vacancy subject to the approval of the Board of Directors. Said appointee shall serve out the unexpired
portion of the President's term and then move into the past presidency.
The First Vice Presidency shall be filled
by the appointment of the Second Vice President. The Second Vice President
shall serve out the unexpired portion of the previous First Vice President's
term plus the year representing that in which he or she would have succeeded to
the First Vice Presidency; or
If the Second Vice President declines the
appointment to First Vice President, then the Past President shall make an
appointment to fill the vacancy subject to the approval of the Board of
Directors. Said appointee shall serve
out the unexpired portion of the First Vice President's term. Said appointee may be nominated and run for
the office of the President at the next annual conference.
The Second Vice Presidency shall be filled
by an appointment by the Past President subject to the approval of the Board of
Directors. Said appointee shall serve
out the unexpired portion of the Second Vice President's term. Said appointee may be nominated and run for
the office of the First Vice President at the next annual conference.
b) FIRST VICE PRESIDENT - A vacancy in the First Vice
Presidency shall be filled by the Second Vice President. The Second Vice President shall serve out
the unexpired portion of the First Vice President's term and then move into the
Presidency; or
If
the Second Vice President declines the appointment to First Vice President,
then the President shall make an appointment to fill the vacancy subject to the
approval of the Board of Directors.
Said appointee shall serve out the unexpired portion of the First Vice
President's term. Said appointee may be nominated and run for the office of the
President at the next annual conference.
The Second Vice Presidency vacancy
shall be filled by appointment by the President subject to the approval of the
Board of Directors. Said appointee
shall serve out the unexpired portion of the Second Vice President's term. Said appointee may be nominated and run for
the office of the First Vice President.
c) SECOND VICE PRESIDENT - A vacancy in the Second Vice
Presidency shall be filled by appointment by the President, subject to the
approval of the Board of Directors.
Said appointment may be nominated and run for the office at the next
annual conference.
d) FISCAL OFFICER - A vacancy in the office of Fiscal
Officer shall be filled by appointment by the President, subject to the
approval of the Board of Directors.
e) PAST PRESIDENT - A vacancy in the Past Presidency shall
be filled by the appointment by the President of the next most immediate Past
President.
f) MEMBER RATIFICATION OF APPOINTMENTS - All of the above
referenced appointments are subject to approval at the next annual conference
by the membership of the Association.
g) CLASS 1A COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE - A Class 1A County Representative
vacancy shall be filled by appointment by the President subject to a
recommendation made by a majority of the Class 1A Counties.
Section
4. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
a) The Executive Committee shall have general supervision, management
and control of the business and property of the Association subject to the by‑laws
and to the policy established by the Board of Directors and the voting
membership.
b) The Executive Committee shall have the power to determine Association
policy on all legislative matters of concern within the guidelines established
by the voting membership or the Board of Directors.
c) The Executive Committee shall serve as an Evaluation Committee
for purposes of annually evaluating the performance of the Executive Director
by surveying the member Boards of County Commissioners. Such evaluation shall be reported to the
Board of Directors.
Section
5. EXPENSES
The
members of the Executive Committee shall receive their necessary expenses
incurred in their attendance of meetings approved by the President, with the
exception of the meetings held at the annual conference or special meetings of
the full Association.
ARTICLE
IV
BOARD
OF DIRECTORS
Section 1. MEMBERS
a) The Board shall consist of the four elected officers, the Past
President, the Class 1A Representative and the elected chairperson from each of
the twelve regional districts specified in Article VIII.
b)
In addition to the members identified in Subsection
(a), other county elected official associations with no less than 29 county
members may each designate a member to serve as their representative on the
Board.
Section 2. MEETINGS
The
Board shall meet at least semi‑annually on a date and at a time and place
set by the Board, or on the call of the president. The Board may meet upon the written request of any five members
of the Board. The request must state
the purpose of the meeting and be mailed to all other Board members two weeks
prior to the date for the meeting. A majority of the voting Board shall
constitute a quorum.
Section 3. DUTIES
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The
Board shall have the power to:
a) develop the policies of the Association within the guidelines
set by the voting membership;
b) establish a central office;
c) employ
an Executive Director, and to set his/her salary;
d) remove
the Executive Director at any time after allowing adequate due process;
e)
view and approve annually the Executive Director’s
Staff Policy and Procedures Manual;
f)
review and approve annually a budget sufficient to
meet the needs of the Association;
g)
prepare a schedule of
services for members and affiliate members with recommended dues and
assessments for each;
h)
present recommended
dues increases and assessments, if any, to the membership at the annual
conference for approval and adoption;
i)
increase the dues
schedule in an amount up to the annual COLA in any one year. Any increase above the annual COLA must be
approved by the membership at the annual conference;
j)
authorize an annual
independent audit of the Association by a firm of certified public accountants;
k)
function as the
nominating committee and select at least two candidates each for the office of
Second Vice President and Fiscal Officer.
No candidate can be nominated and run for two offices simultaneously. Nominations may be made at district meetings
of county commissioners and submitted to the Board;
l)
amend the approved
budget by a majority vote of the Board of Directors.
Section
4. EXPENSES
The
Board members and designees shall receive their necessary expenses incurred in
their attendance of meetings, with the exception of those meetings held at the
annual conference or special meetings of the full membership.
ARTICLE V
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR
Section
1. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The
Executive Director shall perform such duties as are assigned by the Board of
Directors for implementing Association policy, and shall be responsible to the
Board. The Executive Director shall supervise the Association office and
staff. The Board of Directors shall be
responsible for an annual evaluation of the Executive Director
The
Executive Director shall compile, publish and maintain a “Staff Policies and
Procedures Manual”, which shall be reviewed annually by the Board of
Directors. The “Staff Policies and Procedures Manual” shall include a
detailed job description for the Executive Director and such other staff
positions as may be created.
The
Executive Director shall be responsible for the hiring and termination of staff
personnel consistent with the “Staff Policies and Procedures Manual”.
The
hiring of an Assistant Director by the Executive Director requires the
concurrence of the Executive Committee and confirmation by the Board of
Directors.
ARTICLE VI
STANDING COMMITTEES
Section 1. RESOLUTIONS
AND LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE
The
Resolutions and Legislative Committee shall consist of at least five
members. Members (one of whom
shall be a member of the Board of Directors) are appointed by the President,
subject to approval of the Board of Directors. The Committee members
shall select the chairperson from their own number. It shall be the duty
of the Committee to develop resolutions and to receive resolutions from the
Regional Districts. The Committee may consult other elected county
officials to determine resolutions beneficial to county governments, and work
with those officials to promote beneficial resolutions. The Committee shall
examine resolutions to be placed before the membership for proper form and
content, organize them by category, combine similar resolutions, and recommend
priorities.
The
Committee shall have legislation drafted as directed by resolutions approved
by the membership at the annual conference or special meetings; and assist the
Executive Director in securing sponsorship for the legislation. The Committee, together with the Executive
Director, shall recommend to the Officers and the Board the response of the
Association to all legislation affecting county government.
Section 2. BUDGET
AND FINANCE COMMITTEE
The
Budget and Finance Committee shall consist of at least five members.
Members shall be appointed by the President subject to the approval of the
Board of Directors. The Fiscal Officer shall serve as chairperson of the
Committee. The Committee shall prepare and submit to the Board of Directors
a proposed budget for the Association. The proposed budget shall provide
adequately for all planned activities of the Association.
Section 3. EXPENSES
Members
of Standing Committees shall receive their necessary expenses incurred in
their attendance of meetings, as approved by the President, with the exception
of meetings held at the annual
conference or special meetings of the full membership.
ARTICLE
VII
OTHER
COMMITTEES
Section 1. ESTABLISHMENT
Special
interest, ad hoc, or problem‑solving committees may be formed by the
President, the Board of Directors, or the general membership as needed.
Section 2. EXPENSES
Members
of committees may receive their necessary expenses incurred in their attendance
of meetings, as approved by the President, with the exception of meetings held
at the annual conference or special meetings of the full membership.
ARTICLE VIII
REGIONAL
DISTRICTS
Section 1. DISTRICTS
IDENTIFIED
The
counties of the state shall be grouped into twelve districts in conformance
with the Governor's Administrative Districts, as follows:
District
No. 1 District
No. 2 District
No. 3 District
No. 4 District No. 5 District No. 6
Daniels Dawson Carter Blaine Cascade Fergus
Phillips Garfield Custer Hill Chouteau Golden Valley
Roosevelt McCone Fallon Liberty Glacier Judith Basin
Sheridan Prairie Powder River Chouteau Pondera Musselshell
Valley Richland Rosebud Teton Petroleum
Wibaux Treasure Toole Wheatland
District
No. 7 District
No. 8 District No. 9 District No. 10 District No. 11 District No. 12
Big Horn Broadwater Gallatin Flathead Mineral Anaconda-Deer Lodge
Carbon Jefferson Meagher Lake Missoula Beaverhead
Stillwater Lewis and Clark Park Lincoln Ravalli Granite
Sweet
Grass Sanders Madison
Yellowstone Powell
Butte-Silver
Bow
Section 2. DUTIES
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
A
Regional District shall have the authority and responsibility to call district
meetings and adopt resolutions directed to the attention of the
Association. No District shall take action of record in the name of the
Association on any question involving the welfare of counties outside the
Regional District except in the form of a resolution to the Association.
Section
3. DISTRICT OFFICERS
The
district officers shall be a chairperson and vice-chairperson elected by a
majority vote of member counties in each district. They shall be elected
to an annual term at a district meeting prior to the annual conference and take
office immediately following the annual conference.
Districts
shall be represented at Board of Directors meetings by the district
chairperson, or the vice-chairperson in the chairperson’s absence, or the
chairperson’s designee when both the chairperson and vice-chairperson are
unable to attend a Board meeting, and that person shall have the power to vote
on issues at that meeting.
ARTICLE
IX
ANNUAL
CONFERENCE AND PROCEDURES
Section 1. DATE
AND LOCATION
The
date of the annual conference of this Association shall be determined by the
Executive Committee, and the place determined by a vote of the general membership
at an annual conference, a quorum being present. A majority of the members shall constitute a quorum.
Section
2. REPORTS
The
following individuals shall make their reports at the annual conference:
a) The
President;
b) The
Fiscal Officer;
c) The
Executive Director;
d) All
committee chairpersons of standing committees and special committees;
e) NACo
steering committees members.
Section
3. CONDUCT OF OFFICIAL BUSINESS
The
official business of the Association shall be conducted in accordance with the
most recent edition of “Robert’s Rules of Order”.
Section
4. NOMINATIONS
a) The
Nominating Committee (see Article IV, Section 3 (J)) shall make its nominations report to the membership in the
opening general session of the annual conference.
b) The
report shall not require a seconding motion, but shall be adopted along with
additional nominations made from the floor.
c) All
nominations will remain open until the time of the election during the closing
general session.
Section 5. ELECTIONS
The
election of officers shall occur at the annual conference and be governed by
the rule of majority ‑‑ 50% plus one of the entire votes cast. The ballot will be repeated in the event of
the failure of a candidate to receive a majority with the nominee receiving the
lowest number of votes removed from the ballot for purposes of the subsequent
vote of the members.
Section 6. AMENDMENTS
TO THE BY‑LAWS
These
by‑laws may be amended by a majority vote of the membership at a regular
or a special meeting, a quorum being present.
Proposed amendments must be submitted in writing to the President of
the Association to be read and acted upon at a meeting for the full membership. Copies of said proposed amendment or
amendments shall be made available to the general membership at least ten days
prior to the convening of the meeting.
Section 7. EFFECTIVE
DATE
These
by‑laws having been duly amended by a majority vote of the members cast
at the 93rd Annual Conference will be effective upon the adjourning
of the annual conference with all provisions for compliance in regard to the
elected officers of the Association having been provided for by action on the
floor of the Association.
ATTACHMENTS