Jerry Plush: I have to tell you, I think it shouldn’t be lost. We made a big transition in in the team and some of the composition is a team particularly on the commercial side this year. And I think that that team is really gaining even more and more footing at this point. We’re also expanding that team. I can tell you that we’ve got five new strong business development officers that have either started or we’ll be starting frankly next week. Here at the organization we expect we’ve added in Broward we’ve added in Miami Dade [ph], I think we’ve had another additional person you know in the on the other side in Houston you know, and so we feel good about what the new team members are going to be able to bring in addition, right and so every time I talk about another person coming on board, you have to kind of think about that as a scorecard of their set of goals both on the loan and deposit side that are added to the core base of people that we have and so look I’m of the belief that you know, this is a this is a time it’s a wonderful opportunity.
People like our story they want to come here they believe that what we’re doing, the execs have done a great job of you know attracting some of these folks as well. And so, that to me is what gives confidence around our ability, you know, and of course, I have to say, you know, we talked about awareness, the awareness levels for this organization, just continue to escalate and get lots of compliments about it. You know what, I’m out in the marketplace and talking with people and I think that halo effect that comes from that is also extremely helpful in the consideration set. And look, we take every single interaction. You know, I don’t want to beat the drum on this one very personally. I think that you know, one of the advantages of banking with a company like ours is the personal interaction you can get with all levels of management, the attention to quicker turnaround times.
And so your reputation builds as a result of that and that’s what gives me confidence that you’re going to see growth out of our organization in the fourth quarter.
Unidentified Analyst: Right. That’s really good girl. Appreciate the time.
Operator: Our next question comes from a line Feddie Strickland with Janney Montgomery, Scott.
Feddie Strickland: Hey, good morning. Just want to start by clarifying on expenses. Is the court expense rate your guiding to the fourth quarter is that going to be similar to the $58 million core that we saw this quarter? And then are these FIS [ph] charges being a one-time item on top of that?
Jerry Plush: Yes, no. We expect but we had — I think Sherry and I had talked in prior quarters had a that, you know the targeting was anywhere between sort of — I’ll call it $59.5 million to $61-ish million range, and then you’re going to see the elevated expense that takes place. Now that’s before we do anything of some of these other additional expense initiatives that I was mentioning earlier. You know, I’d love to give you more color but I would prefer to just say that once you’re going to see for to write of, you know, we’ll call it, you know, five $6 million expense of running everything at the same time. Is it more of an anomaly for the period than it is you know, so that’s why when we started to talk about this where, yeah, if you peel it back, we still think our run rate is in and around that range.
But let’s, let’s be clear, we are going to have in 2024, elevated technology related expense, as part of this process that will then was we decommission things over time, that’s going to be a continuous improvement exercise for us as an organization. So it will probably, as we said, certainly stay elevated in q1 at a minimum, sharing a few when added code completely right. It’s going to be effective running these applications and technology efforts in parallel.
Feddie Strickland: Got it so that it sounds like over time. You think you can kind of hold them a little more flat as you redeploy some of those costs as you get as you as you quit running things and parallel into other technology initiatives [indiscernible]?
Jerry Plush: Yes. And setting in fairness, you know, just based on the comments I was making from the last set of questions. You have to take into account with us, you know, our expectation counter to a lot of other people is that we’re expecting to continue to grow and it’s a combination of, we just see a good opportunities in the marketplace. And so you’re going to have, you know, a higher poet earnings base as well that comes into play. So some of that is a direct result of some of these other investments that we’re making in people. But I will tell you, we’re continuously evaluating how as this technology gets deployed, that we can better assess our ratio of business development and support, understand expectation as you’re going to see us go into a true continuous improvement mode in 2024.
You know, frankly, in 2023, it’s been all about bringing in some new team members to add additional growth but the vast majority of efforts you know, again under the refer to it as unnoticed and under the surface, there’s just been an incredible amount of energy and effort by this team focused on this FIS conversion, and it’s a massive undertaking, you know, sometimes people may not quite remember but we’re converting everything. I mean, when I mean everything, everything and so this is a major, major undertaking for our company, and we could not be more excited for that date in early November to come and finally get to the point where yes, we’ll start to see that you know, the pressure will be on making sure our customers are okay, we’re onboarding new, new business, okay.
And we can get back to really focusing more and more on you know, as I said, continuous improvement efforts.
