So I will call to order this special session of the Bloomington City Council. Today is the 26th of October.
Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmembers Schaffer? Here. Pia Huntsman? Here. Zulek? Here.
Massari? Here. Bailey? Here. Ruff?
All right, fantastic. Well, this is just a special meeting for some matters concerning the PS lit that
we didn't address during the budget season or during our normal sort of budget window. And so this is
what we're here for. Can you just go up so I can say what's on the agenda? So we just have one matter
on the agenda today, which is resolution 2026.
So, is there any amendments to the agenda? Thank you very much. Are there any motions? I move that the
clerk read resolution 2026-23 by title and synopsis only. Second. Okay, motion and a second. Any discussion?
All those in favor say aye. Aye. It has so been moved.
Would you kindly read this by title and synopsis? Yes. Resolution 2026-23 resolution proposing an ordinance
modifying local income tax rate and allocations in Monroe County and casting votes in favor of the ordinance
regarding increasing the public safety answering point rate and the total public safety local income
tax rate and total expenditure tax rate without changing other allocations. The synopsis.
is as follows, Resolution 2026-23 increases the public safety answering point rate and subsequently
the overall public safety income tax and total expenditure tax rate in order to fully fund dispatch
operations as recommended by the PSLIC Committee of the Monroe County Local Income Tax Council. Okay,
thank you very much. Is there another motion? I move to discuss Resolution 2026-26. Approved.
I'm all messed up. I move to adopt resolution 2026-23. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion?
All right. All those in favor say, oh. What? There's an amendment? Oh, there's no amendment. Sorry.
Don't we need to have a presentation to understand what we're voting on? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I
also am confused because I'm sitting on this table. So let's get to this. I think Jeff is going to talk.
Do you want to talk about it a little bit?
Okay, Larry do enjoy can you come sit here so it'll make it less confusing. Thank you So thank you all
very much the PS lit committee which is part of the Monroe County Tax Tax Council as a countywide Council
that the city of Bloomington is a member of as is this legislative body met over the summer and recommended
an increase in specifically the
public service answering point service or the dispatch service rate. The city of Bloomington for its
portion has been running a deficit for several years now. Jeff has those numbers, so I'm not going to
walk on him too much because he is the expert in that particular item. We also have representatives
of the Bloomington police and the dispatch here, so thank them for joining us this evening. So if you
have any questions for them, they're also here and available, I believe. The recommendation was just
to, in lieu of
Senate Enrolled Act 1, there is likely going to be funding difficulties in the future. And so in order
to capture as much as we possibly could potentially, that was one of the recommendations for raising
this particular rate to close that deficit number for the City of Bloomington's share for the Joint
Dispatch Center to collect under what's called the PS Lit Rate. The PS Lit Rate is public safety local
income tax rate. It's made up of two parts.
the public service answering point, the PSAP, which is the part that goes towards the dispatch, and
then there's general public safety local income tax. The part that we're raising is only the PSAP rate.
It would have the effect of raising the overall local income tax rate in the city of Bloomington, but
not by very much. It's a relatively modest increase as these go, and it would be on top of a prior rate
increase that the county has already done. Just really quickly, talking about the voting procedures,
Each member of the Monroe County Tax Council is given a proportionate share of votes according to its
population. By what could be considered almost special legislation of the General Assembly, they have
decided that our votes count proportionately per member of council. So a yes vote counts for one ninth
of Bloomington's total votes. And a collective unanimous agreement votes all of the share of votes that we have
to the county. If we have five members here, that's five out of nine, we would likely need county support
to increase this rate as well for it to actually go into effect next year. Happy to answer questions.
We have Jeff here. I believe he has some spreadsheets for you. And if there's anything that I've left
completely unclear, which I'm sure there's many things, I'm happy to answer those questions as well.
Thank you so much. Controler McKim. Great. Thank you very much.
Let's see, is it possible to project my, okay, Larry's going to work on this. So I gave kind of a bigger
presentation at the committee meeting. What I want to do now is just kind of give you the most up-to-date
numbers that we have available so that you can understand not only both
what the position is of the city's PSAP-lit fund, but also what the available sources of reserves are.
So basically, I just want to give you the financial information that you need to
to make your decision. We do have Jared Bailey here from the, who's the director of the Dispatch Center
from Police, who can also answer more specific questions about the Dispatch Center if you have any.
But I just want to talk about kind of where we are vis-a-vis reserves. Just to recap just a bit from
my presentation at the committee meeting, there were really two problems that we identified. Kind of
a short-term problem, which is,
Do we actually have enough to fund the budget for the next year for the dispatch center? And then the
longer term problem is as the Senate Enrolled Act 1 new lit structure goes into place, how can we essentially
buy ourselves enough time to come up with a new funding system since this dedicated rate does go away?
So that's the bigger picture. What you'll see here is that I think the first question, the short term
in 2027, has actually been dealt with. So really what we're looking at is the longer term issue. So
let me first start with where we are on the column B there labeled city PSAP lit. This is kind of almost
up to the minute, well, at least up till yesterday, funding picture for the city's PSAP lit fund.
And you may remember that this has come up in multiple discussions, both amongst yourselves, but also
in members of the public, that it used to be that the city had commingled PS-lit and PSAP-lit funds
in one fund, but that the city council had passed an appropriation ordinance in 2025,
that reconciled and came up with a transfer amount out of PSAP lit, PS lit into PSAP lit, all those
transfers have been made. So the numbers that I'm showing you here are after all of those corrections.
So they are kind of real numbers, what we're actually working with. So we start with our, and so the
question is, okay, what is our current position and what kind of reserves do we have available?
We start with the yesterday's balance, essentially, which is about $1.2 million in that fund, and then
look at what additional revenue we expect. Fortunately, the revenue for PSAP and PSLIT is very regular.
We know exactly what it's going to be. So we know that after that cash balance, we're gonna get two
more months of $245,000 payments from the county.
to that fund. So we know what we're getting in revenue. The remaining expenditures is an estimate.
And so Mr. Bailey from the Bloomington Police, director of dispatch, did an estimate as to what he thought
the remaining expenditures in the year would be. And that's where that number came from. So that number
is, I would say,
not as hard as the additional revenue numbers because it really just depends on what's going on,
on Mr. Bailey's projections of what's going to happen to the end of the year. And you're welcome to
ask him questions about that, which leaves us at a projected end of the year balance of about a million
dollars. Then we move forward.
projected revenue for 2027 is $4 million. Now, why is it $4 million? Because that's what the county
council has adopted as their budget. Because what happens is the money flows into the county PSAP lit
fund and then the county transfers it over through the interlocal agreement to the city. And they have
put in four million dollars into their budget, which is actually less than the amount of income tax
that is going to be coming in if you don't make this move and increase the income tax. And we'll get
to that in a minute. But in any case, the projected revenue is going to be four million dollars because
the county appropriated that.
The budget for 2027 is $4.8 million, which is the budget that you all have already adopted through your
budget proceedings, which leads us to then, and as you can tell, that is an actual deficit budget. So
you do have a deficit budget, so what we're really talking about is what kinds of reserves we might
be using. So you'll see that at the end of 2027,
So essentially, the reserves, we'd be projecting reserves of $188,000, which is pretty small. So in
the PSAP-lit fund itself, the reserves are nearly zero. However, we do then have the county's PSAP-lit
fund. And now, why does the county have a PSAP-lit
Why did they have reserves in the county's PSAP fund? It's because the county has traditionally distributed
less money on certain occasions than they've actually received. So that money is statutorily limited
to use for the PSAP.
but the county has not always distributed all of the money that they have received. One of the reasons
for that is because of these supplemental lit distributions. So every year there's a supplemental local
income tax that comes from excess collections and the state distributes it. So that money has kind of
built up in the county's PSAP lit fund, among other things. But I essentially did the same
analysis with starting with the current balance, which is of the county's piece app lit, which is $3.2
million, because they are paying out currently exactly what they're getting in paying out to the city.
The end of the year balance should be $3.26 million also. So then we look at what where we are with
2027. And if
you do not adopt an increase in the PSLIT or the PSAP lit rate, we would expect or the county would
expect to get in about $3.3 million and that includes their estimate of a supplemental distribution.
So that's being taken into account in that particular estimate.
The county has adopted a $4 million budget for their PSAP lit, which then gets distributed to the city.
So as you can see, the county is, we are already using some, but not all by a long shot, we are already
using some reserves that are sitting at the county. Because they expect to get $3.3 million in and pay
$4 million out.
leaving reserves of about $2.5 million at the end of 2027. And so those are the funds that are typically
used as the operating funds. They pay out the salaries, they pay out most of the operations of the dispatch
center. There's another fund,
the county 9-1-1 tax that's paid by the tax that's on people's phone service, and it's also restricted
to dispatch related functions. This funding is used by, or typically used in the dispatch center for
their contracts, so their technology contracts, and also for their training. And Mr. Bailey may have some
additional comments about that. And so there's also some reserves there. If we essentially do the same
exercise, there's also reserves in the 911 fund. So what that means if you look at the numbers here,
you essentially have about $2.5 million in reserves for the operational funds, and then another $2.7
million in reserve for the 911 fund. Now,
Remember, I told you that I felt like the short-term problem had already been resolved because the county
did appropriate $4 million. And that leaves us a non-zero operating balance at the end of 2027 for PSAP
lit. So really, I think what we're talking about is the bigger picture. What happens when the new lit
structures
take and come into effect. The other thing I want to throw in there, and I'm hoping actually Mr. Bailey
can elaborate on this, is that the dispatch center, you may remember, was created about 12 years ago.
And a lot of the major technology is nearing the end of its useful life. And so we might think, oh,
there's $2.5 million in PSAP lit,
It's just there for the taking. We don't need to increase the tax rate because we have all that money
in the bank now. The problem is that at some point in the near future, all that technology is going
to need to be replaced and refreshed. We'll probably do it in the kind of
Assuming that we do eventually be able to move forward with a new police station, it'll probably be
done in conjunction with moving to a new station. But regardless of whether we use the old dispatch
center or a new dispatch center, the equipment still needs to be replaced. And Jared, I don't know,
can you just speak for a couple? You'll want to come up so you can use the mic, sorry.
I don't mean to put him on the spot, but I think the issue of technology replacement and maintaining
reserves for that is relevant to this discussion. Some of our mission critical equipment that we use
to communicate with the first responders out in the field is nearing its life now.
Um, and I received a quote on that and that alone is 2.3 million and that's a quote for this year. Um,
and in 2027 they are expected to see a significant jump in pricing just for our radio equipment to be
able to communicate to the field responders. Excuse me. First responders out in the field. Jared Bailey.
I think those are the numbers that I have and I'm happy to answer any questions about what we have up
there. Thank you so much and thank you. Are there any questions, council members? I have a basic question.
That's probably, anyway, I won't preface it. So my basic question is though,
things aren't good for a lot of people right now and hearing about a tax increase is really worrisome
just across the board. On average, and I know that's going to be tough, but can you say approximately
like how much this would add to each person's annual family budget? You know, I don't have that in front
of me. I know we discussed that at the committee meeting. Yeah, I mean,
I don't disagree with you that raising a tax is difficult. That's why I'm kind of just wanting
to transparently present you with what the options are as far as the reserves so you can kind of make
that decision. Do you find would you just continue to move on with existing reserves or do you build up in
I guess I was just wondering if PSAP funds are the only way to fund some of the new equipment that we're
talking about. Or, like, for example, could we use general fund dollars? Like, is... That was my question.
Yes. I mean, you could certainly use general fund if you want. Okay.
The thing about using the general fund is that in that case, the money would be coming only from city
taxpayers. And of course, the dispatch center is a city county. It's a unified dispatch center that
dispatches to all corners of the county. OK. Thank you. Any other questions?
Yeah, I'm trying to reconcile the numbers that Controller McKim had projected just a few minutes ago
with what we talked about at the PSLIT meeting, where the revenue estimate overall for PSLIT was 14
million. And then if I calculate the percentage out, it's about 4.9 million for PSAP.
And how does that relate to the 4 million that the county has now budgeted? Because they're going to
get probably more than that as revenues from the state, right? Because we had talked about a $4.9 million
revenue estimate for PSAP. Right, if you make this change.
That's if you choose to increase the rate, you'd wind up with about 4.9 because we have looked at matching
the rate as closely as we could to the actual budget. That was kind of the strategy, was to match the
rate to the budget. So you're essentially funding the current budget with new revenue coming in. Right,
the budget is 4.7. 4.8. 4.753.
The one you actually adopted is 4,808,542. Do you remember there were some changes that came related
to the insurance rate and then the 2.7 percent COLA. Yes, a little confusing because we had two sets
of figures in our packet for today.
I forgot that we had talked about that change during the committee meeting. Any other questions? We
do have an amendment as well. I have so many questions. So you want to ask them? Yes. Well, I feel like
this is kind of showing my like, oh, like how much have I ever thought about this before, sort of newbie
status still even after three years and still learning things.
Procedurally, what it sounded like to me is that City Council approves the budget for dispatch, right?
But it gets paid into with the other sources, but we approved the budget before we knew how much money
the county was going to pay into it, and that seems really odd to me. So, Jeff, can you maybe clarify
that? Like, is that how it always works?
The city and the county approved the budget for Dispatch Center. So you vote on it during your budget
process and the county council also voted on their process. And so you can't each wait for the other
to be done. Somebody has to go first. Right. And that's just... So the county and the city approved
the same dispatch budget. Correct.
But then the amount that is being distributed to us was approved after that, though? Like, what is that
based on? That was being, that was appropriated by the county council. And how they exactly, they chose
that number, I don't know. I mean, I certainly communicated with the commissioner's office that we were
going to need more than the, we were going to need to eat into reserves if we wanted to have a positive
budget. And so they,
presumably put that number in and voted on it. So can I follow up on that because it relates to my previous
question as well. So both the City Council and the County Council approved a budget for dispatch funded
by PSAP lit of $4.8 million.
So why is the County Council only allocated $4 million from, for PSAP? Because we have reserves. But
they have reserves too. They have the reserves. And they are using some and they will presumably be
asked to continue to use them.
I mean, yes, those reserves, those numbers that I showed you, those reserves, you have to take that
are even if they happen to live on the county side, you need to keep those into take those into account.
You're thinking about this issue. They are certainly reserves that are that are available. The question
is, are you also going to want to use them to buy equipment at some at some point in the near future?
Or do you just want to use them for for current operations?
So speaking of those reserves there's the reserves that you showed on the screen that were like the
county reserves and then there were the reserves that were like the 911 reserves and so those are two
different pots of reserves but like and they have different restrictions okay so I guess I'm wondering
what those different restrictions are I guess especially on the the 911 restrictions yeah that that
I would not be
an expert on. The county maintains those and actually pays our, pays dispatch center invoices for technology
and training out of those funds. So the 911 fund is used for technology and training? Currently. Jared,
do you want to? I will say that the state has very strict guidelines of what that money can be used
for. And so I can get that information and send it on to you.
I have a question to your question, Councillor Sasberg, and possibly to our legal counsel. Can you talk
a little bit about the details of our agreement with the county? I can't, but let me... What's the specifics
that you would like to... Well, about this question about both timing, how much is getting transferred,
how much is being
why those specific amounts, and particularly as relates to the scope of action that we can take on this
piece of legislation. I'm also interested in why this comes as a resolution, not an ordinance, but that's
a minor second point. I can speak to the latter point, actually, first, before I speak to the interlocal.
So the resolutions, as opposed to an ordinance, is because of a kind of a court of state law. Because
you are a member of a tax council,
And you are just a member, you are not part of the county, the actual tax council itself. The resolution
is an initiating resolution to recommend an ordinance to the tax council as a whole. And so by statute,
you're authorized to be able to initiate that process through resolution. Very simply, that's the reason
for why it's coming as a bizarre resolution that recommends an ordinance that's embedded within the
resolution.
you're essentially making a recommendation to the entire Monroe County Tax Council, which includes the
City of Bloomington, the Common Council, the Monroe County Council, Steinsville and Ellsville and most
of the else. And then the question about the interlocal. If you give me maybe two minutes and come back
to me, I'm happy to answer. And I can answer.
Councilmember Daly's question about the tax. Yeah, so I just did the calculation on an adjusted gross
income of $100,000. It would cost, this increase would cost about $37. Okay, thank you. That was what
I got too. I'm glad I did my math right. I was thinking to myself, okay, if I did my math right, then
I should be 37, but I don't know. So, and I'm sorry if it sounds like I keep asking the same thing, but
The county council approved a four million dollar budget for PSAP. The four million million is the revenues.
Right. No, they adopted the same budget for PSAP. Well, the same budget for dispatch that you did. Right.
The exact same. They adopted a four million dollar budget for the interlocal agreement that pays money
out of their PSAP lit fund into your PSAP.
Okay, and the remaining $800,000 will come from the city's reserves? No. That comes out of the counties.
So where is that budgeted? Don't they have to budget that transfer to the city as well? No, that's just
the difference between the revenue that comes in. I know it's complicated. It's kind of watching the
moving ball.
$3.3 million will go into the county's PSAP Lit Fund. They will transfer $4 million out to you. So the
rest of it just sits in that reserves bucket that we talked about, which you should absolutely should
consider resources that are available to fund the dispatch center. Wait. Okay, so the revenue from the
state income taxes that
we get for PSAP goes to the county. Correct. They're expected to see $4.9 million. No. Sorry,
that's the... That's P, that would be the whole PS. That would be if we approved the new rate. Right,
they expect to see, right now with the current rate, they expect to see about $3.3 million, and that
even includes their estimate of
the supplemental, a potential supplemental distribution that we don't necessarily know exists yet. Okay.
So they're expecting to see 3.3 million. They budgeted to transfer to the city 4 million. Yes. So they're
using. Which we need, otherwise we would wind up with a negative balance. So we need, we need those
reserves just to get through the year or to get through next year. But the PSAP budget is
$4.8 million. So the other $800,000 is coming from where again? Which reserves? Our reserves. Our reserves.
So they're only transferring to us $4 million. They're transferring $4 million, correct. Our budget
for PSAP is $4.8 million. Yes. So where is the other $800,000 coming from? Just like Councilmember Stossberg
said, your reserves. Our reserves. Yes.
Which are only what? Like a million. A million as of the end of this year and will probably be less
than 200,000 by the end of 27. Okay, gotcha. It would be very, very useful if we could have for our
records and for the public's records your presentation from tonight as well as the presentation you
made at the PSLIT committee meeting which is still not online. Yeah.
And I provided this actually with Mr. Allen was actually showing his copy of this. Okay. Yeah. So if
we could get that stuff online. Thank you. Isaac. Go ahead. Thank you. Sorry, I was reading them. Yeah.
So I feel like I want to go back because I feel like we're missing a larger problem. And I also want
to clarify Councilmember Piedmont-Smith.
question because she started out by saying PS lit I think it's confusing because there's PS lit and
there's PSAP and PSAP is a smaller part of PS lit right so the 3.3 million is just the PSAP part right
correct okay all right I just want to clarify that but I think that we have a much bigger problem that
the state is expecting 3.3 million in revenues from PSAP right now and we have a 4.8 million dollar
budget and
That's like, that's a $1.2 million deficit budget. Did I do that math right? No, I did. I'm doing totally
different math. 1.5. Don't look at my math. No, I know. I'm looking at your 3.3. And then, so it's $1.5
million deficit budget. And so we just have like a $1.5 million deficit budget every year in terms of
what is coming in
from PSAP and what is going out through dispatch? So we used to have more of a surplus. And so we built
up reserves too. So for years, we had definitely been, we being the city, had been receiving and not
spending everything that we received. And part of that is because of staff vacancies.
You know, in the past we've had large vacancies in the dispatch center. And Jared may have comments
about staffing levels. You may want to ask about that because, you know, obviously it's a major goal
to become fully staffed. But in any case, we've kind of moved from accumulating reserves to spending
them down. We started spending them down in 23.
And then in 25, that was when the city implemented the salary study. And so the salary dispatchers went
up significantly, and the overall costs went up significantly, but the revenue didn't. So again, you
kind of moved from years of receiving more than you spent and having a decent cushion to spending that
cushion down. And now we're essentially at the point where we're spending it down to nearly zero.
Because we're spending significantly more than the revenue is. Yes. Consistently. And that's going to
go into the future that way. I mean, I know there's a whole tax change thing. But it's not like suddenly
our dispatch budget is going to reduce significantly in order to, because most of that is staff, right?
The majority is personnel. Yeah. And I absolutely agree that we need to,
have consistent staffing. It's so important. We need to be able to call 911. Our residents need to be
able to call 911 and have somebody answer the phone and that somebody needs to be not stressed out and
overtired. And yeah, all of those things. So we need to have good, stable, plentiful staffing. But I
guess I'm like, is there any other
way to, I guess that goes to what Councilmember Zulik said is like, so we can fund dispatch with general
funds, we can fund it with anything, but that would maybe involve a whole different interlocal. We're
gonna need a new interlocal anyway. This, I don't suppose anybody from City Legal is here, but we're
gonna need a new interlocal.
We were already talking about the kinds of revisions we need to the inter-lobal agreement. It was written
a long time ago when the city and the county were still trying to kind of equalize what the city spent
on the construction of the building versus the technology that was purchased. There's just a lot in
there that isn't useful. And the other thing we have to do is we have to anticipate the new lit structure.
So we're really only talking, when you're talking about voting on a rate increase, we're really talking
right now about something that would have a two year or potentially only one year impact if it's not
able to be adopted by the end of this month by the county. Wait, so the county would have to adopt this
by the end of the month too? Is there even a meeting scheduled for the county to potentially adopt this?
They could do that. We don't. We don't know if there's a meeting schedule. They can adopt it after November
1st as well. Just it affects when the tax is actually collected. So whether it's going to be collected
on January, starting January 1st or starting next fall. Hope they can meet. Yeah, it's a very but but
regardless, we know that there had been a new.
inter-local agreement is needed, and it's going to need to be something that's a little more future-proofed
with respect to the sources of funding. Can I ask one more question? Please ask seven. So that 9-1-1
reserve fund, I don't know if you will know, Jared, right? Yes.
You were talking about the potential technology needs and those upgrades. Is that something that those
funds can be used for in terms of, because I heard technology and training. Technology and training,
yes, you could use those funds for that. But at this rate, again, we're looking at aging equipment all
around. Right. And that's going to far exceed what's in that account. Well, what was your $2.5 million
budget or a million dollar quote for?
Just radios. That's one piece of technology. Okay. But what are some other examples? You've got computers
that we work off on a regular basis. You've got phone systems that need to be upgraded. You've got antiquated
technology that's running in the server room that needs to be replaced and updated.
and you've only gotten a quote on the radios. Vendors are, there's been some back and forth between
vendors, but yes, that's all I have right now. I have a question, are you done with that line of questioning?
Possibly for the clerks. So, within the interlocal agreement, it says that the city and county are going
to meet once a year, I'm paraphrasing, will meet once a year
and talk about the budget for dispatch. Did we do that? When was the last time we did that? The last
time I remember it was last year. I don't remember. Do you remember during the last year? Were you present?
I don't remember. I was in there a second.
We're furiously looking for that because we have the same question as like whether that has happened
in years past. It doesn't appear so. Or whether there was some delegated authority to the PSLA committee.
Which I think though raises, I mean, yes, question about needing a new interlocal fine, but I think
it also raises an interesting question because we're having a conversation about future expenses as
well, making choices right now about future expenses that haven't been agreed on by the interlocal committee
that's supposed to be set up.
just stated for the good of the order. Thank you. Any other questions? Otherwise we'll go to, well we
have an amendment I know so I don't know if we want to do public comment then do amendment or I don't
know how you, I think we'll do amendment then public comment. Can I follow up on the inter-local agreement
since you have it in front of you? Is that
It doesn't say that all members of the local income tax council are supposed to meet or who? It says
annually the city council and county council shall meet in a joint work session to review the central
dispatch budget. Said joint work session shall occur after July 1st and prior to September 1st of each
year of this agreement.
The city council shall be responsible for scheduling the joint work session and arranging a space for
the joint work session. Each year the city shall send notice to the county council at least four weeks
prior to the date selected for the joint work session. Said notice shall include the date, time, and
location of the joint work session. And then within 14 days we'll have to meet and that we need to vote
and affirm the budget during that session. So I don't remember ever doing that.
I remember once we had a meeting of the Monroe County Income Tax Council with Ellsville, Steinsville,
County Council, City Council, when we first started with this 2016 or something like that, but I don't
believe there's ever been that kind of. There have been others. And I'm looking at the PSLA committee
because it met last in July of 2025 that I just pulled up and then it met in
July of 2024, and the last time the entire committee with the county was here was the same year that
Lois was retiring from Steinsville, and I just don't remember what year that was. Do you remember, Jo?
Two years ago? I'm pegging it to her absence, but that's the only thing I can recall.
I mean, I don't even remember having, when I was on the county council, I don't remember having such
a... I'm sure we did, but it's been a long time. I think Cheryl was the representative from the county
on the committee. It was Cheryl Munson, Oldham Purcell, and Sandy before she retired. Oldham in his
capacity as county.
I'm just wondering that in our local that you're reading from when was that signed? 2018. And so like,
does it not have an expiration date? No, it's open. And it went through it also provided for the city
was making payments as payback for the new dispatch center up until last year. I don't think we've made
that offer early. I think we actually didn't make our final
Just going back to the previous question, which is changing the rate. I'm sure you saw that the Interlocal
Agreement allows for the rate to be changed. If there is a shortfall in the budget, so if that happens
in future years, the Interlocal Agreement, as it's currently constituted, requires that the shortfall
be made up equally between the county and the city. The city has to cover it first, and then they have
to ask for reimbursement from the county
And that shortfall would be the shortfall from the 3.3, right? No, I think that shortfall would be only
if the reserves on the county side. That's only if reserves are exhausted. So there's no other applicable
source of funds covered. So reserves are first, obviously the income that you're getting from the, yes,
let us first, then you go to reserves and then that's if
So with that in mind and so back to the original questions, how does the county have any reserves? Like
why are accounts not equal then? What am I missing about? So this equal drawing equally from each would
be if once these reserves are exhausted for everybody, those reserves haven't been exhausted for
But how can we spend money that they don't spend or vice versa? How can they not spend money that we
spend? Because in the past, we have spent less than they have sent to us. In other words, we have reversions.
We being the city has reversions, especially when there's a lot of vacancies. So when we don't spend
their portion, we send it back? No, it just builds up in our account.
And it's like we've grown over the years since the dispatch center was found. We grow our reserves,
and now we're shrinking them down to almost nothing. And then why did they have reserves then? Because
over most recent years, they've basically been paying out exactly what they've received in. So what
they've accumulated in the past, particularly with respect to supplemental distributions. So the supplemental
distributions
that the state gives us, they go to the county. I see. And the county's just let them sit in. I see,
I see. So their reserves are almost that extra $2 million of reserves is supplemental distributions.
That's a large portion of it. I think at one point, they had also decided that our reserves were too
high. I mean, I was kind of part of this on the county. Exactly. But roughly speaking, without
the supplemental, our funds should be the same.
Without the supplemental, the counties really should be zero, ideally, because it's kind of a holding,
it's just sort of a holding tank. Yeah, because the county's not doing anything with that money other
than getting a test to run the dispatch center, right? It's just a holding tank. But there are probably
discrepancies between what they budget to give the city and then what they actually take in.
Well, that's mostly the supplemental but and and then there was at one point and I remember this from
being at the county side We thought the city was building up to but we being the county thought the
city was building up to higher reserve and so we withheld Distribute and the city was building up a
high reserve at the time. It's just that that's no longer the case I Wonder if another way that we could
think about this reserve thing with peace up peace up is
I mean, we're kind of, we're talking about it like, like it's three different reserve buckets, but really
it's kind of like two different reserve buckets. The 911 clearly has like a different set of regulations
behind it from the state, but our reserves and the county's reserves are essentially the same. So while
it could make sense to say like, well, we should have equal reserves. I think it could equally make
sense or like Jeff, you were saying like,
Like, oh, it makes more sense for the city to have the reserves because we're spending it and for the
county to not have any reserves. I think it could also make sense for the city to not really have any
reserves and for the county to have all the reserves. And, and then it would just have to potentially
get more appropriate. I guess I'm just not sure that we really need to think about the county reserves
and the city reserves as two different pots. And if we combine those pots, then essentially we have
50% reserves of the entire
yearly budget right now, right? And we would normally say that like, like that's plenty of reserve to
have for a budget because it's pretty consistent revenue sources, right? So I guess I'm not unless I'm
like thinking about that totally wrong. And I realized that I should be asking a question right now
with that. So like, does it matter who has the reserves as long as they exist between those two bodies?
I mean, I think you're looking at it the right way, that the county's reserves are also money that's
been received from this PSAP lit that the taxpayers are paying and it is for use in the dispatch. And
whether it's being held in their savings account or your savings account isn't necessarily that big
of an issue. So what makes all the difference is what does it say in our interlocal agreement?
And can we tap their reserves whenever we need them? It's just that the expenses have to be paid out
of the reserve. So if there are expenses that exceed what you have available to you, then it has to
come out of that fund. OK, so that's. So that's set in stone in our. That's within the interloquence.
OK. But we need a new one. It's eight years old. We definitely need which is significantly.
Any other questions before we introduce the amendment? And we'll have plenty of time for public comment.
Okay, do you want to answer, or comments that were missing? I was just going to make a note. This is
a public hearing, so public comment mandatory. We have it anyways, but just so the public's aware,
you know, this is your time to make your official statement, and council has to consider any public
comment before voting and making a decision on this one. Thank you. Okay, so let's, should we do the
amendment? Yes.
I move amendment one to resolution 2026-23. Second. All right, motion and second, go ahead. So this
amendment corrects the rounding error. Section one, item two. So there's one place in the resolution
where it says 0.27 and then another place where it says 0.2, no. 0.287. 0.287. And then another place
where it's not rounded where it says 0.2.
So it's just making sure they're both say 0.2869. And then the other correction through this amendment
is just one of the points in item five where it's the property tax relief rate is not changing. It's 0.0518%
and that's
518 10 thousandths of a percent and not, there was an error in the rendering the percentage in words.
And then I just formatted that number five as bullet points because it was all kind of globbed together.
So that is the amendment. Thank you very much. Are there any comments, Jeff, for?
Okay. Any questions? Okay. We'll go to public comment just on this amendment. You're going to have time
to do public comment on the full thing, but would anybody like to make public comment on the amendment?
Anyone online? Okay. In which case, any final comments from council? Thanks for catching it. And will
the clerk please call the roll on the amendment?
Thank you very much. Okay, well now we're back as amended. Would we like any further comments before
we go to public comment? Yes. Okay, so we'll go now to a time of public comment. If you'd like to comment on
on resolution, the whole thing is amended. Now, 2026-23 is amended. Now is your chance. Is there anybody
in the room? Okay, anyone online? Okay. Mr. Keogh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Mr. Keogh, I'm so sorry. You
said an operative word at the beginning that I think
We couldn't hear you. I couldn't hear if you said oppose, if you said I love, if you said. Yes. I oppose,
oppose, increase the ESAP global income tax. I want to begin with a non-dispute about the central dispatch.
It's a critical public safety service for the county. That's what we describe in the Interlocutory Equipment
County. The meeting package shows a projected gap between the council's ESAP tax revenue and the full
dispatch budget. Control room agreed that we would
has also raised legitimate concerns about equipment needs and uncertainty when the Indiana Folkland
Contact System changes in 2029. But a projected gap is not by itself an analysis of how much additional
tax revenue is needed. Actual spending has differed from the budget spending, in part because the center
has struggled to recruit and retain dispatchers. This has been a long history of unspent payroll, the
lion's share of the PSAP budget.
The county also continues to hold restricted dispatch reserves. Just found out that a portion of those
reserves will be used to cover the 2027 funding gap. But it seems that taking more time to flesh out
a plan and future options would be a defensible choice. The question then, what reserves should be kept
for equipment emergencies in the 2029 transition? And how that amount should be determined? We just
heard an assertion about cost, but it's not really a formal plan.
And I've not seen a combined city and county financial forecast with documented reserve targets. That
answers the questions that show any effect of the proposed rate increase. The county has to control
the interest in the success of the dispatch center. They control purse rates associated. My review has
raised other concerns on matters of this decision. The city established a separate PSAP account fund
on April 2nd, 2025.
After years of recording dispatch activity within a broader public safety fund, the complete historical
PSAP financial position still needs to be reconciled. The city and the county also needs to review how
they're in the local agreement has been followed. Updated for current conditions to strengthen the financial
reporting and the oversight. None of this suggests that dispatch funds are missing. It means the public
needs a clear, reliable financial picture. Finally, funding and staffing cannot be planned separately.
personnel accounts is most of the dispatch budget. Residents should be able to see a plan for recruiting
and retaining dispatches with measures that shows that it's working, you know, your outcomes-based budget.
I recognize the November 1st deadline and the risk of drawing down reserves before 2029. Even so, I
do not believe the information presented establishes this proposed increase is necessary now or that
this amount is justified.
I asked the council to vote no tonight, and then set dates and responsibilities for public reserve,
for the reserve plan in it, and the interlocal agreement would be stronger controls, and a dispatch
staffing plan. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Keogh. Is there anyone else online who'd like to comment?
There's one person. All right, Ms. Rose.
I don't know. Is it yes? Go ahead, Ms. Rose. Yes. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead.
Thank you. My name is Eric Gohs. The durable funding and accountability of the shared operation of an
effective, accessible dispatch center is an unquestionable mandate. It is essential infrastructure that
directly supports the safety of members of our community.
The administrative participation of each encumbered taxing body is a critical element of durable
accountability. The fact that no records exist for the required annual meeting of taxing agencies raises
material questions. The fact that the required dedicated budget fund did not exist for public safety
revenues until 2025 raises material questions. The gaps in tracking of the amounts of timing and flow
of revenues for prior years raises material questions.
The fact that the county holds more reserves than the city, but apparently the city effectively runs
the dispatch and raises material questions. The fact that SEA 1 and uncertain future legislation
significantly affects local income tax structure raising material questions. The fact that there are
still questions regarding comportment of the inter-local agreement with Indiana Code raises material
questions.
The fact that the dispatch center now requires tangible investment, notwithstanding the potential to
entirely move to a new location raises material questions. All of these questions should be duly attended
to and answered immediately. The council should not recommend to increase the PS flip rate until such
time as these questions are addressed and transparently answered. In follow up to the work of the common
council at this evening's special session,
A meeting of the Public Safety Local Income Tax Committee, including all taxing entities, should be
immediately scheduled, as required, to discuss all of these matters and endeavor to answer the aforementioned
questions as soon as possible before moving forward. I really appreciate your serious commitment to
your work and this very important matter. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Ostum. Thank you for those
well thought out words. Anybody else online?
Okay, we'll come back to council then. Any final comments before we take it further? Council members?
Thank you and thank you to everyone who's been here to answer questions and to the public who has brought
their thoughtful comments. I can't vote to raise taxes without being able to explain how people's lives
are improving. It might not seem like a lot of money to people who have it, but it is for people who
stretch every dollar to get by on an average week.
Many of our city's residents are on a fixed income. And I've heard arguments prior to today that we
may need the reserves in the future, so we can't use them now. My argument is that we need them now,
or that we need to use other funds. As hard as we have been hit with SEA 1 changes, the county will
be hit exponentially harder. It would have been even worse if any of the city's annexation efforts has
succeeded. We could have all saved some money without the lawsuit, but that's in a different fund, so
I will digress.
I recognize that Controller McKim's comment that dispatch is both for county and city. To that, I wonder
if it is perhaps time for the city to step up and be a good partner to the county. Lord knows that we'll
need to stand together moving into tougher times. I appreciate what our dispatch does, and every person
who works there, I think that we all agree that dispatch is a critical service. Even so, I won't be
a part of making people's financial decisions even more difficult.
And I'm absolutely not saying no to dispatch being fully funded. I am saying no to a tax increase. Times
are tough for many folks, and I can't, in good conscience, add to people's bills. Thank you. Thank you,
Councilmembers. Any other comments? Councilmember Daly? All right, thank you. I want to say I fully
agree with the speaker's comments about the importance of our dispatch, obviously, and all that this
budget would provide.
However, I do not think that this funding needs to come as a further burden to our residents. I do think
that there are many residents who this will deeply, deeply impact them. And it will be just an extra
burden on their back. And I think we have other ways of covering this and that we should do that first,
especially with as many questions as we have raised. We have more questions than answers tonight. So
I cannot support this either. Thank you. Thank you so much.
All right, so first off, I have a question actually first. Are the capital investments that sound like
they're needed in terms of this type, are those things that could be covered by GO bonds in terms of
GO bond regulations? Because they're capital stuff, right? So wouldn't that fall under a category of
a GO bond in terms of other funding?
I don't see any reason why they couldn't. Larry, you agree? Yeah, I think they could. Okay, great. Thanks.
That's what I thought. So I also think that I'm not going to support this tonight. It's for a slightly
different reason, though. Honestly, $37 a year on $100,000 salary works out to 71 cents a week. And
I think that even when you're having a hard time, that's
not going to make as huge an impact as some other things will. However, if that spreadsheet was up there
again, in terms of looking at our county plus our city reserves, it's over 50% of the yearly budget.
And I think that that's plenty of reserves between those two things.
even considering the capital expenses and those investments that need to be made, I think that,
you know, we've been thinking about those capital investments at the city level as saying, okay, we're
going to use go bonds for those things for at least a couple budget cycles now in terms of planning.
And I think that I'm not sure how much the dispatch center has been included in those considerations
for what we should have
go bond money for, but that is a conversation I think that maybe needs to happen between city and county
and all those other entities to figure out how we can make sure to invest in those ways. But I don't
think that expecting those expenses to come out of our reserves is reasonable. We just, I mean, 2.3
million just for the radios.
And that doesn't count all of those other things. There just are not enough reserves, no matter what,
for all of that. And so that is going to have to be funded in another way anyway. And so I think a GoBond
is a much better way to do that. And then it would be more directed. And it could be somehow split between
those entities and figured out. And that is also that conversation that I think we need to have with
our partners, our community partners that all depend on the Nine Woman Dispatch Center.
So, basically, yes, I think that we definitely need some funding in there, but this particular tax increase
is not the answer. Thank you so much. Councilmember Beall, would you like to say anything? Sure. So,
I was chair of the PSLA committee last year and this year.
I'm surprised to hear from my colleague, Councilmember Daly, that she's not supporting this because
she didn't vote in favor of the recommendation as a member of the PSLIT committee. I feel strongly that
I do not trust the Indiana State Legislature to give us any leeway to make up the PSLIT when it goes
away on January 1, 2020.
I'm very concerned about maintaining the services that our community relies on. At the top of that list
is 911 service. I stand by my vote as chair of the PSLIT committee. I think it is wise to increase our
PSLIT rate in order to fully fund dispatch. We have reserves, but those
we will need when it's really raining. And it may well be pouring on January 1st of 2029. And so we
need to save those reserves as much as we can till then. The GEO bond as a funding mechanism is also
tax financed. It is financed through property taxes. And rest assured that people with low incomes also
end up paying property taxes through their rent
So I don't think that that's any better as a mechanism. I understand that there are a lot of questions.
I'm frankly quite disappointed that we members of the city council didn't know the contents of the interlocal
agreement for PSAP and didn't know therefore that we were not meeting
the obligations under that agreement. I think that is a problem with the city legal department not sharing
with us the agreements that they make or giving us adequate updates. And I do think we need to expeditiously
meet with the county council and discuss these matters. However, if we don't get this passed by November 1st,
We're not going to collect a year's worth of the local income tax for this purpose next year. And I
think that we can walk and shoot down at the same time. We can pass this much needed increase to fully
fund dispatch. And we can clarify the interlocal agreement between city and county.
as it stands currently and as we want to have the new one reflect as we move forward into the future.
So although I understand there are some open questions, I also have great faith in our controller that
the accounting for PSAP is, has been comprehensive and I'm not concerned about that record keeping.
And so overall, I would encourage my colleagues to support this increase, which, as my colleague, Council
Member Stossberg said, is not really that much money per week, if you think about it spread out over
a year. Thank you.
I guess that leaves me to say some words. I'll just very briefly say first, thank you so much for the
controller and to all of my colleagues for being here in an extraordinary session, for being here after
another meeting that you have, just so appreciative of your tireless dedication to the city. I think I share
First, and also thank you to the public commenters. I also want to thank, of course, I think we often,
I think the comment was made that we often, you know, dispatch often seems to be the last thing we talk
about when we're talking about public safety. And I think that all of us on this council share a desire
to support our Dish Pass services as they need to be supported.
My position on this, though, is that we have lots of reserves in many of our accounts. And as was argued
during our budget hearings, we are in a sound financial situation. And so because that is the position
that the controller
has taken, I share the views of all of you that I don't think that it's the right time to increase a
tax. I will say. Not all of us. Yes, thank you, those of you who said that. And I will say to the argument
that it's only x amount of dollars. I think the reality is that this doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's
not like this is the only conversation. We're about to have conversations
the potential rate increases in sanitation, where there's a natural rate increase happening with inflation.
71 cents may not feel like a lot in a week that those things compound. And again, I think we have the
reserves. And when we get to the conversation, fundamentally, I think, though, to come back to something
both that Mr. Keough said and that I was getting at in my questions, I find it a little bit difficult
to be basically increasing a tax now
for just a handful of unknown future capital expenses, of which we have one example, when the interlocal
agreement says we should all sit down, discuss what it is that we're going to be budgeting, and then
act appropriately. So with all those things in mind, I'm also going to be voting no. Any other comments?
Okay, Council Member Sussberg.
Quick question to Councilmember Piedmont-Smith. The vote was 6-0 to move this forward. Who were the
two people who weren't there? Councillor David Henry and Councilmember Andy Ruff. I'll just say I appreciate
your words and I also appreciate that you're sticking by your original thoughts and feelings on this
and I really respect that. And I, yeah, I'm gonna stick with what I
All right, if there's no other comments, then will the clerk please call the roll? Yes. Zulek? No. Asari?
No. Bailey? No. Stosford? No. Okay, that motion does not pass. Is there any other business?
Any other motions? Seeing none, any announcements about future activities or meetings that we must have?
Oh. Yes. I'll say that Wednesday night, there is a special plan commission session that is about state
changes, essentially, for housing-related stuff. Oh, and that's an open hearing, correct?
Yeah, I actually, I can't remember like what format it's going to be, but it is an official special
session of the planning commission. So it will probably be sort of like a blend between something very
official and something more casual. I do not believe there's any business in front of us. We're just
supposed to hear a lot of information. Okay, fantastic. Anything else for the good of the order, friends,
colleagues?
Oh yes, and there's a fiscal committee meeting Friday and that is the one that we had to cancel last
time. It is a star of the show, a controller, Jeff McKim, who will be telling us all about third quarter
reports and I can't remember all of the other things, but yeah, more fun bunny stuff. Talk about bonds
too. Excellent. Thank you all so much. We are officially adjourned. Have a lovely Monday. Thank you all.