- We'll go ahead and get started early because it's not like herding cats. In fact everybody
- is here and on time and my name is Carrie Thompson. I'm the mayor here in Bloomington and
- thought it would be a great idea to make the public aware of the broad implications of
- SB1 really across the board in communities across the state of Indiana and so we have
- partners that will introduce themselves in a little while from county from the school system
- and from the business and economic development community. This is a bill that is going to impact
- all of us and it is complicated and it has been changed several times as it has moved through the
- house and senate. It did get passed so we're not here asking for your specific advocacy
- for or against a bill. We're here to help you understand what this bill really means and how
- we as leaders in the community are approaching the bill as we move forward now that we understand
- what's within that bill. And so the structure of today we will we have Eric Reedy here from
- Reedy financial. He is going to brief us on the financial implications of the bill and then each
- of our partners will just give a brief introduction of themselves along with what their area of
- expertise is looking at related to the bill and then we'll be taking questions from the press only
- today to try to keep this to an hour. We've pulled a lot of busy people together at the last minute
- so we've committed to an hour-long meeting but you can expect that we will be having more community
- conversations about this as our plans roll out. So with that I'm going to hand it over to Eric Reedy
- to brief us on the bill itself.
- Thank you Mayor. My name is Eric Reedy with Reedy Financial Group. We work with cities, towns,
- counties, schools, lots of local units of government across the state. We're a strategic
- member of Accelerate Indiana Municipalities. We've worked with them closely on the bill
- throughout the legislative session showing impacts to each of its members whether it be
- a large city or a small town. As the Mayor mentioned this bill has very far-reaching impacts.
- Originally this was House Bill 1402. The provisions in that bill were hard to believe far worse.
- That bill actually included full personal property elimination which would have just been
- catastrophic financially on local units of government in the state of Indiana. This one's
- more manageable but it still has far-reaching impacts. Whenever you talk about property tax,
- you kind of have to begin with the circuit breaker and how a property tax bill is computed.
- I don't think that that was given much attention during the legislative session
- and I'd be happy to discuss what the circuit breaker is, the tax caps, and how that impacts
- a tax bill. In my opinion, giving property tax relief was done back in or really big property
- tax relief was done back in the special session in 2008. But to get into the specifics of Senate
- Bill
- 1, basically what happened is about a month, month and a half ago, House Bill 1402 was rolled into
- Senate Bill 1. And from there, the Ways and Means Committee met a couple of times and the original
- House Bill 1402 got shrunk into what we see today. So I know that in a packet that I received,
- there's a memo that we prepared that looks like this. And we just summarize the different parts.
- And to begin with, there's deductions to your property assessments that will have major impacts
- on what taxpayers pay on their tax bill and then conversely what local units of governments receive
- in property taxes. And the very first one is the homestead deduction. And we have two different
- calculations here. We have it on a $100,000 home and a $500,000 home. And one thing that you can
- see is we're showing what that current deduction is in 2025 on a $100,000 home, $67,500,
- $217,500 on a $500,000 home. But you can see when this bill gets fully implemented in 2031,
- the deduction on the $100,000 home is slightly less. But on a $500,000 home, it's much more.
- So that's something to keep in mind. Whenever you talk property taxes and how it's going to impact
- the taxpayer and the overlapping units, you have to do a parcel by parcel analysis.
- That's one of the things that we excel in. We've done for AIM. We do for the city.
- So to fully understand this, we would have to do something like that. And we're currently
- in the process of doing that for the city and many communities around the state.
- On the next page, this is a brand new deduction. And it's for 2% properties. And a 2% property is
- any non-homestead residential property, so rentals, multifamily, things like that.
- And then this isn't applicable in the city, but out in the country, ag parcels, agricultural parcels.
- And then long-term care facilities got grouped into the 2%. And these are all circuit breaker
- terms that I mentioned. So this is a brand new deduction on assessed value, 33% on 2% properties.
- And that'll be fully phased in by 2032. So that's another one. And what this does is
- it'll reduce the city, the schools, the counties, every overlapping unit's tax base
- is what these deductions do. So the question is, how much are these deductions? And we know for the
- city in particular that the deductions on 1% and 2% equals $1.5 billion. And the net assessed value
- right now is about $5.5 billion. So big numbers is what we're talking about. And then the last of
- the
- deductions deal with the 3%, which is business, increase, they call it de minimis, for personal
- property. Currently, that exemption is $80,000. So if you have a piece of equipment, you get to
- exempt the first $80,000. That goes to $2 million. So for most small business, all their personal
- property will be exempt from property taxation. And then you have removal of the 30% floor.
- So under current law, business personal property can't go below 30%. Under the new bill, any new
- assets will have no floor. So that's going to be a big impact on any new assets. So that one's
- going
- to take a while to rev up, but we need to do planning and things of that nature to see what
- the impact is. On the 3%, you know, if you have a diverse community of different tax bases, which
- fortunately this community has, the impact won't be as severe. We know of some communities out
- there,
- Whiting, Indiana, is probably the worst. 75% of their tax base is personal property. They're
- going to have catastrophic impacts. Some notes that we have on the 1% properties, elimination of
- fixed portion of deduction, the homestead will disproportionately benefit higher gross AV homesteads.
- Taxpayer impact is regressive, shifts more of the burden to low AV homesteads. And that's because
- of what I showed you on the first page. On the $100,000 house, the deductions this year and six
- years out, when you have full deduction, about the same. But on the much higher dollar house,
- $500,000, it's a very big increase in the deduction. On the 2%, that's a brand new deduction.
- Benefit of 2% taxpayers, though, is going to be negligible because of the circuit breaker that's
- already in place. Most communities, the overall tax rate is over $2. And if you're over $2,
- your 2% properties are capped. So there's not going to be much of an impact on overlapping.
- The impact is going to be out in the unincorporated areas.
- And one thing I would mention, since Bloomington, for example, is going to lose $1.5 billion in
- assessed value, similar things are going to happen out in the country in these unincorporated areas.
- Tax rates are going to go over $2 out there because of the -- they're going to have a 33%
- deduction, but the tax rates are going to go up. So again, parcel by parcel is very much needed.
- Business personal property exemption will benefit small business because of the de minimis that we
- talked about, increasing from $80,000 to $2 million. Manufacturing, this should say on current
- assets, you won't see much of a benefit. It's the new assets that will come in later where
- you'll have the big benefit on business personal property. The best method to project impacts is
- parcel by parcel analysis. You've got to look at every parcel to see what the impacts are.
- Okay. And like the very last few minutes of the session, new credits were added
- to the bill. And the credits are far reaching. And what a credit is, is you calculate your tax bill,
- you take out all the deductions, you come up with your net tax assessed value, divide that by 100,
- take it times the tax rate, that's your tax bill. And then you look at the circuit breaker,
- you know, for Homestead 1%, and then that's the max you can pay. These are applied after that.
- Credits are applied after you figure the tax bill. So these are just things that the legislature,
- the General Assembly decided to add late in the game. So again, these are things we're going to
- have to study and see what the ramifications are. Again, we provided every city in the state and we
- looked at some county impacts. We did not model the credit portion yet, but it's $150 for all
- homeowners that are 65 or older, get $150 credit after the tax bill is computed. $125 for disabled
- homeowners, $250 for disabled veterans, and then the big kicker that's going to have the most
- ramification, because this will apply to, you know, anybody with a homestead, the lesser of 10% or
- $300 of the gross tax bill, and then in bold we put if other credits above apply, this credit is
- applied before all credits. So this is something that needs to be studied. That's going to have
- some big ramifications. The other deductions will as well. Now, the legislature did put in some
- some replacement, and that is with local option income tax. So instead of property tax,
- you're going to be looking at replacing that with income tax. Now, I would say that in 1973, when
- the property tax freeze was implemented, the state implemented sales tax to replace that. When the
- circuit breaker law was implemented, the school general fund came off the tax roll, county welfare
- came off the tax roll, the city's old pension funds came off the tax rolls. Well, guess what funded
- that? An increase to the sales tax. This time around, it's going to be relieved somewhat by
- local income tax. Now, we've done some projections, and the city is better off than most,
- but it's going to not receive as much local option income tax as it is the property tax is coming
- off
- at full implementation. So, what's going to happen is, is the current system is eliminated.
- Currently, the county has about a 1% existing rate that goes to the city general fund, the county
- general fund, the townships, the libraries, so on and so forth, and then it gets replaced. There's
- public safety, there's economic development, all those go away. The only one that's left is this
- 0.003% special rate. Everything else goes away. Your current rate is 2.14. It will now just be
- 0.003 is what survives, and in its place, these other rates come in. So, the county can do up to
- a 1.2% lit just for county purposes, a 0.4% for fire and EMS. Some of that would go to the city,
- some of it would go to Ellitsville, some of it would go to the unincorporated area fire providers.
- Up to 0.2% to municipal units for any lawful purpose. So, for example, that's the only one
- that, like, schools would participate in to absorb their loss from this property tax bill.
- The combination of the above rates cannot exceed 1.7%. One of the things in this bill is any city
- or town under $3,500, the county has to approve that. I believe you have one, Steinsville,
- so the county's going to have to compute what they need. Ellitsville's big enough to do their own.
- I think I've hit enough. If anybody in the audience is still tracking everything,
- then you probably have a tax degree. I want to really thank Eric for being here and helping to
- explain the complexities of this bill. Desiree, do we have more of these handouts? We can get
- them out to you. We are heartened to see how many people are here with us. Let me just jump off
- from
- where Eric is to talk from the administration's perspective at the city. Obviously, this is all
- brand-new information. We do have to do a property-by-property evaluation to determine
- what exactly our plan can be and where we're going to go. I know most of you here
- have the questions. Does this mean significant cuts at the city? Does it mean that we
- absolutely are asking for a new lit? The answer is we really need to carefully look at this,
- but we cannot do more with less. I can tell you that my administration has been laser-focused on
- making sure that we are running a really efficient government. If we have less, we won't be able to
- do as much. That is very clear to me. The great thing is we have the most creative team in the
- state. I know that we will be able to do incredible things with what we do have, and we will be
- looking
- at how we can provide the services that Bloomington needs, absolutely focused on basic city
- services
- first, and then being able to ensure that we can do many of these quality of life pieces that we
- have
- all come to really count on in the city. I want to be clear that when our federal administration
- speaks about tax cuts, what they're talking about is really saving money for the very wealthy.
- This bill is really mimicking that, so our state is falling in line.
- Every time any taxes are increased, what I hear from the people of Bloomington,
- all of whom got our property taxes in our mailboxes last week is, "Wow, this hurts."
- I know there are plenty of people in Bloomington that are okay and don't understand that the
- taxes that have increased are hitting the people on fixed incomes and people who don't have high
- wealth, but they very much are. I take that very seriously when we're talking about
- potential lit increase, and we are going to have to make ends meet at the city.
- This is a moment where we have, I believe, never received as many calls from the private sector,
- from our nonprofits asking, "Can you all fill the gaps that we are now missing because of the HUD
- cuts because of the social services cuts at the federal level?" And the answer increasingly is
- no, and we don't even know if we can do what we have been doing. So this is a moment that we all
- have to pull together. One of our ask of our colleagues at the county is, it's very concerning
- to us that the city's lit in this bill is now approved by the county.
- The city no longer has control over that. And so that's going to take a kind of partnership that
- we've never had before. I know we have great partners at the county, but that was an extremely
- disappointing piece of this bill. I'm going to hand it over to Peter Iverson from our county
- council.
- Good morning, everyone. My name is Peter Iverson. I am president pro tem of the Monroe County
- Council. As many of you know, county councils in all of Indiana's counties hold fiscal authority,
- and that's it. So today, I want to talk to you about how concerned the county is, and how
- seriously we are taking the analysis that needs to be done. The first thing I'll point out is,
- in this room, we have the county assessor, the county treasurer, and the county auditor.
- The entire financial team is in this room. That is how seriously we are taking this. I will also
- point out that tomorrow at 11 a.m. in the NatU Hill Room, the long-term finance committee of the
- Monroe County Council will be meeting. Financial Services, excuse me, Financial Solutions Group
- will be providing a county-oriented analysis. That is going to be, again, tomorrow at 11 a.m.
- in the NatU Hill. Councilmember Liz Fiddle is on that body, and she is in the room today as well.
- The county is concerned, and we are taking this seriously. I do not have in-depth analyses that
- I'm going to go through line by line and talk to you about what the impact is going to be on
- your individual tax bills, but what I do want to talk about is three things. Number one, the way
- that the county deals with inflationary pressures is through our maximum growth levy quotient, or
- the
- MLGQ. We are watching this pretty carefully. During the way that this bill walked through
- the legislature, we were pretty concerned that there was going to be some drastic changes to that.
- We are somewhat cautiously optimistic the way it turned out, but we're keeping our eye on that.
- We are very concerned about the way that the federal tariffs are continuing to play not only
- short-term but long-term havoc on our local economy, and so that's going to be an important
- thing for us to look at. Clearly, local income tax is a major topic. I completely agree with
- Mayor Thompson that this is going to involve a higher level of collaboration. I will point out
- that the Chamber of Commerce came to the County Council meeting last night and gave a very
- prescient comment that we are all one community. Our kids go to the same schools. They play in
- the same soccer teams. They play in the same baseball teams. We are going to figure this out,
- and I think it's really instructive that we're all sitting at the same table.
- The last point that I'll make, and these three points that are going to be talked about tomorrow
- at 11, is property tax. We are deeply, deeply concerned about this. Tens of millions of dollars
- in lost revenue to the county. We need to do some more in-depth analysis, and clearly the players
- that are going to be helping us with that analysis are in this room. So, let me conclude by saying
- the county is working very closely with the elected officials who are in this room,
- as well as Financial Solutions Group and our partners at the Association of Indiana Counties
- to do the analysis quickly so that we can get information to you so we can assess the impacts.
- We remain in the county council optimistic that we are going to be able to get through this
- together.
- We think that we have the right people in place to get through this together, and I want to leave
- you with that optimism that this is a major reorganization of the way that we do fiscal
- policy. However, there are the right people in the right positions to handle this situation right
- now.
- Thank you. Hi, thank you, Peter. So, I'm Hopi Stasberg. I am the City Council District 3
- Representative, and I'm also City Council President this year, and I think that my words right now,
- so
- City Council is the fiscal and the legislative body, so our role in budgeting is a little bit
- different than at the county level, but we still have to approve budgets, and so we as a body are
- still facing this kind of unknown place where we're not entirely sure exactly the details of what
- this means for our bottom lines. It is, as Peter said, kind of a reconsidering, a redistribution of
- how local government ends up being funded, and we're all going to be faced with this tough choice
- of
- how to cut, what to cut, or how to increase revenues, and what that's going to look like to
- people. As has already been illustrated, this is definitely in terms of tax benefit of greater
- benefit. The higher income level you're at, the more your house is worth. If local income tax
- structure gets changed, it definitely penalizes working poor more than anybody else, and if you
- rent, I'm not sure that you get much benefit from this at all, because I don't think rent is going
- to be decreased just because the property taxes are decreased. So there's this really kind of big
- calculus on my mind. How are we going to manage this situation in terms of still being able to
- provide essential city services, having minimal impact to things that make this community run,
- and still not highly penalizing our population? It's about trying to have as little negative
- fiscal impact on our residents as possible and still provide the services that are really
- necessary. So the next few months will definitely be interesting, and I won't say that I look
- forward to it, but I will say that I do look forward to the cooperation and collaboration
- that I think will be in this community between all of the units that depend on property taxes
- and thus have to respond in this moment. Thank you. All right, good morning. My name is Jen Pearl,
- and I'm president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation. We're a nonprofit that
- serves all of Monroe County in attracting and working to grow quality jobs for the community.
- In economic development, employers and communities are currently in a war for talent. Thriving
- communities have great schools, great housing, great services, great infrastructure, and those
- are the things that employers look for when they're choosing a place to land and grow,
- because that's what attracts people, and those are their workers. However, we've seen statewide
- that our population, our working force, our workforce has been flattening and aging due to
- an older population as well as dropping birth rates. So we see SB1 is complicating this
- situation, and it's really for four reasons. First of all, if governments have to shift to
- local property taxes, from property to local income taxes, that's not growth-oriented.
- The Tax Foundation recently came out with statements on how income taxes are generally
- more distortive, and they can influence the decisions of current and prospective residents.
- At the same time, business retention and attraction requires all these great things I mentioned.
- So remember, we're competing for people, and that makes it hard to do that. Number two,
- local income taxes are paid where you live, not where you work. 18 percent of our workforce
- actually commutes in from outside of Monroe County, and that's according to Hooters by the numbers.
- Number three, reduction to the business personal property tax. We think we'll have a mixed impact,
- so maybe good for smaller businesses, but we are concerned that it'll disincentivize their
- investments
- so that they get above that, you know, $2 million threshold. Eliminating the 30 percent business
- personal property floor, on one hand, could incentivize automation because people may want
- to buy more, you know, automated equipment. That can affect jobs, although that can also be a
- solution for workforce challenges. So really, the challenge there is how do you upscale your
- workforce? And then finally, a more complex tax system makes it harder to sell Indiana.
- When we're trying to promote the state, it'll be, well, it depends on where you go inside the state.
- So what can be done? You know, disruption is difficult, but as everyone has said here,
- it's a time for innovation. We know how to pull together. There are still aspects of the bill
- where there's time to advocate for those to change, you know, before they come into effect.
- Businesses, if you're listening, please know that you're not alone. There are many resources
- here to help you. And then for our fellow community leaders, we look forward to working with you
- all
- as we try to figure out what to do together. Hi, I'm Jody Madeira. I'm your brand new county
- commissioner as of January 1st of this year, and what a year to come into office. We have to talk
- really plainly about this because although SB1 was signed into law in Indianapolis, its effects
- will be felt most keenly at the community level. I'm also reminded time after time that there is
- nothing called SB1 that has ever been good for Hoosiers. At first, SB1 seems really appealing.
- Who doesn't love a good property tax reduction? But there are so many devils in these details.
- It's not even a good property tax reduction. It's just enough to say to allow state legislators to
- say that they cut property taxes. This regressive bill doesn't help Hoosiers that don't own homes.
- Because the state legislators who supported SB1 were too cowardly, and yes, I choose that
- word purposefully, to do their jobs, local governments are going to have to raise local
- income taxes to make up deficits. We're not going to have a choice. SB1 comes at the worst possible
- time. Federal and state funding for social and security safety net programs like housing and
- substance use recovery has been pulled, or drastically reduced, or its future is radically
- uncertain. We are facing tariffs and almost certain economic hardship on multiple levels.
- It comes at a time when our wages aren't keeping up with inflation, and our residents are having
- a hard enough time meeting their needs as costs for necessities rise across the board. It also
- comes at a time when federal and state dollars are being pulled for critical programs like
- education,
- secondary education, post-secondary education, housing assistance, and public health services.
- It's going to be very challenging to create a high quality of life opportunity growth base
- that make this country and this county such a great place to live. So now for the numbers,
- economists estimate a 1.4 billion dollar shortfall for local governments when this bill is fully
- phased in. Analysts project shortfalls for our county of 9.9 million in 2026, 11.8 million in
- 2027, and 15.5 million in 2028. So the question is how are we going to maintain and grow service
- levels as they're going to need to grow with this shortfall? Plugging budget gaps with local income
- taxes could cost Hoosier families an estimated $1,250 more per year, and that local income tax
- bill is going to arrive whether you own a home or whether you rent one. This burden will hurt wage
- earners, renters, and younger families the hardest. None of us ran for a local elected office to
- administer scarcity. This is not our problem. It is a problem we are facing, a crisis we are facing
- that is not of our making, to which we are rising. Yet by passing SB 1, state legislators, in other
- words, deputized us to do this difficult work that they refuse to do, hurting our residents,
- pricing the public services we value, and choosing who has to pay for them. This event is a really
- important first step towards meeting that challenge, but we can only do it if residents stay
- informed,
- engaged, and insist that tax relief never become code for diminished opportunity and diminished
- community. Over the coming months, our county and city officials will assess budget scenarios,
- we will hold hearings, and yes, we will discuss new local income tax rates. We need you guys to
- show up, to ask the hard questions, to hold us accountable, and to tell us what matters most to
- you. Because in the end, again, SB1's impact won't be measured in abstract data coming out of the
- state house. It will be measured in our lives, in the quality of the education our kids receive,
- it will be measured in the response times of the ambulance or the fire truck that comes when we
- call, it will be measured in the social services we provide for community residents who need a
- helping hand, and it will also be measured in the vibrancy of the community that we choose to build
- together. Thanks. Hi, everybody. I'm Eric Spoonmore, President, CEO of the Greater
- Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I appreciate everybody's remarks and being able to participate
- on this panel. You know, look, these are extraordinary times. This is unprecedented.
- I happen to be a former county council member, so I certainly sympathize with a lot of the heartburn
- that our elected officials are having to deal with right now. You know, this is not business
- as usual for Indiana and our communities. As Mr. Reedy mentioned earlier, businesses, particularly
- small businesses, you know, small businesses that I represent, Chamber of Commerce has about 900
- members, about 80% of which are small businesses. And when I talk about small businesses in that
- regard, I'm talking about employers with 10 or fewer employees. Now, we also have larger employers
- that are members. Corporations like Cook, Monroe County School Corporation, Indiana University,
- a lot of non-profits. So it's a very diverse group of membership, but our bread and butter
- continues to be small businesses privately owned. And they, through this legislation,
- really do stand to benefit the most. The legislation raises the minimum threshold
- for filing business property taxes from $80,000 to $2 million phased in over a couple of years.
- This will exempt the vast majority of Hoosier businesses from any property tax. And so I'll
- just kind of put this into context of what this means as it relates to individuals as well.
- A business with $80,000 in personal property would be paying about $2,400 per year in property
- taxes.
- A business with $2 million would pay $60,000 per year. So the new minimums will radically
- reduce business taxes in Indiana. And for context, a firm with $80,000 or less in personal property
- might be a small law firm or a plumber. A firm with $2 million would be a large restaurant or
- dental office at the high end. These firms will each get a tax cut equivalent to the total cuts
- to maybe 400 middle class families. And that's information that Michael Hicks put in a recent
- Indy Star article. I would encourage everybody to read that. But that kind of tells you what we're
- dealing with here. It's a shift where businesses are benefiting and it's now locals are going to
- have to make the decision on if they want to raise income taxes on working families and people
- that are working in our communities. So, you know, I think the knee-jerk reaction sometimes
- that communities may have is just say, "Look, we've got the ability to raise taxes. Let's do it."
- But I would challenge our leaders to think much more strategically, much more long-term
- about this, and much more collaboratively, city, county, school corporations, libraries,
- etc., on what is going to put us in the best position five or ten years down the road,
- what our surrounding community is going to be doing. As Jen mentioned earlier, we have a very
- big concern for me, which is a decrease of population happening right now in Monroe County
- for the first time in our history. We're losing population, particularly population
- of working-age people that will pay local income taxes. We ranked in the latest Indiana Business
- Research Center's analysis, which was just released a couple of months ago, Monroe County ranked
- dead last in population growth. We were negative. We lost more population than any other place in
- Indiana, so that's not something to really be proud of. And if we raise income taxes,
- it's not really going to help us out a lot. So we need to be looking at what other surrounding
- communities are going to be doing because if we raise taxes here and they don't raise taxes in
- Greene County or Owen County or Lawrence County or Morgan County, what do you think is going to
- happen? Are workers are going to leave even faster to those communities because it's number one,
- lower cost of living with housing and taxes will be lower there. So, you know, I really applaud all
- of our elected officials for their thoughtfulness and how we deal with these challenges. As I
- mentioned, these are extraordinary times. We have to be all working together across the community,
- putting differences, past differences aside and coming together and working on this head on.
- The business community wants to be a partner in that and we will be there every step of the way
- to help achieve long-term success for this community. Thank you.
- Thank you. Good morning. I'm Alexis Harman, the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum
- Instruction and Assessment for Monroe County Community School Corporation.
- Thank you so much for including us in this panel discussion and I just hearing all of the comments
- that people have about the importance of education in a community and the community's vitality.
- Of course MCCSE is proud of the excellent work we've done to educate our students and are very
- concerned about the impacts related to Senate Bill 1. This will impact any of our funds related
- to taxes so that's our operations fund as well as our referenda fund. We're still analyzing the
- impacts and what that means right now we're looking at probably 17 million dollars in losses over
- three
- years over the next three years. In addition to those financial losses SB1 also puts in some
- stipulations related to referenda as you know in MCCSE we are so grateful for our community to say
- education is important and we're willing to to spend money on that and to increase our taxes so
- that we can have excellent education. So we have referenda here but starting in 2028 according to
- Senate Bill 1 we will start sharing referenda funds with charter schools. They have also changed
- to that any referenda related question has to be in a general election so it would have to be in
- November we can no longer run referenda in May. So those are two things that we're also looking at
- as we go forward. We're really in our discussions very much focused on how do we continue to
- provide
- the level of excellent service that we do to our students and continue to deliver that's of the
- utmost importance for us. We're looking at areas of efficiency we're looking at is there anywhere
- we have a duplication of services those are those kinds of things. We're looking at centralized
- programs and services trying to keep any kinds of efficiency movements away from the classroom
- away from impacts directly related to students and so those are conversations that we're having we're
- we really want that to be a collaborative discussion across our school corporation
- with our families with our staff with our teachers union both MCA and our AFSCME our support staff
- union as well. So that's the work that we're really doing now we're also I know we're here to talk
- about Senate Bill 1 we're also looking at the budget House Bill 1001 as well our other fund
- that is our education fund is really related to teacher salaries and wages and to speak a little
- bit to Mr. Spoonmore's comments about people living in our community and growth in our community
- that funding is our state tuition and it's a per student amount and we have a decrease in student
- enrollment but also now with the forecast for the state budget we anticipate that that per pupil
- ablotment won't be as great as it was they were predicting a two percent increase but we think
- now it'll be less than that so we're kind of experiencing it in a variety of ways and really
- anticipating some significant budget cuts that we feel prepared to deal with but it's going to be
- hard it's going to be challenging and we're going to need everybody in the innovation
- and creation of our our full corporation in our community thank you.
- Hi Talisha Coppock on behalf of Downtown Bloomington Inc. we represent downtown businesses
- and thank the city and the mayor all the county folks for coming together to address this issue
- as a community it's mind-boggling really it's just a mess and there's so many pieces to this
- puzzle that affects all of us in different ways now's a challenging time our downtown
- businesses are talking about you know so many unknowns at the federal level and tariffs and
- supply and this senate bill you know really just adds to that uncertainty now at the state and the
- local level just making it difficult to plan and to act we know it means less resources for our
- local government and but in the end i think we all still want to take care of our community
- we need to maintain our infrastructure ensure public safety have a place we're all proud to
- call home we rely on our local governments for help with the basics and those costs money
- and time and resources so i appreciate all the professionals in this room and working together
- and you know what other kind of tools are out there that that we can address some of these many
- many many needs it's just it's so sad to think that we all kind of survive covid and now we're
- going through all of this so so big hugs to everyone because i think it's that that time
- that we need that and and a lot of smart people working together all right those hugs are going
- to be needed when we have to crunch these numbers so we're going to go ahead and take
- questions from the press so if you can just identify yourself we'll field it to whoever
- you would like to answer uh donnie burgers with wfiu we've talked a lot about the there's a lot
- of analysis work that's going to have to be done post and everything there's a lot of figuring out
- but over the last few months and i'm looking at peter here for this um the county council has
- already had to make some tough choices with things like sheriff sheriff pay there was a discussion
- last night about health department salary things can you speak a little bit to how this has already
- started to impact some decisions about employment salary things of that nature that's a great
- question uh and for those of you that didn't hear the question how has uh local government
- already been taking action uh as news of this has been trickling down uh the the early versions of
- this bill were frightening uh they're absolutely frightening and so uh at the county level uh we
- started taking actions to say until we have more certainty and i think that's probably the biggest
- risk here is the uncertainty not knowing what's going to happen when it's going to happen until
- we have more certainty we're going to pause any new job creations and so as president of the
- personnel
- administration committee uh i wanted to make really sure that we were forecasting to our staff
- we are taking this incredibly seriously minroe county employs over 800 employees and we wanted
- to make sure that we were saying we value uh retaining you we value the service you're
- providing to the citizens of minroe county and we want to make sure that we're not making
- are taking steps now that in five ten months we're not going to be able to pay for uh you can go
- back
- and look uh at the uh the long-term finance committee uh meetings where you know a lot
- of these steps were talked about uh in public to say we need to be really really cautious
- particularly on the personnel lines uh to make sure that whatever we're going to invest in now
- we need to make sure that we can uh look at later and so the the two examples that you brought up
- uh you you hear us on the county council dais talking very much about this saying you know we
- we value what's happening in public safety we value what's happening in public health but we want
- to
- make absolutely sure that if we're making an investment today that we can pay for it in 10
- months
- hey hello um i'm dave askens with the beast road bulletin
- mayor thompson already in her remarks gave what i think would be the response to any question i
- might ask about plans to actually raise the income tax so i want to focus instead on an existing
- commitment of city of bloomington local income tax it's a five-year commitment for close to four
- million dollars and uh at least one person in the room john connell will recognize exactly what
- that
- commitment is it's the bloom to transit and the city of expectation is that bloomington will focus
- with that money on the east west uh corridor uh transportation corridor for rapid uh transportation
- so first question is uh it's only a five-year commitment and goes through 2027 so
- i assume that the city would live up to its commitment that it put in the interlocal
- agreement through 2027 but after that is that amount now on the table and if it's not on the
- table uh and the city wants to continue to fund bloomington transit at roughly around four million
- dollars a year uh would the city consider shifting the expected focus from the east west corridor
- instead helping to support uh transportation for public schools so uh the question for those who
- didn't hear is around uh the existing lit funds that uh that the city has um and as you heard they're
- they're all being restructured um what i can say um which will not make you happy in the detail
- that you're looking for dave is that um that things like public transportation directly impact
- people's cost of living and so when we're looking at what what we are and are not going to fund
- with lit funds and um and and potentially increasing lit funds um my administration is
- going to look for the the funding that will support what we are aiming to do overall in the city
- and
- one of the the most critical things is to decrease the wage gap that we have we have enormous wage
- disparity and making things more affordable for people to live here is key because that's the
- only way we're going to get a vibrant community we have to have great public education uh the
- schools
- have no way to uh increase their income like the county and the city do um this bill really leaves
- them behind and if we want to be recruiting top businesses to our community i would say it's very
- short-sighted to give relatively small tax cuts to small businesses and discourage people from
- living in communities um by increasing income tax this is really a way to to make small small
- cuts for a few people and then have people that really can't afford it carry the weight um and um
- and that's exactly what's coming out of the state house right now is public transportation a
- priority
- absolutely i think to get a thriving community with the population that we need we've got to
- have a vibrant public transportation uh company running here we also have other priorities so we
- are we're really going to have to balance all of these priorities uh tie simons from wr tv
- uh what two-part question what does it say about the bill that there is a stanley ramone crowd who
- wants to hear from you about what you're going to do and how does this reaffirm the commitment of
- everybody at the table to try and maintain the quality of life here in bloomington magro county
- for everybody here well i think what you see uh at the table is that um that really every leader
- that we asked to be here um is here and if had we invited more they would have probably said yes
- but it becomes a little bit cumbersome to have that many people on a panel um we're missing our
- library system here right um that that's going to have impacts as well um this this is a an
- unprecedented experience especially with what we're seeing on the federal level um my commitment is
- to
- work with the partners at this table and those that are not at this table and i think the standing
- room only crowd here uh represents uh probably just a very small portion of the people that are
- concerned about what's happening um so this is really all hands on deck um as as several people
- mentioned the bill has passed there are tweaks that can be made and um when i was spending time
- uh a couple weeks ago at the state house advocating against this bill what i kept being told is if
- it's
- wrong we'll fix it in a couple of years well a couple of years is too late right but your advocacy
- and your communication to your reps really still does make a difference even though we're going to
- have to pivot now so let me just the the the point that i made earlier i think is also important to
- point out here that the people in this room are also the stakeholders in the ones that are going
- to be crafting the innovative solutions so as i mentioned earlier there's multiple elected
- officials sitting in the audience the assessor the auditor the treasurer we have people from
- those different departments sitting in this room and and we also have other county council members
- and i think the the weight of the decisions that will need to be made eventually is a part of the
- commitment of this community to serve the residents and you think about what's happening at the on
- the county level that means not only filling potholes in our roads and making sure our bridges
- are stable but also making sure that our health is is intact that the water is clean that you're
- drinking the food you're eating at the restaurants is clean and also that our justice system is
- intact
- this legislature just cut one of our courts that's going to impact the way that we do justice in
- this
- community and we want to make sure that as we're moving forward we're keeping those things as
- intact as possible so that we're providing quality services to citizens here in meadow county thank
- you i just want to add uh to the sentiment up here i mean the original question asked about what
- does
- it mean that there's standing room only in this room right now and i think a piece of what that
- means is that the effects of this i mean it affects everybody in the community like potential cuts
- are
- going to affect everybody whether or not you've benefited from this this bit of property tax
- savings and you know i think about my own property tax savings i go okay so if i save that maximum
- three hundred dollars how much more might i spend in other places even if you exempt the potential
- of income tax increases and just think about potential loss of service i have two kids in
- public schools right now what kind of loss of service are they going to get that i as a parent
- might have to fill in in other ways and that that kind of thing affects everybody in one way or
- another because we all use public services some way in our lives we traveled here using streets
- using sidewalks you know however it is that you got here using the public bus system
- you have all benefited from city and local services today and we just don't know at this point what
- those the details of those changes are actually going to look like so that's the that's the message
- standing room only it affects everybody at every level of our community right now
- and if i could add something to um i think a lot of times it's easy to say oh well that's
- just bloomington that's just bloomington that's talking about it uh this extends beyond the room
- here um we had economic developers from across the state raising concerns about this bill
- there were teachers that you know public safety others that were raising concerns and so this is
- this really goes beyond all of us just here
- i'll say too monroe county is not like surrounding communities we are a high quality
- of life uh community we are larger than other counties we have a bigger tax base we have more
- resources in other counties but it's going to be hard to find counties like us to model we will
- have to come up with our own solutions and frankly my bottom line is commissioner and i hope not to
- sound too grim when i say this i want to prevent people from dying because the the level of cuts
- we're looking here and the level of essential services that are affected by these cuts it's
- really drastic and it's really grim and it's very serious and so when i talk about a high quality
- of life county we have to maintain what we are used to we have to maintain opportunities for our
- kids but at the end of the day our goal is to make sure that people don't die from these cuts
- and it's going to be very difficult because federal government is governing by fiat right now
- we have things announced that are not planned and they're taken off the table three days later
- we have a university that's faced almost close to a billion dollars in cuts right now
- and again none of this was anticipated and so we are essentially policy making on a sea that is
- in a in a basically a terrible storm you know the perfect storm uh where we have the wind the waves
- and we don't know when that weather is going to change it's not going to change potentially for
- four years and so we have to call upon our state officials as well to come back into session and to
- help out our local communities because the local communities cannot do it alone we need that state
- partnership and we need that federal partnership we have about a little over five minutes left
- so i want to make sure we're vetting other questions from the press
- can i ask the same question but in a slightly more boring way
- um so isn't sb1 an opportunity to drive cross collaboration across different taxing units
- that maybe we should have done already but now we have an excuse because we have this uh this
- stress and we can say because of the stress we now need to have the city and the county
- it departments get closer together to collaborate i mean for heaven's sakes we're the city is
- building
- a new website right now the county is also building a new website i look at that and i think well
- why
- don't we ask red chrome and repeat to get in a room and figure out how they can conserve some
- resources and capitalize on the fact that we have this great geographic proximity and it is surely
- politically neutral why are we taking this as an opportunity to say let's collaborate across
- taxi units in a way that is unprecedented
- uh thanks for the question dave i think that um while we are i i believe i speak for everyone
- while while we really love collaboration and um and we do a lot of it on the ground the
- complexities
- of um of essentially unigov is what you're what what you may be alluding to um first of all it's
- been outlawed at the state so um we already have regulations about not not doing that extensively
- um but i'll just speak to one of the issues that i have been trying to pull apart since i got into
- office which is building permits and just getting those two systems to talk to one another when
- when we do it and do it well it's going to be a dream but it's mine is not the first administration
- that's worked on this and um and so getting these systems to be one system getting increased
- collaboration i'll i'll tell you that those two it departments do talk and they do collaborate
- um and so there's there's lots of this going on behind the scenes um but i think to believe
- that we could um form unigov without the opportunity to actually form unigov um is a
- little short-sighted can i add something uh policy making works best when no one's holding a gun to
- your head and so i think that this is a distraction this is a layer of trying to figure out what we
- have to do again on shifting sands uh at the same time while we were looking forward to working
- and collaborating in other areas and so this adds a distraction to our plates that we did not need
- that we didn't ask for and frankly that was not needed uh yeah i'm gonna kind of echo that a
- little bit in that a stressful environment is not one that is really optimized for collaboration
- so this is this very stressful fiscal environment and that's i mean that makes conversations hard
- even if you're within your own like body much less across bodies kind of looking at different
- priorities that each of those individual bodies have so it it yeah it may force that collaboration
- but is it going to be like the best type of collaboration and then secondly there's also
- a difference in say philosophical collaborations versus nuts and bolts collaborations and i think
- that that we've you know kind of worked on philosophical collaborations for a long time
- and the nuts and bolts as as mayor thompson said is is a little bit uh more challenging to do
- let's take this question in the back hi uh skip daily south central indiana news uh council member
- ivison you mentioned uh during your comments uh rest assured we'll get through this together and
- you were talking about this brand of collaboration that is happening now is that perhaps a
- uh hidden silver lining that this new synergy that uh that has been forced upon you
- can help local government learn to do more with less i think it's realism uh you know we've been
- given uh dealt a hand uh from the state government and increasingly as commissioner medeira
- mentioned the federal government that statutorily uh we need to work with so uh we can adopt a
- position of woe is me the sky is falling or we can say we've got some serious elected official
- players in this room who know this uh like the back of their hand uh if you are going to craft
- a team in the county government to handle this situation you would want the people sitting in
- this room in that team and i think that i'm not being paulianish i think that that that should
- give people a good degree of optimism i also want to uh point out that one of the earlier questions
- was this is standing room only we've got law enforcement fire protection we've got multiple
- taxing units sitting right next to each other i'm very purposely sitting between two city officials
- uh and i think that speaks volumes to what this community is prepared to do to you know come and
- meets this challenge thank you of all these metaphors about change shifting sands perfect
- storm how are you all collectively trying to take a breath and you know get your feet under you as
- you take on a challenge that in your own words is this unprecedented so i i think we're in a time
- where there there is no stop and take a breath um we i mean this team has been running pretty hard
- since um since the um since the state house has been in session uh and uh with the shifting sands
- on the federal level uh i think i speak for all of us um we're working some long days and uh we're
- doing it for you our residents um so that we can get you the information that you need and we can
- advocate on your behalf and um this is this is my invitation to all of you uh to to stay informed
- thank you for being here today uh to do to please stay in touch with your state legislators um if
- you
- need more information um you know i i know these handouts are complex they're complex because the
- bill's complex um we will do our best to boil things down into um really palatable information
- as we move forward especially as we understand the implications and um and my my door and my
- email is open our phones are open um i'm i'm hearing from constituents about this as as people
- are realizing that this has come to pass now um and i think uh you know i i based on the response
- we got uh to this i think we'll uh we'll probably do another one of these in the future uh to help
- people people informed so thank you all so much for your time appreciate you being here thanks to
- the city and county teams uh school system and business community for uh being here and especially
- eric for the heavy lifting on translation have a great day
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