- Well, then, I call this meeting to order of the Monroe County Public Safety Local Income
- Tax Council.
- First time the agenda is roll call introductions if someone wants to do the roll call.
- Typically be me.
- Okay.
- Well, I'm Scott Oldham with Elstville Town Council.
- Go this way.
- Isabel Fiedemont-Smith, Bloomington City Council.
- We'll go this way.
- Kate Wilts, Monroe County Council.
- Courtney Daly, Bloomington City Council.
- Andy Ruff, Bloomington City Council.
- We'll move online to Councilor Henry.
- David Henry, Monroe County Council.
- And Council Member Alvarez.
- Okay.
- I believe that's everyone, correct?
- All right.
- Now we're going to move to election of officers for this year, election of the chair, actually.
- Are there any nominations?
- I nominate Council Person Piedmont-Smith.
- Second.
- Any other nominations?
- Seeing none, we'll now vote.
- We'll go with Council Member Piedmont-Smith first.
- Yes.
- Yes for me.
- Yes.
- Gentlemen?
- Yes.
- Call it to you.
- Thank you.
- Let's go to the next one.
- Okay, let's do introductions of the people who are not on the committee, but are joining
- us today.
- So, we'll start with the people.
- Lisa Lanner, Council Attorney.
- Christine Chang, Council Researcher.
- Jessica McClellan, City Controller.
- Sarah Taylor, Monroe County Central Dispatch.
- Thank you.
- Thank you all for being here.
- Okay.
- So, we have an overview of local income tax rates, revenues, and distributions.
- Controller McClellan, would you like to speak to that?
- Yes.
- Let me bring up the packet, so we can talk about the same thing.
- All right.
- On page 13 of your packet is the Certified Income Tax Distributions for 2025.
- I mean, currently dispatch is being funded with $2.7 million from local income tax.
- The total dispatch budget is the blue spreadsheet below that.
- The city portion of that budget is $4.3 million.
- So I actually didn't do the math right here, but the part that's not covered by PSAP, 2025
- PSAP lit is being covered by city reserves in the PSAP fund.
- So PSAP lit does not fully cover the dispatch budget.
- We're using city reserves, and that is a funding source identified in the interlocal agreement
- for dispatch that the city and the county will use their reserves to fund the dispatch
- center.
- And we do have significant reserves, and so last year we decided to do that.
- And that's reserves in the PSAP fund?
- Yes.
- Only reserves from PSAP lit collected over previous years.
- Do you happen to know the balance of that fund?
- I do, in general.
- The county fund is in the range of $2.5 million, and the city fund is -- I'm not getting to
- the right thing very quickly.
- I can look that up while you guys discuss other things, and then I just wanted to let you know
- that the 2026 certified lit for PSLIT, that doesn't come out until August 16th.
- So what we do is we estimate what we think PSLIT might be, and then we estimate what
- our percentage of PSAP that we would like to take from PSLIT, what we would like that
- to be, and then we get an estimated amount of PSAP revenue that we have to work with
- for 2026.
- And that's not something that you have to decide in this meeting, but I just wanted
- to -- but that's where we're headed.
- And in the next meeting, we'll also kind of go into more detail with that spreadsheet
- and percentages, and we have to wait until our next meeting because we may have units
- use this application that we're discussing today to apply for funding.
- So if this body decides to grant funding to other units, that will also affect how much
- PSAP we have to spend in 2026.
- So that's why we're not deciding that today, but it is coming down the road.
- >> Any questions?
- >> Yeah.
- I'm done.
- >> Yes.
- Are there questions for Comptroller McClellan?
- Yes.
- >> Can you speak a little bit to the effect that what SB1 became, this faces out in '28.
- So what happens to those reserves?
- Do they get washed into the general fund?
- Do they stay within a new creation of a lit fund, or how does that work?
- >> That has not been made clear yet.
- That is exactly our question, too.
- We are, so, for everyone else in the room, SB1 abolished the Monroe County Local Income
- Tax Council, then would abolish this committee, it abolishes all the different buckets of
- lit.
- There will be no PS lit, no ED lit, it's just city lit and county lit.
- And I think that we need to find out what happens to our PSAP reserves.
- And then the big question is, how do we fund the dispatch center with the local going forward?
- And that we will also not decide at our next meeting, but it's a conversation coming down
- the road.
- And this is in 2028 this week, or 27?
- It's 27.
- Yeah.
- With the city council, we'll vote on the city rate in 26 for the new lit to start in 27,
- I believe.
- So it starts at 27, not voting in 27 for 28.
- Correct.
- That's my understanding.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome.
- Are there other questions?
- The PSAP budget you mentioned is, is that the 2.781 million?
- Yes, PSAP lit revenue in 2025 is 2.781 million.
- And that does not cover the PSAP 2025 budget?
- Correct.
- About half.
- Okay.
- A little more than half.
- Okay.
- Only half.
- Okay.
- So that's the PSAP distribution component, but there's more revenue coming in.
- That's a very good question.
- What is the county, the county contributes to this budget?
- I didn't mention that.
- The first page of the packet with the blue spreadsheet, it has the actual total budget
- of the dispatch center, including the county's portion is 5.1 million.
- And the county's portion is on there in these two little purple line items, communications
- contract and instruction, and those come from the E-911 state fund.
- And that's a portion of the money, I think I have, let me see if I can get this right,
- I think it's the portion of the money that telecommunications providers pay into that
- fund as part of their contract to support 9-1-1.
- And it goes to supporting dispatch, which answers 9-1-1 calls.
- Is there any information about the stability of that revenue source?
- I know that's kind of outside the comfort of it.
- And now I'm thinking, where would we get, I would say there should be, there's an E-9-1
- board.
- Maybe that would be the place to start a state board that is actually run by the state treasurer's
- office.
- I just feel like we can't count on anything without verifying.
- Give us points.
- I agree.
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- Yes, you're welcome.
- I have one additional question here, I apologize.
- And this is a question for, I guess, clarity as opposed to argument, so I'll start there.
- So city and county have reserves off the PSAP fund, correct?
- Correct.
- And what originates from the PSLIT fund?
- Yes.
- They're pure PSAP dollars.
- Okay.
- But again, those are coming off of the monies that this committee has set aside over the
- years to fund the PSAP.
- Yes.
- Okay.
- So what then are Ellsville and Steinsville's reserves off of that because it comes off the
- top?
- And with all certified shares, there should be a four-way split beginning on our percentages
- as opposed to a two-way split.
- Ellsville and Steinsville, they do get PSLIT.
- Oh, it's because only the city and the county are eligible for the PSAP distribution because
- of the interlocal agreement is only between the city and the county.
- To run the dispatch.
- But you guys dispatch for Ellsville and Steinsville, too, right?
- They dispatch for Steinsville and Ellsville as well.
- And that's taken off the top of the total PSLIT rate to fund dispatch first before the
- distribution then occurs.
- So then I would argue if there are as then reserves coming off the top, there should
- be an Ellsville and Steinsville reserve column as well.
- Not that they'll go for anything other than the PSAP, but in all clarity, it should be
- a four-way split and what's in reserves rather than a two-way split because, again, those
- were reserves that were set aside off the top of the tax.
- It's not going to be much.
- No, I'm just...
- Particularly in comparison.
- PSAP, I will just, also just for clarity, PSAP funds can only be spent on the dispatch
- center.
- Right.
- And I guess where I was going with that is, again, for clarity rather than argument, if
- the city has borne the total burden out for their reserves, should it then not be a four-way
- split across all four categories, as opposed to one entity bearing the brunt of using their
- reserves in place of everybody else.
- So for clarity, what are those four columns, again, knowing Elis, Phil, and Steinz, we're
- going to be much less than what the rest of them are, but I don't want a 20-years-from-now
- somebody goes back and go, wait a minute, wait a minute, time out, where'd all that money
- go?
- Particularly if it gets washed back into general funds later.
- Yeah.
- Which I hope it doesn't.
- A follow-up question to that for me, for the group, is do Elis, Phil, and Steinz go pay
- anything to dispatch?
- Yes.
- That's PSLIT.
- They pay PSLIT.
- It was originally thought--
- That was not clear.
- Well, it was originally constructed that PSLIT, or the PSAP, would be funded out of PSLIT
- first before we did anything else, and that money then comes off the top.
- Otherwise, it would be revenue split four ways based on the formula under law.
- Yes.
- And then after PSAP comes off the top, then PSLIT is split four ways.
- Right.
- I'm sorry.
- Just for my clarity, Ellitsville pays something, like on an annual basis pays something to--
- Nobody pays anything except through PSLIT.
- Through PSLIT.
- And then what is chosen to be funded, like they have the certified PSAP, as I just looked
- at, those monies, those only come to the county because the county is the recipient of those
- dollars from the state.
- There is no mechanism for the city or the town or the other town to receive those monies.
- Right.
- So I get it's complicated, I just don't want to see one of us absorbing something in, in
- all reality it means nothing.
- Yeah.
- For now.
- But if it all gets washed back, or if it all gets moved someplace else, then we're gonna
- have a lot of arguments in the end that I'd rather address now while we're in the formative
- stage, rather than doing it later when we're trying to play catch up ball, if that makes
- any sense at all to everybody.
- I think that, obviously don't, the owl hanging upside down is hilariously distracting.
- Sorry.
- We're waiting for it to fall.
- Right, it's, the, I forgot my point, it was so distracting, that's ridiculous.
- If things are going away in terms of buckets of lit, and we're still going to have an income
- or a revenue source directly related to this amount, this levy, this tax, so our internal
- budgeting could still, I mean it says wash into general fund, but if it did that, I assume
- that you would set up specific funds.
- See that's something we never anticipated from the state was, we're funding this off
- the top, so it's an equitable split amongst everybody.
- So what happens when this committee goes away?
- You can't fund it off the top of our whole, when you roll them together as public safety
- lit and economic development lit, because we'll have three or four separate versions
- of that so you can't fund it off the top of those.
- So how do we even do that?
- Percentage.
- We'll have to have interlocal agreements.
- There won't be a percentage.
- There won't be.
- Dedicated to dispatch.
- Yeah.
- So again, that's.
- And if Alexville, then it'd be good to have an interlocal that includes all of the units
- that dispatch supports.
- Well, yeah, and again, even the ones that are not municipalities are being supported
- because they're taxing it in amongst themselves.
- We'll have to address that at some point or at least contemplate what we're going to do.
- Well, Scott, as the head of Alexville town council, can you find out if there are piece
- that preserves their no, because they would be with this committee, just like cities is
- and the counties is it's coming off of this committee.
- And because the city manages the dispatch center for the county in Ellsville and everybody
- else.
- Oh, because it's the piece that right not the shares.
- Yeah.
- He said only comes to the city in the county.
- And it can only be spent on dispatch dispatch.
- I would know that.
- See, but going down the road, I mean, when we start looking at one, but a term user fees
- to set up dispatch, okay, so now Monroe Fire is going to have to start kicking in substantially
- because they're now the bulk of the county other than, you know, the municipalities.
- For emergency services, what are we doing about the ambulance service, because they're
- a private entity.
- Are we dispatching for them for free, or are they going to have to pay.
- All of these things are questions that I don't think the state really anticipated when they
- contemplated doing away with PS and economic development, pushing them together because
- there's no mechanism for us to skim off the top, as we're doing right now.
- It may make the whole process a little bit more equitable to include all those people
- into the, you know, to the revenue sources because you are supporting all of those entities.
- Then the question becomes, however, what if you have a municipality who can't afford it?
- Right, right, right.
- Who supplements?
- Right.
- So, again, I'm just throwing questions out there that we're going to have to address
- at some point.
- But this is the PSLIT committee.
- This isn't the dispatch board.
- I just want to point that out.
- Who does make that decision, you know?
- Maybe it's a different committee.
- It could be.
- It could be the same people in this room, but yeah, because this could go away.
- It could be the same people in this room, but I think it may be a different committee.
- I'm just asking because we, at this point, not control, but are responsible for the reserves
- that are going into those funds.
- It seems like we're missing two funds, that there should have been donations or remnants
- put into those.
- So would that, would the the public safety distribution, the PSAP distribution for Ellisville
- and Steinsville, so the 268,000 and the 1,300, would those have, those have gone into what
- the county received?
- No, they go directly to those entities.
- Oh, I don't know where, no, because like saying the reserves, so say we set aside a million
- dollars, I know the number is wrong, for dispatch, but they only spend 700,000 of it.
- What's been happening is 150 has gone to the city and 150 has gone to the county as reserves.
- Well, what are the other two entities?
- Where are their reserves?
- Because they push money into this pile to begin with as well.
- So it should have been based on that percentages.
- So the city's 50%, the county's 40%, Ellisville's 10%, Steinsville's 2% should have received
- in silos so we could track it easier over the years.
- But no one ever thought that it would matter.
- Now it's saying it matters.
- Yeah.
- Is it 50/50 between county and city?
- It doesn't look like it.
- No, not at the percentages.
- So what's supposed to happen is the city is supposed to receive all of the dispatch, or
- all of the PSAP because we have the majority of the expenses.
- I mean, it's not our money, it's still just lit and we get the money so that we can pay
- all the bills.
- We have all the salaries.
- We have all the expenses.
- Just because this interlocal decided it would be easier that way instead of really splitting
- it 50/50 and asking you to pay half the people and you to pay half the people and then there
- being this argument about who dispatches for who.
- So we try to get that out of the clear of that issue and then have all of the lit revenue
- come to the city.
- I don't know why, really why the county has a balance in the PSAP fund because I always
- thought that all of the PSAP was supposed to come to the city, we spend what we need
- to and then we don't, whatever we don't spend stays in the PSAP fund and then we always
- share that information.
- It's in the interlocal.
- We share that information with the county every year.
- How much did we spend?
- What is our reserves?
- So that every, all the players know what the reserves are.
- Which would make sense.
- Yes.
- Just to, I don't have the entire answer as to why the county has that but I believe it
- has to do with the county being responsible for some of the supplies capital kind of expenditure
- as opposed to the operations expenditures.
- So that, I know that in the past we've had those discussions on council.
- Yes.
- And things have changed over time.
- They aren't now like they were when this started.
- So I think that I, what you're saying does sound familiar but I don't know the details
- cause it was a long time ago.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- Sounds good.
- Yeah.
- I didn't even want to bring that up because I didn't want to cast dispersions on the county
- that you have money that you shouldn't.
- But the way it's working now it doesn't entirely, you know, it doesn't seem like the county
- should be keeping PSAP money, it should all come to the city to pay for the dispatch center
- that we all use.
- But that's also not something that isn't really an issue.
- It's not an issue.
- It's just, I'm happy with the way the county is doing it.
- Yeah, and I don't know, I don't know the answers to that.
- I don't feel like, I mean, obviously it can only be spent on PSAP, so.
- Yeah.
- That's why it's not an issue.
- It doesn't, it's fine.
- Yeah.
- It can only be spent on the dispatch center.
- We should probably just clarify some things.
- Again, I'm just worried at the future.
- What happens then?
- To me, it's irrelevant right now.
- Yes.
- And it's irrelevant, quite frankly, in the future to me, but to somebody else it may be
- relevant.
- Yes.
- So things to clarify as we move along to the post-PSLIP phase.
- Now Jessica, there was an additional distribution of PSAP funds, right, or PSLIP funds.
- Only of PSLIP, the county said that the supplemental LIP wasn't in our budget for dispatch and
- that they would keep it.
- That's what I was told, and that's why we didn't get it.
- But we got certified shares.
- We got PSLIP, and we got certified shares, and we got EDLIP, we just didn't get PSAP.
- Okay, so I just want to make sure that everybody on the committee is aware that there was an
- additional distribution for PSAP, it all went to the county.
- Do we know how much that was?
- 215,685.
- And so that's not appropriated, right?
- Correct.
- That goes into the reserves?
- Correct.
- So just something to keep in mind.
- How do those supplemental distributions come about?
- Every county lit has a trust fund with the state because they're collecting income taxes
- after they estimate what your lit is going to be, and sometimes the income taxes that
- they collect come in at more than what they estimated.
- They keep all that extra lit in a trust fund, and when the trust fund gets above 15 percent
- of a certain balance, which is a certain percentage of your city and county, blah, blah, blah,
- then they distribute it to you as a supplemental distribution to keep the trust fund balance
- low or under a certain threshold.
- And so the certified shares, like the city got almost 1.2 million certified shares, that's
- also not appropriated, but available for appropriation this year, right?
- Correct.
- Something to keep in mind for city council and county council because I'm sure you all
- have distributed shares in Ellisville as well.
- Any other questions for the controller on this?
- Okay.
- Well, let's move on to hear from Sarah Taylor, Director of Civilian Operations with Central
- Dispatch on how the expenditures are going and whether there are big plans that will
- need investment next year.
- >> We are on track with our spending for this year for what we projected from last year.
- We had a lot of big projects that are happening this year, which increased the budget significantly
- for 2025.
- We're replacing 22 of our consulates in the radio room.
- That helps us still communicate with everyone in the field if our landline connection were
- to go down, and then we need to replace our second UPS, that's a glorified surge protector
- for all of our equipment to the generator.
- When we're thinking about next year, we don't have a lot of those huge expenditures.
- There's not huge equipment that we need to replace quite yet.
- So while we do see the pay likely, the personnel pay is going to increase due to the city's
- new pay structure, we do have some contracts that are falling off or significantly decreasing
- because we are not having these large capital expenses or because the first year of the
- budget was much more significant because we had a GIS portion or some other portion that
- needed replacement in that first year.
- All of our contracts are going to be in the second year or farther along than that.
- I'm speaking kind of in generics, not being real specific today because the Dispatch Policy
- Board has not met to approve our proposed budget.
- That's going to happen on June 26th for a special session.
- At our next meeting, I'm happier to get more into the nitty-gritty and detailed of what
- Dispatch's needs are for 2026.
- >> Any questions for Ms. Taylor?
- How are you as far as having positions filled?
- Are they -- I know that last year we had many vacancies.
- Is that improving?
- >> It is not improved yet.
- Unfortunately, we still have about the same vacancy rate as last year.
- We are focused on filling our Dispatch supervisor roles that have historically been vacant since
- those FTEs were allotted, I believe, three or four years ago before my stint here.
- Those positions are open.
- We've got a training supervisor position open internally and three Dispatch supervisor positions
- open right now.
- We hope to fill those really quickly within the next month or two.
- Once we address those supervisor positions and get those filled, then we will open another
- telecommunications process as well, the Dispatchers.
- >> I'm sorry to hear that it's been hard to get and keep employees.
- >> It's a national problem, unfortunately.
- >> It's a difficult job.
- Any other questions?
- All right.
- Thank you for that update.
- We can move on to review of the guidelines and application form for potential applicants
- among emergency service providers that are not funded by county, city, or Ellitsville
- governments.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- I forgot the little asterisks.
- We have an opportunity for public comment on the short report from Ms. Taylor on the central
- dispatch expenditures.
- Would anybody from the public want to comment on that topic?
- There's nobody here in the McCloskey room except for cats.
- Thank you.
- Any hands raised online?
- It looks like there's some questions in the chat.
- So he asks how will the city and county coordinate in the ramp up on the repeal of PSLIT
- designation?
- Okay, we did talk about that somewhat.
- Further, how will the 2008 effective combined lit structure and per municipality apportionment
- requirements tend to influence the collaborative fiduciary needs such as dispatch?
- Those are big questions that will need to be addressed.
- Who is that?
- All right, but I don't see any hands raised to make public comment on the unified central
- dispatch expenditures.
- So we can move on to review of the guidelines and application form for other emergency service
- providers.
- The form was in the packet, are there any, did anybody notice anything that might need
- to be revised other than the dates and Stephen Lucas' contact information?
- My recollection is last year we did not have applications, is that correct?
- I think so.
- We didn't have any submitted.
- We have to allow them to do it and no one chose to submit.
- And my hazy recollection is that people did not submit because the writing was pretty
- clear that we were not having a lot of extra to distribute.
- So relative to that are we in the same situation?
- Personally I would say yes because everybody else who is able to submit also has their
- own tax supported entity to go through to get there.
- So looking at the form just on the top of the second page it says the committee reviewed
- its guidelines and made changes reflecting changes made to state law.
- So I guess we can take that out since we're just keeping whatever that was.
- And then I wanted to double check whether the September 1st deadline is still accurate in
- the last paragraph.
- I believe that's still accurate.
- So that does put us in a position to really have to estimate because we won't have the
- numbers until August 16th but that only leaves two weeks to have this committee meet and
- have the members of the tax council approve any changes.
- So really we need to make a decision before we have those numbers as usual.
- Okay well I didn't see anything to revise here, anybody else?
- Now the meatier part of this is the guidelines which start on page 11.
- And this may be Councillor Wills what you were talking about that maybe they looked
- at this and we're like it doesn't look very promising because we do talk about number
- two there the committee will only consider funding expenditures for demonstrated urgent
- one-time emergency needs so that's pretty limiting and then combined with all these
- other guidelines it is it is rather narrow I think what these guidelines would have us
- consider.
- But we are here to talk about the guidelines so I'm open to.
- Yeah it's this is just what the what this council has done from honestly first year
- on I'm not sure how many years that is now is that we saw I think the first year we had
- 10 applications and it all seemed to revolve around one individual topic at the time which
- was SCBAs so we decided to fund those because those weren't urgent life-threatening priority
- but then we were also getting things like oh I want to pick up truck or I want to trailer
- I want to it got into kind of wish list items that we had to pick through versus at the
- time the the committee decided no we're not going to do wish list we're going to do what
- is what what benefits the entire county right now and at that point in time it was the SCBAs
- the breathing apparatus I think another time we did fund a tanker because again it was
- an immediate need that benefited the entire region of the county but combing through the
- wish list items that quite frankly were better put in a budget a yearly budget or plan for
- the yearly budget seem to make more sense to the count to the group assembled group than asking
- for the entire county to fund one wish list item for one entity that didn't benefit everybody
- also when we started in 2016 there were a lot more fire departments now they've most of them
- have unified under the fire protection district so there's there's I would argue that led to
- better planning on further budgets and they have to apply before july 1st okay um oh um sorry
- counselor that's all right yeah it's those same things so i'm going off scott's point i mean i'm
- looking at two and five and trying to square a circle so let's use the scuba or the that device
- for example that's a one-time urgent emergency need purchase and we're talking about a resource
- that usually has an end of life right like that equipment will expire out for safety reasons like
- does that then negate if someone would come back and say look you know we bought a piece of
- equipment
- one time use and now it's end of life we have to dispose of it so we're coming back to replace that
- urgent use but it is now a uh yeah number five basically disqualifying it's almost disqualifying
- it it's not a news it's um it's using the source of funding to replace something that was urgent
- one-time use does that strike folks as sort of um let me give you a little clarity on that there
- had been a rule change um i want to say it was with osha about how long the air tanks could
- actually be in service that caught a lot of the fire department's flat-footed so they weren't
- able to budget ahead of time and buy x number per year to get there and we had several providers
- emergency service providers that just simply did not have the tax base or the funding capabilities
- to get those scbas back in service it caught everybody pretty quickly flat-footed that they
- couldn't afford to do the numbers they needed so we funded as a county
- okay i hear that i guess i guess and that's fine for that example but yeah it's the boots
- and suits problem of things that you purchase that are urgent for a moment that do have a shelf
- life
- and then if it is a one-time purchase versus a um something we wouldn't budget for routinely and
- i mean pandemic stuff falls in this category you know um you know if there are pharmaceuticals that
- have a shelf life that that are past their use or you know the authorized use um i don't want to
- contour all the possible resources i'm just trying to wrap my head around at what point this five
- get in the way of number two on this list or something if an agency were trying to use this
- resource i might be alone on that that's okay well number five does say prefers yeah i mean i
- yeah so it's almost yeah i mean that seems like an admonition or a warning like don't bother but i
- hear what you're saying whereas number two is more stark yeah yeah
- it's like um a lot of rules sometimes and i haven't been on the committee for a long time
- but sometimes you see rules and you're like something happened and that's why that's there
- wouldn't be a rule that's right i'm wondering that's the point that we've consolidated the fire
- protection district that does resonate with me maybe a fewer units that are competing now
- so that that does that does change things slightly in my opinion
- just throwing out there that the county did all of us recently experienced an emergency
- from the tornadoes and i'm wondering if there is an application of funds that we would consider
- relative to expenses made around that response i mean would that be inappropriate
- so it'd be things that had already been expended perhaps or in preparation for a similar
- event in the future i don't know i'm just kind of thinking out loud it's a terrible happen
- well it's not a bad idea and i'm kind of curious uh scott oldham if you have some views on this so
- um you know if we had a situation where we're not going to meet a threshold for state or federal
- disaster relief right and yet we still expended resources locally but we're not going to get
- reimbursed for those from a state or federal pool because you know the disaster wasn't large enough
- if that would be something that would qualify though i'm trying to wrap my head around what
- that would be i mean overtime is one of those things right but that's not a tangible good
- again i can only speak to what we funded in the past where we were you know from beginning we
- never funded any personal cost because those those were recurring and quite frankly even in
- this instance and i understand what you're saying we would be providing monies six to eight months
- after the fact for something that should have been absorbed in the budget some other way
- now i think your your point though is if we identified a piece of equipment that we needed
- that would benefit the entire county in a disaster sure let's talk about that did we need a crane
- did
- we need a this did we need a whatever else but then the question you've got to ask yourself is
- where does that asset belong where does it go and does it fit within what we're funding so again
- would
- a crane be better purchased by city county or ellisville highway department because it would get
- used more than once every 20 years hopefully never used or does it belong with the fire department
- where it just sits and does nothing for 15 20 years so you know where is that capability i can
- tell you from our most recent experience thank god there wasn't a substantial amount of equipment
- needed that was not already present in daily use this this would be more like losing apparatus
- right right yeah yeah if you had something where you had a fire truck you know again pick one of
- them two engines get destroyed yeah that's an urgent need that benefits everybody so i would
- say yeah that's absolutely fun that one but that's kind of outside the purview of even the monies
- we
- have off of this here but just to carry that forward then something that would equipment wise
- enhance coordination and communication in a similar incident might be eligible sure
- yeah didn't we fund uh new radios for some of the we did township fire departments so everybody had
- repeaters yes and mdts yes so that way throughout the entire county everybody's functioning on the
- same system with the same capabilities and in fact i don't know the boy with the city everybody
- they may have but the outer line fire departments were equipped with repeaters as they got further
- and further away from the base station so that they could use the the radio channels appropriately
- yeah that's a really good use and again being due to the committee um i'm getting education but
- yeah the the repeater purchase makes a lot of sense to me so i understand that oh that's paid
- off over the years several times yeah yeah 100 do we have guidance to provide potential applicants
- on the amount they should target in their requests
- don't know that we ever had what we provided we're going to spend this or whatever else
- because again anything we grant comes off the top entire ps lid becomes second after dispatch
- in preparing for this meeting i've not seen any document that provided guidance of that nature
- in most of my first first ps lit most of the time we've done this the committee
- directed the purchase and paid for it directly rather than giving the money to the entity
- it was like the scbas we bought in mass and i remember who was dedicated to doing that or the
- mdt's or the radio systems that was money set at that point to dispatch to fund out of their own
- item right about the time they disband this committee i'll understand how it works
- so is there any appetite to revise these guidelines or add anything to them
- so it's it's it's it's a confusion point that we don't think the agencies have an
- understanding of the array of things that could apply for or is it really because i mean part of
- me after hearing the little of this is thinking about just how you know i'm going to talk law
- enforcement here for a second but like how the nims or the national and financial system process
- would identify like a resource type list and say well but things are on the resource list
- that typically fire ems or first responders use like that's the kind of stuff that be eligible
- is there is there an appetite to create like an example list based on stuff that we know
- our resources that public safety might bring to us so we can wrap our heads around it doesn't seem
- abstract or or folks i'm okay with either way having examples of things or just sticking with
- this is fine especially you know we might be adding more to this guideline than complicating
- does anyone have an opinion about examples of things to maybe trigger some applications or not
- i guess i would be concerned if we make a list of examples then
- we'll get a request for those things even if they're not needed or pressing
- and i mean i think honestly my questions are coming from a point of i'm still learning about the
- process and most of the folks who would be applying probably are more familiar than i am with
- what would count and what would work in terms of the process
- how many uh qualified service providers are there now who could apply
- do we know so there's the modern fire protection district obviously what maybe i'll rely on
- deputy chief aldem
- and not knowing what three maybe four so is washington township
- still have their own no it's been actually fully come into the district yet are they still pending
- i know they were intending but i don't know what their actual
- moving moving date is and then you have um beam blossom fire steinsville fire
- that's that's still out there on their own um is steinsville uh beam blossom that's not the same
- thing yes yes they're currently in discussions with two parties that may result in some acquisition
- of services so i don't really want to speak to that because it's still ongoing but
- it's out there in the public that they are entertaining some things uh oh richard carter
- has joined us welcome mr carter uh there are four bloomington blue city ellsville fire beam blossom
- okay of the fire department so too that also emergency medical service provider
- but again when it talks about from a political subdivision our emergency service medical
- provider is a private entity so they are not eligible they've never tried i don't know the
- committee's ever answered that question yeah it must be operated by or serve well it serves
- you know it's not under contract
- bias is not under contract to this county in any form or fashion
- uh bloomington hospital service iu health hospital sorry um it used to be um but no longer is
- this
- well it says as defined by code and so maybe there's yeah more to it than that
- okay so back to the operated diet or sorry a public subdivision so yeah sorry i'm catching up
- so it doesn't it wouldn't count as serving a subdivision because there's no agreement
- uh and they would have to make a case we've never answered that question because they've
- never they've never applied yeah cross-separation if we get to it i think that question's come up
- every year shows how much i remember i ask it every year no no i mean it's something we've
- discussed a lot in it we've never had to push it to legal department because they've never said hey
- we'd like to apply yeah it describes the last five minutes conversation from the tape i'm just
- i mean i think it's an interesting discussion you know if we wanted to take bs lit money off the
- top
- and fund an ambulance service specific to the company that would be different um but that's
- not something that i don't know we can even do by interlocal agreement because this was designed
- for
- the piece out not for beyond that and it's going away seems right right
- so i'm hearing no suggestions to change our guidelines
- okay well um we can go to the public is there any member of the public who would like to speak
- about the application form or the guidelines for applicants
- all right seeing none we will move on to uh schedule
- would the committee then need to vote on the application and guidelines
- oh yes if so i have um a proposed motion that
- you could consider and that would be a motion to approve the document entitled
- public safety local income tax committee of monreal county local income tax council
- application and guidelines last revised june 13 2024 with the following changes
- removing the paragraph at the top of page two and updating the dates and contact information within
- it
- thank you miss laner would anybody like to make that motion
- so moved second
- all right it's been moved and seconded to approve the application and guidelines with
- a few revisions as discussed um let's do a roll call um council member ruff yes council member
- daily yes councilor wilkes yes deputy chief oh i should know you're here roll sorry council member
- aldo yes uh councilor henry yes and council member rolla yes thank you that motion passes
- and you oh and i vote yes all right forgot to call on myself
- okay so now we can move on to a matter of schedule and trying to uh
- schedule our next meeting so the the deadline will be for the applications will be june 30th
- which i believe is on monday um so uh within a couple weeks of that date we should try to
- schedule another meeting um by then we will also have the central dispatch budget proposal
- um
- so maybe look at the week of july 14th
- is anybody going to be totally unavailable that week
- not necessarily okay
- definitely that friday i'm totally available
- oh what about another tuesday at noon on july 15th does that work for people and for staff as well
- i'll give everybody a minute to look at their calendars yeah that doesn't work for me no it doesn't
- is it because of noon or tuesday or it's that day it's what about monday the 14th
- okay sorry thursday the 17th
- that would work for me yeah thursday's actually the best day of the week i mean not that
- i'm the star of the show yes you are
- um so so the new proposal is thursday july 17th at noon
- um and for those online those committee members online feel free to chime in if that does not work
- works for me thanks it does okay it's fine
- mr carter does that oh gotcha just always know very good
- and it works for staff and uh yay we got a date
- um so i don't know if we should schedule a third meeting
- um it's probably better to schedule it in case we need it i agree
- so oh what about the following thursday the 24th i'll be out of state i will also be out of state
- actually actually oh well it's getting close then
- if we're going to make any changes there's not a lot of time for the the voting bodies to react
- it's it's my understanding that the reaction would come from city council primarily right
- because of the way the votes are distributed
- and it needs to be done by august 1st
- no the the so if we propose a change in the proportion that goes to psap
- then the monter county tax council which is comprised of the bodies of the three governments
- need to approve that change by september 1st so yeah and since most of the votes or majority
- of the votes are with the city council so if we met july 28th would that be enough time
- looking at miss laner
- and and potentially because we do have a meeting
- august 6 but then wait august 6 and 13 no only august 6 and then yes that's it it's just the
- beginning of august that's the only meeting we have in august because then we have our two weeks
- of budget hearings well that would be cutting it close but i don't see unless we move the first
- meeting earlier i don't see how you could just set it because we may not need it we may not need it
- well council city council also has a regular session scheduled on july 30th i don't know if that
- so how does july 28th look for everybody it's a monday somebody said monday's bad
- well i don't know i guess we'll start with noon i couldn't make it for noon well unless i was
- able to do online but i could make it for noon 30 i have a meeting that ends right at noon that
- Monday
- so how does 12 30 on july 28th look
- i may have to be remote for them okay but you would be available yes
- works for me
- who said that richard okay thank you
- does that work for everybody here in the room
- wonderful and mr henry he gave a thumbs up he did okay good
- yes as as an aside we would need at least four committee members physically present
- to support people attending electronically right for both of these as an fyi and no more than two
- virtual in the room right and right nobody can attend virtually through more than two times in
- a row andy did you have something no i can be in person okay
- uh is that that would be sufficient for our meetings going forward right
- may i add something yes of course if a committee member
- wants to attend participate in the meeting electronically it would help in terms of
- interpreting the open door law or identifying any issues if you could send an email to to me
- in advance then i can identify any problems potentially work those out before the meeting
- thank you and again the 17th meeting was in new yes july 17th afternoon july 28th at 12 30 right
- here
- i'll schedule it somewhere in single
- okay um there is an asterisk here so we will take public comment on schedule
- anybody in the public want to comment on what we've just scheduled
- don't see any hands going up
- so we will move on to other business does anybody have any other business
- i would just say i was i was oh i'm sorry councilmember member rollo go ahead yeah i
- got a text um this is from air ghost and he had issued three questions at the beginning
- yes and uh perhaps the last one wasn't uh answered um maybe it might not be answerable right now
- but
- it reads organizationally how will this transition be collectively coordinated this is post
- disbanding the you know the committee and and after the pslet goes away uh the post transition
- revenue flows be collectively overseen on an ongoing basis i'm kind of curious about that too
- jessica do you have any thoughts on that or is there going to be a a fund like this that a
- committee
- will uh work to make decisions about this person and so forth
- we don't have any direction from the state on what we're supposed to do
- um uh and i think then if we don't if we continue to not get any direction you know i think we'll
- just have to figure it out here we haven't definitely haven't put the cart before the
- horse and made any decisions without talking to you guys first we don't no decisions have
- been made about how to do that yeah okay thanks for uh thanks for your attention i know auditor
- gregory had popped in for a minute but it may be useful to have the auditor attend some of the
- meetings on that uh as we move forward i mean clearly the county's holding the funds that are
- dispersed uh to
- you know as we talked about earlier um you know it may make sense now for a call from that um
- and yeah i i as i i i'm sure reading a lot more guides from sbnoa and dlgf is for trying to scale
- ramp down these types of committees as we've spoken to our city and county uh i don't i don't know
- if
- the auditors attended these types of meetings in the past but it may make sense yeah thank you
- that is a good idea
- okay um well i just wanted to mention so i i uh was in pittsburgh for a conference a few weeks ago
- and we did a tour of the allegheny county 911 central dispatch and it was very interesting um
- and just uh to put our county in perspective they have over 400 emergency service agencies in
- allegheny county it's it's the county where pittsburgh is because in the state of pennsylvania or
- the commonwealth of pennsylvania the emergency services have to be at the lowest governmental
- level so every township has their own thing going on they have over 100 different radio channels
- so so consider ourselves lucky that we are not in that position it was wild um
- any other other business
- any other comments from the public i want to thank mr ost for his comments these are all
- very good questions to try to wrap our heads around as we transition out of the ps lit into
- the new system but i've seen no other hands raised so i think we can adjourn thank you all very
- much
- thank you
- ("Pomp and Circumstance")