and welcome to Cats Week. I'm Annalise Poorman.
The Bloomington City Council met on September 23rd and moved one step closer towards adopting the city's
2027 budget. Council members spent several hours questioning city staff about budgetary concerns, including
fuel costs, parking meters, employee health insurance, and job vacancies. Public Works Director Adam
Wason said that the city is trying to conserve fuel and look at alternatives, but says that they have
limited control over the market.
I'm shaking my crystal ball is saying we are not sure you know, that's the the reality of it We're simply
not sure what we've seen and councilmember all and I had a chance to talk about this a little bit at the
finance subcommittee we're seeing the trend go up you know we're really trying to work with all the
departments on fuel conservation we're looking at different fuel types that we then we've used in the
past to try to lower that cost but right now we are at the whim of the fuel markets next council members
addressed a projected decline in the city's parking meter fund controller Jeff McKim said the fund is
expected to drop significantly due to a proposed two and a half million dollar technology up
for the city's parking services. The parking meter fund does have several different departments that
have budgets in it so yes of course the parking department does have a substantial budget in that and
that 2.5 million dollars is in there for their capital outlay for the tech refresh but the street department
also has substantial
You know has substantial expenses being paid out of that at out of that department or out of that fund
I think as you know We struggle to keep up with street department expenses. I mean fuel but also just
rising labor costs everything it just the the costs of running streets department outstrips the gas
tax and the excise tax that are kind of the traditional ways of funding
Those functions so, you know, I think as you know, we're now putting property tax into funding Street
Department through MVH now I think you you started you did that for the first time last year and we've
continued that this year and the parking meter fund Provides another simply another funding source for
providing these kind of necessary expenses the discussion surrounding the budget shifted to employees
and the cost of providing health insurance and
The proposed budget calls for the city to absorb a 9% increase in health and life insurance costs. City
Councilmember Hopi Stasberg questioned how the city can balance rising health insurance costs with recent
employee salary increases. Human Resources Director Shar Paycheck responded.
You know, it's one of those things is it better to have no increase for our employees one year and then
a really big one or to have smaller increases as we go along and what kind of consideration you've given
to those different possibilities. That is a great question. It is honestly a little difficult to answer because
without having certainty of what is to come in the future, I wouldn't want to answer too specifically.
I will say that, and I can reiterate this based on my budget presentations, our participation in the
AIM Trust has helped us have significantly lower healthcare premium.
increases than you would normally find in a market. And so as long as we continue to participate in
the trust, then I think we'll be in a good position financially as far as our health care costs. Council
members also heard concerns about whether the city should continue allocating money for vacant positions.
One of these positions is the transportation demand management position.
Jane Coopersmith, Director of the Economic and Sustainable Development Department, said the work remains
important. However, she debated whether it requires a full-time position given the city's tight budget
constraints. So if we were still in the 2021 funding environment, I would probably come out very excitedly
and say, yes, let's keep it and reinvent and tackle it. But in this funding climate, I just don't think
it's the most essential work that the city is
doing, not to say that mode shift is not critically important. Mode shift is critically important. The
council also discussed Bloomington Transit's loss of economic and development local income tax funding,
or ED-LIT. The estimated balance goes from almost $4.5 million at the end of this year to less than
$800,000 at the end of 2027. Bloomington Transit controller Krista Browning described what the ED-LIT funds.
Continued operational services funded by the partnership are included in our proposed twenty twenty
seven budget such as the Sunday service all the micro transit service the fare capping the staff positions
and then we will also use some for the match for our new transit facility.
Lastly, council members returned to their discussion around rising fuel costs, asking what happens if
fuel prices rise substantially or if the city faces a shortage. Council member Dave Rollo asked if the
city has a fallback plan for reducing its use of fuel. Public Works Director Wason responded, saying
that they do have a contingency plan. I assume we have contingency plans in case of very high fuel spiking.
Or tip or potentially interruption is a is a correct as we discuss, you know, we would look at what
services would be reduced You know right now we offer sanitation service both trash and recycle every
week to every resident in the community contingency plans for true Emergencies here would result in
service interruptions or service reductions Wason continue to describe what the city would prioritize
in the case of a major hike to the price of fuel
In terms of emergency management, emergency purposes, we would be looking at public safety. We would
be looking at our utility. We would be looking at absolute core basic public services. We prioritize
everything else. Do we have additional storage opportunities? No, we are limited by the storage we have
underground. The City Council will continue tackling changes to the 2027 budget before formal adoption
next month. You can expect more budget conversations during the Council's next meeting on October 7th.
The Monroe County Council met on September 22nd. The meeting began with the temporary tabling of two
council business items concerning the High Tech Crimes Unit Fund and an additional appropriation request
for a VOCA grant until October 27th meeting.
Department updates began with the Auditor's Office presenting on how remaining ARPA dollars are being
used, including a small in-house transfer to keep a septic program on track ahead of looming federal
deadlines. Carly Woodruff, Financial Director of the Auditor's Office, explained. The deadline for vendors
to complete the projects... I'm so sorry. The deadline for vendors to complete the projects and submit
in voices is
September 30th. There is an October deadline for the department. So this will be the health department
to then submit all those invoices for payment to the auditor and commissioner. And then the December
deadline that we hit on is going to be the deadline for the county to fully expend. So the reason we
set the other deadlines a little bit sooner is to give us a little bit of time and wiggle room that
if we need to move some pennies around, we're not giving anything back.
Council President Jennifer Crossley raised concerns about late vendor invoices and whether some departments
might miss cutoffs, potentially putting community projects at risk. I'm just trying to look to us to
figure out if there's any way that we can help you all as liaisons to departments and whatnot to really
kind of light a fire to make sure, you know, because
If there are members of the public that are benefiting from these projects and they might be in jeopardy
of not getting completed because people aren't doing what they need to do, then we definitely need to
light a fire and get to moving.
Next, the meeting turned to hiring freeze reviews, beginning with the technical services department.
Counselors used the request to highlight how much the county now depends on around-the-clock IT support,
with Director Greg Crone explaining how those hours are covered. So we maintain our office from 8 a.m.,
actually 730 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Monday through Friday, and then it goes on to an on-call rotation after normal operating hours. So the
way we do that, we have four full-time technicians who share that. So one week out of every month, a
full-time tech is covering 24-7 on-call during those hours that were closed. So yes, we do maintain
constant coverage. You have to remember, too, we have the jail.
the sheriff's deputies, and the Youth Services Bureau that are 24-7 facilities. So we have to maintain
that. We do get calls, not so much from the youth shelter, but the jail and patrol deputies. That is
a routine that we get calls from them during that, so. The council next approved two key health department
staffing requests. The first was to refill the maternal child health coordinator position with health
officer Dr. Sarah Ryderband explaining the role. We have
had our maternal child health coordinator poached by the state. And so we are in a position of wanting
to replace that individual. She has done, as you can see in your packet, a lot of good work over the
time coordinating, running around the city and county, handing out
child care seats when people were in accidents or you know in the middle of the day when something happened
and they had to have them replaced so she did that she also was working under the grant which is part
of our hfi grant to simply help reduce the amount of
infant mortality, which is still very high in this state. It's one of the highest states, unfortunately.
Some of the efforts in HFI have helped to reduce that, but we're nowhere near where we would want to
be as a state. And our maternal child care coordinator was the person who would work with the pregnant
moms, then would work with them after
They delivered and also did some of the education. They also did tobacco education. The rest of tobacco
education was withdrawn from HFI funding, but it was kept in this area because it is such a contributor
to at least infant morbidity, if not mortality.
The next approved request was to fill the recently vacated health administrator position. Discussion
centered on the challenge of finding an administrator who can juggle state requirements, local partnerships,
and internal leadership. Later in the meeting, the clerk's office secured additional appropriations
to fully fund the 2026 general election after the county had previously covered only the primary.
Election supervisor Kylie Farris explained the added expenses, including increases in overseas ballots,
higher-than-expected voter turnout, and a change in ballot size. One thing that we are seeing a difference
in is going to be the ballots, because, for the general election, we had to move to a custom-sized ballot
due to the amount of races on the ballot and public questions.
There will be a completely new ballot size that has never been seen before. Ballots costed more than
what we were expecting. So they went from the legal size to another eight and a half by 17, which is
it's a learning curve for all of us right now. Closing out the council business portion of the meeting,
the Youth Services Bureau presented three funding actions.
a $950 D appropriation from the state-funded Project Safe Place grant after the state reduced its award,
a federal runaway and homeless youth grant appropriation, and an appropriation of about $3,300 in donations
to help underwrite the upcoming Monroe County Childhood Conditions Summit.
Prevention Coordinator, Melanie Vaisledge, also credited outside sponsorships for supporting the summit.
And I do just want to acknowledge we received a total of $3,800 in sponsorships so far for just this
appropriation. And we are scheduled for the MC3 event to be held on November 16th. These contributions
include $800 from the IU School of Public Health, 1,000 from United Health, 500 from CareSource,
500 from the Southern Indiana Exchange Club, $250 from Ivy Tech, $250 from Farrington Specialty Center,
and $500 from the City of Wilmington. Later in the meeting, counselors dug into how to balance GO bonds,
the edit fund, and cumulative capital amid the constraints of Senate Enrolled Act 1, which limits short-term debt.
The broader finance debate also included a $1 million request for Beacon Center's new homelessness services
hub, with executive director Forrest Gilmore outlining the scope of the organization's work and providing
updates on the new center. I think there's a lot of fear in our community about quantity of services
for homelessness to some degree that if you build more, that more may come and such.
that we really focus on quality of service in this. And so while there is some expansion of shelter
beds, for example, the real focus was on what are the solutions that our community needs and how can
we bring together a center that really improves the quality of service for people struggling
with homelessness so that they get out of homelessness, not just sit in it and remain in it.
we're doing that through a threefold process. Emergency shelter, in our case, primarily targeting women
because that's the huge gap in our community at the moment. And that will, and primarily the biggest
innovation in that is we would have just, we would step away from bunk beds and step into just one level
beds and that is one of the greatest issues we're seeing right now with women in particular. Huge amount
of disability and challenge such that actually getting onto the second tier of a bunk bed is is difficult.
And so we actually have empty beds that are on the second tier
that cannot be accessed by clients because we don't have enough clients that can climb those steps to
get to the top of bunk beds. So just one minor thing, dogs will be allowed and pets will be allowed.
Council member Trent Deckard went on to express his frustration with what he described as a trend of
people elsewhere in the state enjoying the benefits of the community while becoming less willing to
help or participate in discussions about the issues it faces.
This is an area I think that we're having to do a lot more because somebody's got to do something. We
can't just leave not for profits and good intentions and a couple churches and a Hail Mary Pass. And
this is where I would say to our federal and state friends, there was a time when I think there was
greater activity on their parts to do this. But here's what I see now. Our federal and state friends
watch us do something or worse, they look at our community where they also like our football games.
they also like our bars occasionally they'll send a son or daughter down here they look at us and instead
they talk about us like we're zoo animals and we have a damn fine community we have a lot we have to
do and we can do it and this is what talking about this with the area leader on all these issues is
what a local government is doing because there's a gap
So federal and state friends out there, I know you honestly, you don't give a whatever on what I'm saying
clearly, but there was a time when there was involvement. And I think if ever there was a time to get
into the game, it would be now and not do the zoo animal. Let's look and see what they're doing over
in the Republic because this is what faith leaders, government leaders,
join with not-for-profit leaders to figure out the dignity of life and solutions. None of these things
are 100% guaranteed for this or that, but my God, try something, rather than drive past on your way
to that stadium and say, wonder why they live like this here. During public comment, the next regular
Monroe County Council business meeting will be on October 13th.
A special meeting of the Monroe County Election Board was held on September 24. The meeting began with
updates about the progress of absentee ballots being mailed out. Election supervisor Kylie Farris also
listed the number of registered voters for Monroe County.
for the current number of registered voters. We have 76,029 active registered voters, 14,321 inactive,
which brings us to a total of 90,350 registered voters in Monroe County. We currently have 554 that
are pending with an additional 18 that are incomplete.
And then I wanted to give just a little bit of background about inactive and what that means. So we
did have a couple of voters who have asked about the inactive We just wanted to make sure that that
was pretty clear that on Election Day when you come to vote or during early voting. If you are in an
active status that will prompt you over to being active
when you come and vote. There are no extra steps that you have to go through in order to vote at that
time. So with inactive, it could be multiple things. It could be just not voting within eight years
to presidential cycles, or it comes from voterless maintenance. So when the state does voterless maintenance
every two years, they send out a postcard. That's your first mailing. If it comes back undeliverable,
a second mailing will be sent out. If that second one comes back as undeliverable as well, then you
go into inactive status.
If you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Democratic board member Penny Giffins mentioned
how mailing addresses played a role with voter registration and asked Ferris how voters could update
their address if necessary. We had talked about this Monday when the machine testing was done. And you
explained that for the thing that appeared in the newspaper about all this, part of it was is that the
individuals had
residential address, which you have to have on file so that we know what precincts you're in and things
like that, but also their mailing address was actually something that they had not used for many years.
So if people get online and check at indianaboters.gov or .com, either one, they can check both their
status and what their mailing address is. And if that is incorrect, what's the best way for them to
update that?
they can update it by filling out another registration online, or they can call our office and we can
send them a registration in the mail. And when we send anything out, we send it with a return envelope
so that they don't have to pay for postage to send that back. They can also come to our office at any
time, Monday through Friday, 8 to 4, to fill out one of those registrations to change their address
as well. And I guess I just want to point out that it wasn't that those individuals were expected to
mail a postcard back, which
was the impression that I came away with from the article. Maybe that's wrong, but it was that it was
undeliverable. And that's why it bounced back. Yes. Deputy Clerk Tanner Branham stated that an inactive
voter status will not prevent a registered voter from casting a ballot on Election Day. Maybe just to
clarify, just to recap and clarify for the public.
A voter being listed as inactive does not prevent them to vote. When they show up on Election Day, they
will then be moved to active and able to cast their ballot. Next, the election board voted to approve
the list of Election Day poll workers and grant the clerk the ability to add more workers as needed.
Republican board member Danny Shields made the motion.
Giffins then pointed out that the absentee ballots still list the former Seventh Street address for
Election Central rather than the new address on Morton Street. Ferris elaborated on communications about
changing the address and mail forwarding procedures in place. I've alerted Kylie to this that the application
for an absentee ballot lists the incorrect address.
And that's put out by the Secretary of State. Apparently, it's still is the old location. So I want
to make sure that everybody knows that it should be 501 North Morton Street in suite 101 and not West
7th Street. How soon can we get the Secretary of State to update that? Well, I've we've
had a conversation with them. The answer that we had got was that they would update it if they found
that they needed to. No update was changed between the primary and the general. I don't necessarily
expect there to be one in between now and the general election, but that is one of the main reasons
why on our website we have multiple places where we have asked for the 501 North Morton to be there.
In addition, the Google listing for the office has been updated as well.
And then we do have the mail forwarding. So if anything were to go to the 401 West 7th, it does still
come to our office. But I know the local poster clerks are quite good about working with you. But I
just want to ensure that there's no slowdown, because there are deadlines for when people have to submit
the absentee ballot request. I am agog as to why they would not just open up their computer and change that.
It's the same one that they use on the state's website so everywhere that you go even in other counties
when they have it posted it's going to have the same address on the back. I believe it's even on the
voter registration document as well so any of the state forms that have all of the county voter registration
offices listed on the back it's going to have our old address still. Giffins asked about the process
for changing the address.
Ferris stated that the Indian Election Division must be notified. But how would the secretary of state
know when he needed to do this? He's not the one that sees the things being slowed down or going to
the wrong address or how would he ever
I mean, was a formal request made? Yeah, so whenever you change the location of your office, you have
to notify the Indiana Election Division. It also has to be changed in SVRS so that that does show in
their system that the address is 501 North Morton. So that's how, whenever you go on to indianavotors.gov,
that's when it shows where the office is, that's how that updates. When they receive that,
they are notified. And then we also send in a form to the Indiana Election Division that
says the address has changed from this address to this address and we sent that before the primary election
of this year. Another concern mentioned by Giffins was that campaign financial forms were removed from
the county election website. Ferris stated that the public could not access them due to technical issues.
On the website it used to be that the forms that people filed for the primary for the CAN
ones and the CFA floors, all your campaign finances and candidate filings. Right now it says that they,
why were those taken down first of all? Yep. So there was a bunch of complaints coming in that individuals
could not access those files because they had to log into a Microsoft account in order to access, be
able to access them, access them, sorry. And so we went through the process of trying to figure out
what was going on with that. If you were in in-house,
anybody in the county, we were able to get on no problems. There were some individuals that when they
would log in onto their personal cell phones, we could not see any of the documents on there. So that
was the first step of that, trying to figure out what was going on there, trying to make those changes.
And then the more that we started adding to that from the
primary filings, we noticed that there started being more lagging in the software itself. So they were
then pulled. All of them have been updated and we're currently working on getting the rest of all of
the CFA force that were filed in the primary uploaded to those as well. And then they should be reloaded
before too long. The next meeting for the Monroe County Election Board is scheduled for October 1st.
On September 23, the Monroe County Community School Corporation School Board had their monthly meeting.
First, Alexis Harmon, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, awarded the
Monthly Excellence Spotlight to Mary Hartman and Jamie Tremblay, both from Arlington Heights Elementary School.
This monthly recognition is a standing feature of each regular board meeting and serves as a dedicated
moment to honor individuals who daily contributions exemplify the mission, vision, and core values of
the Monroe County Community School Corporation. Then, Bloomington resident Marsali Andrews commented
on AP testing for non-MCCSC students.
Being denied access to both AP exams and the PSAT exam comes at a real cost to Bloomington families.
A passing AP score is worth three to six college credits, which is hundreds to thousands of dollars
for families in tuition. The PSAT is a qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship. That means
that a student who cannot take that exam can't qualify for that scholarship at all. So our group is
asking you for two things.
One we're asking Dr. Winston to make an administrative decision for this year specifically to allow
outside students to register for the AP exams and the PSAT exams. The deadline to order the AP exams
is mid-November so we ask for that decision to be made soon. And then two we ask for a written policy
for future school years and that part could come on whatever timeline the board needs.
The school board then listened to presentations about the annual health and safety report and technology
policies, which led board member April Hennessey to suggest that the district should think
about brainstorming an AI policy for the future. And that is all for Cats Week. Thank you for joining
us. For Cats and WFHB, I'm Annalise Poorman.