- Call this meeting to order of the Elksville Town Council, Monday, March 24th, 2025.
- Emmie, would you like to lead us?
- I have the honor once again to come before you this evening and thank you so much for
- this little town that you serve.
- We thank you for our ploy, we thank you for our town board, and thank you to those that lead us.
- We thank you for all the things you've supplied for us.
- We ask you to continue to lead us and guide us, and may we please you.
- And that's the same as you just saying, amen.
- Amen.
- Pam, do you want to lead us in the pledge?
- I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for
- which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
- All right.
- Roll call.
- Scott Goldham.
- Pamela Zambos.
- Here.
- William Ellis.
- Here.
- Dan Swaffer.
- Here.
- Trevor Sager.
- Here.
- All right.
- I do entertain a motion to approve minutes for the regular meeting, March 10, 2025.
- So moved.
- Second.
- Moved and second.
- All those in favor?
- Aye.
- Opposed?
- Abstain.
- All right.
- I do entertain a motion to pay accounts, payroll vouchers, and payroll vouchers.
- So moved.
- Second.
- Moved and second.
- Any council comment?
- Seeing none.
- All those in favor say aye.
- Aye.
- Opposed?
- Abstain.
- All right.
- Moving along.
- Resolution to approve Hoosier START 457 plan and matching plan as additional plan to
- the nationwide retirement plan.
- Yes.
- I'd like to introduce Patrick Ballard.
- He's from nationwide and he will be explaining this and giving a presentation
- and answering any questions that the council may have for this.
- Yes, please.
- Thanks for letting me come speak.
- I appreciate it.
- My name is Patrick Ballard.
- I'm out of Seymour, Indiana.
- I work for Nationwide Retirement Solutions.
- I'm a senior retirement specialist.
- I mostly represent the state of Indiana's retirement plan,
- which is called the Hoosier Start Plan, the Save Today and Retire Tomorrow.
- This is a plan that is administered by the state comptroller of Indiana.
- It's a multi-billion dollar plan with over 70,000 participants.
- We have a small retirement plan with the town of Ellisville.
- But before I get into that and contrasting it with Hoosier Start,
- I just want to define what my role is within Nationwide.
- I am a salaried nationwide employee.
- I do not sell any products.
- I am not incented to do anything other than lead with educational and consulting.
- So my job mostly is to work with state participants on educating them,
- walking them through their retirement planning journey,
- and trying to help them achieve a dignified retirement down the road.
- I often work hand in hand with my in-pers colleagues and perf and so forth,
- and I'm going to talk about how this is going to be potentially complementary.
- First of all, Nationwide, we currently have a retirement plan with Ellitsville.
- There's little participation in it, very little assets in it.
- It's what we call a legacy plan with us, one that was established many years ago,
- and we really haven't talked to you all about updating the plan,
- and that's really what our goal is in promoting Hoosier Start out there.
- Not trying to compete with ourselves, but we want to be able to come to the table and tell
- plan sponsors that, look, we've got a new plan here within the Hoosier Start that we can offer
- that would give you the economies of scale of being under the umbrella of the state's plan,
- whereas they are the fiduciary and they cover all the administrative duties of the 457
- retirement plan. I know that part of this conversation needs to be fees, and I'm aware
- of that, and I'm going to get to that in just a moment, but again, I wanted to highlight to you
- that my job is mostly educational in trying to engage participants regarding their retirement.
- I try to educate them, sit down with them, do one-on-one meetings, I do group meetings and so
- forth, but again, that's what my role is with Nationwide and as a representative of the state
- Comptroller's Office, that's who administers this. So that is my role. My goal here is basically
- educational. I talked to Noel about the plan, I don't know, a month or so ago, and again,
- we have a little participation with this town of Ellitsville, so I sort of threw it out there of,
- look, we've got a really good plan available. You guys might want to take a look at this,
- because there's no cost at all to the town of Ellitsville whatsoever to have this retirement
- plan. All we're proposing to do is to add an additional option for employees and give them
- a much better option, in my opinion, or at least another option with regard to retirement plans.
- It can run in conjunction with the one that you already have, or we can map over the ones
- that are existing within the plan and move them over to Hoosier Start. It would be up to the
- participants with the result coming from one-on-one meetings with the current participants in the
- plan.
- But when we look at the Hoosier Start plan, it is really the third bucket of a retirement savings
- for employees. You look at the PERF plan, which is that three percent mandatory after-tax
- contribution,
- then you look at the pension, the defined benefit, which is an 11.2 percent contribution. Those are
- generally either mostly paid by the employer, so really the only thing that employees fund
- through their employer and a government entity would be a 457 deferred compensation plan.
- So if someone is an employee of the town and they don't work here for 10 years, they get no benefit
- from being in the pension plan. So if somebody worked here for eight years and left and they
- didn't fund anything in their retirement, they're walking away from here with nothing to show for
- their time in. So what we'd like to offer to the employees is, hey, here's a good retirement option
- to supplement what you already have. So we're not proposing changing what you have, we're just
- proposing to add the Hoosier Start platform to you as a plan sponsor. And we would like, if you
- would
- to do that, we would like the buy-in of the town to promote this because the importance of
- retirement
- savings is only becoming more and more topical, if you will. It's becoming a more serious talking
- point about people not saving enough for their own retirement and planning properly and so forth.
- And
- that's where we we try to come in. So the Hoosier Start plan, well, first of all, let me talk about
- the current plan here right now. Your current plan has an investment lineup. It's all of these
- mutual
- funds that are on this list. And every mutual fund under the sun, every mutual fund under the sun
- out
- there, has what's called an expense ratio. Those are the internal costs of a mutual fund. So if a
- mutual fund has an expense ratio of one, that's going to come out of the earnings of the fund.
- Okay. So this this plan has all these funds with expense ratios that are all over the board,
- anywhere from, you know, 1.31 to 0.049. But on top of those, and this is what employees never see
- in
- retirement plans, on top of the expense ratios within these mutual funds, if you looked at the
- statement on Ellisville's plan with Nationwide, and you flip over the page, you're going to see
- fee disclosures. And there's three fee disclosures, a star, a pound, and a plus. The star denotes a
- fee of 0.95%. The other is 0.8%. And the other is 0.7%. So as a very brief example of fees
- within Hoosier Start plan, if we took somebody with a $30,000 account and they invested in an
- S&P index fund, in the current plan, somebody with a $30,000 balance would pay about $438 in fees.
- In the Hoosier Start plan, if somebody did the exact same thing, they would pay $57 in fees.
- A $50,000 account would be $730 versus $59. So Hoosier Start does not have those built-in fees
- that a group annuity contract has, whereas the employee never sees that additional fee unless
- they really dug into the footnotes and no one does. So with Hoosier Start, the fee is $54 a year,
- no fee for the first six months, and the cost of the funds themselves. And the average expense
- ratio
- of all of the funds combined is 0.44 percent. An S&P index fund within Hoosier Start has an
- internal expense ratio of 0.01 percent. The current plan right now has two S&P index funds.
- Those fees are 0.51 and 0.44 and on one of those you add in the 0.95 and the other you add in 0.85.
- So you're talking about somebody paying in excess of one and a half percent up on fees in a
- retirement
- plan. So I would propose that you look at just adding that to your current lineup and giving that
- as an option to your employees to help them supplement what they already have and bring to
- the table a really rock solid plan to them, whereas they would be able to do rollovers into
- the plan. I would suggest that we also add the Roth option to the plan, which to especially the
- younger people, police and firefighters, they are all looking for ways to be able to do after-tax
- contributions. And with Hoosier Start, those are Roth contributions, meaning that there's tax-free
- growth in those. So that's a really good option, especially to certain classes of employees and
- the younger, because it gives them the ability to grow money on a tax-free basis. So we'd like to
- add the Roth to that as well. So again, I would say that with the laws constantly changing,
- with regulations changing, with Secure Act 2.0 on the horizon and hitting us now with regulations
- with regard to Roth, catch-up contributions, etc., a Roth would make a good idea. But I'll just
- reiterate that when you adopt the Hoosier Start plan, again, you're going under the umbrella
- of the State of Indiana's Comptroller's Office, who does all of the administration and all of the
- fiduciary duties, because there's several parties involved in the Hoosier Start plan from the state
- level. One of those is, of course, the legal department. And then the other is what's called
- Cap Cities, who does all of the investment management, if you will. They make sure that
- the funds that are in Hoosier Start are the best in that asset class, and they review those on a
- regular basis. And that, again, relieves the burden from anyone else of having to qualify,
- why are these plans, why are these investments in this plan the best for us, right? And we have to
- be able to justify that. So, yeah, so we'd like to add the plan, add a Roth, be able to let people
- do
- rollovers. Rolovers right now for us sometimes are a problem, because we either don't have the
- proper solution for them, or we don't have a Roth option for them available. So, again, there is no
- cost at all to the city of Ellitsville to adopt Hoosier Start. It's simply trying to say to the
- employees, look, we've got a really good option out here. You could stay in this plan that you
- have if you want. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. But the Hoosier Start plan would
- kind of jump us into the today and now of regulation and all of that. And then I would
- highlight to you that my role with Hoosier Start, as I said earlier, is really to do educational
- support and engagement of employees. So I go around on a regular basis to government entities
- and meet with their employees on one-on-one and group settings and, again, try to educate and
- consult and walk people through helping them with their retirement, because a lot of people
- right now do not have support within their retirement accounts. I mean, I've got fidelity
- myself in my retirement, and I have no support from them. And I can't call someone like your
- participants can call us here, local. So that's really all I have. I think it's just something
- to bring to the table to say to the employees, "You're important. We want to retain you.
- Here's a good tool to do that." And in turn, we're going to educate them and engage them.
- And really, we'd like to try to, if you were to adopt it, we would really ask in return
- your cooperation in promoting the plan and understanding that it's important for the
- employees. And when we read the news and we see possible social security cuts in the future,
- all of this, it's just making this stuff more and more and more important as time goes forward. So
- that being said, I thank you all for letting me come and give you a 30-minute presentation in five.
- So thank you. Yes, sir.
- When you mentioned the fees, I also see there's managed account service fees. Is that in addition
- to the record-keeping fee and administrative fee? Yes, it is. So there's three ways that people
- within Hoosier Start can invest their money. And they do it as a help me do it, do it for me or
- something else. So generally, the default investment for most people, like for state
- employees that are auto-enrolled, are what are called target date funds. Those are just
- fund-to-funds that have a corresponding age 65 retirement to them, and they get more
- conservative as time moves forward. Your current funds that are the target-based funds right now
- have an expense ratio of 0.49%. Our target date funds are 0.07. But again, I'm telling you about
- the other nationwide plan. Remember, I'm a nationwide guy here. So three ways. The target
- date funds are one of those. The other is individual mutual funds, whether they want
- to pick the Vanguard or Fidelities or whatever of the world, they could have as many funds as
- they want and change them as much as they want. It just has to equal 100%. Now, there's a third
- option that's completely an option for the participants. That is if they want a professionally
- managed account, if they want to turn over their investment management to a third party.
- The state uses Wiltshire and Associates, and it's called Pro Account. It's where a third party is
- going to manage a portfolio based on a client's profile, if you will, their age, time, horizon,
- risk, and all that stuff. And that is, if I'm not mistaken, 0.45% additional fee.
- Yeah, it starts at 0.45.
- And then that tears down as it goes. I really only would promote Pro Account if somebody's
- really not wanting to have anything to do with their investment decision making, or they were
- to roll over a substantial amount of money, I'd say $50,000 to $100,000 or more, and then they want
- to have that spread out over many, many asset classes and so forth. So that's just a whole
- different option available within Hoosier Start. There's a lot of other bells and whistles within
- Hoosier Start that are also out there that we're not really even going over. There's a
- Schwab self-directed brokerage option. There's retirement counselors that put together financial
- plans for participants for free because we don't sell anything, right? So yes, that's if they
- wanted that third option. Otherwise, it's $54 a year. 48 of that, I think, goes to the state and
- six goes to nationwide, and then the cost of the funds. I've got a question. Yes, sir. So you
- mentioned several times about promoting this plan. Yes. Say our employees want to look into this,
- who would they approach, and how are we going to promote this? Well, we would ask that you would
- partner with us. With the state resources and so forth, we have what we call PEP, or
- Participant Engagement Programs, where we email, we mail, and we do webinars and all of this kind
- of stuff, but we ask that you all would be supportive of the plan and promote it. Am I
- doing something wrong? I apologize for that, Mike. It's... Okay. So we would just ask that you help
- us to promote it, because unless we have buy-in from the sponsor, we're spinning our wheels out
- there, so we really need the sponsor to say to the employees, "Look, we promote this to you. We
- think
- this is a good idea. This is a great, in addition to what you already have sort of thing." So if
- you
- think about what is the employee actually funding through their own payroll for their own
- retirement?
- Well, really, they're not, right? Perf is never going to get them where they need to be. Perf is
- an after-tax 3% contribution that grows taxable. So it's a very unattractive option there, and they
- don't fund the pension. So really, if they have these nationwide products. But to your point,
- when I say the buy-in, and I mean that in the most sincere way, is our job really is to try to
- be the best partner we can to you and to really be a team member with you in promoting this. So
- I like to go out to company picnics and so forth and events that I do with, whether it be state
- employees or the city of Bloomington or wherever it may be, where we're out there, you know,
- promoting the importance of retirement savings. And that's really what it's all about at the end
- of the day. I will mention that last year we were able to have nationwide and several of our
- vendors
- come out. We're planning on in April having Empress, which includes Perf, and the 77th Fund,
- and nationwide. And if the council so adopts these to have a representative to speak. And then
- again,
- before open enrollment, because retirement is very important. And I think a lot of our staff
- is under utilizing our resources. It may be in October this year. That's the hope, but we could
- push into November since we're going to have to go to open market this year. All right. Any other
- council questions? I did have one question for Darla. I probably should have checked with you
- before. Should they, if they decide to approve, approve and choose separate resolutions? Okay,
- that was my other. Okay. Okay. One of them is the deferred compensation plan resolution. One's the
- deferred compensation matching plan. So it's two resolutions for two different plans. May I just
- address that please real quick. Generally, when we open a 457 plan, if it's going to be employee
- contributions only, then it's just simply the 457 plan. If it's going to be a plan where we want to
- add an employer match, which I will be honest with you, when you do add a match, that drives
- participation straight up. I mean, we've done this in other towns and the participation rates went
- from five to 95 almost overnight. It gives people that additional incentive. But when we start
- looking at adding employer contributions, generally the way we prefer to do that is to add what we
- call
- a 401A to the plan. So it'd be a 457 and a 401A side by side under one account number, one account.
- But employee contributions would go into the 457 and employer contributions would go into the 401A.
- There's no vesting on it unless you insisted on that. But generally, they split those. And the
- reason they generally split those is for IRS codes. But technically, a participant could max out a
- 457
- and still get a match from their employer, even if they've maxed out their portion of that.
- So lastly, in that regard, I will also say that whatever issues you may have with enrolling others
- in PERF or other plans, or you might want to do something on employee or employee contributions
- paid by the employer, Nationwide is the country's largest 457 deferred comp provider. We have the
- resources and the team behind us that could literally get just about anything you could
- imagine done and done quickly and efficiently. So again, thank you.
- Exactly. Marketing, baby. Yeah. All right. I appreciate that. Thank you.
- Darla, you've had time to look this over, I guess, everything.
- You mentioned this, this has to be done in two resolutions.
- Okay. So Darla, do you have anything you want to add to this?
- I don't. Okay. Any public comment on this?
- Seeing none. Yes, go ahead.
- My former employee offered this, I'm not sure what it was called in 1981, but I joined in '81,
- and it's a similar verbiage back then, and they came through with everything with that,
- and you have problems, you call them, and they're right back to you. So
- again, I had a lot of good luck with it. I know a lot of the people have signed the same way.
- Just a general question. On the employer match,
- when is that amount determined, and who is that determined by?
- Yeah, you will have to determine that. So once you pass the resolution and you
- go through the application, there's some additional information that the council will have to
- decide because they've got eligible classes of employees, whether there's a waiting period,
- no waiting period, what kind of match you want to make, percentage, flat dollar. So
- once you pass the resolution, you will have to go through the adoption
- agreement and decide how you want to handle it. Is there a deadline for that?
- I would think so. You mean if you wanted to pass the resolution tonight and circle back around to
- see, I would think that would be okay, but. Yes, that's what the intent was, was to start the
- process because with the 457, we would be able to start that one immediately, but we would have to
- address the personnel policy with Darla to change that verbiage once the council had made the
- decision on what classes and percentage and where the matching would come into play for what
- employees.
- Sure. So right now, employees are required to match in the perf, correct? Or I mean,
- the camp town, we have a requirement of a certain amount we have to match,
- put in the perf for each employee. In 77 fund, correct. Okay. So if this is passed,
- does this replace the perf or would we also be contributing to another plan on top of the
- perf? No. So my understanding of it is the 457 plan would be as currently nationwide is right now.
- So we offer that to our employees. So the town pays the entire percentage for perf and 77 fund
- and then a voluntary contribution through nationwide or who's your start should the
- council choose to adopt this. The 401(a) plan, if we were to adopt it now, would just start the
- process so then the council could continue the conversations because in the event that
- we decided, let's say somebody retired from perf for the 77 fund and we would like to hire them
- again at a full-time position, I don't have anywhere to put them for retirement because
- as our current policy states right now, they either have to go into perf or 77 fund. So this
- gives us more of a recruiting option for employees that maybe come to us later and they end up
- wanting
- to retire but still being able to have a full-time position because perf and the 77 fund allows an
- employee to retire from either of those funds and still have full-time employment somewhere else or
- at the same municipality just not in those funds. So if I'm understanding correctly,
- we won't have a situation where somebody were paying for their perf and paying a portion of
- the 457. No sir. It's going to be one of the... Yes. Okay. This is just to create more
- opportunities for the town to hire and retain employees. We're going to have a stacking
- situation where we're contributing six or seven percent which is a heck of a good return right off
- the top if you can get it. So is it a good idea to maybe think about doing this in steps
- where we maybe offer it as a 457 and then talk about matching during budget time
- and then move on from there as opposed to trying to...
- Well we've already budgeted for employees to be matched to Perf. I don't know why we wouldn't put
- the same percentage of this. Well because it's new money. We still are going to have to pay the Perf,
- right? Well let's just say for example we had somebody that left and we hired somebody that
- had retired from Perf and we would like to hire them but we can't because they retired from Perf
- so we can't put them in Perf but we'd like to hire them so if we had the 401A plan the council
- could
- decide on a percentage to put in retirement for them and then that would allow us to hire them
- because as our policy states now in order to be full-time we offer retirement benefits. But
- shouldn't we deliberate about how much? Oh yeah absolutely. We're just starting the adoption
- process for the matching. We would have to amend the personnel policy that would have to be a step
- and then the council would have to decide if that was appropriate and they would have to decide
- what
- percentage to put in there and what class of tiers. But so if you have if you start with a 457
- which
- is in employee contribution only can you not convert to the 401A or whatever you call it later?
- We can adopt in separate steps can we not? Yes. Okay so yes. So just to be clear I'm for promoting
- savings for our employees and it's really important when you get a little older someday I think I'll
- have to worry about retiring. Other people I know might too but anyway so but I think if we're
- going
- to talk about contribution it should be in a process. But I guess where I'm really missing it
- is that where nobody's going to be doubling and having a contribution to this and perf so if it's
- either or then why wouldn't it just be the same if you get perf we match this if you get this you
- match the same amount I mean do you guys see what I'm saying? So why make it a different amount?
- They don't doesn't employees have to be part of perf? Well if we were to hire an employee that
- retired from perf perf and 77 fund do not put any stipulations like social security does they can
- have as many jobs and make as much money as they want but once they retire from those funds they
- are no longer eligible to go back in those funds. Right but that's an exception not the rule. I
- mean
- we're talking about overall if we're going to adopt this all the employees could participate.
- So that's my question on a brand new employee starts next monday right if we go into who's your
- start are we paying or sorry they will be contributing into who's your start but also
- the perf thing is still happening. Only if we go two steps if we only go to the 457 now then that
- would be an option and maybe help with recruitment right and then by say june we'll have vetted
- this
- figure it out if we want to contribute and it'll be part of our because it'll be increased amount
- of money that we would be putting towards but i'm getting two different signals here i'm getting
- one person saying that we they're not doubling up we wouldn't be doubling up and then you're saying
- that they would i'm so i'm saying if a new employee starts they have to be part of perf right yes
- correct but according to our policy they can only go on one of two buckets as a full-time employee
- currently they can go into perf or they can go into 77 fun right so the 77 fun is just for
- firefighters and police okay so so that'd be doing a double match then in my opinion yeah you'd be
- doing a double match because we're doing the perf well you're saying no they would not be
- because let's be clear yeah question to ask a question was answered but i've got two different
- answers yeah if a new employee starts a civil employee starts they have to go into perf correct
- right okay that's a rep but so if we do a matching for the 457 plan and that employee is already
- they have to go into perf and then we're also going to match for them on a 457 plan no that's
- see that's what i'm saying the 457 plan is completely 100% voluntary okay but you guys
- were not talking about a 457 you're talking about the 401a or whatever so that's why i said maybe
- we want to go in steps because if if we do a 457 then we only have to match the perf if we go into
- 401a then you would be you you'll do an ordinance or resolution whatever and then you'll be tied to
- matching perf and the 401a so well that's only if we change the policy right it's only so in
- the current personnel policy it states that the town pays retirements and i do not have it quoted
- but the retirement benefits for a full-time employee include empress perf or the 77 fund
- this is just another option that we would have to work out with darla the exact language to put in
- there if we hired somebody that maybe a good example retired that's not what we're talking
- about you're mixing the 401a match yes that's that's you have to have that 401a match it's
- it's a little deceptive in its language it's called a match because that's what the employer
- can put money into can or should have to doesn't have to it's whatever our policy states that the
- town is going to do that makes it more clear i'm sorry no sir i mean you can't have both going
- in okay i'm clear sorry i thought that i thought 457 was one step lower than a 401a no all right
- guys um instead of back and forth here um i think the council and i would probably be okay with
- resolution 11 today and then um from resolution 12 doing a work session and looking into this a
- little bit deeper because it sounds like there's a lot of questions that need answered and um go
- from there because we don't want to approve an ordinance it's going to put us on the hook for
- double right okay but i would like to say i'm for anything that helps employees um yeah prepare
- themselves and the one thing the gentleman said more important than anything is a lot of our
- employees don't stay 10 years and become vested so that that really helps for them so i'm for it i
- just wanted to make sure yeah and i think you made up some good points everyone has and i think
- this
- is a good compromise if we want to go through with the resolution 11 today and um schedule a work
- session or what else we need for resolution 12 and the steps needed after that we can go from there
- all right anyone else have a question comment before we move on
- all right i'll entertain a motion on resolution 11 resolution 11-2025 to approve the hoosier start
- adoption plan i'll second uh just one other question darla this is fine we do it this way
- correct i think it's fine and i didn't see what noelle gave you but resolution 11 is for the 457
- right correct okay and then resolution 12 is the other one yeah it's the 401 yeah all right uh
- motion
- and second any uh council comment any public comment see none roll call yes yes dan swafford
- yes trevor saiker yes motion passes all right and um since resolution 12 wasn't even on the agenda
- do we still need to table that or um i would table it because as i understood it she's got
- resolutions yeah 457 and matching plans so i took i took that to be one is one plan and one was the
- other so i would table resolution 12-2025 all right i'll move to um table resolution 12-2025
- the hoosier start 401a matching plan motion second all those in favor say aye opposed all right
- moving
- on uh no ordinance on first or second reading no old business no new business uh privilege of the
- floor anyone in uh the audience that has any business that was not covered on the agenda
- if you would like come up to the mic sign your name
- sign with me right here yeah there's a sheet up there there
- uh
- name is uh jim perry and i'm uh i think denise knows why i'm here
- uh let me go back a little bit of the history uh i appeared before this council
- in fall of 2023 the council took some action i think it was either in november or early december
- 2024 finally to move sidewalks along uh because of other complications that was put off until march
- now we're looking today's the what date in march 24th uh march is almost gone
- we still have no sidewalk although the council took some action now
- fundamentally i think there's a problem with code enforcement and development oversight
- and we're not doing a particularly good job because i should have been here five years ago
- when that sidewalk wasn't finished but i wasn't but i was here in december 20 or december 2023
- i was back again and now i'm here again tonight and i'd like some action taken and some indication
- that
- uh both cord and code enforcement and development oversight will be more meaningful going forward
- i will also raise another issue and that is that at the same time i raised this issue in a fall of
- 2023 i also raised an issue about speed limit or speeds on abigail lane which were excessive
- and well beyond the 20 mile an hour posted limit nothing's happened although we did have a
- apparently a radar device that was sent to illinois for repair is my understanding
- but i don't know what's happened with that but so this is not only one issue it's multiple issues
- and i as a citizen of course i'm a little bit annoyed that we've we did a lot of non or work
- that should have been done by staff earlier on the nationwide retirement plan but when i sometimes
- step forward as a citizen i'm told remember you only have three minutes we need to do better
- respecting the roles of our citizens and what they bring to this council
- and i and i will enforce that by my presence in the future
- what's the word on the sidewalks
- if you feel you want to yeah go ahead so the developer after i explained to her i went to
- the town council and requested permission to draw on the bond if i had to that was incentive for
- her
- so she called me last week to let me know she had hired a concrete company to come in and put the
- sidewalk but she didn't have a start date yet from then so it's just all about that bond money
- so okay well what can we do because i mean from the point of view switching sides this gentleman's
- been dealing with this for five years we've known about it since 2023 and it's still not done i
- mean
- and now we're telling them just what just give it a little bit more time i mean quite honestly he's
- been pretty patient about this this should have been done a long time ago could i also make another
- point and that is that we've invested a lot in the ellisville redevelopment commission and i know
- counselor ellis you're a member of that commission uh we're investing a lot in that in that effort
- that fulfills the needs of a relatively small part of the community but we have 6600 people
- who are not affected by those actions for the most part that's a small piece of the downtown
- commercial district and an area that's not been developed yet is my understanding
- that's correct but it's not costing the town any money but no but we're not tending to the other
- business of the town which involves the 6600 people who are residents of this community
- and we're not enforcing forcing the codes code enforcement requires a much more proactive stance
- than we've taken and we did we have evidence that had effect we ought to be doing our homework on
- this you know denise do you have something else to add on this well i was going to answer um
- william's question about 2024 um so town resources staff were extremely um busy with the trail
- and so um i talked to mr perry in december explained as waiting till this march um when
- the weather would be better and it was the intent to do so and then now the developer said she will
- do it she told me she's going to get it in because she wants that bond money released so um she
- told
- me she would let me know when next week i think it was or maybe it's later this week i think she
- called last week so i should know this week when she will have that put in the sidewalk should have
- been could you three to five years ago right because all the other homeowners got their
- sidewalks in with a few exceptions and those people who were not compliant have put their
- sidewalks in you know i understand your frustration and it's you know it's well deserved but it
- sounds
- like we're trying to move on right now and if we can get an answer could you call mr perry and let
- him know as soon as you find something out sure and keep him in the loop and hopefully we can get
- this fixed in the next couple weeks for you and i would also suggest associated with this property
- for more than a decade right i would also suggest maybe you come to the next meeting if you haven't
- heard anything and we'll readdress it until it gets fixed i've patiently waited till the last
- meeting in march because i was told right but i see nothing happening well it sounds like something
- this is there there are a lot of other issues that code enforcement issues that i could raise
- before this council that are problematic that we need to attend to and we are not attending to
- those
- well i think that they are attending to some of the issues but if it's some things that you're
- aware of that maybe she's not aware of or the code enforcing officers not aware of then i would
- suggest you meet with denise after the meeting and we could go through it instead of sitting up
- here
- and and going through all of it right now um i think this back and forth just doesn't work so
- hopefully we can get a solution to this and get the sidewalks moving and i will add something to
- the speed we're having trouble all over town with speeds and um i think jimmy has been working on
- this diligently and um it's it's something that i've heard from many residents that the cars are
- speeding in front of their house i know jimmy has sent uh officers out to several times the places
- that i've told him about and they see the officer there of course they're going to slow down but as
- soon as that officer is gone it's going to happen again and there's just not a whole lot can be
- done
- about it is just some other people raise alternatives one is the speed bumps and i'm not a fan of
- speed
- although in the neighborhood adjoining ours we have speed bumps and i think there's no thoroughfares
- there we've also had suggestions regarding four-way stop at the top of the hill uh top of abigail
- uh
- that would that could effectively prevent cars from running rapidly through uh ruby creek one and
- two
- through abigail and through the overbrook estates and sort of calm the traffic significantly so
- there
- are solutions and those solutions have been brought before this group before the town manager and
- others but nothing's happened what's the what's the process for looking at a stop sign like he
- talked about there well if you look at the the state mandated mutcd the manual uniform or traffic
- devices it specifically says in there that stop signs are not designed for speed control they are
- not designed for that so i've never tried to set up an intersection to to design it by a stop sign
- being used as a speeding you know the curve to speeding that's not what it's designed for in the
- mutcd and the mutcd is mandated by federal government and then also by state level as well
- and most generally state meets or exceeds the federal right so somebody had the right idea
- moving or opening the abigail corridor from 46 all the way to mcneely lane with speeds of 30 miles
- an hour in an area that's not tolerably 30 to 20 to 20 through the next area had that not been open
- we wouldn't be talking about this today somebody had that bright idea i don't know who but when i
- moved in it was not open if i may yeah go ahead lakeview drive was initially a county road
- and county all county roads are pretty well mandated 30 mile an hour so when we took in segments
- of lakeview not all of lakeview drive today is town road there's still segments of lakeview drive
- that is county mandated county maintained sections of road on lakeview drive he's correct it does
- come in to ellsville reduced speed limit 20 mile an hour but there is it is not a straight through
- shot as you all well are aware lakeview drive turns into daisy daisy intersects with clover drive
- and
- that's a that's a that's a three-way stop now i believe and then you got to turn right on to
- abigail so it's not a straight through all the way through okay and you know i will say that too
- mr perry i don't think it was our intention to open this up i mean it was developers and
- this was done in plans way before you probably moved into your area so many of the people moved
- into that area without knowing that in advance but yeah the question is whether it's it's a prudent
- course of action given the property values and the speeds and the fact that there are now probably
- about 17 kids in a very close proximity to that road and the parents are afraid because they're
- they're going to they're going to prevent their kids from enjoying the neighborhood in part because
- the speeds are going through uh the cars are going through the area at 40 or more miles an hour um
- kip do we still have folks who travel with canes across the road also sometimes and walking the dog
- have problems too do we still have the um the road surveys where we they're outdated now the
- software
- that i did have for them are not working with the new windows that we got now so i need to
- upgrade that or get newer counters is what i need to be able to do that and i don't have that at
- this time um also uh the the residents in both areas in meadowlands and in uh the the subdivision
- that he's talking about um at the end of nicolas for many many many many years oh thank you um
- there was a stub out there and there was a stub out at the end of clover drive so everyone that's
- lived in them associated areas all should have realized that that would connect eventually so
- whenever there's a stub or something as development that just means it's a dead-end street that
- would
- go into the woods or a field or whatever and and that's gone all all over our town and it's
- everywhere i mean if there's a stub there you can guarantee eventually there's going to be a
- thorough
- thorough way through there so i mean i i understand your frustration but but at the same time we're
- investing a lot in the redevelopment ellisville redevelopment commission and simultaneously we
- have a much larger part of the community that's not getting the attention it needs and what i'm
- arguing for here or suggesting is that we use some good human judgment and actually talk to the
- citizens and the citizens are being ignored well i don't know if they're being ignored um well
- obviously we're sitting here listening to you and if they would come up and speak like you're
- speaking then you know we can hear him or if they're sending letters to us or whatever
- we have very simple ways of doing surveys of citizens in this community we could get that
- information very easily at a low relatively low cost so if we're really interested in that
- because i i recall the discussion a couple of weeks ago about talking about an audit
- now i have an identical twin brother who is a city manager for 37 years his community
- every year for 30 years surveyed their citizens and then they had conversations with the citizens
- face to face yeah and we've done how well they were doing but it's not happening here yeah but
- we just did that last year was it last year the year before two or three years ago yeah or four
- and that's what these posters and things are and around the room you mean a lot of them are gone
- that's part of it envision yes we did surveys there was questionnaires sent out to everyone
- um yeah i never got it so i was involved after the fact but i was i never got it they did they
- cast a pretty wide net with that and i'm also regularly on the facebook group that's tied just
- else else of a high neighbor they had a i mean if there's a problem there are people all the time
- like today i think mike and kip were there there was a drain stuck we were able to i was able to
- let them know about it right away and as soon as somebody alerted me if somebody emails me or
- messages me you know i'm not going to tell you you have to everybody they have to come up here
- reach out to us though because we don't know what we don't know and even if we said tomorrow or
- two weeks from now we're promoting this big thing at the library for everybody to come
- i bet we would have five or six people there tops from the public but if we go to some place like
- facebook if we go to someplace where the people already are like next door they're already talking
- about this stuff so we can get ahead of it and that's i'd be happy to share with you some
- recommendations about generating more public input but it's discouraging to come to this meeting
- and then to spend the first 30 minutes on what i consider to be staff work that is the retirement
- program now maybe you have to take some action as a council and i understand that but at the same
- time
- we all should have been better informed or or the the staff and the people making decisions should
- have been better informed in advance of this meeting and not leave the public comment to the
- end of the meeting and i'm thank you for giving me more than my regular three minutes but
- let me speak so i know you get frustrated so yeah but i but i i i've been to many meetings
- over the last year and a half uh and the gentleman from nationwide got a lot more attention
- than i've than yeah well any citizen walking in the end of the room and that's ass backwards
- that's ass backwards if you want public input yeah you need to modify the process yeah
- i'm gonna have to ask you your time's up now i appreciate you coming in yeah and denise is gonna
- call me by the next meeting can we get a firm date and if they can't give one tell them we'll do
- the
- work ourselves i mean honestly at this point in time it's gone on too long they had five years
- to remedy this and mr perry she will call you and let you know as soon as she finds out
- and like i said you're more than welcome to come to the meetings and speak so
- anyone else
- seeing none we will go down to supervisor's comment
- actually i have a request um on behalf of the um clerk's office um i sent y'all an email about
- benefit time for the deputy clerk and i'm come to you to ask that we change the pto for vacation
- from two weeks to three weeks um i can answer any questions if you haven't read the email but
- basically it's all laid out in email um so you're asking for permission now yeah i'm asking for
- permission now to um um change the pto time from two weeks to three weeks and it be retroactive
- for the year for the chief deputy yes she started when we were um still going over the personnel
- policy and so we use that as a recruitment tool to recruit her um and then after the policy was
- adopted we realized that she wasn't grandfathered in so let me ask the question um the three weeks
- vacation time so that's standard now to all employees hire no no no it if i may so um
- during the time uh that we were recruiting our deputy clerk um we were um highly motivated
- to get them hired and in the seat we had a new clerk we need to get everybody trained we want
- to get up and running which a year or will less than a year later we are and and feel real good
- about who we hired by the way and so um we had started the process to change our personnel
- policy back in in 2022 everything doesn't happen overnight and uh so um we got to the point where
- we were sure that it would be um enforced and in place by the first of uh 2024 which still did not
- happen we were using a third party vendor to help us and i'm not going to go into detail what
- happened there but anyway so uh when we had the application and we had a chance to hire somebody
- we took it and we ended up hiring her before the policy was in place which was a month later or
- something so all i'm asking you to do is allow us to use the new verbiage in the new policy that
- says
- when we hire someone with experience or years of employment and we feel like to recruit
- and retain people um that we can offer a lateral transfer of not only uh well of their
- benefit time up to what our limits are and um and then of course we always um we do the same thing
- with the the pay too um we have a range a high and a low and and when appropriate we go to the high
- so let me ask you um how long does it usually take an employee to work before they're
- before they receive three weeks uh five years five years so what is going to happen at the
- end of this five years they get three weeks is that right well she would go up to four weeks
- oh at the end of five years of employment she had four weeks when she left bloomington
- and if we used it for a recruitment tool i mean if that's part of the sales pitch right we've
- gotta gotta deliver that in my opinion she already took one week right and um you know i was
- surprised
- in this situation before too and um i'll restate what i'm saying i i just think this is going to
- cause a lot of frustration and a lot of employees being upset that their time
- how do i say this that they vested the five years and now employees can come in off the street
- and receive more time now if you did use it as a recruitment tool but i was told back when this
- happened that it that was not the situation and um so that's why i have a kind of have a problem
- with this and um i i just think you're going to start getting more employees coming to you
- to all the supervisors saying well okay this person now makes three weeks i worked at this
- job for that long too i was hired in this year too do i get three weeks pay that's not the
- situation
- we're talking about at all well i think it is though well and i don't well so because i think
- in this situation she's carrying over from another municipality that's what we're i mean how many
- other
- employees that we have in that situation i think we've had a few over the years a few and and it
- not unlike uh god going back 15 or 18 years ago i came to you with the same problem and i said
- listen if we don't change the pay and we're not allowed to offer them the high pay instead of
- having them come in and do a year's probation when we hire somebody that's been working for five
- eight 15 years for another municipality or a like employment and we want those people we need tools
- so we can not only recruit them but also retain them and so this is not a wild request it's part
- of our policy now and this employee was caught in our our our motivation and and hesitation because
- of our um what we had to go through to get this policy taken care of nobody in here was at fault
- and so it is indeed a unique situation well and you know i do have an opinion on that too i mean
- if the policy was not in place at the time it should have never been offered so i think you
- missed the part where we were motivated to hire somebody and we we we entered we went through an
- interview process i understand and we realized we had a chance to hire somebody that would fit and
- she's exemplary she i'm not disagreeing any of that well so we we went ahead and we had to just
- you know the the personnel policy was lagging behind us and all i'm saying is we would i would
- i'm requesting that we allow the use of the new policy and give her the extra weeks vacation it's
- it's i mean it won't make the world spin backwards
- do you have something you want to say yes call an issue in the future it's not like we're saying
- she don't deserve it but i don't see the fairness in it because what if somebody comes
- in her thing and you guys don't decide that they should get i mean how many employees waiting for
- their time i'm afraid it's going to cause an issue the current policy states now that
- the supervisors with approval can do that they can do that now right it does but it didn't
- that it was a month behind i mean we were really close to approving it the policy wasn't in place
- it should have never been offered no one had the authority to do that we had been working on for
- the personnel policy for over two years and so i i'm sorry noelle i mean it just discretion
- like when you have something what would happen if the personnel policy never would have been
- approved
- what would you have done then she probably would have left i think i disagree with dan pam on this
- i think in order to get good talent you've got to be able to bend a little bit if that means an
- extra vacation to get somebody of this stature i'm more than happy to approve it and you guys
- have missed the point with me i don't disagree that at all so it's just is everybody going to
- get it everybody no this is a unique situation we have a new policy that states the very same
- thing comes in and they find out she got it and didn't work for five years but you're telling them
- they have to work five years there's there's nobody in the situation described in the email
- and explained to you there's nobody else in that yet that situation not yet because the new policy
- allows for all of this if somebody came in right now in the exact same circumstances they would
- give her the three weeks absolutely well i wouldn't even be asking you right so i mean that's what
- it
- comes down to are we going to punish an employee because of our slowness on approving the policy
- i get what you're saying it's it's it's not that we're punishing anybody or that um well in a sense
- if we don't approve it in a sense we are because we kind of told her in a gentleman's agreement or
- lady's agreement whatever you want to say this policy is coming down the pike nobody has ever
- brought up an issue on this aspect of of this it's kind of a inside baseball thing to fix
- and i'm you know she's carrying over time in a sense from her other employee that was similar
- to what we're doing very few people are going to come from like to like like if i came from
- i'll just say you know an example my store that closed i ran my store for six years i wouldn't
- have like experience in the town to give me more vacation time so i'd have to start square one so
- it wouldn't be we didn't ask for four weeks but we thought it was appropriate to ask for three
- weeks
- and to offer three weeks and we assumed and it's our mistake i guess if you need somebody to
- be at fault here it's noelle noelle and my mistake that we offered her the three weeks but in fact
- we
- thought the personnel policy would sail through and at the last minute when we get back the final
- the final personnel policy they had it written backwards and so we had to go through it like
- two more times after that so this is a unique situation this is not going to cause an avalanche
- of requests for more vacation because we have not hired anybody and offered them extra time or
- allowable time i mean there i mean we're not our doors are not going to get
- beat down tomorrow and everybody wants it and most of our employees have three weeks vacation
- because we recruit and retain our help and it's because of how we treat them
- well i just think okay my opinion i'm fine with her having that's not the issue at all
- because i know she's got a lot of experience but my issue is maybe in the future
- maybe we shouldn't put the cart before the horse because like you said you offered thinking that
- they it would be done when you offered it to her then it ended up not being done so maybe we should
- be careful when we hire people to make sure before we put an offer out there that that's where it's
- going to be i agree and we made a mistake and we're trying to right the wrong and we were
- definitely highly motivated to get that position filled because we had a new clerk and we was
- working you know we wanted everything to just move on like nothing happened like we you know we
- used
- to have a 26 year clerk that breathed being a clerk we had somebody new that won the job
- through an election and we were trying to support that effort and make sure it was as flawless as
- we could and so we're very highly motivated to get this person in and i mean it could have been
- anybody but this person come in get them trained and make the wheels run and so you're right we
- shouldn't have done what we did and i we made a mistake but it was um you know it was a mistake
- i'm asking you if you can help me write write this i don't have an issue with it at all i just said
- for future reference maybe we better not put the cart before the horse i i i hear what you're
- saying with that right i've got my my hats in my hand when i come to you and that's kind of what i'm
- saying that if we made a mistake and all offering it too early i don't want the employee to pay the
- price for that mistake that's that's what i'm saying yeah i mean we i mean everybody probably
- could claim victim of circumstances but the bug starts stops here oh no if you promised it to her
- no i think we should give it to her because you know we can't just go promising to people and not
- keeping our promises but i'm just great said yeah it's the future reference go easy i'll take a hit
- anyone else comments do you need a motion on this yes well
- sure after after the motion has been made i'll ask for a public comment
- i'll entertain a motion i will gladly make uh i will gladly i guess make a motion to
- approve the town manager's request uh regarding vacation time and making it retroactive
- all right any other council comments questions any public comment
- Valerie Dvor i know that your job is hard and i know that once in a while people may overstep
- what they're doing but it's disappointing to see so much time slapping a hand instead of moving
- forward to fix what's been broken and so i'm glad to see that you finally got to the vote
- but in the future hopefully we can you can work forward rather than spending so much time
- uh moving backward
- see none roll call
- yes dan swaffer no trevor sager yes motion passes all right moving along oh go ahead yeah well
- um i just want to say you know right now as we go through our meeting we got a large career out on
- a
- large main break they're working overtime to get the water back on and keep the trains on the
- tracks
- um the other day we had an unfortunate accident where somebody lost their life and immediately
- we had police fire department public works um on that um terrible accident and um
- that happens every day here and um we have um i don't know 20 or 30 subdivisions and every day
- in one of those subdivisions somebody speeds right down through the middle of them um we can't be
- there because we have x number of policemen uh the last year we talked about hiring two more
- policemen and three more firemen and none of that happened because we don't have any money so um
- in a small town we're always have less money than we need which means we have less employees than
- we need that includes planning and code enforcement because right now there's all kinds
- of code enforcement that needs to be taken care of but everything can't be first and everything
- can't happen overnight and even when you order parts or hire people or do a personnel policy
- sometimes it takes too damn long i agree with that but that's just the way it is and so people
- should be patient appreciate the help they do get and so i thank my employees thank you jimmy
- not good thank you
- chris kip uh what what is that oh yeah
- oh sure you might as well spread the joy
- kip you don't want to do it we need to work on uh implementing a will tax
- the what i'm sorry the will tax will no go ahead go so let them know what's going on so with with
- with house bill 1461 if you all are aware of that uh if the municipality does not have the will tax
- implemented we no longer will be able to apply for the community crossings grant so with that
- being said to give you guys an idea of what the community crossings grant has done for the town of
- eltsville we have since 2016 uh now this is this is including the town's match along with what the
- awarded money is we have been able to implement using two million four hundred and twenty six
- thousand nine hundred and thirty eight dollars and sixty two cents um so the the amount awarded by
- the state was one million eight and our contribution to that two million was only 646 000 i've been
- able to resurface uh upgrade stormwater uh infrastructure with this money that we would
- never been able to do i am a taxpayer as well in monroe county i am just like the rest of you i don't
- want to see my taxes go up but the citizens of eltsville deserves to keep this service going on
- and therefore we need to discuss of implementing this will tax and if we don't have this done
- is it am i right by saying june 30th of this year then 2026 i will not be able to apply for a grant
- and this is a heads up tonight this is we're not going to try to work it out yes i just want to
- put that thought in your all's head what is the minimum we would have to do for a wheel tax i know
- excise goes with that because i think it's no secret when baker and tiller was here i thought
- they said 65 dollars and that's a non-starter for people but then i'm hearing and that's not the
- case what is the case i cannot get a clear answer what's the minimum for both what we'll come back
- with options we'll come back with options on that we don't intend to make the decision but we
- wanted
- you to have the heads up so well in in those options i definitely want to know the bare minimum
- okay bare minimum and and maximum and we'll just give you the habit of um choices you can make
- and i totally don't want to make the suggestion we're gonna let you make that suggestion but we
- if we want to go ahead with the community crossings grant um then we have some deadlines
- we need to hit and we thought we'd give you a heads up tonight about and then if somebody can
- correct me if i'm wrong so that the the taxpayers of the town limits of ellisville
- i'm under the understanding that if we do implement this you won't be double tax you won't be
- your will tax when i go to the county it will come to ellisville we'll have all that we'll have all
- that information so yeah so that was my question it's like yeah i've been paying will tax exactly
- you know but we will have that information like like mike said we'll have that information to you
- so for the public well i'm very supportive of a will tax depending on the amount but one of the
- biggest reason i'm supportive of it property taxes take three or four years to really trickle into
- the community and then we cannot even get the full amount of growth that's happened but the
- wheel taxes as soon as someone registers their vehicle here it's a i mean pretty much the next
- quarter we're getting the money and it is the fastest way to turn around growth and actually
- one of the biggest complaints one of the biggest complaints i hear we don't want to pay for new
- growth well this is a way for existing residents not to have to pay for new growth because we're
- already in the nbh line short so existing residents we're paying for the current growth of what
- they
- just maintaining what they have and as new people come in they'll be paying for their new stuff
- right the wheel tax and with this money it would it would implement my nbh funds some of that money
- in there i could redirect in other places that i can't use the wheel tax at to be able to help
- the community and other avenues of the town so uh one last thing that i've got before i pass on
- just
- want to give you the heads up too uh i was short trying to get this resolution to uh noel on time
- but i'll be coming to you at the next council meeting we got a 2014 international tandem truck
- that i'm gonna be looking about uh surplus and so just want to let you guys know about that it's
- probably on the next agenda um kip i would also ask that you look into and i you probably already
- are but you mentioned tonight the software not working for the yes i'm working on that because
- don't we have to put numbers together for somebody every year for that we used to have to have that
- for the community crossings grant the the traffic counts we don't have to have that any longer okay
- but uh yeah i i do want to i do want to get that equipment back up and going again and and the
- those
- were the the tube type counters went across the road it's about like going from an old cell phone
- to the new cell phones and and now i can there's the uh the uh the the technology is a lot near now
- and i can use use radar detection to be able to get my traffic counts and speed and all that so
- yes i i am looking at the cost of that i mean that's that's infrastructure worth investing yeah
- and you know i'll bring this up again and i brought this up to you many many times
- but it is my understanding i was talking to someone down in um
- down in new orleans county i don't know if that's a county what county that is actually but the
- town
- of new orleans is orange county um they have something there that i've mentioned before it's
- a slow down it's a digital sign but it also does all that traffic count and all that information
- it does a gambit of things yeah i've seen that as well and um i think it is a great tool um it gets
- me to slow down and you can see people coming in it's flashing red and if you get to the speed
- limits which i think is 30 35 whatever it'll turn green to you and say thank you um i really really
- think we should look into a few of those i think they got one of them as you're going into
- worthington i think it does the exact same thing going into worthington and i've seen these years
- ago and i brought that to your to attention and i know the council wasn't against it it was against
- it you weren't so um i would love to see that yeah i'll investigate that as well and then find out
- from end dot because we have to graciously permit that right right that put along and that's what
- they said too but they said that the end dot is pushing these signs okay well good yeah i'll look
- into that more yeah dan i always thought they were for setting the high score well sometimes you
- will
- use that to see how fast they can go and i'm sure you can probably attest to that so that's one
- draw
- back to it so if you get the high score flashing lights come behind you again so today's department
- head meeting we scheduled a meeting about speeding in the town for next monday and
- and we'll all be there so okay so we were ahead of the speeding concern
- is that it yeah that's all all right denise well all right uh bring it back to council for comments
- seeing none meeting adjourned
- (orchestral music)