- And call to order the Yellowsville town council meeting for Monday, August 11th, 2025. Chief prayer. I have the father once again because before you this evening and ask for your blessing back for your guidance. Just ask for all the praises we have to work with the thing you have to bless our employees and bless those who serve as the same Jesus saying. Amen. Chief. 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. Roll call, please. Scott Elkham. Here. James Hawker. Here. William Ellis. Here. Trevor Sacker. Here. Pamela Samples. Action to pay accounts, I'm sorry, action to approve minutes for the July 28th, 2025 meeting. So moved. Second. Motion is second. All those in favor say aye.
- Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Abstaining. Acts to pay accounts, payable vouchers, and payroll vouchers. So moved. Second. Motion to second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? There are two resolutions this evening. The first is resolution 21-2025, additional appropriation of local roads and streets. I guess since nobody else is here under confidence,
- This is money being moved into the local roads and streets to pay for the Community Crossings Matching Grant. All the streets have been paved. They're all in really good shape now, so we're ready to pay the local contractor. Okay, what was that? What's the bill on this? What we're moving? I don't know that, I'm sorry. How much was the money that we were moving to the
- for open streets pay for the community crossings grant? About 252,000 total. No, it's 224-215-10 as denoted on some of our paperwork. Does that sound correct? Yeah, the bid was 252 and the bill came to 240-224. So the resolution this evening, the paperwork we have is for 244-215-10. If that's incorrect, we'll correct it at our next meeting, but I see no reason not to proceed unless you do.
- I apologize for that. That works. Questions from council? What was this for? To pay the contractor that did the work for the community crossings grant, putting the pavement in place. Okay, so this is our share of it. Or, go ahead if you want us to go ahead. It has to go from, is it in the age to local roads and streets, because it has to be paid from the local roads and streets, right? So flow through. Okay, so this is,
- Are we, okay, so we're taking, we're just going from one fund from capital outlays, right? Yes, it's coming from the bridge and road to the local roads and streets, because that's where it's gonna be paid out of. Okay, so more of an accounting year, or accounting situa- Yes, just moving from one one to the other. Yes, we're not spending that much money directly, I mean, because it's, gotcha, all right.
- I'm jumbling my words today, I'm sorry, but I understand exactly what you are, and I hope the public can kind of piece together. Because my restricted front, my restricted fund is in the MVA 415 restricted line. Okay. Further questions from council? Any from the public? Seeing none, online or in chambers, we'll move back to council.
- I make a motion to approve Resolution 21-2025, the additional appropriation, local roads and street. Second. Motion to second. Roll call, please. Scott Olsen. Yes. Ann Swofford. Yes. Liam Ellis. Yes. Trevor Sager. Yes. Next resolution this evening is Resolution 22-2025, accepting bid from Integrity Exterior LLC to replace the fire station room. So you will recall in the last town council meeting there were three bids open for the fire department roof.
- The lowest was from AMI Roofing for $93,500, and the next lowest was from Integrity Exterior's LLC for $116,589.15. And as you are also aware, the town is required, when they request bids or quotes, they are required to accept the lowest responsible and responsive bidder, and upon examination of the bids,
- Fire Chief determined that the lowest bid was not responsive to his request for quotes in four different ways. The bid did not include flashing along the roof line. It didn't include snow and ice guards. It didn't include ice and water shields for the roof decking in the valley, along the bay walls, along the roof openings, or along the vents or flue pipes. And the bid included a ridge vent at the peaks only. So the purpose of this resolution is to just set forth why the town
- might accept the next lowest bid from integrity exteriors for $116,589.15. Okay, and this awards the bid to that company, correct? Correct. Okay, questions from council? From the public? Seeing no one, back to council. I make the motion to approve
- Resolution 22-2025, accepting bid from Integrity Exteriors LLC to replace the fire station roof. Second. Motion to second. Roll call, please. Scott Oldham. Yes. Ann Squamford. Yes. William Ellis. Yes. Travis Saker. Yes. Motion carried. There's an ordinance on first reading this evening, which is Ordinance 2025-18, imposing a wheel tax and motor vehicle license excise tax.
- ordinance, and as you are likely aware, if you, if the town wants to get local road and bridges matching grant funds, you are going to be required to pass a wheel tax, and you can't just pass a wheel tax. You also have to pass what's called the motor vehicle license excise surtax, and so you can pass it in one ordinance if you want.
- pass them simultaneously. So that is the purpose of this ordinance, is to establish a wheel tax fund and motor vehicle license excise surtax fund. Under the Indiana Code, you have some choices and some leeway with regard to how much you can charge or want to charge the wheel tax.
- is essentially for commercial vehicles and it's five to $40. The motor vehicle license excise surtax is essentially for passenger vehicles and it's $7.50 to $25. I was asked to set the tax for the wheel tax at $5 and I was asked to set the municipal surtax
- at $15, so it's going to be a total of $20. Paige Sansone from Baker Tilly calculated how much the town would make at $5 and $15, and she estimated the town would earn just under $90,000.
- So I the question I had and I think I asked this earlier, but I can't remember The wheel tax if we enact this will we still be charged from the county? Yes, so this is going to be like a double hit then We will still be charged the same amount from the county Charged so when you go to register your car every year at the BMV. Yes, I
- Another thing a question that I was told and I'm not sure if this is true and I think I asked you to look into it darling, but I Was under I was told that if you do play the county wheel tax you can you are still eligible for the grant As long as you are paying this Did you get a chance to look into that?
- Okay, well I will look at the Indiana code again, but what I've got in front of me is 8-23-30-2, which discusses the local road and bridge matching grant fund, and at the end of that statute, it says beginning on June 30th, 2027, and on June 30th of each year thereafter, the state controller will make a transfer under subsection J, and the state controller shall distribute the funds as follows.
- Then the statute goes on to say to be eligible to receive a distribution, a local unit must have adopted a wheel tax, adopted the local technical assistant program at Purdue University with an updated transportation asset management plan, which the town has, and that's your Exhibit A, the ordinance. And then there's another section of the code that says you can't pass a wheel tax without passing the certificate.
- So I'll double-check that code for you, but that's what 823-30-2 says. Yeah, but do you understand what I'm asking, though, that in essential, we have adopted that back whenever the county did. So are we not in, does that not count? Does it work that way, though? Because we didn't adopt that. Our financial advisors told us we needed to pass this, or we wouldn't receive funds.
- for the community crossing grant anymore. Yeah, it says the local unit, so. So this this passing keeps us eligible for community crossing, correct? Correct, yes. Mike, just for the public that doesn't know how much grants are we bringing in every year from community crossing? These one of these two would talk. Approximately averages about 250,000 a year. So pretty sizable.
- And then I guess educate me and the general public on this. If this would go through, is this an annual thing, the BMV at the time of renewal that that tax is paid for? Yes. It'll be every year when you renew your registration. And then the BMV has 21 days, once they collect the money, they have 21 days to remit the funds back to the town and then Noelle puts it in a fund. And then if she, the town wants to use the money for
- purposes allowed by the statute, she has to go through the process of doing an appropriation. We have a public hearing in order to take money out of those funds, the Wheel Tax Fund and the Excise Sir Tax Fund. And to be clear, what Dan asked, this does, they use the term stack on top of the county tax. Yeah, if I may, with the monies we've been receiving from this, to be short, CCMG, what we call it,
- Every year, it's been an average of seven to eight streets that we get to resurface from year to year. I think one year, of course, the money stays in the restricted line. And if we don't use all of it from one year, then the next year we get to use a little bit more. So I think one year we actually resurfaced almost 11 or 12 streets one year.
- That's a good chunk. If I don't have that money to resurface these streets, then I only have, only thing I have to go with in my restricted line, all the exact numbers is right around the 130,000, and that's what I use for my matching portion of the grant. Besides the cracked ceiling and all the other preservation stuff, well, the liquid road that you guys seen when you came in, that's where that comes from is from that.
- And also, one year, didn't they fund us to replace a culvert? Yes, we had a very big culvert replacement that was on Deer Park Drive in Spring Valley subdivision that was in really bad shape. And in fact, the sidewalks in front of the area 10, wasn't that from that too? Well, yeah, we did. We got, yeah. In my understanding is that there's like two pots of money. If we don't pass a wheel tax, we get the pot that's left over after everybody else.
- has pulled from that. But there's not much left. If we don't pass it, we don't get the chance to get that. So all I'm gonna have to resurface the streets is just that hundred and some thousand dollars, and that's not gonna go very far. I still think it's not completely contingent, but the amount of money we'd get would be, when you talk about like streets, we'd barely have enough. I mean, there's some that we could pull from,
- to be clear, these grants or taxes our residents are already paying, and if we don't do this, that money they're paying is gonna go to other communities. And so, but to be, just for transparency, I'm pretty sure, and Darla, correct me, is there two funds now that this, like a non-wheel tax fund and a wheel tax fund and the non-wheel tax fund's pretty small? There are two funds.
- And I don't know that Paige broke down for us what goes into the wheel tax versus what goes into the excise surtax, but both of them together will make $90,000. Right, but I'm talking about a fund that not locally, but for the grant, the matching grants. If we don't have a wheel tax, we can still apply for some grants, but the grants we can apply for are just greatly limited. Yes, I think that's true. Okay. And then one other quick question.
- It was five dollars for the wheel tax and 15 for the exercise service tax. Yes. Yep. I think that's what I did. How did we come up with those numbers? Just. Sure. Go ahead. Delicate Balancing Act. Baker Tilley and Mike Farmer. OK. Well, tell them what they suggested from what our budget projections are. There was some suggestions that we, if we're going to implement this, to get the most out of it.
- and all the limitations to future revenue sources for the town that we would impose the maximum, which would be $65. And, you know, after talking to a couple board members and trying to catch a, you know, see which way the wind's blowing as far as what they thought, they asked for it to be as
- little as possible. On the wheel tax, the town can charge up to $40. On the motor vehicle license excise surtax, you can charge up to $25. So it would be $65 combined max, max in both funds out. Yes. Is there any reason why one we picked five and 15 for the other, is there a difference? To keep it as low as possible. Right, but I mean, it says we could go seven for the one. I was about to say, why not take the 10? Right, right. I mean, was there any reason why
- We choose to take more out of one than the other. No, I think it's just why it's set up. Those funds go in the same... The money goes the same place, correct? I don't know why they can't call it one fee and be done with it, but they don't. Right. I don't either. I don't understand that. Just quickly, Chancellor, maybe with the parents here. I'm very hesitant to criticize other governments, but tonight's gonna be one of those nights
- SB 1 was passed by the Indiana House Senate and signed by the governor It is essentially for want of a better word an elaborate bait and switch Whereas the state is going to drop your taxes and then it's going to tell the localities the locals you have to raise the taxes so did you actually Gain anything you did not but it makes the state people feel like they've done their good deed and
- I'm gonna tell you all folks this this will not be the last of these things that see is being forced upon us by the state of Indiana We could choose not to do that in which case your services will have to be cut and there will be layoffs from town personnel and No one wants to do that So that's why we're trying to keep everything as low as we can just to keep moving on until the state sees its good graces to do something about the travesty that they that they passed this will bankrupt several counties and
- several cities or towns We have yet to even see the beginning of the iceberg So we're trying to be a little proactive and hopefully not push any more pain down the road than we have to But the state didn't think this out and all they turn around says well locals you can do this this this and this And we're gonna have to be the bad guys just to survive. This is not about adding This is not about adding a dime to the coffers of the town This is about making back a little bit about what the state's going to take away and
- And we're going to be very lucky if we make it through the next four or five years without being so far behind that it's going to be almost impossible to grow to catch up. So this won't be the last of these we have to do. We have to do this or we will not pave your street. We have to do this or there will not be snow removal. There will not be enough police or fire out. There will not be anything else because the state of Indiana has cut the money so much that we will have to reduce our personnel to the point where we just are not capable of doing some of the things we do currently.
- And the state turns around and says, well, but you could raise this and you could raise this and you could raise this. Well, we can, but no one wants to. So that's the shape every city in town is in at this point. And there's no good direction coming from the state about anything other than go raise the local tax. OK. So they can pat themselves on the back and say, look what a good job we did by cutting your property tax, cutting your other taxes. But oh, by the way, your local people, they're going to have to make that up somehow.
- So to say that this puts us in a bad way, it certainly does. This is not our intent to create more taxes or to create more pain for anybody living here. But if you like the services you have currently, we're going to have to do this, or we're going to have to figure out another way of what we're doing. Because there will not be, and Baker-Tillium will see next week in the budget. They're very adept at this, and they're projecting some very grim times coming up. Even with the passage of this and some other things that the state is telling us, but you need to do this.
- And that's just barely scraping by, guys. And I do want to say, too, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I've always phrased this bill as the worst of both worlds, because one of the things that needed to be done for property taxes is capping the year-to-year increase. And no matter what the assessment was, it fails to do that. So if assessments start going high again, residents are not going to see any property tax relief, yet
- we're still going to be constrained by the same constraints we are now. And, I mean, there are some, I really think, relatively simple fixes to this. I mean, as an example, you guys look at Ellitsville, you see all this new growth, and you're like, why are we having struggles with this? Well, because the state only lets us capture 4% of the total growth, and they define growth as your property being worth more. That's not growth.
- That's investment increasing. Growth is actually new construction in my world. And we are doing wonders with that. But we cannot fully tax that. So and that's why there's so many complaints with I don't want to pay for new growth and that's we're doing everything we can where like this, without this, current residents would be paying for all that new growth because we are limited to how much we can take. But they could have done that and capped
- the year-to-year things for existing residents, but I think that was too simple. So I'm going to join Scott in my little rant, but I want to set the expectations for people. Next year, your property taxes are probably going down because there's a credit. The year after that, maybe, but 2028, those credits go away.
- I'm hoping this is revisited. It has to be. Yeah, and again along the lines that we're dealing with the wheel tax here to help fund DPS. I just want the folks out there who are listening who are seeing this or who will read about it to understand. It is not the state of Indiana who plows your road when it snows. It is your local DPW that goes out and plows that road. It is not the state of Indiana who shows up when your house is on fire. It is the local fire department who shows up to do that.
- It is not the state of Indiana who does so many things that make it so enjoyable to live here and so easy to live here. It is these people in this room not, I mean, excluding this council, who make that possible. And the state of Indiana has decided that they just want to remove a lot of that, or at least push back on us being the bad guy to fund what you already have. All in the name of, as William said, a pretty elaborate plan that's really not going to save you much money. So I'll get off my soapbox, gentlemen.
- One other question. I think this is already been asked, but this is a yearly annual deal. We have to do this every year, right? That's all. So we don't have to renew the amounts. Okay. Yeah, that's what I meant. That's what I mean. You will pay the tax right per vehicle. Yes. So this is
- It's going to be available online, or you can get a hard copy, but I assume if you want to look at it in public, it's not something we're going to vote about this evening. It's probably going to be revisited next two weeks from now. It has to be voted on next meeting. Right, because we're, again, at a hard deadline by the state, so we can't play around with this. So that'll come back to us. Moving on with the meeting, there are... To the public watching this, if you're really against the wheel tax,
- I'm open to suggestions on where we can get the funding from, because we're in a situation where no is just not an answer. I mean, I know I'm probably missing something. Any of these councilmembers you can come to and say, hey, did you think about this source or that source? But we can't just say no, and then in the winter you're going to be saying, as Scott said, why is there six inches of snow on my road? Well, because we listen to you. But this is a hard decision we're going to have to make. None of us are
- are happy with it. I'm sorry, I just needed to say. Absolutely. You guys good? So moving on with the meeting, for this evening, there are no ordinances on second reading. There is no old business. There is no new business. We're not approving for the floor. Anyone having business for the council, not part of our normal agenda, please approach the podium. I didn't know if we were daring each other, if you were going to get up there or not. Who's first? Okay. Valerie Moore from the Chamber Board.
- listening to the concerns that we have, if the chamber could get together with you and help with any public education on this issue, or in fact any issue, that would be a good idea as well. Because this not only affects private citizens, it affects our businesses. Anyone else? Seeing none, move to supervisor comments, beginning with town manager. Yeah, I'll remind everybody that the next meeting is also
- We're gonna have a working session for the budget prior to the regular meeting. Hope everybody comes. There's a lot to talk about. If you like scary movies, like slasher movies, this is gonna kind of fall under that. It's gonna be pretty grim. And if you wanna understand what we've been talking about for the last five minutes, come to the meeting.
- I think Baker Tilley is going to do a presentation and explain not only where we're going to be next year, but the next two following years, and our budget is going to represent what we think needs to happen for three years, not just next year. So it's important to talk about it and get the word out. And I just want to remind everybody that that's next 5 o'clock, I think, we start, and that's the working session for the budget.
- Are we gonna have any numbers before then? I think we have the numbers available. If you contact Noelle, she's gone for a couple days. A Thursday, she will invite you in and you can view only the budget as it stands now. It's went through three cycles already where we've slashed our budget.
- expenditures, so it's about bare bones, but you can look at it, and I failed to send out an email this weekend to say, just contact her and you can view the whole budget. Normally they send it to us, but I guess we'll contact them. Well, we can do that as well, but you can look online and see it. If you want a printed copy, we can get you a printed copy. Yeah, definitely. And just for the public, I'll warn you up front, you will see some reduction in services beginning this year.
- That's right. And it will get worse before it gets better. Excuse me. Thank you. The only thing I have is that there's some paperwork in your folder for the parade permit. You need some signatures on it if you would please. And that's all I've got. Thank you. At some point we need to revisit or I guess republicize the required mass gathering permit for some things.
- Because we've had a couple things begin to really push the numbers So we probably need to have some public education on that concerning what's happening Anything else Chief Appreciate you approving the roof repair, but we need to discuss where we pull the funds from whether
- What I'd like to do is finance it for like three years and spread the cost out so that I don't completely deplete the cumulative building and equipment fund, which is what we use for repairing fire trucks, putting tires on them, engines, that sort of thing. And if I pay the whole thing out of there all at once, it'll all but zero out that line.
- If we finance, can you give me some numbers on the actual finance cost plus the closing fees, what extra fees that would? There weren't any closing fees, and depending on the term, yes, I can, but he said it would be well under $4,000. Worst case scenario. But I can find out for sure. Kevin, were you originally thinking two years, too? I can try to do it in two years.
- But what I did like our three Durangos, we financed them for three years, and then thankfully we didn't have any catastrophic problems that year, so some of the funds that I had budgeted for what-ifs, we took that and paid off. It was basically like eight months' balance of the note, so we paid it off early. I wouldn't mind seeing the difference from two to three years, personally.
- We don't know what our budget's going to be, maybe doing that, stretching it over three and paying it over two if we could. That way he's got some cushion in case we really get desperate. So I will, I can call tomorrow and see what we can do it for three. I mean, essentially that payment's going to be a firefighter's salary. So if it's a question of stretching it one more year and leaving a firefighter on the job or laying one off.
- Like I said, the fees, I just don't wanna spend any money we can avoid. Normally, I'd say if you needed it in your fund, we could transfer it from the general, but the general fund's gonna be under such pressure in the next couple years. I don't know if I can confidently say we can do that. The only pressure I'm in right now is when it rains, it rains inside, so. You're gonna be at your roof no matter what.
- Okay council comments Just one real quick if I may and because it just got brought up I think inadvertently like to say both thank you and congratulations to
- Not only the supervisors in the room, but the supervisors over the last 15 years, who realistically rescued Ellsville from being bankrupt. And again, I've reminded the council before, but in 2006, we had zero dollars in the bank beyond one payroll. Now we have a general fund that is hopefully going to get us through these very weird times. But it came at the cost of a whole lot of scrimping, a whole lot of saving, a whole lot of patching, a whole lot of repairing, a whole lot of, well, we'll just make do.
- But that making do by these people in the room and their predecessors is what's hopefully left in this position that we don't have to do some incredibly drastic things. I don't think the general public really realizes what these folks have gone through over the years with equipment that functions barely, equipment that starts two out of 10 times, equipment that required an hour's worth of repair to do a 12-minute job.
- and all the pain of having to look at your employees and saying, you're not getting a raise this year because we can't afford it. But yet they stuck with us year after year, year after year. So congratulations to all, to your predecessors and from this council. Thank you. Anything else, gentlemen? Seeing no other business, we're adjourned.