I'm Dave Willoughby. I'm calling the meeting to order of the Brisbane Township Board and other board members is Dawn Durham and Jenny Trasher. And I am Scott Oldham with the Ellsfield Town Council and I will call our meeting to order and certify that we do have a quorum present with William Ellis and Dan Swofford also in attendance. Mike, where do you want to go from here? Well, I think in the interest of the public, I think maybe some of the people, Baker, Tilley, maybe just around, let us let everybody know who we are. That's fine. I'll start with myself. Thanks for everybody coming to a proposed government reorganization meeting. work session. There will be no comment or questions from the audience and we are here to receive information. My name is Michael Farmer. I'm Jeff Farmer, I represent the town of Eltsville from Biden Fentanyer Utilities. I'm the main slide, the player for the town. I'm Kip Heddy and I'm the director of the public works Wow Darla Brown town attorney Dan Swofford town council Scott Oldham, Town Council. William Ellis, Town Council, Ward 2. David Willoughby, Township Board. Dawn Dornal, Township Board. Jay Thrasher, Township Board. Go ahead. Okay, well, so I think we really ought to just get into it, and then that will lead to discussion. Baker Tilly, who's been with us for probably more than three decades, they are our financial consultants, and they have a presentation. I think one of the things that will always be of interest is what's this cost and how do you do it and the fiscal impact. So that is how we're going to start the meeting with Paige's presentation. Thank you, Paige. Thanks, Mike. And thanks, everyone, for being here. Good afternoon. This is a short presentation just to talk about governmental reorganization, what it is, and we also have an illustrative example. So first off, what is governmental reorganization? It is a tool that has allowed local government units in Indiana to reorganize. There's a statute, it's Indiana Code 36-1.5 that covers the mechanism to merge, reorganize, create a new taxing unit. Who can establish or who can go through this process? Two or more adjacent counties, municipalities, townships, school corporations, or special taxing districts. Why would you reorganize? It's really to improve efficiency and enhance cooperation. Those are the two major reasons for reorganization. So there are many steps involved in reorganizing local government. This is not an all-inclusive list, but I think the main object of this list, I know it's hard to read, there's a lot of words here, is just to show you that there are lots of steps. It can take a year or more to complete. In this particular timeline, and this is just an example timeline, by the way, nothing's set in stone at this point, but starting in January through April, that's when you can start developing a reorganization plan, and that plan is developed by a reorganization committee with several subcommittees that really look at and review each service provided by both the township and the town. Then sometime in May, you might have public hearings to discuss and revise the reorganization plan. There's lots of input needed when developing a plan such as this. In June, or at least three months before a general election, we would need to submit a fiscal impact analysis of the reorganization to the state, to the Department of Local Government Finance. They will have time to review that within 30 days before the election, the DLGF will provide to us any comments that they may have. Then in July, there would be additional public hearings and a final adoption. So the Township Board and the Town Council would need to officially adopt the reorganization plan. And around August, that plan would need to be certified and filed with the clerk of each reorganizing entity, the county auditor, the county recorder, the county voter registration office, and then also the state, the Department of Local Government Finance. Then in September, to get ready for the election, we would notify the county election board and prepare a ballot, the ballot language. Basically, it would be a question as to whether this reorganization should take place. The language of that question that will be put on the ballot has to be approved by the Department of Local Government Finance, so we need to submit that for approval. Then we would have, again, the DLGF within 30 days of the election would need to approve our fiscal impact analysis that's part of that reorganization plan. November would be the general election where the question would be put on the ballot and the taxpayers would have an opportunity to vote for or against the reorganization. If that should happen, it's possible that the reorganization could be effective January 1, 2027. However, it depends on a couple things. One is, you know, if that's what you have in your plan of reorganization, you can pick the effective date, but it couldn't be any earlier than January 1st, 2027. and it just depends on if all the pieces and parts of the process are done as planned. Okay, so now we have this illustration. Again, I want everyone to know this is just for illustrative purposes. We have not sat down with either the town or the township to come up with any sort of budget, but this is just gonna give you an idea of what this could or may look like Obviously, we are not going to have any sort of final budget numbers until you decide to move forward one. And number two, you have your reorganization committees in place and your subcommittees and you start studying your services and really look at the fine detail. So again, this is only for illustrative purposes. So in 2026, this is our starting point, we looked at what services are provided by both the town and the township and what are the budgeted expenses for each of those services. So here is a chart that kind of outlines that. Fire right now is about $3 million. Police, approximately 2.2 million. Administration, which would basically be the Township Board, the Town Council, some other administrative activities, 1.3 million. Street maintenance, about 808,000. Planning and zoning, approximately 327,000. Township assistance, 183,000. Park and Rec, 102,000. redevelopment 27,000 and cemetery about 7,000. So that's kind of where we are today and all the services of the combined entities. So again, illustration of what it may look like after consolidation, we basically added added budgets to some of these items that we were told are very important as far as for your community. So fire and police got the largest increase in their budgets. Again, illustrative purposes only. And then some of the other areas where we provided increases as well, just to see what it would look like if we spread the costs out over this consolidated area. Not all the cost will be applied to the township. So we'll go through that in a minute. So post consolidation, here's what it could look like. FIRE could have a budget now of 3.9 million, police 3.1 million, and then the smaller increases go to administration, which includes redevelopment. We combined those two activities. That's 827,000 street maintenance, 809,000 planning and zoning, 355,000. Township assistance, 201,000. Park and Rec, 102,000. And Cemetery pretty much stayed the same at 7,000. So the total increase from pre-consolidation to post-consolidation is about 1.3 million. And again, it doesn't have to be allocated as we've done here. We're just trying to illustrate what it might look like. So now, how would this affect the taxpayers under this particular illustration? So what we have to look at is the net impact to the district tax rates. So there's three taxing districts that would be impacted here. Richland, which is the unincorporated portion of Richland Township, that's Richland 011 as the taxing district number. Ellitsville Town 013 is the portion of Ellitsville lies within Richland Township and then Ellitsville Town 018 is the portion of the town that lies within Bean Blossom Township. So we look currently at the certified rates now, the certified district rates. So Richland is 1.5969. The two Ellitsville are pretty close. It's about $2.02. Estimated post-consolidation rates They do go up, so Richland Township, the rate would go up five cents, .0507. In Ellitsville, both taxing district, the rate goes up between 41 cents and 43 cents. Now that does not translate to an increase to your tax bill. I will get to that in a minute, but those are the rate increases for the district rate. So we also need to kind of explain the taxing structure. So when you consolidate or reorganize, your reorganization committee can determine which taxpayers will pay for which types of services. How we have it set out here is what we would typically see in a reorganization. Again, you all would have to make that determination. This is an illustration. So if you look at the first five tax rates up there, the Monroe County, Richland B. Blossom School, Monroe County Library, Solid Waste, Bean Blossom Township, those won't change. They don't have anything to do with this consolidation, so those rates would remain unchanged. The Ellitsville town reorganized, this is where we can have like urban areas and rural areas. So, for instance, if you look down here on fire, the line that says fire, all taxpayers within the current Richland Township in Ellisville would pay one single rate for fire services. But police, we assumed, in our illustration, that the county sheriff would continue to provide services in Richland Township and that the police rate would only be applied to how it is now to the taxpayers within the town. Admin, it makes complete sense that that would be spread out among all of the taxpayers. Because again, that takes care of the council, the reorganized entities council, the controller or the clerk treasurer. So that makes sense. Street, we assumed in this illustration that The county highway department would continue to maintain the roads that are in current Richland Township, so the Richland Township folks would not pay for that for the street department. Planning and zoning, currently, I've seen it both ways in reorganizations, but in our illustration we're saying that planning and zoning would not be assessed on those in the current Richland Township, only those in the town, but again, you can decide how you want to structure that. Township assistance would be spread to the whole area, and there is a typo on here because the people in 018, Ellisville Town 018 that's in Bean Blossom would not pay for an additional township assistance rate. They're already paying for the one in Bean Blossom, so that needs to be struck from this. Park and Rec, so Park and Rec We thought it would make sense and I think that's how it is now that that park rate would be spread over the entire Consolidated area Cemetery same thing all taxpayers would pay that rate There is a capital fund that the town currently has it's called a cumulative capital development fund we would assume that all taxpayers would pay that rate because Capital, improvements, equipment, et cetera that would be needed for the whole reorganized area would be paid typically from that fund. And then debt service is for some debt that the town currently has outstanding, the taxpayers in Richland Township would not pay for that debt. That debt has to remain with the current taxpayers. So now we're going to get into how would it impact some property values? So here we have three separate examples. The first example is a $150,000 home value. So if that home is currently located outside the town limits in Richland Township, that home value currently has a tax bill of about $987. Post consolidation, The tax bill would go up by $31. So that's about $2.61 if you break it out on a monthly basis. In Ellisville, the impact is a little bit higher because the tax rate impact is a little bit higher in the town. So in Ellisville, because the town's tax rate is higher than the township's tax rate, they already pay a higher tax bill. It's about $1,250 for each of the taxing districts. That would go up by about $250 to $1,500, which would put this particular property at the tax caps. So that works out to be about $21 a month. Now we move on to a $250,000 home value, and I believe that's pretty close to the average home value in these areas. So Richland Township for a $250,000 home value currently pays $1,955. That tax bill would go up $62, which is about $5 a month. The taxpayers in Ellisville town currently pay about $2,475. So it would go up to the tax cap limit of 2,500, which is out of 24, 25 to $28 increase, that's $2 a month. And then for a $350,000 home value, if it's located in Richland Township, the current tax bill is about $2,900. It would go up to, or it would go up by about $93, and that's $8 a month. Now, a $350,000 home value is already at the tax caps in Ellisville Town, so those taxpayers would not pay any more on their tax bill because they're at the tax caps. So if you're wondering what properties are at the tax caps currently, in Richland Township, you'd have to have a property with a value over 1.4 million for it to already be hitting the tax caps. In Ellitsville Town, it's roughly, depending on which part of Ellitsville, it's roughly about 262,000 and above, or 264,000 and above. In other words, what that means is property values below, let's say 262,000, would have some impact based on this reorganization. So that's the residential homesteads. Farmland and Richland, farmland and other residential rental properties, none of them are hitting the tax caps. Also commercial and personal property, none are hitting the tax caps. So again, what does that mean? It means they will be impacted by a reorganization to a certain extent. Ellitsville, all the farmland and all the residential rental properties are at the tax caps, so those will not be impacted by a potential reorganization. But the commercial and personal property are not at the tax cap, so they could be impacted. And the impact is just going to be based on what budgets you come up with and what you feel like is the necessary amount of property tax levy that's needed to fund the reorganization. So next steps. What should you be thinking about? What are the next steps? Really, if you decide to move forward with this process, the very next step is to develop a plan of reorganization. And I think that's probably the most difficult part of this process. It's very time consuming, and you are looking at each of your services in a lot of detail, because you need to figure out What is it that you need? What services are most important for your community? And how are you gonna fund those services? So part of the plan is just a name and description of this new entity. The boundaries, what is the boundaries of the new entity? How is it gonna be governed? What's the structure of the new entity? What does the election or the appointment methods of the officials look like? What services will you be providing to which areas? Remember, I talked about urban and rural and a combination of urban and rural, so you'll have to figure out how you want to allocate those services. Then just a general disposition of assets. If you reorganize and there is no longer a Richland Township, what happens to those assets held by Richland Township? There is so much that you need to consider and look at before you can move forward. After you get the plan of reorganization complete, as I stated before, you will have probably multiple public hearings, you will want taxpayer input, and there may be multiple revisions to your plan of reorganization. After all of that occurs, then you can do your final adoption. and that's when we begin to certify to those county officials and to the state. We get it on the ballot. Taxpayers have an opportunity to vote for or against this, and if all of that goes through, then it can be implemented. There have not been very many reorganizations in the state of Indiana. In fact, I am only aware of two successful reorganizations, and that is the town of Zinesville. That was the very first one. I think that was in 2018. In 2010, in 2013, Yorktown and I failed to remember the name of the township they merged with, the town of Yorktown and Delaware County merged with a township and I can't remember who it was. That was in 2013. Now there's been two others that have gone down this road but it failed and I don't know why it failed because I wasn't involved in those. So I want to kind of end this by saying that Reorganization, if it's right for you, gives you a lot of opportunity. The statute itself is written in a way that gives you lots of flexibility to completely reorganize the way you provide services or not. You don't have to completely turn everything upside down. But it is here for you to help provide efficiencies and collaboration between the two units of government. So it is, there's a lot of great potential that can come out of this. It's just that it's not been utilized very much throughout the state. I think the legislature, if you would ask any one of them, would probably say that they would like to see more reorganizations. So that was my very short presentation. I appreciate your attention. I have one. Looking back on your allocation of rates, page nine, and again, I understand these are theoretical, it seems fairly disingenuous to me to expect the Sheriff's Department and the county to continue providing services to something that's now inside another municipality. Can we assume that the rates for what would be Richland Rule, Eltsville Richland Rule, would not exceed either of the other two? would not exceed, I'm sorry. Either Richland Urban or Ellsville Urban or Ellsville Town Urban, one or two? I believe that's safe to assume. Again, you all have to develop that structure. I will say this, and I understand your comment at the beginning there. In my experience, going through even the failed consolidations before, that is a typical assumption that the Sheriff's Department will continue to provide services. And here's why, because believe it or not, they're already providing services here within the town also. But that is something that you do need to talk to the county about. Don't just assume they're going to do it. They may want you to have a contractual agreement with them. But technically, the Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement services to the entire county, including all the municipalities. So they're already doing it. But they might want you to pay them. I don't know. The taxpayers are already paying for a sheriff's rate. The street department, it's also common that the county continues to provide street services because they're getting a state distribution of gas taxes. So if they don't provide that service, then you all will get the gas tax and you'll provide the service. So it's just, you know, who's gonna get the money and provide the service. But the sheriff's department, that has always been a point of contention because there are people that argue out there that we're getting double tax for law enforcement because I'm paying it for Ellitsville police, and I'm also paying it for county. So that is a point of contention, I totally understand your comment. So you really, that's one of the things during the reorganization planning process, you will have to sit down with the county and see if they're okay with that, because they may come back and say, hey, you guys reorganized, this is now all the town of Ellitsville, we're gonna provide limited services. They could say that, they absolutely could. Other questions? I've seen that. And touching back on the street department, so basically you're saying that if we did decide to do that, the funds that currently go for the streets would just go to the new reorganized town. Yes, it should be a wash. Go ahead, Mike. Yeah, Paige, just for clarification, we've used the Adams Township Sheridan consolidation. You mentioned that or? And I did not see that. I mean, is it taking place January 1 of 2026? Maybe that's why I don't have it. I just looked at historical. That's why I'm saying I don't know all of the consolidations out there, but it's been very few. Perfect. Well, I just, we have made mention of it and actually used it for conversation. I want to bring that up. Thanks. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. It didn't come up on my search, but My search probably wasn't very good with that. There's limited, limited. Because I know Avon Township, or Avon's, Town of Avon and Washington Township also tried to do that at one point, and I don't know if it ever got to the end. There's been some that have tried off and on throughout the years. No one else? All right, thank you, Paige. Thank you. Where do you want to go from here? hoping there would be questions by the boards or any of the department heads for conversation. Obviously, I think the presentation was short and to the point, which is exactly what we wanted. I guess, going forward, we need to have a committee to decide exactly what we want out of reorganized town. And with that, these numbers that we suppose that were just for information may or may not change. Our conversations with the county may change what we need to discuss. But I think the most important thing moving forward, if everybody agrees, is that Township board and the town board provide names for the reorganization committee. I think that's the next big step. Maybe if Baker Chile or one of our legal counsel can provide, what does that board makeup need to be? How do we pick the people on it? How do we empower them, et cetera? The first thing the council needs to do in its next meeting is to respond to the resolution that was passed by the township board at their meeting and consider a resolution to consider consolidation. And as I understand the statute, it leaves the particulars to selection of the reorganization committee to each legislative body. So using Adam's Township and Sheridan as a template, what they did is they had two town council members from Sheridan, a third person, Adams Township had the township trustee, a township board member, and then a third person, and those six individuals made a joint appointment and selected the superintendent of the Sheridan Community Schools to serve as a moderator. So I think the statute leaves it open to decide, for the boards to decide how you're going to pick individuals to serve on that reorganization committee. So the next step, however, would be for our town council to formally resolve. Yes, you discussed it at the last meeting, but the resolution wasn't formally passed, so. Okay. And then is it your advice that we both bodies come together on numbers and how we're picking, or does each body pick their own after we pick a number? I think you should have an agreement first as to how many members, like three and three, or whatever you want to do. Okay. Didn't the statute say three from the town, three from the township? We'll short circuit it. Sorry. I think they can pick out subcommittees. Yeah, they appoint subcommittees. That would be part of the process. I think Paige alluded to that, because I don't think one board can do all that. I think the purpose of the reorganization committee is to indeed delegate to other community members on subcommittees to do some of the heavy lifting. I mean, if you will, the reorganization committee will be the mothership, and they will pass down things that need to be discussed. The subcommittees are subservient to the reorganization committee, if I'm correct. Yes. Which is then subservient to both individual boards, correct? Yes. So would it be presumptuous for me to say, could the 24th be a good date for coming up with the list of names we think might be appropriate for reorganization? I think so. Well, I guess I have a question for that, for legal. So let's assume we are in agreement, those of us up here, that they'll pick three, we'll pick three, and then those six will pick a seventh. Yes. Do our three need to come from within the town limits and their three come from outside the town limits but within the township, or can we mix and match as it is? I will look at that. William has asked me that. I will look at that for you. I think you can mix and match. Is that agreeable to you guys? But I will let you know for sure. Okay. Assuming it's okay. Yeah. Okay. And just to be transparent, we've already started to collect the list of people that we think might be appropriate for the reorganization committee. No commitments has been made, but just to garner any enthusiasm about maybe being on the board. You know, just so you know, we started from our site. Is that something you feel we can do on the 24th? Yes. You think the township would be able to have theirs around the same time? Could I, with that question, could I ask you a question with inside that? How do we go about conversations about that, correct? Say we're, you know, we're talking about these kind of You know, these names, do we just individually cleft the names and then throw them out there, or can there be conversations amongst individuals to prepare it? I mean, there needs to be some kind of organization or impetus to make this happen. Well, I think Eric and I can communicate with each other about what Rachel and the Township Board desires, what the Town of Ellsville desires, and then they can make their announcements at respective meetings as to where candidates are going to be for that reorganization committee. I just didn't understand how the flow of information should go. I had one more question for Paige. I forgot to ask. Paige, I had another question I did forget to ask. The over-65 circuit breaker prevents a tax increase, I think 2% from one year to the next. Would this impact that at all? Because if they're over the 2% would they still qualify? This doesn't reset that circuit breaker, does it? No, it does not. OK, so if the dollars are over 2%, then OK. Any other questions, Greg? I'd like to know if, instead of us coming up with a list, if there would be some way that people that are interested can approach you guys, approach us, or you guys also. Sure. once upon a time, picked up the journal and found out I was selected for a position I didn't even know I was running for. He must have been absent for a meeting. I never went to a meeting. I think that, Joe, I would assume there's some people here that are interested. I think for our part, we need those known to us no later than, say, the 22nd. Yes. Is that way we can publish everybody to the board? You go with that, Ian? Yeah. Question I got though, for Darla, how do we discuss before the 24th the names that we want on the list? I mean. The 21st is Friday, Scott. 22nd is Saturday. 21st then. I think what you do is you come up with a short list. Maybe you do that to your town manager. And then you can discuss your short list on Monday. you think that's gonna be too awkward. Do you guys good with it. Do you have a different date you want yours. A list of people within a week. That's what we're asking. We're talking about our people we need to write if we're gonna put out what date do you guys want your people to report in by. That are interested. I would think we ought to have. A couple weeks at least to have input from anybody that's Interested in. Yeah, you're getting into a busy time, right? That's why that's why we're trying to on our end. We're trying to get ahead of that to get that well, but I don't know when your next meeting is right, so. We do not have one schedule. OK, yeah, we have. We're getting into December. I have a really busy work schedule, so, I mean, you know, we would probably, I don't know, would we need, would you wanna meet next week to talk about it? Let's see, I got a meeting Monday night. Yeah, we could. I'm thinking we're, maybe the first of December, just to use a... That's all I know. Right, it's the 24th. So Darla to be clear if I have names the appropriate way to do it would be send it to you you'll share it with Eric and Eric can share it with the board so well so we'll have this ongoing list of names that are popping up. Well, the council has to pick their three, and the township board has to pick their three. But I would send it to you just so you can disseminate the information correctly. I'd like that. All right. And you did say that they had to be on the town limits, or you're still checking on that? I'm going to check on that. When I looked this afternoon, I couldn't find them. There's not been a whole lot of people, though. It's kind of make your own story in there. I kind of get the feeling the state said this is a good idea you guys figure it out Thank you so say that if anyone watching this today would get a hold of Mike Farmer that lives in the town limits that are interested in this and Mike you want to give your phone number? Well I thought it would be appropriate just so there's a chain of command if you will of information that anybody that would be interested did should call the clerk's office Sorry Noel, call the clerk's office and then they'll have the information. I'll hound dog it any way I need to do to get it to the right people. We also have a new email for this project. It's questions with an S at ellitsville.in.gov. And so not only can you ask questions, I think you could submit that you're interested. We're gonna have to start watching that. email it. And I think we just sent it out by Facebook on the website. I'm not sure. But that's another way people can contact us. And yeah, they can get a hold of me. Pardon. And if they'll just call the clap town clerk, I'll get right back to him. I would rather email that way. It's easy to follow up to make sure that it was called in. This way you're not relying on somebody getting busy and not passing it along. I just think email is a lot more efficient. All right. And the town clerk's phone number is 812-876-3860. David, would the township want expressions of interest? Eric, if you lean back, you'll be fine. All right. Would the township want expressions of interest to be delivered to the township office? to your attention? Does that work pretty well? Do you want to announce that for the public, the address, and then in an envelope directed to your attention? What's the address of the township office for the public? Can I make a comment? Yes. I see your timelines. Looks like your committees and subcommittees, I'll address this to both boards, subcommittees may start as early as January. So I'd like to mention that Kevin Patton, the fire chief, he's sitting back here and I would like to be a part of forming that committee or even being on that committee for public safety. Okay, all right. I think that'll be up to the reorganization committee. I just wanted to get that out there for both boards. Thank you. Further? Yeah, I'd just like to say that we are trying to organize an open morning on alternating Fridays and Saturdays, probably here at the town hall, for people that want to come in. We're not sure of the time yet, but I'm thinking between 8 and 10, where people can come in and discuss, critique, grieve, And we'll give them as much information as we can. And as we move forward, anything that is appropriate for the citizens, we will be utilizing Facebook and our website and other media outlets. We have a firm that's working with us, and they will help us get the information out. So I think from the beginning, To the end, everybody's interested in sunshine because we want everybody happy at the end of it and whatever transpires. And so we're going to go to extremes to get the information out. We're thinking cards to every household within the Richmond Township. We'll be in the future too. So we're working on all that now. And we didn't want to get ahead of the process. we'll start working diligently about how we get the information to everyone. Where do you want to go from here? Is there anything else we need to cover from your perspective? No, I think it's good to say that as governing bodies of the two entities, if I could speak on their behalf, we're just interested in a successful outcome, no matter what that is, and that we're all trying to work to make our community better. Okay. Thank you. I have a question to the attorneys. Okay. If for some reason, because Paige had mentioned this deadline, it's not like we have to have it done by, but if I'm not mistaken, the next opportunity to have it on the ballot would be November 2028, correct? That's correct. So it wouldn't be effective to the minimum then if we knew that would be January 1, 2029. Yes. Okay. Anything else from you guys? Anything else you want to cover? No, we haven't decided yet on a date for the committee yet. Okay. Do you want to wait on that or do you want to conclude the meeting or how do you want to go? December would give us 2 weeks to come up with names. That's just the list of names. That's not having a meeting and saying here you are. OK. So. We like to say December December 5th. OK, so you're going to require your names be submitted to you by December 5th. So just for clarity, ours is still remaining the 21st of November, and the townships will be December 5th to each respective addresses and or emails, phone numbers that have been provided already. Is there anything else that you guys wanna cover in this meeting? Dave, is there anything else you guys wanna cover? I can't think of anything else, do you? No. You? No. As far as the Eltsville portion of this meeting, we stand adjourned.