- Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks,
- and I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. On this
- day in history, April 28, 1942, nightly dim-outs begin along the US East Coast as a deterrence to German
- military threats. Randy Saunders signed up to deliver
- today's reflection, Randy is local director of Scouting America. He emailed me this morning to indicate
- that with all the storms that we had last night, they have quite a bit of damage at one of the camps.
- So he is there instead of delivering a reflection. But we had another member two weeks ago who took
- me aside after the meeting and said, you know, with everything going on in the world, should we just
- maybe take a moment for a moment of reflection?
- And given shootings in Bloomington, shootings in Washington DC, a war in the Middle East, why don't
- we just take a moment to think, pray if you're so inclined, and just be quiet for a little bit.
- Thank you. Steven Goll will introduce our guests today.
- Well, I'm pleased to see that we have several guests today. And when I call your names, would you please
- stand so that we can recognize you? Our first guest is Barbara McKinney, guest of Michael Shermas. And
- then Lisa Myers, guest of Efrat Rasa. Welcome. Jeffrey Combs.
- Guest of Mike Baker. And very special guest, hopefully our next U.S. Congressman Brad Meyer,
- guest of me. And last but not least, my espousal unit and Brad's campaign manager, Becky Wan. Welcome.
- Do we have any online guests? Not today. We're all club members. No? OK. Thank you, Steve. Thank you,
- Lori. I also want to recognize someone we don't announce weekly as guests who's been with us most weeks
- this semester, Shilpa sitting over there from the Civic Engagement Project. She's been observing us,
- and I'll be anxious to hear her impressions of her.
- So this is her last week, and she's going home for the summer. We have a couple of birthdays to recognize.
- First of all, today is Andrea Murray's birthday. And tomorrow, Ruth Boschkoff and Jim Griffith have
- birthdays. And then we have a few anniversaries. On the 30th, Joyce Polling will celebrate 30 years
- as a Rotarian. And on the 1st, Glenda Murray will celebrate 35 years as a Rotarian.
- So Tyler, if you wanna go ahead and start the PowerPoint. And we're gonna start with a celebration of
- service. So as many of you know, the city of Bloomington has a Bloomington Volunteer Network. And each
- year they stage the BMOR awards where eight community members are recognized for achievements and wonderful
- things they've done for the city.
- And last year, I went to the BMORE awards to check it out. And I went in there with a preconceived notion
- about how Rotary could be involved in this. And after watching the awards and talking to Michael Shermas
- and Lynn Schwartzberg, I left there with a different impression. And last year, someone from the Kiwanis
- Club deservedly won an award. And I left there thinking, wow, we have people in our club who
- are award-worthy. So fast forward 11 months.
- And I submitted multiple nominations. And lo and behold, one of us won. Dave Meyer. So Dave has won
- the Beemore Bloomington Award. Here's a picture of Dave in December, Salvation Army bell ringing. And
- here are some of the details. So the ceremony, the award ceremony is tonight.
- 6 p.m. to 730. It's at Buskirk Chumley. It's free. The nice thing is the part of the award Dave will
- get a thousand dollar check not to him. It'll actually be made out to the Bloomington Rotary Foundation
- and it's from the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County and they do a wonderful job
- sponsoring this event and promoting volunteerism in Bloomington.
- The reason Dave won is he, like a few others in our club and lots of people in our community, do outstanding
- work with refugees. But where Dave really stood out this year is in December, as many of you know, a
- member of the refugee family that we sponsored, Jaweed, was detained by ICE and taken, I think he went
- to Brazil, Indiana, and was detained there.
- And Dave sprung into action, working with the family and then working inside the club. And
- he made arrangements to try to make sure that Joweed was getting due process. He found a really good
- attorney, an expensive attorney in Indianapolis. At one point, I think he had $10,000 of legal bills
- on his personal credit card, which he hoped would be reimbursed by club members, but there was no guarantee.
- And anyway, thanks to his efforts, in late January, I believe, Jawid was released. He's now back with
- his pregnant wife, working, being a productive member of society here in Bloomington. So Dave, you really
- did an outstanding job, so thank you.
- So move, next thing, help wanted. I put this up last week. We need additional club members to join our
- membership committee, do various things. If you have any interest, see me or see Lori Garrity. Not too
- late to register for the Rotary District Conference, May 8th and 9th at the Gold House in Louisville.
- Still need a volunteer to rapidly, at this point, coordinate, assemble a gift basket. I've already had
- one person come up to me and volunteer something to go in the basket.
- This is not my strong area. So if we have someone with more tastes than me and who is interested in
- rotary at the district level, please step forward. Also as part of the district conference, there's
- a district conference challenge and for new and gently used shoes. And so we've already accumulated
- a few shoes and I plan to take them into Louisville. So if you have new or gently used shoes, please
- bring them next week.
- if you're on zoom or can't be here next week email me and we'll see if i can figure out a way for me
- to pick up shoes okays you save the dates uh... we have the wonder lab summer blast off on may twenty
- first this is something that our club is sponsoring hopefully next week will start the sign up for volunteers
- refugee picnic on the twenty fourth uh... club member cindy need heart can provide details
- We have a Meals on Wheels work day just for a couple of us on May 29th. See Diana Hoffman if you're
- interested for that. And then June 5th, the Beacon Solidarity Sleep Out. I should say June 5th and 6th
- because if you do it right, you start on the 5th and you're getting up on the 6th. So save those dates,
- please. All right, today's membership quiz. Which of these Rotarians regularly attends deep water aerobic sessions?
- And you have four choices, Sarah Laughlin, John Hobson, Glenda Murray, and Amy Kendall. And only one
- of the four regularly does this. Here's a picture of someone who is not a club member doing deepwater
- aerobics. Looks like it's hard work. But anyway, back to your choices. So I'll name out one
- of the candidates. Put up your hand if you're in the room. Do so electronically if you're online.
- So put up your hand if you think Sarah Loughlin regularly attends deepwater aerobics sessions. Boy,
- especially doing well at one table, Sarah, there in the back. Second choice, John Hobson. Put up your
- hand if you think John Hobson regularly attends deepwater aerobics. Not quite as many as Sarah, but a few.
- Your third choice is Glenda Murray sitting over there. Glenda is actively canvassing and campaigning
- for votes. So put up your hand if you think Glenda Murray is our deep water aerobics. And our last choice,
- also sitting next to Glenda, competitors, if you think Amy Kendall,
- If you think Amy Kendall is the club member who regularly attends Deepwater aerobics classes, put up
- your hand. I'll tell you what, it's a very split vote. Lori, how does it look online? Looks good. Okay.
- All right. Well, let's move on. Okay.
- Well, if you voted for Sarah Laughlin, you will be incorrect. Sarah is a walker who tries to get in
- 10,000 steps each day. Here's a picture taken a couple of months ago of Sarah dressing the club. Glenda
- Murray, if you voted for Glenda, you too are incorrect. Glenda is a regular Northwest YMCA user, uses
- the facility for yoga, new step machines, and walking.
- And if you voted for Amy Kendall, you are also incorrect. When Amy is not doing development work for
- Beacon, she enjoys walking. Here's a picture taken. It looks like it was taken on campus. And my guess
- is Amy was walking that day. But if you voted for John Hopson, you are correct. So John was supposed
- to be here today. He's a regular at the IU Pool Deepwater Aerobics class. He also enjoys walking in
- his neighborhood.
- John had the misfortune of running into me at the performance of Oklahoma Saturday night, made the mistake
- of telling me some things going on in his life. And so here he is today. John is one of our longtime
- members. I haven't had a chance to highlight him yet this year, so I'm glad I could get his face on
- the screen. So he's actually very fit between the walking and the deep water aerobics.
- So my hope is, is that he continues and he can continue to be an active member for decades to come.
- Okay, election season, 2026. So registered voters encouraged to vote in the May 5th primary.
- Little reminder, candidates for political office are welcome to attend club meetings, visit with members
- before and after the meeting. We rarely schedule political candidates to speak ahead of an election.
- Today is an exception as our speaker is unopposed and also will be speaking on the timely topic of the
- role of townships in Indiana. And it seems like once every generation, the state legislature wants to
- do something about townships or they want to consolidate school districts. And so there have been a
- lot of actions lately. And so I thought it was very timely that our speaker speak today. Once again,
- she is unopposed.
- So here's the sad news. Sam Udak resigned Wednesday as club president-elect. He'll move to the Chicago
- area near the end of May, and we wish him well. So the happy news is that 2024, 24, 25 club president
- Tracy Yovanovitch has stepped up and will serve as club president for the 26, 27 year.
- Here was the process. So Wednesday, Sam resigned and emailed the nominating, committing, several others.
- First checked with our president nominee, who will be the president-elect as of July 1st, Hank Walter.
- And as he had confirmed in the past, he was not able to move up his term by a year. And then in the
- process of correspondence, Tracy volunteered to serve as club president.
- We reviewed the club bylaws, because none of us could remember off the top of our heads how we handle
- a situation like this. Kind of nice to have bylaws sometimes. As on July 1, I will be immediate past
- president. So Hank and I convened an email meeting of the directors elect. We first had to figure out
- who the directors elect were. And then after a motion and a second, all nine directors elect voted yes
- for Tracy as club president.
- So in the space of six days, we have a new president. I'm really excited. First of all, in our own right,
- I thought Tracy did a great job as president last year. It just has so many positive attributes. The
- other nice thing is we're two months away from the start of the Rotary year. And if anything, anyone
- can hit the ground running with this short of notice, it's Tracy. And I think she'll be able to do a
- wonderful job
- And I think she's going to do a great job. And I will say we'll need some help. You know, so I'll be
- talking to different people and asking for assistance. But I think if we all pull together, we can handle
- this and we're going to land in a good place. So here's
- So here's a picture taken July 1st of last year. It was the day that Tracy stopped being president and
- I started being president. So on July 7th, we will recreate this scene. Except I'll be the person heading
- for the exits and Tracy will be on the way in. Happy dollar, happy dollar proceeds in March and April
- will be given to the Bloomington Rotary Foundation. And I think we have a few minutes for happy dollar.
- If anyone's happy, put up your hand. I'm very happy to have attended my grandson's wedding in Irwin,
- Tennessee, where we glamped all weekend. I'm happy and very grateful for Stone Belt and for the emphasis
- they put on training
- Their staff, it's hard to get good staff, and it's important that their staff is trained. About three
- weeks ago, a staff member saved our son Jonathan's life by doing the Heimlich mover, and no doubt, no
- surprise, we're joyful and happy to be able to give this gift.
- I'm happy for the unsung heroes in the Jawad case of illegal detention. So let me speak to them right
- now. There is a group of people in the community that gave almost $1,000 within the first week of Jawad's
- detention directly to the family, who shall remain anonymous. Indiana University, who was informed of
- what had happened,
- kept his job open for six weeks in order for him to return without missing a beat other than lost salary.
- And then what was my last one? My last one was the Rotary Club. Our Rotary Club pitched in more than 12
- thousand dollars in order to meet his legal exemptions. Oh, I had one more. Sorry, four. Exodus refugee,
- when they heard of his detention, they volunteered to have the immigration court part of his legal proceeding
- that they would handle that without cost from their Indianapolis office. But we had to hire outside
- counsel for the actual
- appeal for unlawful detention because that was done in federal court. So it takes a village in order
- to make these things happen. Some of you know that I've been expecting a granddaughter or grandchild
- and she came five weeks early on Friday
- Her name is Angela Garnoff. And she weighs five pounds and seven ounces, now down to 412 or something
- like that. But I'm calling her Angelina because she's just very tiny and kind of fairy-like. But they're
- doing well. Hannah had a C-section, so she's also got some
- major surgery to get over, but she's going home today. Angelina will be fine. They had a major flood
- and disaster at the hospital last night. And it was right in the NICU and the postpartum area of the
- hospital. So they moved three times in the course of that storm last night. So we're very grateful that
- they're all doing well.
- Last one. I would like to just thank all the Rotarians that showed up to support us at our dinner theater
- event a couple of weeks ago where we celebrated the works of Maya Angelou. It was wonderful. Thank you.
- Thank you all. Michael, can you put on your other hat and introduce today's speaker?
- Afrat Rosser is the current trustee of Bloomington Township since 2022. She's been living in Monroe
- County for 26 years. She has a BA from Indiana University and an MPA from the University of Arizona.
- I've been lucky enough to know Afrat in both her prior roles as Assistant Director of Finance for the
- City of Bloomington Utilities and Executive Director of United Way of Monroe County. Her spouse is the
- famous wrestler and even more famous chef, Chef Lee.
- I had the opportunity to recently lead an ADA training with AFROT and her Township Trustee staff. They
- were an amazing group of people. And I can see that a bit of that is due to AFROT's leadership because
- she is a very nurturing, thoughtful, and kind person. I think you'd have to be in that job. So glad
- she gets to tell us more about it. Give AFROT a warm Rotary welcome, please.
- better. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the humbling introduction and for having me here today. I think
- the last time I was a guest speaker here, I had a different role in a different last name. Same a fraud.
- If there's another one in town, I'm not. I haven't met her yet, though. Uh, but yeah, there's been a
- lot going on in the news with township. So, um,
- Thanks to Michael for inviting me to give a little update on Bloomington Township specifically, but
- then we can also talk about a lot of the legislative changes that are impacting townships in general.
- So let me dive right in and then we'll save some time for Q&A and see what you want to get into. Quick
- overview of township government as it is unique to I think about 17 states currently, including the
- many of the Midwest ones, and that's because as the original colonies were expanding out West, Indiana
- was part of the 1785 land purchase, and that whole area was divided into six by six square miles for
- the purposes of establishing new colonial settlements, right? So in the 1800s, a lot of them were officially
- formed as a critical mass of people came to
- settle any of those squares. And the early townships were really meant to be the local government that
- would do everything from establish a schoolhouse, fire protection, basic roads, basic health services,
- and what used to be termed poor relief. And now I'll refer to that as emergency financial assistance
- when I talk about it.
- So before, you know, state cities and counties came on board and then a lot of the township duties were
- sort of taken away by those units and townships were left with what we have now, which I'll get into.
- But we're all independent government units, independent taxing units. So if you have a property tax
- bill, you'll see a levy from your township. We have
- We each have a board that's independently elected as well. Around here, that's a three-member board.
- And I'm very grateful to have an amazing board of gifted and dedicated professionals. Barbara McKinney
- is one of them, and she's here today. Dorothy Granger and E. Sensenstein are the others. And all three
- are unopposed again this season on the ballot. So I look forward to the next four years together.
- While we are independent government units, the state does regulate a lot and charges us with our duties.
- So that's all Title 36. We report to the same state agencies as cities and counties. So State Board
- of Accounts audits us. We report to the Department of Local Government Finance. You can find all of
- our information filed in their website. So we, in a lot of ways, operate like other government units.
- There are over a thousand currently in Indiana currently in a couple years that that will look different
- We'll talk about that too and in Monroe County. They're currently 11 I mentioned six by six square miles
- So you'll notice the exception is Benton and that's because that is the result of two Townships that
- merged some years back The trustees around here I think
- are a really good group of collaborative leaders. We meet monthly. I actually am currently the president
- of the Monroe County Trustees Association. So, you know, Republicans, Democrats, we get around the table
- and we try to not only align our policies where we can, but, you know, be a voice for township government.
- Bloomington Township specifically, if you live in town anywhere north of 3rd Street,
- That's us all the way up towards Sample Row, or you'll bet against Washington Township. And then we
- also have some unincorporated areas to the east, west, and north. The township office has five professional
- full-time staff. My deputy trustee and the director of operations, Lisa Myers, is here.
- two case coordinators, a representative payee program administrator, and a front desk slash
- pantry coordinator. We have an intern through the Cox Scholarship Program finishing out our third year
- with us, and we now have an embedded long-term case manager that we share with Perry Township, and that's
- that partnership through Heading Home and the Community Foundation's access of that big Lilly grant
- fairly recently.
- And that's our mission in a nutshell, local government office providing relief support and connection
- to township residents in need. And let's talk a little bit more about what we do real quick.
- Besides, you know, I'll get to the emergency assistance and food pantry, but we do have some other statutory
- duties, as mentioned, that are kind of still there from 200 years ago. And one of them is maintaining
- historic cemeteries that are otherwise uncared for. So some call them abandoned. The states, like, don't
- use the word abandoned. Maybe that's too spooky. I don't know. But we love
- taking care of our couple of cemeteries. That is a lot more time consuming than I ever would have realized,
- because you're dealing with properties that have trees and limbs and fences and mowing needs, besides
- 200-year-old monuments that need clean, sometimes reset if they're damaged, and so forth. And I'll talk
- a little bit more about a project we currently have at one of our cemeteries a little bit later.
- Trustees also respond to weed complaints in unincorporated areas. So if your neighbor's property is
- out of control and there's noxious or invasive species, you can go through a process with your township
- trustee to help remediate that. Fence line disputes, knock on wood, I have not had one yet, but I think
- in the agricultural community, these come up a lot more. When two neighbors share a fence and it's damaged,
- who repairs that?
- Well, you can call a trustee to mediate if you can't figure it out. We're also a notary public. And
- we have a pretty busy food pantry that serves about 200 households a month now that's been ticking up
- ever since the COVID days where
- I think things kind of got disrupted and people had a lot of other sources for support. But since then,
- we've only seen it increase the need and the folks who come to us. We've started offering other basic
- hygiene products, feminine hygiene products, pregnancy tests, naloxone kits and testing strips, things
- like that as part of our offerings there. And that pantry is
- I say low barrier because there's not a lot of paperwork. You're going to sign in, you're going to fill
- out your name, a test that you live in Indiana. Actually, it doesn't even have to be Bloomington Township
- based on some new rules from Hoosier Hills Food Bank where we get most of our supply.
- And we try to provide choice for folks by having a rotating list. We'll hand it to you when you come
- in, you check off what you want, and the staff will go back, get it, bring it up to you. So it's not
- a big space where folks can shop around, but we try to offer options that way. We also now have pet
- food, thanks to a partnership with the Humane Association. And after they took some damage in that tornado,
- you know, reached out and since then we've been stocking dog and cat food as well for free.
- The representative pay program is a fairly newer one and my predecessor Kim Alexander really gets all
- the credit for this along with the administrator Kay and Lisa's put an incredible amount of time into
- this. So if you have benefits through the Social Security Administration or the
- VA, and that's kind of a new one for us, and you've been deemed unable to manage your own finances,
- they will freeze those benefits unless you get a representative payee. So this felt like a really critical
- service to get involved in. It's actually in statute that trustees can take over someone's finances,
- but now it's actually a social security administration program.
- you know, just to give you an idea of the impact there, because we'll literally get the folks, you know,
- benefit and then we'll mail out their bills. So housing, utilities, food. And then if there's a little
- left, they get like a flex card to spend that as they wish. But that assures that people get their bills
- paid, that they stay housed.
- We're talking about situations in this case where dementia may be involved, right, or memory loss, a
- developmental disability, sometimes substance use will lead to the SSA telling someone you're going
- to need a rep payee. We had someone through Beacon, I believe, reach us who had back pay of $30,000
- that he couldn't access until we became his repayee. So that's kind of the, that's a powerful moment,
- right? This person could have been paying for an apartment for five years with that money, but they
- didn't have someone to draw it down for them. So we did start offering that to all of Monroe County.
- But if you live in Bloomington Township, there is no fee since our tax dollars support that. Otherwise,
- we collect a minimum that SSA allows us to collect. And I think Perry Township is looking into starting
- this too. So hopefully in the future that's being done there because there's always a need and there's
- usually a wait list that we maintain too.
- But as I mentioned, the biggest thing we probably spend time on is the emergency financial assistance.
- This is where if you are falling behind for any reason with your rent, your mortgage, utility bills,
- or you have some other needs that come up like transportation, you need a bus pass for a month, or someone
- passes away and there are no assets or
- Next of kin doesn't have assets. We can pay for a basic burial cremation, some limited medical needs
- as well. And this assistance, we do this by appointments. We try to get folks in as quick as we can.
- There is some paperwork involved. It's a state application that we don't necessarily have say in.
- But the process is meant to be fairly quick and responsive. We will turn around a decision within 72
- hours And we'll try to you know, not just say yes or no, here's your 900 bucks to cover that bill But
- you know what other resources would be helpful in? stabilizing someone we try to
- have that discussion over every application that comes in. And I think the staff is really good about
- knowing the community, knowing what's out there and being able to sort of wrap support around through
- nonprofit partners and others. So we pay for all of that with, as I mentioned, tax dollars, right? Your
- tax levy is that big area there if you live in Bloomington Township.
- And then there's some other little taxes that we get some revenue share from the state through the county.
- The lit I'm going to focus on for a minute. That's the local income tax that Monroe County shared with
- not just townships, but other small government units receive a share of that lit tax currently. And
- as you can see, it's almost a quarter of our budget. And that is
- important because some of the legislation I'm going to talk about impacts that that lit local income
- tax certified shares. So I wanted to point that out and let me talk about some recent trends real quick and then
- switch over to the legislation that's impacting us. I think you're all well aware of the housing crisis,
- right? Like it's being covered in the paper and elsewhere, not just that costs keep rising, but earnings,
- there's that growing gap between earnings and the rent that folks are being asked to pay. We also had
- changes to Medicaid and SNAP thanks to
- the federal government and that big, beautiful bill, was that last year or the year before, a lot of
- people lost their benefits and some other things were kind of cut from those programs. And then the
- TFAP program, that's the federal commodities program, food commodities, has had some changes too. They,
- on one hand, made it
- more accessible by telling us you don't have to just serve Bloomington Township residents. You can serve
- anyone who walks in and says they live in Indiana. So that was new to us, and that's great. But at the
- same time, their supply has been dwindling, especially of protein and other more expensive food. So
- we've kind of got that pressure. And I mentioned 200 households a month currently, and that kind of
- keeps slowly ticking up.
- And then harmful legislation. I just summed that up there, because there's been several that are impacting
- townships negatively, as I think most of us see it. SEA 1 or SB 1 is probably one you've heard the most
- about, I'm guessing, because that is the governor's property tax relief bill that was just signed into
- law last session, or the session before last.
- And so if you did just get your property tax bill, you might have seen some new credits. I got, I think,
- $300, $350 back. And if you're older, if you have a disability or you're a veteran, you get a little
- more. I think that's all great, but it does come off the backs of a lot of your local government units
- because it does two things. First of all, it
- changes some things that have to do with how that calculation is done about our levy. There's no more
- increases to that, some changes to the tax caps. That's an immediate fiscal loss to our township of
- about $14,000 a year that we anticipate. But the bigger thing it's doing is it's sunsetting that lit,
- that local income tax, which you saw is about a quarter
- of our current revenue. And I think looking at the other townships, it's about a quarter or 30% of all
- of them. They spread that out proportionally. So all townships in Monroe County will face the loss of
- that unless our county council chooses to go forward with a full replacement tax. So the state said,
- hey, we're done with this. We're gonna give money back to property owners
- County Council gets to be the bad guy if they want to replace it locally, which I think will be really
- interesting to see what happens in Indiana. I suspect a lot will not replace it, and funds will just
- be lost, and then some of us may, and I feel like that could lead to some disparities, right?
- I don't know where that conversation will go. Every unit of government, including the library, the school
- system, the solid waste district, the fire district, all of us townships, city and county all rely on
- that local income tax share. So we're all in the same boat of realizing we need to do something about
- this or cut surfaces, right? And I don't know that our community thinks that's the best answer.
- HB 1461 also came during that cycle, and that was the road bill, the one that increased the speed limit
- on 465. I think it gave some authority for toll roads in Indiana. And then at the sort of last minute,
- they threw something funny in there and said, you know what? Some of these townships have some funds.
- They should contribute.
- 30% of any unrestricted funds that townships hold have to go to the city or county's local road fund
- from here on out, which is kind of weird. We've not been in the road business for 200 years. There's
- a whole process in there where it would have to be approved by our board first and all these things
- in there. So we don't know how that's gonna go yet either, but it's certainly,
- It's shifted how we budget and we're really budgeting out of our rainy day fund because honestly to
- me, with that 30% that's gonna go to the county and maybe pave a few miles of road, we can do a lot
- more with that. So I'm gonna put in the budget and use it. That's kind of been one of the strategies
- of how we deal with this while other things are getting cut. And then the,
- big bill that was recently signed by the governor in this recent session. There were a couple for township
- mergers or consolidation up between the House and the Senate. I think the key difference, the House
- bill would have eliminated some townships and had the county or municipality that was there otherwise
- pick up their duties. We thought
- SB 270 was a better choice because instead of eliminating certain townships, they'd consolidate them.
- And that's what did pass with a lot of work through our state association, a lot of us around here.
- So SB 270, I think, if I can sum it up, will have
- township scored based on measures for both effectiveness and efficiency, and there's a point system.
- So if you get four more points, you have to merge into the receiving township. Now the county commissioners
- will have to make some determinations on who's the receiving township of those, as well as I think they're
- being charged with holding the public process for this.
- when it happens next year. So out of those 11 townships in Monroe County, I can't really tell you who's
- going to score four or more points right now. Some of those point criterias are publicly available
- information like have you seen more than 24 applications for assistance in a year? And if not, that's
- a point against you. Do you have a fire department that you manage? If not,
- That's a point against you. Do you have a budget that's over 100,000? And if not, point against you.
- So some of those are publicly available data points, but there's some things that I can't tell unless
- the trustee from that township would tell me. So we're not sure what the impact will be in Monroe County
- and whether some smaller townships will need to merge with bigger ones
- in our county. That I think will transpire by the I think by the end of the year that point system will
- be identified and shared and then 2027 you can expect to see that conversation and process move forward.
- So that was a lot and all of these factors I'm talking about whether it's you know the
- economical ones housing market, along with the pressures on township services and budgets, you know,
- means that we're facing increased demands with less resources to address them. So how do we do more
- with less as I believe the governor asked us to do? I don't know exactly, but this is what we've come
- up with so far. And I think it's just about some commitments to
- Accessibility to service, to collaboration. We did expand our hours by shifting around some of our schedules
- and we found that being open until 6 p.m. instead of just 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday is
- really appreciated by the community. We've collaborated with a number of groups and we're part of Heading
- Home and all of that work.
- We work with the city, the county on different programs, a lot of nonprofit partners. We also give out
- community service grants to nonprofits. We've been doing that for quite a while. The board is very supportive
- of that process. I think there's about 60 to 80,000 every year that we grant out to agencies that we
- refer to a lot and that are in our township or serve our township. I put investing and staff in here
- And that's because this work is really person-intensive. It's case management, light case management
- in some cases, or meeting people on their worst day when they walk in, having just gotten that eviction
- letter, or the lights are off, the electric's off, the water's off, and they're panicking, and they walk in.
- our staff does absorb a lot. So, you know, I think we've been, the deputy trustee, Lisa and I, I think
- have been really key on just providing staff with resources, with opportunities to participate in different
- trainings and in different things that help them as professionals and as
- people who are sort of, you know, on the front lines of some things. And a commitment we made is to
- continue to offer excellent resources, events, and programming that is low cost to us. A lot of that
- is through collaborations and partnerships. And I'll give an example of some, like the last couple years
- we've been playing with just fun events.
- You know, people, as I mentioned, come to our office on that worst day. We don't want to be the place
- you only associate with coming to when you are struggling. You know, we want to be a community center
- of sorts. And so these events have been really fun. People show up, get some cool free stuff that is
- not available to them anywhere else in the community. We're trying to meet some gaps, as well as build
- that little bit of a community feel and social feel.
- And I think I mentioned some of these partnerships. I won't go into detail because I think I'm running
- low on time. But one I thought was fun to highlight, and I know some of you are involved with these
- groups, this Thursday, actually, we're doing a weed wrangle at Stout Houston Cemetery as a first step
- on a project to fix the historic dry stack stone fence that's there.
- Thank you to, you know, the Monroe County Board of Historic Preservation and MC Iris and the History
- Center have all come forward in partnership around this. We're gonna have opportunities for some people
- to get trained in that method of preservation and then try to accomplish some work that would otherwise
- be really, really expensive. So,
- I think that's all I had. And I'm sorry, I ran just a little bit long. But if there is time for questions,
- Michael, let me know. And otherwise, yeah, thanks again. I'm happy to stick around and answer any other
- questions as well. And hopefully you all have my contact info if you have any follow-up questions, comments,
- or you just want to swing by and take a quick tour sometime. Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you for that presentation. I also wanna thank you for being such a long community partner. We've
- done a lot of work over the years. You talked about townships merging at some point. Well, if you've
- got 11 township trustees and you merge them, does all stay or what's gonna happen with that level of staffing?
- Yeah, thank you for asking that. The state's process that's being outlined, no, they wouldn't get to
- all state. But the process does involve a shared board that's a little expanded during a transition
- and a first term. And then it goes back to, I think, the three-person board in that subsequent elections.
- They don't really spell out. I mean, the receiving township, so the bigger one or the stronger one,
- I'm, the trustee there would stay. Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, my hope would be that in such a
- scenario, not only could you maybe talk to the person who's losing their job, maybe there's still a
- need for a part-time staffer, maybe there's a model with an annex where we could keep, you know, that
- old facility or asset or use the fire department to go onsite
- in those rural communities if they do lose their trustee. And I think some of us are talking about that
- and hopeful we can be real creative and set a great example for the state on how to do this. Yeah. Thanks
- for asking. Yeah, thanks. I've worked in other states as a pastor and I was often the person that had
- to decide what people got aid. When I came to Indiana, it really troubled me that the township trustee
- is elected.
- in a county where I don't live anymore. I thought to myself, who is the township trustee going to help
- the person that has a lot of voters or the refugee family from Guatemala that stuck up in a holler?
- So I know there are all kinds of proposals about township trustees. But what do you say about that?
- Well, I'd say a couple of things. And I appreciate what you're saying. I think, unfortunately, when
- you have 1,000 townships, and in Indiana, so many of them are rural, in a lot of those smaller ones,
- what ends up happening is it may be someone's second or third job, right? Because it's not enough of
- a salary or workload to support them full time. So then you've got a situation where maybe someone's
- trying to keep office hours once or twice a week. Maybe it's run out of their home in a rural area.
- And so you get into some issues of accessibility. But I've also seen rural townships that are strong,
- that are responsive to their constituents, that are centers of their community. So I think just because
- you're small and rural doesn't mean you can't be creative and responsive. And it's really up to the
- voters to hold them to account, right?
- Unfortunately, through some of those stories percolating up to the State House, I think that's why we
- end up getting targeted every so often, because again, when you have a thousand of us and they're all
- different, there's going to be some ones that are maybe not doing the best that they could for their
- community. But then, you know, I think a majority of us are really working hard. I pulled the
- I mean, I have the impact numbers from all of our townships in Monroe County. And I mean, between us
- all, the 11, we helped over 5,600 people last year alone with over $1.3 million in direct financial
- assistance. So that's direct monies that go to either a landlord,
- to recoup for someone who's not paid rent or the utility companies to keep people's utilities running
- or food assistance, burial assistance, all that. So it's a pretty significant part of our safety net.
- And I guess my only answer is we just have to keep working to make it better and to pick up the opportunities
- that the state's affording here through some of that consolidation.
- Do we have any questions online? None at this time. I haven't mentioned fire service, but I know that's
- a township responsibility. And I know in Blooming or in Roe County, we've had a lot of consolidation
- there. How does that look now? Yeah.
- Bloomington Township did have a fire department until what year was that before I got here? 2021. And
- then it merged with the newly forming district. So I believe most of the townships are now part of that
- district with the others exploring that to one degree or another. I don't know, my personal opinion
- is it makes sense to me because
- running fire protection and running what feels like a social services office are very different skill
- sets and areas of expertise. And I might not have run for this if I knew I had to oversee a fire department.
- That's a big deviation from my area of comfort. So I think in that sense with fire protection, it's
- been a good move to have one
- big professional entity. And I think the rural townships are experiencing the benefit of that, but I
- won't speak for them. But that's where things stand right now. Now that fire district is under the same
- pressure as us with the impacts of SB1. So I'm sure you'll hear from them at some point too. Yeah.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate all you do, all you do for our community. Rotary is there
- everywhere I look, doing good things. So keep it up and thanks for having me. Thank you for the work
- that you and your staff do and also for a very interesting presentation. In honor of your talk, a donation
- will be made this quarter to Wheeler Mission.
- I'd like to thank today's volunteers, Winston Schindel, Steve Engel, Michael Shermas, and a couple of
- roles, Laurie Garrity, Randy Saunders, who couldn't be here, but he's here in spirit, Marilyn Wood,
- Alann Barker. I also want to thank the nominating committee, Alann Barker, Sally Gaskell, Ron Barnes,
- for their really quick turnaround with our presidential situation. Next meeting will be here in the
- Georgian Room on May 5th.
- Jen Staub and Misha McClaim with the Regional Opportunity Initiatives will tell us about a region on
- the rise ROIs education and workforce strategy. So please join us. Tyler, if you would share the graphic
- for the four-way test and please stand if you're able. Of the things we think, say or do, first, is
- it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned?
- Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned?
- And fifth, is it fun?