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?