WEBVTT

00:00:01.250 --> 00:00:10.121
- and lovely departmental budget updates. I would like to note for the record, a little loud in here,

00:00:10.121 --> 00:00:19.525
- for the record, we have counselor Deckard online, hello, and we have a quorum of council members present.

00:00:19.525 --> 00:00:26.622
- We have Henry, Iverson, Wilts, and Feidl, and we will go ahead and get started.

00:00:27.490 --> 00:00:37.152
- Does anybody wish to add or remove any items from tonight's agenda? Okay, so we just need a motion.

00:00:37.152 --> 00:00:47.395
- Council, I move to approve tonight's budget work session. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second

00:00:47.395 --> 00:00:56.574
- to approve tonight's agenda as presented. Any questions or comments from council on this item?

00:00:57.122 --> 00:01:04.729
- Seeing none. All right, and so because we have a council member present online everything we do tonight

00:01:04.729 --> 00:01:12.336
- will be a roll call vote. So maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Feidl?

00:01:12.336 --> 00:01:19.651
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.

00:01:19.651 --> 00:01:21.918
- Motion passes unanimous. Okay.

00:01:22.114 --> 00:01:30.913
- Thank you. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of everything tonight, I just want to give a special

00:01:30.913 --> 00:01:40.382
- thank you to all the departments that have done the due diligence for you and your staff and staff and auditors.

00:01:40.610 --> 00:01:48.813
- for working throughout this entire process. I understand there's been some issues with DOGF and Gateway,

00:01:48.813 --> 00:01:56.861
- but as the world turns, we are adapting and adjusting accordingly. So many thanks to you all for doing

00:01:56.861 --> 00:02:04.830
- that. This year, I am going to keep us to task and we will be as efficient as possible. And I want to

00:02:04.830 --> 00:02:07.486
- remind everybody that this is not

00:02:08.130 --> 00:02:15.606
- This is not the final approval of 2027. That actually comes, the public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday,

00:02:15.606 --> 00:02:23.153
- October 6th, starting at five o'clock. And the final budget adoption for the 2027 budgets will be Tuesday,

00:02:23.153 --> 00:02:30.277
- October 20th, starting at five p.m. The public will be able to make comments at that time, or during

00:02:30.277 --> 00:02:36.766
- those meetings at that time, but there's no public comment during our budget presentations.

00:02:37.282 --> 00:02:44.935
- As I mentioned, and you all received the president's letter as well, I want to make sure and emphasize

00:02:44.935 --> 00:02:52.514
- there's a lot of work that has been put into developing the 2027 budgets. And so we want to highlight

00:02:52.514 --> 00:03:00.538
- that. However, we do ask and I ask very humbly that we keep everybody to task. And so you all have received

00:03:00.538 --> 00:03:06.334
- your time limits. We ask that you stick to your time limits. When you hear or

00:03:06.722 --> 00:03:14.814
- On the screens, I know it's small, but you'll be able to see your time. And then when you hit to five

00:03:14.814 --> 00:03:22.985
- minutes, you will hear the following. Okay. And then we will also highlight the five minutes. And then

00:03:22.985 --> 00:03:30.046
- when you get to one minute, you will also hear. Yes. And then you will see this as well.

00:03:30.370 --> 00:03:37.398
- I know it might seem a little silly, but I just want to make sure, and to be respectful of your time

00:03:37.398 --> 00:03:44.357
- as well, and staff. We don't want you all spinning. You could be anywhere in the world, but you are

00:03:44.357 --> 00:03:52.012
- avoiding the hot world out here, and you're in here with us. So we appreciate that, but we will be efficient.

00:03:52.012 --> 00:03:57.022
- OK. Other than that, we will go ahead and get started. So I will start.

00:03:57.378 --> 00:04:05.490
- with our overview of revenues. And so I'm going to ask the auditor to give a brief anticipated 2027

00:04:05.490 --> 00:04:14.494
- review of what we're looking at before we get started. Yes. Thank you, counsel. I appreciate this opportunity.

00:04:15.170 --> 00:04:21.825
- First, I just want to draw your attention to these binders that we created for all of the counselors.

00:04:21.825 --> 00:04:28.807
- You received the same information in the email format that it's in these binders. We just did the physical

00:04:28.807 --> 00:04:35.331
- format for some of the counselors, okay? All the counselors, but some prefer that method. So I want

00:04:35.331 --> 00:04:38.398
- to draw your attention to the second document.

00:04:38.498 --> 00:04:45.527
- And it's also in your email. And Carly has it populated on the screen there for the public. This is

00:04:45.527 --> 00:04:52.556
- what we plan to present to you every meeting as time allows for us to do so. You know, sometimes we

00:04:52.556 --> 00:05:00.007
- have a very quick turnaround, you know, between the time that we are making the adjustments to the budget

00:05:00.007 --> 00:05:05.982
- and the next meeting. So as time allows, we will have this updated for each meeting.

00:05:06.786 --> 00:05:12.899
- A couple of other things before we start going through this document, just very quickly, as Council

00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:19.440
- President highlighted, we've had some gateway issues. We're using a new budget system, Budget 2.0, through

00:05:19.440 --> 00:05:23.230
- the Indiana Gateway, and with anything new, you know, there's

00:05:23.426 --> 00:05:29.461
- sometimes some hiccups involved and the DLGF has been great about working through those. Unfortunately,

00:05:29.461 --> 00:05:35.322
- we are at a standstill right now on the 4B section. Our rate controlled funds are not populating the

00:05:35.322 --> 00:05:41.125
- levy they should. So I haven't gotten a response today from the DLGF. I'm confident they're working

00:05:41.125 --> 00:05:43.678
- on it and I'll give you an update tomorrow.

00:05:44.162 --> 00:05:50.485
- For now, we have this beautiful spreadsheet to work from. You can reconcile it to the DLGF budget forms

00:05:50.485 --> 00:05:56.869
- that we have, for example, the maximum levy, et cetera. Everything's on here. The revenue has been added

00:05:56.869 --> 00:06:03.313
- to Gateway. It's been audited. That is correct, and that will tie out here as well. The June 30th numbers

00:06:03.313 --> 00:06:09.454
- can be reconciled with Lau, our financial software. So everything is in there now, and this is where

00:06:09.454 --> 00:06:12.190
- we are starting from until changes are made.

00:06:12.386 --> 00:06:20.947
- So if you want to look at the simple calculation, that is the overview of all funds that we budget during

00:06:20.947 --> 00:06:29.346
- these budget sessions. So it doesn't include the grant funds and things we're not viewing at this time,

00:06:29.346 --> 00:06:37.423
- but includes everything else. So you'll start with the maximum property tax levy. Then we're adding

00:06:37.423 --> 00:06:40.734
- in that major bridge fund levy, which is

00:06:40.834 --> 00:06:47.388
- outside the max there, miscellaneous revenue, and then we're taking out the tax cap impact, the estimated

00:06:47.388 --> 00:06:53.818
- number that we get from the state, the Department of Local Government Finance. Then you have your total

00:06:53.818 --> 00:07:00.249
- estimated revenue there in that darker green. From there, we have the requested budget adjustments from

00:07:00.249 --> 00:07:06.432
- the Gateway Form 1. This does not include the advertising amounts that we put in to kind of inflate

00:07:06.432 --> 00:07:09.214
- that budget, so we have maximum flexibility.

00:07:09.474 --> 00:07:15.604
- Before the COLA amounts, the 2% COLA, we took 40% of those budgets and added that number in just to

00:07:15.604 --> 00:07:22.286
- give you maximum flexibility to be able to move budgets around. So this number is without that 40% increase.

00:07:22.286 --> 00:07:28.661
- We then removed the rainy day and bond appropriation. One, we don't know what we're doing with the bond

00:07:28.661 --> 00:07:34.791
- yet, right? So we don't have the revenue represented nor do we have the proposed budget represented

00:07:34.791 --> 00:07:36.446
- yet. That will come later.

00:07:37.474 --> 00:07:45.669
- And rainy day we don't intend on spending that right. So it it kind of unfairly inflates that budget

00:07:45.669 --> 00:07:53.782
- and then the deficit as well. OK. From there we're taking out that rainy day and bond appropriation

00:07:53.782 --> 00:08:02.058
- to get the total estimated expense. And then finally you have that simplified difference which is you

00:08:02.058 --> 00:08:03.518
- know the where we

00:08:03.618 --> 00:08:10.196
- either have a plus or a minus. Here we are positive. We're not starting with a deficit overall.

00:08:10.196 --> 00:08:17.116
- Now again, I want to remind you this is all the revenue and all of the budget. So we need to look at

00:08:17.116 --> 00:08:23.968
- a fund by fund basis, but this is where we are overall. So if you look on down then, we have a deep

00:08:23.968 --> 00:08:31.026
- dive calculation within the levy funds. And this shows you just those levy funds. It includes the rate

00:08:31.026 --> 00:08:33.150
- controlled funds and shows you

00:08:33.250 --> 00:08:40.425
- you know, where we are as far as those funds. And this is kind of where we need to concentrate and ensure

00:08:40.425 --> 00:08:47.329
- that we are going to have positive balances and that we have a sufficient operating balance to get us

00:08:47.329 --> 00:08:54.503
- through. So I'm happy to entertain questions, but this is what I want you to be familiar with. Obviously,

00:08:54.503 --> 00:09:00.798
- gateway is the best source once it's up and running properly anyway. So. Very much for that.

00:09:00.930 --> 00:09:08.636
- And to note for the record, we have Councillor Hogg joining us as well. Does anybody have any questions

00:09:08.636 --> 00:09:16.194
- on this item? Yes, Councillor Iverson. So for members of the public who are looking at their screens,

00:09:16.194 --> 00:09:23.604
- they're seeing here our levy funds have a negative $11.1 million. How is that, how do you reconcile

00:09:23.604 --> 00:09:26.494
- that with the above simplified budget?

00:09:27.042 --> 00:09:34.208
- Yeah, so the levy funds, obviously, we're just looking at the levy funds there. It's not accounting

00:09:34.208 --> 00:09:41.517
- for all of the other sources of revenue that we're looking at budgets for as well. So this deficit in

00:09:41.517 --> 00:09:47.966
- the levy funds, it's also not, it's representing just revenue versus expenditures, right?

00:09:48.290 --> 00:09:54.580
- taking into consideration the current cash balances. So for example, I know that the highway department

00:09:54.580 --> 00:10:00.930
- is planning, they're in the middle of a major project and they intend to go into some of their reserves.

00:10:00.930 --> 00:10:06.978
- It's been planned and so that deficit to me is not concerning. It's been planned, they've discussed

00:10:06.978 --> 00:10:11.998
- it with their liaisons and it's just been in the works. So we need to look at that

00:10:12.098 --> 00:10:18.615
- look at that that way as well. If there is a sufficient reserve that we intended on using for a special

00:10:18.615 --> 00:10:25.006
- project, et cetera, you might have some wiggle room there. Does that answer your question? I think it

00:10:25.006 --> 00:10:31.272
- does, and I think it's also helpful to note that the non-LEVI funds has the similar negative number

00:10:31.272 --> 00:10:36.222
- at the bottom, and the same explanation goes for that as well, right? It does.

00:10:36.450 --> 00:10:44.579
- We're gonna provide that information to the best of our ability, but I don't tend on presenting on all

00:10:44.579 --> 00:10:52.945
- of the other funds. It's just there as a tool, if you'd like it. Understood, okay. Yes, Councillor Hawke.

00:10:52.945 --> 00:11:00.837
- Yes. Perhaps in this stack of paperwork, it tells us very simply, here's what the total of the levy

00:11:00.837 --> 00:11:04.862
- fund requests are, and here's what the revenue is.

00:11:05.410 --> 00:11:12.705
- And so it's probably in that form right there. But when I was looking at it, what you put online, it

00:11:12.705 --> 00:11:20.434
- certainly did make it look like as if we were going to not end up with a good operating balance on several

00:11:20.434 --> 00:11:27.874
- of those funds. So if you looked at what our levy revenue is going to be in that max levy, we're going

00:11:27.874 --> 00:11:34.014
- to spread that out amongst some other funds. The county general won't get all of it.

00:11:34.946 --> 00:11:43.444
- So I think the one issue I looked at was that health department. So did you discuss that? If I may respond,

00:11:43.444 --> 00:11:51.313
- I that's a great point, Councillor Hawk, that I should have highlighted. We left with the exception

00:11:51.313 --> 00:11:59.261
- of the general fund, all of the levies as they were last year for this for twenty twenty six budgets

00:11:59.261 --> 00:12:03.038
- so that we could move those around together. So

00:12:03.362 --> 00:12:11.295
- everything extra, any additional revenue has been applied to the general fund. But obviously we're going

00:12:11.295 --> 00:12:19.227
- to have to move things around. And I'm assuming you're going to have some changes to the budget as well.

00:12:19.227 --> 00:12:26.933
- So we can address everything together. And is this taking into consideration the directive not to put

00:12:26.933 --> 00:12:29.502
- anything in the edit fund? It is.

00:12:33.346 --> 00:12:42.747
- That was like five million or something. Currently, there's nothing budgeted in that edit fund. However,

00:12:42.747 --> 00:12:51.968
- I'll let the council answer that question. And I will say for the record, I did ask for us to put some

00:12:51.968 --> 00:13:01.458
- or use the edit fund. And I did have a conversation with commissioners about that. So they're up tomorrow

00:13:01.458 --> 00:13:03.070
- for their budget.

00:13:03.170 --> 00:13:11.476
- And so we can have that conversation. But again, I did ask, because obviously we use training and travel,

00:13:11.476 --> 00:13:19.468
- different things. I know Highway Department is coming back and wanting to do that. I think airport is

00:13:19.468 --> 00:13:27.304
- as well. There is obviously a need for us to use that in order, I would think, to make sure that we

00:13:27.304 --> 00:13:31.614
- can give folks their COLA increases that would help us

00:13:32.546 --> 00:13:39.536
- greatly if we could use that. Yes, Councillor Iverson. Since you brought up COLA, is the cost of a living

00:13:39.536 --> 00:13:46.131
- adjustment for our employees baked into these numbers? It certainly is. This is the updated version

00:13:46.131 --> 00:13:52.858
- after the 2% COLA has been added. And just a quick shout out to all of our departments for helping us

00:13:52.858 --> 00:13:55.166
- get that turned around. Thank you.

00:13:59.490 --> 00:14:06.357
- So if there is no further questions, we will go ahead and get started. And we will have the first budget

00:14:06.357 --> 00:14:12.898
- hearing presentation with the public defenders. But I forgot to mention, too, and for counsel, that

00:14:12.898 --> 00:14:19.438
- each department will get through their entire budget presentation. So if there's any questions that

00:14:19.438 --> 00:14:26.044
- you all have for them, let's hold on until after their entire presentations are over. And then we'll

00:14:26.044 --> 00:14:29.118
- ask. But I'll also ask counsel, let's stick to

00:14:29.218 --> 00:14:38.641
- questions related to the 2027 budget. All right. Council, I move to open for discussion and review fund

00:14:38.641 --> 00:14:48.245
- 1000-0271 County General Public Defender, as well as fund 1200-0000 Public Defender Supplemental. Second.

00:14:48.245 --> 00:14:57.306
- All right, we got a motion and a second and we're joined by Mr. Hunt and other stuff, welcome. And.

00:14:57.306 --> 00:14:58.846
- Thank you. Yeah.

00:14:59.458 --> 00:15:05.835
- I'm Michael Hunt from the Public Defender's Office, and I have with me today Heather Stufel, my executive

00:15:05.835 --> 00:15:08.542
- assistant, and Don Freeman, who's one of our

00:15:08.642 --> 00:15:14.851
- system navigators that we're going to talk about so I brought her. We did have that we were going to

00:15:14.851 --> 00:15:21.491
- bring Judge Holly Harvey since she deals with the system navigators but she is in French Lick at a judicial

00:15:21.491 --> 00:15:27.761
- conference and so I've submitted a letter that we just received from her for the council when we talk

00:15:27.761 --> 00:15:32.126
- about that. The other thing is Mr. Joe Lozano one of our board members

00:15:32.386 --> 00:15:41.401
- Plan to be here, but he got stuck in a deposition somewhere down south. So I will try to be brief The

00:15:41.401 --> 00:15:50.238
- our effort was to comply with the requests On the budget and we think we have Except in a couple of

00:15:50.238 --> 00:15:59.518
- places and one being the system navigator positions those were on a grant and the grant has been phasing

00:15:59.518 --> 00:16:01.374
- out and so this time

00:16:01.474 --> 00:16:10.913
- for the for twenty twenty seven, the we're asking the council to fund the entire amount, which I think

00:16:10.913 --> 00:16:20.169
- is 40 percent more than what we funded last year. We do get reimbursed for that also. The letters, I

00:16:20.169 --> 00:16:27.134
- think both from my chief deputy, Ms. Emmerich and from Judge Harvey explain

00:16:27.778 --> 00:16:38.337
- the usefulness and the necessity for these positions. They help immensely. DCS, because of their growth,

00:16:38.337 --> 00:16:48.493
- our caseload in that area has grown immensely and those cases move very rapidly because they involve

00:16:48.493 --> 00:16:57.342
- children and they involve a lot of paperwork and talking with clients and relatives and

00:16:57.506 --> 00:17:07.588
- DCS people, and you can see, as Phyllis says, the work involved that helps our attorneys then process

00:17:07.588 --> 00:17:17.671
- the cases. Other than those, and we can talk about those more in detail, I think other than the COLA,

00:17:17.671 --> 00:17:27.358
- the step increases, and the qualifications, we've tried to freeze the budget at this year's rate.

00:17:28.738 --> 00:17:38.347
- and I think I'll ask for questions if you have some. That was easy. Okay. Questions? Yes, Councilor

00:17:38.347 --> 00:17:48.341
- Iverson. Thank you for being here. My question is in fund location 0271 in your threes. In professional

00:17:48.341 --> 00:17:57.278
- services, we see a $70,000 increase. It's a new line it looks like. Can you talk about that?

00:17:57.986 --> 00:18:05.771
- Certainly. Last year, upon the suggestion of, I guess, the auditor, we used to call that special services.

00:18:05.771 --> 00:18:13.120
- And that is used for depositions and everything. And all they did is transfer it. They took that and

00:18:13.120 --> 00:18:20.615
- transferred it to a new line and call it professional services. So it's not really an increase. Great.

00:18:20.615 --> 00:18:27.454
- And you can see that, well, yeah, further down in the red, you can see that negative $70,000.

00:18:27.714 --> 00:18:43.264
- Thank you. Anybody else that has any questions on their budget? Okay. So may we please have, oh, okay.

00:18:43.264 --> 00:18:52.926
- Can we please have a roll call vote? Are we going to talk about

00:18:53.890 --> 00:19:01.733
- because we opened both budgets. Are you going to go ahead? Oh, I thought you did already. OK. OK,

00:19:01.733 --> 00:19:10.217
- I can. That's the general county general. The other one is our supplemental. And I think the only changes

00:19:10.217 --> 00:19:18.380
- in that are, again, the normal rate increases. I don't think we've changed anything else in that. And

00:19:18.380 --> 00:19:23.102
- that's the one that we get reimbursed. We try to keep that

00:19:23.362 --> 00:19:31.277
- under a million dollars because that's basically what I can count on coming back and reimbursement.

00:19:31.277 --> 00:19:39.270
- That all depends on how much we spend and so that's flexible and I think a couple years ago that was

00:19:39.270 --> 00:19:47.501
- problematical but I think we straightened that out and we're counting on and I think we're in line with

00:19:47.501 --> 00:19:48.926
- that this year to

00:19:49.346 --> 00:20:01.086
- get about $1 million, and that's roughly what the supplemental is. No questions on that. May we please

00:20:01.086 --> 00:20:12.485
- have a roll call vote? Mr. Henry? Can you clarify what the vote is again? We are voting to move it.

00:20:12.485 --> 00:20:18.526
- To pass this on. To move it forward. Yes, thank you.

00:20:22.082 --> 00:20:50.110
- Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. Next up is from the coroner's office.

00:20:50.530 --> 00:20:57.750
- Council, I move to open for discussion and review fund 1000-0007 County General Coroner. Second.

00:20:57.750 --> 00:21:05.118
- All right, we got a motion and a second and shortly we'll be joined by the coroner, Mr. Jeff Hall.

00:21:32.066 --> 00:21:39.725
- Good evening, Council. So as you can see with this year's budget, it's pretty standard to what it was

00:21:39.725 --> 00:21:47.384
- last year. The only minor increases were from the two percent COLA increase. And then we did add that

00:21:47.384 --> 00:21:54.969
- additional part time paid employed position of the eight thousand from earlier this year. I did make

00:21:54.969 --> 00:21:57.822
- some deductions and a few other of my

00:21:57.922 --> 00:22:05.931
- items in both the supplies category and the services category and also reduced my Transport fees from

00:22:05.931 --> 00:22:13.784
- last year to 50,000 instead of 55,000 after doing some reviews. So it's pretty standard all the way

00:22:13.784 --> 00:22:21.636
- across the board Any questions for mr. Hall, yes Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming in. So let's

00:22:21.636 --> 00:22:22.814
- talk about the

00:22:22.946 --> 00:22:30.266
- the $5,000 off on the online 30020 transport bodies. Just guess, I mean, walk me through that. It's

00:22:30.266 --> 00:22:37.879
- just the monthly average is a little cheaper than what, if I average it out, it looks like you're going

00:22:37.879 --> 00:22:40.222
- to end the year around $44,000.

00:22:40.450 --> 00:22:46.910
- The company that we transport with, they charge a flat rate for a transport from Monroe County to Terre

00:22:46.910 --> 00:22:53.122
- Haute, where we do all our autopsies. And if we don't have families that have chosen a funeral home

00:22:53.122 --> 00:22:59.396
- to release those bodies to, then we provide transport back to Monroe County for that same flat rate.

00:22:59.396 --> 00:23:05.918
- I made it a point this year to really push for getting those bodies released to the funeral homes rather

00:23:06.018 --> 00:23:11.812
- quicker than bringing them back here to Monroe County, because unfortunately the only place that we

00:23:11.812 --> 00:23:16.158
- have for them to be stored in is the IU Health Hospital, and that does not

00:23:16.226 --> 00:23:21.733
- hold many bodies at a time. And so I get pushed back from the hospital if we have bodies just kind of

00:23:21.733 --> 00:23:27.186
- sitting in the more taking up space. So I made sure to reach out to my deputies and myself and said,

00:23:27.186 --> 00:23:32.693
- OK, let's really try to push for and get these bodies released to funeral homes, either post autopsy,

00:23:32.693 --> 00:23:38.146
- which in case we don't get charged for a transport back or if they get to get transported back, then

00:23:38.146 --> 00:23:43.922
- we make sure that we get them moving out very quickly. So basically, I've reduced the amount of transports

00:23:43.922 --> 00:23:45.758
- coming back than I had last year.

00:23:46.274 --> 00:23:55.322
- good. That's good stewardship. I appreciate it. Thank you. Other questions or comments? I think the

00:23:55.322 --> 00:24:04.733
- timers not working. Um, and obviously like your budget actually decreased from last year. So I was kind

00:24:04.733 --> 00:24:12.062
- of comparing what we had from this year to last year. And I, I just also want to

00:24:12.194 --> 00:24:21.001
- say thank you for looking at how we can save those dollars as much as possible without putting a strain

00:24:21.001 --> 00:24:29.893
- because you have a particular area that needs all. Correct. Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you. Any other

00:24:29.893 --> 00:24:38.446
- questions or comments for Mr. Hall? Paused again. Sorry. No, it's okay. We'll just move forward with

00:24:38.446 --> 00:24:41.918
- the roll call vote to move this forward.

00:24:43.042 --> 00:25:04.022
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

00:25:04.022 --> 00:25:12.414
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

00:25:12.610 --> 00:25:21.627
- Okay, next up is the Surveyor's Office. Council, I move to open for discussion and review Fund 1000-0006,

00:25:21.627 --> 00:25:30.389
- County General Surveyor, and Fund 1202-0000, Surveyor's Corner Perpetuation. Second. All right, we got

00:25:30.389 --> 00:25:39.066
- a motion and a second, and we're joined by the Surveyor, Mr. Randolph, welcome. Thank you. Well, I am

00:25:39.066 --> 00:25:41.278
- prepared. I would like to

00:25:41.506 --> 00:25:49.394
- introduce our survey technician Jason George. He's the senior full-time personnel and also the only

00:25:49.394 --> 00:25:57.361
- other person in the office that has administrative responsibilities. So I'm very grateful that he is

00:25:57.361 --> 00:26:05.249
- accompanying me today. And with that... Mr. Randolph, I'm sorry, I want to pause for a second. TSD,

00:26:05.249 --> 00:26:09.982
- can we get the timer going, please? I want to make sure you

00:26:10.402 --> 00:26:16.768
- Oh, it's going to be short and sweet. Don't worry. You're fine. I just want to make sure everybody can

00:26:16.768 --> 00:26:23.196
- see it. OK, proceed. It gets complicated because I have two funds and people kind of start overlapping.

00:26:23.196 --> 00:26:29.562
- Oh, yeah. With that said, I'm happy to be here. I have made a tradition to wear a blazer and once over

00:26:29.562 --> 00:26:33.950
- my nine years in the leadership role, I wore a tie. So with that said,

00:26:34.210 --> 00:26:45.990
- I'm going to, we're on general, right? So I'll run through it real quick. You see slight adjustments

00:26:45.990 --> 00:26:52.638
- due to COLA. Everything else is the same. Supplies $332.

00:26:53.154 --> 00:27:03.512
- Dues and training and travel total 10,126. The dues we pretty much burned down because those are not

00:27:03.512 --> 00:27:12.126
- just for my office, but they're for multiple offices for dues within the GIS space.

00:27:12.226 --> 00:27:19.554
- training and travel. As I always say, I'm not out here to spend things down. We have had a new hire,

00:27:19.554 --> 00:27:26.882
- so we kind of pulled back on just a little of that, but I do see us utilizing it in 2027 a lot more.

00:27:26.882 --> 00:27:34.211
- So just because we haven't spent it down doesn't mean it's important to retain that amount for 2027.

00:27:34.211 --> 00:27:42.192
- Also, that is not just exclusively for my office. That's also for other offices that are moving into that GIS

00:27:42.192 --> 00:27:50.808
- space. With that, the biggest adjustment has been my request for equal pay to other elected officials

00:27:50.808 --> 00:27:59.339
- and I just got a couple of bullet points. There's four full-time personnel in the office that do the

00:27:59.339 --> 00:28:08.039
- public land surveying system and also maintain the GIS system for the county. Also, there is typically

00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:09.982
- three part-time folks.

00:28:10.114 --> 00:28:18.486
- our office manager is part time, so I take a lot of the administrative role and Mr. George helps assist

00:28:18.486 --> 00:28:26.617
- me on that as well. I also serve on boards and commissions that really help define the growth of our

00:28:26.617 --> 00:28:35.230
- county. And one other thing about the GIS, you know, that's a cost benefit analysis kind of approach. So I

00:28:35.714 --> 00:28:44.088
- I don't have any metrics or ways to measure that. We have saved the county quite a bit of dollars and

00:28:44.088 --> 00:28:52.461
- efficiency and other types of resources from our growth and development in the space. With that said,

00:28:52.461 --> 00:29:00.671
- I'm hoping that you will approve the budget as is. And you can go on to the perpetuation fine. Just

00:29:00.671 --> 00:29:05.022
- do it all in one all in one. OK, this is new. Sorry.

00:29:05.378 --> 00:29:14.659
- Again, slight changes in personnel due to the COLA. I have reduced the field technician position due

00:29:14.659 --> 00:29:23.849
- to the corner fund is revenue generated fund and it's fluent. I'm seeing some upticks on that fund,

00:29:23.849 --> 00:29:26.238
- but until it gets back to

00:29:27.010 --> 00:29:34.886
- 80, 85, I'm going to continue to just kind of chip away on my overall budget. So that's why you see

00:29:34.886 --> 00:29:42.999
- the reduction. I'm keeping the part time the same. I'm increasing board members by 1000 from last year

00:29:42.999 --> 00:29:51.742
- because we have an additional member. Honestly, if you are inclined to open the budget for any reason, I would

00:29:51.938 --> 00:30:00.320
- probably ask you to add an additional thousand dollars to that line, but I can come back for additional

00:30:00.320 --> 00:30:08.541
- appropriation. That's no issue. We'll move down to category two, office supplies same, fuel same. I'm

00:30:08.541 --> 00:30:16.601
- reducing field operating supplies by a thousand dollars. We buy things in bulk, so we've got a good

00:30:16.601 --> 00:30:21.598
- supply. Again, that's a reflection of the fact it's a revenue

00:30:22.146 --> 00:30:30.706
- generated fund that's fluent, so doing my due diligence of chipping away, I think we'll be fine on that.

00:30:30.706 --> 00:30:39.022
- Where to employee clothing and uniforms, it's the same. We actually haven't touched that fund, but we

00:30:39.022 --> 00:30:47.582
- do need a little bit of field equipment or clothing this year. We may bring in a field technician that's

00:30:47.682 --> 00:30:54.390
- usually around 200, 300 bucks to get them fully outfitted. So, you know, I would just request that we

00:30:54.390 --> 00:31:01.097
- leave it the same. I always expand on that one because every office doesn't have that line. Moving to

00:31:01.097 --> 00:31:07.739
- services, training and travel reduced by $3,000. The way I've been able to achieve that is basically

00:31:07.739 --> 00:31:14.315
- since this is a non-reverting fund, I should always mention that it's non-reverting. So anything we

00:31:14.315 --> 00:31:17.406
- don't spend, we'll go back to the corner fund.

00:31:17.506 --> 00:31:24.921
- But it has to be used for perpetuation efforts. So one thing we do is the Indiana Society of Professional

00:31:24.921 --> 00:31:32.056
- Land Surveyors. That is also a recognized course from the DLGF. So now that they changed the language

00:31:32.056 --> 00:31:39.121
- for the elected training fund, I have that plus one. So the reduction is reflective of us being able

00:31:39.121 --> 00:31:47.166
- to utilize that fund. So just wanted to kind of explain that since I have two different travel and training lines.

00:31:47.266 --> 00:31:55.730
- Survey archives, we reduced that by 50%, 500 to 250. We got a new plotter, so there might be some costs

00:31:55.730 --> 00:32:03.868
- associated with that. I was just going to put a dollar to leave that line alive, but we figured the

00:32:03.868 --> 00:32:04.926
- 250 is fine.

00:32:05.282 --> 00:32:12.656
- Uh, miscellaneous, uh, we reduced that by 450 to a total of 2000 this year. Um, that's actually kind

00:32:12.656 --> 00:32:19.957
- of reflective of good housekeeping and creating lines that, um, are more, um, um, Relatable to what

00:32:19.957 --> 00:32:27.331
- the expenses that used to be a catchall. So now that we have different lines, this is kind of just a

00:32:27.331 --> 00:32:35.070
- reflection of good housekeeping and also chipping away at my overall budget. Um, we got the placeholders.

00:32:35.234 --> 00:32:41.811
- We all love the dollar placeholders. And then we got the geodetic coordinates. That used to be the line

00:32:41.811 --> 00:32:48.198
- that we paid our service agreements, but it's also the line that we pay for our corner documentation

00:32:48.198 --> 00:32:55.091
- program. We have seen an uptick from a new surveyor that came back into the community and started practicing

00:32:55.091 --> 00:32:59.454
- and is actually going through the program. So that's quite exciting.

00:32:59.682 --> 00:33:08.478
- Again, if you're inclined to open this budget, I would actually ask to move that line to 2500, but we

00:33:08.478 --> 00:33:17.446
- can come back for additional or we could probably do some in-house transfer. Again, no issue since it's

00:33:17.446 --> 00:33:26.328
- non-reverting. That's it. Where was I on time? You did awesome. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

00:33:26.328 --> 00:33:27.966
- Thank you so much.

00:33:28.834 --> 00:33:35.472
- Does anybody have any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank

00:33:35.472 --> 00:33:42.372
- you for coming in. I have two questions. I'll start with perpetuation and work my way back to the other.

00:33:42.372 --> 00:33:49.010
- So on one of our dollar holders, the account line 38002, last year we talked about the higher ed and

00:33:49.010 --> 00:33:55.779
- longevity. That was a program you were trying to use last year, right? Because I can't recall. We went

00:33:55.779 --> 00:33:58.014
- from $5,000 last year back to $1.

00:33:58.370 --> 00:34:05.459
- What happened there? Yeah. Uh, I finished my, uh, my survey training classes. So, uh, so we've, we've,

00:34:05.459 --> 00:34:12.411
- we've trained the person that was using it and we're going to, there's no reason to hold on to that.

00:34:12.411 --> 00:34:19.569
- And so do you anticipate the need to, to continue with that training program for others? And it's still

00:34:19.569 --> 00:34:26.452
- there, but no night, but I think leaving the dollars there really what I think is most important is

00:34:26.452 --> 00:34:27.966
- that is it shows the,

00:34:28.866 --> 00:34:35.589
- intention of investing in our employees with that line, even if it's not appropriated. It shows vision

00:34:35.589 --> 00:34:42.181
- of what this office wants to do and what it's going to continue to do by having that line there. No,

00:34:42.181 --> 00:34:49.034
- we have no ability to use it. We'll have to come back through a whole other agreement process and things

00:34:49.034 --> 00:34:50.078
- of that nature.

00:34:50.178 --> 00:34:56.928
- there won't even be any ability to do it in-house transfer. Well, congrats for completing the course.

00:34:56.928 --> 00:35:03.745
- And all right, very good. The other line I had just a question about was on the back in the other one.

00:35:03.745 --> 00:35:10.694
- It was the GIS technician line that was down. You had a reduction in salary from last year to this year.

00:35:10.694 --> 00:35:18.238
- Yes. What's the background on that? New hire. Our previous one, we were able to hire at eight year with the what?

00:35:19.010 --> 00:35:28.339
- knowledge, skills and ability. KSA and it's just they came in with a year of experience working at the

00:35:28.339 --> 00:35:37.487
- USGS and. We had a higher amount, the minimum though they'll be having a one year. Anniversary soon,

00:35:37.487 --> 00:35:46.816
- so we budgeted at the one year with the 2% increase cola. And thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you

00:35:46.816 --> 00:35:48.990
- also for a good budget.

00:35:49.090 --> 00:35:56.105
- And, you know, I'd love to see the correct cuts there. Indian Geological and Water Survey. Sorry, I

00:35:56.105 --> 00:36:03.470
- said that incorrect. That's where his previous experience was. It's 5.30. I'm out of words almost today.

00:36:03.470 --> 00:36:10.695
- Anyway, thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes. And perhaps the legislation

00:36:10.695 --> 00:36:18.622
- has changed in some fashion, but it was that if you were not a licensed surveyor, and we said your salary was X,

00:36:18.754 --> 00:36:25.555
- then if you've got a licensed surveyor, it had to be more. Can he legally tell us that they're not that

00:36:25.555 --> 00:36:32.160
- still in place? Because it was always, you have to watch what you say for the salary because then...

00:36:32.160 --> 00:36:38.765
- You're correct. We had this discussion before. If Ms. Turner-Keene wants to address it, or I'm happy

00:36:38.765 --> 00:36:39.550
- to as well.

00:36:41.666 --> 00:36:48.896
- can work on finding the statute but in essence it says that if you have a licensed surveyor you have

00:36:48.896 --> 00:36:56.485
- to pay them 1.5 times the amount of an unlicensed surveyor and I'm looking up the statute. I don't intend

00:36:56.485 --> 00:37:04.574
- we have a professional surveyor in the office so we're already achieving that work. If a licensed surveyor comes

00:37:05.698 --> 00:37:12.481
- into the office and is elected, I think the council has a whole other discussion in front of them because

00:37:12.481 --> 00:37:19.264
- that's two licensed surveyors. It also has nothing in that statute that man's date the licensed surveyors

00:37:19.264 --> 00:37:25.855
- stamp any of the products being done in the office and it also has a provision that they can run their

00:37:25.855 --> 00:37:32.382
- private firm out of the surveyors office. So I think this has been a blocking point due to a concern,

00:37:32.382 --> 00:37:33.662
- I won't say a fear,

00:37:33.794 --> 00:37:42.032
- But a concern, and I don't think that concern really should hold me or the surveyor's position at a

00:37:42.032 --> 00:37:50.600
- less pay of other elected officials, especially with very similar size offices and operations, but also

00:37:50.600 --> 00:37:58.920
- like a very high skill set crew that comes to the office every day and works and just our production

00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:01.886
- should be measured in a way, Marty,

00:38:02.370 --> 00:38:12.067
- or council, council member Hawk. Basically, what I said last time is, you know, like. We have a higher

00:38:12.067 --> 00:38:21.576
- standard at the surveyors office, and this is a way to reflect that higher standard, and the council

00:38:21.576 --> 00:38:30.238
- needs to hold that office accountable and holding them back by 10 percent. I don't think is

00:38:30.338 --> 00:38:38.709
- the correct thing to do in my opinion. So, uh, uh, county, the old department, if for some reason, um,

00:38:38.709 --> 00:38:46.917
- our surveyor would decide to move to California or Florida or some, uh, Sunshiny state, and we had a

00:38:46.917 --> 00:38:55.368
- replacement, uh, and they were a licensed surveyor, we would have to pay one, one and a half times what

00:38:55.368 --> 00:38:59.838
- his salary is now. Is that correct? It's been so long.

00:39:00.130 --> 00:39:07.653
- I think the applicable statute is Indiana code 36 to 1215 and it says when fixing the compensation of

00:39:07.653 --> 00:39:15.324
- County of Fish officers under this title the county fiscal body shall fix compensation for the surveyor

00:39:15.324 --> 00:39:17.758
- as if the surveyor is registered

00:39:20.386 --> 00:39:26.891
- and the compensation for the surveyor as if the surveyor is not registered. So our salary ordinance

00:39:26.891 --> 00:39:33.526
- should have if you are licensed and if you are not licensed. And it says the compensation fixed under

00:39:33.526 --> 00:39:40.225
- subdivision one, which is registered, must be one and one half times that fixed under subdivision two.

00:39:40.225 --> 00:39:46.860
- So the not registered. I make this a bit like the same thing as like with an assessor. You had to hit

00:39:46.860 --> 00:39:47.966
- a certain level.

00:39:48.194 --> 00:39:55.238
- To serve so I would really encourage you to go ahead. I know you could do it Go get your license and

00:39:55.238 --> 00:40:02.490
- then there'll be no discussion But I would like to see that happen for you. I think you'd be happy with

00:40:02.490 --> 00:40:09.882
- it It's just something I think we need to remember I'd like to look at the relevant section of the salary

00:40:09.882 --> 00:40:16.926
- ordinance. We have an elected officials grid and I think that portrays this issue really clearly and

00:40:17.410 --> 00:40:32.055
- I'm a visual learner, so maybe I'm being a little biased, but I think Michelle has selected official

00:40:32.055 --> 00:40:44.670
- grid up. So here, here we see the surveyor at 90%. This is current, correct, Michelle?

00:40:44.802 --> 00:40:56.886
- This is for 2027. So this is what his budget should be at. And the split then is... No, we'll talk about

00:40:56.886 --> 00:41:08.970
- that. So the split then should be 55, 995 for the general fund. And then when you get to the stormwater,

00:41:08.970 --> 00:41:14.494
- it's 18665. So this is the amount it should be.

00:41:15.106 --> 00:41:27.746
- based on what your current grid is. But if you're wanting him to be bumped up to the 100%, then his

00:41:27.746 --> 00:41:40.387
- amount that he has here reflects that at the 100%. That would be 75%. That reflects. Right. And the

00:41:40.387 --> 00:41:43.294
- fiscal concern here is

00:41:43.522 --> 00:41:49.757
- has nothing to do with your qualifications or who you are as a person. The fiscal concern is if there

00:41:49.757 --> 00:41:56.054
- was someone who did have that license that we would then be paying 1.5 on top of whatever salary we're

00:41:56.054 --> 00:42:02.228
- increasing it to. And so there's a very real concern that in the future that would be an amount that

00:42:02.228 --> 00:42:08.525
- maybe not be sustainable in one of these budgets. I agree. I also agree that there would be a lot more

00:42:08.525 --> 00:42:12.926
- to discuss if there was two licensed surveyors in the surveyors office.

00:42:13.090 --> 00:42:20.213
- I also would like to mention that there are unlicensed surveyors that are making the one and a half

00:42:20.213 --> 00:42:27.479
- right now that I would be if I was licensed throughout the state. Hamilton County is a great example.

00:42:27.479 --> 00:42:34.674
- Obviously, Hamilton County is always the one you would like to point at. But, you know, I'm not even

00:42:34.674 --> 00:42:41.726
- attempting to ask that. I'm just asking for equitable pay, equal pay with other elected officials.

00:42:48.162 --> 00:42:57.640
- I'm a little bit pleased over this a little bit, but I wanted to make sure I understood the. The benefit

00:42:57.640 --> 00:43:07.208
- OK, so. What other costs savings might there be if there were a licensed elected official in your office?

00:43:07.208 --> 00:43:16.506
- So you said something about well, it's not like they would be stamping that there's no. Guarantee it's

00:43:16.506 --> 00:43:17.950
- all going to be

00:43:18.530 --> 00:43:25.796
- And as much as we want to look at it as office, it's always going to be the person that's in that leadership

00:43:25.796 --> 00:43:32.729
- role. Ms. Turner-King, if she can identify something or interpret it different than me, it doesn't say,

00:43:32.729 --> 00:43:39.596
- if you're licensed, that you have to use your seal for operations within the surveyor's office. So the

00:43:39.596 --> 00:43:46.462
- work we're conducting now, doing full boundary perpetuation surveys and also creating monument records

00:43:46.658 --> 00:43:53.197
- licensed surveyor stamp is a surveyor product. There is no guarantee if a licensed surveyor comes in

00:43:53.197 --> 00:43:57.470
- here that they're going to use their stamp on any of the products

00:43:57.666 --> 00:44:02.835
- that are produced within the surveyor's office, that's going to be based on the person themselves. And

00:44:02.835 --> 00:44:07.904
- at that point, I think council is going to have to figure out a whole new way to have a conversation

00:44:07.904 --> 00:44:13.074
- when a licensed surveyor comes in to see if they're actually using their license to help support their

00:44:13.074 --> 00:44:18.193
- office. Also, the fact that they could come in there and run their own private practice I think would

00:44:18.193 --> 00:44:20.702
- be a big concern. And then I think it just really

00:44:20.994 --> 00:44:27.544
- is up to the council to make sure that these offices are meeting those new standards and being accountable

00:44:27.544 --> 00:44:33.727
- and I personally don't I understand everyone's point about the physical impact if they were licensed

00:44:33.727 --> 00:44:39.970
- and I've been committed to tell the council if I'm going to pursue that and that's going to be a case

00:44:39.970 --> 00:44:46.398
- but every year we come to this discussion and you can address it if there is a licensed surveyor because

00:44:46.594 --> 00:44:54.953
- Outside of that, I just think this is an easy way of keeping me at 90 percent, in my opinion. Going

00:44:54.953 --> 00:45:03.563
- back to the and I think this was in the general budget, I think. Can't remember. Right. The board. And

00:45:03.563 --> 00:45:11.838
- you said there's one additional member now to the board. Yes. And how many people are there total?

00:45:11.938 --> 00:45:19.741
- We have four board members. We pay him 100 bucks a month. OK, so I mean we never get perfect attendance.

00:45:19.741 --> 00:45:27.395
- We typically cancel two meetings a year where actually we almost hit our quota this month, but or last

00:45:27.395 --> 00:45:34.900
- month. It's the beginning of this month. Except for we got stuck on a corner for like almost an hour

00:45:34.900 --> 00:45:39.582
- and it was miserable. So this board is set in place to review.

00:45:39.810 --> 00:45:48.063
- your work. Yeah, there's a policy 97. It created the Surveyor Review Board. And that's kind of because

00:45:48.063 --> 00:45:56.075
- we didn't have a licensed surveyor in the office. But now we do. But I still think best practice is

00:45:56.075 --> 00:46:04.889
- actually I would like to see this be replicated to other counties as we work with the surrounding profession.

00:46:04.889 --> 00:46:08.254
- And then we all come together and look at

00:46:08.546 --> 00:46:14.525
- the perpetuation efforts. And we have immense more information and a lot more consensus on if this is

00:46:14.525 --> 00:46:20.387
- the correct monument or section corner, because this is the framework of property rights. So we are

00:46:20.387 --> 00:46:26.601
- theoretically or actually preserving and protecting the property rights of every property owner in Monroe

00:46:26.601 --> 00:46:32.990
- County. That's including the city of Bloomington and the town of Ellisville and Spencer, so on and so forth.

00:46:34.178 --> 00:46:42.640
- I mean, that's the that's what we're doing and we're doing at a very high level. And I know that it

00:46:42.640 --> 00:46:51.440
- doesn't it's not sexy work for a lot of people, nor is GIS. So it's like it's really hard to articulate

00:46:51.440 --> 00:47:01.086
- how valuable the surveyors office is to this community and this county government organization. Counselor Decker.

00:47:02.850 --> 00:47:09.545
- Thank you very much. I apologize for joining remotely, but one thing that occurs to me is the state

00:47:09.545 --> 00:47:16.239
- of Indiana has clearly written the law to give flexibility to counties for either the elected model

00:47:16.239 --> 00:47:23.068
- with a license professional surveyor or opposite of that, because I would think it would be difficult

00:47:23.068 --> 00:47:29.830
- for a lot of communities to find somebody for this very highly technical work. So the option kind of

00:47:29.830 --> 00:47:31.838
- then falls to us, and I think

00:47:32.642 --> 00:47:39.928
- Mr. Surveyor, what you're saying is if the county would get a licensed surveyor in your role in the

00:47:39.928 --> 00:47:47.650
- future, that person might just disregard all the practices you have that they're allowed to under Indiana

00:47:47.650 --> 00:47:54.936
- law. That would just be a choice of style. Is that right? Essentially, you know, I base lead people

00:47:54.936 --> 00:48:01.566
- in leadership roles off their track record. So, you know, it's going to be the person that

00:48:01.762 --> 00:48:08.274
- takes over that role of their license or not, of how they want to conduct the office. Yes, Councillor

00:48:08.274 --> 00:48:14.721
- Henry. Thank you. I know we've spent some time on it, but it is a big adjustment. I wasn't here when

00:48:14.721 --> 00:48:21.233
- the grid was formed. As far as I'm concerned, a constitutional office in the state, your office among

00:48:21.233 --> 00:48:28.000
- the others in this building, you're getting paid less than the other constitutional offices in our county

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:28.766
- government.

00:48:29.314 --> 00:48:39.087
- Quite understood that. How long you been in office? How many terms? Since 2016, so three, so 10 years.

00:48:39.087 --> 00:48:48.861
- I was caucused in. Oh, I've been with the county for 25 years and sorry, 20 years and been the elected

00:48:48.861 --> 00:48:56.926
- surveyor for nine, 10 years. Previous surveyors in office. How long? Previous? Yeah.

00:48:57.186 --> 00:49:05.364
- I'm sorry. You're your predecessor. How long was he in office? He had a tenure from 97 to 2000 and then

00:49:05.364 --> 00:49:13.228
- restart in 05 and I came back at 05. It's very possible you outlast us all up here, right? The next

00:49:13.228 --> 00:49:21.328
- surveyor might be looking at a completely different council and can wrestle with that future question.

00:49:21.328 --> 00:49:23.294
- I was supportive of this

00:49:23.394 --> 00:49:29.774
- weeks ago when you presented it. I'm still supportive of it now. And it's that equity question at this

00:49:29.774 --> 00:49:36.154
- point. If for some reason you move on and someone else comes in, we can have that debate that day. But

00:49:36.154 --> 00:49:42.472
- that's a point in time. So I'm happy to support this as presented. And I appreciate the effort you've

00:49:42.472 --> 00:49:48.791
- made to control the rest of your budget in both accounts. So thank you. Yes, definitely agree on that

00:49:48.791 --> 00:49:49.534
- part. Okay.

00:49:50.274 --> 00:49:57.953
- Yes, I just want to confirm before we vote on things that the salary reflected in this budget is an

00:49:57.953 --> 00:50:05.708
- increase to 100 percent or is okay. I just want to make sure what we were voting on. Yeah, I'll pull

00:50:05.708 --> 00:50:13.310
- this over real quick. This would be the split at where it says 100 percent base, so it would be 62

00:50:13.506 --> 00:50:22.406
- It would be 217 because we round up is basically what it is. And then the storm water part would be

00:50:22.406 --> 00:50:31.305
- the 2738 and that is at the 100 percent. We have the same math. We have the same math. That's good.

00:50:31.305 --> 00:50:40.205
- In the interest of sorry. Just in the interest of protecting the general fund. Is there a way to do

00:50:40.205 --> 00:50:42.430
- the split differently or

00:50:42.914 --> 00:50:51.779
- incorporate a little bit of the increase into a non-reverting or some other fund? I mean, I don't know

00:50:51.779 --> 00:51:00.731
- what the logic was with stormwater. I mean, it makes sense, but was there a limit? So council made that

00:51:00.731 --> 00:51:09.165
- decision. And then over the years, they've been shifting personnel within stormwater at different

00:51:09.165 --> 00:51:12.350
- percentages. And I was on your side.

00:51:12.770 --> 00:51:20.870
- not too long ago when I was looking over the budget of stormwater, when we were adding different percentages

00:51:20.870 --> 00:51:28.450
- of different employees, where a majority of their work is actually within the highway department. And

00:51:28.450 --> 00:51:36.178
- I do have a lot of duties that are stormwater related, and they're kind of like the non-reverting fund,

00:51:36.178 --> 00:51:42.718
- the corner fund, they have to be relatable to stormwater. And I think that 25% is fair.

00:51:42.818 --> 00:51:54.844
- I think more would start fracturing our metrics of how to calculate percentages of employees being paid

00:51:54.844 --> 00:51:56.926
- out of that fund.

00:51:59.106 --> 00:52:07.651
- Firstly, if I was sitting over there and it was presented, can we move the surveyor to 30%? I'm like,

00:52:07.651 --> 00:52:16.280
- do they do 30% of their day-to-day job? And I would say 25 is a reasonable, fair number. Would you say

00:52:16.280 --> 00:52:25.076
- that 10% of your job is around corner perpetuation work? Oh, absolutely, except for that is a fund we're

00:52:25.076 --> 00:52:27.422
- trying to keep sustainable.

00:52:27.618 --> 00:52:34.927
- With the revenue dips, it took me 10 years to get full-time personnel out of there until they passed

00:52:34.927 --> 00:52:42.526
- a house bill that then quadrupled the fund. And the only reason I was able to create the other positions

00:52:42.526 --> 00:52:49.980
- is because 25% of the professional surveyor comes out of there, 50% of the survey technician comes out

00:52:49.980 --> 00:52:54.974
- of there. It really has very limited wiggle room left and, you know,

00:52:56.386 --> 00:53:05.764
- So yes, that would be an easy way for me to get support. But, you know, I have to be very financially

00:53:05.764 --> 00:53:14.867
- responsible. And, you know, I'm not taking the easiest path forward. I'm doing what is financially

00:53:14.867 --> 00:53:22.590
- responsible as a steward of taxpayers money. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

00:53:22.850 --> 00:53:32.217
- All right. And seeing no other questions or comments on this budget presentation, maybe please have

00:53:32.217 --> 00:53:42.428
- a roll call vote. I'm sorry. And just to reiterate, you're voting on both funds at the same time. Councillor

00:53:42.428 --> 00:53:52.638
- Wills. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Crosley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.

00:53:53.026 --> 00:54:01.248
- Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawke. She said no. OK. Motion passes unanimous or big pardon. She

00:54:01.248 --> 00:54:09.470
- didn't majority. I don't think we heard her. We didn't. Yes. We caught it. Yeah, we caught you. Yeah.

00:54:09.470 --> 00:54:17.854
- Motion passes by a majority six one. Thank you. Sorry for. No, you're totally wrong. It's a discussion.

00:54:17.854 --> 00:54:20.030
- Yeah. Thank you very much.

00:54:20.450 --> 00:54:30.034
- All right, next up is the Parks Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and review.

00:54:30.034 --> 00:54:40.122
- Fund 1000-0803, County General Parks. Fund 1178-0000, Parks, Non-Reverting Capital. Fund 4113-0000,

00:54:40.122 --> 00:54:48.798
- Donations Parks. And finally, Fund 1179-0000, Parks, Non-Reverting Operating. Second.

00:54:49.282 --> 00:54:57.129
- We got a motion and a second. We are joined by Miss Kelly Whitmer. Welcome. Thank you. Are we ready?

00:54:57.129 --> 00:55:04.898
- We should. TSD, can we please? Thank you. Go for it. All right. Would you like me to talk about all

00:55:04.898 --> 00:55:12.900
- the budgets? That's right. All right. This should be really simple. We've added and deleted lines with

00:55:12.900 --> 00:55:18.494
- consultation from financial director Woodruff and we've kept all of our

00:55:19.106 --> 00:55:30.230
- budget. The county general lines are the total the same. We have not asked for one dime more. Pursuant

00:55:30.230 --> 00:55:41.354
- to President Crossley's budget letter. Budget 11 78. The bottom line is exactly what it was last year.

00:55:41.354 --> 00:55:47.294
- $100,000. Budget 4113. This is the second year for it,

00:55:47.778 --> 00:55:57.930
- Budget 1179 is identical to last year, 300,000. Anything for personnel, that's up to you. That's all

00:55:57.930 --> 00:56:08.081
- I have. Easy. Thank you. I like it. I'll start. I appreciated you working with your budget this time

00:56:08.081 --> 00:56:17.630
- around, because from last year to this year, there was a decrease. So yeah, I'd appreciate it.

00:56:18.978 --> 00:56:27.072
- can read and your letter was very clear. I appreciate that. Thank you. This is a team effort. This is

00:56:27.072 --> 00:56:35.086
- us helping everybody so we can get to the big finish line, which is hopefully the COLA. So any other

00:56:35.086 --> 00:56:43.179
- questions or comments from council? Oh, I'm sorry. This is Andy French, our park superintendent. He's

00:56:43.179 --> 00:56:46.750
- out in this 90 degree weather, so bless him.

00:56:48.194 --> 00:56:57.422
- It's a hard week. Yes. I hope you are staying hydrated. All right. Any or any questions or comments

00:56:57.422 --> 00:57:06.927
- from? Yes. Councilor Iverson. I'm going to ask about the new park over on the east side. Where is that

00:57:06.927 --> 00:57:14.494
- included in this budget? It is not. Oh, OK. Great. Good to know. Go on. Go twice.

00:57:16.130 --> 00:57:23.551
- Now we may use some of the donation funds since they were from the Huntington Trust for that project,

00:57:23.551 --> 00:57:30.971
- but other than that, zero. Okay. Councillor Henry. Thank you. And so since I guess the donation parks

00:57:30.971 --> 00:57:38.974
- fund is new, can you maybe give a background a little bit about just generally how that's working or how that

00:57:39.778 --> 00:57:47.283
- how that works in terms of the donation coming in, the expenditures, is it reverting? I mean, if we

00:57:47.283 --> 00:57:54.789
- don't use things, can you walk through some things just for our understanding? It's a non-reverting

00:57:54.789 --> 00:57:57.566
- account in the auditor's office with

00:57:57.794 --> 00:58:04.945
- consultation to the state of Indiana said this is how we need to do this. So we created the fund. Any

00:58:04.945 --> 00:58:12.376
- donation, if you would like to give us a $50 donation for a tree, it'll go into this line. The Huntington

00:58:12.376 --> 00:58:19.387
- Trust has been the largest donation in here. In order to spend money, we'll have to create lines to

00:58:19.387 --> 00:58:26.398
- do that. We want the Monroe County Nature Park to be self-sufficient. And this is one way to do it.

00:58:27.074 --> 00:58:34.148
- in five years and 10 years, you know, we can't tell you what they'll give us each year and they can't

00:58:34.148 --> 00:58:41.083
- tell us what we get each year. We just hope the best for the economy because it's all in stocks and

00:58:41.083 --> 00:58:48.295
- bonds and whatnot. So if a donation came to you that didn't fit nicely in an account line, I guess we'd

00:58:48.295 --> 00:58:55.646
- have to go create one. I don't know what it would be or how it would work. Yeah, no, all the cash that we

00:58:56.482 --> 00:59:04.414
- Say you want to give us a $50 donation, we just deposit it into this account. It doesn't go into a particular

00:59:04.414 --> 00:59:11.914
- line. It just is a chunk of money, non-reverting, and then you appropriate that, oh, you can only spend

00:59:11.914 --> 00:59:19.774
- $1,000 for utilities, and that's all we will spend in that line. So no restricted gifts like you have to do?

00:59:19.970 --> 00:59:30.533
- If there's a restricted gift, we would encourage them to donate to the Monroe County Parks and Recreation

00:59:30.533 --> 00:59:40.797
- Foundation. That's good. I appreciate that. Thank you. Are you fully staffed? No. Can you tell me what

00:59:40.797 --> 00:59:48.670
- the situation is there? We have a few people on FMLA. So our staff is reduced.

00:59:49.314 --> 00:59:57.588
- We have part time staff on the park side that no fault of their own. They have become ill or they have

00:59:57.588 --> 01:00:06.103
- a family emergency and we've not been able to rehire in the middle of the season because everyone already

01:00:06.103 --> 01:00:14.296
- has a job. So it has been very difficult. We also know that the council has encouraged departments to

01:00:14.296 --> 01:00:15.742
- revert money back

01:00:15.874 --> 01:00:24.049
- to the county general. So we think we're gonna be reverting maybe 50,000 in our hourly line to help

01:00:24.049 --> 01:00:32.305
- out with the situation. So that's why we're trying to help. Other than that, we'll spend it all next

01:00:32.305 --> 01:00:40.888
- year. So it's been a lot of unfortunate situations on our side. When you say part-time on the park side,

01:00:40.888 --> 01:00:44.158
- so you were talking about your program,

01:00:44.578 --> 01:00:53.833
- seasonal folks or are seasonal folks who take care of the restrooms who do a lot of weed eating, mowing,

01:00:53.833 --> 01:01:02.646
- opening the parks at seven in the morning, weekend stuff. They've had unfortunate things happen. No

01:01:02.646 --> 01:01:11.636
- fault of their own. Councilor Decker. It seems like thank you for all this. It seems like five or six

01:01:11.636 --> 01:01:12.606
- years ago.

01:01:12.898 --> 01:01:21.279
- We had nothing but nonstop discussions about hiring at every department. And I was just curious while

01:01:21.279 --> 01:01:29.741
- you were here, is hiring overall difficult right now, just period, or is it worse, better, or what are

01:01:29.741 --> 01:01:38.040
- your thoughts? This is the worst year that I've been here on hiring. It is really hard to get people

01:01:38.040 --> 01:01:40.094
- to come in to interview.

01:01:40.354 --> 01:01:48.769
- You know, we were starting them around $15 an hour. You know, if you stay with us, we'll keep giving

01:01:48.769 --> 01:01:57.102
- you raises. But I don't know. People may not want to work in 90 degree weather. So it is hard. It's

01:01:57.102 --> 01:02:05.934
- hard to hire Andy. He's been doing this every single week for the last few months, trying to find people.

01:02:05.934 --> 01:02:08.350
- We were scouring the county.

01:02:08.802 --> 01:02:18.751
- So if you, and the thing is that the job only lasts for another month or two, so no one will jump on

01:02:18.751 --> 01:02:28.699
- board. Councilor Hawk? Councilor Hawk? You gotta pull your microphone. Could you remind us what your

01:02:28.699 --> 01:02:36.382
- range is for your part-time? Cause I heard you say $15 an hour and literally,

01:02:37.538 --> 01:02:45.153
- It's hard to even find a high school person to come and do yard work for $15 an hour. I have to pay

01:02:45.153 --> 01:02:52.921
- $20. And then can't even get people to do it at $20. I believe we up to $15 to $25. And that would be

01:02:52.921 --> 01:03:00.765
- like, if we found a farmer who has great tractor skills or heavy equipment, we would start them around

01:03:00.765 --> 01:03:05.182
- $20 an hour, give or take. So it depends what your skill.

01:03:05.314 --> 01:03:13.358
- skill level is and where you're at. But we want to be fair to the people who've been here a while, too.

01:03:13.358 --> 01:03:21.324
- But yeah. And we will give raises like if you, you know, if you're here a couple of weeks and you keep

01:03:21.324 --> 01:03:29.291
- showing up, we'll give you a raise right away. We just don't want to do all the paperwork and and then

01:03:29.291 --> 01:03:31.070
- you quit in five days.

01:03:35.522 --> 01:03:44.854
- Any other questions or comments on this budget? Again, much thanks to you and your staff and for all

01:03:44.854 --> 01:03:54.279
- your due diligence on your budget here. May we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson? Yes.

01:03:54.279 --> 01:04:03.888
- Councillor Fiddle? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor

01:04:03.888 --> 01:04:05.182
- Deckard? Yes.

01:04:06.434 --> 01:04:15.262
- Motion passes unanimous, 7-0. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I wanted to thank the auditor's office.

01:04:15.262 --> 01:04:24.089
- They've been a big help, especially Carly. Yay. Go team, go. All right, next up is the recorder's office.

01:04:24.089 --> 01:04:33.000
- Council, I move to open for discussion and review. Fund 1000-0004, county general recorder. Fund 1160-000,

01:04:33.000 --> 01:04:35.998
- identification security protection.

01:04:36.450 --> 01:04:45.174
- Fund 1160-0000, Identification Security Protection. Fund 1217-0000, County Elected Officials Training.

01:04:45.174 --> 01:04:53.813
- And finally, Fund 1189-0000, Recorders, Records, Perpetuation. Second. All right. We got a motion and

01:04:53.813 --> 01:04:59.742
- a second, and we are joined here by the recorder, Amy Swain. Welcome.

01:05:00.610 --> 01:05:07.699
- Good evening, counselors and everyone else. I wanted to start off by thanking Michelle and Ms. Aplaca

01:05:07.699 --> 01:05:14.649
- for their help with putting this budget together. There were some difficulties and it really helped

01:05:14.649 --> 01:05:21.807
- to have them help us with that. On county general, the only thing for the recorder's office that comes

01:05:21.807 --> 01:05:28.757
- out of county general is some of our salaries. And so the only difference in that is the 2% cost of

01:05:28.757 --> 01:05:30.078
- living adjustment.

01:05:30.242 --> 01:05:39.631
- for the Identification Security Protection Fund that is funded by fees from our office and it is set

01:05:39.631 --> 01:05:49.578
- out by statute how that money is to be used. There is no change in that fund. The 1217, the County Elected

01:05:49.578 --> 01:05:53.854
- Officials Training Fund, I did increase that.

01:05:53.954 --> 01:06:03.021
- Council was at it a couple of years ago. Trainings by the Association of Indiana County State Board

01:06:03.021 --> 01:06:12.360
- of Accounts are covered by that costs for travel and lodging and registration have increased. And this

01:06:12.360 --> 01:06:21.609
- fund is used by the elected officials to make sure that they get the training hours that are required

01:06:21.609 --> 01:06:22.878
- by the state.

01:06:23.650 --> 01:06:32.238
- within our time in office. And so, last year, or the current year, other funds have been utilized for

01:06:32.238 --> 01:06:40.658
- that, but I wanna make sure there's enough in the fund to justify this amount, and I wanted to make

01:06:40.658 --> 01:06:49.162
- sure that there was enough in there for people to go to the trainings, including counselors, if they

01:06:49.162 --> 01:06:50.846
- desired to do that.

01:06:52.354 --> 01:07:00.066
- The last one is the Recorders Perpetuation Fund. There's not a lot of change in that other than in the

01:07:00.066 --> 01:07:07.628
- contractual line. This is a fund that is at the discretion of the Recorders Office, but I'm happy to

01:07:07.628 --> 01:07:15.340
- present an itemized budget for your review so you can talk about how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

01:07:15.340 --> 01:07:22.078
- Some other counties, they do a sworn statement and there's a dollar amount and that's it.

01:07:22.178 --> 01:07:30.158
- I have no problem providing this itemized budget. And like said, as you can see, the contractual line

01:07:30.158 --> 01:07:37.981
- is significantly higher for next year because that's phase three of our scanning project that we've

01:07:37.981 --> 01:07:45.882
- been doing for the books and physically in our office. OK, that's it. Well, thank you very much. And

01:07:45.882 --> 01:07:50.654
- I want to note for the record, because it was in our packet,

01:07:50.914 --> 01:08:00.677
- that we are in receipt of the recorder sworn statement for fund 1189-000 recorders records perpetuation

01:08:00.677 --> 01:08:10.158
- for budget year 2027. Just wanted to add that. All right, any questions or comments for Ms. Wayne on

01:08:10.158 --> 01:08:20.766
- her budget? Councilor Hawke? She always brings us a good clean budget, so it's easy to say yes. Councilor Woods?

01:08:20.930 --> 01:08:30.097
- I apologize if you just said this, but the equipment line that increases that purchasing equipment for

01:08:30.097 --> 01:08:39.441
- scanning. Yes, the one that they just highlighted in your perpetuation. Yeah, I'm taking a look at that.

01:08:39.441 --> 01:08:48.786
- Oh, I see I did increase that line as well. Thank you for pointing that out, Counselor Wilts. Oh, you're

01:08:48.786 --> 01:08:49.854
- so welcome.

01:08:50.018 --> 01:08:59.722
- One of the things that I did a couple of years ago was to upgrade our microfilm scanner. It was needed

01:08:59.722 --> 01:09:09.144
- and we moved the previous one to the archives and then found out that there is a part of that older

01:09:09.144 --> 01:09:17.246
- scanner that does not play well with Windows 11 and so that will need to be replaced.

01:09:17.538 --> 01:09:23.658
- so that we can utilize it when people are over in the archives. And so that was one thing, and there

01:09:23.658 --> 01:09:29.898
- may be other things that come up. And again, there's enough in the fund, but I wanted to plan for that

01:09:29.898 --> 01:09:36.200
- and anything else that might be needed. Because as we move to the digital records that these scans that

01:09:36.200 --> 01:09:42.562
- we've been working on are going to produce, I was talking with a couple of title searchers in the office

01:09:42.562 --> 01:09:45.470
- today, and they said that it would be important

01:09:45.794 --> 01:09:54.225
- because I would like to move the physical books over to archives for safety sake, since it's a dry fire

01:09:54.225 --> 01:10:02.413
- suppression system. And now that we have things digitized, that microfilm options would be important

01:10:02.413 --> 01:10:10.682
- in case the scan is hard to read. One of the things that we can do is to take the books that would be

01:10:10.682 --> 01:10:13.438
- over in archives and rescan that.

01:10:13.730 --> 01:10:21.068
- Software called Irfan view where we can use the book I scanner in our office take that software and

01:10:21.068 --> 01:10:28.919
- enhance the image but in the meantime the Microfilm would be available for the title searchers and whoever

01:10:28.919 --> 01:10:36.403
- else the public whoever else would use the scanner to get those records in a format that they can see

01:10:36.403 --> 01:10:41.246
- well Thank you, and thank you for letting me see the archives and

01:10:41.858 --> 01:10:51.124
- Yeah, it was very interesting. And if any of the other counselors would like to to visit the archives,

01:10:51.124 --> 01:11:00.479
- more than welcome to show that to you. Any other questions or comments on this budget item? None, maybe

01:11:00.479 --> 01:11:09.745
- please have a roll call, though. Counselor Henry? Yes. Counselor Deckard? Yes. Counselor Crosley? Yes.

01:11:09.745 --> 01:11:11.454
- Counselor Iverson?

01:11:11.586 --> 01:11:20.381
- Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous seven

01:11:20.381 --> 01:11:28.758
- zero. Thank you all. All right. Thank you. Have a good night. Happy birthday. All right. Next up is

01:11:28.758 --> 01:11:37.469
- the last budget for the evening. And it is from the prosecutor's office. And can you mention that David

01:11:37.469 --> 01:11:41.406
- Henry left? Yes. Oh, yeah. And for the record,

01:11:41.794 --> 01:11:51.274
- Council Henry has left the building or left the room and eventually will leave the building so Council

01:11:51.274 --> 01:12:00.847
- I move to open for discussion and review fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor fund 1000-0660 County

01:12:00.847 --> 01:12:07.198
- General child support fund 1170-0009 public safety lit and finally I

01:12:07.330 --> 01:12:16.792
- fund twenty five oh three dash zero zero zero zero diversion user fees. Okay we got a motion and a second

01:12:16.792 --> 01:12:25.985
- and we are joined by the prosecutor miss Hamlin welcome hey thank you I'm your last step before dinner

01:12:25.985 --> 01:12:28.574
- so I'll try to keep it fast.

01:12:28.962 --> 01:12:35.577
- Good evening. Thank you. I know you guys are putting a lot of hard work and careful attention to the

01:12:35.577 --> 01:12:42.257
- twenty twenty seven budgets and I'm mindful that you are making tough decisions. So I appreciate you.

01:12:42.257 --> 01:12:48.414
- We have four separate budgets to present this year to large extent. We aren't making a lot of

01:12:48.482 --> 01:12:56.029
- Great changes, but before I get into the nuance of those I just want to make a few comments about the

01:12:56.029 --> 01:13:03.724
- work of our office I did as you know submit a review to try to give you a highlight of some of the work

01:13:03.724 --> 01:13:11.197
- in our office I hope to keep that going and improve that report each year to keep everybody informed

01:13:11.197 --> 01:13:18.448
- but Just to start with our filing data as of July 31st. We have filed 1,352 misdemeanor cases and

01:13:18.448 --> 01:13:26.377
- eight felony cases. This is substantially similar to our filing numbers in 2025, though we may have

01:13:26.377 --> 01:13:34.703
- some more misdemeanor filings by the end of the year. Our filing numbers, we do have absolute discretion

01:13:34.703 --> 01:13:43.108
- to decide what to charge and when, but they are driven by referrals that we receive from law enforcement.

01:13:43.108 --> 01:13:47.390
- So to a large extent, we don't control those numbers.

01:13:47.490 --> 01:13:55.201
- As of June 30th, we've had 212 cases disposed of through our pretrial diversion program. If this rate

01:13:55.201 --> 01:14:02.912
- continues throughout the year, we'll have about 50 more enrollments in that program this year than we

01:14:02.912 --> 01:14:06.238
- had in 2025. I'd just like to highlight our

01:14:06.722 --> 01:14:12.770
- Arnold Ventures funded study found that our pre-trial diversion program does in fact reduce recidivism

01:14:12.770 --> 01:14:18.994
- among participants and in fact has better results than if a case is declined for prosecution or dismissed

01:14:18.994 --> 01:14:20.638
- after being filed outright.

01:14:20.706 --> 01:14:28.422
- So that was good news that nobody, I think, really expected. So it's a good program. We also have an

01:14:28.422 --> 01:14:36.444
- informal diversion that we do for people who are referred to us for driving while suspended cases rather

01:14:36.444 --> 01:14:42.174
- than file a criminal misdemeanor case. Our traffic and infraction director

01:14:42.370 --> 01:14:48.736
- reaches out to those people, lets them know what has their license suspended and tries to work with

01:14:48.736 --> 01:14:55.166
- them to get their license reinstated. And so we've had a significant number of people work that way.

01:14:55.166 --> 01:15:01.278
- Yeah, it is very cool. And it was completely his idea to do that. And I really appreciate that.

01:15:02.146 --> 01:15:09.051
- Since our last budget hearing, we've had five jury trials. Three of those were in sex cases. Two of

01:15:09.051 --> 01:15:16.647
- those were homicides. Three of them resulted in convictions. One resulted in acquittal, and one unfortunately

01:15:16.647 --> 01:15:21.342
- resulted in a hung jury, which means we have to try it again later.

01:15:22.050 --> 01:15:29.297
- Of those trials, four were in Judge Hutton's court and one was in Judge Talley-Hasman's court. Unfortunately,

01:15:29.297 --> 01:15:35.884
- we did have one jury trial that was scheduled the week after the Great Toilet Flood of 2026. And so

01:15:35.884 --> 01:15:42.670
- because the judges had been displaced and were working in jury rooms, we couldn't have that jury trial

01:15:42.670 --> 01:15:49.982
- that week. So we'll get to that one soon, I hope. But we do have several high-level felony cases set for trial

01:15:50.242 --> 01:15:57.954
- rest of 2026, so I sort of anticipate we may have at least one a month until the end of the year. Just

01:15:57.954 --> 01:16:05.517
- to take a moment to talk about workload. In our office, my staff, we work very hard and we work as a

01:16:05.517 --> 01:16:07.838
- team that supports each other.

01:16:08.002 --> 01:16:15.048
- I want to thank the council for recognizing that and considering a 2% COLA cost of living adjustment

01:16:15.048 --> 01:16:22.095
- for county paid staff. They definitely deserve it. But just to give you some human resources insight

01:16:22.095 --> 01:16:29.490
- into my office, we have roughly 4,000 criminal cases pending right now. If you divide that evenly amongst

01:16:29.490 --> 01:16:33.118
- all the attorneys, including myself, that's roughly

01:16:33.218 --> 01:16:42.187
- like 260, 270 cases a person. It's not that evenly distributed, but just know that some of my prosecutors

01:16:42.187 --> 01:16:50.987
- have substantially more than that on their plate. And according to IPAC's prosecutor staffing analysis,

01:16:50.987 --> 01:16:59.618
- we need an additional 3.71 attorneys to handle the caseload that we see. I'm happy to provide that to

01:16:59.618 --> 01:17:01.310
- you if you need it.

01:17:01.762 --> 01:17:09.228
- In case you're skeptical and you think we're lying about, I would invite you to check on our time sheets.

01:17:09.228 --> 01:17:16.552
- As of August 22nd, 11 of my 13 deputy prosecutors have substantial comp time banked. Some of our senior

01:17:16.552 --> 01:17:22.750
- trial attorneys who've been trying those homicides and sex cases have somewhere between

01:17:23.074 --> 01:17:30.491
- 24 and 94 hours of comp time banked. They come in, they do their jobs, they put in the hours regardless

01:17:30.491 --> 01:17:37.693
- of whether they're going to get paid more or not. I would just be remiss if I didn't say that behind

01:17:37.693 --> 01:17:44.254
- every criminal case is support staff that are essential to ensuring that our attorneys have

01:17:44.354 --> 01:17:52.393
- discovery done, background checks, technology, victim assistance, and other various needs to get cases

01:17:52.393 --> 01:18:00.276
- processed. I would just say that my attorneys work at 40 hours. The council did recently approve two

01:18:00.276 --> 01:18:08.159
- investigators and our forensic analyst and technology specialist at 40 hours, but all the rest of my

01:18:08.159 --> 01:18:10.110
- staff works at 35 hours.

01:18:10.818 --> 01:18:17.951
- to let you know that. But I would also say just a word about our recorder, Amy Swain. She was proactive

01:18:17.951 --> 01:18:25.015
- to reach out to me about some cases of deed fraud that have happened in other areas of the country and

01:18:25.015 --> 01:18:31.873
- in New Albany, Indiana. And so she and I are working together on an expedited investigation process

01:18:31.873 --> 01:18:38.937
- in case those cases do arise in Monroe County. So I just appreciate her being on the ball and bringing

01:18:38.937 --> 01:18:40.446
- that to my attention.

01:18:40.930 --> 01:18:49.821
- Now we'll get to our budgets. For county general prosecutor, you know, we're not requesting any increases

01:18:49.821 --> 01:18:58.461
- in salary or benefits other than those that were directed by council. We did see roughly a 5% decrease

01:18:58.461 --> 01:19:07.101
- in our victim assistance VOCA grant funding that funds our victim assistance staff. We expected a much

01:19:07.101 --> 01:19:08.862
- larger decrease, but

01:19:09.250 --> 01:19:18.766
- we did face that 5%. Supplies and services, we didn't request anything additional, but we did move some

01:19:18.766 --> 01:19:27.916
- expenses from edit as we were instructed to do. For child support, again, no increases to salary or

01:19:27.916 --> 01:19:32.766
- benefits except those that were directed by council.

01:19:32.866 --> 01:19:39.621
- I would just point out one of the positions that you approved to move to 40 hours, the forensic analyst

01:19:39.621 --> 01:19:46.507
- slash technology specialist, he is paid 33% from the child support budget because he is the administrator

01:19:46.507 --> 01:19:52.158
- for their paperless process and some of the other technology that they use over there.

01:19:53.730 --> 01:20:03.166
- For our PS Lit Fund, no changes were requested. This pays for half of our stop grant funded prosecutor

01:20:03.166 --> 01:20:12.693
- salaries. And we are still waiting on our 2026-2027 funding announcement, but we should be getting that

01:20:12.693 --> 01:20:21.854
- soon. But for right now, no changes requested. And then as for our pre-trial diversion fund, again,

01:20:22.658 --> 01:20:31.832
- No changes other than last year we made an error with travel and training. And so we did zero that out.

01:20:31.832 --> 01:20:41.006
- So I'm happy to take any questions that Council may have. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate

01:20:41.006 --> 01:20:49.827
- that. And it's also good to hear that pretrial diversion works. Thank you. All right. Any questions

01:20:49.827 --> 01:20:50.974
- or comments?

01:20:51.298 --> 01:21:00.414
- Is there anything that you can think that you might be able to do to move the cases along faster? Sometimes

01:21:00.414 --> 01:21:08.854
- you go to my case and it's like they've been sitting around for two years, or even longer. That one

01:21:08.854 --> 01:21:17.548
- I looked at was even longer. Just typing all this up, just entering all this had to take a lot of time

01:21:17.548 --> 01:21:19.742
- because it was just over.

01:21:19.970 --> 01:21:28.783
- What can the prosecutor's office do, if anything, to try to move this along more expeditiously? It would

01:21:28.783 --> 01:21:37.428
- be more fair to the public, for certain, more fair to the people involved. And certainly, it would not

01:21:37.428 --> 01:21:45.822
- be as costly because you wouldn't have all this comp time and overtime situation. What can be done?

01:21:45.954 --> 01:21:53.096
- I share your concern that cases are taking too long to resolve. I would say a couple of things on that.

01:21:53.096 --> 01:22:00.445
- There are some delays that we are never going to be able to get around, and that has to do with turnaround

01:22:00.445 --> 01:22:04.222
- on lab testing that's required. It also has to do with

01:22:04.386 --> 01:22:12.240
- pre-trial discovery that has to be done. Defense attorneys hiring experts. We hire experts, especially

01:22:12.240 --> 01:22:20.094
- in our higher level cases. And they also conduct depositions, which takes time. I mean, frankly, a lot

01:22:20.094 --> 01:22:27.719
- of it is just the sheer volume of casework that we have. It's really difficult to get through hours

01:22:27.719 --> 01:22:32.446
- of body camera footage and everything else that we deal with.

01:22:32.834 --> 01:22:40.920
- But another important point to recognize is that the prosecutor doesn't get to control the court's calendars.

01:22:40.920 --> 01:22:48.418
- And so in each of the four criminal courts, there's only one trial week a year. And that sometimes is

01:22:48.418 --> 01:22:55.842
- really, if you really think about that, that's not that much time. Sorry, what did I say? You said a

01:22:55.842 --> 01:22:58.782
- year. 12 trial weeks. Oh, sorry, sorry.

01:22:59.010 --> 01:23:06.032
- I thought you said one per year. My mistake. Did I? I didn't mean that. Sorry. Let me try again. One

01:23:06.032 --> 01:23:13.194
- trial week per month. And so that's each quarter. So, you know, it's four times 12, 48. But, you know,

01:23:13.194 --> 01:23:20.355
- you have Thanksgiving, you have Christmas, you have other weeks where we don't. And although I did try

01:23:20.355 --> 01:23:27.934
- a jury trial on Thanksgiving week one year and got a conviction, but that was quite a while ago. But anyway,

01:23:28.450 --> 01:23:35.730
- You know, I think we're really going to have to have the support of the courts and to a large extent,

01:23:35.730 --> 01:23:42.938
- you know, recognize that it is always going to be in the defendant's best interest to let a case get

01:23:42.938 --> 01:23:50.146
- old. And so, you know, it's really just managing those calendars and making sure we're holding those

01:23:50.146 --> 01:23:57.854
- feet to the fire. Any of us need to be reminded that you handle the cases, public defender does not handle.

01:23:58.050 --> 01:24:10.594
- cases. So we tend to think of you as the same responsibility face-wise, but it isn't. We have to do

01:24:10.594 --> 01:24:24.894
- better somehow. Somehow. The whole court system has to do better to move. I agree. I mean, to your point, it does

01:24:25.058 --> 01:24:32.438
- make our caseload snowball to the point where we're handling way more cases, we're not closing them

01:24:32.438 --> 01:24:40.040
- as fast as we're filing them. And so it contributes to burnout and overtime and all kinds of other bad

01:24:40.040 --> 01:24:43.582
- externalities for sure. Yes, Councilor Iverson.

01:24:43.906 --> 01:24:51.309
- I'm going to start in your user fees budget. It seems like there's plenty of revenue coming in to cover

01:24:51.309 --> 01:24:58.427
- the cost of the budget, but user fees is constantly something that we're talking about. How are you

01:24:58.427 --> 01:25:05.545
- thinking about user fees as we're moving into 2027? I base my projection on last year's increase or

01:25:05.545 --> 01:25:12.094
- decrease and projected that way that I've found is the most correct way or the closest way.

01:25:13.730 --> 01:25:20.795
- I don't know what you really mean by part of my thinking about user fees. So one of the ups and downs

01:25:20.795 --> 01:25:28.069
- in county government over the years has been collect more or not collect more, collect more, not collect

01:25:28.069 --> 01:25:35.411
- more. Where are we on that trend, would you say? Well, our user fees, if you're talking about the amount,

01:25:35.411 --> 01:25:41.022
- are set by statute. And so we are charging the amount that is prescribed by law.

01:25:41.698 --> 01:25:50.724
- We do offer fee waivers. Pre-trial diversion is not denied to anyone on the basis of inability to pay.

01:25:50.724 --> 01:25:59.663
- I review those personally, and I use a grid that's based on 150% of poverty guidelines, which is used

01:25:59.663 --> 01:26:08.602
- for a lot of means-tested benefits. I think it would be wonderful if we could offer diversion without

01:26:08.602 --> 01:26:09.566
- user fees.

01:26:09.730 --> 01:26:17.608
- I know that's not reality, and so we discharge what is prescribed by statute. And of course, our rationale

01:26:17.608 --> 01:26:25.044
- here is just that we put some personnel lines in those user fee funds, and we just want to make sure

01:26:25.044 --> 01:26:32.627
- that those are good to go. Yeah, I understand. I mean, in the past, I think that previous prosecutors,

01:26:32.627 --> 01:26:36.382
- certainly not during my terms, there was this huge

01:26:36.546 --> 01:26:44.495
- this huge amount of revenue that was just sitting there being unspent. And so during some other similar

01:26:44.495 --> 01:26:52.443
- dark financial times, they moved some positions into the pre-trial diversion fund to be paid. And we've

01:26:52.443 --> 01:27:00.392
- been slowly moving them out as we've spent down, spent down some of that that revenue. Thank you. Yeah.

01:27:00.392 --> 01:27:03.678
- Thank you. Councilor Williams. Yes. So you

01:27:03.938 --> 01:27:13.101
- Following up on Councilor Iverson's question, very roughly, what would you say the percentage of waiving

01:27:13.101 --> 01:27:21.828
- those fees might be? I don't have it broken down by percentage, but you'll be excited to learn that

01:27:21.828 --> 01:27:30.555
- I did write down how many I've done. Oh my goodness. So this year we've had 28 applications for fee

01:27:30.555 --> 01:27:33.086
- waivers and of which 25 were

01:27:33.250 --> 01:27:43.178
- granted. In 2025, by way of comparison, we had 50 applications and 47 were granted. And that's how many

01:27:43.178 --> 01:27:52.724
- overall then go through diversion? So in this year so far, it's been 212 cases. And so of those, 25

01:27:52.724 --> 01:28:02.174
- have been waived. About 10% of folks going through the program are able to have their fees waived.

01:28:03.042 --> 01:28:10.124
- And just, I guess by point of comparison, a lot of the fees are court fees, right? That's the majority

01:28:10.124 --> 01:28:17.413
- of the costs for pre-trial diversion are standard court fees, which they would pay if they were convicted

01:28:17.413 --> 01:28:24.358
- of a crime in court. And a lot of folks who are convicted of crimes in court have those fees reduced

01:28:24.358 --> 01:28:31.303
- to judgment and never pay them. So not everybody. There are some who can pay their fees. But I would

01:28:31.303 --> 01:28:33.022
- just say I think we have

01:28:33.122 --> 01:28:42.993
- a better fee collection for court costs in some ways than the courts do for people who get convicted

01:28:42.993 --> 01:28:53.060
- of crime. You had mentioned the VOCA grant. I don't remember which budget, which fund it's in, but you

01:28:53.060 --> 01:28:59.902
- mentioned that it was reduced by like 5%, but it has personnel in it.

01:29:00.034 --> 01:29:07.436
- What happened there? So VOCA funds, this is like a national problem. VOCA funds, they're funded by some

01:29:07.436 --> 01:29:14.837
- kind of federal fund. I can't remember if it's a settlement fund of some kind, and that's been reducing

01:29:14.837 --> 01:29:21.954
- over time. It's been being spent down. And so there are a lot of federal efforts to try to continue

01:29:21.954 --> 01:29:25.726
- to keep VOCA funds. VOCA means Victims of Crime Act.

01:29:25.890 --> 01:29:33.431
- Everybody who receives, there are a lot of different entities that receive VOCA funds, including child

01:29:33.431 --> 01:29:41.265
- advocacy centers, domestic violence shelters, all of these different service providers for victims receive

01:29:41.265 --> 01:29:48.587
- VOCA funding. Prosecutors took less of a hit than some of those other service providers, but it's a

01:29:48.587 --> 01:29:54.078
- crisis. OK, so the personnel that were being paid, are they now coming out

01:29:54.210 --> 01:30:03.516
- more out of a general fund general fund and okay are you looking kim are you looking at where this is

01:30:03.516 --> 01:30:13.097
- in the where's the other half of the vote oh there's 72 percent of the four positions come out of county

01:30:13.097 --> 01:30:18.206
- general our prosecutor county general not child support

01:30:21.474 --> 01:30:40.490
- You want the lines? Yeah, that way I can highlight a four. We've got 13004, 13005, 13024, and 13032.

01:30:40.490 --> 01:30:50.846
- And if my recollection is correct, I think we paid 67%

01:30:51.298 --> 01:30:57.403
- of those salaries from County General last year. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to be able to see what

01:30:57.403 --> 01:31:03.448
- had happened and where. Thank you. All right. So I wanted to save this question because I want to get

01:31:03.448 --> 01:31:09.730
- something I want to get this on the record and make sure that the public is aware. So I'm going to direct

01:31:09.730 --> 01:31:11.390
- my question to the auditor.

01:31:11.554 --> 01:31:20.276
- Because this is an employee-heavy department. There's a lot of personnel lines here. What we don't see

01:31:20.276 --> 01:31:28.914
- in this budget is our top expenditure, which is self-insurance. So, Ms. Gregory, where can the public

01:31:28.914 --> 01:31:38.398
- find our largest expenditure, which is self-insurance, if it's not in the budget with a lot of personnel lines?

01:31:38.722 --> 01:31:45.720
- If it's not listed in the budget, then it is with employee services in their budget. So you'll be seeing

01:31:45.720 --> 01:31:52.384
- that a little tomorrow, actually. Right. Okay. Great. So I just want people to be able to hear that

01:31:52.384 --> 01:31:58.782
- answer, that our large expenditure, the tune of $12.5 million, is consolidated into one budget.

01:31:58.914 --> 01:32:06.864
- And the last thing I wanna say to the two of you is thank you, thank you, thank you for submitting four

01:32:06.864 --> 01:32:14.203
- really tight budgets and for adhering to the president's letter. It's so easy to work with you,

01:32:14.203 --> 01:32:22.153
- so thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments on this item? Councilor Decker. Just

01:32:22.153 --> 01:32:28.574
- while she's here, number one, thank you again to echo Councilor Iverson's comments.

01:32:28.994 --> 01:32:37.057
- But I also want to say for anyone watching out there, the prosecutor is always a strong advocate for

01:32:37.057 --> 01:32:45.041
- the folks in her office and in their building. And in a variety of circumstances that have occurred

01:32:45.041 --> 01:32:53.104
- in the last year, I cannot recall a conversation where she wasn't advocating for her folks in a very

01:32:53.104 --> 01:32:54.142
- diligent and

01:32:55.074 --> 01:33:04.499
- good public service way. And so I want to compliment her on that while she's before us and mention that

01:33:04.499 --> 01:33:13.561
- because we have a lot going on. And that's certainly not in this budget, but upon all of our minds.

01:33:13.561 --> 01:33:23.076
- Thank you. And seeing none, no other further questions or comments. May we please have a roll call vote.

01:33:23.076 --> 01:33:24.798
- Councillor Fiddle.

01:33:26.594 --> 01:33:41.111
- Councillor Hawke? Did you say pass or yes? Thank you. Councillor Wilk? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes.

01:33:41.111 --> 01:33:54.334
- Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes majority five to one pass.

01:33:56.386 --> 01:34:05.699
- Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And wow, this is record timing. Knock on wood, which means we

01:34:05.699 --> 01:34:15.570
- can do this again tomorrow. So without any other further questions or comments, we are in recess, keyword

01:34:15.570 --> 01:34:22.462
- recess, until tomorrow, September 3rd. Same time, same place. Good night.