- and lovely departmental budget updates. I would like to note for the record, a little loud in here,
- for the record, we have counselor Deckard online, hello, and we have a quorum of council members present.
- We have Henry, Iverson, Wilts, and Feidl, and we will go ahead and get started.
- Does anybody wish to add or remove any items from tonight's agenda? Okay, so we just need a motion.
- Council, I move to approve tonight's budget work session. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second
- to approve tonight's agenda as presented. Any questions or comments from council on this item?
- Seeing none. All right, and so because we have a council member present online everything we do tonight
- will be a roll call vote. So maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous. Okay.
- Thank you. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of everything tonight, I just want to give a special
- thank you to all the departments that have done the due diligence for you and your staff and staff and auditors.
- for working throughout this entire process. I understand there's been some issues with DOGF and Gateway,
- but as the world turns, we are adapting and adjusting accordingly. So many thanks to you all for doing
- that. This year, I am going to keep us to task and we will be as efficient as possible. And I want to
- remind everybody that this is not
- This is not the final approval of 2027. That actually comes, the public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday,
- October 6th, starting at five o'clock. And the final budget adoption for the 2027 budgets will be Tuesday,
- October 20th, starting at five p.m. The public will be able to make comments at that time, or during
- those meetings at that time, but there's no public comment during our budget presentations.
- As I mentioned, and you all received the president's letter as well, I want to make sure and emphasize
- there's a lot of work that has been put into developing the 2027 budgets. And so we want to highlight
- that. However, we do ask and I ask very humbly that we keep everybody to task. And so you all have received
- your time limits. We ask that you stick to your time limits. When you hear or
- On the screens, I know it's small, but you'll be able to see your time. And then when you hit to five
- minutes, you will hear the following. Okay. And then we will also highlight the five minutes. And then
- when you get to one minute, you will also hear. Yes. And then you will see this as well.
- I know it might seem a little silly, but I just want to make sure, and to be respectful of your time
- as well, and staff. We don't want you all spinning. You could be anywhere in the world, but you are
- avoiding the hot world out here, and you're in here with us. So we appreciate that, but we will be efficient.
- OK. Other than that, we will go ahead and get started. So I will start.
- with our overview of revenues. And so I'm going to ask the auditor to give a brief anticipated 2027
- review of what we're looking at before we get started. Yes. Thank you, counsel. I appreciate this opportunity.
- First, I just want to draw your attention to these binders that we created for all of the counselors.
- You received the same information in the email format that it's in these binders. We just did the physical
- format for some of the counselors, okay? All the counselors, but some prefer that method. So I want
- to draw your attention to the second document.
- And it's also in your email. And Carly has it populated on the screen there for the public. This is
- what we plan to present to you every meeting as time allows for us to do so. You know, sometimes we
- have a very quick turnaround, you know, between the time that we are making the adjustments to the budget
- and the next meeting. So as time allows, we will have this updated for each meeting.
- A couple of other things before we start going through this document, just very quickly, as Council
- President highlighted, we've had some gateway issues. We're using a new budget system, Budget 2.0, through
- the Indiana Gateway, and with anything new, you know, there's
- sometimes some hiccups involved and the DLGF has been great about working through those. Unfortunately,
- we are at a standstill right now on the 4B section. Our rate controlled funds are not populating the
- levy they should. So I haven't gotten a response today from the DLGF. I'm confident they're working
- on it and I'll give you an update tomorrow.
- For now, we have this beautiful spreadsheet to work from. You can reconcile it to the DLGF budget forms
- that we have, for example, the maximum levy, et cetera. Everything's on here. The revenue has been added
- to Gateway. It's been audited. That is correct, and that will tie out here as well. The June 30th numbers
- can be reconciled with Lau, our financial software. So everything is in there now, and this is where
- we are starting from until changes are made.
- So if you want to look at the simple calculation, that is the overview of all funds that we budget during
- these budget sessions. So it doesn't include the grant funds and things we're not viewing at this time,
- but includes everything else. So you'll start with the maximum property tax levy. Then we're adding
- in that major bridge fund levy, which is
- outside the max there, miscellaneous revenue, and then we're taking out the tax cap impact, the estimated
- number that we get from the state, the Department of Local Government Finance. Then you have your total
- estimated revenue there in that darker green. From there, we have the requested budget adjustments from
- the Gateway Form 1. This does not include the advertising amounts that we put in to kind of inflate
- that budget, so we have maximum flexibility.
- Before the COLA amounts, the 2% COLA, we took 40% of those budgets and added that number in just to
- give you maximum flexibility to be able to move budgets around. So this number is without that 40% increase.
- We then removed the rainy day and bond appropriation. One, we don't know what we're doing with the bond
- yet, right? So we don't have the revenue represented nor do we have the proposed budget represented
- yet. That will come later.
- And rainy day we don't intend on spending that right. So it it kind of unfairly inflates that budget
- and then the deficit as well. OK. From there we're taking out that rainy day and bond appropriation
- to get the total estimated expense. And then finally you have that simplified difference which is you
- know the where we
- either have a plus or a minus. Here we are positive. We're not starting with a deficit overall.
- Now again, I want to remind you this is all the revenue and all of the budget. So we need to look at
- a fund by fund basis, but this is where we are overall. So if you look on down then, we have a deep
- dive calculation within the levy funds. And this shows you just those levy funds. It includes the rate
- controlled funds and shows you
- you know, where we are as far as those funds. And this is kind of where we need to concentrate and ensure
- that we are going to have positive balances and that we have a sufficient operating balance to get us
- through. So I'm happy to entertain questions, but this is what I want you to be familiar with. Obviously,
- gateway is the best source once it's up and running properly anyway. So. Very much for that.
- And to note for the record, we have Councillor Hogg joining us as well. Does anybody have any questions
- on this item? Yes, Councillor Iverson. So for members of the public who are looking at their screens,
- they're seeing here our levy funds have a negative $11.1 million. How is that, how do you reconcile
- that with the above simplified budget?
- Yeah, so the levy funds, obviously, we're just looking at the levy funds there. It's not accounting
- for all of the other sources of revenue that we're looking at budgets for as well. So this deficit in
- the levy funds, it's also not, it's representing just revenue versus expenditures, right?
- taking into consideration the current cash balances. So for example, I know that the highway department
- is planning, they're in the middle of a major project and they intend to go into some of their reserves.
- It's been planned and so that deficit to me is not concerning. It's been planned, they've discussed
- it with their liaisons and it's just been in the works. So we need to look at that
- look at that that way as well. If there is a sufficient reserve that we intended on using for a special
- project, et cetera, you might have some wiggle room there. Does that answer your question? I think it
- does, and I think it's also helpful to note that the non-LEVI funds has the similar negative number
- at the bottom, and the same explanation goes for that as well, right? It does.
- We're gonna provide that information to the best of our ability, but I don't tend on presenting on all
- of the other funds. It's just there as a tool, if you'd like it. Understood, okay. Yes, Councillor Hawke.
- Yes. Perhaps in this stack of paperwork, it tells us very simply, here's what the total of the levy
- fund requests are, and here's what the revenue is.
- And so it's probably in that form right there. But when I was looking at it, what you put online, it
- certainly did make it look like as if we were going to not end up with a good operating balance on several
- of those funds. So if you looked at what our levy revenue is going to be in that max levy, we're going
- to spread that out amongst some other funds. The county general won't get all of it.
- So I think the one issue I looked at was that health department. So did you discuss that? If I may respond,
- I that's a great point, Councillor Hawk, that I should have highlighted. We left with the exception
- of the general fund, all of the levies as they were last year for this for twenty twenty six budgets
- so that we could move those around together. So
- everything extra, any additional revenue has been applied to the general fund. But obviously we're going
- to have to move things around. And I'm assuming you're going to have some changes to the budget as well.
- So we can address everything together. And is this taking into consideration the directive not to put
- anything in the edit fund? It is.
- That was like five million or something. Currently, there's nothing budgeted in that edit fund. However,
- I'll let the council answer that question. And I will say for the record, I did ask for us to put some
- or use the edit fund. And I did have a conversation with commissioners about that. So they're up tomorrow
- for their budget.
- And so we can have that conversation. But again, I did ask, because obviously we use training and travel,
- different things. I know Highway Department is coming back and wanting to do that. I think airport is
- as well. There is obviously a need for us to use that in order, I would think, to make sure that we
- can give folks their COLA increases that would help us
- greatly if we could use that. Yes, Councillor Iverson. Since you brought up COLA, is the cost of a living
- adjustment for our employees baked into these numbers? It certainly is. This is the updated version
- after the 2% COLA has been added. And just a quick shout out to all of our departments for helping us
- get that turned around. Thank you.
- So if there is no further questions, we will go ahead and get started. And we will have the first budget
- hearing presentation with the public defenders. But I forgot to mention, too, and for counsel, that
- each department will get through their entire budget presentation. So if there's any questions that
- you all have for them, let's hold on until after their entire presentations are over. And then we'll
- ask. But I'll also ask counsel, let's stick to
- questions related to the 2027 budget. All right. Council, I move to open for discussion and review fund
- 1000-0271 County General Public Defender, as well as fund 1200-0000 Public Defender Supplemental. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second and we're joined by Mr. Hunt and other stuff, welcome. And.
- Thank you. Yeah.
- I'm Michael Hunt from the Public Defender's Office, and I have with me today Heather Stufel, my executive
- assistant, and Don Freeman, who's one of our
- system navigators that we're going to talk about so I brought her. We did have that we were going to
- bring Judge Holly Harvey since she deals with the system navigators but she is in French Lick at a judicial
- conference and so I've submitted a letter that we just received from her for the council when we talk
- about that. The other thing is Mr. Joe Lozano one of our board members
- Plan to be here, but he got stuck in a deposition somewhere down south. So I will try to be brief The
- our effort was to comply with the requests On the budget and we think we have Except in a couple of
- places and one being the system navigator positions those were on a grant and the grant has been phasing
- out and so this time
- for the for twenty twenty seven, the we're asking the council to fund the entire amount, which I think
- is 40 percent more than what we funded last year. We do get reimbursed for that also. The letters, I
- think both from my chief deputy, Ms. Emmerich and from Judge Harvey explain
- the usefulness and the necessity for these positions. They help immensely. DCS, because of their growth,
- our caseload in that area has grown immensely and those cases move very rapidly because they involve
- children and they involve a lot of paperwork and talking with clients and relatives and
- DCS people, and you can see, as Phyllis says, the work involved that helps our attorneys then process
- the cases. Other than those, and we can talk about those more in detail, I think other than the COLA,
- the step increases, and the qualifications, we've tried to freeze the budget at this year's rate.
- and I think I'll ask for questions if you have some. That was easy. Okay. Questions? Yes, Councilor
- Iverson. Thank you for being here. My question is in fund location 0271 in your threes. In professional
- services, we see a $70,000 increase. It's a new line it looks like. Can you talk about that?
- Certainly. Last year, upon the suggestion of, I guess, the auditor, we used to call that special services.
- And that is used for depositions and everything. And all they did is transfer it. They took that and
- transferred it to a new line and call it professional services. So it's not really an increase. Great.
- And you can see that, well, yeah, further down in the red, you can see that negative $70,000.
- Thank you. Anybody else that has any questions on their budget? Okay. So may we please have, oh, okay.
- Can we please have a roll call vote? Are we going to talk about
- because we opened both budgets. Are you going to go ahead? Oh, I thought you did already. OK. OK,
- I can. That's the general county general. The other one is our supplemental. And I think the only changes
- in that are, again, the normal rate increases. I don't think we've changed anything else in that. And
- that's the one that we get reimbursed. We try to keep that
- under a million dollars because that's basically what I can count on coming back and reimbursement.
- That all depends on how much we spend and so that's flexible and I think a couple years ago that was
- problematical but I think we straightened that out and we're counting on and I think we're in line with
- that this year to
- get about $1 million, and that's roughly what the supplemental is. No questions on that. May we please
- have a roll call vote? Mr. Henry? Can you clarify what the vote is again? We are voting to move it.
- To pass this on. To move it forward. Yes, thank you.
- Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. Next up is from the coroner's office.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and review fund 1000-0007 County General Coroner. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second and shortly we'll be joined by the coroner, Mr. Jeff Hall.
- Good evening, Council. So as you can see with this year's budget, it's pretty standard to what it was
- last year. The only minor increases were from the two percent COLA increase. And then we did add that
- additional part time paid employed position of the eight thousand from earlier this year. I did make
- some deductions and a few other of my
- items in both the supplies category and the services category and also reduced my Transport fees from
- last year to 50,000 instead of 55,000 after doing some reviews. So it's pretty standard all the way
- across the board Any questions for mr. Hall, yes Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming in. So let's
- talk about the
- the $5,000 off on the online 30020 transport bodies. Just guess, I mean, walk me through that. It's
- just the monthly average is a little cheaper than what, if I average it out, it looks like you're going
- to end the year around $44,000.
- The company that we transport with, they charge a flat rate for a transport from Monroe County to Terre
- Haute, where we do all our autopsies. And if we don't have families that have chosen a funeral home
- to release those bodies to, then we provide transport back to Monroe County for that same flat rate.
- I made it a point this year to really push for getting those bodies released to the funeral homes rather
- quicker than bringing them back here to Monroe County, because unfortunately the only place that we
- have for them to be stored in is the IU Health Hospital, and that does not
- hold many bodies at a time. And so I get pushed back from the hospital if we have bodies just kind of
- sitting in the more taking up space. So I made sure to reach out to my deputies and myself and said,
- OK, let's really try to push for and get these bodies released to funeral homes, either post autopsy,
- which in case we don't get charged for a transport back or if they get to get transported back, then
- we make sure that we get them moving out very quickly. So basically, I've reduced the amount of transports
- coming back than I had last year.
- good. That's good stewardship. I appreciate it. Thank you. Other questions or comments? I think the
- timers not working. Um, and obviously like your budget actually decreased from last year. So I was kind
- of comparing what we had from this year to last year. And I, I just also want to
- say thank you for looking at how we can save those dollars as much as possible without putting a strain
- because you have a particular area that needs all. Correct. Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you. Any other
- questions or comments for Mr. Hall? Paused again. Sorry. No, it's okay. We'll just move forward with
- the roll call vote to move this forward.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Okay, next up is the Surveyor's Office. Council, I move to open for discussion and review Fund 1000-0006,
- County General Surveyor, and Fund 1202-0000, Surveyor's Corner Perpetuation. Second. All right, we got
- a motion and a second, and we're joined by the Surveyor, Mr. Randolph, welcome. Thank you. Well, I am
- prepared. I would like to
- introduce our survey technician Jason George. He's the senior full-time personnel and also the only
- other person in the office that has administrative responsibilities. So I'm very grateful that he is
- accompanying me today. And with that... Mr. Randolph, I'm sorry, I want to pause for a second. TSD,
- can we get the timer going, please? I want to make sure you
- Oh, it's going to be short and sweet. Don't worry. You're fine. I just want to make sure everybody can
- see it. OK, proceed. It gets complicated because I have two funds and people kind of start overlapping.
- Oh, yeah. With that said, I'm happy to be here. I have made a tradition to wear a blazer and once over
- my nine years in the leadership role, I wore a tie. So with that said,
- I'm going to, we're on general, right? So I'll run through it real quick. You see slight adjustments
- due to COLA. Everything else is the same. Supplies $332.
- Dues and training and travel total 10,126. The dues we pretty much burned down because those are not
- just for my office, but they're for multiple offices for dues within the GIS space.
- training and travel. As I always say, I'm not out here to spend things down. We have had a new hire,
- so we kind of pulled back on just a little of that, but I do see us utilizing it in 2027 a lot more.
- So just because we haven't spent it down doesn't mean it's important to retain that amount for 2027.
- Also, that is not just exclusively for my office. That's also for other offices that are moving into that GIS
- space. With that, the biggest adjustment has been my request for equal pay to other elected officials
- and I just got a couple of bullet points. There's four full-time personnel in the office that do the
- public land surveying system and also maintain the GIS system for the county. Also, there is typically
- three part-time folks.
- our office manager is part time, so I take a lot of the administrative role and Mr. George helps assist
- me on that as well. I also serve on boards and commissions that really help define the growth of our
- county. And one other thing about the GIS, you know, that's a cost benefit analysis kind of approach. So I
- I don't have any metrics or ways to measure that. We have saved the county quite a bit of dollars and
- efficiency and other types of resources from our growth and development in the space. With that said,
- I'm hoping that you will approve the budget as is. And you can go on to the perpetuation fine. Just
- do it all in one all in one. OK, this is new. Sorry.
- Again, slight changes in personnel due to the COLA. I have reduced the field technician position due
- to the corner fund is revenue generated fund and it's fluent. I'm seeing some upticks on that fund,
- but until it gets back to
- 80, 85, I'm going to continue to just kind of chip away on my overall budget. So that's why you see
- the reduction. I'm keeping the part time the same. I'm increasing board members by 1000 from last year
- because we have an additional member. Honestly, if you are inclined to open the budget for any reason, I would
- probably ask you to add an additional thousand dollars to that line, but I can come back for additional
- appropriation. That's no issue. We'll move down to category two, office supplies same, fuel same. I'm
- reducing field operating supplies by a thousand dollars. We buy things in bulk, so we've got a good
- supply. Again, that's a reflection of the fact it's a revenue
- generated fund that's fluent, so doing my due diligence of chipping away, I think we'll be fine on that.
- Where to employee clothing and uniforms, it's the same. We actually haven't touched that fund, but we
- do need a little bit of field equipment or clothing this year. We may bring in a field technician that's
- usually around 200, 300 bucks to get them fully outfitted. So, you know, I would just request that we
- leave it the same. I always expand on that one because every office doesn't have that line. Moving to
- services, training and travel reduced by $3,000. The way I've been able to achieve that is basically
- since this is a non-reverting fund, I should always mention that it's non-reverting. So anything we
- don't spend, we'll go back to the corner fund.
- But it has to be used for perpetuation efforts. So one thing we do is the Indiana Society of Professional
- Land Surveyors. That is also a recognized course from the DLGF. So now that they changed the language
- for the elected training fund, I have that plus one. So the reduction is reflective of us being able
- to utilize that fund. So just wanted to kind of explain that since I have two different travel and training lines.
- Survey archives, we reduced that by 50%, 500 to 250. We got a new plotter, so there might be some costs
- associated with that. I was just going to put a dollar to leave that line alive, but we figured the
- 250 is fine.
- Uh, miscellaneous, uh, we reduced that by 450 to a total of 2000 this year. Um, that's actually kind
- of reflective of good housekeeping and creating lines that, um, are more, um, um, Relatable to what
- the expenses that used to be a catchall. So now that we have different lines, this is kind of just a
- reflection of good housekeeping and also chipping away at my overall budget. Um, we got the placeholders.
- We all love the dollar placeholders. And then we got the geodetic coordinates. That used to be the line
- that we paid our service agreements, but it's also the line that we pay for our corner documentation
- program. We have seen an uptick from a new surveyor that came back into the community and started practicing
- and is actually going through the program. So that's quite exciting.
- Again, if you're inclined to open this budget, I would actually ask to move that line to 2500, but we
- can come back for additional or we could probably do some in-house transfer. Again, no issue since it's
- non-reverting. That's it. Where was I on time? You did awesome. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
- Thank you so much.
- Does anybody have any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank
- you for coming in. I have two questions. I'll start with perpetuation and work my way back to the other.
- So on one of our dollar holders, the account line 38002, last year we talked about the higher ed and
- longevity. That was a program you were trying to use last year, right? Because I can't recall. We went
- from $5,000 last year back to $1.
- What happened there? Yeah. Uh, I finished my, uh, my survey training classes. So, uh, so we've, we've,
- we've trained the person that was using it and we're going to, there's no reason to hold on to that.
- And so do you anticipate the need to, to continue with that training program for others? And it's still
- there, but no night, but I think leaving the dollars there really what I think is most important is
- that is it shows the,
- intention of investing in our employees with that line, even if it's not appropriated. It shows vision
- of what this office wants to do and what it's going to continue to do by having that line there. No,
- we have no ability to use it. We'll have to come back through a whole other agreement process and things
- of that nature.
- there won't even be any ability to do it in-house transfer. Well, congrats for completing the course.
- And all right, very good. The other line I had just a question about was on the back in the other one.
- It was the GIS technician line that was down. You had a reduction in salary from last year to this year.
- Yes. What's the background on that? New hire. Our previous one, we were able to hire at eight year with the what?
- knowledge, skills and ability. KSA and it's just they came in with a year of experience working at the
- USGS and. We had a higher amount, the minimum though they'll be having a one year. Anniversary soon,
- so we budgeted at the one year with the 2% increase cola. And thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you
- also for a good budget.
- And, you know, I'd love to see the correct cuts there. Indian Geological and Water Survey. Sorry, I
- said that incorrect. That's where his previous experience was. It's 5.30. I'm out of words almost today.
- Anyway, thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes. And perhaps the legislation
- has changed in some fashion, but it was that if you were not a licensed surveyor, and we said your salary was X,
- then if you've got a licensed surveyor, it had to be more. Can he legally tell us that they're not that
- still in place? Because it was always, you have to watch what you say for the salary because then...
- You're correct. We had this discussion before. If Ms. Turner-Keene wants to address it, or I'm happy
- to as well.
- can work on finding the statute but in essence it says that if you have a licensed surveyor you have
- to pay them 1.5 times the amount of an unlicensed surveyor and I'm looking up the statute. I don't intend
- we have a professional surveyor in the office so we're already achieving that work. If a licensed surveyor comes
- into the office and is elected, I think the council has a whole other discussion in front of them because
- that's two licensed surveyors. It also has nothing in that statute that man's date the licensed surveyors
- stamp any of the products being done in the office and it also has a provision that they can run their
- private firm out of the surveyors office. So I think this has been a blocking point due to a concern,
- I won't say a fear,
- But a concern, and I don't think that concern really should hold me or the surveyor's position at a
- less pay of other elected officials, especially with very similar size offices and operations, but also
- like a very high skill set crew that comes to the office every day and works and just our production
- should be measured in a way, Marty,
- or council, council member Hawk. Basically, what I said last time is, you know, like. We have a higher
- standard at the surveyors office, and this is a way to reflect that higher standard, and the council
- needs to hold that office accountable and holding them back by 10 percent. I don't think is
- the correct thing to do in my opinion. So, uh, uh, county, the old department, if for some reason, um,
- our surveyor would decide to move to California or Florida or some, uh, Sunshiny state, and we had a
- replacement, uh, and they were a licensed surveyor, we would have to pay one, one and a half times what
- his salary is now. Is that correct? It's been so long.
- I think the applicable statute is Indiana code 36 to 1215 and it says when fixing the compensation of
- County of Fish officers under this title the county fiscal body shall fix compensation for the surveyor
- as if the surveyor is registered
- and the compensation for the surveyor as if the surveyor is not registered. So our salary ordinance
- should have if you are licensed and if you are not licensed. And it says the compensation fixed under
- subdivision one, which is registered, must be one and one half times that fixed under subdivision two.
- So the not registered. I make this a bit like the same thing as like with an assessor. You had to hit
- a certain level.
- To serve so I would really encourage you to go ahead. I know you could do it Go get your license and
- then there'll be no discussion But I would like to see that happen for you. I think you'd be happy with
- it It's just something I think we need to remember I'd like to look at the relevant section of the salary
- ordinance. We have an elected officials grid and I think that portrays this issue really clearly and
- I'm a visual learner, so maybe I'm being a little biased, but I think Michelle has selected official
- grid up. So here, here we see the surveyor at 90%. This is current, correct, Michelle?
- This is for 2027. So this is what his budget should be at. And the split then is... No, we'll talk about
- that. So the split then should be 55, 995 for the general fund. And then when you get to the stormwater,
- it's 18665. So this is the amount it should be.
- based on what your current grid is. But if you're wanting him to be bumped up to the 100%, then his
- amount that he has here reflects that at the 100%. That would be 75%. That reflects. Right. And the
- fiscal concern here is
- has nothing to do with your qualifications or who you are as a person. The fiscal concern is if there
- was someone who did have that license that we would then be paying 1.5 on top of whatever salary we're
- increasing it to. And so there's a very real concern that in the future that would be an amount that
- maybe not be sustainable in one of these budgets. I agree. I also agree that there would be a lot more
- to discuss if there was two licensed surveyors in the surveyors office.
- I also would like to mention that there are unlicensed surveyors that are making the one and a half
- right now that I would be if I was licensed throughout the state. Hamilton County is a great example.
- Obviously, Hamilton County is always the one you would like to point at. But, you know, I'm not even
- attempting to ask that. I'm just asking for equitable pay, equal pay with other elected officials.
- I'm a little bit pleased over this a little bit, but I wanted to make sure I understood the. The benefit
- OK, so. What other costs savings might there be if there were a licensed elected official in your office?
- So you said something about well, it's not like they would be stamping that there's no. Guarantee it's
- all going to be
- 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
- role. Ms. Turner-King, if she can identify something or interpret it different than me, it doesn't say,
- if you're licensed, that you have to use your seal for operations within the surveyor's office. So the
- work we're conducting now, doing full boundary perpetuation surveys and also creating monument records
- licensed surveyor stamp is a surveyor product. There is no guarantee if a licensed surveyor comes in
- here that they're going to use their stamp on any of the products
- that are produced within the surveyor's office, that's going to be based on the person themselves. And
- at that point, I think council is going to have to figure out a whole new way to have a conversation
- when a licensed surveyor comes in to see if they're actually using their license to help support their
- office. Also, the fact that they could come in there and run their own private practice I think would
- be a big concern. And then I think it just really
- is up to the council to make sure that these offices are meeting those new standards and being accountable
- and I personally don't I understand everyone's point about the physical impact if they were licensed
- and I've been committed to tell the council if I'm going to pursue that and that's going to be a case
- but every year we come to this discussion and you can address it if there is a licensed surveyor because
- Outside of that, I just think this is an easy way of keeping me at 90 percent, in my opinion. Going
- back to the and I think this was in the general budget, I think. Can't remember. Right. The board. And
- you said there's one additional member now to the board. Yes. And how many people are there total?
- We have four board members. We pay him 100 bucks a month. OK, so I mean we never get perfect attendance.
- We typically cancel two meetings a year where actually we almost hit our quota this month, but or last
- month. It's the beginning of this month. Except for we got stuck on a corner for like almost an hour
- and it was miserable. So this board is set in place to review.
- your work. Yeah, there's a policy 97. It created the Surveyor Review Board. And that's kind of because
- we didn't have a licensed surveyor in the office. But now we do. But I still think best practice is
- actually I would like to see this be replicated to other counties as we work with the surrounding profession.
- And then we all come together and look at
- the perpetuation efforts. And we have immense more information and a lot more consensus on if this is
- the correct monument or section corner, because this is the framework of property rights. So we are
- theoretically or actually preserving and protecting the property rights of every property owner in Monroe
- County. That's including the city of Bloomington and the town of Ellisville and Spencer, so on and so forth.
- 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
- 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
- how valuable the surveyors office is to this community and this county government organization. Counselor Decker.
- Thank you very much. I apologize for joining remotely, but one thing that occurs to me is the state
- of Indiana has clearly written the law to give flexibility to counties for either the elected model
- with a license professional surveyor or opposite of that, because I would think it would be difficult
- for a lot of communities to find somebody for this very highly technical work. So the option kind of
- then falls to us, and I think
- Mr. Surveyor, what you're saying is if the county would get a licensed surveyor in your role in the
- future, that person might just disregard all the practices you have that they're allowed to under Indiana
- law. That would just be a choice of style. Is that right? Essentially, you know, I base lead people
- in leadership roles off their track record. So, you know, it's going to be the person that
- takes over that role of their license or not, of how they want to conduct the office. Yes, Councillor
- Henry. Thank you. I know we've spent some time on it, but it is a big adjustment. I wasn't here when
- the grid was formed. As far as I'm concerned, a constitutional office in the state, your office among
- the others in this building, you're getting paid less than the other constitutional offices in our county
- government.
- Quite understood that. How long you been in office? How many terms? Since 2016, so three, so 10 years.
- I was caucused in. Oh, I've been with the county for 25 years and sorry, 20 years and been the elected
- surveyor for nine, 10 years. Previous surveyors in office. How long? Previous? Yeah.
- I'm sorry. You're your predecessor. How long was he in office? He had a tenure from 97 to 2000 and then
- restart in 05 and I came back at 05. It's very possible you outlast us all up here, right? The next
- surveyor might be looking at a completely different council and can wrestle with that future question.
- I was supportive of this
- weeks ago when you presented it. I'm still supportive of it now. And it's that equity question at this
- point. If for some reason you move on and someone else comes in, we can have that debate that day. But
- that's a point in time. So I'm happy to support this as presented. And I appreciate the effort you've
- made to control the rest of your budget in both accounts. So thank you. Yes, definitely agree on that
- part. Okay.
- Yes, I just want to confirm before we vote on things that the salary reflected in this budget is an
- increase to 100 percent or is okay. I just want to make sure what we were voting on. Yeah, I'll pull
- this over real quick. This would be the split at where it says 100 percent base, so it would be 62
- It would be 217 because we round up is basically what it is. And then the storm water part would be
- the 2738 and that is at the 100 percent. We have the same math. We have the same math. That's good.
- In the interest of sorry. Just in the interest of protecting the general fund. Is there a way to do
- the split differently or
- incorporate a little bit of the increase into a non-reverting or some other fund? I mean, I don't know
- what the logic was with stormwater. I mean, it makes sense, but was there a limit? So council made that
- decision. And then over the years, they've been shifting personnel within stormwater at different
- percentages. And I was on your side.
- not too long ago when I was looking over the budget of stormwater, when we were adding different percentages
- of different employees, where a majority of their work is actually within the highway department. And
- I do have a lot of duties that are stormwater related, and they're kind of like the non-reverting fund,
- the corner fund, they have to be relatable to stormwater. And I think that 25% is fair.
- I think more would start fracturing our metrics of how to calculate percentages of employees being paid
- out of that fund.
- Firstly, if I was sitting over there and it was presented, can we move the surveyor to 30%? I'm like,
- do they do 30% of their day-to-day job? And I would say 25 is a reasonable, fair number. Would you say
- that 10% of your job is around corner perpetuation work? Oh, absolutely, except for that is a fund we're
- trying to keep sustainable.
- With the revenue dips, it took me 10 years to get full-time personnel out of there until they passed
- a house bill that then quadrupled the fund. And the only reason I was able to create the other positions
- is because 25% of the professional surveyor comes out of there, 50% of the survey technician comes out
- of there. It really has very limited wiggle room left and, you know,
- So yes, that would be an easy way for me to get support. But, you know, I have to be very financially
- responsible. And, you know, I'm not taking the easiest path forward. I'm doing what is financially
- responsible as a steward of taxpayers money. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.
- All right. And seeing no other questions or comments on this budget presentation, maybe please have
- a roll call vote. I'm sorry. And just to reiterate, you're voting on both funds at the same time. Councillor
- Wills. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Crosley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
- Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawke. She said no. OK. Motion passes unanimous or big pardon. She
- didn't majority. I don't think we heard her. We didn't. Yes. We caught it. Yeah, we caught you. Yeah.
- Motion passes by a majority six one. Thank you. Sorry for. No, you're totally wrong. It's a discussion.
- Yeah. Thank you very much.
- All right, next up is the Parks Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and review.
- Fund 1000-0803, County General Parks. Fund 1178-0000, Parks, Non-Reverting Capital. Fund 4113-0000,
- Donations Parks. And finally, Fund 1179-0000, Parks, Non-Reverting Operating. Second.
- We got a motion and a second. We are joined by Miss Kelly Whitmer. Welcome. Thank you. Are we ready?
- We should. TSD, can we please? Thank you. Go for it. All right. Would you like me to talk about all
- the budgets? That's right. All right. This should be really simple. We've added and deleted lines with
- consultation from financial director Woodruff and we've kept all of our
- budget. The county general lines are the total the same. We have not asked for one dime more. Pursuant
- to President Crossley's budget letter. Budget 11 78. The bottom line is exactly what it was last year.
- $100,000. Budget 4113. This is the second year for it,
- Budget 1179 is identical to last year, 300,000. Anything for personnel, that's up to you. That's all
- I have. Easy. Thank you. I like it. I'll start. I appreciated you working with your budget this time
- around, because from last year to this year, there was a decrease. So yeah, I'd appreciate it.
- can read and your letter was very clear. I appreciate that. Thank you. This is a team effort. This is
- us helping everybody so we can get to the big finish line, which is hopefully the COLA. So any other
- questions or comments from council? Oh, I'm sorry. This is Andy French, our park superintendent. He's
- out in this 90 degree weather, so bless him.
- It's a hard week. Yes. I hope you are staying hydrated. All right. Any or any questions or comments
- from? Yes. Councilor Iverson. I'm going to ask about the new park over on the east side. Where is that
- included in this budget? It is not. Oh, OK. Great. Good to know. Go on. Go twice.
- Now we may use some of the donation funds since they were from the Huntington Trust for that project,
- but other than that, zero. Okay. Councillor Henry. Thank you. And so since I guess the donation parks
- fund is new, can you maybe give a background a little bit about just generally how that's working or how that
- how that works in terms of the donation coming in, the expenditures, is it reverting? I mean, if we
- don't use things, can you walk through some things just for our understanding? It's a non-reverting
- account in the auditor's office with
- consultation to the state of Indiana said this is how we need to do this. So we created the fund. Any
- donation, if you would like to give us a $50 donation for a tree, it'll go into this line. The Huntington
- Trust has been the largest donation in here. In order to spend money, we'll have to create lines to
- do that. We want the Monroe County Nature Park to be self-sufficient. And this is one way to do it.
- in five years and 10 years, you know, we can't tell you what they'll give us each year and they can't
- tell us what we get each year. We just hope the best for the economy because it's all in stocks and
- bonds and whatnot. So if a donation came to you that didn't fit nicely in an account line, I guess we'd
- 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
- Say you want to give us a $50 donation, we just deposit it into this account. It doesn't go into a particular
- line. It just is a chunk of money, non-reverting, and then you appropriate that, oh, you can only spend
- $1,000 for utilities, and that's all we will spend in that line. So no restricted gifts like you have to do?
- If there's a restricted gift, we would encourage them to donate to the Monroe County Parks and Recreation
- Foundation. That's good. I appreciate that. Thank you. Are you fully staffed? No. Can you tell me what
- the situation is there? We have a few people on FMLA. So our staff is reduced.
- We have part time staff on the park side that no fault of their own. They have become ill or they have
- a family emergency and we've not been able to rehire in the middle of the season because everyone already
- has a job. So it has been very difficult. We also know that the council has encouraged departments to
- revert money back
- to the county general. So we think we're gonna be reverting maybe 50,000 in our hourly line to help
- out with the situation. So that's why we're trying to help. Other than that, we'll spend it all next
- year. So it's been a lot of unfortunate situations on our side. When you say part-time on the park side,
- so you were talking about your program,
- seasonal folks or are seasonal folks who take care of the restrooms who do a lot of weed eating, mowing,
- opening the parks at seven in the morning, weekend stuff. They've had unfortunate things happen. No
- fault of their own. Councilor Decker. It seems like thank you for all this. It seems like five or six
- years ago.
- We had nothing but nonstop discussions about hiring at every department. And I was just curious while
- you were here, is hiring overall difficult right now, just period, or is it worse, better, or what are
- your thoughts? This is the worst year that I've been here on hiring. It is really hard to get people
- to come in to interview.
- You know, we were starting them around $15 an hour. You know, if you stay with us, we'll keep giving
- you raises. But I don't know. People may not want to work in 90 degree weather. So it is hard. It's
- hard to hire Andy. He's been doing this every single week for the last few months, trying to find people.
- We were scouring the county.
- So if you, and the thing is that the job only lasts for another month or two, so no one will jump on
- board. Councilor Hawk? Councilor Hawk? You gotta pull your microphone. Could you remind us what your
- range is for your part-time? Cause I heard you say $15 an hour and literally,
- It's hard to even find a high school person to come and do yard work for $15 an hour. I have to pay
- $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
- like, if we found a farmer who has great tractor skills or heavy equipment, we would start them around
- $20 an hour, give or take. So it depends what your skill.
- skill level is and where you're at. But we want to be fair to the people who've been here a while, too.
- But yeah. And we will give raises like if you, you know, if you're here a couple of weeks and you keep
- showing up, we'll give you a raise right away. We just don't want to do all the paperwork and and then
- you quit in five days.
- Any other questions or comments on this budget? Again, much thanks to you and your staff and for all
- your due diligence on your budget here. May we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson? Yes.
- Councillor Fiddle? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor
- Deckard? Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous, 7-0. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I wanted to thank the auditor's office.
- They've been a big help, especially Carly. Yay. Go team, go. All right, next up is the recorder's office.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and review. Fund 1000-0004, county general recorder. Fund 1160-000,
- identification security protection.
- Fund 1160-0000, Identification Security Protection. Fund 1217-0000, County Elected Officials Training.
- And finally, Fund 1189-0000, Recorders, Records, Perpetuation. Second. All right. We got a motion and
- a second, and we are joined here by the recorder, Amy Swain. Welcome.
- Good evening, counselors and everyone else. I wanted to start off by thanking Michelle and Ms. Aplaca
- for their help with putting this budget together. There were some difficulties and it really helped
- to have them help us with that. On county general, the only thing for the recorder's office that comes
- out of county general is some of our salaries. And so the only difference in that is the 2% cost of
- living adjustment.
- for the Identification Security Protection Fund that is funded by fees from our office and it is set
- out by statute how that money is to be used. There is no change in that fund. The 1217, the County Elected
- Officials Training Fund, I did increase that.
- Council was at it a couple of years ago. Trainings by the Association of Indiana County State Board
- of Accounts are covered by that costs for travel and lodging and registration have increased. And this
- fund is used by the elected officials to make sure that they get the training hours that are required
- by the state.
- within our time in office. And so, last year, or the current year, other funds have been utilized for
- that, but I wanna make sure there's enough in the fund to justify this amount, and I wanted to make
- sure that there was enough in there for people to go to the trainings, including counselors, if they
- desired to do that.
- The last one is the Recorders Perpetuation Fund. There's not a lot of change in that other than in the
- contractual line. This is a fund that is at the discretion of the Recorders Office, but I'm happy to
- present an itemized budget for your review so you can talk about how taxpayer dollars are being spent.
- Some other counties, they do a sworn statement and there's a dollar amount and that's it.
- I have no problem providing this itemized budget. And like said, as you can see, the contractual line
- is significantly higher for next year because that's phase three of our scanning project that we've
- been doing for the books and physically in our office. OK, that's it. Well, thank you very much. And
- I want to note for the record, because it was in our packet,
- that we are in receipt of the recorder sworn statement for fund 1189-000 recorders records perpetuation
- for budget year 2027. Just wanted to add that. All right, any questions or comments for Ms. Wayne on
- her budget? Councilor Hawke? She always brings us a good clean budget, so it's easy to say yes. Councilor Woods?
- I apologize if you just said this, but the equipment line that increases that purchasing equipment for
- scanning. Yes, the one that they just highlighted in your perpetuation. Yeah, I'm taking a look at that.
- Oh, I see I did increase that line as well. Thank you for pointing that out, Counselor Wilts. Oh, you're
- so welcome.
- One of the things that I did a couple of years ago was to upgrade our microfilm scanner. It was needed
- and we moved the previous one to the archives and then found out that there is a part of that older
- scanner that does not play well with Windows 11 and so that will need to be replaced.
- so that we can utilize it when people are over in the archives. And so that was one thing, and there
- may be other things that come up. And again, there's enough in the fund, but I wanted to plan for that
- and anything else that might be needed. Because as we move to the digital records that these scans that
- we've been working on are going to produce, I was talking with a couple of title searchers in the office
- today, and they said that it would be important
- because I would like to move the physical books over to archives for safety sake, since it's a dry fire
- suppression system. And now that we have things digitized, that microfilm options would be important
- in case the scan is hard to read. One of the things that we can do is to take the books that would be
- over in archives and rescan that.
- Software called Irfan view where we can use the book I scanner in our office take that software and
- enhance the image but in the meantime the Microfilm would be available for the title searchers and whoever
- else the public whoever else would use the scanner to get those records in a format that they can see
- well Thank you, and thank you for letting me see the archives and
- Yeah, it was very interesting. And if any of the other counselors would like to to visit the archives,
- more than welcome to show that to you. Any other questions or comments on this budget item? None, maybe
- please have a roll call, though. Counselor Henry? Yes. Counselor Deckard? Yes. Counselor Crosley? Yes.
- Counselor Iverson?
- Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous seven
- zero. Thank you all. All right. Thank you. Have a good night. Happy birthday. All right. Next up is
- the last budget for the evening. And it is from the prosecutor's office. And can you mention that David
- Henry left? Yes. Oh, yeah. And for the record,
- Council Henry has left the building or left the room and eventually will leave the building so Council
- I move to open for discussion and review fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor fund 1000-0660 County
- General child support fund 1170-0009 public safety lit and finally I
- fund twenty five oh three dash zero zero zero zero diversion user fees. Okay we got a motion and a second
- and we are joined by the prosecutor miss Hamlin welcome hey thank you I'm your last step before dinner
- so I'll try to keep it fast.
- Good evening. Thank you. I know you guys are putting a lot of hard work and careful attention to the
- twenty twenty seven budgets and I'm mindful that you are making tough decisions. So I appreciate you.
- We have four separate budgets to present this year to large extent. We aren't making a lot of
- Great changes, but before I get into the nuance of those I just want to make a few comments about the
- work of our office I did as you know submit a review to try to give you a highlight of some of the work
- in our office I hope to keep that going and improve that report each year to keep everybody informed
- but Just to start with our filing data as of July 31st. We have filed 1,352 misdemeanor cases and
- eight felony cases. This is substantially similar to our filing numbers in 2025, though we may have
- some more misdemeanor filings by the end of the year. Our filing numbers, we do have absolute discretion
- to decide what to charge and when, but they are driven by referrals that we receive from law enforcement.
- So to a large extent, we don't control those numbers.
- As of June 30th, we've had 212 cases disposed of through our pretrial diversion program. If this rate
- continues throughout the year, we'll have about 50 more enrollments in that program this year than we
- had in 2025. I'd just like to highlight our
- Arnold Ventures funded study found that our pre-trial diversion program does in fact reduce recidivism
- among participants and in fact has better results than if a case is declined for prosecution or dismissed
- after being filed outright.
- So that was good news that nobody, I think, really expected. So it's a good program. We also have an
- informal diversion that we do for people who are referred to us for driving while suspended cases rather
- than file a criminal misdemeanor case. Our traffic and infraction director
- reaches out to those people, lets them know what has their license suspended and tries to work with
- them to get their license reinstated. And so we've had a significant number of people work that way.
- Yeah, it is very cool. And it was completely his idea to do that. And I really appreciate that.
- Since our last budget hearing, we've had five jury trials. Three of those were in sex cases. Two of
- those were homicides. Three of them resulted in convictions. One resulted in acquittal, and one unfortunately
- resulted in a hung jury, which means we have to try it again later.
- Of those trials, four were in Judge Hutton's court and one was in Judge Talley-Hasman's court. Unfortunately,
- we did have one jury trial that was scheduled the week after the Great Toilet Flood of 2026. And so
- because the judges had been displaced and were working in jury rooms, we couldn't have that jury trial
- that week. So we'll get to that one soon, I hope. But we do have several high-level felony cases set for trial
- rest of 2026, so I sort of anticipate we may have at least one a month until the end of the year. Just
- to take a moment to talk about workload. In our office, my staff, we work very hard and we work as a
- team that supports each other.
- I want to thank the council for recognizing that and considering a 2% COLA cost of living adjustment
- for county paid staff. They definitely deserve it. But just to give you some human resources insight
- into my office, we have roughly 4,000 criminal cases pending right now. If you divide that evenly amongst
- all the attorneys, including myself, that's roughly
- like 260, 270 cases a person. It's not that evenly distributed, but just know that some of my prosecutors
- have substantially more than that on their plate. And according to IPAC's prosecutor staffing analysis,
- we need an additional 3.71 attorneys to handle the caseload that we see. I'm happy to provide that to
- you if you need it.
- In case you're skeptical and you think we're lying about, I would invite you to check on our time sheets.
- As of August 22nd, 11 of my 13 deputy prosecutors have substantial comp time banked. Some of our senior
- trial attorneys who've been trying those homicides and sex cases have somewhere between
- 24 and 94 hours of comp time banked. They come in, they do their jobs, they put in the hours regardless
- of whether they're going to get paid more or not. I would just be remiss if I didn't say that behind
- every criminal case is support staff that are essential to ensuring that our attorneys have
- discovery done, background checks, technology, victim assistance, and other various needs to get cases
- processed. I would just say that my attorneys work at 40 hours. The council did recently approve two
- investigators and our forensic analyst and technology specialist at 40 hours, but all the rest of my
- staff works at 35 hours.
- to let you know that. But I would also say just a word about our recorder, Amy Swain. She was proactive
- to reach out to me about some cases of deed fraud that have happened in other areas of the country and
- in New Albany, Indiana. And so she and I are working together on an expedited investigation process
- in case those cases do arise in Monroe County. So I just appreciate her being on the ball and bringing
- that to my attention.
- Now we'll get to our budgets. For county general prosecutor, you know, we're not requesting any increases
- in salary or benefits other than those that were directed by council. We did see roughly a 5% decrease
- in our victim assistance VOCA grant funding that funds our victim assistance staff. We expected a much
- larger decrease, but
- we did face that 5%. Supplies and services, we didn't request anything additional, but we did move some
- expenses from edit as we were instructed to do. For child support, again, no increases to salary or
- benefits except those that were directed by council.
- I would just point out one of the positions that you approved to move to 40 hours, the forensic analyst
- slash technology specialist, he is paid 33% from the child support budget because he is the administrator
- for their paperless process and some of the other technology that they use over there.
- For our PS Lit Fund, no changes were requested. This pays for half of our stop grant funded prosecutor
- salaries. And we are still waiting on our 2026-2027 funding announcement, but we should be getting that
- soon. But for right now, no changes requested. And then as for our pre-trial diversion fund, again,
- No changes other than last year we made an error with travel and training. And so we did zero that out.
- So I'm happy to take any questions that Council may have. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate
- that. And it's also good to hear that pretrial diversion works. Thank you. All right. Any questions
- or comments?
- Is there anything that you can think that you might be able to do to move the cases along faster? Sometimes
- you go to my case and it's like they've been sitting around for two years, or even longer. That one
- I looked at was even longer. Just typing all this up, just entering all this had to take a lot of time
- because it was just over.
- What can the prosecutor's office do, if anything, to try to move this along more expeditiously? It would
- be more fair to the public, for certain, more fair to the people involved. And certainly, it would not
- be as costly because you wouldn't have all this comp time and overtime situation. What can be done?
- I share your concern that cases are taking too long to resolve. I would say a couple of things on that.
- There are some delays that we are never going to be able to get around, and that has to do with turnaround
- on lab testing that's required. It also has to do with
- pre-trial discovery that has to be done. Defense attorneys hiring experts. We hire experts, especially
- in our higher level cases. And they also conduct depositions, which takes time. I mean, frankly, a lot
- of it is just the sheer volume of casework that we have. It's really difficult to get through hours
- of body camera footage and everything else that we deal with.
- But another important point to recognize is that the prosecutor doesn't get to control the court's calendars.
- And so in each of the four criminal courts, there's only one trial week a year. And that sometimes is
- really, if you really think about that, that's not that much time. Sorry, what did I say? You said a
- year. 12 trial weeks. Oh, sorry, sorry.
- I thought you said one per year. My mistake. Did I? I didn't mean that. Sorry. Let me try again. One
- trial week per month. And so that's each quarter. So, you know, it's four times 12, 48. But, you know,
- you have Thanksgiving, you have Christmas, you have other weeks where we don't. And although I did try
- a jury trial on Thanksgiving week one year and got a conviction, but that was quite a while ago. But anyway,
- You know, I think we're really going to have to have the support of the courts and to a large extent,
- you know, recognize that it is always going to be in the defendant's best interest to let a case get
- old. And so, you know, it's really just managing those calendars and making sure we're holding those
- feet to the fire. Any of us need to be reminded that you handle the cases, public defender does not handle.
- cases. So we tend to think of you as the same responsibility face-wise, but it isn't. We have to do
- better somehow. Somehow. The whole court system has to do better to move. I agree. I mean, to your point, it does
- make our caseload snowball to the point where we're handling way more cases, we're not closing them
- as fast as we're filing them. And so it contributes to burnout and overtime and all kinds of other bad
- externalities for sure. Yes, Councilor Iverson.
- I'm going to start in your user fees budget. It seems like there's plenty of revenue coming in to cover
- the cost of the budget, but user fees is constantly something that we're talking about. How are you
- thinking about user fees as we're moving into 2027? I base my projection on last year's increase or
- decrease and projected that way that I've found is the most correct way or the closest way.
- I don't know what you really mean by part of my thinking about user fees. So one of the ups and downs
- in county government over the years has been collect more or not collect more, collect more, not collect
- more. Where are we on that trend, would you say? Well, our user fees, if you're talking about the amount,
- are set by statute. And so we are charging the amount that is prescribed by law.
- We do offer fee waivers. Pre-trial diversion is not denied to anyone on the basis of inability to pay.
- I review those personally, and I use a grid that's based on 150% of poverty guidelines, which is used
- for a lot of means-tested benefits. I think it would be wonderful if we could offer diversion without
- user fees.
- I know that's not reality, and so we discharge what is prescribed by statute. And of course, our rationale
- here is just that we put some personnel lines in those user fee funds, and we just want to make sure
- that those are good to go. Yeah, I understand. I mean, in the past, I think that previous prosecutors,
- certainly not during my terms, there was this huge
- this huge amount of revenue that was just sitting there being unspent. And so during some other similar
- dark financial times, they moved some positions into the pre-trial diversion fund to be paid. And we've
- been slowly moving them out as we've spent down, spent down some of that that revenue. Thank you. Yeah.
- Thank you. Councilor Williams. Yes. So you
- Following up on Councilor Iverson's question, very roughly, what would you say the percentage of waiving
- those fees might be? I don't have it broken down by percentage, but you'll be excited to learn that
- I did write down how many I've done. Oh my goodness. So this year we've had 28 applications for fee
- waivers and of which 25 were
- granted. In 2025, by way of comparison, we had 50 applications and 47 were granted. And that's how many
- overall then go through diversion? So in this year so far, it's been 212 cases. And so of those, 25
- have been waived. About 10% of folks going through the program are able to have their fees waived.
- And just, I guess by point of comparison, a lot of the fees are court fees, right? That's the majority
- of the costs for pre-trial diversion are standard court fees, which they would pay if they were convicted
- of a crime in court. And a lot of folks who are convicted of crimes in court have those fees reduced
- to judgment and never pay them. So not everybody. There are some who can pay their fees. But I would
- just say I think we have
- a better fee collection for court costs in some ways than the courts do for people who get convicted
- of crime. You had mentioned the VOCA grant. I don't remember which budget, which fund it's in, but you
- mentioned that it was reduced by like 5%, but it has personnel in it.
- What happened there? So VOCA funds, this is like a national problem. VOCA funds, they're funded by some
- kind of federal fund. I can't remember if it's a settlement fund of some kind, and that's been reducing
- over time. It's been being spent down. And so there are a lot of federal efforts to try to continue
- to keep VOCA funds. VOCA means Victims of Crime Act.
- Everybody who receives, there are a lot of different entities that receive VOCA funds, including child
- advocacy centers, domestic violence shelters, all of these different service providers for victims receive
- VOCA funding. Prosecutors took less of a hit than some of those other service providers, but it's a
- crisis. OK, so the personnel that were being paid, are they now coming out
- more out of a general fund general fund and okay are you looking kim are you looking at where this is
- in the where's the other half of the vote oh there's 72 percent of the four positions come out of county
- general our prosecutor county general not child support
- You want the lines? Yeah, that way I can highlight a four. We've got 13004, 13005, 13024, and 13032.
- And if my recollection is correct, I think we paid 67%
- of those salaries from County General last year. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to be able to see what
- had happened and where. Thank you. All right. So I wanted to save this question because I want to get
- something I want to get this on the record and make sure that the public is aware. So I'm going to direct
- my question to the auditor.
- Because this is an employee-heavy department. There's a lot of personnel lines here. What we don't see
- in this budget is our top expenditure, which is self-insurance. So, Ms. Gregory, where can the public
- find our largest expenditure, which is self-insurance, if it's not in the budget with a lot of personnel lines?
- If it's not listed in the budget, then it is with employee services in their budget. So you'll be seeing
- that a little tomorrow, actually. Right. Okay. Great. So I just want people to be able to hear that
- answer, that our large expenditure, the tune of $12.5 million, is consolidated into one budget.
- And the last thing I wanna say to the two of you is thank you, thank you, thank you for submitting four
- really tight budgets and for adhering to the president's letter. It's so easy to work with you,
- so thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments on this item? Councilor Decker. Just
- while she's here, number one, thank you again to echo Councilor Iverson's comments.
- But I also want to say for anyone watching out there, the prosecutor is always a strong advocate for
- the folks in her office and in their building. And in a variety of circumstances that have occurred
- in the last year, I cannot recall a conversation where she wasn't advocating for her folks in a very
- diligent and
- good public service way. And so I want to compliment her on that while she's before us and mention that
- because we have a lot going on. And that's certainly not in this budget, but upon all of our minds.
- Thank you. And seeing none, no other further questions or comments. May we please have a roll call vote.
- Councillor Fiddle.
- Councillor Hawke? Did you say pass or yes? Thank you. Councillor Wilk? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes.
- Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes majority five to one pass.
- Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And wow, this is record timing. Knock on wood, which means we
- can do this again tomorrow. So without any other further questions or comments, we are in recess, keyword
- recess, until tomorrow, September 3rd. Same time, same place. Good night.