- Good evening, everybody. And welcome to the second, almost the 12th night. The second night I have the
- all the thoughts in my head right now. It is the second night of our budget hearing, and today is Thursday,
- September 3rd, 2026. I will call this meeting to order. The time is now 5.02, and we have a quorum of
- councilmembers, plus we are joined by Councilmember Decker online. So we will be able to go ahead and
- get started. So next up is item two, which is the adoption of tonight's agenda.
- Is there any motions that anybody, or any changes, rather, that anybody would like to make for tonight?
- You got caffeine crossly tonight, so I'm like. Oh, my good. That matches my non-caffeine I ever see.
- So if there is no motion, we can go ahead and proceed to the next item. So I'm not sure if anybody watched
- the record time of the what?
- Do we need to amend it? I don't know. We don't need to amend tonight's. Why? Stop the agenda. Okay.
- Yeah. They have no changes. We can go ahead and proceed. Okay.
- So no, you're fine. So no changes. We will proceed. So again, as we are going through our budget season,
- I just want to reiterate to those here and those that will watch later or virtually right now that these
- are just budget presentations for from our
- department of Monroe County. And so as we are voting on these tonight, we are just moving these forward.
- It's not necessarily a final approval, and those will come in later in October. In fact, the public
- hearing is Thursday or Tuesday, October 6th, at 5 o'clock p.m., and then the budget adoption is Tuesday,
- October 20th, also starting at 5 o'clock p.m.
- I also want to remind people that there's no public comment during our budget presentations and during
- the public hearing and the final adoption. That is when the public can make comment on those items.
- just a quick reminder, as we did, and shout out to those that came yesterday. They set the tone for
- how we will do that again today. But I want to remind people that you will have timers on the screens
- here, and TSD will ensure that those are happening. So as you are going through your presentations,
- you will just do the entire presentation. If you have multiple line items, it's just all in one fill swoop.
- If you are at your five minute mark, you will hear a ding. And then if you are at your one minute mark,
- you will hear another ding. So that just keeps us on track and to be respectful of your time as well.
- And then council will hold comments or questions until you are completely done to give you a fair shot
- of presenting for everybody.
- We will go ahead and get started. And then just a quick reminder to Council, we are going to stick to
- task. And we are going to ask questions or have comments related to the budgets that are presented tonight.
- So next up, we will do what we normally do during budget. And I will look at the auditor, Ms. Gregory,
- for an update. Yes, thank you, Council. Welcome to another night of budgets.
- I sent an email a little after four with some updated information, and I went ahead and let you know
- that some of the gateway issues have been resolved. However, we found some new issues that their tech
- support team is currently working on to help us resolve with the 4B specifically.
- So we've been working through an audit process found that there are 6 home world funds that where the
- budget is not pulling through to the form for be even though we entered them. So they're working through
- that. But just we still don't have a final version of a form be for you right now. What I would like
- to show you
- What I would like to show you is where we're starting off with the budgets today. No changes really
- were made yesterday, so our total estimated revenue and that we're deducting the tax cap impact from
- that is $137,260,726 and that is the number you're seeing up there in the darker green.
- The total estimated expense for all funds is $135,530,375. So that leaves us with a surplus of about
- $1.7 million. Now again, that's a simple calculation for all county budget projection funds and all
- revenue within those funds. So we have more of a deep dive here for the levy funds where we saw yesterday
- we still have some work to do.
- And then, you know, just for your view, we also have the non-levy funds deep dive below, which I'm not
- going to go through. So I'm always happy to answer questions or we could just proceed, whatever you
- wish. Thank you very much for your update. Does anybody on council have any questions about that? Oh, okay.
- So thank you very much with that. And then we will go ahead and invite our first department that is
- up tonight, which it looks like it is from County Legal. Council, I move to open for discussion and
- review Fund 1000-0277, County General Legal. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. We are
- joined by Mr. Schilling and Commissioner Thomas. Welcome. Thank you very much.
- It's a pleasure to be here and to talk about this budget, which follows the council's guidelines. It's
- flat on the 2000s and the 3000s. And the changes are all in the 1000 category on personnel. We have
- a one-step increase for Jeff Cockrell's position.
- And we have three anniversary increases on longevity for Jeff, Molly, and Justin. And otherwise, it's
- basically the same as last year. Great. Thank you very much. That was pretty easy. Anybody have any
- questions or comments for Mr. Schilling on his budget? Yes, Councilor Iverson.
- Thank you for the simplified budget and keeping within the guidelines. My question is on the litigation
- line. It's one of the key ways that you come back to us every single year. So do you feel like this
- is a sufficient amount to cover litigation as it pertains to that line? It's close. It's close.
- We have the litigation, litigation deduction and settlement lines, which have all been funded at $30,000.
- If you add those together and divide it by the months, you get about 7,000 a month, and that's what
- we've been spending. So I'm a little concerned because we usually get a lot more bills from the insurance
- company towards the end of the year, but we still have about 28,000
- that we can work with. So. We're going to be close. Okay. All right. You know, we always like to get
- those budgets is close to what the expenditures are. So it's good to hear. Yeah. Any other questions?
- No, no, no. Don't see Council member Decker Tan raised. May we please have a roll call vote?
- Councillor Hawke? Pass. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Motion
- passes by majority 6-0-1. All right, thank you very much. All right, next up is our Veterans Service Office.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and review Fund 1000-0012 County General Veterans as well as
- Fund 4114-0000 Donations Veterans Affairs. Second. All right. Good evening. Welcome. Good evening, Council.
- Thank you for having us tonight. Our budget is relatively flat this year. We made a $25 increase to
- our postage line.
- we've got $160 in our donations fund. And that leaves us with just a $25 increase to the
- good job on your budget. Any questions or comments from council on their budget? No. Councilor Wilks.
- For the donations, you have $160 budgeted. Is that right? It is correct. We just learned about that
- budget line item this year. So we learned from
- the council office that we had a donations line. And so we just for the first time, we've got this kind
- of in our budget. Is that the balance that is the balance? Yes. Okay. All right. Thanks. Council member
- Decker. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thanks for always having a pretty straightforward budget.
- One thing I just wanted to say on the public record pretty much is your liaison. Something I always
- say to you,
- I know the office is doing a lot. I know the office is also working with the property tax credit for
- veterans and that can take considerable time. In your future budgets, if you have needs around some
- of these tremendous services or whatever you're dealing with, don't hesitate to talk to us about that
- in ways that we can support or maybe need to be thinking about figuring out how we support
- the most robust way possible. We certainly will. Thank you very much and seeing no other further questions
- or comments on this budget. May we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk?
- Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes. Unanimous 7-0. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is item 7 from Employee Services. Council, I move to open for
- discussion and review funds 1000-0309 County General Employee Services. Fund 1114-0309 Lit Special Purpose.
- employee services. Fund 1170-0309 public safety lit employee services. Fund 1215-0309 employee election
- fund employee services. And finally, fund 4700-0000 self insurance. Second. All right, we got a motion
- and a second. And welcome to your very first budget. Yay, welcome.
- I have provided all of you with a self insurance budget hearing summary. When you get a chance to view
- it, or if you would like to have a moment to read over it so you can ask any questions, I'm fine with
- that. I have our 4,727 budget has had a slight
- increase of 11% which we had already said that that was going to be the cost for the health care. In
- the same view, the commissioners office worked with me and reduced a number of lines so we could help
- to try to offset that increase. So you will see those changes that are within the 4700 fund. On. That
- we ended up
- I worked closely with Kim Schell from the council office and did a spreadsheet and work through each
- individual fund and put in the self insurance lines amounts and notations. We
- and that is what you're going to see in the countywide participation allocation and on that allocation,
- it will have the budget FTE, which is that is your full time equivalent employees. Um in the position
- supporting
- that we came up with. Assessors 14 means 14 people in the assessor's office and how those lines are
- made up that go with those amounts and those amounts are times by 18,000 and $38 and how we came up
- with that factor. Is actual based on the necessary expense to the following
- medical, dental, tandem, parental support, diagnostic and clinic services, prescription and wellness
- plans, HSA support, planned employer support, paid and planned employer support, paid medical leave,
- employer paid life insurance, the PCORI fees, occupational drug screenings,
- that we have that we service for full time. That's how we came up with the
- that amount, and that's how we come up with the dollar figure for those amounts. And then. To balance
- out. We had checked with apex, which is our brokerage and our
- They have an employee contribution sheet that they have given to us to give us an idea of what that
- would look like with any kind of changes that we may have planned for in the future. Those have not
- been voted by commissioners yet, so I can't discuss them in the meeting. But it looks as if we would
- have $2,082,232.
- that would come in from employee contributions. We would be funding $11,273,755 through our grants and
- what you see in the allocations. And then we have an anticipated cash reserve that will be carried over
- this next year. And I will tell you how I figured that so you can
- and see where my mind thought was on that $2,409,020, which gave us total subtracted from the total
- expenditures that as you see in the budget is $12,513 or $513 and $862 would leave an ending balance next year
- of an anticipated cash revenue of $3,251,145. So that would keep us with a little bit of push at the
- end of each year. And of course, they always want us to keep at least 15% of our cash balances, but
- we never know with health care if we're going to get a huge complaint. And this keeps us from happening
- to dip, hopefully, into another account.
- that's the whole plan with this fun, so. I'm sure there is definitely is questions, but I just want
- to again give you kudos because I know you've been working a lot hard and with this and considering
- that this is your first budget. You know, session you kind of hit the ground running, and so I know
- you had a lot on your plate.
- You got here just as budget was kicking off. Lots of help. You have great, great, great people here.
- Thank you. Love hearing that. Yeah, because I think we were looking at more than the 18,000 originally,
- right? Yes. So, I mean, to hear that plus seeing how you broke this down and seeing a positive balance
- at the end projected, that's really great.
- So I really appreciate you taking the time and really explaining that and giving that to us. Thank you.
- Yes, of course. Questions? I'll go Councilor Henry, and then I'll go Agresson first. Yeah, thank you
- for being here. Thank you. This has been one of our more challenging account lines over the past few
- years. Always is. It's a very large amount of our budget. And in a lot of ways, we are an insurance
- provider, as well as a government, right? So my question is this.
- In my past experience, it's been brief. I've only been on council a bit. It's good to meet you,
- by the way, in person here. This seems to be more under control this year, in terms of how the spending
- plan is thought through. Do you get like a monthly digest or bi-weekly from Apex or how the spending
- is going? What does that report look like to you? Actually, we do that within our office.
- Apex sends us a monthly bill and then we reconcile with that bill and then they give us an overall view
- every quarter. So we can get it at any time in which we have been here lately just so we can keep up
- on if there might be any kind of hidden costs that's like
- it's the end of the year, scary time right now, as we all know, because we don't know what's gonna come
- around the corner and if there's gonna be a high cost claim between now and the end of the year. But
- what I did is I actually took what we had spent up to today and I divided that by eight months and then
- times dip by four and then minused it from our cash balance to come up with what I hope that we have
- that comes over to next year and what you'll see in your report.
- I. Each insurance comes with a basis that we pay that every person here is insured under a certain amount,
- and I'm not quite sure what yours is now. I'm just now learning your funds, but once they push through
- that. Reinsurance fund they will
- the insurance company pays more. So we should be getting into that time right now with anyone that has
- been high cost for a while and that will get us more reimbursements. So that's what we are starting
- to see. One thing that Angie and I had talked about that we would I think that we're going to work with
- counsel with you guys to see if we could
- that we would. Break out our refunds because they're built into where we receive and give out money
- for claims and part of the claims process. So we would see exactly the lines there. I appreciate that.
- I think I would. I would benefit from it. I'm not sure if other
- Yeah, because what I don't want to do is get to a place where we sort of have that surprise where, hey,
- oops, there's a $2 million hole, and here's the appropriation. And it comes through our usual agenda
- process. But just having that, here's the health of the thing. Here's how close we're getting to the
- minimum fund balance. I would find that useful so as not to be surprised when that line item comes to
- Michelle and we have to put it before us.
- a little bit of a reminder, sometimes those $2 million oops comes in and we don't even know they're
- coming. So I have spoke with Apex because medical management was kind of my favorite thing to do in
- my past HR history. And what that is is where you monitor people who are ill and making sure that they
- are getting proper care immediately. Because believe it or not,
- So I'm not a physician so would not be doing that part of it
- And then does have someone that does that. So that would help us look to see if someone is going to
- oncology appointments and that kind of stuff. They do not share names with us, but they do help us with
- the money part of that. I appreciate that comment. And I appreciate the fact that that HIPAA information
- is productive. We are a small government, and it doesn't take too long to put together, if we're talking
- about someone's injury, who that might be in the government. As long as that information is kept close.
- It's very, very close. I appreciate that, too. Thank you, Madam President.
- Councilor Iverson. So the first question I have is to piggyback off of what something that President
- Cross who had alluded to was that in fact this $18,038 actually came down based on your methodology.
- Could you I guess the question I would have as an employee of this county is is that sufficient to cover
- my health care needs and can you go through your methodology about how you came to that reduction?
- So the actual reduction was a report that we had received from Apex benefits that did have a higher
- amount, the extra $800 that we were talking about. So what ended up doing was we have revamped some
- of the plans, different co-pays instead of them being 80-20, they're going to be 70-75-25. And we tried
- to make them do where they were not huge,
- that you could be able to do. Uh comparisons also, um. The budgeting to we didn't budget like right
- to the point, but budgeting enough that you could be able to not have such high expenses. Um there were
- some lines after Angie helped me review them. Um that had not been spent all the way through for a few
- she helped me reduce those numbers. And then by doing that, that helped us get the cost of this down.
- We are in hopes that that will surely cover everything that needs to be covered. But as we all know,
- right now, the predicted is 9% if you look online anywhere. So 11, we're hoping will cover if there's
- surprises.
- just a quick follow up as you're renegotiating those plans. I know there's been a lot of chatter about
- what's in network and what's out of network is particularly as it comes to health care that is regional
- rest than local. Could you talk a little bit more about what you found there? Sure. So we are covered
- by Anthem and Anthem has a policy that if the place that you're having treatment wherever it is all
- over the United States, all over the world, if
- They're covered by anthem plans anthem covers them. Okay, but if you go to some place if you are being
- or you're going to a physician that is not covered by anthem, we can do some negotiations, but that's
- all done through the broker.
- and that money comes in that way and we can start doing a negotiation, especially if there's special
- treatment that someone has to have that's not anthem provided. Um, but it is at a higher cost. But,
- um, normal, normally most places except anthem. That's why anthem is a good, um, you don't like, um,
- I used to work with cyho and cyho had
- that you would go through. And now all of their circles have gone north. So if you really wanted to
- see as psycho provided physician, you would have to go to Greenwood. You would have to go to Indianapolis.
- You would have to go to different places that are not here. So with IU health being very large in this
- community, they are an anthem provider. So that is that helps tremendously. And we have looked into
- that we're going to be using like ortho Indy and making advisements. So we're getting together a road
- show that's actually going to happen on the 14th and the 15th. To teach everyone how to be a savvy consumer
- with to save costs for them as well as for the plan. There's a lot of
- direct them to your office. Yes. All right. And there has been no plans adopted as of yet.
- So the commissioners will be finalizing all of that. Of course. Yes. Yes. Yes. Councilor Bridal. So
- as your council liaison, I enjoy working with you. Thank you.
- I do as you. So I'm looking at the number six where you have down the employee contributions. I think
- you said that was right. The two million eighty two and two thirty two. Yes. So I guess I'm wondering,
- I presume there will be choices that the employees can make.
- that's what we're looking at right now, right? So I wondered how did you base this on what people did
- last year? Or what was that amount based? No, we actually have a proposed plans, which of course I cannot
- divulge the plans right at this moment, but we do have divulged plans on. Um what it's going to look
- like next year, and those are what we
- I don't know that you're aware. Maybe you're not aware. We have a solar system that everyone will go
- into, and they do their open enrollment, and it's all done digitally every bit of it. Um so they will
- be able to
- And in that plan, it'll say you will pay this much and your employer is going to pay this much. Okay,
- a contribution. And it lets them know how their plans are worked. If they want individual counseling,
- we can do that as well at that time. So they can pick the right
- plan that's best fits them. And there are three plans as there was last year, and their deductibles
- are all the same as they were before. So all of that is staying the same. Thank you. Uh huh. Councilmember
- Wilts and then I'll go to Decker next. Thank you. Um. This is.
- I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to read something while she's talking and you just like walked
- through it and it. It's thank you. They really my big point on the budget. I do see where. If you scroll
- down Michelle to the services, I think categories, yes. There were a lot of places where you deducted like you.
- the budget from the previous year. And I know you touched on that. But is there a way for you? Are you
- able to tell us a little bit more around, um. How you did that? Okay as I said, Angie and I worked very
- close and he worked with these numbers. Lots of calculation time. Lots of figuring and
- So are you wanting the general fund? Or do you want the self insurance fund? Self insurance. One moment.
- Thank you. Oh, so you want the self insurance? Well, I thought that's what you were talking about. Yeah,
- that's what I was. I was on the 4700. Yes. Yes. OK. OK. So to start with, we didn't used to appropriate
- this budget. Right. And so I think that
- This might be the third year that that has actually occurred. And I believe the first and second year
- when that was done, it was kind of taking a shot from the hip as to kind of estimating, guesstimating,
- if you will, as to what each of those account lines would require. I've been keeping track, like the
- auditor's office does,
- like from 21 until present. And so I was able to see how each of those lines actually is expended and
- used. And that's how we were able to reduce the amount requested to be appropriated in that particular
- line. OK, that makes sense. Thank you. Councilmember Decker. Thank you very much. Pardon me, this is my voice.
- It's awesome to have you with us for your first time. One thing I would say, in the past, we have had
- changes to benefits, particularly around health that kind of at first blush seemed like pretty easy
- to do, but getting the word out there and then getting everybody okay with the change is always another
- matter. And so I would just say, as things move forward,
- The office, in my opinion, has done a really good job of education out there and of being proactive
- on that. But I would also just kind of urge patience because sometimes word travels slowly even with
- outreach and often there's struggles to, people struggle to come forward until it's a little bit later
- down on the road. So just some things I've observed in the past. Thank you for the advice.
- We're in hopes that by doing the road show, we're supposed to be doing a small brief sheet that will
- go out to all the employees as we talk to them. And we're literally going to go to every office. And
- I don't know where all the offices are, so this is going to be a hello. And I get to know we are taking
- Apex with us. We are taking the clinic with us.
- Yes, and we're taking our office as employer services because we're going to talk about things from
- employee services and workman's compensation and those sorts of things on a one-on-one so they can ask
- us questions and we can talk with them. So we're in hopes that that will open up the line of communication.
- Of course, there is always improvements that can be made. Good start.
- Awesome. And I think the auditor had her hand up. So I'm going to go to her and then I'll circle back
- to Councilor Iverson. Yeah. I just want to again, welcome you, but thank you. This is the best information
- we've received and it's just the management overall has been so good and then the collaboration. So
- just wanted to thank you all for that. Appreciate it. Thank you.
- in your general fund zero three zero nine and the ones. You have budgeted for full time self insurance
- online eighteen zero zero one seven point three five two million dollars my question is why is it up
- here and why is it not down in fund forty seven hundred. Okay so forty seven hundred is a transfer in
- on. So all of this
- under three countywide participating fund allocation you'll see the first one is one thousand oh three
- oh nine general fund four hundred and seven point five five nine employees and they're all broke out
- here on what departments that they're in comes out of that fund that's out of the general fund and that
- explains to you where that number comes from so
- And then at the beginning of each year there will be transfer ends from and you can see all the other
- different funds that are listed here on the side. Those funds will also be transferred in and that's
- the allocations that are made to create the forty seven hundred fun along with the cash balance that
- is carried over.
- I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say
- that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going
- to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not
- going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.
- if you'll recall, you used to do this in every single departmental budget. So rather than having to
- go to each department and have them sweep that amount into the 4,700, it was better to just consolidate
- it down into one general fund department, and then we list how many positions this covers. So this just
- makes it easier with regards to we don't have to bug the departments or she doesn't have to
- you know, bug the departments to sweep that amount in. And you can see the actual total of what the
- amount for general fund is. So that's why we moved to this concept the last three years. Having it broken
- down in section three like this makes it so intuitive. It makes it so easy to see it. So thank you.
- And yeah, and so this is the employer part, whereas their fund, 4,700,
- then takes in the employee part that is paid out through a payroll. So that amount is automatically
- swept into that fund. So that's how we do that. Okay. Oh, sorry. Councilor Hawke. Yes. First of all,
- thank you, Kim, for working with me today and getting through these questions with me. And every year I've
- I thought, I'm not sure I'm following this. But one of the things you mentioned, and maybe it's just
- the way it has to be, but when I'm looking at, and I'm the liaison for the youth services, and so when
- I was looking at that, it does concern me a bit that you're mixing all of those employees together as
- if they're all an employee of the Bureau, of the shelter.
- that total is for all of the employees, whether it's probation or whatever. And so it's really hard
- to see, is probation, what's going on with those numbers, what's going on at the shelter, if you have
- vacancies and whatever, and to just be able to follow along with the expenses of the shelter, because
- that's close, at least it's close to my heart.
- that we make sure that we always cover the shelter expenses and not have them have to pay the price
- for picking up insurance coverage for other portions that was never supposed to have been a part of
- the whole thing to begin with. So what we have that under just so you're aware is those come from grants
- and I don't have the names of the grants that the money comes in from. But the positions that are supporting
- our eight health
- that is for health, probation, 21.91 employees and YSB is 2.27. So that total that you see there is
- for health, probation and YSB. It is not just YSB. Probation and what that. No, she's talking about
- employees in the general fund. Well, I just had wanted to have my opportunity to say I would think that
- I would want you to protect them as well. Yes, so we'll look in that to make sure that. Oh yes,
- Miss Woodruff. I do want to clarify that.
- Whenever these are paid, the employee services is really good about sending us a spreadsheet and it
- ties out every single position that is being paid on a line by line item. So while you may see the budgets
- kind of lumped together, those are broken out in the claims process by each and every position within
- the county. I'm sorry, I missed that. I mean, if that's an answer to my question,
- it might look okay in the claims department, but when we're looking at it through budget, it doesn't
- show up that way. But anyway, thank you. Okay. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Last one. Could you all remind
- me, we transferred like 3 million last year. Yes. Okay. This past year? Yes. At the end of last year.
- I'm where I put it. So we that that reserve then kind of is representative of that cash influx that
- we provided. Yep. Give or take point. Exactly. All right. And so Pardon me. And are you All right. So, um,
- What I had did was you have actually $6,136,541 left in the cash balance in that account currently.
- If things keep going as they have been, it'll be right around $3,772,683 that we will be minusing from that.
- And that would leave us an estimated cash balance of $2,363,858. So that would be your carryover that
- would just carry over, which is almost identical to what you had last year. So that's a good thing,
- because then it'll hook with whatever is left over, and that will
- keep carrying and then hopefully every year if we can keep that going we will get a cash balance in
- the bottom for when some things do happen because they do. Thank you. Ms. Gregor. I would like to remind
- the council that that target fund balance that we need to maintain is three million.
- This isn't so much like a question, but this is a comment, is that I know for all of us here, budget
- is heavy and it's hard, and it's never a dull moment around these times. But the reason why I say that
- is because that $7 million is a huge amount that is in our general fund. We got to have it, because
- folks have to be, they got to,
- be insured. We've got to take care of them as much as possible. And the reason why I bring this up is
- because I've had the conversations with the commissioners related to edit. I'm not stepping on toes
- or anything like that right now. But I do want us to think about as we are looking down the line. And
- I've also sent an email asking for us to have that conversation and that dialogue related to edit.
- But I personally would like to see if we could move over that amount in the $7,352,109 over into edit
- pending a approval from the commissioners on edit. And I just wanted to see if anybody had any
- I've checked with the auditor, and that is something that we can do. Again, I understand that that is
- pending your approval. But the idea and the reason that I say that is because as we will go through
- budget, I'm sure there are some things that some of my colleagues here would like to maybe trim down.
- But this is a big move over as we look and work towards the common goal of trying to make sure that
- we give a COLA to all our employees. So I just wanted to ask,
- what's your appetite with that Councilor Everson? My thoughts from a fiscal standpoint alone immediately
- go to the budget fund analysis that our auditors department showed at the very beginning where if you
- do a deep dive calculation on the levy funds the general is somewhere around 1.7 million in the red
- right now. Am I reading that? The 4B
- Yes, that is correct. Apologies. Okay. It's good that we're on the same page. And then if you go through
- all of the levy funds and you sum them up, the right now, the deficit there is about $11 million. Correct.
- Right? So if moving $7 million over out of the general, that could provide some relief, or actually
- it would provide quite a bit of relief
- from a purely financial standpoint? Yes, agreed. So those are my thoughts. And to remind folks, too,
- we also ask for people to put what we had back in edit back over into their budgets. And they have.
- So right now, the slate for edit is clean. Again, pending the approval from commissioners,
- And hopefully this is something that we can do in a collaboration and in an effort. But I just wanted
- to bring that because I know last year that was something that we kind of did as the last minute. Hell
- Mary passed. But I want to at the beginning of budget, I want us to start thinking about that. Yes,
- Council. And I just briefly looked at it when I came in and sat down. But as a response to Councilmember Iverson.
- at 1.7 that we're in the red. I think that's what you said and I don't have it down in front of me.
- But we can't do, we can't just do that because that leaves us with nothing for the first six months.
- That balance has got to be a whole lot more than something in the red. It's got to be our first six
- months operating to get us through until our next settlement in June. Of course, you're going to have
- income tax coming in,
- It's more than just being in the red 1.2. It's way more than that. It's a good point. I don't think
- we're talking about the balance though, are we? If I may, that's just considering revenue against budget.
- We're not looking at cash reserves. So that's a completely separate issue. We have the cash reserves
- to pull through.
- any other questions or comments on this item? Well, I will make a motion. So, Council, I move that we
- move from Employee Services Law and Fund 1000-0309 the amount of $7,352,109
- of County General into edit pending Commissioner's approval. Okay we got a motion and a second any questions
- or comments? I would like to hear what they think.
- I will just say that we've not had an internal discussion yet on the proposal. So we have yet to do
- that. So hopefully very soon and hopefully we can have that conversation together. I would assume October,
- November. Yeah.
- Of course, I will. And I think we got to do this before our budget adoption, which would be the end
- of October. So yes. And again, I'm not trying to step on toes. I know I sent an email. That's why I
- said pending approval, because I know that's something that we all got to do. So that wasn't like, we're
- going to do it whether you like it or not. No, it's more of just getting that ball rolling so that we're not
- So I just want to make sure that's clear. Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Mr. President, and I was
- happy to second so we could get the ball rolling, as you say. So this is good to have the conversation
- in the room to start constructing what the potential edit plan could look like for 27. I would just
- remind folks that the
- The adoption of the cola the 2% that we agreed to a few weeks ago that that motion that I made was also
- contingent on whether or not we were using the edit that was the totality of that statement that we
- had all voted on and so. The cola as it's in here, because we needed to get it in gateway to do these
- adjustments, the other part of that.
- Motion the sentence that matters is just the same as counselor cross he said about the contingent use
- of the edit because without that, we're going to have to revisit all of this, you know, and so, so that's
- part of the build out there. And I see Commissioner Thomas has maybe a comment to that but also auditor
- Gregory on that too but.
- I just wanted to raise that back up, too. Thank you. I appreciate that. Again, not trying to do any,
- like, gotcha moments, but... Yeah, I was just wondering what the COLA amount is in total so that we
- can have that discussion. Motion was for 2%. 2% was what was put forward to staff. Yes. Well, I mean,
- I think she wants the total amount. Dollar amount. Dollar amount. Dollar amount. And that's something
- that we can get from you all. Yes, I'll get you. Okay. Perfect. Thanks. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
- Okay. One more request before it. We got a motion on the table. So I just want to make sure. Did you
- have something on our motion? Just a note that in our sustainability plan, our financial solutions group,
- the 2% is contingent, like the affordability is contingent upon being able to utilize that fund. I just
- want to make sure that's clear. And they did say
- that it like advised like that or recommended something that we could use at it for this purpose. Okay,
- I just want to make sure that is on there. Okay, so we got the motion on the floor for this. Is there
- any other further questions? Yes, Councilor Wilks. So in FSG's advice about the COLA, did they
- I don't remember seeing an amount that they said we needed to utilize the edit. Is it the same as last
- year, or was there an amount? Same as last year is what it said. They had a projected increase. Do we
- have that in front of us, Carly? They did say they were comfortable with 2% for the COLA. And they did
- increase the amount to be budgeted and added
- of course, pending commissioner approval by a percentage. And we'll get that for you. I don't have it
- at my fingertips right this second, though. That's another number I think we need. Yes, I agree. More
- than this year. Thank you. OK. All right. Any other questions or comments? Councilor Hull? So the motion
- is to move the $7 million expense over to that. Correct.
- the COLA over there or just the 7 million? It's just the 7 million right now in an effort to make sure
- that we can do that. And then, of course, our office will give Commissioner Thomas the total amount
- for the projected COLA amount. And as a reminder, we took from County General a huge amount toward the
- end of the year to boost up that fund.
- And the other funds did not have to pick up any of the expenses. And so, you know, we should not continue
- to punish the people getting paid out of that general fund because we're. You know, we're trying to
- make up for some of these other funds. We just shouldn't. It's not fair to our county employees. Have
- the general fund. All right, people even know which fund they're getting paid out of.
- Yeah. Okay. So we got a motion on the floor and maybe please have again. The motion is to move the seven
- million and three hundred fifty two thousand one hundred nine dollars over and to edit. And so can we
- please have a roll call vote? Councillor Hawk? Yes. Councillor Wills? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor
- Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley?
- 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. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- All right. And then I'm sorry, you actually had something else that you wanted to say that I can wait
- until you get out of the general fund because it's in the 4700. I mean, technically we're in all you
- open up your budget for everything. Okay, so, um, the 4700 fund.
- when we were doing the calculations, we were comparison to a format that we were using to make calculations
- for perf and for FICA. It got added into 4,700 twice. So we would like to take out 4,700, 1, 9, 9, 9,
- 9 perf for an amount of 15. Budget advertisement.
- That's just a placeholder, correct? That's just a placeholder. Yeah. And you have it further down. There's
- a different one. It's like $5 million further down in the budget. We did it for each category. Right.
- But we did it across the board for everybody. So it will not show up in the final. So you can leave
- that. But then the FICA for 18101 needs to be zeroed out. OK. Yes. This line right here.
- yes okay 3902 3902 okay okay all right thank you that's it okay thank you personnel categories okay
- all right so yes council Iverson okay we're gonna I'm gonna make a motion to go back to the edit just
- real quick okay or do we need to make a motion let's just go ahead and do this one
- Yeah, that's what I was saying. Let's do that. I cannot see. It's Fund 4700, Account Line 18101, FICA.
- And the amount of $3,902? Correct. All right, Council, I move to open Fund 4700-18101 and remove the
- FICA amount, which is $3,902. Second.
- Okay. We got a motion and a second. Any further clarification? Council. That was messy. Was it right?
- No, that was good. Okay. Okay. Any other questions or comments on this? All right. Seeing none, may
- we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. And Councilor
- motion. Oh, Councilor Henry. Yes. Motion passes. Unanimous seven zero. Okay. And I'm gonna go back to
- the Council. I understand Council. I moved to open fund 1112-0309 Employee Services Department, and
- I moved to, uh, that was me being flustered because I don't have the line written down and I moved to in
- move seven million three hundred fifty two thousand one hundred and nine dollars into line. One eight
- one. One eight one. One moment yeah that has a second messy motion in a row
- 8001 self-insurance that's the line one eight zero zero one full-time self-insurance I'm gonna reread
- the motion council I move to open fund one one one two dash zero three zero nine employee services department
- and in line one eight zero zero one full-time self-insurance I move to ink to put in the amount seven
- million three hundred fifty two thousand one hundred and nine dollars second
- Okay, we got a motion and a second. Yes, Council Iverson. Pending Commissioner approval. Yes. Correct.
- No further questions on this item? Okay. So may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? Yes.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0. Thank you very much. Now we need to come back to the overall passing
- through of the employee services budget line. So may we please have a roll call vote on that? Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? 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.
- Come on up. Good evening. I'm just here. This is your second. This is second full year. Yes,
- that is correct. Yay. All right, go ahead. So budget as presented, you see there's been no change, no
- increase anyway.
- some line items that you may see there that look like they did not exist just last year or this year,
- previously in edit. So they've just been moved over. Everything's basically the same. All right.
- In payroll, there is increase that's due to 10 years of service and the COLA. Thank you very much. All right.
- Council, colleagues, do you have any questions on this item or comments? This is pretty simplified,
- easy budget. So thank you very, very much. All right. And seeing no hand raised on Zoom or any here,
- that was easy, like the button. May we please have roll call votes? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
- Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crosley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0. Great. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. Have a good evening. You too. Next up is from our building department. Council, I move to
- open for discussion or review fund 1000-0312 County General Buildings and fund 1240-0000 Building and
- Construction Related Fees
- please note as of this date, the building department has yet received guidance on how to move forward
- with fund 1240-0000 building and construction related fees fund. Second. All right. Welcome.
- We have Mr. LaRue here. Welcome. Good evening, counselors. Good evening. Thanks for having me.
- to say, I guess. Thanks for being here. There's really not much has changed this year. There was one
- line that changed from account line that I thought would do something and was not usable. So we moved
- some computer maintenance and repair to a service line that allows us to service our permitting printer.
- But it was the exact same amount, just moved to a different line that can be used as intended. All right.
- Any questions? I'll go Councilor Honk and then Iverson. Yep. Okay. Thank you for taking time to speak
- with me about your budget. One thing I wanted to call your attention to is, you know, the legislation changed.
- The revenue that he receives does not come immediately into County General. It's set aside in a separate
- fund, and they've worked out how to do that, that it will be worked like a reimbursement if there's
- money there to reimburse for their expenses in County General. But there's no guarantee of how much
- will be there. And I did notice on the miscellaneous revenue
- sheet for county general. It showed, I believe, an increase in what the budget would be coming from.
- But, you know, you've got to let that balance grow a little bit. You've got to have just like the rest of
- and you start a new fund, you've got to wait for it to grow a little bit before you have enough to go
- back and reimburse whatever you're spending. So I think we have to be very careful. It was 300 and some
- thousand dollars, I believe, is what I saw. I'm sorry, I'm not looking straight at it. And all I can
- see over there is a big black. Oh, I have trouble with my eyesight, so I can't see you, Carly, but I
- know you're sitting there.
- I'm just saying, I don't know that we can count on that whole $307,000 if that's what it was. I forget
- what the number was.
- budget both the expenditures and the revenue in Fund 1000 for right now. The new fund is created.
- Unfortunately we sent an email to the DSBOA over a month ago and we had some questions about some of
- the finer details with how to go through executing those new legislation changes and the response I
- got back was we're waiting for
- We're looking into that. You're not the only county that has these questions and we'll get back to you.
- So what this will likely look like is we'll budget all of the revenue and expenses and the general fund.
- And then once we have that guidance, we'll come back and we'll de-appropriate and re-appropriate at
- net zero amounts in order to follow that statute and not inflate arbitrarily either side of those.
- I mean, you know, I think,
- Are you looking at it is a 300 and some thousand dollars did I get that right. I don't have it right
- in front of me, but that does sound like it's in the ballpark. I hadn't really planned to speak on this
- but after I looked at the miscellaneous revenue I thought this doesn't really sound right so. I just
- don't want you to think that.
- that it's the building department that's not working toward doing what the legislation says, but it
- is a really, it's a new thing for us to work through. And I believe that the legislation included the
- planning department fees, though that part I don't really remember for sure. So all of that has to be
- worked out. And once again, we hit the,
- that the budget for the department could very well exceed the revenue for the department. I was. Mr
- LaRue one of the things that we often talk about is vacancies and departments and I just wanted to hear
- an update from you on how that's going. It we're managing it is-
- a really promising inspector leave at the beginning of our busiest season. We work through it. We have
- been able to fill one position. And frankly, it will take time before there is a huge impact made. Fantastic.
- I think it was a fantastic choice for our department and our community. But quite frankly, it's going
- to take some time and training and before there's a huge dent made there. I'm not going to tell you
- it's been my favorite summer here.
- but we got through it and there are hundreds of dwelling units that got inspected and opened in time
- for the university to come back. Hundreds of single family, probably not hundreds, but tens of single
- family homes that got opened in time. We generally have about
- 160-ish single-family homes a year. So they're not all in time for school, but we've been able to manage
- that as well. As you all are aware, there has been a lot of legislation changes around the department,
- not just here, but throughout. So we are doing our best to work through them.
- and to meet timelines and timeframes that are mandated by the legislation. Keep reaching out.
- We're here. I appreciate that. I also understand that, you know, I'm thinking of the department for
- a reason. I'm trying to get through that before we come back and talk to you. Councilmember Decker,
- I thought I saw your hand raised.
- and I appreciate always when Bobby is here and in his comments, and I'm good. Thank you. Well again,
- thank you for all you do. I don't know what's the challenge in Tom and I just like even last year and
- again this year. I thank you for really trying to do what you can and make do with what you have. So
- looking forward to good stuff in 2027 for sure.
- And as a possibility of sounding like the boy who cried wolf, we are going to get new codes. I'm very
- excited about it. They have crossed some hurdles and I think are well on the way, badly needed updates.
- And I'm very much looking forward to them being implemented and
- of getting to utilize new codes for the folks in Monroe County. Thank you. All right. Oh, one more.
- Okay. Council Hall. Just as a reminder, you know that not everybody understands the building department.
- Sometimes they think it's the building department that does county buildings. But this building department
- is the one that provides services to the public. So if someone is building something, whatever they
- need to have an approval on,
- This building department has to go out and physically visit these places several times, not just once.
- And then you've got contractors sitting there ready to pour the footers. You've got to have people there,
- and they're getting ready to put on the drywall. But you've got to have people there to check out the
- electrical first. And then you get the drywall in, and you have to do every one of these steps. And
- these people have to touch hands-on and see all that, unless something has happened that
- It's different now, but that's the way it was for years when I was in construction. Is it still that
- way? It is still that way. We visit single-family homes five to six times during construction, and some
- of the large buildings that you see being constructed now, we might visit several hundred times during
- the construction phase. As a reminder,
- every time you keep that contractor waiting or that they can't go ahead for the footers, whatever, that
- cha-ching, cha-ching, the cost of that house goes up and up. And who pays for it? The people that we
- say we want to help them get into housing. So this department is a big part of making sure that we can
- provide housing and that we're working with the people that are working here to provide that.
- So thank you. We appreciate it.
- Thank you. Without further ado, may we please have a roll call roll. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
- Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0.
- Thank you all. I hope the rest of the evening goes as smoothly. I sure appreciate you. Yeah, of course.
- Thank you. All right. Next up is item number 10 from emergency management. Council, I move to open for
- discussion and review funds 1000-0361 County General Emergency Management.
- Fund 1152-0000. Emergency planning slash right to know. And finally, fund 4103-0000. Donations, emergency
- management. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And welcome. One of my favorite budgets
- that I'm starting to learn to love a little bit more, because there's so much that you do. So can't
- wait to hear from you. We don't have favorites. You're not supposed to have favorites. It's OK.
- I just can't wait to hear what you have to say. Well, I wish it was more exciting, but probably not
- so much tonight because the first one out of the general fund is the exact same budget minus personnel
- costs that you approved last year. So I'm not asking for any increases and no decreases. So not super exciting.
- you want to go ahead and hit everything? Oh, sure. Go for it. Yeah. So the 11 52 right to know, of course,
- just as a reminder that is no taxpayer money. That is Sarah Tier two. Fee funded that goes to fund our
- local emergency planning committee equipment for our first responders are training for our first
- Nothing super exciting there. It's also cumulative. So what we don't use rolls over. And then the donations
- was a surprise to me, new to us this year. So that is the entire amount all out there.
- Any questions? Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you Madam President. Thank you Jamie for being in and having
- worked with you for years now on a variety of these things. Always emphasize the importance of A,
- your budget, but B, this is a place where I always feel like we can add more. This has been a very difficult
- year I think with some of the hazards in the community.
- I guess I wanted to drill into maybe for the budget purposes, the EPRA, the Emergency Planning Right
- to Know through the LEPC. Can you maybe walk us through what the exercise was this year and what's planned
- for next year with that resource? Or if we started planning ahead for next year, what we're buying with
- that? So with this year, we haven't actually completed the exercise quite yet. So we were planning a
- functional exercise for September 24th. Of course, we always have to pick either an extremely dangerous
- extremely hazardous chemical or this year we actually got a waiver to use a hazardous but not extremely
- hazardous chemical that is at print pack so that is going to be our place of disaster for this go around.
- For those who don't speak the language, can you tell folks about functional exercises?
- Sure, so with the tabletop exercise that is purely discussion-based where you have all of your stakeholders
- and your players in the same room and it is kind of instructor or facilitator led. For this one, the
- scenario is given and you break off into your individual tables or groups and you are actually making
- the phone calls and
- doing everything except for the actual hands-on portion. The hands-on portion is more of a what we call
- a drill or a full-scale exercise. A full-scale exercise would be everybody going to print pack, dragging
- off the hoses, spraying the water, dragging the people around, and EMS doing triage. So we are one step
- below a full-scale.
- we're kind of building to a full-scale exercise. I appreciate that walkthrough, only to say that when
- we get to that level of exercise, there are golden opportunities for leadership to participate in those
- things because electeds have roles in that space. Is there some hope that you'll have the role playing
- by departments that have a role, for example, as I think about
- in the emergency management world, like our auditor's office has a very small role for how we get reimbursed
- from FEMA or the leadership. Is there an opportunity for us to experience or see that firsthand?
- I think it's going to be great. Absolutely We'd love to have anybody and everybody come and play. So
- if you are interested, I will be sending the email and feel free to jump on board. We've been working
- quite a bit with the auditor's office here lately. I think they've been getting a crash course in emergency
- management things, whether they wanted to or not. Of course, they've been completely wonderful and on
- board the whole time. But. Yeah, it's been a learning experience for
- Thank you. I appreciate it, Madam President. Thank you, Councilor Iverson. So for many of the residents
- of this community who are never going to go to tabletop exercise, what they are worried about are tornadoes
- and derechoes, flooding, high heat days. So can you talk a little bit about how this budget or these
- three budgets can help to keep our families safe? Sure. So like with the LEPC budget, that is
- very much planning driven. And of course, that is a heavy chemical basis, but we do all hazards planning
- in everything we do. So while it may be chemical focused, we're still taking those pieces of that. When
- somebody loses their house, it doesn't matter whether they lose it to a flood, to a tornado, or to a
- chemical disaster, we still operate the same.
- still want to get you into short-term housing. We still want the red cross to show up. We're still going
- to do those things. We're still going to do the procedure for evacuation doesn't change based on what
- it is. You know we still evacuate the same. Thank you and could you touch a little bit on sirens and
- how that work is going? I know you've come to council a couple times to talk about that. Yeah so actually
- this is something I'm kind of excited about. So
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Obviously we've talked through the general obligation bond and replacing you know,
- as we go, we're halfway there like Bon Jovi said. So I'm sorry. Let me find that. But yeah, we are
- replaced and needs replaced. So I've tried to work through the ones that were inoperable first, obviously.
- And then the next hierarchy is the oldest ones, replacing those next. So I think the next glob that
- we're working on are the ones that are not operating 100% reliably. So we get to a point where it's
- very frustrating
- you know, you have to understand the technology is 25 years old. Okay fine. But you know, I still don't
- like it. So but when we replace them,
- that takes that guesswork away, because with newer technology, it's easier to get in there and fix what's
- wrong. Oh, great. Yeah. Yes. Yes. But yeah, we're halfway there. And we'll be just tipping over that
- halfway point with this next general obligation bond. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. Anybody else have
- any other questions or comments on this budget?
- I'm not seeing none. You knocked it out the park, even with your trombo V. Um, lyric there. John Bondro.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Without further ado, maybe please have a roll call vote. Counselor Hawk.
- Counselor will.
- Thank you very much. Um. I want to do a quick thing here where we have just three more budget hearings,
- but I do need to
- So I'm going to ask for council members to literally be back on this dais at 6 35. Can you help us be
- on time? So let's just go and let's literally literally welcome back. Now that we have had our break,
- we will go on to the second portion of our budget presentation hearings and we will start with none
- other than the highway department.
- Get ready, this is a lot of funds. Council, I move to open for discussion and review funds 1197-0000
- Storm Water Management Fund 1000-0530 County General Highway.
- Fund 1135-0000 Cume Bridge. Fund 1169-0000 Local Road and Streets. Fund 1171-0000 County Major Bridge.
- Fund 1173-0000 Motor Vehicle Highway Restricted. Fund 1176-0000 Motor Vehicle Highway. Fund 4920-0000
- Westside Economic Development TIFF. Fund 4921-0000 46th Corridor Economic Development TIFF.
- Fund 4922-0000 Fullerton Pike Economic Development Tiff. Fund 4934-0000 Curry Profile Tiff. Excuse me.
- And finally, Fund 1242-0000 Lane Mile Direct Distribution. Second. All right. We got a motion and a
- second. We are joined by Ms. Lisa Ridge, Highway Director, and the Assistant Highway Director, Mr. Toby
- Turner. Welcome, y'all.
- Good evening, Councilor. Good evening. Go right into it. One stormwater. We stayed within the 2% cola
- as requested. We lowered some lines. I don't know if you want me to cope up line by line. I don't think
- you want me to go by line. We do have a large probably expenditure in there and one of our
- capital improvement projects, which would be Baby Creek.
- And the biggest change that we would have in there is adding funds to try and start the construction
- for that project. Oh, you want me to go to the next budget? Just keep going. Oh, okay. This is how we're
- getting through. All right. County General, we did have our million dollar by two minutes
- grant match but we leave it as bituminous because if there's ever a situation we don't get the grant
- we would still like to be able to use the money for the public for paving. So it is into a bituminous
- line or we call it a contractual line because we usually contract it out. So we took it back from the
- edit and put it back into county general where it had come from. That's where
- The instruction from President Crossley had instructed us to do so. The 25,000 is for the fuel station
- at the county garage that's used by the countywide fleet. So that's maybe your permits, inspections,
- and things on the fuel station out there. Moving on to Cume Bridge. That one, we stayed within the 2%
- of the COLA for all the employees.
- We increased our bridge maintenance by 150,000, just because projects increase and materials increase.
- That road bridge, we increased it by up to 75,000, so we increased it by 25. That project is now a federal
- aid project.
- construction in 2031 so we have to do the necessary steps for maybe NIFA environmental study right away
- certificate to show that we've already secured right of way so we have to take the steps to keep it
- a federal aid project so the construction would be at 8020.
- We increased our small structure inventory line by 150,000. That is on a five-year cycle. We used to
- budget it every year, but we just do it all in one year now. In 2027 will be our time for our small
- structure inspections to be re-inspected.
- A Bernal Pike Bridge, we did that as a new line. We have some approaches that need to be fixed on this
- bridge. This bridge is just west of Curry Pike. We've received some complaints and we got quotes for
- it. So we put it into our 2027 for that bridge. We have no capital expenditures.
- Oh, and Eagleton, that's just kind of a placeholder for that bridge. It is actually a grant project,
- but we keep a fund in the other funds or accounts, funds, I guess. We keep it to where if we have any
- outside expenses that's not part of the grant, we have that line. If there's a change order
- that's non-participating that we don't foresee, we keep the line so we can pay that. If it doesn't.
- to qualify for a reimbursement. Local Rotten Street. I believe we moved. Yeah, OK, so the fuel was in
- the edit and we moved that back to local Rotten Street where it was an original fund. That is the line
- that is used for countywide
- So we buy the gasoline, we fill the pumps, then we build the departments monthly for what gasoline that
- they use. So it's kind of a placeholder revolving account. So we moved that back. We put 300,000 back
- into there to help with the paving. We increased our supply maintenance fleet just because
- we've been able to increase our rising costs and maintaining all of our equipment. We created a new
- line for Fairfax high friction. That is also and it's a H sub project. Highway safety improvement program.
- that is 90% paid for those funds for construction. And this should be our portion at this time. I don't
- believe there's funds for construction inspection, but I have reached out to NDOT to see if they would
- cover that. We estimate that actually the contract to be around $52,400 that I just received today.
- So I'm trying to get that covered with some
- federal funds not sure if I can but we had no we already knew that we would have to cover that locally
- so that's the creation of that new line. We increased again service maintenance for our fleet for equipment.
- Infrastructure line looks like stayed at 90. And we have no capital expenditures and that budget either.
- County major bridge.
- We have our interest in debt and principal and our Fullerton Pike payment that we will have for our
- bond. You do see that I did appropriate $7 million for the Mount Tabor Road Bridge. We're finishing
- up right away on that. It's already designed. We're just trying to decide the best time for that to
- go to letting it's all locally funded through the major bridge. So it just depends on if we want to wait and
- construction season of twenty twenty eight or try and get it to bid maybe this spring sometimes you
- don't get as good a bit so. We're going to we're going to be shovel ready for when we want to construct
- and rebuild that bridge. Did you do and Dillman road bridge we increase that by two hundred thousand
- because that goes to letting- in the fall of twenty twenty seven so we would need to be- ready to move funds
- motor vehicle highway restricted 1173. A portion of that is split from our 1176 so half of our mbh funds
- go into here so a portion of our personnel is paid out of there for only the activities that are allowed
- through that restricted fund. I think the two percent portion of that would have come out of there.
- We have our by two minutes line our traffic signal
- maintenance line moved to a new category, since that's a service, contractual services, what we use
- for paving, sidewalk maintenance, we never have enough for sidewalk maintenance, let me tell you. 150,000,
- we do do 150,000 in there, we're actually responsible to at least spend 100,000 according to our ADA
- plan, and we do that yearly, so we budget a little bit more than that because usually we have some
- items that pop up that are outside of what we plan to do. And then our pavement striping, we combined
- two lines in there. And our thermo infrastructure that's also used for paving. And that one, there's
- no capital expenditures in that one. 1176. Again, we stayed within the 2% for every employee.
- I don't think we have any major changes in this budget that is coming to mind. Of course, insurance
- goes up. We increased the cost of our non-health insurance due to have to do an appropriation this past
- year for that. And we have no capital expenditures out of that budget either.
- The only thing that we had increased in there was our career Pike phase two. Project that will be from
- state road 48 basically CBS to vernal Pike that's our next section that we will be reconstructing improving.
- Doing some sidewalk maintenance curb and gutter milling the road and repaving it. So we are actually
- hope to get that out to bid
- hopefully this fall. That would be the only thing that changed there. We still have the stem payment
- in there, and then we still have our disbursement for the fire truck for the town of Bellisville. State
- Road 46 corridor. There's no changes in that budget. Just basically the disbursement and then our tip
- annual reviews. Fullerton Pike 4922. Bond payment there.
- TIF annual review, and then we usually put some funds into engineering construction just for upkeep
- in that TIF area for expenses that are able to be used out of that fund. And 4934 Curry Pike
- TIF, disbursement to the bank, TIF annual review is the only expenses there. And 1242 Lane Mile direct
- distribution, that is something new. It's tied to the CCMG, so we treat it as if we keep our
- million dollar funds in the county general or wherever it would be allocated we consider matching that
- four hundred and twelve thousand two because. The month of September so we received the four hundred
- and twelve nine hundred thirty two thousand from the state in June now in September they opened up their
- call for CCMG were only allowed to apply for that five hundred and eighty seven thousand dollar difference
- to cap at the million.
- we will still be required to match that 587. So we feel that we should that million also the other part
- of that would be matching this 412 for the lane distribution. I hope that makes sense. I think that's
- the last one. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much for
- I know there's questions, because I already see hands. So I'll go Councilor Hawke and Iverson next.
- Yep. First of all, I want to call attention to, hopefully, that there'll be money coming from the state.
- Actually, I mean, they keep taking away some of the, you know, the governor keeps changing around, but
- he continues to say that the counties are not going to be hurt by this.
- I wonder if that means our regular distribution or if it might not also affect community crossing. Could
- I just tell you the two things I have a concern from? So I want to make sure that we have them covered
- for that. We cannot turn our back on matching for community crossings. I mean, it would just be ridiculous
- to do that. And we cannot just take it out of the highway department. If you do, then there's no money left
- to speak up for patching and paving, and you guys can take the phone calls when they all call because
- they got bottles. So that's something I think we have to address. The other thing is I just have never
- understood why the highway department should be responsible for gas for all the other departments. And
- so when I was hearing you say, well, it was put in the edit, and then you kept track of what they used,
- and then you could pull it out of the edit
- to pay for the gas. So what if they're using more than that? I mean, I just want to make sure at the
- end of the day, the highway department is made whole. You cannot be responsible for every department
- that is using gas. And that, you know, those are my two concerns.
- and tell me I shouldn't be worried about something else. We're actually made whole. We have an employee
- that pulls all that information out of our gas pumps and he bills each department every month. And then
- we get checks from each department and that fund, it's really, for me, it's a fund that it's money that
- just sits there that we can't use because it has to be there, but it's money that
- We get it back at the end of the year, but we weren't able to use it for highway stuff. OK, so you're
- saying if you leave it in your budget, it's OK by you because you're going to get it back anyway? No,
- I would just soon have it somewhere else because then we could use that money instead of it just sitting
- there rotating around. Right. I mean, if you're budgeted to use it,
- and then you're they're looking at your budget and it looks like it's there for you've already allocated
- that money someplace else so it seemed to me that if you put it in at it in some fashion you would be
- better off than having to budget it in your fund. And that's what we did uh I think last year was we
- had it in 2026 uh we're currently doing and and and we still did the billing and and
- worked on the pumps and kept the pumps running and maintain the pumps and take the phone calls for whatever
- happens out there. The fund, when we paid the bills, it just came out of a different fund instead of
- a highway fund. Do I understand you correctly? If we have to budget it in your fund, then the total
- of the budget is going to look like you've already allocated that much and there's going to be less.
- Yeah, that's 380,000 that
- that I think it's 380 that that we just have to leave there now. The gas that we use in the field we
- use it'll come out, but there might be a 100 180,000 there that just has to stay there to rotate around
- because we gotta pay get paid back goes into the phone. We pay get paid back. Is that and then the community
- crossing match dollars? Where do you see
- right now you don't have that over an edit that's where it was last year or for this year 2026 right.
- Correct we moved it back to county general um per the president's letter to move it back to the original
- I think we started out a couple maybe three or four years ago it was in rainy day and FSG suggested
- that we do not do that then it went to county general and then for 2026 it was moved to the edit and
- then we moved it back to county general because that was where it had come back
- or was from in 2025. How much did was that a million or what? It was a million. Before that, two years
- before that, it was actually a 1.5 million because community crossings had raised its limit to 1.5.
- What is it now? What's the limit now? It's 1 million. If we leave the 1 million in county general, are
- we moving to add it?
- it's one of those two places. You cannot leave it in the highway. If you do that, then you have nothing
- left for patching a paving. Am I understanding correctly? That's correct. If we don't have that, any
- funds that we have would go towards the match, and you're looking at maybe paving 12 miles. And then
- we have nothing left to add to it. We stretch our dollars the best we can. We're actually
- We're working right now to try and throw three more roads out there. The area that got hit with tornadoes,
- Liberty Hollow, Brown, Bowman, we see them as a really dire need right now. So we're trying to move
- all of our funds right now to get some quotes out to try and get those roads paved this year with whatever
- money we have left. And any money you guys have provided to the highway, we have committed to paving,
- and that is every dollar that has been spent that you have given
- some of the ARPA funds, any of the community crossing, every dime has gone to paving. Every extra money
- that we have goes to paving. And they like it. There's been some they thought was promises. It was just
- that you had it on your list to be able to do it this year. And every year it's going, we're going to
- do it this year. And still we can't. And people are not happy if they don't get theirs paved. So we
- don't promise anybody anything.
- I don't. I get phone calls every day. And we do. We take the request. I think we probably have 85 requests
- right now for people that want the road resurfaced. We keep that request. I don't care if it's five
- years old. We have it. We look at these roads. We're required to inspect them all the time. The winter
- months can change our list. We're already working on our 2027 list. It's just a, will we ever be caught up
- with 700 miles, probably not. We paved one road in a section of the county, the next day I was called
- and cussed out for not paving their road. It was worse than that road, but everybody feels like the
- road is the worst road. I have sympathy for it, but we don't have the money to do... We do more paving
- than we ever have, and I think it has made a huge difference in our program.
- there's no county that it will ever be enough. I used the wrong terminology. I did not mean to say you
- promised nobody promises because there's no promises. Well, we still hear that sometimes like you promised
- me I'm on the list and you are. It can be part of the plan, but the plan changes depending on the plan
- can change the roads and so I get it. Yeah, tornadoes. On the million dollars and
- and we come and ask for that. And we can try to ask for that because we kind of have an idea that we
- can match this. Hey, we need this money because we're going to get this money. We could use three or
- $4 million. I mean, whatever you guys can come up with, I'll put it on the roads. I mean, we can use
- more money. I'm going to go to Councilor Decker because I see his hand is raised via Zoom and then I'll
- come back to Councilor Iverson next. I would just say,
- First of all, we've had a lot of success with Lisa and getting those matching dollars and I think While
- they're still matching dollars. We need to chase that the easiest way possible because a fundamental
- duty of what we have is To do particularly with the way the county is situated is to think about maximizing
- paving and maximizing
- how we can afford to do that in every single way that is available to us while we have those thoughts.
- So I would be supportive if this is what Lisa thinks would be best of moving that million to edit or
- having a million in that and pursuing that so that we can get the matching dollars and not penalize
- highway. But again, I don't want to I want whatever works best for getting it done because we all get those
- and I'm glad that people know where to reach out to talk about that in Highway. Thank you. Council Iverson
- and then I'll go to Councilor Woods. I want to bring it back to the budgets for just a second, because
- I think this can be super confusing for people watching. And in particular, I want to talk about bituminous
- lines. I think I'm correct. They're in four different budgets.
- Well for by 2 minutes or contractual we use 1173. Mainly because that's an activity that you can use
- for road preservation. They have a little bit in 1176 and we also use 1169 right. And then the the holdover
- dollar in 1242 which is 1242 is that distribution and but it does have to be used on your roads you
- can break and that's it's earmarked.
- And then what is the total of all of those funds that are in these budgets? Do you have that handy or
- I've got it too? Gosh, I thought about doing that today. $4,786,685. So that's by two minutes and I
- want to make sure we're
- That's why I want to have this conversation is to try and demystify all this. So when it's the bituminous
- line that is when we're hauling or we're doing in-house paving we have to use that as a supply. We also
- use an infrastructure line that is in 1173 and 1169. 1169 has 200,000 in it and I think maybe 1173 has
- 200,000 in it so that's also used
- for contracting out for paving and then we also have contractual services and that's hiring out paving
- and that's an 1173. Not much in 1176 and a little bit in 1169 but I think there's 951,000 in 1173 and
- that's for that is we use it all for contractual for paving. Right so there's a lot of paving in here
- there's a lot of there's a lot of paving but also that's crack sealing
- That's pothole patching. That is everything. And then, of course, you see sidewalk in there, too. So
- it's all kind of lumped together. And I want to jump on a quick bandwagon. I think Councilor Deckard
- is absolutely right. If we have those funds available, we need to put up a match. I have two things.
- One is going to go off down a little path here.
- do you want to do street cleaning at all? Free sweeping? Yeah, sweeping, yeah. Because I know you used
- to. We go around the subdivisions, and we try and get every subdivision at least once a year. We have
- two sweepers, I believe, that stay busy. All right. And if one or two want that service, would they
- just call or put it in the website? Yep. And that thing? All right. I was unable to answer a question
- not too long ago, and now I can.
- that's the time we get to go around and pick our sand back up. Yeah well and that might be part of what
- the question was about because it was about where their neighborhood came out onto the larger road and
- he's like there's a whole bunch of stuff. Anyway yeah so we go out and put the sand down then we sweep
- it up and then we haul it off. Yeah it's actually a stormwater activity. The cycle of life. So
- that. I'm also jumping on this other bandwagon, um, particularly for. That um, community crossings match
- that one million. Um is would and I'm looking at the commissioner now, but would it be, um. Incivably
- okay with you all. I know you're not like voting and discussing right now to put
- that we have a point of interest to add to the edit for 27 and. Um so again, we haven't had those internal
- discussions, so we will do that. And I think it sounds like the plan is to come back. In September this
- month later this month, or is that just geo bond? I'm ready. Geo line. Okay So let us know when when we
- that we need to. We need to map out what's happening. So essentially, though, we could do it and then
- pending. Approval review of all things. So if somebody
- move that we transfer that one million dollar line that to do to do it is line. It's one two six three
- one two six zero. Sorry. It's so tiny in county general and move it to the edit. Can I just say that? Thanks.
- We got a motion. All right. We got a motion and a second approval by the commissioners. All right. We
- got a motion and a second to move that over to that $1 million over to edit pending approval. Yes. Counselor
- Henry. Thank you. My question goes right to this. So I know I was next. I'll just go into talking about
- the motion. So, um, I'm looking at the, the edit and gateway and in front of me here in our draft budget
- and, um, our,
- Is it the bituminous line we're talking about then 23400 that we would move it to? Or is it a different
- line in edit? I'm asking the table because I'm also looking at the expenditures up to June 30, 26 on
- the bituminous line and I'm seeing zero. So I'm trying to figure out, so did you use the bituminous?
- Yeah, so for 2026, at the time it had to be split
- Otherwise, it was over in the supplies line. So at the time, they took the million, they split it between
- bituminous, and they split it between contract services. And then we took those two amounts, and then
- we moved it into like a 91 something, where we pay all the community crossing stuff out of.
- Yeah, because it's not clearing this, this is the way this budget presents right now that that adjusts
- or the as of June 30 looks like nothing got spent, but it got moved is what I'm looking at is that it
- was spent. Okay, great. So having said that, which is good news.
- Add to the bandwagon here to say I do recall last year when we did make those adjustments to get our
- four point something million gap closed and looking at it as a solution last year that this this was
- one of the items that seemed to really align with what the spirit of economic development taxes ought
- to be. So if we've collected that revenue from the county and we want to put it back to work as economic
- development like roads are that right.
- So I would be supportive of, I mean, I was the second to the motion, but to move that back, of course,
- pending the discussion. And I would just add, I know we've said it a few times, we have to have this,
- our budget adoption, right? So like we have to have the, the edit conversation very soon to get ahead
- of budget adoption. So that's, that is September and probably before readings, I would assume I'm looking
- at Michelle maybe. Budget adoption is October the 20th. You can still make
- edits and stuff to the budgets at the public hearing. So once we have the public hearing, there's still
- things that you can do. I'd like to offer. So it sounds like, you know, we can have that edit conversation
- maybe at the same time with the geo bonds at our next regular session later on this month. Yep. Be September
- 22nd. Thank you.
- okay all right so we got a motion and a second is there any other further questions or comments on that
- motion none may we please have a roll call vote counselor crossley yes counselor iverson yes counselor
- fiddle yes counselor hawke counselor wilts yes counselor henry yes counselor dekker yes motion passes
- unanimous seven zero
- Thank you, Councillor Iverson. And then we need to make a motion. What line in 120530 are we moving
- into? I would use the same account line, which is the Community Crossings Project. Is that acceptable
- with you? The only issue I have with that is Community Crossings is going to become very competitive.
- If we don't get the grant, we would still like to be able to use them because it will
- If we don't get the grant, our paving is still going to go down. But it would still set it back, even
- if you wanted to put it in contractual services or something. So what would you prefer, contractual?
- So that would be 3,0006.
- council I move to open fund one one one two dash zero five three zero lit economic development highway
- administration and move one million dollars into account line three zero zero zero six contractual services
- second all right we got a motion and a second on that item is there any other further questions or comments
- on that item the procedural okay seeing none
- May we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes.
- Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Motion passes
- unanimous 7-0. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Iverson. All right. I'm going to bring it in a totally different
- direction. I don't want to talk about paving at all.
- I asked this for another department. The labor market is really hard right now. Can you talk about vacancies
- and anything that you need to talk about in that area? Sure. So we actually in the 2027 budget, we just
- left a dollar in a truck driver position just to keep the position there. We have no plans of filling
- it. Also a maintenance labor position to help cut down on labor in the budget.
- the only two positions that we have open right now is a highway engineer, which I will be coming to
- you on Tuesday for the hiring phrase. We did have an engineer, it just didn't work out. And then we
- have an employee that's retiring after 30 plus years, one of our financial managers. So I'll be coming
- to you on Tuesday for that one. And other than that, we don't have any positions open, knock on wood.
- It's always subject to change, but we have a really good, really good crew right now. Really productive.
- They paved fish road in this hot weather this week. They did a great job. So I can't say enough of what
- they do for the county. And I appreciate the proposal of the 2% for them, for the whole county. Because
- everything goes up and it helps us retain our employees. So I appreciate that.
- That's fantastic to have someone in your department working for all those decades here in county government.
- That's really a testament to you. Thank you. We have a lot of longevity there that is for sure and that's
- wonderful. I said I think I hate it because I think we'll probably you know a lot of us will be going
- at the same time but yeah she she has been there for 30 plus years. Toby's been here 20 plus years.
- How long have you been here?
- since probably horse and buggy day. I'll have my 39 years next month. But it's been a great job and
- I appreciate it. We have great staff. And again, we have a lot of longevity with our staff. But it's
- also to the council and the commissioners for taking care of employees and the benefits that are provided
- that has kept people here. So I think at least one commissioner was shaking her head
- that you might be leaving, so. No vacationing all the time. I wish I was vacationing all the time. This
- is my third, like, second 13 hour day this week, so. So we hope to make it short for you right about
- now. So I'm looking around to make sure nobody has anything else for Ms. Ridge. And seeing none, may
- we please have a roll call vote? Oh, I'm still there. Did you have?
- Yeah, Peter you brought up earlier I believe was the the county fuel and I didn't know if maybe that
- was something that you guys wanted to try to find a place for other than the highway budget. Local road
- and street now. And make it clear that's what you want because you were like.
- I mean we don't have budgets and we just moved it back and we can't speak for other budgets being willing
- able to take that over either. We was instructed to that needed to go back to where it came from and
- that's where it came from.
- I think that was a revelation for me tonight about just how we charge each other for gas in the county.
- And it strikes me that it's going to need a little work to figure out what is basically a fee for service.
- And depending on what fund is writing you a check at this point, if we're just circulating it or it's
- coming from somewhere else, it's going to need a little work. But it does strike me that, yeah, you
- have to pay for the initial gas for the year. And then if it's self-sustaining, I mean, gosh, there's
- a lot there. Not going to figure it out tonight, but I want to, I think, explore this over the month.
- there's a different way to go at it because it'd be nice to free up that resource if you don't need
- to sit in there. I would agree. I think we definitely need to make sure. I wrote that down in my notes
- to figure out how we can rectify that and reconcile that situation. Councilor Iverson. I'll put a finer
- note on that. We are really good at creating unintended consequences when we make decisions on the fly.
- And I don't think you want any of that. So I second what my colleagues are saying. Let's take some time
- and think about this. That's fine. Thank you for bringing that back up to us. Yeah, thank you. And I
- just wanted to, so I have a note. Is that the gas oil lubricants line in 1169? Yes, the 380,000. OK,
- yeah. All right, so now can we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. And Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0. Thank you very
- much. Thank you. Of course. Appreciate it. Have a good night. Stay cool out there. All right.
- Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Good job. Thank you.
- Next up is item 12 from our technical services department also known as TSD. Council I move to open
- for discussion and review funds 1000-0106 county general TSD, fund 1170-0106 public safety lit TSD,
- and finally fund 1215-0106 election fund TSD. Second. All right we got a motion and a second. Hello.
- Good evening everyone. Good evening.
- Everyone, Greg Nesmey, Greg Cron, IT director. Again, joining us here this evening is Wendy Goss, our
- financial manager for the TSD office. So we did as asked, we kept our budget as flat as possible. We
- actually made some reductions in some locations due to one of them being for an election not happening
- in 27, that we don't have to worry about contractual services, but we also made cuts to some phone lines
- that pay for sheriff's phone systems that we were able to
- get better deals on through AT&T and we've reduced some things there. So we actually made a few reductions
- to about $40,000 the last I checked. The only additional that we're asking for that we hadn't asked
- for in previous years was line 24207 for supply maintenance, repair building and ground. That's for
- items, electronic items, affixed to buildings that are not movable, such as security cameras,
- Swipe badge entry readers, things like that. That is affixed to the building, cannot be moved to another.
- So that was the distinction made between it and our regular computer supply repair maintenance line.
- So with that, I welcome any questions you may have. I thank you very much. Sorry. Any questions or comments
- on their budget? Thank you very much for doing all that you could to keep it flat and some reductions
- there. I want to highlight that.
- Um, anybody? Bueller? Councilor Iverson. One of the things that you all keep coming back to us about
- and talking to us about are the incredible cost of licensing software and things like that. Where are
- we at that with the lifespan of the licenses that we have? Are we looking at renewing any of these licenses
- soon, particularly from a financial standpoint?
- Our big ones like our Microsoft licensing or Adobe licensing. Those are annual. There's no way I can
- do those on multi year any opportunity we get. We lock in three year agreements so that way we can lock
- in the software prices. Some vendors if we extend past that they will actually reduce instead of giving
- 10% annual increase will knock it down to 2 or 5%. So we do have renewals coming up every year. Microsoft,
- like I said, one of our biggest ones that's over $200,000 that we owe.
- for all the services, that's your office suite, your teams, everything that goes with that. So that
- does come out of our software line, out of Comcap, which is a different deal there. But yes, we are
- seeing increases across the board on those. Okay. Councilor Decker. I may have heard it wrong because
- I am all the way around the world, which I hope is not making people at TSD nervous, but
- My question is, you had mentioned about elections not having any expenditure. Is that because the city
- pays for its election in 2027 or because our duties there are different? Well, for my part in that,
- Councilor, what we're talking about is contractual services where I have to bring in contractors to
- either do wiring, things like that. It's not for the general use of the election. It's for the back
- end of that that makes that happen.
- since they got their new space, we did have obviously had some contractual services we had to pay for
- for this year to get the primary in this year's election in that new space, but we will not be having
- those same costs next year. Thank you. Did that answer your question, counselor? He gave you a thumbs
- up. Oh, okay. Yeah. The only other thing that I would add is
- I noticed that line item 47 100 equipment law enforcement, which is the amount of 440 440,000 is also
- it's technically double budgeted because it's over in the GO bond. So and I know that is like pending
- approval and whatnot. And so it's technically what I think we should do tonight is to remove that pending
- the final approval for just because it's
- I would like to move that line item 47 100 equipment law enforcement and the amount of or. Yes, we're
- going to law enforcement the and the amount of $440,000 be removed. Pending the approval from the
- zero one zero six got it okay it's an objection but point of information man president let me second
- it so um put information on it then um are when when are we settling the geobond in the sequence here
- so that's what i'm saying that um like this evening we just discussed with geobond and edit that will
- be a topic of conversation um at the
- September 22nd meeting. Because that'll all be before. So in case things happen and we need to move
- things around, we got plenty of time to figure that out. Yes. Are all of the items that were listed
- in the Geobond list that we received, the requests, are they all budgeted in different budgets? No.
- Okay. Some are not in here at all. Okay.
- And when we get to any as we go through budgets, is this the plan or the thought? Because I think it
- might be, and I was talking to Ms. Purdy about this during the review, I think there might be something
- else in the commissioner's budget that also is listed in the GO bond that we probably will do here in
- a little bit once we get to their budget. So yeah, I've been trying to make a mental note of anything
- that I've seen on that. I've nerded out over budgets if you can't tell.
- and want to double check that. So, yes. Yes. It is $440,000. And that is the 40,000. Yes, 440. This
- is the multi-year commitment for body cameras, et cetera, for the Sheriff's Department. And we did the
- first installment last year in the Geobond.
- Any other further questions or comments on this motion? All right. John, may we please have a roll call
- vote? Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crosley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes.
- Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hock? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Passes you.
- Thank you. Thank you very much. And now we'll come back to the overall, the final approval here. So
- may we please have a roll call vote. Counselor Henry? Yes. Counselor Deckard? Yes. Counselor Crosley?
- Yes. Counselor Iverson? Yes. Counselor Feidl? Yes. Counselor Hock? Yes. Counselor Wilts? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous 7-0.
- all right thank you very much and last up on our budget presentation for this evening is item 13 which
- is from the board of commissioners there's nine of them so get comfortable council i move to open for
- discussion review fund 1000-0307 county general fleet fund 1114-0307 lit special purpose fleet fund
- 1170-0307 public safety lit fleet
- Fund 1000-0068 County General Commissioners. Fund 1000-0161 County General County Buildings. Fund 1114-0068
- Lit Special Purpose Commissioners. Fund 1138-0000 Cumulative Capital Development. Fund 1222-0000 Monroe
- County E911. And finally, Fund 4933-0000 PSAP Lit.
- Thank you. All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined by commissioners, Julie Thomas,
- Commissioner Jodi Madeira, and Ms. Angie Purdy. Welcome. Thank you. So for the personnel side of things,
- obviously, that's reflecting the 2% increase. I'm looking at county general 1,000, 0, 0, 6, 8. That's
- the commissioner's budget. And I want to just highlight for you in the supply
- that are in the budget category. Just to note that those were not included in last year's budget because
- that was part of the edit. So just. Since you're seeing the zeros, I wanted to kind of clarify why that's
- in there and those are not any increases. It's the same amount as. That is currently this year in the
- edit. It does still include the
- obviously at your discretion, but it is a helpful amount for us for any kind of events, you know, with
- the Christmas holidays and the Fourth of July for providing particular decorations. So just bringing
- that to your attention. Oops, sorry. I jumped from the very top.
- And now we go into the services category. The printing and subscriptions, that's been reduced because
- we consistently aren't using the amount that we normally budget for that. We have increased the professional
- services line. This is going to cover council for our pending litigation that you guys are quite familiar with.
- Then we also have the, it, capital services, it used to be TAM. They're now with ICE Miller. They're
- the lobbyists that provide us the updates and everything as to what's going on on the legislative level.
- And I just want to bring to your attention that when we did this, we did not have the agreement for,
- security on the county properties. So it's possible that that number will not be sufficient, but at
- this point in time, I think 75,000 is an appropriate number to get us through most of the year. And
- then if not, then we'll definitely be coming back to you to talk about that. To highlight that, I think
- it was a few weeks ago, we added some lines that came from the Cable Franchise Fund.
- into county general and those lines are represented here and there they are at no increase that also
- means that cats has not been given any kind of an increase as reflected here and that is generally they
- generally get an increase but just providing that to you so you know it's been kept flat.
- The line regarding our other insurance, which is the non-health insurance, that's our liability workman's
- comp. That's reflecting a 1.5% increase at this time. I think that I met with our representative last
- week, and it looks like they were pretty close on that number. So I think that at this point in time,
- difficulties with insurance is they're never ready at this time of the year to really look at what all
- that we might have going on.
- and then Workman's comp is on a Rotate is on a revolving three years, but with a two-year delay. So
- We've had some increased claims recently and we're getting into that kind of We're getting into that
- term of those two to three year revolving And then I want to bring to your attention the
- stone belt developmental disabilities line and that line and the mental health center stone line and
- the developmental disabilities line. Those are all at an increase, but that is per DLGF and it doesn't
- affect our ability, our living. This just goes to them.
- have any questions about this fund keep going all right all right so county buildings um and i believe
- last i think last week you approved the um us to be able to fill at for a new maintenance um person
- and we changed that from a supervisor to um a regular maintenance person so that's actually a decrease
- in in the budget um if you go to the supplies category of 161
- Everything's the same. Those were in edit. But we did reduce the supply, maintenance, repair and fleet
- line to 17,000. It's 19,000 this year. So do a couple of off of that. And if we go down to the services
- category, there's
- We reduced the trash pickup because that is based looking at our actual expenses. So I think that we
- can cover that those costs with that slight reduction. Utilities. This is an increase. I think we're
- going to be short this year, but we'll keep it a close eye on that so that we can get before you if
- we need to. The clock winder.
- This is a slight increase, but he's not had an increase in my entire time that I've been here. So $4,000
- is a slight increase for the clock winder. And we're going to see if we can fix our internal clock here.
- Good was telling me that it's a motor thing and they can't find a replacement motor. So it's going to
- take some talent to
- that particular clock. And then the justice building management line, I need to correct that number
- to, so I want to reduce it to 656138. And the reason for that is earlier this year, but after the budget
- had been approved, guards,
- at the Justice Building, which is providing for a savings of $122,200. You moved some what? Guards.
- So there was like a guard there overnight, Monday through 24-7. And the need to have that coverage is
- no longer there.
- And plus now we have the swipes for people to get in. So we know who's coming and going from the facilities.
- So the initial change was, of course, uncomfortable for people. But I believe that I have not heard.
- I hope that doesn't invite more. But I have not heard any problems at this point in time.
- That is what happened there. And then service contracts, I think I've increased that also to an even
- 400,000. And again, I'm hoping that's accurate. We seem to be kind of looking at our service contracts.
- We've added a lot of mold remediation to our buildings. And so that helps to cover those service contracts.
- budget. We'd like to go to fleet for okay. So fleet also in County General is we're showing a reduction
- in vehicle registration that again is based on kind of history of what we seem to be expending. So we
- just cut that in half and that is County General. Do you want me to go on to the next budget?
- Okay I'll keep rolling. So lit special purpose this is 1114 and this we have I reduced the contractual
- services line from last year and that's because last year just kind of a similar situation we had bond
- items in the bond and we also had them here and this is where it gets interesting with this particular
- fund because
- often counselor hawk wants things paid for ysp out of this fund so anyway so that was been reduced because
- we don't need to do all the work that we were going to do that we're doing this year and then i've added
- it's not a new cost it should have been removed from their budget um if i talked to vicki and vanessa
- um and just put their their
- insurance there are other insurance into into our side because we can it's easier for all the invoices
- and things of that nature so we we've added that but it's not a it's not an addition to this total budget
- the one addition that you will see is the 52.5 that is also in the geo bond and this is the one where
- you guys have to decide if you want to keep it in here or if you want to put it in the bond
- I will go down to we also have a fleet in special that a special purpose and that is at six thousand
- there's no change there okay all of that fun we're going to go to ccd cumulative capital development
- and we were able to reduce the
- a little bit in the personnel side because we have a new help desk person who starts at the first, the
- zero brand new year. I have increased the software and the service maintenance lines to 1.5 million
- for the software and 500,000 over 300,000 for the current year for our service maintenance, repair and
- building and grounds. That's where we pay for a lot of our known
- or anticipated repairs and conditions that need to be happening with our buildings. And then the equipment
- line, that is generally used for body armor. And the sheriff, I don't believe is in need of the 25,000
- for next year. So we just reduced that number. The amount for the parking garage
- is increased that's at 600 000 we're at a variable variable rate and it seems like i never really know
- until the invoice comes so this gives us some flexibility on that and that was that's it for cumulative
- capital so lit public safety uh we did a and i don't know why this happened i checked the math twice
- um but there's a slight decrease in the fleet building administrator even
- though I think there must have been an error last year or this year, is the only thing I can think of.
- And the amount that's budgeted, because I've checked it twice, multiple times for this year, for 27.
- And so that's the only observable issue in lit public safety. E911, 1222. This fund is,
- And is solely for dispatch purposes. It cannot be used for anything except for things associated directly
- with this with dispatch. And there's an increase in the contractual line. Excuse me. What happens is
- the city sends us the invoices and we pay them. So there's no transfer of money from the county to the
- city. We just get the invoices and then we pay those.
- and then there's a slight reduction in their training travel line. I don't think we have anything in
- the election. We don't. And then cable's gone. And then 4933, I believe is what we're looking at. So
- that is the public safety answering point. I haven't had a chance to talk with Mr. McKim at the city.
- there had been the intention to change the rate for both public safety and for the PSAP lit. Everybody
- agreed that during the next few years, it would be ideal to try to ensure that we have enough funding
- as we go into kind of an unknown area. So the $4 million right now is a holder. I think it will be less
- than that.
- But 4 million is a safe number. We currently have the Monroe County in our reserves. I think we have
- over 3 million. And then the city should have kind of just based on roughly looking at their numbers,
- they'll have at least a million at the end of this year. So we will be in good shape. And I need to
- know what the, we also need to know what the tax rate, what the rate will provide us. So there's a lot of,
- I'm not sure if it's a safe number. It's kind of moving parts, but, um, the city can probably explain
- it more. But right now, I think the four millions of safe number. That our budgets. Any questions? Okay.
- Thank you very much. Um okay. Um, Council Councilor Hawk. Very last that you were
- the city would have, I thought you said a million and we might have more than that in the trust in the
- dollars it's saved from the lit account. Is that what you said? I was just trying to follow what you
- were saying. Yeah, okay. So the PSAP lit account, generally what happens is the rate is established
- and the city will generally have a budget that's
- large, they don't generally spend that budget. They have a number of people who are not, they have a
- number of vacancies that they keep carrying. And so that just keeps rolling over. So that helps them
- to have a reserve, if you will, when we transfer funds over. And then when we get the money from the
- state, if it's more,
- than the agreed upon interlocal agreement of going over for dispatch, that money is retained by the
- county. Again, it's for PSAP and it helps to, the intention is for both parties to be able to cover
- costs should there be a. Yeah, just yeah. Yeah, does that make sense to you?
- Right, well I wanted to bring you down to the interlocal agreement. I haven't seen an interlocal agreement
- for a while but with the city having to do with this money. But part of it said if there was ever a
- shortfall that we would split it and county would pay evenly with whatever the city if there was a shortfall.
- What we really
- I'm trying to recall now, if it is disbanded altogether, then we have to decide where each dollar amount,
- how that's going to be split up. And I haven't seen anything correct. Right. You're right. I don't think
- it's covered in there. But we're not supposed to be giving them any more than what the budget for. So
- when we get the supplemental, we should not be standing it there. That's why we have the reserve. OK.
- I'm just saying, we do not know, and when we go into the great unknown in a couple of years, whether
- or not the county is going to be left doing the entire thing. I've heard the chief say that they'd like
- to have their own. But in the meantime, if it is all going to be up to the county, then that's going
- to be something that we have to look at with the 1.2 operating.
- So I think we have to keep a close eye on that and not think that we need to just keep upping a budget
- that we might not be able to afford to do. We hold their budget down. Yeah, so they have a different
- way of budgeting than what the county does. And so they budget much higher because I don't think they
- ever want to go back to council. And so we know that they're not going to need
- $4 million. They're going to spend 2 to 3, most likely. And what will happen is the rate that will be
- a stat that's based on the percentage for the public safety, and then the PSAP comes off the top, that's
- going to bring in the majority of their budget. And we're still going to have the $3 million surplus.
- And they're going to have a surplus because it's still
- dispatch money, right? Still PSAP money. And so I know that when you say we should split it equally,
- but that PSAP lit that we receive, that's shared between everybody. We're just holding onto it because
- I trust you guys more than. Second question.
- presentation on the commissioner's budget. And I heard you talking about the dollar amount for the mental
- health and dollar amount for mental disability. Okay, and there should be two lines there for the mental
- disability, right? But then I heard you say, well, we're just going by what the state said, whatever.
- And remember, the state, and so since I can't see these lines,
- The mental disability is not a required dollar amount. But what we have done for years, when we added
- a double one and added another group, within every year, we've given it a growth factor. Yeah, growth
- quotient. But we don't pay. There's also a ruling from the state that we can go a whole lot higher.
- Yeah, exceed a certain amount.
- But for people who think, well, that won't cost anybody anything. Well, first of all, the taxpayers,
- it would cost them. But in addition to it, it is one of those things that is part of the adjustment
- to our max. So it goes on top of that. However, it is also in the circuit breaker. So when we say, well,
- what is it we're going to lose in the county general over a million dollars?
- And so that gets charged back. Are we going to split it up? And do we charge that part of the circuit
- breaker to them or not? And I'm not saying we should. I just think we should be knowledgeable about
- it as we are setting these budgets. Yeah, I totally understand. And they can always use more, just like
- a highway could use more. Everybody could use more. Yeah. There is a maximum amount that state establishes
- that can be
- to those and we are we are under that when you add those 2 together. We're under the maximum amount.
- Okay, so you have to together. It's exactly what it is for this year with. Did you and then you added
- some coal on there or no. Sorry percent it what did you. Yeah, the growth factor the growth quotient.
- even though we won't get it. Even though we don't get it, but that's what the states. Just wanted to
- make sure that we were on the same page. Yes, I think we can see it. I know you can. You can adjust
- that as you wish. I mean, that's. You would take it away, no, but. Circuit breakers suggest.
- Okay. Councilor Wilts and then Councilor Haug, your microphone is going in and out because it's not
- close to you. So you might want to bring it up to you the next time you comment. Sorry. Excuse me.
- I'm sorry. Councilor Wilts. Strangely, I want to comment on exactly the two things that she was just
- commenting on.
- The committee met a couple weeks ago, and we did raise the overall PS lit rate. And just to kind of
- clarify, it wasn't to make sure we have enough money kind of built up around it. It literally was a
- discussion around
- the trying to budget, trying to collect enough to cover what the costs are for running dispatch so that
- it is an accurate reflection as we head into the big change, the big unknown. And do I remember the
- amount that we increased it? No, I completely don't remember. Well, I thought that you guys missed the
- first date, so will this put it in later next year?
- That's a question for them. I don't remember being told that we met on 8 20. Yeah, I know. I think that
- did miss the eight one date that we were trying to. Yeah, there's a because I know when we met with
- the city to talk about the budget, they were going to try to have that meeting. And I think that was
- in, I don't know, June, July. It's when they start trying and it's like herding cats.
- I'm not sure. Anyway so that's just yes. Thank you. Um. More. I guess you know from Mr McKim. Um and
- the I remember a few years ago. Um. We with these what I've always considered a little bit of a pass
- through kind of allotment to our social service
- And we've gotten that on several fronts. Well, there's one organization we haven't heard from, and that's
- Stone Belt. And I don't know if you've heard from them. OK. I would hope that they would want to let
- us know how they're handling the money we give them. So I'll follow up. I'm pretty sure that I did last
- year, but I don't think that they responded.
- I'm sorry. Didn't have it. All right. So I mean, I just. Above common courtesy, it just is more responsible
- as we give money to understand how it's how it's working for them. Thanks. I think Miss Turner King
- had her hand up. I did speak to Mr Larry Allen this afternoon, and I have the rates if you want me to
- say them. So the PS lit rate is proposed to go to 0.2869%.
- the P separate is proposed to go to point on one person. They say when that would go into effect because
- 0.1 0.1 0.1 percent 0.1 0.1 percent. Thank you. I think that's the maximum that it can go to. I'd have
- to look at the statute. Mr. Allen said that he was going to send me
- the timeline and the proposed ordinance. And so I haven't received that today because we just talked
- this afternoon. I'll go to Councilor Iverson and then Henry next. So I want to talk about or rather
- have a conversation about dialogue about the Charlotte Zietlow Justice Building. And I wanted to just
- open it up with a question of how do these budgets
- if at all or in what ways do these budgets help maybe address or prevent some of the harms that we've
- seen understanding that Murphy's law can probably best be applied to 2026 as it deals with that building.
- Actually what I'll say for Murphy's law is that it's the age of the building and that the
- the burden that it bears- I think is why we're seeing. These continued and repeated- problems the majority
- of our- services the way we're able to. Conduct repairs- is through the community cumulative capital
- development funds that pays for a significant number of those things also our general
- that's in the twenty twenty five deal bond. The basically that. The repairs that were needed because
- of the mold and the new controls that need to go into place and so that and in the twenty twenty five
- deal bond. Many of the problems with the justice building that's not the only building right so we also have
- So we have that building repair line that we generally use in cumulative capital. And then that's also
- a lot of times where we'll use the special projects to cover those things that we had not anticipated
- having to pay that kind of substantive amount. Does that help? It does help. And I think there's still
- you know, as we go around and talk to different departments about their budgets, you know, they're asking
- us, you know, what's going to happen in 2027? How can we make things better in 2027? And I think your
- answer gives part of the answer there. I mean, there's some partial assurance there that, of course,
- the geo bonds are still in place and there'll be hope there and that we're using those funds. But the
- building's still aging.
- It's still falling apart. It's still burdened. It's overburdened. And so I just, you know, I know that
- it's a difficult thing. This is a very difficult situation for a lot of departments that are involved
- here. And I do want to continue to have a dialogue using these funds and others to try and alleviate
- some of the, quite frankly, the suffering that some of these departments are going through.
- Yeah, and I appreciate that. Something I'd like to also share with you is, I don't know if any of you've
- watched the Boeing Netflix movie. It's really good. It's really kind of sad. I mean, it's really bad,
- but it's really good. But one of the things that they did with Boeing is they outsourced all kinds of things.
- they decided to put these really efficient engines on this large carrier. Well, the carrier wasn't designed
- for those efficient engines. And so those efficient engines caused all kinds of problems, and they fell
- off, and things of that nature. But that is just exactly what we have been experiencing at the Justice
- Building. When we made the changes to the
- HVAC and the controllers, and we were using more efficient softwares and electronics. It created more
- problems down the road, so it was pushing things. You know, it was just pushing, it was just, you'd
- fix it over here, but it would push it over to here. And so, you know, we're trying, we're dealing with that
- with that building. And it wasn't well or conducive to repairs of that magnitude. We can't just change
- the plumbing because the courts can't handle having jackhammers going on while they're trying to do
- court. And we also have inmates in the facility. So there's a lot of things that
- our hands are tied. And I know that you guys are just now kind of hearing about this building. But I
- have hated this building for a very long time. Yes. And I have wanted it gone. And I still want it gone.
- So. I think a good way to summarize our relationship with that building is that there are ongoing maintenance efforts
- that continue to be scheduled, that continue to be done. Plus, when repairs are needed, we get on them
- as quickly as possible. Asking a vendor to come in overnight to do some work, it happens. So there's
- ongoing maintenance.
- there's repair work that's always done as quickly as possible. And we do cobble together, and Angie's
- a wiz at this, cobbling together those repairs and maintenance efforts from a lot of different funding
- sources. So to simply ask, I mean, we talked about this this week, I said, well, you know, can we just
- get a list of everything we've spent on
- on the justice building. And that's a huge endeavor. That is not just like, hey, just call it up on
- wow. It is not there. It is under 6,000 different lines. And did the vendor put justice building on
- it? I don't know. But Mr. Kreider's here. And if you want a general summary list of all the things that
- have happened in that building and what we've worked on,
- that he can provide that for you. Um, but, um, I will also mention that some of the discussion has been
- about, you know, carpet and furniture and things. And I wanted, um, if Ms Purdy could address that,
- if you wouldn't mind. Sure. Um, so I am going to just admit that. That building has aesthetically
- not given the care. And could give all kinds of reasons. I'm not going to. It's just a fact. So it does
- not look like how it should. The prosecutor's office, when I went in there, I couldn't believe my eyes,
- because I was here when that building first opened. And I swear it has some of the same carpet that
- it had when I was in there when it first opened. And same with the walls. And so we have, so when this
- incident happened with the,
- the sewer for the toilets overflowing. It clearly damaged the flooring in the clerk's office in an area.
- We fixed that, but we are going to replace all of the carpet for them. So that will hopefully be a brighter,
- cleaner looking space with that new carpet in there. They also have, I think it's linoleum or something in the
- of that little vestibule off to the side and Richard's going to see about if we could just go ahead
- and have that carpeted or literally whatever is more appropriate for that particular space to at least
- freshen that up a little bit for them. It's a drop in a very large bucket. I can just jump in very quickly
- and I was with
- to council members on a tour last year when I think I saw something that symbolized that before we turned
- to Mr. Kreider. And we were in block three. And we, I think somebody who was working with the jail opened
- up a plumbing closet and said, we just like to show you this as an example. And inside was just an MC
- Escher display of pipes
- and pipes and pipes and pipes and pipes and pipes. And I couldn't even fit my arm in there, let alone
- chart what pipe went where and, you know, I mean, flat Stanley, the child's character couldn't fit in
- there. It was just impossible. And it went back seven feet like that. So all of the new carpeting and
- all the new paint can't fix issues like that. I think that's a great description as why we can't put
- we're going to have to do. Modern things in the plumbing lines to prevent some of the issues that we
- have there in that building. Some of the sabotage issues, you know, so and we have put in water sensors.
- Because. Not put in. The plumbing that would catch these issues.
- You know, nobody's going to know. So we put in water sensors so that an alarm goes off. And my understanding
- is that it can detect a reverse flow. This shouldn't be happening. It'll set off an alarm, notify staff,
- shut the water off. But you still have to go over and shut the water off. Still have to go shut the
- water off. But these sheriffs' office, who's 24-7, if they get it, they know where to go to shut it
- off. Naturally.
- clearly labeled all the things. And I was just going to say real quickly, and I want to move on to have
- other people have that is a good point. And I'm glad to hear because going over to the clerk's office
- and just kind of seeing the hodgepodge things that are happening. I know they've been, you know, dismayed
- by a lot of things and things coming down. So it's good to hear in the little area where the marriage
- license, I think that's where you're talking about where they're only because it just to me, it didn't.
- it was properly maintained and clean. So I'm glad you said that, and I'm glad to hear that there will
- be some fixes. And hopefully, you know, if they're listening or watching later, like they understand
- that this is something that's coming. So I appreciate you saying that. Did I see another? And Councilor
- Henry. Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for the comprehensive
- presentation of your full budget with all its items. I do have a few questions on this. I will say I
- didn't expect to get into this conversation this evening in this manner. I'm going to try to limit my
- questions to the actual funds and account lines which remain to why the building might be the way it
- is. I have a hard time hearing this conversation because it kind of goes from A to C. It's like we have
- this building and boy the carpets old, but it's like what was step B? At what point in deferred maintenance in
- subsequent contractors and other work did a carpet never get replaced, a floor never get replaced. It's
- like we don't have the time to get into this this evening about the decision points over a 17 or 40
- year period on a building. Buildings are not organisms, it's concrete and steel that can be maintained
- in different ways. I've heard a comment here tonight, I've just got to have to say some of this, is
- you know we have employees that are not doing well in that building.
- A solution could be to move them into another facility in the community until we figure it out. The
- fact that the courts can't function with jackhammers, who could disagree with that? But we have moved
- offices in this county in renovating this building and renovating that building 25 years ago when Kirk
- White sat on this commission behind us. We've done this before. And so I just have a hard time with
- the A to C because point B is, I think, the bone of contention. I don't have time for that because we
- got to talk about the budget. So I got to talk about the budget.
- I want to draw our attention first to Fund 1000-0161. And I need to understand, I think, where this
- is at in here. Is 36001 and 36008 the CSC contract? Where is that contract in your funds? It is 31430
- and 36008, 36021, 36022.
- So we have four accounts to draw down on. Is it four separate contracts or one contract? One contract.
- Okay, great. So I think I have a copy of the addendum from February of 26 of this year. It says in that
- scope of work,
- It seems like of the sum total that the county spends about $600,000 goes to the Justice Building and
- the parking garage itself. Is that about right? Would you say the vast majority of the contract is okay?
- The scope says bathrooms and entries are cleaned every day and general cleaning and trash collection
- occurs every other day. It specifies staff. I think we heard tonight that you had said there's $128,000
- deduction because there's two security guards that are no longer provided in that contract. Is that right?
- $122,200. It also says janitorial staff, maintenance employee for the jail, and four full-time maintenance
- employees, is that right? That's like about 10-ish people. How many FTEs are we paying for? We're not.
- They're paying for it but that's their staff. We've bought the contract.
- But the contract actually calls out by number how many employees are to be it's not like here's a bucket
- of money Do it with ten or two people. Okay Let me ask some questions here because it is in the contract
- Who verifies the cleaning frequency? I Can't answer that question So they're saying they clean things,
- but we don't know if the things are cleaned if staff like complain that things aren't being cleaned
- How who verifies that the bathrooms are actually getting cleaned? I
- probably that would be me. I don't have a set schedule for that type of thing. I make my rounds and
- do my walkthroughs and that I the public areas in the justice building never really appear in that bad
- of shape to me. Well, I did. I did have a staff telling me once that it seems like the mirrors don't
- get cleaned very often. And it turns out in the contract, mirrors are not something that is required
- to clean its toilets floors. But the mirrors somehow got left off. Is that are we talking about ASI?
- OK, are they one in the same?
- CSC, ASI, okay. I'm not sure what CSC is. Can we see any records demonstrating that the contracted personnel
- complement the full 10? I mean are they fully staffed right now? I have not heard that they're not.
- In this contract, if they're not fully staffed, are they billing us hours or they just get like a monthly
- invoice for whether they got 10 employees or two? We get a bi-weekly invoice. About $36,000,
- is that right? Is it about $36,000 every two weeks?
- So it depends. So I haven't done the math. Let's see. There's about $25,000 for the Justice Building,
- parking garage, highway, EOC, and the reserve building. Here's why I asked my question. So I've worked
- 20 years in contracting. A really awesome contract is when a company gets paid and they get to keep
- the money if they have an FT that they haven't filled that month. Like, I don't have to pay anybody,
- contractually you pay me the same invoice every month right it do we have I want to know if and maybe
- we can't figure that out tonight if we're paying for vacancies basically like is that profit for that
- company if those spots aren't filled or is it just straight up billable hours that do we know that?
- I can answer that but the the intention is that the building space be done so
- And I hear what you're saying, and that people are saying that it's not being done. What ASIC, whatever
- they are, does is the basics. And employees, and it's in our personnel policy, are responsible for their
- space. And I know that nobody likes that.
- but that is how it is. That's how this contract is constructed. Okay. In that contract it says that
- there's a reporting into the building maintenance program for the county. They have to actually fill
- out something and report to you activities. Are we able to see that reporting? Do they fill out something
- in a digital system? We have a software that... Yes, upkeep.
- That includes preventative maintenance history for plumbing HVAC. I think that's what Commissioner Thomas
- was talking about if we wanted to see the records. There's such a thing that we could see the whole
- list of, is that it in the contract? They report that out. It's our, they use our software. Yeah. Can
- we see that reporting to see when and how the work got done? Sure. Great. On this line item council,
- the reason why I'm going this deep into the contract is that it's possible, you know, based on, we hear
- from county employees, we heard a presentation tonight that there's a gap.
- right? In perception, before I would even consider voting for these account lines, I would want to see
- evidence that we're actually getting the services as described. If in fact the contract says what the
- contract is and employees are expected to clean up their own spaces, that seems to be a gap in understanding.
- If in fact things aren't being delivered or deferred maintenance is piled up or the firm can't really
- service our building anymore, I want to know about that too before we fund that. I have
- three other fun questions. I want to be fast here, Commander President. I know we took a lot of time.
- So I want to, before you do that, I want to make sure we have, nobody else has any other questions or
- Mr. Becker doesn't have anything. The other ones will go quick. Yeah, I just want to make sure because
- I want to give everybody an opportunity to ask. Go ahead. Fund 1114-0068, the lit special purpose. I have
- May have misheard you. Where was the $15,000 increase in professional services? Was it in this fund?
- Or you said there's a $15,000 increase in professional services due to legal litigation things.
- Was it here, or was it? Which fund was it? It was County General. It's in general. It's in County General?
- Yeah, it's in general. Not special purpose. All right. I may have misseen it. But I want to talk about
- the professional service increase. I understand it's for legal fees. What other professional services
- are paid for out of that account line?
- I had said that during the presentation, but it's Ice Miller who provides the lobbyist. So we have the
- council, we have the Ice Miller. That's also where we've paid for public relations personnel. So today
- in the commissioner's hearing, there's an appropriation for $20,000 for a PR contract related to the
- jail that come out of, it only said in the packet
- County General Fund 1,000. Do you know which fund you're tacking the 20,000 into this fiscal? Yes, it's
- this fund. So it's professional services. Correct. So Council, I would just raise in this point that
- this is our opportunity to fund the community's values. We're going to put money forward into a fund.
- It's good to know what we're buying in that fiscal year. I don't recall talking about PR firms last
- budget cycle. And this is one of those opportunities where
- Other departments, they would ask for additional appropriations, but here it just kind of got slotted
- in the bucket. I think it's worth pointing out here. Fund 1000-0068, this is a lot of services. 33034,
- sorry, 33034, it's the support for boards line item.
- you want to go back to that one? If you'd like, I can keep going. We've we've had, um we've had PR. Um
- that. Oh gosh. Three years of we had part time folks who have done PR work for us on an as needed basis.
- Um. And we had one person and then we had another and both of those contracts came out of that line.
- Um with, um, hollow well. Um the.
- about how well told us another county, Howard County, and then others. I remember Howard, though, utilized
- the same firm. And what happens is, as it was explained to us, when you have litigation, there's a tendency
- to get more immediate inquiries, publicity inquiries. There are concerns about making sure that what
- is a very legalese,
- to the court. So that the court based document and procedures and processes with the court can be explained
- clearly to people- this is something that- we decided to enter into a contract with them because we
- no longer have the other PR folks. In addition- this is we can we can work with the sheriff can work
- and it's something we're going. The first step is to create sort of a plan and an outline, and we'll
- have to figure out whether or not we want to continue the services next year or not. This may be very
- short term. It also may move to a
- sort of fixed price menu kind of deal where instead of a flat monthly fee, it's just based on hours
- of work. And it's going to be more expensive per hour to go that way, but it's probably going to cost
- us less because I don't think we'll use it as much. So this is an initial, because of the lawsuit, this
- is an initial expense. And again, we've had PR expenses all along.
- I maybe I'll save the balance of my questions for when we go back to visit some of these things, but
- you did just open up something. I do want my answer about the support for boards one. You mentioned,
- of course, that the PR firm seems to be available to one of the other litigants in the sheriff's office.
- Would the board of commissioners object if the council put forward its own claim or budget and then
- filed a claim for its own PR, given that we are a third named person? Because it strikes me that we
- might want the same.
- You might want the same. I don't know. It would fall to your desk to sign the claim. We can save it
- for another day. Let me go back to the 40,000 support for boards, 33034. I have a ledger as good as
- June 30, but I don't see any expenses drawn on that 40,000. Is there a reason that that's sitting there,
- or what's that for?
- that actually pays for the Human Rights Commission, and we have to be invoiced by the city, and they've
- not invoiced us yet. Oh, I see. So we're waiting on the city for that. 37,000 of that. Really something.
- And I normally ask every other year. And I did not, because I already know what it is all about. That's
- the interlocal. Yes, that is the interlocal between the Bloomington Monroe County Human Rights Commission.
- Right. So we're paying for half the attorney staff. Yeah. I'll leave it there in the sense that, again,
- between now and the time we get into voting,
- CSC contract if it is the contract we rely upon to deliver a cleanly work environment for our employees
- if it's the contract we lean on for maintenance including scheduled maintenance and a maintenance plan
- for our buildings. I want to see what's in that contract because clearly there's a lot of information
- they're giving to you all and it would help to maybe allay concerns or or maybe verify concerns that
- we've heard from staff that have had a
- different experience over the years. But that's my questions for tonight. Thank you, Madam President.
- Councilor Iverson. In the last budget, we just were talking to the highway department about gas and
- where it should go. You have three fleets, funds, understanding no decisions are going to be made tonight.
- Would that be a natural place for them to go? Or what do you think? Carly spoke to me about that.
- I don't have problems when I'm talking to you guys about getting that appropriated. I don't see any
- reason or any problems with it being into the county general fleet. Um, I do think what would be cleaner
- and we do need to have more of a conversation because Carly and I kind of recognize there's accountability
- that comes along with all of this, um, strange billing because I do
- understand what Councillor Henry is saying is that it's strange that we are building all these different
- departments and we're paying ourselves. So I do think that there might be an easier way to do it. I
- think what I would prefer is to have highway have their own location in County General and you could
- put the fuel in there and that's how it gets paid period for the county. Again conversation to be had because
- we would want to be able to make sure people are that we're still tracking the use of the of the fuel
- and that nobody's out having a grand time on the county's fuel. Yeah and I would just add that being
- here this long as I have I remember how this all started um which is crazy um but the um the reason
- it fell under highways because that's where it's located they do maintenance they
- they're doing the bookkeeping, which is weird. I think that part's weird, right? Like, why are they
- building departments, and how is that money moved, and why is it happening that way? But they do have
- a role in that. But the reason they ended up with it as well is because they use the bulk of the fuel,
- right? If you look at the percentage of the fuel, the department that uses the most is the
- highway department. So that's how that all happened so long ago. I can barely remember it.
- a great history lesson there. Okay, I'm like, I can't put my readers on. Councilor Decker. You're muted.
- Sorry, I'm sorry. I had a couple of general follow-up areas I wanted to throw out. And I guess the first
- one being on this
- notion of the PR role. I think this has come up over the years in different ways. I think generally
- people get a little bit of a choke in the throat on that notion of public relations. I think it's the
- term. I think that's literally, in corporate America, that's a term. In government, it's different.
- But one thing I think we absolutely need, and this has also come up over the years, we need communication.
- to assist us with external messages and sometimes internally as we look to coordinate amongst ourselves.
- And I would kind of raise the specter that perhaps even our need to be supportive of boards and commissions
- is part of that communication, but also just the messages that have to go out when it's crisis time,
- when it's important times, we are so department-reliant.
- And anyone that's an elected official on the night of a tornado knows that you're waiting for EMA to
- give you what you need. And then you've got to cobble together anything from Red Cross and everything
- else. And I just, I sometimes wonder if assistance with what people have called PR over the years is
- really just how are we communicating externally on vital things? And if I almost think that's a position,
- so that's,
- That's my first point I wanted to gently raise for you to all to think about while we're doing this
- budget and maybe that's something we come back to. The second thing I would just throw out is I kind
- of remember when I believe when Richard's role started and we ramped up to that and I was kind of looking
- at the lines and it's now been a little bit of time and I wonder if the model that we're in with this
- contractor heavy. Model if it's not maybe always giving us what we need and if it might be time to strengthen
- his role and giving him support because he's essentially managing a campus of buildings that are both
- old and complex, multiple departments. And if there's not more fruit from getting some folks inside
- the house, helping to put out some of these fires.
- Because it's, you know, I like the notion that an elected official walks in to people that work for
- them and they say, where's the checklist? Who did what? Or that there's a little bit more strength.
- And I worry sometimes that we're sending him into the, and I don't want, I'm not speaking for him. I'm
- literally, this is just me in South Korea talking about observations, but we're throwing him in the
- situation at very difficult buildings, very,
- difficult situations, multiple elected officials and department heads, and that he might need a little
- bit more in-house strength on the ground. Just a thought, just a thought. I'll be quiet. Okay, thank
- you very much for that. Did you? Okay, I wanted to make sure if you didn't have anything else to add
- to that, okay.
- I think the PR thing is really interesting because in working at another entity, there are lots of things
- that other departments are showcasing and are very much in the know about a lot of things. And I think
- in listening to constituents and a lot of things,
- You know, it's a comment upon us to get that word out, but Monroe County does some really good things
- in departments that are doing that. For highway department, for example, with their reaction to the
- tornado emergency management or those different types of things.
- you all, FLOC was a big thing. And that was something that I saw where you all were champion for doing
- that even so much more than the city because you went a step further in that. And so I think that obviously
- we have to market ourselves to the community and let people know what exactly it is that we're doing.
- My just hope is that all departments are able to be able to be a part of that where they would be able to
- we've done that and the last PR person we had actually created templates for emergency management to
- use when there's an emergency. Like fill in the blanks here's the information that the public needs
- and provided that for emergency management so they can get a press release out super quick. You know
- with information about dates times the event what where they
- what the public needs to know so that's one of the things we've been we've been working on and clearly
- it's something that that we don't do enough yet we have we have the city where there's i don't know
- even know how many people now work in communications in the city and it's kind of over but you know
- but you know what i'm saying there are a lot of people working in communications and we don't have
- that we don't have an employee doing it. We have nothing. So that's why we do like to have somebody.
- At least on call. But in this case, it's it was suggested by the litigation counsel, and I think that's
- also important, too, because another case in point again and thinking about my other life
- I was meeting with the person talking about boards and commissions, and we didn't have something that
- fit their needs over yonder. We're on the other side of Morton Street, and so over here,
- there were things that I had talked about and said, hey, you might want to look at the county. And I
- really do think that we have different boards and commissions, like SUDAC, for example. And that was
- a passion of one of the individuals that I was talking to. And it's just like, it's those types of things
- that I wish that we could highlight so much more in county government, because we actually
- we're doing that. It's just, we got to get out there and market ourselves without logos. Sorry,
- I said it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Absolutely. Just briefly, I mean, I appreciate the dialogue. It's really
- great to do. But we are talking about like three different things all at once. So there's a PR contract
- through litigation. You have a narrow focus that's helping you message around that, right?
- CIO work around a disaster and that's not the promotion of our good works. Those other latter two things,
- the Councilor Deckard's comment, your comment, Commissioner Thomas, Madam President's comment,
- I agree with. Boy, do those need worked out. Of course, we don't have the luxury that the city does.
- I don't know, maybe we do have the luxury. Maybe I'll spin it differently to say that we have a number
- of ministerial elected department heads that don't report to a mayor, so we'd have to really work out what that
- that sharing is. But that's a future conversation in the context of just we got like three different
- PR conversations going here. I just want to make sure we got it straight. That's it. But to be clear,
- the group that we hired will do whatever we ask them to do to work on. It's not just for the litigation.
- I read the contract. Maybe I didn't read it right. That contract is anything. So we can use it. So if
- there's another tornado, here we go. When?
- That is great. My emergency management hat goes off. I'm so sorry. I mean, that has to be coordinated
- through a national incident management system structure where a CIO takes information from
- all the departments and speaks on behalf of the incident command about what's going on that can't be
- politicized. Thank you, Madam President. Council Iverson, I think you got some motions. I have two motions
- that you referenced earlier, so please fact check me.
- Council, I move and fund 1000-0161 County General County Buildings to set line 36008 to $656,138. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second to set that item or that to zero as you all had explained earlier.
- this is the 0 this is the oh my gosh yes i'm looking at my other notes sorry reduce that number not
- set it to zero okay so we got that done um the reduction um made any other further questions or comments
- on that all right seeing none maybe please have a roll call vote counselor iverson yes counselor fiddle yes
- Hock has withdrawn. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crosley.
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. Council in fund one one one four dash zero zero six eight lit
- special purpose commissioners I would like to set line four one one zero four to zero.
- pending approval of the commissioners. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second and again for those
- that might have forgot because there was a lot of conversation. That is because it's double budgeted
- in the Geovon and we'll have that conversation at the end of September. Wake me up when September ends.
- Okay, go Green Day. Okay, any questions or comments on that item? No. All right. Seeing none, may we
- please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Hawke, excuse me, Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
- Crosley? Yes. And Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous, 6-0. And the overall passing forward
- of this budget, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Same. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crosley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Motion
- passes by majority, six, zero, one. Five. Oh, five, excuse me, yeah. Five, zero, one. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. And that concludes our budget presentations for
- this evening. As a reminder for the general public, we have our regular session meeting on Tuesday,
- September 8th. September is so busy. Um and then we are recessed until Wednesday, September 9th 2026,
- where we will pick up