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. 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