- Good afternoon or I guess good evening now
- Welcome everybody. I'd like to call tonight's meeting of the Monroe County Council to order today
- is Tuesday April 8th
- And the time is now 5 o 2 and looking at the day is here. We have all counselors present
- We have counselors vital Wilt Decker
- We have Iverson Henry and Hawk and so those that are able to stand
- And that are able to please stand with me so we can recite the Pledge of Allegiance
- Thank you very much
- We are at the point of adoption of agenda does anyone wish to amend tonight's agenda
- Council I ever say madam president
- I wish to amend the health items which are items number 10 letters B and C
- So when you say
- We amend it. What are we gonna do with those? I'm sorry. Excuse me. I wish to
- Table those indefinitely as we are waiting for a contract
- Okay, so items 10 a and no just B and C. Okay, sorry
- so items 10 B and C we are going to well the proposed is to
- Amend it so that we can table those items indefinitely pending contract
- Second all right. Yes, and we actually
- Motion to table the de-appropriation until the next meeting so that we don't have to re-advertise
- that
- And then we can just keep tabling it as needed
- Madam president, I wish to amend my motion so that item numbers item letter 10 C
- Will be tabled to our next meeting which it will be April the 22nd
- Amendment accepted. All right
- So we got the motion and a second since we all are here and present all those in favor of
- amending the
- agenda
- For those items, please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed
- All right motion carries. Thank you very much
- Anything else well, we did just to drop the agenda
- All right
- Moving on we are going to move on to item number four, which is public comment
- Again public comment is for items that are not on the agenda
- I repeat those are for items that are not on the agenda
- So if you have something to say you can go ahead and say it sign in here
- At the lectern here at the net you Hill room or you can also raise your hand via teams
- And we already have our first taker. So please introduce yourself and go ahead
- Hi everyone, my name is Alana stonebreaker and I'm a private citizen and volunteer for as chair for
- the Monroe County vote center committee
- For the past two years our committee has been working to develop a draft plan for adoption of vote
- centers in Monroe County
- That plan is now available to the public on the Monroe County Election Board website as a reminder
- Election center the vote centers in Indiana allow registered voters to cast their ballot in any
- designated location in the county
- Similar to early voting in Monroe County. This model provides greater flexibility than traditional
- precinct voting
- Currently 65 of the 92 counties have adopted vote centers
- Yesterday marks the first public hearing of the plan from now until May 19th
- Community members are invited to provide written feedback. The report and comment form are
- accessible through the election board site
- at the hearing 50 people attended in person and 30 more joined online and over 30 individuals
- including poll workers rule voters and
- Student voters spoke in support of the vote centers
- I want to thank council members Deckard vital and Henry for attending in person and council members
- are present and council president Crossley for participating online
- I also appreciate hearing to council members express public support for vote centers and their
- significance to our community
- However, I want to note that in June
- 2023 when the committee began its work the County Council tabled a resolution to support the study
- and it's not revisited the issue in a
- Formal way sense. I've reached out about rescheduling the resolution and has not been placed on
- subsequent agendas and many other Indiana counties
- The fiscal body plays an active role in the vote center process
- Including appointing a representative to the committee and working alongside the election board
- from the start to assess financial implications
- I believe Monroe County would benefit from a similar amount of engagement
- While I understand the pressures of uncertain financial times our shared values particularly around
- democracy and equitable access to voting
- remain constant constant I
- respect I
- Respectfully urge the County Council to delay to not delay discussion until the public comment
- period ends
- Instead I encourage you to take up this important issue publicly before May 19th
- Election supervisor Kylie Morland is available to present the plan and present its financial
- implications
- I am also glad to invite you to our upcoming May meeting of the election board where we will be
- discussing
- Financial questions about the proposal many of you have expressed support for vote centers
- privately and some publicly
- The Monroe County Council now has an opportunity to engage meaningful and vis meaningfully and visibly
- in this initiative
- I hope you take it. Thank you for your time and your community continues service to Monroe County
- Thank you
- Can I ask a question is that alone I
- Want to
- I just wanted to know when the May election board meeting was
- All right
- It's the first Thursday of May, so I think it's May 1st. Thank you. Also
- TSD, can we please have the timer on so that we can properly time our public commenters, please?
- So they know how much time they have
- Thank you. Okay
- All right next up here
- again, please sign your name here and introduce yourselves and
- The timer will show how much time you have left
- Which is three minutes?
- My name is Gerhard Gohm, I teach economics at Indiana University when I go to social functions
- People ask me what you do. I say I'm an economist and then their response is usually a supply and
- demand
- And then dead silence
- Evidently lots of people find economics totally boring
- The times when economics has been totally boring are over
- Current and recent actions by the administration
- Have broad economics front and center of the public debate
- tariffs tariffs tariffs
- That's what we hear about in the news most of the time
- Often that debate is done in a vacuum information
- It's based on non information. It's based on nonsensical formulas
- So in order to remedy that situation we have invited
- Michael Hicks full professor of economics at Ball State to come down here this Saturday
- Two o'clock to give a presentation on how tariffs that are in place that are looming
- Will impact jobs in Indiana how they will impact the Indiana economy and all of you and
- The public in Monroe County is certainly invited to attend this talk to find out some
- Honest truthful information about what these tariffs might do to the quality of life to jobs
- For Hoosiers here in this county and beyond this county in the state. So again Saturday afternoon
- two o'clock
- the auditorium in the downtown library
- From 2 to 3 30 you're all invited the public is invited and we're hoping that this will start a
- conversation
- And that more useful information of the impact of this particular policy
- Will have on the quality of our lives. Thank you so much
- Except to the elective
- I'm gonna try to do two things at once. Good evening council
- This is Christopher energy from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce and you know, this is
- some public comments
- I've probably had some privately with you
- But I did want to kind of bring out which was just kind of dressing the importance of sort of
- fiscal restraint and proactive personnel
- Management as we approach
- 2026 and first and foremost, I want to commend each
- Each one of you this this body for its stewardship of Monroe County's finances on the reserves say
- everything that we need to know that you guys
- Have been doing the job and doing it well and the decisions you face are complex
- I recognize difficulty inherently balancing departmental needs and fiscal responsibility and
- Saying no to department heads who passionately advocate for their teams in service is no small task
- as our county's conferring several financial
- Challenges that necessitate prudent planning as we move forward Senate bill one, which was just
- amended today with complete rewording
- I'm not sure what's in there, but whatever is going to be in there that tat that property tax
- relief for homeowners is
- Projected to reduce the growth of local government revenues here
- That's something we need to plan for not just Monroe County
- But the city the library and the school districts the population dynamics that we've talked about
- It's projected to the county supposed to decrease its population further shrinking our tax base
- compounding the revenue concerned
- There was the recent property tax error and the repercussions from that this fiscal year
- The economic uncertain we just heard from the last speaker regarding a possible
- recession influenced by tariffs and another layer of unpredictability, so
- we have that and then we have what the
- Other factor of escalating costs were with regard to the Justice Center at North Park
- Which is a long-term financial commitment that just keeps sort of escalating as we go along and
- only these sort of tariffs and other
- inflationary
- Factors could make that even more constrained
- So given these challenges impaired of that the county prioritize
- Its public servants as someone who was furloughed in 2019 during the Great Recession. I know that
- word all too. Well, it's something to avoid and
- It should be considered a last resort. Many of our county staff are already grappling with high
- costs of living in Monroe County
- Characterized by as you know limited affordable housing rising rents reducing their income. It
- would exacerbate that financial hardship
- This is why I'm recommending some proactive measures that should be taken the long-term financial
- planning committee and the personnel administration
- Committee are well equipped to collaborate and deal with the departments and handle this and that's
- identify
- efficiencies explore opportunities to consolidate positions
- Were feasible eliminating redundancies without compromising service salary adjustments assess and
- adjust compensation structures
- Ensure that they are competitive this aids and retention and skilled employees and in strategic
- restructuring to implement
- Organizational changes that enhance efficiency and effectiveness aligning our human resources with
- the county's strategic
- Objectives by initiating this discussion now as we advance to the 2026 budget cycle, which is just
- around the corner
- We can navigate these physical challenges thoughtfully and deliberately this proactive approach
- will enable the essential services to remain and
- Support our dedicated public servants and uphold the public trust here in Monroe County. I thank
- you for your time tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you
- I'm gonna check in
- Virtually via teams and see if there are any public commenters for items not on the agenda. I don't
- see any hands right now
- But again, if you are online
- Please raise your hand and make your comment on things that are not on the agenda
- So I'm gonna while we wait here via teams
- I'll look in the room and see if there's anybody else that wants to
- Make public comment speak now or forever hold your peace until next week or two weeks from now
- Not seeing anything and
- Looking on one. I don't see any as well. So we appreciate all the folks that made public comment
- And duly noted. Thank you next up. We have our department update
- These are for departments here in Monroe County to give an update on their department
- So if you have an update that you would like to give
- Again, those are for 10 minutes, but we do have a couple of updates that are on the agenda here
- And next first up I will go with miss Martha Miller
- Hello there are we on there we go. Hello
- Some of you have seen me over the years and kind of go. What is it you do again?
- So we played this video at our annual meeting council
- Councilman Decker was there and he liked it and so we talked about it
- So I wanted to bring it and show you all it is from a Pike County producer
- But we have producers in Monroe County doing this exact same thing. So we're just gonna play the
- video and then
- Yeah
- Should there be something
- If there there we go
- Like we're working some technical
- Sounds
- The director
- District major for those of you don't know me. Wow, that's weird. I'm gonna Eric introduce herself
- I'm Eric Easton. I'm the resource technician at Monroe County Soil and Water
- best thing ever
- Ever
- Yes, are we able to play the video I just emailed it to TSD if they can play that please
- While we're waiting on that if you wanted to keep going until we can get the video or is it just
- the video?
- Really? That's all we have is the video and then if you have any questions after it
- the video is
- Pretty well contained into what soil and water really is and what we do
- And so I think it speaks for itself. I don't know
- How long you'd be done at Martha? How long have you been there? I will be into my 23rd year in
- September. Yeah long time
- Seen a lot of changes
- There's a thing at the end of this video where he presents a bottle of water two bottles of water
- one that's taken from
- a non
- Street a creek that essentially has not had any intervention for conservation
- And one that has and that will blow your mind so often with my students
- I'm like if there's anything you're watching for watch for the end in that bottle. I think it's
- pretty powerful when we get there
- It in the video is linked off of our website, so if you go to
- Monroe CEO SW CD org the video is there and anyone can access it
- And how long is it if people go there about 13 minutes? Okay. Yeah, I told him I said I'm going
- over 10 minutes. Sorry
- Work
- Technology is our friends
- Oh
- Did you receive that video
- He says no
- Okay, so maybe while we are
- Doing a communication between
- That I see some head shakes, so I'm not sure miss Moser if they received it
- In the meantime, what I think which would run more efficiently is
- Why don't we take a pin on your?
- Presentation we do have another department that wants to make a department update
- so if you just want to hang tight have a seat and then we'll circle back around to you as long as
- we have our
- Technical difficulties worked out here. Appreciate you. Thank you so much
- next up we have
- Come here Joe commander Kyle Gibbons
- Welcome in the sheriff's office and the sheriff we got everybody
- The schedule does says Cal, but I want to take this opportunity to bring you up to speed reference
- our
- new transition team director for the jail so
- Person standing beside me is retired major Todd Smith
- And let me tell you a little bit
- He's gonna say a few things himself and be prepared to answer questions if you like, but I want to
- say a few things about him
- myself first
- Major Todd Smith has been employed from the state police for 38 years
- He obtained his
- law degree from the university
- 2004
- He was also the chief legal counsel for the United State Police for 18 years
- Chief counsel do an entire construction process including site selection
- procurement
- contracting
- design
- owner representative punch list building turnover
- Warranty work of three Indiana State Police post and three Indiana
- Regional Indiana State Police laboratories
- For over 12 years, he served as general counsel for Indiana Sheriff's Agency
- He was also primary policy author of the Indiana State Police and three
- Indiana Sheriff's Offices
- He's also the co-author of Correctional Policy Manual and compliance with Indiana Jail
- Standard currently in use in several Indiana Sheriff's Offices
- Todd has been my co-instructor training in cultural lands for law enforcement for over 12 years
- We have instructed over
- $10,000 students in this topic throughout the United States
- finally Todd and I
- Co-instruct numerous programs to improve police community relationship
- With that I introduce to you major Todd Smith
- Hello, as Ribbon said I'm retiring from my job with the Indiana State Police for over 38 years
- Largely to work with this man again Sheriff Marte
- the duties and responsibilities of the director of the transition team
- Have a tremendous amount of overlap with what I've done over the last 20 years with the Indiana
- State Police
- In my position as legal and as chief legal counsel
- Also in the 12 years that I've worked with the sheriff's departments across the state doing the the
- same thing
- I've already met with the team
- I've spoken with mr. Carnegie at least on a couple occasions
- We're hitting the ground running and I'm really excited to get started in this position
- So, thank you and welcome I'm familiar with your face because it took the cultural awareness
- training when you
- Gave the training along with Sheriff Martez. So welcome very very much. Good to see you again
- Anybody got any questions or comments?
- Just welcome to the team from all of us we're looking forward to hearing from you
- Periodically, we are always curious as to know how the progress is going
- And I think I see that you're already set up with all the things you need here in Monroe County
- including an email address and all
- That fun stuff. So we look forward to communicating with you
- You
- And the only other thing is
- Yes, we definitely look forward to welcome or working with you and also any updates that
- Can be provided that we can pass along to the general public
- I know the sheriff is really good at that
- But you're more than welcome to come along as well because folks want to know but yes, you are more
- than welcome
- So thank you standing. Thank you very much. Thank you
- I'm so thank you for your time. That's true. Good to see you
- Now if we can maybe check in with CSD to see if we have that video that's available
- I see a thumbs up coming from up above. So that's a good thing so we can have
- Miss Martha Miller back so we can see this
- beautiful footage
- Bottom left says it's muted, right?
- I want to sing the song (indistinct)
- I love technology.
- (upbeat music)
- Conservation farming is kind of all I've known.
- My grandpa was planting green back in the '70s.
- He was trying out stuff like that,
- which the equipment wasn't quite where it's at
- and how to be able to do that.
- Cover crops have so many benefits
- with a row crop situation.
- Number one being soil health,
- building your organic matter,
- creating that environment for those organisms to thrive.
- Essentially, it's as simple as
- you want to make as many tons of organic matter possible.
- An acre should be our goal,
- and that's what we're trying to do here.
- Nitrogen is not very efficient to make.
- There's enough nitrogen in the air to meet our needs
- and the relationship going on here
- is what fixes that out of the air.
- Nitrogen and carbon are the two basic building blocks for all life,
- so it's what fuels the vegetative growth.
- Symbiotic relationship, they both help each other out,
- so you can make a lot of nitrogen with your cover crop
- doing it this way.
- And, essentially, maybe wean yourself off of chemical fertilizers.
- So basically what we're standing on is this huge symbiotic ecosystem
- of good bacteria, good fungi, such as your mycorrhizal fungi,
- and beneficial insects.
- And all of these work together with the use of cover crops
- to build up your soil health, your organic matter, create glomalin,
- which is basically a natural glue that holds soil particles together.
- So basically, just think of it as standing on top of a living, breathing organism.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- The amount of insects and things I've seen out here, it took a few years
- and probably really didn't start seeing it until we got to diversity in the mix.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- Since these beans have been planted, if this was brown,
- all these bugs wouldn't be here, you know.
- All these birds wouldn't be out here.
- Wouldn't be here as well, wouldn't see bees and turkeys nesting out here.
- I believe those are earthworm or night kriller eggs, maybe.
- There's life here, that's the main thing.
- Chemicals, all of it together is pretty hard on them.
- You're destroying their habitat.
- Most of the bugs out here are not all that harmful to us.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- One guy saw one diamond set giving a plant too much nitrogen.
- It's like giving a teenager alcohol.
- Makes him do stupid things.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- Soil is very much alive, and that is what kind of drives the system.
- It's 107 on the surface and 88 under the cover crop.
- So this test is going to show how quickly the water can infiltrate
- into the soil profile.
- And this is kind of a unique spot.
- They planted green in this field.
- So that's basically where they planted into alive standing cover crops.
- And it created this mat along the surface of the soil.
- And this does a lot of things.
- A lot of it is it provides a buffer for temperature control.
- The cover we're getting here is keeping our soil cooler,
- which is obviously less evaporation.
- The microbes are happier, you know.
- Microbes are like us.
- They like it at like 75 degrees.
- So the cooler we can keep that, the better.
- Your water infiltration rate is another very important thing.
- This is going to simulate a rain event
- and how healthy the soil is to allow this water to infiltrate.
- Now that soil is covered, started the timer.
- This just shows a soil structure that has a lot of macropores
- that allows air and water to become infiltrated.
- So this was about a minute and 30 seconds, and the majority of this site is infiltrated.
- We just were looking for a glistening surface.
- So here you can see those macropores I was talking about, these earthworm channels,
- these roots all the way down that create those spaces, especially when the cover crop dies.
- These will decompose and those spaces will remain either full of organic matter
- or as a channel for water infiltration, insect movement, etc.
- We've been how long without rain?
- Three or four weeks without anything much, if no longer than that.
- I mean, that's not overly dry there.
- Soil erosion, we're having so many of these huge rain events lately.
- We just have many inches of rainfall at one time instead of these,
- what we used to have was these slow, easy, settling rains.
- [music]
- We try to get rid of water as quickly as we can, obviously,
- and you see the results here.
- [music]
- Not only is the damage obvious here, but it's carrying sediment
- and all the nutrients and everything down a lot farther down the creek,
- which ends up in the river, the Gulf of Mexico,
- and that's what's causing a lot of problems down there.
- If our infiltration rates were better in our soil,
- in our yards everywhere, of course,
- we'd have less runoff and less of all that occurring.
- Exposed soil, when the raindrop hits the ground,
- that soil particle becomes dislodged,
- and then whatever rainfall is rushing across the surface,
- that soil particle is translocated off-site.
- So you're losing your growing medium, essentially.
- So you see how this looks like concrete? That's not gonna infiltrate water.
- So a raindrop hitting bare soil
- is like the most detrimental force there is to it.
- Well, this gully was here before all this rain.
- We've got clear water. We didn't have any more erosion.
- You know how many methods I went through
- before I figured out how to heal gullies out in the field like this?
- A bunch.
- So the runoff is getting better with the cover crops on it and everything.
- You know, hers was a lot worse.
- But that's probably good enough to drink right there.
- If you get down to it, I mean...
- Be interested to see what some of that over on the county road looks like.
- That ought to show a pretty big difference.
- That's a lot of sediment, high rate of speed, a lot of water.
- I mean, you're losing your bottom ground, your creek bottom ground.
- Some of your richest soil there is, and we're just letting it go down the river.
- So how do you get started with cover crops?
- The first step is to plant green.
- Instead of spraying and killing everything on the topsoil,
- planting cover crops early in the fall season after harvest
- has shown many benefits that include moisture control,
- weed suppression, carbon sequestration, erosion control,
- and the preservation of wildlife presence.
- The second step is crimping and planting, which starts the nutrient cycle.
- The cover crop creates a metaphorical suit of armor for your soil.
- After being rolled, the cover crop begins to decompose.
- That prevents water from cutting through the field
- and has also shown benefits like protecting your crops from frost.
- As the cover crop decomposes, your cash crop grows just like in any other field,
- except now with added protection and nutrients.
- After the harvest, the whole process begins again with planting your cover crop.
- Plants are the only thing on this planet that can capture energy from sunlight
- and turn it into carbon.
- The plants supply energy and nutrients to the soil, charging the soil battery.
- When these roots run deep and healthy soil, you too can help re-energize our fields.
- Why would you not do this if you know it can be done, I guess is the question.
- I've always asked myself there a little bit, you know.
- We know that chemicals have got us to where we're at. They've been really handy.
- But we're getting to a point where we know the ill effects of them
- and we know there's ways of getting around them.
- I would much rather have this than something dead and spraying chemicals
- and kind of putting everybody at risk.
- ♪ Mother, can you see me now? ♪
- That's basically the end of the video.
- In short, it doesn't matter whether it's in Monroe County or Pike County.
- It doesn't matter if it's in a farm field or a yard.
- Soil health is where it's really all about.
- And until we can work together and find ways to improve the soil,
- we're never going to be able to take care of the water situations.
- So that's it.
- Thank you for that.
- I learned a lot.
- That was really interesting.
- And what is the website again in case folks want to go back
- and watch that and go again?
- Can you repeat the website?
- It's linked on our site, which is monroecoswcd.org.
- I have a budding environmentalist at home that would find that very fascinating.
- Well, offer stands.
- If anybody wants to go see some of this happen in Monroe County, you call us.
- We'll take you out there.
- Yeah.
- I'm going to look here and see if anybody has any questions or comments.
- Seeing none.
- Oh, no.
- Counselor Wilts.
- First of all, thank you.
- You know, I'm a big fan.
- Two things mostly just for letting folks know kind of purposes.
- The relationship between your office and the NRCS is what exactly?
- So Erica and I are Monroe County employees who work for a subdivision of the state of Indiana
- government.
- We are housed in a federal service center because we partner with NRCS.
- So NRCS is our federal partner.
- They do the big work with the big dollars out on the big farms.
- We do the stuff local and in-house and uniquely enough, Monroe County is one of the only counties
- in the state who has an ongoing
- program with their county for some localized funding of this kind of stuff, which is kind of unique.
- Did that answer it?
- Okay.
- I have one more question now.
- My question is I saw, you know, obviously that's about cover crops and planting immediately after
- harvest.
- And a billion years ago when I was in school, we learned about cover crops, but we also talked
- about no-till and low-till farming.
- How did the two things work together?
- And they have to work together.
- So in the 1980s, Monroe County Soil and Water was a forerunner in the state of no-till.
- Dale Conard was a big push.
- Joe Peden, those guys really aggressively went out there and pushed the market.
- Now we've discovered through science that the cover crop works with the no-till to create that
- biological community in the soil so that there's a better medium for growing.
- Basically, you're growing underground.
- And so with that, the two work in that you're not flipping the soil upside down and destroying the
- microbiological dome.
- And then the root systems are decomposing, allowing the critters, if you will, to find a thriving
- environment to live in.
- So, yeah, and I will say our chairman of our board right now is actually Clint Conard, who is Dale's
- grandson.
- So two generations later, he's really, you know, pushing the banner to get guys to do cover crop.
- So guys and gals, thank you.
- Oh, hi, Martha.
- I'm familiar a little bit with some of your grant programs.
- Do you have could you talk a little bit about that?
- Yeah.
- Do you want me to do you want to go?
- Yeah. So right now we have a grant program with County Stormwater.
- It's a cost share partnership program.
- They give us I think it's thirty five thousand a year and do local projects with landowners.
- So it can be any landowner in Monroe County.
- It's a reimbursement so they complete the project and then we would reimburse up to three thousand
- dollars per project.
- And it's to improve soil health and water quality.
- So that project is really flexible and we've been able to see a couple of really cool different
- type of projects.
- I'm familiar with that. I think I've benefited twice on two different properties.
- So thank you. All right. Well thank you all so much for coming in and educating us on that and the
- public too.
- So really appreciate that. Thank you for your time.
- Next up we are at item number six which is the consent agenda items.
- Council I move to approve the following consent agenda items for March the 11th a the court's
- request for the creation of a new account line three eight three five zero grant distribution and
- fund one two one three dash zero zero zero zero G.A. L. dash Casa B.
- The clerk's office requests the creation of the following count lines and fund one two one five
- dash zero zero six zero election fund election board one seven five zero one inspectors elections
- one seven five zero four clerks student worker.
- Elections and three two zero zero one meals and three two zero zero six ballots see the health
- department's request for a category transfer of one hundred seventy two dollars and sixty three
- cents from the supplies category and four thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars and ninety four
- cents in the services category for a total of five thousand one hundred seventy two dollars to the
- capital category.
- Second. All right. We got a motion and a second on the consent agenda items. Are there any
- questions or comments from council council member Hawk.
- Yes. I'm sorry I did try to reach the auditor's office and to ask regarding the election fund. I
- want to make sure that we've done everything we need to do to make sure these people get paid. So
- is the one I don't have all these fund numbers memorized but is one seven five oh one a personnel
- line is that a personnel category.
- It's a personnel account line. We communicated back and forth with the clerk's office when this
- issue was found and gave them a few options to correct this issue and they chose to just come to
- add the new accounts that they needed to their budget and then they're going to do in-house
- transfers.
- Okay the question I have I understand they're saying going to in-house transfers but you can only
- transfer within the category. So I'm asking what is that the right category or are they talking
- about transferring from someplace else in the budget.
- No they can't do category transfers without your approval. That's the reason for my question
- because if we were going to have to do a different category then we could do it right now without
- advertising but I just want to make sure.
- And I have tried to get that answer and so I apologize to have to ask you now but I did try to get
- it earlier. No I'm prepared to answer and Carly did respond just not in time for you to see it I'm
- sure.
- However no the three options presented where we explained that if there was going to be a category
- transfer they would need to do that with counsel they chose in house transfer meaning that they
- could do it within the same category.
- So my office will catch that if they try to do a category transfer and we'll send them back to you.
- Okay, so could you tell me what the total amount was that they had appropriated it within the
- personnel category.
- To begin with, and then how much of a transfer this is going to be. I'm not in law at the moment so
- I can get you that information but it's going to take a few minutes.
- So you could just email that right.
- Okay.
- All right. I just want to make sure whatever we do these people get paid, you know, we don't.
- Yeah, I think Miss Gregory is very certain that that is what's going to happen.
- It's up to us to look at the numbers and to put this in.
- And it's also up to the auditor to find those things and to help us get through that.
- So, okay. Yes, just one final note this is brought to your attention because we found it.
- I appreciate it. Thank you.
- All right. Looking over here to my left.
- Anybody got any questions, comments or concerns?
- All right.
- If there are any public comments on these items, please come forward to the lectern here in the
- night.
- You know, room or raise your hand via teams.
- And see, since this is consent agenda items, we can go ahead and do a voice vote.
- A voice vote. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, signify by saying aye.
- Aye.
- All those opposed, same sign.
- All right. Motion carries. Thank you very much.
- All right. Now we are going to move on to item six, which is committee appointments.
- Council, I move to approve the appointment of Lane Elliott to the Climate Resilience Commission,
- completing the remainder of a two-year term that expires on January 31, 2027.
- Second.
- We got a motion and a second. Council Iverson, would you like to go ahead and speak to this
- appointment?
- Absolutely. As I noted earlier in council comments last month, the commissioners passed the climate
- resilience plan, which was a huge step. It's the first ever plan passed by county in Indiana's
- history.
- So we're very proud of that. But there's a lot of work to be done.
- This is the body that's doing that work. And when the commissioners created this body,
- they gave the county or the council an appointment.
- Lane Elliott stepped forward and submitted his information.
- He has been interviewed by Richard Crider, who's leading up this group.
- And council Mr. Elliott's resume that he submitted with his materials is in your inbox.
- So you can find his resume there.
- He has worked for Crossroads Development Resource, LLC, and the Epley Center for Parks and Rec.
- So it's quite an extensive resume. I'm not going to read it out loud, but it's there for you to
- read.
- All right. Thank you. And do we have any questions or comments on this particular appointment?
- Looking over here to my left here, Councillor Wilts.
- I just wanted to give my endorsement for this particular person filling this position.
- He's abundantly qualified. I've worked with him for about a decade.
- Looking over here, Councillor Hawke.
- I've not had the privilege of meeting this gentleman.
- However, I'm really not in favor of having this commission.
- We have so much on our plate to be able to take time out for this.
- And remember, if they meet in this room, we need to look at what the rules are now.
- It's going to be, I think, as of July 1, we have to keep records and so forth.
- So I think we need to reduce the amount of commissions and boards that we have
- rather than continue to grow them because nothing is for free.
- I understand that I'm just one of seven, so there you go.
- I won't be voting in favor, not because I have any questions about this gentleman,
- but just that I just don't think we should have this commission.
- And you can all just beat up on me later or now, whatever.
- As a point of order, I don't think anybody's trying to beat up on you.
- So I wish we would really not go there with that today.
- But nonetheless, it's not up for us to figure out if this is a commission
- that is supposed to be a thing.
- And we know that volunteers are doing this stuff for free.
- And they are taking out time from other things that they could be doing in their daily life,
- but they are stepping up to the plate and to that.
- I say thank you to anybody that wants to step up and be a part of a board of commission,
- especially when you are not getting compensated for it.
- It says a lot about your character for that.
- So without further ado, I would like to go ahead and have a roll call vote
- because we do not take public comment on these things.
- Can we please have a roll call vote?
- Counselor Decker? -Yes.
- Counselor Iverson? -Yes.
- Counselor Henry? -I abstain.
- Counselor Feidl? -Yes.
- Counselor Hawke? -No.
- Counselor Crossley? -Yes.
- Counselor Wilts? -Yes.
- Motion passes, five to one no and one abstain.
- Thank you to Mr. Elliott for stepping up
- and anybody that wants to continue to fill vacancies
- for any various boards of commissions that we have here in the county.
- There is some openness.
- All right, next up we are on item number seven, which is from the legal department.
- And I'll ask for Mr. Jeff Cockrell to present that. Hello.
- Hello, good afternoon. I'm Jeff Cockrell.
- I'm with the county legal department.
- I also serve as the legal department's liaison to the redevelopment commission.
- The redevelopment commission oversees the county's TIF districts.
- We currently have four, and for each TIF district we do an annual report,
- which I presented to the county council electronically
- because they're pretty long and I didn't want to print out all the papers.
- With that, I think I would encourage you and the public to watch the last meeting
- where our financial advisor went through those reports with the redevelopment commission.
- That is always a very informative meeting, and it was on March 26th.
- But I will give a Cliff Notes version for you.
- We do have four TIF districts, and I will just go through them one by one
- kind of outlining kind of a little bit of the history and where it probably will be heading.
- The first is our Westside TIF district. That is our largest TIF district.
- It is basically where Cook's headquarters, Ivy Tech, and it goes north of Print Pack.
- It goes as far east as the Lowe's building.
- Some of that is in city limits, so there's some complicating issues with that,
- but I think they're addressed in the report and explained in the report as well.
- That is where we've seen most of the revenue come in.
- I would say right now we are just currently constructing the Vernal Pike Connector Road,
- and that has left that TIF district at a low cash point, not underwater, but at a low cash point,
- so I think the next year or so is going to be kind of replenishing that cash to get a little better
- cash balance.
- We went ahead with that project because there's a lot of federal funding backing that.
- I think the lease ended up getting almost $10 million out of the federal government for that
- project.
- So that's the west side TIF district.
- The next one I'll talk about is the State Road 46 TIF district.
- It's colloquially called North Park.
- It's where we have purchased the quarry property.
- It's where the jail location is expected to occur, and it includes the area on the other side of 46.
- And it was designed primarily because that's where we thought the hospital was going to go.
- And so it was designed to kind of help with the growth of that area.
- That TIF district was created right before the 2007-2008 kind of recession.
- And so that project, that along with the hospital not going there, that project really never took
- off.
- Our most recent action is we issued a bonding, developer-backed bond to complete Hunter Valley Road.
- And so that project should occur this year.
- And then after that, I think unless there's additional growth in there, there won't be any revenues
- to do any more projects.
- That's also the area where the Redevelopment Commission has focused a lot of its review on
- residential TIFs in that area.
- So that might be the next evolution of that area as far as redevelopment goes, although we don't
- know.
- So that's just one of those.
- The third TIF district is the Curry Profile TIF district.
- That's actually our newest TIF district.
- That's the old GE plant.
- It used to be part of the Westside TIF district, but in 2018-2017, when Cook decided to purchase
- that property for their expansion, we carved that out as its own TIF district.
- And we issued a bond, I think, not to exceed $6 million.
- At this point, they've only basically pulled out the closing costs for that bond because COVID hit
- and that their plans for that building have changed.
- So the plan for there is to go ahead and pay off the closing costs for that TIF district.
- And if it grows, I think the current thought is maybe use some of that revenue for the Curry Profile
- reconstruction because that would serve that property as well.
- But you never know with that property, it's one of our biggest areas where we could see real
- development and real economic activity.
- The fourth district TIF district is the Fullerton Pike TIF district.
- This is essentially Mineral Hospital, and it was designed to help fund the Fullerton Pike Road
- Project, which is in its last phase of completion.
- If you recall, we did issue a bond for that TIF district or for that road construction, and it
- involved two different funding sources.
- One was the funds from the TIF district and one was from the major bridge fund.
- We have traditionally never used that TIF district for bonding because of the nature of the major
- taxpayer, which was a hospital, which if they went not for profit, it could have some concerns with
- paying that TIF district.
- But pairing that with the major bridge fund, we think we've got that covered pretty well.
- So those are kind of the four TIF districts. More than happy to answer any questions.
- And if you've got a bunch of questions, I would ask you to go ahead and watch the March 26th Redevelopment
- Commission, because we go into a whole lot more detail in all these districts at that time.
- All right. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? I saw Council Member Henry, and then I'll go to
- Council Hawk next.
- Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Cockrell. So understanding that we can go watch the video and maybe
- get the deep dive on my question.
- Can you maybe very high level explain how the Planning Commission's proposed rezone of North Park
- for the purpose of development from PUD to I think some I'm not sure exact zoning that we're
- looking at there would impact the TIF that's sitting on top of that right now?
- Well, I guess it's currently a PUD. So it's an amendment to that PUD. I think that PUD had multiple
- different uses in it originally, including housing, including commercial and those kind of spaces.
- I think that making the county's portion of it would go for as a tax exempt purpose. So it's
- clearly that would reduce the funding into the TIF district. However, there's also a thought that
- that would also maybe help generate interest in the area and help spur development of the rest of
- it, which would then increase the revenue in the TIF district.
- I think a lot of it is my understanding and I'm not a I am not the planned commission attorney or
- really handle a lot of planning is that there was going to be some kind of what I consider business
- uses as well as multifamily uses and maybe some single family residents kind of to the to the north
- part.
- I would say from a logical standpoint, there's no revenue coming in from those vacant properties
- really right now anyway. So any development would probably be beneficial to the TIF.
- It's clearly a different a different vision than what they had in 2007. But that's primarily due to
- the fact that the hospital is not going in there. But thanks. Yeah. Thank you. If I may have follow
- up. So the TIF was established in 2007. It was in that era.
- And 2012 was the comp plan that would have outlined North Park with the concept of the dense
- development that TIF would have generated. And now we're looking at a rezone of North Park in a
- manner that would maybe have fewer opportunities to generate the revenue.
- Is that a fair way to think about it right now? I know, again, top level comments. I think I think
- the big difference as far as revenue generation is the county's use of the land because the county
- is a tax exempt entity.
- Right. I mean, I think that the but I also think that the hospital was a tax exempt entity. So I
- think that you've got a major component. I think the hospital still owns a lot of the other areas.
- So that's, you know, that is what it is.
- But yeah, thanks for thanks for that. Appreciate it. Yes. The bond that that is issued for the area
- there. It was like the large bond that was to be backed up with general obligation. If I, you know,
- which the West Side Tiff District bonds are all backed up.
- I think when we look it up, you'll still see legally it's the Richland Tiff District. That's why I
- have such an interest in it, because it definitely does affect our school system because there's,
- you know, I'm grateful that they're able to help out the school with some of the STEM programs and
- so forth.
- But the revenue coming there really does go straight into that Tiff and does not generate dollars
- to help out keeping our tax rates low.
- But back to the bond issue, I think when it was a rather large bond, as I recall, and I think that
- in order to get good rates on it, it was backed up by general obligation.
- And if you might remember years ago when we did this, I wanted to make sure if that obligation was
- just for the people within that area or is it countywide?
- One, and two, is that a part of what we would call the county debt limit? Because we know that
- there's rules at the state level being changed as we speak as to how much of a debt that counties
- are able to carry.
- So would that be against our debt or as a part of our debt since we backed it up?
- Well, I'm going to answer your question with the caveat I'm not a bond counsel, but I will check
- with them and if anything I say is wrong, I will correct it.
- My understanding is that the property tax backup would be for any jurisdiction that doesn't have a
- redevelopment commission.
- So at this point, at that point the city of Bloomington had a redevelopment commission so it wouldn't
- be in the incorporated areas of the city of Bloomington, but everybody else would be part of that
- property tax backup.
- I understand Ellisville recently formed one and I don't know if that makes any difference or not.
- I would suspect it probably does not because of when we issued the bond, the bondholder is the one
- who is going to evaluate those to determine what interest rate and so I don't think that that would,
- I think that could possibly impair it if it was changed, but I don't know that for certain.
- So the answer to the question was, that was the first question.
- The other one had to do, forgive me, I think I lost the second question.
- How much is the balance on the bond?
- I'm sorry, I didn't, when I spoke earlier today, I didn't realize that you were going to be making
- this presentation where I would have asked you those questions earlier.
- I think when we issued it, it was around $6 million, and so I think when we issued it, it was
- around 6 million.
- But let me see the annual report has that answer.
- So why did I think it was 8 million, but whatever.
- In here, a million, they're pursuing real money.
- Because it is just as I recall, it is normally not backed up with general obligation any of the
- bonds through the district.
- So this was an unusual situation, and I understand we're grateful for all of the work that was done
- there,
- but I just want to make sure that it's not going to be -- we want to make sure that bond gets paid
- without coming back to the taxpayer anymore.
- So the 2020 bond was for $6.5 million, and the 2015 bond was for a little over $3 million.
- So the two bonds outstanding are a little over 9 million.
- And to kind of go to your point, our -- and this is on Exhibit G of the Westside Economic
- Development Area.
- It shows the bond payments for each year and then our expected revenue and a coverage amount.
- Right now, we're expected to receive over three times the amount of revenue as we have debt
- payments.
- So we're pretty safe.
- When we go to -- when I presented those to the county council, I said, hey,
- we're asking for this debt reserve with going through the math and showing, hey, we're going to
- have a debt coverage ratio of --
- and I think at the time it was over 2 to 1, and now it's grown to over 3 to 1.
- And some of that has to do with some debt falling off because we look at the total debt load for
- that.
- So right now we're at over 3 to 1, so it was never our intent when we issued those to have to go to
- that debt reserve.
- And I made that statement at the time.
- And I think it's played out because we did the late work to say, hey, we've got this coverage and
- it's comfortable.
- It would take something extremely detrimental for us to ever have to utilize that, and that just
- wasn't expected.
- If I ever bring that to you, I will make those statements if I think it's true.
- So I think we're in pretty good shape of not having that.
- And when we look at our State Road 46 economic quarter bond, we do not have a property tax back up
- to that debt.
- And we've only pledged our revenue, right?
- So when we have some of the ones that are closer to the line that is helping a business or a
- developer,
- we kind of put the burden on if it doesn't generate revenue, it's back on them as opposed to on the
- property back up where the public has to pay.
- Thank you.
- Councilor Iverson, did you have your hand up?
- The only thing I will say is I really enjoyed the depth of these reports, particularly the maps
- that are included.
- I think that's really helpful and I did note that FSG in their summary findings encourage us to
- continue to develop that work.
- So I'm looking forward to those as well.
- I think that helps the public understand these a little bit more as well as the colorful bar graphs.
- That's always nice to see as well.
- I think that helps break up those charts a little bit.
- There's such a depth of information here.
- I think that's important.
- I'm going to look over here to my left.
- Thank you for coming in to talk about this.
- I think this is a healthy discussion to always come back to the council because I think TIFF
- sometimes become this acronym that is off and people don't understand what a redevelopment
- commission is and et cetera.
- So I think it's always good that this comes back here.
- The first couple years I worked in government, I thought when people kept saying TIFF, TIFF, TIFF,
- I was like who is this woman named TIFF and why is she so important?
- Everybody's talking about her in a meeting.
- Here's my question for you.
- On these TIFFs, I know that it's the west side TIFF that feeds into the STEM funding, science,
- technology, engineering, math, and hopefully I'm saying STEM right, for Richland Beanblossom.
- Is that right?
- We have a contract with Richland Beanblossom Community School Corporation and I believe the acronyms
- change from STEM to STEAM to include arts.
- So science, technology, engineering, arts, and math I think is what the acronym is for.
- When we started that program, it was around 2015, 2016, between then and today it's night and day.
- I think every year, every six months they do a presentation to the redevelopment commission of what
- they've done with the money and every year it's kind of, in my opinion it's the most fun meeting I
- go to.
- Because you get to see what's happening with all that.
- But when we started that, the state code allows us to give up to 15% of our revenue from the redevelopment
- to these kind of educational programs.
- And so the Westside TIF district was the one who had the ability to give additional revenue to
- their program.
- And at that time, and I don't know if it's still true today, it kind of offset a lot of the
- property tax.
- It was almost, it was right in the same general area of what they would have received from the
- property tax if the TIF wasn't there.
- So that was kind of one of the things we looked at. I don't know if that's still true.
- So on the TIFs, is it just that the Westside feeds into a STEM, the others do not feed into the
- other school system, MCCSE or any other RBBCSC fund?
- Yes, and that's primarily because they don't have the cash flow that could support.
- You said code. Does state law mandate this TIF will do this, or how does that origin?
- The state law says that a redeveloped commission can give up to 15% of the revenue to a program
- that is designed to, and I forget the word,
- but it's essentially educate people to engage in the global economy, I think.
- So if the other TIFs were booming a little bit more, we might see similar investments from the redevelopment
- commission.
- Absolutely. If the other TIFs took off, that would certainly be something we would look at.
- One of these TIFs, and I believe it's Westside, bought a fire truck or helped buy a fire truck for
- town of Ellitsville, is that right?
- Several. One recently, but I think that was our third or fourth different fire vehicle that we
- helped support town of Ellitsville for,
- and a lot of that has to do with the nature of the buildings in the redevelopment commission,
- because they're taller, they're bigger.
- So we've purchased an original ladder truck, I think in 20-we, I was still in law school, right?
- So they purchased the original ladder truck to service those buildings, and then recently, it's at
- the end of this useful life,
- and so the redevelopment commission committed to kind of repurchasing the next one of those because
- of the size of the buildings in the TIF district that required additional equipment.
- And again, if the other TIFs were booming a little bit harder, we might be able to see things like
- that into the future. Is that...?
- Well, I mean, I think our redevelopment commission has a history of supporting those kind of items
- and are really happy to support those kind of items.
- So I think particularly, fire aside, because, you know, fire protects important, but I think
- particularly with the educational things, I think they see that as being really good investment
- and getting a lot of bang for their buck with how those programs are doing.
- I appreciate it, Madam President. I appreciate the opportunity to ask these questions.
- The reason I do it is because I think that this may be one of the few nights, other than the redevelopment
- commission, when that STEAM presentation occurs
- or when the town's coming to talk about a firetruck, where the public sees very transparently, here's
- how this is really, this acronym TIF,
- which becomes just, I mean, I've heard it for 25, 30 years, how that actually comes to life for
- them and the potential for that.
- And I think that that's a good thing we could be talking about in here every time so that we see
- this hit the road.
- I think sometimes other things get real nebulous out there when you're talking about all the things
- that we talk about.
- So thank you.
- Councillor Woods.
- I have just a process question.
- I don't remember seeing such a thorough report on the TIFs in previous years.
- A, did I miss it?
- B, has FSG just started doing these for us?
- Or C, something else?
- I would say it's probably A, because FSG has been our consultant to do these annual reports
- probably since the inception of our oldest TIF district, which is the west side.
- These are on the redevelopment page and every year we update it for the new one, but I'm sure the
- old ones are somewhere in the website.
- But yeah, we typically get these every year.
- We submit it to the county council every year, and they all should be in Gateway for at least the
- last few years.
- I don't remember when that requirement kicked in, but we put all these in Gateway as well.
- Well, I totally love seeing it in the packet, so maybe that's the big difference.
- That might be a difference, because I think some years I just came in, sat here, and said, here's
- your reports.
- Thank you.
- All right.
- Thank you very much for this report.
- And that's it.
- All right.
- Thank you.
- Oh, but then you sit there, because we go to item number eight, so that's why you were looking.
- All right.
- Aviation department.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and approval resolution 2025-17, declaring Monroe County
- Council's official intent to reimburse expenditures for costs related to aviation design phase for
- air traffic control tower grant application.
- Second.
- Got a motion and a second and Mr. Cocker Hello again.
- Yes.
- I've been working with our airport director Carlos Laverty, he the federal government.
- This is I think the they're they're coming up on the last cycle to allow for this kind of grant
- application, probably for a few years, where they can where the federal government would help fund
- the basically redoing your control tower.
- They've applied for a few times in the past.
- They've not gotten it and I think the feedback they've gotten from the FAA is like your, your, your
- development just not far enough along that we think that you can complete the project.
- So what this request is for is to go ahead and to pay for a portion out of the cost to do all that
- design work.
- Now, and it would all be paid out of the aviation fund and then when the bond gets issued, a
- portion of that would be paid back to the aviation fund.
- I think they wanted to pay for I think it was like one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand
- dollars of this project.
- But they needed the gap to get them to the to the full contract amount and so working with as
- discussed this with the commissioners and working with Carlos.
- We think the best method would be to go ahead and get this project going done.
- Now, if the bond gets issued, it would refund this if the bond doesn't get issued. Carlos is well
- aware that that they're just going to have to figure out how to how to make up for that that loss.
- Ideally, the project gets funded by the federal government and then it gets I think ninety five
- percent of this would get reimbursed and it would probably just go back in the aviation fund and we
- just would kind of move on from there.
- But that's what this is. This is to get the control tower design done so that a grant application
- can be made.
- Even if they fail, we would still have the plan on the shelf for a future year when it comes back.
- All right. Thank you and going to look to my left here in case anybody has any questions or
- comments.
- Look into my right. Counselor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. As counsel's liaison to aviation,
- I just want to say I'm supportive of the director's request here.
- And I have slightly different numbers. I just want to make sure we're on the same page, Jeff, as I
- haven't talked about this in a while.
- But my understanding is that since the tower is basically end of life, it's been 50 years, there's
- HVAC issues.
- There's a lot of issues involved with our tower that the the I understand is the FAA grant up to
- two million was 100 percent federally funded.
- You said 95. I just want to make sure we had the right. I think if Carlos told you 100 percent,
- that's probably correct.
- Typically, they're 95. So, like, historically, if you if you look at our aviation grants where you
- get we pay for five percent of the project.
- And for Council's edification, the design phase that we need to do to be competitive for the 100
- percent grant is three hundred twenty nine thousand three hundred sixty dollars of which aviation's
- fronting.
- And we're talking about the difference of 100. And what was the about 185? That's OK.
- And so in short, you know, this is one of those situations where we have federal dollars still
- available.
- This was under a program that up until January 20th was known as the bipartisan infrastructure
- program.
- I think we now have to call it something else as words have changed. But nonetheless, that is the
- dollars that are available through the project.
- But this is the us getting ready to secure a significant grant for the airport, which, of course,
- services not only our community, but our partnership with Crane as a as a landing space for Navy
- operations.
- The crane as well. So the give back to the community is significant here. So I just encourage the
- vote on it. It's a very good project. Thank you.
- I did speak with Carl's today. He's in Atlanta or he'd be here with us to discuss this because this
- is near and dear to his heart because it does no good to continue to try to get a grant. If you
- haven't done your homework to be ready to go.
- I put that a lot in the same context of with our highway department is always like getting
- engineering work done well in advance so that if their money comes available, they can grab it
- because they're ready to go.
- And that's the same way with aviation department. And so it's important that we support the airport.
- I hear so many I've heard before.
- Look, I'm never going to that airport and fly out to wherever that's, you know, of course, that
- would be lovely.
- And maybe someday that will come back again. We once upon a time had a facility such as that.
- But what this really does is it provides the opportunity for our major employers to remain here and
- not have to move because there's no way for the transportation for their goods,
- for their people who are coming in to meet with them or they're going out in to the rest of the
- country to meet with others.
- It's important to IU and all of the traffic in and out for them.
- And, of course, like Councilmember Henry said with Crane, which we can see a lot of growth there as
- well.
- So this is all a part of economic development for this county.
- And that's going to make a difference for everyone in the county, whether you ever even drive by
- that airport.
- Let me tell you, if you drive by, it's really a pretty sight.
- It really is. And I'm real, real happy with the way that they are maintaining it.
- So thank you. Thank you.
- Yeah, I definitely understand that this is one of the ways that we can make this look more
- attractive and for the hopes of economic development.
- We have a lot of businesses that do business in this area.
- And I think this would be a first start because we always hear Mr. Labarty always talk about this
- during budget hearing.
- So this is a first step and I'm definitely in full support of this.
- All right. Without further ado, we will go ahead and make public comment.
- If you have public comment on this particular item, please come forward here to the lectern here in
- the Net, you know, room or raise your hand via teams.
- And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Yes. Now we move on to item B.
- Council, I move to approve the aviation's department's request for an additional appropriation and
- fund for eight zero one dash zero zero zero aviation construction in the amount of one hundred
- eighty five thousand four hundred thirty nine dollars in the services category.
- Okay. We got a motion and a second, Mr. Cockerill. Yes, this is the funding that we just talked
- about getting reimbursed. And so therefore we have to spend it before we can get it reimbursed. And
- that's what this additional appropriations for.
- Thank you. All right. Any questions here to my left.
- Any questions to my right.
- All right. Seeing none, we'll take public comment on this particular item. If you have public
- comment again, you can please come forward to the lectern here in the night, you know, and we'll
- raise your hand via teams and seeing no movement or either teams or in this room.
- Maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Yes, counselor Hock. Yes, counselor Crossley. Yes, counselor Henry. Yes, counselor Fidel. Yes,
- counselor welts. Yes, counselor Iverson. Yes, counselor Decker. Yes, motion passed unanimous. Thank
- you.
- Now off to hot seat.
- Thanks. Moving on to number nine, which is the Youth Service Bureau. Council, I move to approve the
- Youth Services Bureau's request for the creation of the following account lines and fund 9103
- project safe place.
- 20210 program supplies 30013 professional services 30028 training and travel 30185 employee
- promotion and simultaneously appropriate $10,000 in the supplies category and $20,045.30 in the
- services category.
- Second. We got a motion and a second and I see Miss Vanessa Schmidt, that is online and she has her
- hand raised. Are you able to unmute.
- Yes, can we see if we can help her unmute.
- It looks like she should have permissions to unmute. Okay, at this point.
- If you are you able to unmute.
- Okay.
- See, I'm just going to go ahead and maybe see what the technical difficulties is with this
- particular thing here and come back to that particular item. So I'm going to go Jennifer I'm so
- sorry can you hear me.
- Yes, yes.
- Now we can now we can. Can you hear us.
- Yes, I'm so sorry. That's okay.
- I'm going to turn my iPad off.
- Or maybe not. Maybe you can hear me this way. Yes, we can.
- We can go ahead and present
- ever was being turned on was turned off accidentally.
- We are going to come back to that item. So we're going to move on to item number 10. And then when
- Mishman is back online and she's able to do her presentation, we'll come back to that one. So we'll
- take a pin in that and then we are going to move on to item number 10, which is the health
- department.
- Council, I move to approve the health department's request for the creation of account lines to six
- nine nine seven COVID supplies and to six eight zero zero Vax care supplies in health fund one one
- five nine dash zero zero zero zero and to simultaneously appropriate seven hundred eighty three
- thousand two hundred and two dollars and six cents in the supplies category.
- Second, we got a motion and a second to see Ms. Lori Kelly is here with some health board members.
- Welcome.
- Good evening. So this is just some business items just trying to kind of clean up some old money
- that was lingering from COVID when I was transitioning into the position that never had gotten
- taken care of so just want to get this money appropriated so that we can look at ways to use it.
- So we are really invested in doing some vaccination campaigns. So that's part of the intention with
- some of this funding and we're also discussing mobile unit.
- All right. Thank you very much. And I'm going to look to my right over here and see if anybody has
- any questions or comments.
- Councilor Everson. Thank you. This is always good to see these reimbursements come in. These are
- insurance reimbursements as I understand it. And my question to you is, you know, we're seeing a
- lot in the news about some kids that aren't being vaccinated and unfortunately, they're dying.
- And so I just want to cover that and I mean, as you talk about different vaccine programs. Does
- that include MMR and things like that that maybe people are seeing in the news.
- Yes, absolutely. So just recently, our preparedness coordinator worked with the Indiana Department
- of Health to have a mobile clinic here to be able to provide some of the MMR vaccines.
- We are looking at also setting up a another clinic to address that in Elitsville within the next
- month or so. So really trying to look at ways on how we can expand the access to make it easier for
- individuals to get the vaccine. Thank you.
- There's also the element of the vaccines that we do in the schools as well. And I'm the health
- officer.
- So I'm very aware of what we do in terms of vaccines in this community. That's great. I think it's
- so important for the public that watches these meetings to hear that. Thank you.
- And looking over here, Councilor Decker. I have an issue I wanted to bring up while we're on this
- line, and I'll just briefly mention it. There was a recent IDS article that mentioned that Indiana
- University is currently either not or struggling to provide syringe disposal boxes for this.
- The campus body, I don't know how else to say it, but the people on the campus. I work with a
- number of diabetics that talk about their struggle to take their disposable needles on and off
- campus.
- Naturally, this is going to be a public health crisis if this turns into something else. I don't
- mean to be dramatic, but this just seems like if we could put a man on the moon in 1969, surely we
- could put some sharps containers. I don't know if the health department and the health officer have
- thoughts on this or would be willing to look into it, but if we can offer to IU any amount of
- resource for a massive student body, population, teacher body, however we want to put it, I think
- that might be good.
- I think that might be something that would be worth it, and that article kind of made that hit home,
- and then I've heard from a number of constituents who say, yeah, here's my process. I, you know,
- put them in my bag, put them in my pocket, put them in my, and off and on I go workforce and
- otherwise.
- I don't know if that's something we can do. I don't know if they'd be open to it, but I do think
- that if the county can jump in and the health department, then let's do it if we can.
- We do have access to be able to provide some of these through our harm reduction programming. So it's
- certainly something that I'll talk with Kathy Hewitt about, maybe looking into and seeing how we
- could expand upon that.
- Thank you so much.
- Anybody over here more. Yeah, go ahead. And then I'll come back to you to counselor Henry. Okay.
- You mentioned marketing essentially for vaccines and a mobile unit.
- Specifically, because it was very it was saying, you know, we don't want to put this money into
- anything that would be a regular budget item that makes sense, their one time funds.
- How long do you anticipate this lasting in terms of a programmatic support for you because it's a
- it's a good chunk.
- You know, I would be guessing, but I would honestly think that this should last us at least a few
- years, but I think it's really hard to have a exact number.
- And is there any term limit on spending? No. Okay, great. Thank you.
- Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to perhaps follow up on Councilman Deckard's
- comment there.
- What is the current state of affairs in terms of relationship between the IU Health Center and the
- health department?
- They are their own jurisdiction. They have their own system over there for treating students.
- I just it's been a while. I haven't thought about it lately, but in terms of community health and
- outreach, what's kind of the state of affairs?
- I mean, would they be responsive to a mutual project like the councilman suggested for sharps?
- Just to clarify. So you're speaking to the Indiana University Health Clinic. Yeah. Okay.
- So from my understanding, during really kind of the thick of covid, there was a strong, you know,
- kind of a working relationship.
- But again, I wasn't here, so I'm not sure. I mean, I think that our preparedness division has kind
- of kept some communication.
- But we're not working together day to day now. Well, I appreciate that.
- Just only to say that I appreciate the good neighborliness in the community.
- But at the same time, I wouldn't want to subsidize the university and hopefully the reciprocal
- coming our way on some of those issues.
- But thanks for that. I know it's a lot of work to keep the connection across the street,
- especially in the health community over there. But thank you for the hard work.
- All right. Thank you.
- All right. So if there are no other questions or comments from council may we will go to public
- comment.
- If you have a public comment on this particular item, please come forward to the lectern here in
- the night.
- You know, room or raise your hand via teams and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Yes. And then we tabled items B and C and then we will move on to item D council.
- I move to approve the updated health services director job description.
- Second, Mr. Kelly, you can go ahead.
- Yes. So just I guess some some background.
- We've been working on this job description for I think since twenty twenty three and we did post
- the position last year.
- We were unable to obtain any qualified applicants.
- So we began looking at ways that we might need to adjust this position and the description.
- And really, I think where we're kind of at now is that we'd really like to be able to discuss a
- different classification of this position and moving it to 40 hours to ensure that we can get the
- best qualified candidate to fill this role.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
- And I wasn't sure.
- Okay.
- We got hands over here.
- So I will look over here to my right.
- I will start with Councilor Everson and then I'll go down the line here.
- All right.
- I think the most you're right.
- We've been working really hard on these job descriptions and trying to get the most qualified
- people in to your department.
- I think one of the things that we added for folks to know is on page 164 of today's packet, there
- is a copy of this job description.
- And in particular, we added language thanks to Molly Turner King and the council office on
- administering oral and intramuscular medications.
- And I think that's been a very helpful addition.
- I think we came to -- that was a helpful session that we had to talk about making sure that there's
- redundancy in the department so that if someone steps away, someone can do this, that sort of thing.
- So I think that I'm in favor of this.
- I think we had good conversations regarding how to make this marketable.
- And I think that this job description does just that right now.
- Okay.
- And then I see somebody wanted to jump in over here.
- So, Ms. Molly Turner King.
- I just want to clarify that item A is just approving the amended job description and items B and C
- thereafter, I think, is talking about the classification amendment.
- So item A is just approving the job description.
- Or, yeah, D, sorry.
- Just the job description.
- Right.
- Yes.
- Item D is just approving the job description.
- D as in dairy.
- All right.
- Now moving on down the line here, I saw some other hands here.
- Councilor Haug.
- I mean, the motion right now is just for that D, item D.
- Just D, job description.
- Sorry, I looked at the wrong one.
- Because that really, you know, then later we'll talk about the money.
- And the job description, was that -- that's the information that went out to us, this job
- description?
- Or is there anything that's been changed on here after it went out to us for review?
- No, there is not.
- The answer is no.
- It's still the same, whatever went to us.
- That's what you're saying.
- From my understanding, yes.
- Anybody else has any questions or comments?
- Nope, all right.
- So, again, because we are on item D as a description, we are going to move on to public comment.
- If you have public comment on this particular item, please come forward to the lectern here in the
- Nightingale room or raise your hand via Teams.
- And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote on the job description, which is item D.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passed, unanimous.
- Thank you. And we are next up on item E.
- Council, I move to open for discussion a possible amendment to the salary ordinance in Fund 1161,
- Local Public Health Services Account Line 10177, Health Services Director.
- Second. All right, we got a motion in a second. Ms. Kelly?
- Yes. So our request is that we can discuss changing the classification to this position.
- Ideally, it would be an EXEA to be able to, again, be able to recruit the kind of qualified
- candidate that we need to be overseeing this high level of work.
- The position would be overseeing currently eight full-time employees.
- There are 13 total positions, though, in this division that does include our internship and externship
- programs and many of our core service requirements that are listed in the agenda request.
- Okay, thank you. And there are probably going to be some hands up and I see one.
- Councilor Iverson. All right, I want to start off by thanking you for bringing this to a discussion
- here today.
- I think this is a really important conversation to have.
- This is a really important position. And so I'm going to start off by pointing out that the WIS
- letter that was just references on page 70.
- Page 170 and 171, where their recommendation was that after factoring the position at 545 pat
- factor points, it is recommended the position remain classified at pat D exempt and compensated
- within the pat D pay range.
- And at the pleasure of the president, page 173 has the org chart where we can see kind of where
- this position falls within the department and how the the classification relates to other positions
- within the department.
- But we don't have to pull that up. You know, right now we can do it whenever.
- Ms. Turner King. Sorry to interrupt council discussion, but I did want to provide some background
- information, especially since I think this position has gone on.
- We have several WIS memos that kind of predate a few council members.
- So this position has been reviewed by WIS. We have three separate WIS memos on this position.
- One dated October 15th of 24, 11/25 of 24, and the most recent one of March 5th of 25. And each of
- those memos classify this as a PAT D.
- And I specifically want to draw attention to the November 25th memo, which states this memo is in
- response to concerns received from the health department that the October
- 24 classification for the new health services director position was a PAT D exempt. If the position
- is proved and classified as PAT D, the health services director position will be classified at the
- same level as the subordinate position of population health outreach.
- So we, in November, specifically asked about this classification, and I'm not going to read the
- entire memo, but the memo discusses how the population health outreach manager was created in 2021,
- and it's a PAT D.
- It shows that the established population health outreach member position historically was
- performing the duties of a division director.
- It alludes to the fact that the health director and the population director positions are
- classified the same, and that
- in the end, it recommends in WIS's assessment, we find that the health service director and the
- population health manager possess overlapping duties and responsibilities. If the health service
- director position is approved, it is recommended that the population
- health manager's senior community health specialist and the community health specialist harm
- reduction job descriptions need to be reviewed for accuracy and job descriptions responsibility and
- evaluate it for proper classification.
- So WIS's recommendation was the health services director be a PACD. If you're considering moving it,
- they did recommend looking at other positions and those positions were never reevaluated.
- Okay, thank you for that information.
- All right, going down the line here, Councilor Hawk. As I know this has to be frustrating because
- you turn something in, you don't like what you see and you turn it in again, you still don't like
- it, turn it in again, you still don't like it and the bottom line is WIS is saying PACD.
- So a couple of questions here. When did you first advertise to fill this slot at this PACD level?
- I don't have the exact date, but it was in 2024, so I could certainly find that date.
- And so did you, did you, how did you reach out to the public to get that filled? I mean, did you?
- So I followed our county process that I submit the job opening vacancy through to employee services
- and then they do a posting and then it's posted on indeed through our TSD.
- As I asked, this is there's a place on some of our information that we get from the state that has
- some job openings so that people throughout the state can see if we have a job opening.
- I've never seen this on there, and it might be helpful because this doesn't necessarily have to be
- that you're going to hire somebody who already lives here in Monroe County, although I would love
- it.
- Of course, I want to hire local whenever we can because we know the local they pay local income tax
- and we need their money.
- But yeah, I think it's very important for you to have reached out in a more wider range to be able
- to get an applicant here because when WIS looks at something, if they're looking at this throughout
- all the other counties, I would think as well.
- But that's part one question. The other question is, are you going to rely on this with that?
- What's the name of the money coming from the state? Healthy Indiana or Health First or whatever the
- term is. Because so far, unless they changed it in the last couple of days, they were not going to
- fund that as much as they had for this year.
- For next year, they plan to cut it by, what, $50 million? Is that right? It was before it was $200
- million? No, I don't remember what the dollar amount was, but it was a large sum.
- And I know that there was a lot of people of the state advocating, don't cut that. But now the
- state is saying, if you want us to put something else in, show us what else you're going to take
- out.
- You know, we've set our number. Now, if you want this, then tell us where we're going to get the
- other money, because the revenue coming into the state, they don't have that revenue report yet,
- for certain yet, so that's still tying that down.
- But the question is, are you counting on that money, or where's all this money going to come from
- if we don't get that money from the state?
- The money is going to come from Health First Indiana, so my current understanding is that the
- funding, as of the latest that I've heard, would be the $100 million, so then divided between
- counties.
- So that still puts us a little bit above what was divided the first year. So, I mean, yes, they are
- talking about making cuts, and this position would be funded with that.
- I did also just want to address that the Indiana Department of Health has new job sharing sites
- that they use, so I did share this through those channels and with the individuals that we work
- with through IU Health Community Health.
- So we did do a little bit of networking with that, but yes, this will be funded through Health
- First Indiana.
- The reason why I ask that is if we do not receive that funding, and it certainly appears if you've
- been following it at all, we're not going to have the money to make up the difference.
- So I think it would be really unfair to try to put somebody on board right now until we get through
- the end of April, you know, because we don't know where we're going to be.
- Now, they're going to be letting us know, you know, they've got to send I sometime, and so we'll
- know better, perhaps.
- And if you I see hands going up, so evidently I'm wrong on this suggestion that we've got lots of
- money by him is not up in regards to that comment.
- I was going to provide you information regarding the advertisement date, so I was just waiting.
- I actually I see one of the health board members, Mr. Robinson, has her hand up.
- So if you just want to go ahead and jump in. Yes, thank you, council members.
- So I think one of the concerns is that that was did not have an actual comparison.
- So this is a position that's includes both an RN and as a manager position. And so I'm not sure
- that they had actual comparisons to to actually increase or rather change the to the XC position.
- So there's that working with with is very difficult and as a third party.
- But I also think that this is an important position because we are trying to maintain our health
- department and we have to do that even if health first funds are cut.
- We have monies in the general fund and I think this is an important position.
- That's why we keep coming back to it over and over again, because we need that kind of leadership
- in our health department so that we can accomplish the goals that we have.
- So, you know, we're we're coming again asking for you to consider this.
- Council Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the presentation.
- I do have some clarifying questions based on what I've heard from my peers.
- The who's doing the work now, given that the position has been modified and vacant for so long.
- Who's carrying the workload in that KSA at the moment for the department?
- This is pretty much falling on me and then delegating.
- This isn't the first time and this predates my time sitting on council, but this isn't the first
- time we've tried to.
- I don't want to say augment, but add KSAs to this position. Is that correct?
- My understanding is that I think we've talked about this before as a co-lead position for the
- former Futures Clinic.
- We've done a few different attempts to merge this health service director position with other KSAs.
- Is that a fair way to say it over the past two years, Molly or somebody?
- I'm confused by the acronym KSA because that's referring to the knowledge, skills and abilities.
- This is a modification of a list of duties. You sent it to WISC for adjudication to be ranked
- differently, correct?
- That might be speaking a different language. It's possible.
- I'm trying to get on the same page. I think you might be trying to say SO, which is the special
- occupations, instead of KSA.
- This position has gone to WISC three times, came back the same time each time.
- It was just recently added to the salary ordinance in November, approved at the November 26th
- meeting of the Council.
- And then it was accordingly advertised on December 4th.
- And so this new change that went to WISC in March is just amending what was added in November.
- Thank you for that clarification. And then my last question is, Ms. Kelly, you mentioned some
- projections about the HF5 funding.
- The Council member Hawke had asked as well. You mentioned you thought the number was 100 million,
- split over the 92 counties in this FY.
- What was last year's?
- So the first year, 75, and then the second year, 150.
- So year one was 75 million over 92 counties. Year two, which we're currently in, was 150 over 92
- counties.
- Yes, but not all counties opted in the first year. I think maybe 90 did.
- And now we're an estimate of 100 million over the opt-in counties for the stuff. So, okay.
- So it is a drop in. We are anticipating some drop in funding compared to what we got last year.
- Yes.
- Thank you, Madam President.
- Okay. Councilor Wilts.
- So without getting too off topic, if we are anticipating a drop in the Health First funding coming
- in,
- what is it that is going to change in the Health Department services and operations with reduced
- funding?
- Sure. So I've taken a quick look at that.
- I quickly came up with around $800,000 worth of funds that would be the first to go,
- and a lot of those are program supplies and support.
- So blood pressure monitors, hygiene kits.
- So a lot of program-type supplies that we're using now for program development in our building
- stage
- and some of our just areas that we're trying to address this year,
- but there would not be ongoing necessary costs to provide our ongoing programs now that they're
- established.
- So are you anticipating then, let's just say $100 million is what they do, you're anticipating no
- impact to personnel?
- No, I would not cut any personnel.
- We would cut that and then we would look at some of these extra program contracts that we have
- and what we would need to potentially cut down there.
- Okay, and how many, I'm sorry, I keep going, just yell at me.
- How many positions, so we have the org chart in front of us,
- but how many positions in your department are funded entirely by Health First?
- If I'm remembering correctly, every single position except not the administrative assistant,
- not the financial manager, and we have part-time lines that are in the health fund.
- And that was because all of our Health First Indiana positions have to be directly tied to
- providing a core service.
- Okay, thanks.
- You got more?
- All right, so the decision before us is whether to keep this as a pat D as WIS recommends or move
- it up as you're requesting.
- And one of the arguments that we've heard tonight was if you look at the org chart, and this is
- really hard to read,
- but can we zoom in at all, at that top level, there you go, thanks,
- at that top level where you've got your kind of those middle managers, I'll use that term loosely.
- We don't use that term here, but they're pat Ds.
- So the population health outreach manager is a pat D.
- Right now health services director, which we're talking about, is a pat D.
- If you keep going over, please.
- The environmental health service director is a pat D.
- Keep going over, please.
- The public health preparedness director is a pat D.
- And then finally, the vital records and administration support director is a pat D.
- So it seems like that level is appropriate for pat D.
- What am I getting wrong?
- I think that what is wrong here is the work that's being performed by this position.
- And I also think that it's important to address that our department does not have an assistant
- health administrator or a deputy position.
- So I am like it's crucial that I have this position to help oversee all of this work.
- I mean, there's 13 positions.
- And if you look side by side at all of the different services that are being provided from the
- different director positions, they're very varied.
- So, for example, why would the health services director position be classified the same as the
- public health preparedness director who has one full time direct report in one core service to
- oversee?
- The health services director has core services of maternal and child health, chronic disease,
- trauma and injury prevention, access and linkage to care, harm reduction programming, tobacco vaping
- prevention and cessation, fatality review, which are three separate teams, infectious disease
- prevention and control, our internships and our externships.
- A lot of duties. We had just five students. I'm taking on three of those students also.
- This is a lot of work.
- When you mentioned the 13 different positions that this position would supervise, are you referring
- to all the pink and purple positions that are in kind of that grouping there on the lower left? And
- for those who might be colorblind, it's what's on your screen.
- Yes, I am. And I'm also including the disease intervention specialist, the new positions that we
- are so critically in need of to carry out our new grant responsibilities.
- Those DIS folks, we use that term DIS for disease intervention specialist. We have to keep saying
- it over and over again. Those are those middle positions there.
- Yes, and those are the ones that we need to expand upon to meet our grant.
- Okay, so I'm trying to figure out how to say this here. My question, and it might be for Ms. Turner
- King, is what does the WIS memo say about changing the status on this one?
- So in the WIS memo, it compared this position to the other division directors, which are all
- classified as PATD. And in the memo, it specifically says, if you look up at the work chart, the
- health administrator position is correctly, according to WIS, classified as an EXEA.
- It says the executive job category is reserved for department head level positions and assistant
- director level positions of large departments. Classifying a divisional director into the executive
- job category would jeopardize the integrity of the classification system and create internal pay
- equity issues among other division direct positions in the health department.
- Okay. So essentially, and I think this is something that you have mentioned earlier, we do this now
- and change this now. This kind of puts a turn on the other positions and then we also would
- possibly have to look at potentially, if choose to, like starting to change classifications for the
- other positions in the same.
- I think that's what WIS is alluding to.
- Okay, okay. I just wanted to make that clear. Okay.
- I'm gonna go back to Councilor Woods because I saw her hand pop up, and I knew she wasn't going so
- I'm going to go back.
- Go ahead.
- Um, this. I just was wondering if there was a fiscal impact done for making this change.
- No, there is not, because if we didn't SO, I wouldn't know what amount to tie it to.
- But we could, for EXE, we could figure that out.
- I have not done that yet, but I can.
- That's okay. I know we've got a staff deficit going on.
- Councilor Henry.
- Thank you. I do have a question in the packet and maybe I missed it.
- So in the change from PATD to EXE, is the salary range the same?
- Because it's missing in the packet, but what's the number for the 40 RE?
- What's the salary band that's not in the packet?
- Again, that wasn't included because we didn't know the number for an SO,
- but I can look up the EXE A right now and let you know.
- I appreciate that.
- Go ahead.
- If I may, Ms. Mosier, would you look up the difference between the 35 hour
- and the 40 hour because I think currently it's a 35 hour,
- and the request is not to only change the classification,
- but increase the hours as well.
- I have a follow-up question.
- Thank you, Madam President.
- So just so I understand, as I'm looking at the org chart again,
- it's been a few weeks.
- We just had a conversation about, you know, based on the HFI funding,
- if, you know, where cuts would occur,
- you'd said that you wouldn't cut from these positions,
- but it would be programmatic things.
- Are any of those programs under the Health Service Director
- that would go away if we had a reduction in funding?
- Can I just interject just real quickly?
- Ms. Mosier, you're sharing your screen.
- Yes, these are the salary grids.
- I didn't know that you were intending to -- I apologize, please.
- Sorry, thank you.
- No, so these programs are on there,
- but so I feel like there's a lack of trust in my budgeting.
- I mean, because we would not have to cut any positions,
- and we currently have the money and we have the paperwork
- to do an in-house transfer for this position already,
- and that's in this budget here.
- This isn't going to impact cutting positions
- or we're not going to be able to provide these programs.
- We have a lot of money in our budget this year
- for getting those programs started and for supplies.
- We don't need -- if the funding is going to be reduced somewhat,
- those are the items that we start cutting.
- So does that mean we can't provide $15,000
- in hygiene kits to the community?
- It might, but we're still meeting our core services.
- If I may follow up, Madam President,
- it's not a question of trust of the positions and what's funded.
- It's actually what you said at the tail end about what is being cut
- and if that's a service or a provision,
- but it's also a sense of understanding the priorities
- of the health department to say it sounds in the room
- that the HFI-funded activities have been prioritized
- as core services over other things.
- So if you had to start cutting, if we're seeing a drop
- from 150 million statewide to 100 million statewide,
- that impact is coming somewhere.
- So if it isn't hygiene kits, that's kind of what I was after there.
- It had nothing to do with the trust of your budget.
- It had to do where is it coming from
- because it is not going to come from somewhere.
- I just want to be clear about that.
- Thank you, and I do appreciate that.
- And then so additionally, some of this --
- our employees this year all have individual training
- and development budgets.
- So that's something that we would also have to scale back on,
- those additional costs.
- No, we can't go to all those conferences.
- It has to be job-specific.
- And some of our regulatory services.
- No, we can't all get new iPads
- or maybe some of the newest technology.
- So those would be some of those items,
- not these critical services.
- Okay.
- Council Hall.
- Yes.
- While it's sitting there now at 35 hours,
- and I assume that that's the salary that you --
- when you were advertising, trying to fill it,
- you were filling it with the salary that was tied 35 hours.
- So the question is, I assume, I shouldn't assume anything,
- that you might have a better response
- if you advertised again with this higher salary
- that was for 40 hours, still sitting there at pat D,
- like WSS has advised us to do,
- and advertise it at the 40 hours.
- So what is the salary at 40 hours?
- I mean, I'm looking at something that says 57, 458, 72, 782.
- So what is a pat D at 40 hours?
- If I may, when this was discussed with PAC on November 8,
- there was a discussion about the 40 hours.
- That discussion went to the Council on November 26,
- but when the Council approved the job description
- and the classification on November 26,
- it was approved at 35 hours.
- But the advertisement on December 4th
- inaccurately advertised it as a 40-hour position.
- So it was advertised as a 40-hour position,
- although that was not what was approved.
- Okay, thank you for that clarification.
- So at least it was advertised.
- But it was advertised when people were busy at, you know,
- Christmas time and whatever.
- I mean, perhaps there'd be--
- The advertisement went out on December 4th,
- so it was right around.
- Right.
- I would certainly suggest we try it again.
- People might be more enthused right now,
- looking for a stable job.
- But anyway.
- I see Ms. Moser has her hand up.
- Yeah, I just wanted to point out
- that I have the salary ranges on the screen.
- So in orange is the EXE.
- This is for a 35-hour.
- But the starting salary at the base would be $65,812.
- And the highest level of experience would be $83,356.
- Right above that in white is the Pat D 35-hour range.
- And then I will go to the next page for the 40 hours.
- Can you zoom in just a titch?
- Good for you.
- Can you see that?
- So here again in orange for the EXE-A,
- the starting salary minimum would be $75,213.
- And the high end of that would be the $95,264.
- And then again right above that is the Pat D.
- So 40 hours would start at $65,666 and go to $83,180.
- And what's this $57,458?
- The lowest end.
- Can you repeat that just for clarity?
- The whole thing?
- No, no, the last line.
- The last Pat D you said.
- I think it was Pat D 40.
- Is that right?
- What is the $57,000?
- You just answered that question.
- The $57,000 that Councilor Hawke was asking about
- was actually the first number.
- And that would have been 35 hours,
- the low end of a Pat D.
- Again, I'm asking a lot of questions,
- some of which I know the answer to,
- I'm just trying to give you an opportunity to talk about it,
- but not all of them.
- So it comes out very disorganized,
- and I apologize because it's not,
- I'm trying to kind of work through how can we make this happen.
- That's kind of where I am.
- We have said we're not going to do anything like this.
- So it would take a lot of convincing to get,
- I think, council approval on something like this.
- However, the fact that we have dedicated funding coming from the state
- with the intent to fund these positions to run these core programs and services,
- that's a different situation.
- And my question is,
- what happens to unspent Health First Indiana money come the end of the year?
- They're non-reverting funds, so they do just stay.
- And so we would treat those as we have with the local health maintenance,
- so the previous state funding,
- and submit carryover requests to use those funds from year to year.
- There are some stipulations on what can be carried over to support capital expenses,
- but essentially it's sort of like another budget that we submit and say,
- we have this leftover that we didn't spend and we'd like to use it on these items.
- So if I can, just to wrap my head around all the discussion that's happening here,
- basically what I hear you say is you believe that the funding will come from the state.
- And if for some reason, because we know how state government works right now,
- if there is not funding that is provided for this position,
- you're saying you have money in your particular budget to make this work,
- even if state decides not to fund this for this position. Is that what I'm hearing?
- We have money in this budget here today to do an in-house transfer to cover this.
- And I would have to look at the money that we did not use last year.
- I'm thinking it's maybe around $400,000, so we have those to be used for carryover.
- And I anticipate that we'll have some this year as well.
- Okay. And a couple of other questions here, because here in the WIS memo about the disparity
- in the particular classifications if we choose to decide to go with the EXEA is,
- I guess I'd like to know your take, because all of the positions that we saw
- on the org chart were labeled at PATD.
- And if we decide to take this particular position, which is already at PATD,
- and move that to A, do you -- I would hate for that to turn into a conflict
- with the positions and the people that are already there,
- and then them get into the situation of going, well, what about us?
- And then we are now back to the drawing board where we come back to PATD.
- What is your take on that?
- So I think that that already exists within our department.
- So, for example, we have three coordinator positions,
- and they are all a different classification.
- For the life of me, I cannot understand why.
- So I would like to know what WIS used as a comparison to classify this as a PATD,
- because did they use another nurse position with these requirements for clinical oversight?
- Because we don't have one in the health department to compare that to.
- So how can you compare some of these other positions to the work that's being performed
- as health services director, and how can you have three coordinator positions
- that are all different classifications, one of which oversees other personnel
- and is a lower classification?
- Thank you. I'd appreciate that.
- So my other question would be to this is, is there, because we're waiting
- and we know that we're in the month of April,
- and we know that the session is set to end here towards the end of April,
- is there a particular, like, time speed that you have on this?
- Is there, like, what say you to the health board members and you in terms of,
- you know, because you just mentioned something about you can go back to the drum,
- like, look and, you know, see what you have for funds for last year,
- and then, you know, it sounds like you are disappointed
- and listen to their recommendations.
- Is there a way that we could maybe just, again, in my brain and thinking,
- is there a way that we could find out more answers
- and just kind of take a pause on this until we A, see what the state does,
- and B, kind of look at some other recommendations,
- which you have mentioned in terms of funding,
- so we can kind of come back to the drum board?
- Because I hear you, and you definitely are frustrated with it,
- and I understand that, but I just wanted to hear your take on that.
- Sure. So we have the money right now to cover this position,
- so the funding is not an issue at all.
- It's just, it's not an issue,
- and I think we would be doing a disservice to our community
- the more that we continue to put this off.
- It's really critical and this really critical oversight that I need this position to,
- I mean, this position is going to be taking a huge workload
- and oversight and compliance and core services,
- and our community deserves this position
- and the best services that we can provide for them.
- And the more that we put this off,
- I think the more of a disservice we're doing.
- I just want to say, I think we're kind of at a critical point,
- and I want to say also that the situation, if you will,
- with the Board of Health as an entity is sort of different than most entities.
- Most entities are dealing with, you know, they're not dealing with human lives.
- I mean, we are -- we have to have, if you will, hands-on --
- providing some kind of health care for people is hands-on.
- It's critical, and you have to have someone who is obviously educated
- and has a higher level of education in order to provide the best services.
- So I feel like I agree with Lori that we're at a critical point,
- and we need to be able to provide the best care we can in our community
- with what we have, and we are -- we do have the funds to back this up.
- So I just really implore you to consider that when you think about your decision.
- And I can tell you that the two years that I spent on the health board
- before becoming the current health officer,
- we've talked about this over and over again.
- This is not only critical to oversight of these very important units
- that fall under actual health care to our community
- and do not fit into those little silos that you see in the rest of your PAC chart.
- This is a different position.
- This is a nurse specialist who will overview and manage all of these personnel.
- We have asked our health administrator to do that work, which is not in her purview.
- And yet it has fallen to her because we have been frustrated
- by trying to get this position through and to try
- and get WIS to understand how critical this is.
- They're sitting out there collecting money from you.
- Over and over again as they review this,
- that's money we could have used in the health department
- to take care of the health and well-being of our community.
- And we need this position to free up our health administrator to do her job
- and not all of this other stuff that she shouldn't be doing.
- So please, would you please just see that WIS is talking out of the top of their head
- based on little words on a page that they really don't understand.
- They have never come down here.
- They have never looked at what this job is and what it would entail.
- And they're telling you stuff that, you know, okay, you don't have to accept it.
- And that's the one thing I learned when I took this position.
- And I still don't understand the health officer position.
- And I don't understand what all of you have to do
- every time you come into one of these council meetings.
- It's still way beyond my understanding.
- And I'm hoping to learn that over time.
- But in the meantime, please, would you give the health board
- what we have desperately asked you for over and over again?
- Thank you.
- And I keep seeing a hand raised.
- It looks like Aurora, who is online.
- It was raised.
- And it looks like it's there again.
- So if you want to unmute.
- Chair of the board, that's correct, right?
- OK.
- So if we can get the chair of the board to be unmuted
- and maybe able to speak here.
- Now, I apologize for not seeing your hand a little bit earlier.
- Are they able to unmute and speak?
- Yes, they have mic permissions.
- OK.
- Or are you able to unmute and speak here?
- Until we can figure out if she is able to.
- Because I definitely want to make sure that she has an opportunity to weigh in here.
- Does anybody else have any other questions or anything else?
- Yes, I'm sorry.
- Whenever I get a turn.
- Absolutely.
- So I'm pretty new to all this, so bear with me.
- But I just want to make sure I understand how long you've been waiting for this position to be
- filled, first of all.
- Can somebody remind me of that?
- We started on this in 2023.
- Okay, thank you.
- And so no one -- well, you've been divvying up the work that this position would fill.
- And so then -- yeah, I don't pretend to know and understand everything yet, but I do like the idea
- of -- I mean, I understand you're frustrated.
- That's clear.
- And why wouldn't you be?
- I mean, it's been a long time.
- But I do think that, as others have pointed out somewhat, we're really under constraints right now,
- trying to figure out what the best thing is to do until we know what we're dealing with.
- And so that's where I'm coming from.
- I don't know what we're dealing with right now with a big picture with the money, right?
- And so I don't know.
- I'm in a conundrum myself, and I haven't made up my mind totally, but I just want to understand
- where you're at and hear you, and I've heard you, and sympathize with the place that you're in
- trying to get the work done, because it's got to be a challenge.
- It's got to be a huge challenge.
- So thank you.
- All right.
- We'll go to Council Henry, and then I'm going to circle back to Councilor Wilts.
- Thank you, Madam President.
- I just wanted some clarity about -- we keep saying we have the funding.
- Is that the HFI carryover?
- Is that where you're pulling from when you say we have the funding?
- We have the funding in the current budget this year in our HFI.
- That is -- that's not being used, that we completed an in-house transfer to cover -- to cover this.
- So as a practical matter, as I'm trying to wrap my head around it, HFI carryover is nice to have,
- right, if we don't use those resources.
- If we're hiring a human to come into county government and building salary off of pools of resource,
- that's not a guaranteed revenue stream.
- At some point, we might not see HFI carryover as robust as we've had based on cuts coming from the
- state.
- I just wanted to be clear, if you're saying we have funds in department and how you're moving funds,
- is HFI one of those you're considering to sustain a position?
- I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So we have current money in our HFI fund for this
- budget that would be transferred to cover this.
- That's separate from funds that we have that were not used last year that are just kind of sitting
- there that we will use over time for carryover.
- That's same with our trust fund that we still have a little bit in there and our local health
- maintenance that we have a little bit in that.
- So there's a few different funding streams, but this would be in our current budget from positions
- that are not filled, that we are not using.
- Thank you.
- Clarify this position is in your 2025 budget.
- So it needs to be added, but we have in house transfers to cover the funds for that.
- Okay, so it's not the line I guess was never created.
- Okay, so if we are agreeing that this has a job description, it's going to be advertised regardless
- of what level.
- You're going to have this position because we've approved it.
- The difference that I heard was about $18,000 from kind of the lowest pat D to the EXE.
- And somebody tell me if that's not right.
- But what I'm wondering is can you find something in your current 2025 budget equal to about that
- amount?
- And whether or not some folks might think this is a symbolic gesture, could you set that aside to
- be not spent
- and therefore subsidize the change that we might make in the 35 to 40 hours and/or a pat D to an EXE?
- Anybody follow my logic?
- I can find a way to pay for some of this if we need to.
- In your current year budget, not just --
- Absolutely.
- I mean, it's only $18,000 if I'm thinking about this correctly.
- Yes, so absolutely, yes.
- We have the money.
- I mean, I submit a budget revision to the state.
- I've done that at least once I think already this year.
- So, yeah, the money is there.
- I'm going to go to Councilor Decker.
- And then also after he's done, I just want to circle back to see if Aurora is able to come off of
- mute and speak to that.
- So I'll go to Councilor Decker and then I'll go back to teams to see if she's able to speak.
- Thank you very much.
- And I have listened a lot in this conversation, and I particularly appreciate the questions and
- comments from other counselors as well as yourself, as well as our staff, to make better sense of
- this.
- It is always difficult for this council when something comes back and WIS or FSG or somebody has
- said, this is kind of the thing we're seeing.
- And of course, the department sees it a different way.
- It's not uncommon, it seems to happen depending on the circumstance in kind of unique positions.
- And this might be one of those unique positions where the definition of what they've looked at and
- what we end up doing is different because of who knows, right?
- And the who knows might be some of the reasons that you supplied.
- One thing I'll just say and I want to be I think sometimes departments and elected officials and a
- lot of folks look at all of our processes and think this is just ridiculous.
- This is and I bet it feels ridiculous.
- And to be honest with you, I'm in a lot of meetings where it feels ridiculous on our end, too.
- The reason some of these things are in place with a salary grid, with job descriptions, by the way,
- a lot of people fight us on job descriptions.
- They don't want job descriptions.
- The reason we have job descriptions is because back in the day, 30, 40 years ago, the person in my
- seat would say, I'm not alleging anyone particular, but they could have done this.
- Hire my cousin, yard sign collector, put them on the county payroll.
- What they do, that's up to you.
- And every day somebody might define that difference.
- So an effort of good government was to say, we're going to have some grids, we're going to have
- some job descriptions, and we're going to hound people on them.
- The hounding is painful.
- I also will tell you, I have very rarely, I bet it's .03%, heard a department or elected official
- make a bad pitch for a reason why we should spend county dollars.
- And every time, usually when the cameras are off, they'll say, I know the others do this, but this
- is what we do and this is key.
- Now, I'm not negating any of that because they're good humans.
- You are all great humans, doctors, you're immensely qualified for your role.
- We're lucky to have you.
- I'm just pointing out, this is how we get to these things.
- So whenever we have a wiss is here and we've got to figure out how to get here, particularly as
- this legislature business is as bad as I've ever seen it in about 20 plus years of federal state
- local service.
- It's pretty bad.
- When we're like this, this is the reason we're like it.
- Now, that said, I want to make sure that people, the public understand that that is literally these
- things are the way they are.
- So that because we all will make different arguments.
- I've heard over the years, soil and water needs this.
- My gosh, Lisa Ridge does this health needs this.
- They saved us during the pandemic and you all did.
- You literally did.
- You kept us safe.
- But as I look at this and the more I listen to this, there are a couple of things are starting to
- emerge that may make me think a potential solution is out there.
- And the things that are emerging are what got us through our cola crisis that we've had in the last
- few years.
- It's a department looking and committing to figuring out where dollars would come from if the state
- says nay.
- Right. That also there is sometimes where with says this and we look at it and go with is not
- understanding fill in the blank.
- G.I.S. election directors health needs because they're looking at a lot of counties that aren't
- leading like we do.
- A lot of times we end up leading.
- I mean, heck, we praise it in here, right?
- We praise it with probation.
- We praise it with public defender.
- And during the pandemic, literally our health board got us from one side to the other, as many
- people as possible, as awful it is.
- And I bet we won't talk about all of the pandemic.
- We won't talk about that for 20 years.
- I hope that I'm not in this seat then and we can have that conversation.
- I might do something else because it was difficult and more hard for you all.
- I am wondering, counselors, if our solution here isn't potentially some of what Councilor Wilts is
- saying, if the department is saying, and they're saying it with passion, we're looking in our
- budget.
- We're finding backups because we really want this.
- At the same time, this may be a circumstance where WIS is here and this is over here.
- And it doesn't mean that WIS has got three heads and are evil and it doesn't mean you are.
- It just means that sometimes two people, shoot, seven counselors can look at something and see
- different things.
- And it might also be further with this, it might also be this, and this is a commitment you all
- have to think about.
- If we do this today or someday soon, maybe it's not today, but if we do this at some point, it
- doesn't mean a cascade effect.
- Right, wrong, or indifferent, because we're just not in cascade effect type season.
- We're just not. It's not, there's a lot going on every other day.
- The legislators tell me how it's not so bad, and then I look at some printout and it looks like
- literally we're going to have to hawk my house to get from point A to point B, and that's just the
- next month.
- Then it's just that bad. So if you can think about that, and maybe that cascade can't happen,
- because we can't cascade into a well this, but this, and if but for that, and maybe if this is what
- is truly wanted and dollars are there, that's where we get.
- And I'm just throwing that out after having listened to six other incredibly smart people kind of
- talk about this issue that is before us.
- Thank you. Okay. Again, as promised, I wanted to go back to teams and see if Aurora is able to
- unmute and make comment.
- Unfortunately, it's still not letting her unmute. I could turn on the chat so that she can send
- them.
- Yes, please. So therefore, she does decide to make that comment. We can go ahead and read it for
- record.
- But I'm going to go back here to counsel and see if anybody else has any questions and or comments.
- It looks like counselor Hawk.
- And this is to the audience table. What is the additional amount of money that we, as we're
- preparing next year's budget, because we're already working on next year's budget, you know, we
- start that out days one.
- What is the amount that you had figured that we might need to add to the health fund in order to
- because we didn't funded it, perhaps as high as maybe we might have.
- But we're going to have to bump that up a little bit. Am I understanding that right? Are we still
- talking that same language here for the match?
- That's what you're talking about for the HFI funding. So the two separate funds, a health fund.
- I'm talking about what's going to have to pick up the shortfall if this health this I understand
- the public just a little bit. I'm talking about the fund that sets within the you know, I call it
- frozen living inside that amount that we have to hold it to a certain amount.
- And I thought we were going to have to add money back into the health for that for this coming
- budget year.
- Yes, I believe and I'm going to have to email you because it's it's buried in my notes right now,
- but I think around four to five hundred thousand, but just for the public.
- So there's an understanding the health fund fund eleven fifty nine is kind of the health general
- fund, if you will, that where we have a required local match for the HFI funding, which is fund
- eleven sixty one.
- So two different funds, the health eleven fifty nine is the is the levy fund. Right.
- And the reason I mentioned that is, you know, it just it stands reason if we get less money to
- provide this expansion of services that we've already put in place and put personnel there.
- And if we receive a reduction over time, that money is going to go away. And so there might be more
- reliance to try to move those people back into the original health fund where there's not going to
- be the money to cover it.
- Now, not only is that not fair to the individual you might have hired when we don't have money to
- sustain it to me, that's an unfair thing to do. But in addition to which then it really when you
- when you can't continue to pay somebody, even if it's with grant dollars.
- And and and Molly pardon me when when if if for whatever reason the grant dollars are not
- sufficient to cover all of these people that were moved over there.
- And we don't have the money to cover it. And so they have to go away just like supposedly other
- grant funds are.
- What does it cost the county didn't do we not have to pay like it's not it's not free to the county
- we had that cost us in some fashion.
- I'm not sure that cost.
- Well, it doesn't raise the rate that we have to pay to them. You know, it's been so many years
- since I've done payroll, but you have to cover. They tell you how much you have to cover if you
- have a reduction and people leave.
- And, you know, they had to pay into like unemployment, whatever.
- There is I know once before when we thought about we might have to see some reduction and we were
- trying so hard to cut expenses every place because it was going to cost us so much money.
- Even if we didn't care whether or not people didn't have a job, which hopefully we would care, but
- it still was an additional some additional expense to the county because we did that.
- Are you talking about unemployment insurance fund claims?
- And it's been so long since I've done payroll. I'm just I mean, I don't I threw that out there
- because I don't think it's for free to say, okay, now, 10 of you people can go away.
- You may also be thinking of Cobra funding.
- I don't know. It was a question of the auditor's office. I thought perhaps Molly Earth and maybe
- maybe this was just like from years ago.
- I don't have an answer for you. I definitely am able to reach out to employee services who would be
- probably the best source for that information.
- So I'm going to wrangle us back in. So again, we got a chat. So I appreciate that. This is from
- Aurora.
- She says, thank you. The few times my hand was up and then down, either Dr. Robinson or Dr. Rider
- brand band, excuse me, or Lori said what was going on to say, which is why.
- But I have to add my voice to my colleagues.
- We've been on the board. We on the board have been trying so hard for two years to improve in every
- way.
- And we have gotten black eyes in the press and the eyes of the public and when some elected
- officials, etc.
- And we still try every way to do our best for the residents of this county.
- I do not think that we can anticipate what the state will do. All we can do is what we know today
- and what we have been trying to get this position in place for over a year with nothing but roadblocks.
- We need your support to realize the promise of all health first money and the health gains.
- Thank you. Okay. I guess what I hear you all say, and again, is I can feel the heat of frustration.
- And I get it because you are going to back forward a position that you think and will definitely be
- very vital to the department as well as the county.
- I get that. The moral of the story that you all are trying to say is we got the money.
- Whether or not the state does its thing and wants to do ultimate cuts of this particular, the HFI
- money, you're saying we got it in the bank.
- Even if the state gives it to us, yay. If the state doesn't give it to us, still yay. But we got it.
- Is that what I'm just hearing?
- Is that the moral? Just get it, got it good. Is that what I'm hearing?
- Yes, I would say that that's what you're hearing, definitely.
- And I do probably take this too personally, and that's something that I need to work on.
- But it is just about I'm so passionate about advocating for what this position is going to be doing.
- And I know that we're all here because we do care about serving the citizens of Monroe County and
- give them the best that we possibly can.
- So that is my passion, I guess, for that coming across. That is sometimes frustration also.
- So I'll just say this, as a woman to another woman, please don't ever apologize for your
- frustration, because you are passionate.
- Whether or not people agree with it or not, that's up to us to decipher and to take a taste on.
- But please do not feel like you have to apologize to us, because I'm a big girl, literally and
- figuratively, and I can take all things.
- So if I can dish it, I can take it, and likewise. So I completely understand, but I just want to
- make sure you know that.
- And now I'm going to go to Councilor Wilks.
- So what I would like to do is offer an amendment to the motion that asks the department to please
- reduce their 2025 budget by the difference in what we agree to raise in terms of salary based on
- the 35 to 40 and the pat DDEXE.
- I wanted to look to make sure you're looking at me like I'm crazy, but I know I'm crazy. It doesn't
- hurt my feelings. What do you need?
- Procedurally, I don't think there was a motion. This is an item for discussion. So you're not amending
- a motion, you're making a motion.
- This is open for discussion.
- But you're halfway through a motion.
- First, I want to make sure that we understand that amount. But if there's no if there's no motion,
- then I would like to.
- So go ahead. I would I would like to move. I'm terrible at motion. So just bear with me. I would
- like to say I move that we increase the health services director from a 35 hour pat D to a 40 hour
- XCA with the stipulation that the fiscal impact of that change is reflected as a deduction in their
- 2025 and 2026 budget that's tangibly in the story.
- Second.
- Okay, we got a motion and a second point of information, Madam President. Yes, go ahead. To be
- clear, the item that we're talking about, right.
- As is, you could put this position out today.
- Okay, so it's not like there's no position to put out on the market. Right. Okay, it exists. Thank
- you. That's the point of information I was looking for. Thank you.
- Okay, so we got a motion and a second and we had a point of order and it sounded like that got
- clarified and I saw a hand over here.
- And now I don't see a hand over here. So now I'm going to go back. I feel like I'm in an auction.
- And now I'm going to go back to Councilor Fido. Thank you.
- So you mentioned this year and next year if I heard that correctly. So what happens the third year
- and succeeding years.
- I don't want to restrict future council activity. I think the standard that we all are held to,
- which is check out people's budgets and work with them.
- I don't think we need to go in. I just said to make sure that, you know, we are all here. We're the
- ones deciding 26. So I knew I could say that.
- Thank you. Councilor Decker. I appreciate the motion. I think we've had a lot of really good
- discussion. As I said, this is how these things come about.
- But part of the problem solving that we do is we wrestle these things to the ground in some sort of
- solution.
- And I love the notion that we're figuring out where this comes from. If, but it is not there. And I
- think that's why councils will do.
- The last thing I'll say is I am fearful in life that councils will be doing all councils, 92
- counties of them will be doing this all the time.
- And so this is a if this can be done, it's a good lesson for how those solutions will come to. We
- will come to those in the long run.
- I have very I like the idea of removing this from 35 to 40. But, you know, we have been talking
- about this for a very long time.
- I don't think moving it to an XCA is a good idea for the reasons articulated in the list letter and
- for the reasons articulated in the organizational chart.
- I think having an XCA above a department and having pat D's everywhere else is I think that is
- going to have negative impacts.
- I also think that this is going when when we go beyond what is being recommended by WIS, I know
- that's within our power and I know that we have the authority to do this.
- But I do think that in this instance where we have submitted this position three times to WIS and
- they have thrice come back with a recommendation.
- We have updated this job description three times. When it started, it did not have nursing duties
- in it.
- We put nursing duties in it. When it started, it only had administrative duties in it.
- We put in administrative duties that were adhering to what the department wanted.
- It still came back as a pat D. I think this sets a dangerous precedent.
- And so I'm happy to offer an amendment to to reduce it back to a pat D, which is what's been
- recommended.
- But as it stands, those are the reasons why I would not be able to support to this current
- amendment or this current motion.
- It was a second. So do we miss Moser?
- I actually wanted to ask a clarifying question about the motion.
- If the department I'm not sure how the department could reduce their budgets by a specific amount
- because the health services director isn't budgeted for a certain amount right now because there
- isn't an individual in it.
- And so we wouldn't know the step level that they would be at.
- We'll find out. I mean, it's approximately 20,000 to 18,000 is what if I'm asked if I'm wrong about
- that, please let me know.
- But that was my back of the napkin. And so that's the approximate amount.
- Could I suggest as an alternative, we have our local health maintenance fund that has money in
- there.
- I mean, so we could always say this much of that fund would be reserved as well.
- In consulting with our auditor, I don't think the grids reflect the full amount because I don't
- think it includes FICA and PERF.
- So I think it would be more than the estimated 20,000 total benefit package wouldn't be there.
- That's right. So on 18,000, the benefits, it's not a huge amount.
- I just want to make sure you had an opportunity to finish what you needed to say.
- Go ahead. Can we please have the motion restated?
- You have it, Ms. Mosher.
- I have a motion to increase the health services director position from 35 hours,
- Pat D, to 40 hours EXEA with the stipulation that the fiscal impact is reflected as a deduction in
- the health department's 2025 and 2026 budgets.
- Okay, Council Henry. Okay, but point of order the motion on the floor is the amendment that Mr. Iverson
- made. Is that correct?
- I did not make a motion. I opened for a conversation.
- Okay, so okay. Okay. Thank you. So thank you.
- Okay, counselor. I was just going to offer a quick comment.
- I know Miss Kelly is thinking through different ways to offset this cost.
- I would recommend it just me and I may be wrong.
- I would recommend that you and the health officer have a good discussion about any unintended
- consequences with any of that,
- because it is public health and that is your domain. Fiscal is ours.
- But once that is to me under this motion, once that's determined, that is the offset for this and
- it is revenue neutral as revenue neutral can get.
- So I have a question about with being new play naive.
- So how much experience do they have in working with health departments, maybe in evaluating those?
- I can I can only speak to my experience on this council.
- But we've consulted with them before about the health administrator salary.
- They you know, I'm not going to defend their their findings as much as I can say that the approach
- that they use is a traditionally.
- It's founded in in labor analysis of government positions where they use a point system, which is
- supposed to account for things like what the degree requirement is.
- And when they compare positions, they are supposed to pick counties with similar types of
- departments and look at other Indiana counties and what they're doing and compare it back to what
- we're.
- Anybody else have any other questions or comments?
- Well, I'm trying to I'm trying to think about what the motion is.
- The motion is not to move forward.
- This the motion is to have them come and tell us where they might find the money specifically.
- That decision will be made and maybe by that time, the state will be through doing their thing and
- we'll have a better idea of whether or not we're in deep water.
- That's not the motion that wasn't the motion.
- So, again, from my understanding is the motion is to change it from the thirty five to the forty
- eight C a position and for the particular department to kind of take a cushion of about eighteen
- thousand.
- It's somewhere else in their budget to kind of compensate the difference of the cost and move in
- this.
- Am I getting that right specifically the fiscal impact of of moving this position's classification
- and ours should be recouped in the existing budgeted lines.
- That there's no fiscal impact over the next two years for that change.
- Okay, I'm gonna take the last dance on this and then hopefully we can call the question after this
- and I.
- Originally, I'm just gonna be honest, it was a I don't know how this is going to work and and
- listening and hearing all of y'all talk in the public comment or the comment that was made by.
- The chair of the health board there I have a little bit of a change of heart, and I think at the
- end of the day for me I hear you say that we have it, let us kind of go do our thing.
- And we as fiscal body members have a responsibility that we have to make sure like you know what we
- are given to you and you go forth and you go do it.
- But I do think that at some point, sometimes we have to recognize that we can't be in the business
- of telling every single department what it is that we need to do.
- My little phrase that I used to say is sometimes we have to stay in our lane.
- And I think maybe this might be a land that council has to do that, but I want to make sure that if
- we do this in good faith, you will go forth and you will figure it out. You mentioned before you
- will kind of go about doing that and you kind of mentioned earlier that you kind of felt like we
- were saying that we don't trust you with your budget, essentially.
- And I don't, that really kind of stuck with me while we were having this deliberation because I don't
- want you to feel like we don't trust you with your budget.
- We are just being very sensitive because, you know, the little state house down up in Indy or up in
- Indy makes us feel that way.
- So we are trying to make sure that we are trying to not overextend and do what we need to do.
- But at the same time, I feel like I now understand the importance of what you would do.
- And I will just say this is probably something.
- So I support this motion. And that's it. Point blank period.
- So call the question, please. And maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Is there a way to repeat it one more time? I hate to say that.
- I'm happy to. Okay.
- This this is a motion to increase the health services director position from a 35 hour pat D to a
- 40 hour XCA.
- With the stipulation that the fiscal impact is reflected as a deduction and the health department's
- 2025 and 2026 budgets.
- Thank you.
- Counselor Decker. Yes.
- Counselor Crossley. Yes.
- Counselor Iverson. No.
- Counselor Hawk. No.
- Counselor Wilts. Yes.
- Counselor Henry. No.
- Counselor Feidl. No.
- Oh, this is the deciding vote. It sure is.
- Wowie-towie. Yes. Proudly, yes.
- Motion passes four to three.
- Thank you.
- Thank you all. And I want to remind the counselors and the commissioners that indeed you have been
- invited to our open house where we can actually let you see what it is that the health department
- does every day to try and protect and defend the health and
- well-being of our community. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- All right. So now we are going to move back to item 10, which is the Youth Services Bureau.
- Council, I move to approve the Youth Services Bureau's request for the creation of the following
- count lines and fund 9103 Project Safe Place, 20210 Program Supplies, 30013 Professional Services,
- 30028 Training and Travel, 30185 Employee Promotion, and simultaneously appropriate $10,000 in the
- supplies category and $20,045.30 in the services category.
- Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. And it's actually not item number 10. It's item
- number nine.
- So we have Miss Vanessa Schmidt. So thank you so much for sticking around through all of that. And
- now it is your time to be up.
- Thank you, counselors. Vanessa Schmidt, Deputy Director of the Youth Services Bureau. Again, this
- is just to create the new account lines and simultaneously approve those funds. These funds have
- already been awarded to us through grant funding for direct services that we provided.
- And so we are just asking to not commingle those with our current grant and create these new lines
- and appropriate them as requested.
- Okay. Seems pretty fair. Does council members have any questions or comments?
- Finally, something wonderful that we can all get behind because this is saving the children before
- they get in trouble, hopefully. And for those who've got, you know, stubbed their toe along the way,
- we're there to help out. I am so, so proud of all the work that's done through your department.
- I'm looking at you as you're here with us. But this is a joyful vote, and I'm happy to support it.
- And we've had Operation Safe Place for many years, and we just don't know how many lives have been
- saved because of that.
- I mean, we don't really, there's no way to put a chart there that says, well, this year you save
- five children. We don't know what the numbers are, but we thank you for the work that you do and to
- keep that grant dollars coming.
- It's not just for our county, it's for other counties as well.
- Thank you. We appreciate that.
- I just want to thank you for sitting for an extra hour and a half, which is probably close to as
- difficult as obtaining the grant funding. So, you know, very much appreciate your patience.
- Thank you.
- And seeing no more questions or comments from Council, I'll go ahead and open up this for public
- comment. If you have public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie
- Hill room or raise your hand via Teams.
- And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Hawke. Yes.
- Councilor Welts. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Motion passed. Unanimous.
- You very much appreciate your kind words. Yes, thank you. And again, thank you for your patience.
- Ms. Turner-King. Can I offer comments going back to the previous item regarding the Health Services
- Director?
- It dawned on me it's a salary ordinance, so it's going to have to come back to the next council
- meeting.
- So the reason why that would be is because it's an amendment to the salary ordinance, and it has to
- have a unanimous vote, so now the saga continues in about two more weeks.
- Gotcha. And when they come back... I just wanted to make that clear because I want to caution the
- Health Department.
- It's not been approved yet, so we should not advertise it at a higher rate until that's a thing.
- Okay. So to the Health Department that are still in the room, and maybe online, and who might watch
- it again, the moral of the story is you'll see our bright, shiny faces again in two weeks, and we
- will do this all over again.
- Hopefully not as long because we had a long, robust conversation, but yes. Okay.
- All right. Thank you for alerting us. All right. Now we will move on to the last part of our agenda,
- and it is Council Liaison updates and comments.
- So I am going to take the liberty of starting over here to my right because it seems like we've got
- some anti-folks over here, so I'm going to start and just go down the line.
- So Councilor Hawke, if you wanted to say something, I'm sure you do. Just to know that we've been
- watching what's going on in ways and means.
- Amendment 45 on Senate Bill 1 has more changes in it than Senate Bill 1 did.
- It's sort of like a combination of 1402, which was the income tax, and Senate Bill 1 was the
- property tax.
- And now they're trying to say, well, we're going to cut the property tax for people, X, Y, and Z.
- And we're going to give the county councils the opportunity to go to their people, the constituents
- here,
- and the people who are struggling to just make it from day to day, and we're going to say, well,
- look, we're still going to get your property tax.
- But the growth won't be as much as we thought it was going to be.
- But we can fix that, because now we're going to go to your other pocket and take your income tax.
- And let me tell you, that hurts everyone.
- It hurts a lot of really low-income families simply because they don't have their money hidden away,
- as wealthy people do in trusts and so forth, where they're not having to pay into this income tax.
- And I don't see anything in the legislation that says that we won't charge that income tax to
- people who are 65 and older.
- Like, the property tax has that rule on there. If it stays on there, they keep messing with that.
- So we have a lot of seniors that could end up paying some of this income tax.
- And we know right now that we're looking at that income tax that we have coming in to cover the
- jail expenses,
- and it's still not going to be enough.
- And yet we continue to spend money as though the money were going to the people and say,
- "Well, we don't have enough, so now we're going to get more, but we don't know how to quit spending
- now."
- So I'm concerned about how difficult it's going to be for this council and the councils throughout
- the state
- to have to take the hard reins because the state has said they're tired of making the decisions for
- the county, all counties.
- They're tired of the ones having to raise taxes into it. They are shoving that right down to the
- counties for us to have the responsibility.
- And we've got to be ready to take it. And that means you can't say yes to everybody.
- Thank you, Madam President. I will withhold comment on the health liaison role until next week when
- we revisit this issue or this item
- and we discuss salary next week in terms of that engagement. But I will provide some updates on
- some of my other liaison activities.
- So I had a chance to speak with our Emergency Management Director in between tornadoes and flooding
- in our community this week
- and discussing our response to the recent weather. One thing I want to point out to council and the
- public's attention
- is that our siren system, the last time we purchased the siren system for the county, it was
- purchased all at once,
- which means when things hit end of life, they all kind of fail all at once.
- And so I want to commend Jamie and the staff for, you know, slowly updating new sirens into the
- county.
- So some sirens sound newer or louder or different depending on where you are. But of course, if you
- are inside, the siren is not for you.
- The sirens are designed for people who are outside their homes. The wind we had would carry that
- sound away.
- Sometimes you think you might not have heard the siren, but it probably did go off.
- Just to make sure that folks have other ways of getting information during bad weather is really
- important there.
- It includes, of course, signing up for Monroe County alerts and getting that text from the county
- about what's going on out there.
- But I'm just commending the work of the EMA this week.
- Secondly, I followed up with Jamie and staff over there about the incident that occurred, I guess,
- over a month ago,
- where we had a presumed active aggressor in the government campus downtown.
- And ways that we could inform the county government and the city government of what's going on in
- that time frame.
- We did have a good discussion about some of the limitations locally between city and county about
- sharing the 9-1-1 dispatch to emergency management,
- which cannot be done currently without an MOU.
- And it's something I'm going to really work with the commissioners to explore to see if we can make
- sure our EMA has all the information
- so they could hit an alert when things like that happen.
- And I say when, not if, because we should be preparing for all contingencies and not be surprised
- the way we were a month ago on that.
- So I just want to let the public know I haven't really let up on looking into that.
- It's going to be a bigger challenge than I thought, but that's why we're here for the hard stuff.
- In terms of the other activities in the community, Steinsville, I've experienced quite a bit of
- flooding.
- Jackson Feet Creek often gets flooding in their space and there are parcels in that floodplain
- that have been condemned by our health department that have been a chronic issue.
- I only flag this to say that when county council convenes again,
- the plan department will be bringing a request for appropriations to deal with cleanup in that
- floodplain
- as you all signed the MOU with Steinsville to incorporate them into the planning commission's
- jurisdiction for planning and zoning.
- That responsibility falls on the county now to help with cleanup there
- and hopefully some longer term solutions on what to do with some property owners that have really
- let things go
- and have been condemned by the health department and are living in spaces that are not suitable for
- humans.
- It's kind of a tragedy up there, but I'm happy to keep working with Steinsville council and the
- small stuff.
- I want to address a public comment that was made at the beginning from Ms. Stonebreaker from the
- Vote Center Study Commission,
- the body as they were working through the adoption of vote centers for the county,
- and to say that at this point, and I'm just going to say my piece about this,
- I started the process as election board president in July of 2023 to open up that committee.
- It's taken 21 months for them to develop probably the most robust plan,
- 56 pages worth in the state of Indiana for us to move to vote centers.
- We would be the 66th county to adopt if we did do so.
- And it's time for this body to pass a resolution in support of vote centers,
- full-throated support from this body for vote centers so we are the 66th county to join.
- And I say that especially because of legislation that was moved through,
- House Bill 1633, which empowers the Secretary of State to investigate
- over summer's study committee and sessions recommendations to moving the lapsed counties,
- the 27 counties that haven't become vote centers, to become vote centers in Indiana.
- So I would put it to my colleagues very simply, we have an opportunity to exercise our home rule
- to adopt a vote center plan for our community that is from Monroe County,
- or we can wait for the Secretary of State to do something very similar
- or in his vision of what that ought to be for us.
- So after 21 months, and really since 2011, it's time to move on and become a vote center county.
- Lastly, I want to wrap up with some just good public awareness.
- I had the opportunity to go to the Middle Way House's annual luncheon on Tuesday,
- raising awareness of their work in the community.
- And it is, among two things in April, it is National Child Abuse Prevention Month
- and Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the United States,
- and I want to commend the work of Middle Way House as well as our organizations in the community,
- including DCS, that are doing the good work, despite budget cuts,
- to help those who have been harmed in our community.
- And as we get into Sophia Travis season, to keep those organizations in our thoughts.
- Lastly, I am wearing my family tartan plaid tonight.
- I've got to say, it was tartan day in the United States on Sunday.
- For those of us of Scots American heritage, there are more Scots outside of Scotland than in it.
- And, you know, so for the kids at home and my dad in Ohio,
- to say we're wearing clan Matheson today in honor of our tartan in our Scots-Irish heritage,
- slanche of vah, I've got to get some beverage after this.
- Thank you very much, Madam President.
- I think we all need one after this.
- All right, Councilor Iverson.
- Thank you, Madam President. I have three updates.
- We were able to go to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank annual luncheon.
- Councilmember Henry and I were there together.
- We heard about 16.5 percent of the service area is being served because their food insecure.
- We heard about half a million pounds of food is being collected
- and then distributed every single month.
- And really good news coming out of that meeting is that the county council,
- the county commissioners, and the United Way were able to work together
- to get generators for Hoosier Hills Food Bank so that when the energy goes out,
- that the fridges and freezers, which are so important to combat food insecurity,
- stay on, really happy to do that.
- Of course, all of this was against the backdrop of federal cuts to food pantries.
- The TFAP's Commodity Credit Corporation cuts meant that Hoosier Hills Food Bank
- now is looking at around 62,000 pounds of food that will not be coming in.
- So that's directly going to be impacting Hoosier lives.
- We're really concerned about that.
- I would encourage folks to go to hhfoodbank.org to learn more about food insecurity
- in this community and learn more about what you can do there.
- The second meeting that I went to was on April the 3rd.
- That was the first and inaugural meeting of the Resiliency Commission led by Richard Kreider.
- This is a worthy investment of our time as we went through the actions
- that were articulated through the Climate Resilience Plan.
- We went through and selected about 14 actions that we think that we can take action on pretty
- quickly.
- So look for more information coming with that.
- Also, of course, since we made our appointment today, that body is going to be even more robust.
- The third and final update that I'll make is that flooding in District 1 was pretty intense.
- We saw quite a few of those lower floodplains fill in with water.
- We know that the spillway was pretty high out there,
- and so huge thanks to everyone that got out there and really helped out.
- I want to point out a couple things that I think are noteworthy.
- First of all, the Highway Department did a great job.
- They kept their website of road closures locally here up to date.
- Huge credit to them.
- So if you're ever driving around, make sure to look at that website, the Highway Department.
- Emergency Management on their social media and website did a great job of updating everyone
- on the different issues that we need to be taking aware of that.
- The Citizen Alerts, which you can sign up for on our homepage,
- did a good job of updating everyone on those.
- And then also we saw in the local media ways that folks can be looking at their septic tanks
- and their basements in ways that are going to be helpful to preventing damage
- when the next floods come.
- So I think we're really poised to think about flooding.
- But again, that Resilience Committee is going to be even more important
- as flooding gets worse and worse with climate change.
- Thank you.
- Councilor Decker.
- Thank you very much.
- I want to use my time to make some comments a little bit about this impending state action.
- And I want to do that particularly because I don't know about other councilors,
- but if your email inbox is anything like mine,
- it's blowing up with lots of action alerts and other items.
- And I'm going to do this, if I may, just for a second.
- I promise I won't be too long-winded in using our own agenda to highlight just a couple things.
- So today we have talked about a variety of things, either from councilor comments or councilor
- action.
- We've talked about airports.
- We've talked about emergency management.
- We spent enough time at the health department today that I think we're all better informed on a
- whole lot of things,
- and they're equally better informed on our processes.
- We've talked about vote centers.
- We had a hearing in here last night.
- I was pleased to be in here and listen to some of the public comments.
- One thing I want to point out is when I take that agenda items in that list and I contrast that
- with some of the rhetoric that I hear about pending state decisions,
- I hear this all the time, and it goes something like this.
- The state's not just going to mess with your formula a little bit.
- We're just going to cut into your growth just a little bit.
- Counties are just not going to grow as much in what they spend it on because, frankly, the
- implication -- I've seen this in a few press releases.
- I think the Indiana House speaker's press release, Speaker Todd Houston from Hamilton County, his
- comment was that local government,
- you are so far in debt that you cannot find your own wallets and your shoes, and basically you're
- incompetent.
- That's what he says.
- Now, here's what I want to say, Mr. Speaker.
- I know he's not going to be watching, but I bet someone that knows him will be, is this.
- When counties started off, they weren't really messing around too much with airports.
- In fact, when counties started off, they really -- no one was messing around with airports, but
- then things changed.
- Counties gradually, over time, as Councillor Henry could really inform us on, began to talk about
- emergency management.
- We know for a fact that every crisis that happens, we now demand more from emergency management.
- I think I said in 2008 during the floods when I was a congressional aide, I said we will down the
- road expect more than just terrorism responses.
- We'll expect robust flood responses.
- Well, here we are.
- Council comments.
- We've gotten into that.
- That was in the original plan.
- By the way, with all due respect to Mr. Speaker, it's not a speaker that responds to a flood in a
- town or on a road.
- It's us or are the folks that we fund, the folks that we hash this out with like Lori Kelly today,
- right?
- When deputies, right, are wonderful deputies that we like, when they come to us and they say either
- we need this priority or we need this funds, they come to us and they ask for that.
- I don't know that the House weighs in means or Senate finance and Councilor Hawk would be the
- expert on this.
- I don't know that they have deputies that come in individually.
- I think a state superintendent of public or the police comes in and makes that pitch.
- So, friends, here's why I'm saying this and I'm saying this kind of animated and I mean to win
- groups like the AIC when groups like our own BEDC,
- to send an alert out, the state economic development associations are saying state legislators,
- Speaker Houston, Senator Bray, Majority Leader Bray, representatives, both sides of the aisle.
- Don't move forward on Senate Bill 1 because we're a little nervous about it.
- When the economic development people and the schools and the counties start talking about it,
- people should listen.
- Now, let me be specific to your county here just for a second.
- The latest fiscal impact I have seen and granted it's shifting, by the way, that's a public comment
- all of its own.
- We can't tell what the heck's going on up there.
- I'm not sure our legislators always can.
- When we know for Monroe County, in 2026, the current iteration of Senate Bill 1 means for schools,
- cities, towns.
- And by the way, all those things I just talked about from our agenda, plus more, wait, there's more.
- They will be cut by $7.9 million in 2026 alone, $7.9 million.
- Poor Laurie Kelly, we spent a good hour and a half trying to figure out where $20,000 is going to
- come from.
- $7.9 million, everybody get your roller skates on.
- When we talk about 2027, we talk about $9.7 million in cuts for growth that needs to occur so that
- you have emergency management responses,
- because we know it's going to evolve, health responses, because we know that's going to evolve, and
- other things.
- In 2028, friends, $13.4 million.
- When you total that up, it's $31 million to counties, cities, schools that responded to a pandemic
- while up at the State House.
- What they had was a bunch of debates about, I don't know, this, that, or the other, probably inflicting
- harm on somebody.
- My point to you, friends, is this. Government of the people is representative here.
- People can come and yell at us. I don't know that you can do that at the State House.
- So, legislative friends, that is a problem.
- And the last thing I'll just tell you, if you turn on the news and you watch the federal level of
- government,
- I'm not sure what our fiscal forecast is for anything right now.
- So, the last thing you want to do is start breaking the system.
- Councilor Hawke said it very well. I was teasing Councilor Crosley.
- I said, my gosh, Councilor Hawke's remarks on local income tax sounded like it could have been one
- of your campaign speeches for your district in the central part of Monroe County.
- Friends, here's my point to this. I get it. People get partisan responses. You get things. People
- get fired up.
- Service costs. It costs money to make sure that you monitor flooding that goes over a road.
- It costs money to make sure that you have public safety done.
- And what you haven't got is the ambulances, which we have to touch.
- It costs money. It costs money. This isn't just some hypothetical thing.
- And so, for legislators, watch this. Watch this like a hawk.
- This is serious work that you've got to do. And these responses of, you're just not going to grow a
- little bit.
- Let me tell you what's going to grow. The headaches.
- And I really hope those headaches don't come up to you like they will to us.
- And if they do, if they do, I expect every legislator to be the first in line saying, raise that
- lit as high as you can, and I endorse it.
- D.R. Libertarian or who survives an election. Thank you for indulging all that.
- If you haven't already. All right. Thank you.
- And moving down the soldiering line.
- Council will do not have any comments after that. Thank you.
- Councillor Faital and update on the things that I was involved in since the last meeting.
- I went to the EDC board meeting where I learned from the banks they were featured that day that 10
- years or so ago.
- The loan deposit ratio was 90 percent, and now it's 50 to 60 percent.
- They're concerned about that. They're under pressure today to make more deposits.
- The Federal Reserve expects two cuts this year at that point, and that was on March 26.
- The number of banks in the U.S. in the 50s, 1950s, was 14,000.
- In 2022, there were 4,081 banks, so there's been some consolidation, I would say.
- There are 17 banks in Monroe County. Fraud has increased exponentially.
- Paper checks are being stolen and altered. You've probably heard about that more so than earlier.
- And then BEDC itself has two projects on their short list and one project nearing final commitment.
- I met a couple times with Employee Services and touched base on a couple of things that are going
- on there.
- Went to the Monroe County Fair Association meeting where I learned that 200 4-H people,
- 7 to 12 years old, attended, included, 51 from Monroe County included, went to a Teen Leadership
- Weekend event at Camp Tecumseh.
- That seemed like it was a real exciting thing, according to the report.
- And they're working on their fair book for this year, the benches and the baby contest.
- And then I did the State of the City Address also, enjoyed seeing that this year and hearing from
- Mayor Thompson.
- And I just personally wanted to thank the council staff for their various help with council duties
- and this new counselor in nudging her along on many things.
- Thank you.
- And I see you brought your colorful paper back.
- I got my show and tell kit.
- I watched the last meeting.
- That was a fun meeting, too.
- Okay.
- It was really fun.
- You've got cut off and everything.
- So last but not least, I was absent due to illness at the last meeting and I didn't get a chance to
- do the convention visitor center update.
- And so here's some couple of things.
- The Wilmington group, which has their building on North Walnut, is looking to move closer more
- downtown as we prepare for the expansion of the convention center.
- One of the couple of things that I wanted to know for the public, too, is if you notice around
- downtown buildings and little areas are starting to prepare for the groundbreaking,
- which will happen at some point this year.
- And when we have a date, the public will be notified about that.
- So just stay tuned.
- And they are wanting to give an update and let the folks know that the Carson Farm Park area, all
- that renovation should be done by the end of the summer.
- And they already have meets and tournaments that are already ready to go.
- So talk about economic development.
- Plus, depending on how the football team goes this year, knock on wood, hopefully that will just
- continue to flourish in our community here.
- So I appreciate that as well.
- The other thing that I really wanted to make a comment about is a couple of things.
- Speaking of government, here we go.
- You know, I think that it is important for the people, for other people to continue to have the
- conversations.
- And as I mentioned way back in when it was really cold and now it's just cold now that we were
- hoping to have our governor actually respond to some of my emails and messages.
- And they still have gone unanswered.
- And so, lo and behold, just this past weekend, I realized by just scrolling through the Facebook
- that I came across a a interesting graphic that showed that our Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith
- will be in town, April 28th at 7 p.m. at the warehouse.
- So it sounds like, you know, maybe that was an indirect conversation that he heard through the
- grapevine.
- And again, I know we got friends from Monroe County and low places that get in contact with him.
- So he's going to get in his new SUV and come down and speak to the community.
- And I'm looking forward to that.
- And I really hope that the people actually pay attention to that and really go and have
- conversations.
- The graphic said that he's looking to have meaningful conversations.
- And I likewise look forward to having that meaningful conversation.
- So, again, if anybody's watching or you just want to continue to watch April 28th at 7 p.m. at the
- warehouse,
- seems to be a very busy place for a lot of different meetings these days.
- But there is our lieutenant governor will be coming down.
- So I look forward to that and I encourage the public to look forward to that as well.
- Another thing I wanted to make a comment about is I did pay attention to the vote center
- conversations that were happening.
- And I do want to address the public comment that was made earlier today about, you know,
- the council making a full support whether it was privately or publicly.
- I definitely support both centers full stop.
- The biggest thing with both centers is in this past election and we've seen it so many times and it
- was mentioned many times last night
- that folks go down to a particular polling location and they are in the wrong spot.
- And because of the time constraint, they are maybe not able and oftentimes able to cast their vote
- because they're in the wrong spot
- and they waited to the last minute to get that and not necessarily waiting to the last minute.
- Maybe that's because how their schedule allows.
- And so I want to say that I am definitely in favor of having the vote centers.
- And to be honest, I think the council should have that particular presentation to be had that Ms.
- Stonebreaker gave yesterday
- to the full council at a meeting since we are being called to the carpet of support and resolution.
- I think it is, again, fiscal responsibility for us to hear a presentation based upon that.
- Maybe not all of us have had the luxury of paying attention to that meeting.
- I'm a cats nerd, so I go and pay attention to cats because I like government meetings because I'm
- sitting in the seat.
- So that being said, I definitely want to hope that maybe that's something that we can get on the
- schedule
- for that particular presentation to be had because, again, as a fiscal body member,
- I think that in order for some of us to particularly support a resolution, we need to make sure we
- know the cost.
- And as Councillor Henry said, our friend, Mr. Morales, at the state,
- whether we do it now or if it's thrust upon us to force us to do it, we have an opportunity to make
- sure that we do that.
- So I want to make sure that we can do that.
- And again, we'll work to maybe get that on the schedule in the near future.
- The last comment that I want to make is about the conversation that we had about WIS.
- And WIS doesn't always get it right, right?
- So we knew that from a couple of other departments with the assessor's office,
- where the assessor continued to beg and plead and have the conversations we've had.
- Other departments that have come to us and said WIS doesn't get it right.
- But it's our responsibility and our due diligence to make sure that we are listening to every
- single department head
- and try to make those decisions and go forth with that.
- And that's all I want to say about that.
- I appreciated tonight's conversation.
- I know we had difference of opinions of how those things go down.
- But again, it sounds like the saga continues because we'll be back here in the next couple of weeks
- with the salary ordinance of the health department, particular position.
- So again, this is what democracy looks like.
- I'm so glad I have a newly minted 18 year old that is now registered to vote to participate in
- upcoming elections.
- And yeah, last but not least, let's go see Mike Beckwith on April 28th at 7 p.m. at the warehouse.
- So without further ado, I thank everybody for the comments and the civil conversations that we've
- had.
- Nobody's trying to beat up on anybody as it was mentioned a little bit earlier before.
- But we all have to make decisions and we all can have healthy disagreements.
- And that is what it looks like. And without that, we are adjourned. Thank you.
- Thank you.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]