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] [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. 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. 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. 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. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]