good evening everybody and welcome to the county council meeting for Tuesday October 14th 2025 the time
is now five oh four and for the record we have all seven council members present looks like we have
a quorum and we will go ahead and get started so um next up is the pledge of allegiance so all those
who are able to stand please stand while we recite the pledge of allegiance
of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. OK. Next up, we have the adoption of tonight's agenda.
Is there anybody that would like to make changes for tonight's
agenda. Yes, Councilor Henry. Madam President, thank you. I'd like to amend the agenda to move the item
10A consent agenda item for the health department into ongoing business. So it'd be no change in the
order, but it would just remove it from consent agenda into ongoing business. Okay. Second. And I thought
somebody would do that because if you didn't, I would. All right. Are there any other changes that council
members would like to make for tonight's agenda? And again,
Oh yes, Councilor Hawk. Yes, this has to do with the highway. It is a transfer, category transfer. It's
a pretty simple situation and I would like to have that put in place right after our consent agenda
because then there's no point in her hanging around for all the rest of this. I didn't speak with her
about it, I just thought we've
We've done this more than once. We keep saying we're not going to do it anymore. OK. So looks like there
is item E that you're speaking of. Is that right, Councillor Hawke? Right. OK. OK. So the idea is to
put it basically right where we moved it or removed
the health department, is that what you're saying? Right, right after we've done the consent agenda.
Okay. Because I think she'll want to be here to present it, but not here until 11 o'clock at night.
I don't think we will be here until 11 o'clock. Okay. All right. So we got the two items.
And again, the council staff get the changes that we are making to tonight's agenda. Yes, I'm going
to restate that we're going to move item 10A, the health department consent agenda item to ongoing business.
So it will become there. And then we've got item 12E will immediately follow the health department consent
agenda item. OK.
Okay. All right. So are there any other changes that any council member would like to make to tonight's
agenda? No. Okay. All right. So all those in favor of adopting tonight's agenda as amended signify by
saying aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. All right. Motion carries. Yes. I just want to reiterate that, um,
Even though item 12E says a category transfer, it is technically not a category transfer. It is an in-house
transfer, because it is over time, a personnel line moving into a personnel line. So I just wanted to
make that clear, even though the agenda has stated it incorrectly. OK. OK. I appreciate that.
Thank you. There's been a little bit of confusion with that new over time kind of procedure that we're
going through. OK. All right. And we are learning as we go. All right.
Thank you for that. And next up is public comment. So if you would like to make public comment on items
not on tonight's agenda, again, this is time for public to make comment on items not on tonight's agenda.
You can do so by doing one or two ways. You can either come here in the NaTU Hill Room and come to the
lectern here, sign in, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. Or you can
raise your hand via Teams.
So I'll look around to see if anybody here is ready to make public comment on items not on the agenda
and seeing just stairs. I'll look to the teams and seeing none because everybody wants to get to the
business at hand. OK, we will move forward. All right.
So next up is department updates. These are also for items not on the agenda, but this is a way for
departments to tell us and the rest of the public what is happening in their department. And if you
have an update that you would like to bring forward, again, you can come to the lecture here in the
NatU Hill Room. You'll have up to 10 minutes, or you can raise your hand via Teams.
everybody's so excited about our agenda tonight, nobody's moving. Okay, all right, and seeing none.
All right, so it's the moment we've all been waiting for, which is why I got dressed up. So tonight,
we got everybody all dressed up, everybody looks so nice. We're all ready, even Councilor Hock has her
hot glasses on, so I know she is writing.
all right tonight is the second reading and the adoption of the 2026 budget for the whoops just get
him back no no i'm right okay and scene uh tonight is the second reading adoption of the 2026 budget
for the Monroe fire protection district waste reduction district
and the Monroe County government. I have asked all council members to again assist with the reading
of these ordinances just like we did a few weeks ago. Before we get into the reading of the adoption
of tonight's agenda, as we've done so, I'm going to look to the auditor one last time to give an update.
So Ms. Gregory, please take it away.
Good evening, Council. I'm excited to give you this update. The values in the budget documents have
been adjusted to account for changes made at the most recent meeting and anticipated bond revenue. Please
note that some of the budgeted expenses for 26 were moved to 25, resulting in an inflated 2025 budget
and deflated 2026 budget. As a result of the changes, our 2026 budget no longer reflects a deficit.
Despite not having a deficit budget in 2026, we recommend
that cash reserves are closely monitored as additional appropriations are requested in 2026 and beyond.
Looking specifically at the levy fund deficits, we have a much smaller surplus of $401,240. The cash
balances must be closely monitored in these funds specifically moving forward. So just to give you the
simple calculation numbers,
We have now a surplus, a simplified 2026 surplus amount of $2,364,060. So I want to applaud you for
your work on this. It's very exciting that we've gotten to this point. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Does
anybody have any questions for the auditor? I already saw Councilor Hawke's hand, so I'll just kind
of go down the solitary council line. So I'll start with Councilor Hawke.
Okay, could you go back and say we have a surplus of what? How much? $2,364,060. And is that just in
the frozen levy? No, that's the simple calculation, which includes everything. Now the number I gave
you for the for the levy, and that's not just the frozen levy, it's all of the levy funds, is $401,240.
but I think that sometimes could give the wrong impression because you might have a CUME fund that has
a higher balance to carry forward surplus. That's not unusual to see that. So we wouldn't want to give
the wrong impression that we're sitting here with lots of cash because we can't move those dollars around.
they adjust the thought. I may respond. We've been trying to stay consistent with the way we've been
presenting this information to you as well as to the public. So I'm happy to answer any specific questions,
but the four B's have been available. You all have them, which gives the fund by fund breakdown. We
can display them for the public. They will be submitted tonight after this meeting and will be available
for the public at that point.
Additionally, anytime anything is requested of my team and the council team, we provide that readily.
One of the funds that we were looking at really closely was in the deep dive calculations. And I don't
know if you have that document able to project onto the screen so that the public can can see this as
well, because sometimes things get lost in translation. We're talking about a lot of big numbers. And
so while while that's being put on the screen, can you tell us how healthy the general fund is in terms
of its for be calculations?
Sure. I know Carly had the deep dive calculation ready to go here, but she's pulling up the 4B for us.
Pardon? Yeah. The deep dive calculation is up there, and that does show... Yeah, if you can scroll over
to the... Yeah, that shows the same information, but I prefer the root document. So either one is fine
with us, though. Yeah. What I'm mostly concerned about, one, is transparency so that everyone can see it.
that the change in that number from a negative seven million dollars to what it is now. Yes so under
deficit per fund they're highlighted in the brighter pink you'll see for the general fund we now have
a surplus of nine hundred and fifty five thousand two hundred seventy seven dollars and that's the result
of moving some things to edit but regardless it's it's a good good change.
tremendous change. That's almost $8 million movement. That's really fantastic, in my opinion. And we
do see some of those other funds are in the negative, but the bottom line there is what you were referring
to earlier in terms of where we are in the black at this point. Yes. All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Before I circle back to Council Hawk, I'm going to look over here and see if anybody had
any questions or comments for Ms. Gregory? No? OK. Council Hawk?
Right. And I do appreciate the fact that the auditor mentioned that one of the reasons why that's correct
is because we originally had the full appropriation put in place for self-insurance. And if you'll remember,
they came and got an additional appropriation, so it wouldn't look like they were so bad for next year.
But we still spent our cash, and that budget was supposed to be really
for next year, so I don't want us to think we're rolling in. I'm just being extra cautious, I think,
as you all know. So, I mean, because it's money, it isn't like if we cut our spending, we moved money
around. Yes, Councillor Iverson. And to that point, the number on the screen, the bottom line that I
think the Auditor's Office has put in bold is less than half a million dollars.
We are not swimming in cash. We are, we still need to be cautious and thank you Councilmember Hawk for
pointing that out. I appreciate the numbers and I very pessimistically watched for numbers and then,
much like anything else I'm.
pleasantly surprised when the numbers show that we're still in there and fighting. I just want to reiterate
something I've said because of the changes that we have and changes that we will have and on and on
not to be Nostradamus here but we're going to be doing all this over and over and over and over just
like every other locality and playing it safe and I think that that kind of stunned feeling that everybody
has and fatigue
is partially for what we've been through in the last six weeks along with department heads,
elected officials, and everybody else. OK. And just as before, I just want to say thank you to the auditor
and her staff, especially Carly, for helping us along with showing us for the past eight weeks
And yes, it has been eight weeks, because we've all been counting this particular spreadsheet. So we
just thank you. Appreciate that. Madam President? Yes. I would like to send a special thank you to our
sheriff and the jail staff, because that's really what saved our bacon. We moved it from the jail general,
and we put it down into the jail income tax, which was originally we thought we were saving it back
for the construction.
But because they allowed that and didn't do a lot of pushback, that was a considerable amount of money.
Even the medical contract alone was like $1,600,000 something. And then we moved several employees down
there. So we started out at less than $500,000. Now I don't have memorized how much it is. But it saved us what?
over $2 million. When I say it saved us, we still spent local tax dollars. We just moved it over there,
rather than trying to pay for it in county general. And also too, the probation office came in with
a clutch from the Indiana Supreme Court getting those dollars out too. So yeah, definitely
I want to give credit where credit is well earned and due tonight. So more of that I'm sure will come.
But if we don't have any other thing else for the auditor, we will go ahead and move forward.
Councilor Decker next we will go to the second reading or approval of ordinance 2025-34 which is the
waste reduction district 2026 budget so I've asked Councilor Decker to read that again and everybody
hold your horses and Councilor Decker will take it away thank you all right ordinance number 2020 pardon
me 2025-34
be it ordained by the Monroe County Council that for the expenses of Monroe County solid waste management
district for the year ending December 31st 2026 the sums herein specified are hereby appropriated in
order to set apart out of the several funds here in named and for the purposes herein specified subject
to the laws governing the same such sums here in appropriated shall be held to include all expenditures
authorized to be made during
the year unless otherwise expressly stipulated and provided for by law. In addition, for the purposes
of raising revenue to meet the necessary expenses of Monroe County Solid Waste Management District,
the property tax levies and property tax rates as herein specified are included herein. Budget Form
4B for all funds must be completed and submitted in the manner prescribed by the Department of Local
Government Finance. This
disordnance shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage and approval by the Monroe
County Council in fund code 1215 non-reverting capital projects adopted budget zero dollars adopted
tax levy zero dollars for an adopted tax rate of zero point zero zero zero zero in fund eight to
one zero special solid waste management adopted budget three million two hundred fifty four thousand
six hundred twenty dollars adopted tax levy two million three hundred fifty five thousand eight hundred
forty eight dollars for an adopted tax rate of zero point zero two four eight in fun eight two eight
three solid waste district debt service
Adopted budget, $308,445 for an adopted tax levy of $217,259 for an adopted tax rate of 0.0023. For
a total adopted budget of $3,563,065.
with an adopted tax levy of $2,573,107 for an adopted tax rate of 0.0271. Council, I move to approve
ordinance 2025-34, the Waste Reduction District's 2026 budget.
All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there any final comment from council members related to
this budget? Looking to my left. Looking to my right. All right. And seeing none, if you public, if
the public rather has public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here than at you
whole room, or you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none.
May we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Feidl?
Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Crosley? Yes. Motion
passes unanimous 7-0. Thank you and next up is Councillor Wilts and she will do the reading of the Monroe
Fire Protection District 2026 budget.
number 2025-35 be it ordained by the Monroe County Council that for the expenses of the Monroe Fire
Protection District for the year ending December 31 2026 the sums herein specified are hereby appropriated
and ordered set apart out of the several funds here and named and for the purposes herein specified
subject to the laws governing the same
Such sums herein appropriated shall be held to include all expenditures authorized to be made during
the year unless otherwise expressly stipulated and provided for by law. In addition, for the purposes
of raising revenue to meet the necessary expenses of Monroe Fire Protection District, the property tax
levies and property tax rates as herein specified are included herein. Budget form 4B for all funds
must be completed and submitted in the manner prescribed by the Department
local government finance this ordinance shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage
and approval by the Monroe County Council fund code zero zero six one rainy day adopted budget one million
seven hundred thousand with adopted tax levy and adopted tax rate of zero fund eight six zero three
special fire general
seventeen million six hundred ninety eight thousand one hundred fifty five dollars adopted tax levy
nine million seven hundred ninety thousand three hundred sixty nine dollars adopted tax rate zero point
two five seven seven fund eight six nine one special cum fire
adopted budget one million four hundred one thousand nine hundred thirty two dollars adopted tax levy
one million three hundred four thousand seventy seven dollars with an adopted tax rate of zero point
zero three three three a total of adopted budget of twenty million eight hundred thousand eighty seven
dollars and adopted tax levy eleven million
$94,446 in an adopted tax rate of 0.2910. Council, I move to approve ordinance 2025-35, the Monroe Fire
Protection District's 2026 budget. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there any further
questions or comments from council members related to this budget?
looking to the left. Yes, Councillor Decker. I don't have a question, just a comment. I didn't get a
chance when the chief and the team were in here earlier presenting this, but I appreciate very much
what this department does. I appreciate very much the level of contact that they have around the community
and wherever you go, you see those trucks and I appreciate that this is a thing that did not exist years ago.
but a county with needs where residents expect that, they get that. And I, everywhere we go, we see
that symbol on those doors and in these townships. And I think that is absolutely huge. And it gives
me a lot of hope for not only the future on what they do, but how the county and its partners do things
together in a community that's got a lot of needs. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Hock. Yes, since I,
No, Claire critics no longer in my district, when it was I used to get a lot of questions and I would
shoot those questions over and try to get them answers. It's not my district now so I suppose Peters
getting those questions.
but what I would want to say that they're always very helpful to try to help us understand it and I'm
going to say again which I say every year at this time I would really love it if they would have their
meetings here in the courthouse because they represent so much of Monroe County people and they don't always
They don't always follow what's going on with the budget, because, you know, it's televised it's like
part of YouTube or something. But I think the public expects to see those meetings here.
I say this every year, so that's my thing. And they have so much to be proud of that it would be wonderful
for them to come here so the public can see everything that they're doing. Not everybody's on Facebook
watching all the places they are all of the time. Of course I am, but I don't know what the rest of
the world's doing.
All right. Yes. Well, as promised, I'm going to speak for about an hour on this fund. So here we go.
I'm just kidding. Thank you. So you're watching.
really appreciate everything that you and the team are doing. And to piggyback a little bit on the public
dimension of this, your social media is really good when we're looking to see what exactly is happening
with the fire protection district. You guys are doing a great job. And we just we're thankful for everything
you're doing out in the community, whether it's out at the airport or it's one of the stations. It's
just really great. It's it's wonderful to see such a healthy budget. And we're looking forward to working
with you in the next year. Thank you.
Anybody else? All right. And just as a plug, because it's in my district and my neighborhood, shout
out to Station 22. All right. That is said, now it's public comment time. If you have public comment
on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room, or you can raise your
hand via Teams.
Seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker?
Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0. All right, thank you. Next up is item eight, which is the Monroe County
government's 2026 budget and I have to ask Councilor Henry to do the honors and read.
Thank you, Madam President, in the matter of ordinance number 2025-36. Be it ordained by the Monroe
County Council that for the expenses of Monroe County for the year ending December 31st, 2026, the sums
Heron specified are hereby appropriated in order to set apart out of the several funds Heron names for
the purposes Heron specified, subject to the laws governing the same. Such sums Heron appropriated shall
be held to include all expenditures authorized to be made during the year unless otherwise expressly
stipulated and provided for by law. In addition, for the purposes of raising revenue to meet the necessary
expenses of Monroe County, the property tax levies and property tax rates, as Herron specified, are
included herein. Budget Form 4-B for all funds must be completed and submitted in the manner prescribed
by the Departments of Local Government Finance. This ordinance shall be in full force and effect from
and after its passage and approval by the Monroe County Council.
in fund code zero zero six one rainy day the adopted budget is three million dollars the adopted tax
levy is zero dollars the adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero in fund code zero one zero one general
the adopted budget is fifty one million ninety thousand one hundred eighty seven dollars the adopted
tax levy is thirty two
million six hundred thousand and eighty six dollars for the adopted tax rate of zero point two nine
four zero for fund code zero one zero two election registration the adopted budget is one million four
hundred and twenty thousand four hundred fourteen dollars the adopted tax levy is two hundred eighty
five thousand dollars the adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero two six for fund code
zero one twenty four twenty fifteen reassessment the adopted budget is nine hundred fifty one thousand
two hundred fifteen dollars the adopted tax levy is eight hundred ten thousand dollars for the adopted
tax rate of zero point zero zero seven three in funds code zero one eight zero debt service the adopted
budget is eight million
five hundred two thousand dollars the adopted tax levy is eight million seven hundred seventy four thousand
and fifty seven dollars and the adopted tax rate is zero point zero seven nine one in fund code zero
two zero three self insurance the adopted budget is eleven million three hundred and five thousand and
five hundred dollars the adopted tax levy is zero dollars the adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero
in fund code 0254 local income tax. The adopted budget is $4,513,361. The adopted tax levy is $0.00.
The adopted tax rate is 0.00.
In Fund Code 0256, Public Safety Local Income Tax, the adopted budget is $4,734,977. The adopted tax
levy is $0.00. The adopted tax rate is 0.00.
In Fund Code 0616 Convention and Visitors Bureau, the adopted budget is $3,216,600. The adopted tax
levy is $0.00. The adopted tax rate is 0.00. In Fund Code 0702 Highway,
The adopted budget is $6,854,119. The adopted tax levy is $0.00. The adopted tax rate is 0.00.
Fund code 0703 Highway special. The adopted budget is zero dollars. The adopted tax levy is zero dollars.
The adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero. And funds code 0706 local road and streets. The adopted
budget is one million five hundred fifty five thousand and six dollars. The adopted tax levy is zero
dollars. The adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero. And funds code 0790 cumulative bridge. The adopted budget
is $1,352,168. The adopted tax levy is $2,362,187 for an adopted tax rate of 0.0213. In Fund Code 0792,
County Major Bridge, the adopted budget is $3,660,059.
The adopted tax levy is three million six hundred ninety two thousand nine hundred ninety six dollars
for an adopted tax rate of zero point zero three three three. And funds code zero one sorry and fund
code zero eight zero one health the adopted budget is seven hundred seventeen
thousand and seventy seven dollars the adopted tax levy is three hundred fifty thousand dollars the
adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero three two in fund code one three one zero park non-reverting
capital the adopted budget is one hundred thousand dollars the adopted tax levy is zero dollars the
adopted tax rate is zero point zero zero
In Fund Code 2102, Aviation Airport, the adopted budget is $1,456,130. The adopted tax levy is $790,000.
The adopted tax rate is 0.0071. In Fund Code 2391, Cumulative Capital Development, the adopted budget
is $3,878,280.
The adopted tax levy is $3,692,996. The adopted tax rate is 0.0333. In Fund Code 2402 Economic Development,
the adopted budget is $4,667,719. The adopted tax levy is $0.00. The adopted tax rate is 0.00. For a total of
$112,974,815 in the adopted budget, the adopted tax levy at $53,357,322, and the total adopted tax rate
of 0.4812. For Home Rule funds not reviewed by DLGF, Fund Code 9500, Fund Name, Extradition, and Sheriff's
Assistance, the adopted budget is $0. And for Fund Code 9589, Curry Profile TIF,
The amount is $25,689. Sorry. Did I miss a page? Oh, I skipped. You printed on the back. Yeah. I thought
this looked like saving paper. Yeah. Save the trees, Peter.
In fund code nine five zero one surveyors corner perpetuation. Yeah, there's a lot to do the budget
of one hundred thousand and forty nine dollars in fund code nine five zero two local public health services
one one six one the opted budget of two million five hundred two million and five hundred sixty six
dollars in fund code nine five zero three Monroe County nine one one fund the amount of
adopted budget of $622,294. In fund code 9504, Monroe County Convention Center debt, the adopted budget
amount of $0. In fund code 9505, auditors and eligible deductions, the amount of $347,103. In fund code
9507, community corrections fees, 1-1-2-2,
the amount of $275,846. In fund code 9508, user fee jury pay, the amount of $36,500. In fund code 9509,
user fees juvenile probation, the amount of $7,079. In fund code 9510, user fees adult probation, the
amount of $110,288.
In fund code 9511, user fees, project income, job, the amount of $0. In fund code 9512, supplemental
PD services, the amount of $925,636. In fund code 9513, clerk's record perpetuation, the amount of $151,026.
funds code nine five one four user fees diversion prosecution the amount of one hundred two thousand
four hundred eleven dollars and fund code nine five one five user fee courts alcohol drug
the amount of two hundred sixty six thousand six hundred thirty dollars in fund code nine five one six
local health maintenance the amount of sixty five thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars in fund code
nine five one seven emergency planning right to know the amount of twenty five thousand nine hundred
fifty dollars in fund code nine five one nine misdemeanor community corrections the amount of corrections
the amount of one hundred and twenty eight thousand five hundred
And fund code 9521 alternative dispute resolution the amount of $17,700 in fund code 9522 sales disclosure
county share the amount of $66,114 in fund code 9523 convention visitors capital improvement and maintenance
the amount of $100,000.
In fund code 9524, county offenders transportation, the amount of $2,500. In fund code 9525, local health
department trust accounts, the amount of $61,121. In fund code 9526, user fees, problem solving courts,
$22,544. In fund code 9527, West Side Economic Development, Richland Township TIF, the amount of $2,235,287.
In Fund Code 9528, 46 Corridor Economic Development, Bloomington Township, TIFF, the amount of $503,201.
In Fund Code 9529, Fullerton Pike Economic Development, TIFF, the amount of $133,000. In Fund Code 9530,
Platte Book, $500. In Fund Code 9531, Convention Center Operating, the amount of $531,300, $531,300.
In fund code 9532, user fees cable franchise, the amount of $535,226. In fund code 9535, PSAP interlocal,
the amount of $2,781,462. In fund code 9543, public health emergency fund, the amount of $20,000. In
the fund account of 9544, identification security protection, the amount of $18,000.
Code 9548, park non-reverting operating, the amount of $300,000. In Fund Code 9551, recorder's record
perpetuation, the amount of $357,714. In Fund Code 9552, stormwater management, the amount of $2,390,283.
in funds code nine five five nine county elected officials training the amounts of eighteen thousand
dollars and funds code nine five eight zero lit corrections rehab facilities two million three hundred
sixty four sorry two hundred sorry two million six hundred thirty four thousand four hundred six dollars
in fund code nine five eight eight federal award title ivd the amount of fifty eight thousand one hundred
thirty two dollars and in the fund code
9589 curry profile tiff $25,689 for a total of $17,977,770 Council I move to approve ordinance 2025-36
the Monroe County government's 2026 budget second
All right, we got a motion in a second and I know we'll have some comment on this one. So I'm a look
over here. Councilor Hawk, you're up to start out with. I just wanted to call the public's attention
to the fact that the adopted tax levy for general this year is thirty two million six hundred thousand
eighty six dollars. And for this year, twenty twenty five, it was 17 million something.
So that's a huge, huge difference. Now, I expect that we have to make sure that we're getting it high
enough so that we don't make a mistake again. But nevertheless, I think we should recognize that even
though we move money around and even though we're getting in more money from our property tax levy for general,
because the state suggestion put that 3.8 back there for next year and yes we're going to give you 1.04
we're going to get that four percent growth factor oh we we still had to move money around just try
to make that work so we're really spending spending and i'm just i'm not finding fault with anyone i'm
just saying thank you for
for being a part of, because we're all gonna have to try to get this under control next year. But what
I would like to know, and I should have had this, I don't have a printer at home where I would print
it off. What is the tax rate for general this year for 2025?
that's something I'd asked for. If you remember, I said, you know, I think at the state, they'd said
when we read this off, we're supposed to look at what is this year and what it's changing to for what
we're voting on. I didn't get that. Did anyone else get it? I didn't. I'll give the auditor a chance
to respond to that. Councilor Hawk and all councilors, you all have access to Gateway, but I'm happy
to read that off right now for you for 2025. We need to see it.
in front of us, yes. Yeah, she said, or she's doing it. Actually, Carly is going to project it. I'm
just pulling it up so I can see it as well. And I'm assuming you want the, do you want the ordinance
or the 4B for 2025 for general fund? I want to see, yeah, I just want to see for 2025,
We know that the revenue for 2025 was like 17 million, something like that for general. But what was
the rate? Carly, the 4B. The adopted rate was point.
It was 0.2071. It was 0.2071. And is that after the state changed the number back down to 17? The state
didn't change the number.
the adopted amount approved by the council. Okay the 17. When you approve the ordinance. Okay. It was
on the 4B. So it was what what was that rate? 0.0 no what? 0.2071. And then do you have a number for
the total of the adopted tax rate for all those tax levy funds?
like right now it's showing 0.4812, so. We can go back to the 2025 ordinance. And the total rate adopted,
reviewed and approved was 0.3705.
0.3705. So we can see what the increase went from 0.3705 to 0.4812. Now, a lot of that, I would think,
would be having to do with that high debt service, which is included in those numbers, correct? Yes,
and that is adjusted by the DLGF once the bond closes, if it closes, otherwise,
It will be adjusted one way or another. They'll either adjust it down to what is actually approved and
the correct rate associated, or it will be completely removed if it's not approved. And even though
this is like a six-year bond, we budget it as though we're going to pay it in one year. That's very
confusing to me, and I don't know whether we talked about that earlier.
Not that I'm going to vote for a $6 million bond, but if I was, does that mean the way the rate is set
up looks like we're supposed to be paying it back in one year? It does look like that, but this is how
the DLGF has us budget this. So this has been going on for the 30 years, I guess you've been on council.
So we can have a discussion with the DLGF about that, but this is the way it works. Right.
I'm just saying, I think it's confusing, probably confusing to you as well.
want to see if anybody else had yes council Henry thank you madam president and I presume my colleagues
tasked me with reading that out and hope that I wouldn't talk anymore for a while but I'm just warming
up thank you I wanted to start I think and focus my comments about all the the votes tonight on this
particular item and offer first gratitude I didn't get a chance to say that when we had the auditors
report but it is gratitude for the work of your office to get us where we are and identifying
where we need to go. I wanna thank my colleagues for entertaining an idea of using the edit to help
us get there. I know that we had a few weeks of discussion on the use of that fund, but it's abundantly
clear that the accumulation of those tax dollars need to flow back into the community. It's hard to
sit on years of that kind of money and not put it to work for the community, and we just put it to work
for the community in this budget, so I think that's important to say. I'm also reminded that the champion
of that edit some years ago across the way in City Hall
would call what we're doing here counter-cyclical economics. It's where we spend money in a downturn
to really stabilize and protect our workforce and protect the investments in the county. That's kind
of the point of why this fund was set or this tax was passed by the certified shares years ago. So who
would have thought a few years later we'd be putting this to work in the same way? If he's watching,
he knows who he is. But in any case, that's the good news. I mean, in a time of downturn, our workforce
still has jobs. On January 1st, we are not riffing people.
we've seen in other county governments, we've been able to provide our benefits still under this budget.
We've been able to get to a place where as long as we protect what we've done here through hiring freezes
and scrutinizing over time and thinking through our PAC process, we'll maintain that.
budget moving through. But what's at risk for us moving forward is the death by 1,000 cuts and the requests
that come once we've tried to hold the line and what potentially waits for us next October. And my fear
about next October is real. I brought that up during the process and I had some ideas about how to do
that now. And it really comes from a place of being, I still think, the only person up here that has
been a county employee. And so when I look at county employees and talk to them as one that used to
be one 18 years ago,
And had a department head that told me my job was only as good as my grants and actually helped me find
my next job while I was working for him. And that our benefits back then were not as great as they are
now. And maybe to get a little too personal to be accounting employee with a master's degree in one
hand and taking my check to a payday lender and the other to make rent.
I am acutely aware of how some of our county employees feel and are trying to survive in our economy
here. I think we did a good job maintaining and holding that line here, but I am incredibly fearful
about what next year brings if we don't hold to being very careful with our dollars to understand that
as the circuit breakers kick in on the taxes that we will collect next year that might actually eat
into the MLGQ that we expect, and that it's going to get harder and harder to hold the line here in
our county government
to fund these services. But the good news is we still have the programs. Potholes are still going to
get filled. The doors will still be open. That's a lot to be proud of in this budget. And I think as
we look down the line again at the forecast for 26, the impact of
frankly, Trumpflation on our projects. And as we see corrections hopefully come from the State House
to fix the overreach of SB1 and the impact and damage it's done to municipal governments, I think we
are in a good place. And I thank my colleagues for getting us there tonight. Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you. Yes, Councilor Iverson. Well, thank you, Madam President. Thank you for allowing me to speak
about this 2026 budget.
I am going to be supporting this budget because it benefits residents of Monroe County and our over
750 county employees. Now while some have described to this year's processes lacking control, I respectfully
disagree. What we've seen here is not incompetence, but humility, collaboration, honest acknowledgement
of our failures and strident efforts to adapt.
We move forward not with misplaced certainty, but with curiosity and care, determined to fulfill the
trust residents have placed in us. And as a public servant, I say with humility that this budget is
not perfect. We asked our department heads to do much more with much fewer resources. Then in addition,
we made significant cuts that were painful.
And our actions slowed the growth of the budget from the previous year from 10% to 5%. And that's a
lot of change to process in just one year. But these tough choices didn't happen in a vacuum. They were
necessitated by circumstances largely beyond our control. And I think it bears to understand this budget.
We have to first understand the extraordinary challenges we faced in getting to tonight's vote.
In January 2025 actions by the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE led to increased unemployment
all across our region and a significant reduction in grants awarded to Monroe County. In February, one
month later, we learned of a $3.8 million reduction in revenue due to a local error.
And then on April 14th, 2025, Governor Braun signed legislation implementing immediate cuts to local
government, public safety, fire protection, counties, cities, libraries. Governor Braun ensured that
his action, with his action, the county governments across this state are now struggling to pass budgets
and provide the services that we all depend on as we're grappling with significantly fewer resources.
In May, Council President
Excuse me, Council President Crossley sent her leadership letter, setting an earlier budget process
and building in a three percent cost of living adjustment for employees, a commitment that we have been
determined to keep. From May through August of this year, council liaisons met with department heads
and elected officials to review budgets line by line with a before submission. This is complicated,
detailed work.
And then from August to tonight, this council met weekly. Rising to these challenges could only happen
if we did not work alone. Please note that over the last two months of budget hearings, each one of
these seven members on this dais made significant contributions to reducing the debt. We worked alongside
you, taking robust public comment, and we heard you through emails, phone calls, text messages,
And it was only through this teamwork that we rose to meet these challenges for the residents of Monroe
County. And I argue that we did this in three important ways. First, we maintained our integrity. We
promised a 3% cost of living adjustment. And thanks to President Crossley's leadership, we delivered.
As Democrat, healthcare is important. We promised to cover medical expenses for our employees.
a $3 million additional appropriation in 2025, and then an $11.3 million budgeted in 2026. In terms
of healthcare, we delivered. We promised to preserve personnel lines, and we kept that promise too.
We know that keeping your job means freedom and security for your household. Second, we demonstrated
resilience
by adhering to local government finance best practices. We maintained a robust and intact rainy day
fund, ensuring that we have a strong bank account for emergencies. Our fund balances meet minimum
requirements, ensuring that we can meet our payroll obligations. And as you saw earlier tonight, we
achieved positive 4Bs in our levy funds, showing that our inflows exceed our outflows. And of course,
these aren't just numbers.
These are the foundations of fiscal stability that we're going to need in the future, just like Councilmember
Henry was talking about. Third, and most importantly, we budgeted our values. This budget reflects our
commitment to wages and compensation for our employees. It reflects our commitment to climate resilience,
and it funds important restorative justice and mercy initiatives like pre-trial services and more. So, yes.
Some have called this process incompetent, but I see something completely different. I see a council
faced with unprecedented challenges when we're tackling them with honesty, humility, and determination.
Madam President, this budget keeps promises. It maintains fiscal responsibility and stands as a true
reflection of this community's values. And that is why I am proud to cast my vote in support of this
2026 budget
confident that this course strengthens Monroe County now and for the future. Thank you. Okay,
Pastor Iverson. All right. Thank you. All right. Looking over here to my left to see if anybody has
anything else to say. I can't compete. Drop the mic. Okay.
I actually had a question. We'll go ask your question. What's your question? It was about the debt service
line. And I was hoping that our auditor staff, without being put on the spot too much, could talk to
us about the debt service. You mentioned that DLGF requires that we reported a certain way.
and also that it's subject to change based on what debt we approve. Could you put some specifics to
that with the numbers in front of us? I just feel like that's something that's murky for a lot of people.
Sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Carly's gonna pull up that 4B for us and projects. Okay, so the way the debt
service works is
We typically advertise an amount much higher than we anticipate actually following through with.
So that year, that number was $8.5 million. So I've not heard any discussion over $6 million, and I'm
not sure where we'll land. However, just for consistency and transparency purposes, I kept it as it
was, not to muddy the waters. So that is what I put on your ordinance for approval. However,
that doesn't mean that we're stuck because there is still a second reading and potentially adoption
of that happening. I believe it's the next item on your agenda. So the way that works, the DLGF requires
that, which there's then a rate associated in levy applied just as if it were going to go through. Then
in the background, once and if we close on this debt, if it's approved by all parties involved,
The DLGF then requires that we provide the closing documentation to them. They then input the debt schedule
and all the things in Gateway for the public to view and also for us to follow for future budgets. And
it will be adjusted down before we get our 1782 notice back. So at that point, it will reflect the actual
debt that we're engaged with. Is that a good explanation?
That's a fantastic explanation, thank you. And to follow up, the adopted levy then is higher than what
we're budgeting because the budgeted amount is just for this year's bonding, right? That's exactly it.
So then when we have, because we haven't closed on this, we don't have any of the necessary information
to actually put it in to our,
budget forms accurately. So that is why it is done this way. So they'll adjust it down to follow the
actual debt schedule. So obviously we're not gonna be paying eight and a half million dollars in one
year. There will be a six year cycle if that is the route we go this year for the debt. And so could
someone then assume that the difference between the 8,500,000 and the 8,700,000
Is the amount required to service our existing bonds from? Years on up through now. I apologize. I wasn't
clear on that. Yes. Yes, there is December a final payment I believe and then it will just be the new
annual geo bond that we typically Proceed with. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that Yes counselor
I don't have anything officially prepared, mostly because this budget has been the hardest thing that
I have ever watched in my time on the council. And I would throw that in with the balance of last year's
prolonged discussions that we had around the correctional lit when I was sitting in Council President
Crosley's chair. This has been a very difficult process. And as I mentioned earlier, we will
muddy through this like we just did and we've reached success today on these numbers hard though it
may be and then we will move on to continue to implement it with things that will be very difficult
for people that will begin immediately on hiring freeze implementation and what that means and we will
literally narrate what those values are out as we head and barrel towards the next budget which pretty
much begins immediately
One thing that's not lost on me is that local government is still a place where the public has access
to people. Sometimes I see things on social media that would tell you otherwise, but I honestly, the
longer I watch, the more I think we're all spending a lot, way too much time.
on social media and I'm not sure it's all healthy, but that's my old man comment. But one thing that
I would just make the remark is we continue to work through this mud ball. We are mandated by law to
have this budget done by October 29th. We will do it tonight. If I'm reading this room fairly well,
we will have it done tonight and we'll comply with the law. But I would note the contrast that we see
is examples out there, right? We have a federal government,
where the US House is literally not in session. I don't know when they do go back into session for our
Congresswoman or others, but there's that. Apparently, I don't know. I don't think they know. The second
contrast that I would have to that is that our federal folks won't get paychecks. Some of them will, I guess.
because you can move money around at the federal level, but you can't hear. I mean, if you think about
the stipulations on our requirements on how we do things, it is so hard. One of the things I said to
Councilor Wilts as the Councilor Henry was graciously reading these budget lines is it's like the weirdest
checkbook you ever see because it shows you
this thing it uses first antiquated phrasing like levies and just like for those who've gone through
abatement terms like remonstrance very old English but what it doesn't show you is where
grant dollars come in and then this comes from dollars you have existing and then when you layer over
that the complications on what you can use with money you actually have from your taxpayers and when
so you can have an edit fund but when when can you use it when does that sunset and the general assembly
can literally go into session tomorrow and they can change those rules for themselves they can change
actually they can change your congressional district so they can do literally anything
And I sometimes get frustrated in local government when it's made out that we're the problem with that,
as we muddy through it. But we have not gone the way of cutting people, not yet. I mean, God forbid,
we have been able to preserve, pay for those people. And God forbid that changes, but that's a reality.
And most of all, as taxpayers know, we still have services.
And I don't know that every local government entity is going to be able to keep singing that tune for
much longer. So I'd love to see for the state to make processes easier by which you can use your money
the way that you intend to when you need to and trust local officials who can easily be defeated or
stopped in a grocery store to say, Trent, get your head out of here. You know what? That's where available.
But they're not here, and I am. But I appreciate everybody's hobbling through this. This was the hardest
thing that I have ever seen us have to go through since 2019. And I hope it's the last of the hard bit.
If I'm reading the tea leaves right, it's not. And if anybody could clarify any of that, I think it
would make sense to a lot of people. All right. Thanks. OK. Yeah.
basically said everything that needed to be said, except the only thing that I would just add is this
is the groundwork for what we need to do for the next couple of years. So I think what we have done
in terms of our foundation of having those hard conversations, pushing back on departments, maybe so.
Maybe we can push back a little bit more on some folks. But this is where we are. But this is, again,
as we talked about in our last week's special session, that this is
we have to look forward to for 26 and beyond so I won't hold you there because Astor Iverson did it
all so all right that being said it's okay there's public comment on this item you can come forward
to the lectern here in the NatU Hill room or you can raise your hand via Teams you'll have up to three
minutes and I already see a hand
raise via Teams before I go to the lectern here. So again, if you are on Teams, unmute yourself, state
your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. Jeff McKim, former member of this August
body. Thank you, Council, and to the auditors as well for your hard work on this year's budget.
You've made some difficult choices, and I especially appreciate the steps you took on the personnel
side, reducing overtime and imposing a hiring freeze. Those were meaningful decisions that begin to
address the real drivers of the county's deficit. Ultimately, as you've already acknowledged, the budget
has been balanced, but largely by moving expenses into the economic development and jail local income
tax funds, funds that have been informally allocated to the Justice Complex project.
While I don't think that using available funds to meet present needs is wrong, in fact, I support you
in using these funds. The costs you've shifted are mostly ongoing. That means that the council will
need to show leadership in developing a plan to downsize and phase the justice complex project appropriately,
leadership that I'm confident we will see. And it also means that addressing the underlying imbalance
maybe could become even more urgent over the next year.
Looking forward, I hope the council will continue to right-size the personnel expenses by doing three
things to address the drivers of the structural deficit. Number one, hold firm on the hiring freeze.
Number two, work aggressively with the commissioners to bend the cost curve on employee healthcare.
And three, and I know you don't wanna do this, reduce the 3% cost of living adjustment to a more affordable level.
3% is higher than what any other public sector employer in this region is offering. Monroe County simply
isn't in a position to lead the market right now. This is something that can still be trimmed yet today
and easily restored later, except for elected officials, if revenues or expenditures turn out better
than expected.
I understand the concern that a 3% COLA has already been promised to employees, but the president's
budget letter is not and has never been a promise. Some of the new council members may not understand
that. It is just guidance to department heads on how to submit their budgets based on what we know at
the time of the letter. The final adopted budget always changes as the fiscal picture becomes clearer,
exactly how it should.
Thank you again for your commitment to this process and for the careful work you've done under very
adverse circumstances. I hope you'll take these opportunities to ensure the 2026 budget sets the county
on a sustainable path. And thank you very much for all your time and expertise. All right, thank you.
And then again, if there's anybody that is on
teams I would like to make comment again you can raise your hand and TSD can we make sure that we have
the three minute timer it wasn't on this last time here so next up we'll come here to the Netnew Hill
room and again state your name for the record you have up to three minutes Jeff Cockrell and I won't
take three minutes I can assure you I just want to say that this is I've worked for the county for a
long time this is probably one of the toughest budget years that I've ever seen but we had a lot of
you know, and a lot of things that you guys had to deal with. I think I've told some of you this privately,
but I think I should tell all of you publicly. You know, one of the reasons I've worked for the county
so long is not because I agree with our elected officials all the time. It's because I always think
that they're doing what they think is right. And I think that's what you're doing here tonight. And
I want you to know that I see that and I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Anybody else that would like to make public comment on this item? Seeing none, may we please have a
roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
yes motion passes six one okay thank you next up is item number nine which is the approval of ordinance
2025-37 the Monroe County 2026 salary ordinance and yours truly will read that right about now whereas
Whereas the Indiana Legislator adopted Indiana Code 36-2-3, which established the Monroe County Council
as the governing fiscal body of Monroe County, and whereas Indiana Code 36-2-5-3 grants Monroe County
Council the power to, one, fix the number of officers, deputies, and other employees, two, describe
and classify positions and services,
three adopt schedules of compensation and four hire a contract with persons to assist in the development
of schedules of compensation. Whereas the Monroe County Council wishes to establish a salary schedule
and compensation policies now be ordained by the Monroe County Council of Indiana that this ordinance affixes
the salary for elected officials of the county for the period of January 1st, 2026 to December 31st,
2026, whose salary is comprised of funds payable from any county fund or budget as provided by Indiana
Code 36-2-5. These salaries are hereby solidly fixed.
and follows the maximum level of salary as shown on the elected official salary compensation grid. All
payments made pursuant to this ordinance are contingent upon the strict compliance with and adherence
to the benefit compensation fiscally related and state
and federally mandated requirements of the Monroe County personnel policy handbook. It is the intent
of the county council that this language will encourage compliance with personnel policies which may
have a fiscal impact on Monroe County government.
For elected officials, time worked on or after January 1st, 2026 and prior to midnight, December 31st,
2026 shall be calculated and paid within the parameters of the salary ordinance and personnel policy
handbook, regardless of when the payment is issued.
The county auditors shall not issue pay warrants for pay that exceeds the authorized amount specified
in the salary ordinance. The salary amounts listed are in an annual appropriation amount. Calculation
of the biweekly salary rate may result in a slight variation and will not be adjusted at year end.
elected official base rate schedule.
to establish a more equitable system of setting salaries for Monroe County elected officials not set
by the state the county council has established within the annual salary ordinance a base rate for elected
officials with a schedule amount of amounts to be applied the base rate schedule is outlined in section
one of the elected official salary grid for elected officials whose salaries set by the state the state
mandated salaries are amended annually on July 1st the share of physics
excluded from the base rate schedule as his or her salary paid is pursuant to Indiana Code 36-2-13-2.5
or Indiana Code 36-2-13-2.8.
It is the intent and direction of Monroe County Council that all salaries paid by the County Council
which are tied or related to the Monroe County Sheriff as it is mandated by the state of Indiana shall
be automatically amended at the same time as the state mandated salaries on July 1st. The County Council
recognizes that this is an exception to the general rule for county set salaries which are generally
modified on January 1st.
additional information regardless of payments or certifications, supplementals, and or per diems is
outlined in section two of the elected official salary grid. Presented to the Monroe County Council
read in full for the first time on the 30th day of September 2025 and presented to the Monroe County
Council read in full for a second time and adopted pursuant to Indiana code on the 14th day of October 2025.
Council, I move to approve ordinance 2025-37A, the 2026 salary ordinance for the elected officials.
Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. And is there any other further comment from council
on this item? Seeing none. All right. If we have public comment on this item, you can come forward to
the lectern here in the Natt U Hill room, or you can raise your hand via Teams.
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
Iverson? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No.
Motion passes 6-1. Okay. Next up is item B, which is the Monroe County Government Employee Salary Ordinance,
and Councilor Feidl will read this ordinance in its entirety.
Thank you. And ordinance adopting Monroe County Indiana salary schedule policies for county employees
ordinance 2025 dash 37 be whereas the Indiana legislature
Legislature adopted Indiana Code 36-2-3, which established the Monroe County Council as the governing
fiscal body of Monroe County, and whereas Indiana Code 36-2-5-3 grants the Monroe County Council the
power to, one, fix the number of officers, deputies, and other employees, two, describe and classify
positions and services,
Three, adopt schedules of compensation, and four, hire or contract with persons to assist in the development
of schedules of compensation. Whereas the Monroe County Council wishes to establish salary schedule
and compensation policies. Be it ordained by the Monroe County Council of Indiana that this ordinance
affixes the number and salary of employees of the county from the period of January 1, 2026
to December 31, 2026, including all officers, deputies, assistants, and other employees whose salary
is comprised of funds payable from any county fund or budget as provided by Indiana code 36-2-5. This
compensation is limited by the following lines and maximum levels of salary shown on the salary compensation grids.
All payments made pursuant to this ordinance are contingent upon the strict compliance with an adherence
to the benefit salary, fiscally related, and state and federally mandated requirements of the Monroe
County Personnel Policy Handbook. It is the intent of the county council that this language will encourage
compliance with personnel policies which may have a fiscal impact on Monroe County government.
Any Monroe County employee including those employees under a contractual agreement or whose salaries
are determined by a state prescribed rule order guideline or mandate shall not receive compensation
above the salary grids outlined within this ordinance. The county auditor shall not issue pay warrants
for any payment that exceeds the authorized amount specified in the salary ordinance.
The annual salary amounts are listed as approximate annual appropriation amount. The calculation of
the annual appropriation amount may result in a slight variation and will not be adjusted at year end.
Salaries paid on or after January 1, 2026 and prior to midnight, December 31st, 2026, shall be calculated
and paid within the parameters of this salary ordinance and the personnel policy handbook, regardless
of when the work is performed. Specifically, this salary ordinance is applicable to dates encompassed
within claim one, as outlined in the 2026 pay schedule. Monroe County personnel policy handbook.
Any item not covered with the salary ordinance shall be governed by the Monroe County personnel policy
handbook. Job description classification definitions. Beginning calendar year 2022, council approved
using the updated classifications and levels from Monroe County government job descriptions. Compensation
levels have been updated using alphanumeric letters A through E.
The listing of all classifications is outlined in Section A of the ordinance notes. Full-time hire date
compensation step increase schedule. Employees will attain a new salary step increase level on the first
day of the pay period, which includes the anniversary of their most recent full-time hire date. The
salary step increase schedule is outlined in Section B of the ordinance notes.
The salary step increase level given to other county employees will not be given to jail slash correctional
center employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement. Knowledge skills and abilities KSA
compensation procedures employees who have gone through the review process and approved
to receive a knowledge skills and abilities, KSA status may receive compensation at either the three
or eight year level based on the salary grid applicable to the assigned job description classification
and level and approved KSA status will remain with the original requesting department for the determined
period of time.
Departments may request an employee's KSA status be transferred when an applicable position becomes
vacant within their department. An employee's KSA status does not automatically transfer with the employee
and is subject to review. An employee's approved KSA status only adjusts the salary base rate for that employee.
and employees approved KSA status is not included in the years of service pertaining to longevity and
or vacation calculations. A listing of approved KSA hires with term dates is outlined in section C of
the ordinance notes. Longevity scale, employees who have an official hire date and have begun work with
the Monroe County government prior to November 1st, 2023,
shall receive a longevity payment for a complete and uninterrupted years of service. The payments will
continue until either there is a break in the employee's service or the employee ends employment with
the county. Any employee who has an official hire date and begun work on or after November 1st, 2023
is ineligible to receive longevity payments. To determine longevity,
The effective date for longevity is the employees most full, excuse me, most recent full time hire date
of employment with the county. All records must be verified by the employee services department that
involve any type of interrupted service. Longevity pay for eligible employees is based on a schedule
outlined in section D of the ordinance notes of complete and uninterrupted years of service. A break
in service will resort
in, excuse me, will result in the loss of longevity pay if the rehire date is on or after November 1st,
2023. To be eligible for a longevity payout, an employee must still be employed on the day after his
or her anniversary date. Elected officials do not receive county longevity pay. Employees whose salaries
are determined by a state prescribed rule, order, guidelines, or mandated do not receive county longevity pay.
Probation officers would be an exception to this rule and would receive longevity. The annual longevity
payment given to other county employees will not be given to jail slash correctional center employees
covered by the collective bargaining agreement as longevity is provided for by the consideration of
the collective bargaining agreement. Prior years of service credit. Beginning January 1, 2017, county
council approved allowing complete years
only of prior years of service per each term of full-time Monroe County government employment be applied
when calculating the rehire of an employee's salary step increase. Months of service, which are less
than one full year, shall not be counted nor combined to achieve a complete year of service. For example,
an employee who worked for one year and three months shall be credited with one year of service.
For probation officers who have transferred from other county positions, the start date for probational
salary increases will be governed by the start date certified by the state for that employee's position
as a probation officer. For a probation officer who has prior years of service either in other counties
or states, he or she will receive credit for said time as determined by the state for that employee's
position as a probation officer.
Said start dates and prior years of service will be verified by the probation department documented
in the probation officer's personnel records and will be tracked by both probation and the council office.
The council administrator and personnel administrator, excuse me, must verify all prior Monroe County
government service with employee personnel records and or with a PERF report before being applied to
the returning employee salary.
The council administrator will notify the elected official slash department head if the prior service
credit total has been verified and granted. The council administrator will maintain a spreadsheet of
employees with confirmed prior service credit for future use. Any additional information and or explanation
of Monroe County government salary schedule and compensation policies is included in this salary ordinance
for the purpose of clarification and transparency.
section ordinance notes. Monroe County Council policy regarding salaries tied to state mandated salaries.
Annual salaries for the Monroe County Chief Deputy Public Defender and Monroe Circuit Court Commissioner
are all tied and or related to the salaries mandated by the state of Indiana for the Monroe County
excuse me, for the Monroe Circuit Court judges, Monroe County Prosecutor and or Monroe County Chief
Deputy Prosecutor. The state mandated salaries are amended annually on July 1st. It is the intent and
direction of the Monroe County Council that all salaries paid by the Monroe County Council, which are
tied and or related to the above mentioned salaries mandated by the state of Indiana, shall be automatically amended
at the same time as the state mandated salaries. The Monroe County Council recognizes that this is an
exception to the general rule for county set salaries, which are generally modified on January 1st.
Additional detail, including defense services standards, parenthesis, standard G, close parenthesis,
Supreme Court compensation information, Indiana Code 33-39-6
six dash five and indiana code 36-2-3-17 are incorporated by reference. Monroe county use services bureau
do the requirements established by indiana administrative code for personnel employed at a child caring
institution
The Binkley House manager, the prevention coordinator and counselors employed at the Monroe County Youth
Services Bureau will be compensated at a minimum of the one year salary for the Pat C classifications.
This compensation level meets the current minimum requirements for exempt employees pursuant to the
Fair Labor Standards Act.
The starting annual salary level for these positions shall be reviewed annually to ensure ongoing compliance
with state and federal law and adjusted when necessary. Council, I move to approve ordinance 2025-37B,
the 2026 salary ordinance for the Monroe County employees. Second. All right, we got a motion and a
second. Is there any final questions or comments from council related to this item?
I'm looking to my left. I'm looking to my right. Seeing none. Okay. So if there's public comment that
would like to take us up on our offer on this, you can make public comment on this item. You can come
forward to the lectern here in the NYE Hill Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none,
maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councillor Crosley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor
Decker? Yes. Motion passes 6-1. Okay, Council I'm gonna ask for a quick recess here so if we can take
five minutes to take a quick recess that would be greatly helpful so if we can come back about six
to be able to come back and ready to go at 6 36. That would be helpful. So thank you. Okay, we're going
to go ahead and get started. And I'm not going to use my mom voice because I'm starting to lose my voice.
So if I can kindly have the attention of the folks here in the night, you heal room as we start. Thank
you very much. All right.
Council, as a reminder, this item was, well, let me back up before I read this. We are now going to
tackle the health department's request from fund 1159 here. This was the consent agenda item. As a reminder,
this item was tabled from the September 23rd meeting. Council, I move to approve the health department's
request in fund 1159-0000 health fund for a category transfer of $500,000 from the supplies category
to the capital category.
and simultaneously create a count line for 0001 equipment in the capital category. Second. All right.
We got a motion and a second. Um, and yeah, I guess we have the health department here. If you want
to go ahead and come on up.
This agenda item is related to COVID vaccine administration funds. And our request is to move these
to be able to purchase a mobile unit to provide health services in the community. We could potentially
also use it to purchase a vehicle that could be used by public health nurses for services out in the
community as well.
I'm gonna look over here and somewhere right, because I know y'all got some questions. Yes, Councilor
Henry. Thank you, thank you Madam President. And Lori, I apologize I couldn't get to you in a meeting
before today. I know we've been playing some phone tag. I had just two questions left from the last
time we publicly talked about this. I think we still need answered for me to understand things. So I
could use some help from the auditor's office as I ask these. So last time this came up and it was during
the budgeting itself, I had asked if,
If this these proceeds are actually real dollars cash on and hand or if they had already been expended.
Have we verified if this money exists like is cash on hand and I have you worked with the auditors to
figure out if this money actually exists or we've expended it already.
So we did look into this and Lori provided a very helpful spreadsheet for us to review. It does look
like there were receipts that were deposited into the fund and then there were some expenditures, but
the balance of the quote unquote cash that's in there that's also commingled with other dollars in the
fund does check out. We can't
audit against expenditures that may or may not be on the document provided. But everything did seem
to check out whenever we reviewed it. Maybe a follow up to this then. What is that dollar amount with
the co-mingled and what we're drawing on? What is the current? I don't have that in front of me, but
I can pull it up if you give me a moment. That would be helpful while I ask the second question. And
maybe the second question was I asked last time if we'd figured out if the funds were
Given as a reimbursement for things the county did during the covert response period for past work during
covert to have we verified that I mean the funding came in at a very specific dollar amount I just want
to know if we've reimbursed the things that we were expecting to reimburse that proceeds to be do we
know that.
So my understanding of the funding is that in the thick of COVID, the Indiana Department of Health was
helping local health departments with a third party billing system for insurance reimbursements. So
they were kind of assisting with that. So this money is essentially to be treated similar to our other
vaccine revenue that we received through Vaxcare. So there were two different billing systems that were
being used
So one prior to me, well, this was all of this was kind of occurring before I was in the position. And
so this is essentially like vaccine reimbursement. So like what we received for Vax care. That's the
best way I think that I can explain it. Okay. So I guess the question back would be, I don't know if
the auditors office can help with this then is that,
I presume we had expenses during COVID that the county incurred to do vaccinations or COVID related
things. If the funds came in for the purpose of reimbursing county coffers, are we assured that we've
actually done that with this
these proceeds first before we free them up for additional things because my concern would be spending
it on something and then finding out that you know we could have reimbursed the county dollars that
we use during the pandemic period. And I guess that's what I'm drilling into still that I just don't
have clarity on still yet. Does that make sense. Maybe I'll point the auditors table first.
It's very unclear. It's very uncommon that we would receive reimbursement dollars that tell us not to
reimburse our expenses, but give a list of what they recommend we spend the money on in the future.
That's an uncommon situation that we find ourselves in, especially when the department is directed to
commingle those dollars with other funding and not put it in a special grant fund.
Our recommendation would be to have further communications with the agency who issued the payment if
there are questions about what the objective of the letter was. I got one more and I'll let it go. So
do we have any document, like anything on letterhead explaining what Carly just said that actually says
that? So I have this same letter from Dr. Box that kind of outlines that this funding and
provides guidance for local health departments. And so I believe that that was in the packet the last
time, perhaps. So that's the letter that I have. I have spoken with someone from, or not spoken, but
communicated through email with someone from State Board of Accounts who just assured that these dollars
are to remain in the local health fund.
And thanks for that. It's I'll just say I'm not against the project. I just want to make sure that if
we have an opportunity to put money back in county coffers first before we commit to new programs, that's
what we're doing. We just went through an hour or two, almost two hours of an hour and a half of trying
to balance this budget and look ahead. So it really is about just making sure that money goes where
it needs to go first. And once we've cleared that hurdle and we have that assurance, it makes sense.
But at this point, I just need to see a little more on it. Thank you, Madam President.
Yes, I thank you both for taking the time to be here tonight. I'm going to get into kind of the nuts
and bolts of the actual project. And the first question is going to be you sent five quotes on the vehicle
that you're going you're looking to purchase with these dollars. Have you is there any one of those
quotes you've settled on or have others fallen off that you're getting closer to knowing which one you're
going to be using?
No, we haven't really made any final determinations. I think we're really kind of waiting to see about
the funding. Okay. My second question is, I know there was some sticking points in terms of where to
park this mobile unit. Are you any closer to resolution on that issue?
So I've been in communication with Ivy Tech about storing the unit there, and also have been talking
about collaborating with them on outreach services with their students and at the campus there. So those
are ongoing discussions. OK. And then my final question is, you also sent some potential service volume
estimates. Has anything changed since you sent those over? I mean, it hasn't been that long, but I just
want to make sure that we know that
This is going to be utilized fairly heavily, right?
Yes that's really our goal and our intention so we worked with each division in the health department
kind of collecting information on how they wanted to use the unit to provide services so really the
idea is that they would be able to schedule outreach activities broken up within the different services
that the health department provides and have scheduled outreach activities on an ongoing monthly basis
so you know the employees are really excited
about this thought of an opportunity to be able to engage with the public in this way. And it's not
just tuberculosis testing or STI testing, but it's also things like wellness, lead screening, lactation
visits, clinical or physician visits. It's going to be fairly broad across the spectrum of public health
care, right?
Yes, and we'd really like to increase vaccination. So that is a board priority. Another board priority
right now is addressing chronic disease. So really being able to get out in the community and offer
those free chronic disease screenings. So, you know, blood pressure monitoring. Do you have a physician?
Can we refer you to a physician? Do you have a monitor at home that you can, you know, routinely check
your blood pressure? And then also being able to provide those supplies.
and for some of that ongoing chronic disease prevention and assistance. Great. And the last thing I'll
note is that, Council, you all just gotten an email with some of the figures that I was looking at.
I'm sorry I didn't get those out earlier. That's my fault. Thank you. Yes, Council. So I didn't read
the email yet. If it's in there, I apologize. But I'm interested to know about how many hours this will
provide service to the public.
Is there any way to predict something like that? Sure.
estimates that we were looking at is two days a week. So that could be for up to four hours.
So half days, two to four hours, two days a week. So that's kind of what we were looking at to start
with. But I think it's also going to take really evaluating the low resource areas within our community
that we can consistently provide the services, how well we're getting response from the community and
what areas that we, what new areas we need to reach out to as well.
Councilor Williams. May I add to that? Sure. So the other piece of it is that IDOH is really interested
currently at rural healthcare and expanding that. And that has not been an easy focus for us. We don't
know how much of our community cannot reach the areas where we have people available to them.
So this is going to be an ongoing experiment in how we can reach out throughout the county into our
rural areas, how we may even be coordinating with other counties that remains to be seen, as well as
the next piece, which will be what we have in terms of public health nurses and their ability
and availability to indeed
to help us expand our healthcare throughout the county. Yes, now Councilor Woods. Okay, and that actually
gets right into the question I had, which is, it's clear that you're putting this into a line that is
the one-time purchase of the vehicle. Do you anticipate needing
ongoing support to staff and run the program? So above and beyond our current health department staff,
if we bring the nursing services in-house, then those would also be providing the services, but we would
really also be looking to collaborate with entities such as Ivy Tech to be able to collaboratively work
on providing some of these services as well.
There's one other piece and that is when indeed there are health emergencies, this would be a mobile
unit that we can take to the site so that we can serve the people who are affected by any kind of health
emergency. Thank you very much for bringing this in. I actually have several questions.
this because I try to get my head around it first is it does this change anything with staffing does
getting this change anything with staffing where we could expect to be back here with ongoing expenses
related to now I now I need driver acts or now I need
nurse be or or what have you do you see any changes to staffing that might come beyond the cost to this
um sorry so if i can just kind of make sure that i under heard understand the question so are you referring
to personnel costs above and beyond what we already have or just on
going supply service costs. Well, it supplies too. I mean, really, like once you get a vehicle, it starts
depreciating in value, then you got to do repairs and all that. So I guess, where will we pay for, where
is there any budgeting around that we should anticipate around supply needs, repair needs, additional
staff, because
We decide that we don't wanna just do two hours. We love this and that's always how these things start,
which this is a good thing. It's just, we gotta figure out how to make sure that we're paying for it.
What are your thoughts on that?
So, you know, as far as personnel, I wouldn't really anticipate, especially at the beginning and the
startup of this, of needing this huge increase in volume with personnel. As far as ongoing costs for
services, so maintenance, fuel, supplies, so I spent some time at Vandenberg Health Department, and
above and beyond, funding that they receive for fees for services, so they do a lot of billing,
and so they have fees coming in that help provide funding for the ongoing costs but they can also budget
in and some of their grant funds and vaccine reimbursement so there's really a couple of different ways
that we could look at supporting the ongoing costs for this for this unit. Would you all agree to finding
A, not coming back and asking for additional personnel for another two years on this at least,
and then B, figuring out those ongoing costs somewhere that's not hitting us in another pocket.
But I mean, I don't mean to be Scrooge on this because I think it's good, but I got to ask that because
next budget I'll be up you know why over that. Yeah no definitely I really feel like some of our vax
care revenue that we have will really be able to help sustain some of these ongoing costs. I do anticipate
that next year we will begin receiving our grant funding for immunizations again which we will also
be able to help support some of these ongoing costs. But if you look at other health departments and
how they're providing some of these same services out in the community
They're basically taking their supplies that they already have in house, just putting them in the unit
or wherever they're going and then doing it. I think the biggest question will be, does our volume increase?
And if it does, how much? Let me ask you this. Just help me understand. Are you thinking like,
And this may be in the packet, and I've not seen it right yet. Are you thinking like a reasonable van,
a My Man Mitch type RV, kind of a big thing? Or what do you envision for this looking like? So definitely
something that does not require a CDL. So I sent some photos. I think Peter should, Councilor Iverson
should have those.
I guess I don't know how else to explain it, basically like a large van. Okay, that helps me. Here's
the last thing and it's just a comment if I can. Here's my worry. I'm gonna be real honest with you.
We have 3 million it seems like in this community not for profits doing great things. We have all these
things that are happening all the time. In fact, Commissioner Thomas, council member Wilts and I have
served on Monroe County Health Equity Council on and off for years as you have you. And here's my concern.
We have programs people never know about. The old BIM, now Health Net. Folks that don't necessarily
take advantage of things that we have. I worry sincerely, and I don't mean this is a fault to anyone.
I worry sincerely it's yet another piece of equipment that starts to literally dry rot.
and it shows up in a parking space in Steinsville and no one in town knows about it or something like
that. When we do have needs, I just worry about connecting those dots. How can we connect those dots
if this moves forward so that it's something reasonable that makes people see something good happening
and they're getting the care, they're getting things they need they wouldn't otherwise get, and it's
not just something that makes people like me in the sports jacket feel good for voting for. How do we
cross that bridge to get that done?
Well, you know, I think that's a really great point. I think that we, you know, would really need to
take some some time and put in some effort around essentially like a campaign. So how are we going to,
you know, communicate, get this information out, get buy in from the community members really be able
to to know where these
where there's excitement in some of the greatest needs. We do have an individual who does a really excellent
job getting out external communication. So I think it would also be working with that individual about
what are different ways that we can promote these services just to make sure that people are aware.
I'm hoping, Councilman, that we get the message out through our township trustees.
through our churches and throughout the community, through any services that are already taking care
of many of the folks, whether it's area 10 agency on aging, there are so many agencies, you're correct.
And my hope is that we create a giant coalition so that we know where the greatest needs are and we can help
support those needs in the community. Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes, I really think it's responsible thing
for the county council to ask for before we would do anything with this. It's something I would call
it a business plan. This is like this part of the plan is going to cost this much and so forth, but
the whole plan together.
Let us see the whole plan. I don't wanna see bits and pieces because that doesn't tell the whole story.
It's like, this is what it's gonna cost you to put a roof on the house, but we haven't paid for the
foundation yet or something. So I wanna see the whole plan with dollars put together to it. That's what
we would hopefully require any county department to do if they wanted to start a whole new program.
And this is like this whole new program.
but to throw a half a million dollars at it when we don't have a plan in place, it is not what I think
we should do. And hopefully that's not what you're asking us to do, but it's sort of, that's what it
looks like. So that's my two cents worth. Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I know we will
take some public comment on this too, but yeah, as I've heard it talked out, we've, to Councilor,
Hock and Councilor Deckard's point. It's the vehicle. There's a promotional campaign. The maintenance
that Councilor Wilts brought up. There's the staffing plan, the gas. And I guess another question would
really be to find out if we use this fund for the vehicle, can we use this fund to
do some of that stuff related to the vehicle or to, yeah, I mean, where's that resource coming from?
So I'd echo all that sentiment to say that I think where I'm seeing this going, and I, of course, want
to hear public comment, is it would make sense, I think, to table this, to get that business plan and
those letters from the state to really figure out if this money is expended and to bring all that back
and that we can evaluate it at that point. I'm not making that motion now because I want to hear from
the public, but I think that's where I would
feel comfortable tonight after all this. I have a timing question because this has been foisted on us
by the cancellation of a 60-year contract and by statute we have to offer these services and we need
to have this up and running by January 1st. Is that correct? Nursing services. Nursing services. So I guess
One of my questions to you then is we've had other departments purchase similar vehicles and had a long
wait time to get that vehicle. Are you hearing from any of the one, two, three, four vendors that you're
talking to? Is it available now to purchase or is it going to be six months? What's the timing on this?
So I have another employee who's really been working on collecting that information with the vendor.
So I could check with that employee to see for a status update on that. I don't know that information
today to tell you. Sure. Well, OK. Yeah, so I have to say I was. The dinging I was feeling
I was not leaning toward being in favor of this. I was actually a little concerned because of some of
the questions that were raised last meeting, especially around if it's COVID-19 money, why is it not
just reimbursing our expenses? But I think the letter that you shared with council
and it's been, I think it was right the next day or that night after our meeting, really cleared up
some of that for me. And I know we didn't see a lot of the information that Councilor Iverson was just
talking about, but it's been forwarded to us now just a few minutes ago. And just glancing through that,
I really appreciate seeing the,
the detail that you do have here around the goals, objectives, and you've included the target population
and then kind of the different types of services and what your expected volume is. I appreciate the
concerns about ongoing costs. It sounds to me as though when asked questions about that,
your intent is we're gonna be providing services either within the health department or on this vehicle
and we have to provide these services regardless. So I actually have flipped and I'm in favor of going
forth with this. I think we haven't asked other departments to present business plans around
their programming. Not that that isn't a good idea
I'm just saying I'm not ready to hold this particular project to that level. So I just wanted to kind
of clarify where I'm coming from. Okay. Yes, counselor. Hello, I wonder if it might be pertinent to
think about asking if it goes to send in a six month evaluation or something like that of where where
what happened the first six months.
Absolutely, and you know we're collecting all of that data we collect data on our services on an ongoing
monthly basis that's all submitted to the Indiana Department of Health, the Board of Health receives
monthly reports and we do an annual report. So the difference with this is that we'll really be able
to see how services are being provided
in-house within the department compared to out in the community and that will also help us to better
evaluate how you know the the community is best responding to the services that we do have available
and we can also you know use that information to kind of guide future strategic decisions. Okay all
right um seeing no other further comments from council
I'll go to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the come
forward to the lectern here in the night you hill room or you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing
none. Yes, counselor Henry. Thank you, Madam President, I'd like to make a motion to table this item
until the October 28 meeting of the county council to
Get a little more information from the state and understand the business plan for the long-term maintenance
and operations of the vehicle. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. Is there any other further
discussion on this item or?
Yes, I would just say the reason again for my amendment is while I appreciate Councilor Wilson's comment
that we haven't required this level of scrutiny before, I think after the passage of our budget tonight,
that is the level we're going to be heading for not only this, but other programs in the county. And
I really appreciate the depth that my fellow counselors went into. It is not an interrogation. We just
want to make sure 100% where we're heading with the dollars. And again, my two questions, I think if
we can get some, I mean, I appreciate the letter that was sent a few years ago that described the funding purpose.
but absolute clarity from IDOH about the use of the funds would help me move on with this. Thank you.
All right. And I am definitely in favor of table on this because I will tell you, again, as we just
discussed, going through all the things that we've gone through with budget, I think for me, it is the
question of sustainability. It sounds like it's a really good idea. However,
I'm a concern that if we get this up and going, how to sustain this with all the other costs. So I'm
definitely in favor of tabling this until we can get a little bit more information that makes me comfortable.
All right, any other further questions or comments? And seeing none, all those in favor of tabling this
item until October 2020,
Excuse me. All those in favor of table in this item to October 28th meeting signify by saying aye. Aye.
All those opposed, same sign. Aye. Can we have a roll call vote? I'll request for a roll call vote.
Councilor Wilz? No. No. Okay. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 5-2. Thank you.
So next up, we're going to go back to 12A or 12E, sorry, since we pulled that and then we'll get back
into the ongoing business and the health department and we'll come back.
Next up is item 12. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the highway department's
request and fund 1135-0000 cumulative bridge for an in-house transfer of $2,375 from account line 17101
overtime to account line 13314 bridge crew foreman.
As an overtime appropriation, transfers must have prior council approval as established by resolution
2025-41. All right, Ms. Ritch. I'm happy to answer any questions. It's just transferring into the account
line. We had to pay years of service that were missed from the employee in this position. So we paid
that at the beginning of the year. So it made the employee line run short.
So is there any questions from council on this side? Yes, Councilor Williams. Sorry. It looks as though,
I mean, if I'm reading what I have here, it looks as though you have plenty of money in the overtime
line. You're not really expecting to expend that. We hope not.
It's really the only yeah, it was the best place for us to take it from. So I think we'll be OK. OK,
all right. And if it's snow, it comes out of a different budget anyway. Oh, really? Yeah, it comes out
of MVH because that's a snow removal. So any overtime if we have something like that would come out
of a different budget. All right. Are there any other questions or comments? OK, all right.
If there's any public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the Nightingale
Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor
Hawk? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Decker?
Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Okay, thank you.
All right. Next up, and I'm going to ask just as a play way, um, voices out in the auditorium here in
the Nattie Hillrone can very much be heard out this way. So it's a little distracted. Um, so I just
wanted to point that out there. So, all right. Next up, we're going to go back to ongoing business and
that starts with the health department.
Council, as a reminder, this item was tabled from the September 23rd council meeting. Council, I move
to open for discussion and possible approval of the health department's request to create one new position
and revise three current job descriptions. Second. All right, Miss Kelly.
So this request is in relation to the nursing services that we will need to be providing starting January
1st. So as we are aware, the nursing services have been provided historically over the past several
years through IU Health. So these services are going to be ideally being transferred back in-house within
the health department. And the Board of Health recently met job descriptions
One job description was created for a new position and then job revisions were completed on existing
current health department positions just to make sure that we would have coverage to provide all of
the legally mandated services and services required under Health First Indiana. And by Indiana code,
we must fill these positions and therefore it does not fall under your hiring freeze.
Tom Syverson. So usually, a request like this would go to the personal administration committee. But
because of the PACPAS, it's coming here. And part of the urgency, of course, is what Dr. Ryderban just
talked about in terms of the passing. Now, if a department requests these things, they must fill out
what's called a WIS questionnaire.
which helps us, our office, make sure that the request dovetails with what WIS is going to ask. And
we also ask for red line job descriptions. And if it's the health board, we ask that the board votes
on it. So all those documents are in today's packet. So in terms of the nuts and bolts, it's all there
in today's packet. You can find it on our website. So I thought I'd start the conversation off by getting
kind of some of those technicalities out of the way.
Yes, Council Henry. Thank you. And I do just have a series of questions again. All this is about putting
this into the public space. So we take conversations that happen in meetings into the public view when
we're talking about this. First, I actually got it. I didn't plan on asking this, but I kind of have
to at this point. I disagree with your assumption that it's a must and that this is exempt.
The reason why is that the department contracted for 60 years out of the health department to provide
the service. So I think we need to start on a platform of how do we solve the problem rather than immediately
assuming the only solution is to bring the nurses in house. And the department, if I remember right,
was found in 1965. I don't think they've ever been in house if it's been a 60-year contract. My math
might be wrong today, but I want to start with that. So let's try to bring it back to where it needs to be.
This is the first question I have. In the statement you provided on September 23rd, which is in the
packet, there's a comment made here about reaching out. There were no other community providers with
whom we could contract to have both the medical and epidemiological capacity needed. Can you walk me
through your survey of the community, what partners you talked to, and what the market survey was to
try to contract this with a different entity? You were turned down by everybody?
Help me walk through what you were looking at. I believe that you are referring to the agenda that was
submitted by the board chair. Yeah. So I'm not sure that I would feel comfortable speaking on that.
OK, so we don't have a concrete market survey of if there was a other provider we could contract to.
Like we couldn't bid it out to some other hospital provider in Indiana. Well, we have a.
health provider that serves most of this county and practically everyone in it. They have pulled out
of the agreement. So that leaves us at something of a deficit, especially since that health care provider
is now expanding their community health care across the region.
We know that we're not going to contract with them again. When we look to providers, I've just spent
last month and this month at health administrator and health officer meetings with IDOH. There aren't
a lot of nurses hanging out waiting to do public health. To do public health as a nurse,
First of all, it's becoming a nurse, but none of them are actually trained in public health.
So from day one, they're going to need to be trained by IDOH and they have regional people who are assigned
to simply train nurses who come into the positions to do the work that has to be done.
It's the work itself that is mandated. When we asked very specifically to one of the TB specialists
in the state at IDOH, she said, the reason you want an RN in that position is that the individual needs
to be able to clinically evaluate any one of the patients that they encounter for a communicable disease, that
your average person on the street is not going to be able to do that. To track the actual diseases,
we can use people who are not nurses. And that would be really helpful to do that sort of semi
epidemiological piece. But we do need the nurses to vaccinate. We need the nurses to evaluate. We need
the nurses to help provide
actual care, particularly to the TB patients because they are administered medications that has to be
witnessed either visually in person or online to make sure that's done. And when we looked at, and Lori
has some of those numbers for you, to hiring nurses,
Even on a temporary basis, the cost is twice what it would cost per day for a nurse that we hire. And
that person would not really be motivated to learn and do the things that are obligated of a public
health nurse.
I don't know if that's even begun to answer your question. Well, I mean, yes and no. I mean, because
if someone's contracted to do the work of a public health nurse, health nurse, they deliver the contract.
So they're motivated by the contract to do that. I appreciate the walkthrough of what what that looks
like. I guess the second question is, you know, we already do a regional approach with public health
in the county anyway. You have funding, for example, we've talked about this and having a multi county
approach. Can you walk us through why we can't
have the regional public health nurse approach anymore? I mean, if IU health is moving toward a regional
model and we already do regional things, I'm just trying to understand in the conversation with IU health,
why we couldn't or why we can't have a regional public health nurse model. And my follow up to that,
if you want to take this on to is what do other counties that are smaller than us do now to provide
this service? So I hope it sort of helps me understand that. A nurse.
and they are trained to be a public health nurse. That's what happens in the small counties. Some of
them share a nurse if they're small enough. They will share one across county, but the public health
departments have public health nurses. They are not regional. Now it may be that in the future IDOH
moves to that kind of model
But there was no indication whatsoever in any of the conversations that there is any move at this time
to create large regions that share a public health nurse. What happens after January 1st if we don't
meet the deadline? Because if honestly, and I think maybe others will talk about this, as you know,
the hiring process takes some time. It is mid to late October.
We've had a hard time filling other positions in the department. If one January hits, what happens to
the county? I'm hoping that our county attorney will address that. Molly, I can re-ask. So my question
was, if we somehow blow the deadline for providing public health nurse coverage for the county under
Indiana code, what's the liability? What does that really do? I don't have an answer to that.
conversation that needs to be had with IDOH. I think we should have ongoing conversations with IDOH
where we're at in the process. I think the process is a little bit more in depth than the health department
approves the job descriptions and then council decides whether they want to allow the hiring of such
and then the hiring process begins. Because what will happen is these job descriptions will have to
go to WIS.
I did have a conversation with WIS who thinks they could have a turnaround of two weeks from the date
they receive it. But then after WIS returns it, it comes back to council, which will have a conversation
on classification.
after all of that, the hiring process begins. So I do think we're on a very tight timeline, and I do
think it's worth having a conversation with IDOH as to what happens. I have two more, and I'll relinquish
my time back. So what is the overall business plan for the other stuff? We've just had this conversation
about the truck, right? So it's the employees. IU operated the Miller building, or the Miller Drive facility.
What, help us understand the wraparound cost of hiring nurses. Where do they work? What equipment do
they use? What supplies are they consuming? What is the wraparound of this? What does that look like?
Sure, so estimates and of course these are salary estimates based upon if there was the health services
director at a Pat D and three Pat C nurses. So those,
Total salary, mileage, cell phone, it's around $335,000 for the year. So going off of operating costs,
service costs, supplies, roughly $16,200. So part of that information was collected through IU Health,
so what they would budget for supplies.
Some of that funding is already in our 2026 budget for the health director and for the behavioral health
and wellness coordinator. The school health liaison is still being funded through a grant. So one of
the nurse positions that would take on those school health services would still remain under the school
grant funding. So essentially we would be looking at one new position and the costs for that. Okay,
last question is,
This was initially presented. We were talking about three positions. Now we're up to four. For those
that are being reclassified, have we worked out, well, first of all, is there anyone employed in the
positions that are being reclassified? And secondly, has that been worked out with ESD in terms of what
that means for those individuals? So the position is vacant. So the health director position is already
approved position and the behavioral health and wellness in those positions. And the school liaison
are vacant. Thank you, Madam President.
So I want to piggyback on that last line of questioning in terms of in the original Council agenda request
of 923 you were asking for just three to two updated job descriptions in a new position and in tonight's
Agenda we have one new position and revisions to three currents. So why do we go from two to three? I
sure um and that is because I thought that it was going to be really important that the health services
director who is going to be presumably responsible for all of these additional services that we update
that job description to clearly outline the additional duties and responsibilities for all of these
services and also overseeing that within the positions that this that position would be managing and
I'm not a lawyer. I don't have statute memorized. Does the statute provide clarity on how many positions
we need to have here? No, not to my knowledge. So I recently went out and spent some time at Du Bois
County. They have six full time nurses. So it really just varies. But essentially, I went and spent
about half a day at the IU health clinic to to
really see how these services are being provided see the model and the coverage and I really feel confident
that we would have good cross coverage in providing these services with three nurses. Our current our
current public health nursing is three full-time equivalents at Miller Drive so we're simply modeling it
on what we already have that is very effective in taking care of the population and doing outreach.
Thank you, Dr. Reiterven. And so that model that you just described of three nurses is we're asking
to have an additional person that's focused on communicable diseases be hired. And why is that new position
necessary?
probably the largest concern that we have is the communicable disease we have ongoing patients who are
under under care for latent tuberculosis and so active tuberculosis yes so both and so really having
one position that's dedicated and providing that continual ongoing care is really just gonna I mean it's
it's really necessary and then having the additional support staff to be able to assist with the communicable
disease. So I do have a list of all of the communicable diseases. So local health departments, I'm happy
to share this with you all as well. So I mean, basically everything that's not vaccine preventable falls
on local health departments. And that's again, I think if we're talking about contracting services versus
having county employees,
That's not my decision to make. I'm just kind of in limbo waiting for decision makers to make decisions
so that I know how to move forward and making sure that these services are provided. But for example, so
All of these have to be reported to local health departments. If you can just envision, if we are using
contracts, the challenge is that it might create with, are we receiving all of the information? Are
we up to date with the case management, with the treatment that's being provided? Just to give you something
else to think about and consider. Sure. Here's my concern.
I am a little concerned that or a lot concerned that the hiring freeze that we just put in place does
in capture this request. And so the other concern that I have, I mean, so I guess my question is if
we don't have that communicable disease specialist, can the other public health nurses
report on that long list of communicable diseases, can that work be done by these three nurses? What
three nurses? The proposed? The amended job descriptions. Yes, they would be trained. The amended job
descriptions. That's great. Councilor Wolk? I just want to clarify that I understood that. So you asked, could
the existing employees whose job descriptions? The positions that are being edited, but there are no
people in those. We have no RNs. So three vacancies. Ah, OK. All right, so you are splitting hairs about
creating a new position versus updating the existing? Updating a job description and whether or not
updating a job description falls under our hiring freeze.
If it does not, then we can update these job descriptions, have three public health nurses in place.
But if it does fall within the hiring freeze, then we're. But we would have to hire them. Yeah. So anyway
you look at it, if we are we would have to make an exception. Yes, that is true. OK. And one more question, if I may.
The way the process has worked, and Councilor Iverson explained this kind of at the beginning of this
item with the whole send it away to get it, you know, blah, blah, approved. But we do not classify the
positions. So we don't say that the nurse is a Pat D and these other people are a Pat C. We can't put
that, I mean, and that's just the way we operate.
I'd love to blow up the system at some point, but that's not on the agenda. So I just want to make it
really clear that there's a distinct possibility that if this was done, that it would come back and
be classified differently. Can things move forward in your mind if that happened? I mean, because you
did put the classification in there, and I'm just wondering what
That was to try to give us an estimate again. So if we're looking about costs and there's been all this
attention on costs, what's it going to cost? So I mean, if we're looking at you have a manager and then
you have the three under there, the behavioral health and wellness coordinator is currently classified
as a PATC. So it seemed like, well, it would make sense that
perhaps these could all be pat C's and kind of structure our anticipated budget off of that. No,
it wasn't, that was just simply to try to create like, what do we think our costs are gonna be? I'm
gonna go to Ms. Turner-King, because I know she had her hand up.
I think thinking about this, you are technically dealing with a WISPOS and hiring freeze. So you would
have to make an exemption to send the job descriptions to WISPOS, and that exemption is from the WISPOS.
And then after the classifications come back, you would have to make an exemption to the hiring freeze
to allow the health department to hire that position. So it's kind of a two-part thing. Okay. Yes, Councilor Hawk.
Okay, so I really am trying to follow along here, but it seems to me the choice is we either provide
positions either already available, whatever, or we find somebody, a group that we can contract with.
And that seems to me a better way than, oh, this person we hired is now going to leave because they're
moving them.
Timbuktu, so then we have to go through all that. If it's with a contract, they have to figure out who's
going to be putting in place, and they're in charge of doing it. And then if something goes wrong, it's
their problem, rather than us trying to reinvent the wheel here to make this work.
And I would like to get a price on a contract. Just throw that out there. Let's see what kind of contract
we can get. I haven't heard. I mean, I'm just saying I think a contract might work better, but we don't
know until we've tried that. And the other thing is if you get to the point where you decide you want
to do it in-house, because that's what it's sounding like if we send it to us, I suppose.
We should find out what the other counties that are using such a program, what their classifications
are, because that's what Wes does. Wes is going to find out from the other counties. And so we're going
to go send this off and wait for Wes and whatever, then come back and say this county and this county
did that. Well, we can make a phone call and find that out ourselves. Just saying. We've got to start
looking at how we can save money
where we can, which is still be efficient. And I want to make the point that we've been talking about
whether a contract or the positions before us is like a zero sum game. It's mutually exclusive and it's
not there. There's a very real possibility. I think that was articulated earlier that even if we approve
this tonight, we still won't have it in place in time.
There is a world where we approve this and we'll need some sort of contract in place to get us through
a couple months before people can be hired. And I'll even add, history has taught us, particularly when
we're hiring public health professionals, it's really hard to hire people when WIS comes back, as Councilor
Wilts said, with a lower classification than what the market can bear.
It's really hard to hire people. And we just went through that with the DIS positions, right? Actually,
you've got a couple vacancies where we just can't hire people. So I think this conversation can really
be aided by thinking about things a little more holistically. If I could speak to the contract side.
So I think that it's really important to also recognize and realize that even if you are contracting
these services out, they are being performed under Monroe County government. The work that is being
done is under the Monroe County health officer. So we are still legally responsible for all of these
services. It's under the health department. So it's not as simple as
you know, finding an entity and here you just, you know, go do these services and then we're kind of
hands off. We're still responsible for making sure that all of these services are being provided, that
the communicable diseases are being addressed in a timely manner, and that we are getting reports on
that. Yeah. Yes, counselor. Yeah, thank you for that. And I think, I think just maybe, I know we're
circling around two ideas here,
Yeah, we had the contract. They operated out of the Miller Drive building. You could go and supervise
it. They reported to you with data coming in. That's a brick and mortar space. The proposal we have
now is, I think if I got to glue the two together, it sounds like four hires in a mobile unit. Or is
it four hires operating where?
Where's the new clinic? Because it's not Miller Drive. So where are we doing the work? The health department,
so the old employee clinic space, employee wellness clinic space. Which is parking problematic, but
all things considered. I mean, Miller Drive had a parking lot, right? OK.
The last piece is about the contract. And the variable that's interesting, too, is if we did issue a
contract, there's nothing to prevent us from going contract to hire. I mean, we could issue a short
contract, and those people may very well be offered jobs if we figure this out, or if we decide the
contracting relationship makes sense. I guess, again, the challenge is I think that I'm looking at this
time crunch and thinking, while we're sorting things out with WIS and all this, we could put an RFP
out on the street for 30 days. It could very well be that document IU delivered for years plus
variables about where that work occurs, right? If someone bites on the contract, it buys us time while
we figure this out. We could look at a contract, a higher scenario on a short contract, but I think
to Councilor Hawk's point, I mean, the company that bids and wins provides the answer that we're looking
for and hopefully the solution that works. There's other instruments available to us than trying to
build something and like literally building a plan while it's taking off today because I appreciate
we've been put in a constraint by IU health against state code. I, we gotta look at all the options.
That's just my point there. Thanks. You're welcome. Councilor Decker. I also kind of wonder if it's
a both and exploration simply to get to meet the, because it must be provided by law.
Right to become to be compliant. One thing that I as we continue to talk about this. I want to make
sure of this will be the most public facing entity that would be under the health division to me. Right.
If you think about it for years, everybody know new where to go or
they at least know IU Health, and you can wander in there, even when it was Bloomington Hospital, you
could wander in there, not know anything, and eventually they'll get you to the right place. I know
I've done it a few times through emergency services, but theoretically, they would get you somewhere
to the right place. I would want to, similar to previous comments that I made here, one of the things
I wanna make sure is that we've got some good metrics
facing this operation that guarantees it is available to the public and that people are not getting
poor, getting turned away. The office is open to all those things. And I know that doesn't solve any
of this, but all of this is mootive. Again, we establish something or have an office and nobody knows
what, where it actually is, what it does, what you can get, et cetera. So I continue to think about
that. It's got to actually meet with people, have those things done, et cetera.
I'm gonna, Ms. Turner-Keene. Because it's come up a couple times, I will provide that when I called
WIS today to talk about what the timeline would be in returning amendments of job descriptions, they
did volunteer that they have classified similar positions for other counties. They mentioned Johnson
County has a public nurse director who provides nursing services, has a nursing degree, but then oversees
all of the other nurses
and they didn't really allude to how many. So I do think WIS has comparable data that I can easily ask
them to provide if that's something that would be helpful. Might be helpful if we get a hold of Johnson
County and get some information from them direct. I can call Johnson County. Councilor Wilts. I'm not
sure WIS given our past conversations would be wanting to share their
information directly. But I mean, either way. In the past, they've shared shared classification levels
and comparable salaries. Oh, have they? Yeah. Yeah, that would be they shared that information today.
Yeah. I see.
exactly. But it sounds like we're talking about more than even just two options. There are a lot of
different ways this could look. And, you know, my experience, which is very limited with health care,
staffing, or employment, you can contract to have specific
credentialed employees working in your department for you in a supervisory structure that's embedded
so that you are able to be responsible. I mean, you're mandated to be, but you want to be able to be.
And so that can work. My experience is that that's done when it's very difficult to hire directly because
it can be costly.
Um, but I think it warrants some exploration. And if we're, you know, we're, I appreciate that we are
blowing up all aspects of the problem. I love to explode problems myself, but in, in interest of efficiency,
if they've already established where they're going to be providing these services and they know when
they have to do it, let's take some things.
as given, building usage is not our purview. And it sounds like that's been discussed and decided. But
I do think we should take a quick look at our options for employee staffing contracts versus whatever
Johnson County's pay structure might be for similar positions.
and compare the two. And maybe that's something that the members of the health board could work with
some liaisons just to kind of quickly get some information together so that we can move quickly if and
when we need to, because the big difference between these positions and others is that mandated service.
So I don't necessarily want to just arbitrarily approve
new positions, I want to find another way to do it. But I'm very, like I said, my experiences with that
is that it's desperate times when you're contracting out that kind of thing. And the jail does it. The
jail contracts out, you know, positions that are embedded. Their healthcare contract does that, and
they're responsible, mandated to have these people in there. So it's not as though it's unprecedented.
but I do know that it's often done when you can't find anybody, and so they're managing the recruitment
with some other incentives. So that's my two cents. That's a good point. Yes, Councilor. Madam President,
I'd like to make a motion. Yes. I move to send these four positions to Wagner, Erwin, and Shealy.
Uh, and at the same time, uh, ask that, uh, the health department, uh, issue a request for proposals,
uh, that done by the time that, you know, these positions come back. Second. All right. We got a motion
in a second. Is there any other further discussion or questions or comments? Yes. Council. I just want
to explain why I made that motion again. I have.
a lot of concern. We are not going to get these positions back before January 1st. I want to have something
in place. It just this process takes so long. We've been through it before. I'm really nervous and I
want to have this backup in place. Any other further questions, comments? Yeah, so would you clarify
the second half?
I got the first part, the four positions to wish and what was the second half? And that a request for
proposal, we ask that a request for proposal be issued and that that be done by the time these WIS positions
come back to us. Thank you. Is our current agreement with WIS, do we, how much is this gonna cost us?
is my question. We don't know. Because didn't we have up to a certain amount, but we don't have an idea
of where we are on that? We have barely spent anything this year. Yeah. And it's an hourly rate, depending
on who is working on it. So whoever they assign to it has a certain hourly rate. So I don't know who
they're going to assign. We didn't pay for a baseline service. We did it like that. Correct. Got it.
okay so that will cost us a chunk of change we don't know what and then the rfp i mean that's that's
fine i i don't do does the health board issue rfps is that a thing so i made my motion really carefully
this body doesn't tell the health board what to do
And so I would assume that that would either come, I actually don't know, it would either come from,
and Jeffrey Cockles is standing right here, the health department or the health board. Yes. I would
just say I wouldn't use the term RFP. RFP is a kind of term of art in that process. It's not a one week,
two week process. And also what you're talking about are professional services. You might not want,
the ability to enter into the work in the resume of the people who are going to do the work matter.
So I think what you'd want to do is reach out to different vendors. Quotes, it's a professional service,
so you don't have to go through those kind of formal processes. And you might actually be able to get
responses back in less than six weeks. Because you've got a notice process and all that when you're
talking about a formal RFP, which isn't required when you're dealing with professional services.
Thank you, Mr. Cockerly.
All right. So I have been reaching out to organizations that can provide contract nurses. So one of
the organizations that I just heard back from yesterday, so their hourly rate is $78 per hour for this
RN position. I think the challenge with this are those short-term contracts. So if we're looking at
13 weeks, so a nurse to fill a 13-week contract,
That time is all going to be spent essentially with training and getting them up to speed and getting
them access to all of the systems that they need access to. And then what happens after that 13 weeks
if that person does not decide that they want to resign that contract and stay within that position.
So are we talking about using a staffing agency to contract these positions?
As author of the motion, I would say at this point, it is October 14th. We need to find whoever can
have public health nursing services ready to go on January 1st. That's who you're getting quotes from.
I mean, so. So, I mean, can the county council provide a list of those organizations who we would be
contacting because
I mean, I'm not. I think we're making this harder than it needs to be. I mean, if we just put it out
there to the public, this is the service that we need. We were doing it under contract. There might
be a group of nurses or whatever who would like to provide the service.
It just, and it would be ready so much quicker. And yes, they might not stay forever, but if you've
got a contract for longer than a month, they're gonna stay longer than a month, or they'd be breaking
the contract. And I would suspect that our legal department would assist in helping figure out what
the contract would say. I see this, whatever. And,
and just throw it out there. It isn't like we have to do some kind of legal process. Find out where
we are. It might not get anybody to come back and answer. But we could go through the whole West process
and put out a salary and not get any answers either. We've done that before. OK. So do you need to,
from what Mr. Cottonball said, do you need to amend your motion? I will amend it.
My motion. Thank you, Madam President. So instead of using RFP language, we will use what was required
or advised, which is that we will ask for quotes to be gathered. Accept the friendly amendment. OK.
Is there any other final question? Because we still got other things that we need to move on to on the
agenda here. OK, I'm just going to say that I'm not going to support this because of the WISP part,
but I would support asking them to look for quotes, contracts, whatever. So if we split it, then my
vote will be different than if we keep it together. Absolutely accurate. I would like to make, if it's
remain I'd like to make an amendment to the motion I would like to amend the WIS language to instead
be instruct legal through miss Turner King to follow up with appropriate counties as deemed necessary
that allows her to do exploration on the Johnson County information
and then come back with that on our own end and gets us out of WIS issues at the time being. Any other
final discussion on this? Now what is the motion? Well, to clarify, I thought the motion was to send
the job descriptions to WIS. So is the amendment to not send the job descriptions to WIS?
Yes, Councilor. The amendment is to not send it to WIS and it further, it's essentially asking you to
talk to Johnson County or whoever you think. The second part, it doesn't change, is that this, whatever
the quote, so that we're running that simultaneously. Right. Hold on. So I'm gonna go to Councilor Hawkins
and I'm gonna go to Councilor Iverson.
yes i like the amendment uh by councilmember dickard and appreciate councilmember wilson chiming in
on that that makes us three of us all right irison i just a point of clarity that this is a new motion
uh on my motion so we really need to vote on councilmember's motion okay got it all right so ring is
back in is everybody mr jr are you clear with what
was being said. I think so. It's to not send the job descriptions to WISC for me to explore with other
counties what they do and then to have to request the health department get quotes from other vendors.
Correct. So that's the motion. My concern is if we do not send job descriptions to WISC and we like
what the other counties are doing, like if come back and Johnson County's system makes sense,
We will eventually have to have job descriptions, which requires sending something to WIS. OK. OK.
All right. So if there is any public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here
in the NatU Hill Room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a look.
Can I ask you, are we voting on an amendment
that Councilmember Deckard put out and then we'll follow up with the original motion because original
motion is still in force. So right now we're voting on just on the amendment. Correct, yes. So can we
please have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Iverson? No. Councilor
Crosley? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
Yes. Motion passes six one. Okay, and now coming back to the overall conversation here. Yeah, this is
essentially Councilmember Decker's motion. So there's really nothing else that needs to be said because
I did not table some table till two weeks from now. Okay.
move that we table this item to october 28th second all right we got a motion and a second to table
this item until we can get more information is there any other final discussion on this council hawke
hopefully that won't slow the health department down or whoever is going to go forward to see if they can get
information on a contract. Hopefully, it won't slow down. Molly, for getting whatever information, that
doesn't cost anything. See what we can get for more information for us by the 28th. Yeah, I just want
to make sure that this item in some form is on our agenda for the 28th. And I feel like this is the
most efficient way to do that. That's all. Yeah, let's not sit on our hands during that time. Let's
get some of this work done. Yeah. OK.
So can we please have a roll call vote on table in this item? Oh, okay. Okay. Councilor Crosley. Yes.
Councilor Iverson. No. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor
Hawk. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Motion passes 6-1. Okay, and then that's it. Thank you.
All right, next up is item B, which is from the Board of Commissioners. Council, as a reminder, the
first reading of these ordinances took place at the September 23rd council meeting.
Council, I move to approve ordinance 2025-13, ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation
bonds and ordinance 2025-31, and ordinance appropriating the general obligation bond projects, which
include but are not limited to design plans for improvements at the Monroe County Airport. Number two,
remodeling of the showers building, primarily for renovations for voter and election services.
Number three, vehicles. Number four, improvements of the Youth Services Bureau, Monroe County Nature
Preserve Courthouse,
house ground and emergency management building five body cameras six non-lethal force equipment for
the sheriff's department seven airport furniture tools and equipment number eight emergency management
sirens and equipment and all related improvements and the incidental expenses in connection with these
projects okay all right we got a motion and a second
We have Commissioner Julie Thomas here, welcome. Hello, good evening. Your voice sounds like it's been
through budget season. We are here to discuss the general obligation bond. There is an updated Exhibit
A, which was not in your packet, but was approved by the commissioners at our previous meeting.
and they have a copy of that. I just read it. Yeah it is on your table now. But I didn't I and maybe
I we've been here a while but I didn't hear street sweeper highway vehicles and equipment computers
and computer equipment. Did you read those? I didn't. No because they were not included in the motion
because we didn't get this until afterwards. All right let me read out a new motion.
Council, I move to approve ordinance 2025-30, an ordinance authorizing issuance of general obligation
bonds, an ordinance 2025-31, an ordinance approving the general obligation bond projects, which include
but are not limited to the following county public improvement projects. Fees associated with issuance
of bonds, design plans for improvements at the Monroe County Airport, remodeling of the showers building
primarily for renovations for voter and election services, vehicles, street sweeper, highway vehicles
and equipment,
and computer equipment, facility improvements at the Youth Services Bureau, Monroe County Nature Preserve,
courthouse, grounds, body cameras, non-lethal forest equipment for the sheriff's department, airport
furniture, tools and equipment, and emergency management sirens and equipment, and all related improvements
and the incidental expenses in connection with these projects. That's it. Okay. Proceed. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
So we'll be brief since this is the second time we're discussing this. Mr. Cockrell's here to answer
questions. I'm here, but most importantly, the relevant department heads are standing by physically
here or via Teams. And I would add that we also have the bond council.
available if you have questions about that and and i you know talking with uh some of the sheriff's
department staff i i kind of want to make sure it's clarified for you guys in the public when we say
body cameras and non-lethal force equipment non-lethal force equipment is basically anything that the
equipment they sheriffs can use department can use other than
things for lethal force. So we're not authorizing that, but any other type of equipment would be included
in that. And the reason I say that is because body cameras are in there as well. I mean, clearly some
of the non-lethal force is going to be tasers, but between the body cameras and what we're intending
to spend that portion on include some of the car electronic equipment,
that they utilize, which the contract is through the same vendor as we use body cameras through. So
I just wanted to kind of clarify that and make sure you guys understood that. Yes, Councillor Hawke.
Yes, I'd like to see a breakdown and maybe you've seen it and I'm just not seeing it. The dollar amount
for these separate things. I remember seeing something on there though, another document.
that had that was covering um the at the park is that park that is that still in there yes nature preserve
yes okay i mean i'm just looking at let's say if we said we didn't want to do six million let's say
if we said we want to do what we've done in the past do three million that doesn't mean you've
I think you have to keep the amount under five million something. It goes out over six years. Then we
can do another one next year for another three million. Correct or not? I think you have the option
to go lower than the six million that was advertised, but not higher. Well, that's my point. I'm just
trying to figure out. I want to absolutely support law enforcement and public safety, so I need a dollar
amount on that.
and see where we go from there. But I'm particularly interested in the first sentence that says the
projects include that are not limited to. And so that's where I come into question because we know that
we're being asked to spend dollars at our next meeting
for the jail project and it does make me wonder, if there's dollars left over in some other bond, are
they gonna throw that in there too? And so it makes me suspect when we're passing this, if we're not
specific about which things would be included with a dollar amount next to it. That's just my thoughts
on it. So I would like to have a dollar amount
for our law enforcement to begin with. So there is an Excel sheet that I think Angie Purdy sent. Four
days ago. Okay. So there's an email from Ms. Purdy.
25 geo bonds something something list estimates correct and it does have the breakdown that councillor
hawk is looking for right that's still if that's still yeah if that's still accurate could somebody
who's logged in maybe share that when was it sent four days ago is what councillor harrison said friday
Go to council office. It went to council members. I'll send it to you right now. Okay.
So while they're doing that, can I ask a question? Thank you. Given that this is coming up as a, oh,
let's break this down and look at all the pieces parts, which is dangerous territory. How does that
work, Mr. Cockrell? Like if we say,
we don't want XYZ projects, can we take that out? Can we slice and dice this thing? I mean,
is that realistic? I think you would look at the project list and you would remove whatever item you
want from the project list. And I would assume there would be a potentially a corresponding reduction
in the amount of the bond. Right. So I think I think that's possible. Yeah.
Oh, pending bond council saying that I'm not crazy. Okay. And so here we are. And do we have somebody
from bond council that would like to speak to this? Um, his name's Dennis and if you guys could make
it so that he can raise his hands raised. So you should be able to unmute here and then you'll be able to.
answer the question can you can you hear me yes okay thank you yeah I would agree with what mr. Cockrell
just said you can certainly amend the project description and do a corresponding reduction of the dollar amount
As Mr. Cockrell stated before, the one thing we can't do is go a higher amount without doing
a re-advertising. And I would propose if you do want to amend the description, you just make the motion
to amend and you amend the exhibit A to the ordinance where the description is contained. Thank you.
All right. Councilor Henry.
Yeah, thank you for a bond council being here as well. So just some questions as we revisit this again.
My first is, as we've just went through a pretty tight discussion of our budget for 2026 and there's
a lot of concern about we're reporting resources in the county. I do have some specific questions about
the proposed projects about what is absolutely necessary for functions in the county versus things that
would be nice to have this year or maybe in subsequent years.
The gift of the nature park to the county, as it was initially presented, had a trust attached to it
for initial maintenance or work to help us get where we need to go. And it's been, I think, the story
up here over the past few months that the park is kind of the gift that keeps on giving. We've put an
investment into some initial work there and now we're seeing a bond asking for $950,000 to do work in
a nature preserve. And I appreciate that, as it's been mentioned before, some of that investment is about
maintenance and getting ahead of invasive species and other things. But the challenge I have is in the
climate we're now operating in, to borrow money with interest to begin work on something that was a
gift to the county that is now, it's kind of like getting a gift with your grandma's car and now you
have to do repairs on it. It was a nice gift and then there's work involved in this. Is trying to understand
at what point we have this project down to a point where we can say, look,
950,000 this year, as we've just discussed, we could potentially see another bond next year,
the next year, the next year to bring a park online that was a gift. And I think that Councillor Deckard's
point earlier about the abundance of nonprofit organizations in the community to do things in this space,
like Nature Conservancy and like Sycamore and so many others. Walk me through the absolute need for
this part of the bond right now versus
what not doing looks like and trying to accept the gift and get back to it when our fiscal situation
gets under control here. I'm just trying to understand this piece. And I would think, I think
John Robertson's on the line from the Parks Department. And so I assume that question should be directed at him.
Is he online? Yeah, I don't see him. Well, I guess while we're waiting on that, I have maybe a separate
question to go into. Go for it. We had asked for, and I appreciate the effort made to create an account
line to address current maintenance conditions in the current justice building. I think the line item
is 270,000. I got to say, I took a tour of the building last Monday on the civilian side of things.
And I'm concerned about the maintenance as is right now.
We have situations where the air filters and the current structure are being being a staff is just simply
told staff to hit the red light and turn it back to green on the UV filters. That's my understanding.
Some of those filters have not been changed in a while. I can write my name in the windows, you know,
in terms of the cleanliness of the space. If we're going to put 270,000 more into this, what is the
exact project plan on burning down on the building to make sure that we are putting money into it to
maintain the day to day
Space because I got to tell you I mean I am concerned about what I saw I mean if that was a public restroom
at a. fast food establishment i'd have some questions, but this is a serious question if we're going
to put money into this. I don't think there's really a way to shade it, I mean.
I mean, I'm happy to start putting photos online here if we need to look at what I saw, but I need some
answers on this if we're gonna put additional 270 in and what the current maintenance, what we think
that 270 is gonna buy us this year. So thanks for answering that.
I can tell you that a chunk of that 270 will go towards the HVAC system. We're currently expanding.
We're in the middle, well, we're at the front end of a large controls project. We were required to install
new software to control all the HVAC system throughout the building. And with that, you have to have
new hardware at all the devices. And it's kind of,
We're starting in the clerk's office. That's going to be 25 grand. I'll be able to soon take that number
and figure out what it's going to take to do the rest of the building. So I don't know exactly how much
of that 270 is going towards that project, but it'll be a fair amount. Madam President, my last comment
is a comment I shared with
It moves through county legal and I know it hit bond council, but I still think in some ways we've been
talking past each other about the current bonds that are being held by the commission over an 11 year
period that add up to about 5.9 million and stuff. And then to add a $6 million addition to
that dollar amount. And then as we've now heard, we could be revisiting $6 million bonds every year,
which from, you know, the time of, you know, again, honoring Councillor Hawke's time on council, we've
gone from once upon a time a $1 or $2 million bond per year to now a whole lot more money that's being
moved through bonds, which, of course, we're paying premium on, you know, with on the market.
I really am this is more of a commentary but I will say like I appreciate the comments I got back from
bond council has said to bake in requirements on the commissioners to provide project plans, including
a 3060 90 day spend down, and why some of these bonds have been sitting open for 11 years.
We need accountability on this. And so if it cannot be baked into the bond ordinance to get reporting
back to this body at a routine manner on how we're using these dollars, I hope fellow counselors will
consider a separate resolution that really starts to spend the money we have. I appreciate that I've
heard comments that this is the way things are done here, or maybe that historically we've done these
things, but Madam President, I got a reminder of my Grace Hopper on that one.
You know, the most damaging phrase in the language is it's always been done that way. And I really want
to see some changes in the accountability on the dollars here as we start to see a much larger bucket
of money move through general obligation bonds and to make sure we're doing this right. So that's more
commentary than a piece of, I think, the current piece of paper in front of us. But I do think we need
some resolutions to start tightening down the accountability on these. That's what I have for now. Yeah.
Thank you. Before I go to Councilor Hawk, I kind of want to piggyback on
what was just said, because a couple of things, exhibit A that's being presented to us does not have
the current justice center listed in here. And we just heard, which is interesting, because I remember
a couple of weeks ago, I was kind of questioning and going back and forth and asking the questions about
the HVAC. Now it sounds like there is work with HVAC, so I'm not crazy.
appreciate that because for a while I had to go back and figure out what was what was happening in my
mind so from what you just said now we are doing the HVAC system and we're starting with the clerks
is that correct or clerks office it's correct but this has been going on for a while this has been an
ongoing project it it started with I think it was last winter to be honest we were we began working
on the controls, and it was the intake air into the building, conditioning the intake air into the building.
I don't know if you guys recall that the clerk's office had to close for a little while last winter,
and that's where we began, and it's been ongoing since then. Okay, so I guess, again, was I not very
clear in my question that I was asking last time, because I guess,
the very question that you answered is something that I was asking early on. And so now I feel like
I've been a little gaslit here because I just felt like I was asking that question specifically to the
conversations that we were having back in August when we had that conversation where employees were
asking about the HVAC system. So that's number one. And two, can we
I personally would feel more comfortable in making sure that we get this in exhibit A so that we know
for sure and that folks know that this is still an ongoing work in progress. Yes. Yeah. I think I thought
when we were talking about this before concerning HVAC that we were speaking about going into the system
and looking for mold and that type of thing. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, and it's just to be clear as well, this isn't replacing the HVAC system. Right. Yeah,
very clear. And we've also recently approved a contract with VET Environmental to be paid from other
funds, meaning county general and cumulative capital, I believe, actually, for mold remediation services, testing,
and ongoing work for the justice building. So that's already been done outside of the bond. So that's
not in here. So I just want to be clear for the public and for employees that we're not replacing the
HVAC system because that would be a multi, I don't know, million dollar process. We are continuing to
service and work through the issues that are there and we have
we are tackling the mold issue directly through other means. So this is not an all encompassing item
on this bond. Does that help? It does and it doesn't because there was an email that I felt like I saw
with Ms. Purdy saying that there was supposed to be some bond coverage when it came to the justice building.
language was and I'm trying to pull it up here like the justice building maintenance and repair and
there was a comment that was made because there was some funding or something that we slashed I shouldn't
say slash but something that we reduced a line that made and y'all help me out if I'm like missing something here that
There was a comment that was made in an email that basically stated that there was supposed to be a
justice center, a maintenance and repair line for bond. But then on top of that was like something to
the effect of we had to do it this way because council reduced the line that you just mentioned. So
I just want to make sure
that we are making sure that we have this in the language to make sure that it is being taken care of,
because we can say that we're covering it through other things. But if that is something that's being
told to us personally as a council member, I really would feel comfortable with the proven something
like this that has that specific language in there. And then the other thing that I wanted to say to
kind of piggyback on what Council Henry was saying,
We literally just went through eight weeks. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears and some lost voice of
going through with budget. And I think right now, for me personally, and I mentioned this early on when
we were looking at what we could do in terms of reducing, if we're not ready yet for the nature preserve
or if that is not a necessity that is needed right now, it is my hope and my wish
that we can reduce or take out rather this nature preserve want, I should say, because we have other
prior needs. And to me, it just feels kind of like it's a great idea and it's a great project. And I
know folks out here have a lot of things to say about it. But to me personally, we're not there yet.
And I don't think that I'm in favor of having that in there. So that's my two cents.
and I'll go to Councilor Decker. Thank you very much. I appreciate every one of the comments. And I
guess my question is, I have an exhibit list from Angie Purdy on 1010. It lists Justice Building, an
amount of $270,000 in this bond. And then when I look at exhibit A, I don't see that there. Can I make
an amendment to add the words Justice Building to this exhibit?
I move, council, that the word justice building, two words, justice building, be added to Exhibit A
in the record. Second. All right. And if I could maybe. Yes. See if I can clarify that statement a little
bit by thinking, my thought is you're probably intending it's where it says facility improvements at
the US Youth Service Bureau, adding after the word bureau and
Charlotte T's at Love Justice Center. That's fine. And then I'd like to talk on it for a second if I
can. Let's just get it in there, and let's not have any confusion on it. We have an exhibit from Angie
Purdy. It shows it on there. It's either in there or it's not in there. Let's get it in exhibit A. And
the second thing I'd say on this, I mean, people are watching this. The second thing I would say on this
And by the way, we should do it even if people aren't watching. We've got in there a nature preserve
dog park. And I have a cat. I like people who like dogs. I've just never had that many successfully.
But at the end of the day, I am queasy. That being in there.
And this amount not being in there or that amount being there for 130,000 with those justice building
considerations, because I think that we sometimes with these old buildings, which we have chosen to
keep that as a community value, we get down the line and we discover more things need more money than
we think. My recommendation, I will not offer the motion here while I've got one sitting would be that that
If you're going to cool it on anything, you cool it down on that dog park. We'll be out one for a bit.
But you know what? We didn't have one last year in that area. And we reallocate those dollars in the
bond to that, to Justice Building in case or as needed, because I just have a sneaky suspicion about
this one. And so just as a reminder, there is a motion in second to add that language in there.
so we need to handle the motion first to include that language. Is there any other further discussion
on Councilor Deckard's motion? Okay. All those in favor of adding the language for the Justice Center
building and repair maintenance line into exhibit A signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
Okay, motion carries now, coming back overall, and Council Henry. Thank you. Okay, I'd like to go to
a different place in the proposed breakdown, and it's the Commissioner's Line 1.5 million for early
voting and voter registration. So it's early voting and voter registration together, but those are kind
of separate things too. So I have first, my question is, what is the current timeline for completing
the early voter, voting and voter reg project at Showers? What's our timeline?
Construction November through January. So we will have it finished by the 2026 primary season. Yes.
Okay. Is it true that casa is taking occupancy of the current building at Johnson.
at some point, and is it after the January completion date or what? What is the who's moving in and
out? I guess it's my question. I guess I don't know if they're moving in. We did look at the space with
them. They're in an evaluation process on finding out where they are going to go next. And we indicated
that, you know. That that certainly wouldn't be available till after the
current election worked out, but if we didn't want them not to be able to look at it and then do an
evaluation, see if that's something they wanted to do, I don't know if it is or not. Okay, this kind
of goes back to my previous comment about why we really need to understand project timelines. I think
Councilor Crossley pointed out even with the HVAC discussion that if we recall the sequence here, it
was only until after we had asked that a justice building line item be added
that we brought back this conversation, and we've now learned this HVAC work going on, but that was
not included in the initial draft of this ordinance. And then we have the revelation that a project
is going on. Similarly on this, and I appreciate that January
seems to be the date we get it done. And there's some, I guess, the funding that comes in afterwards.
What is the contingency plan if there is an overrun, which then directly starts affecting where voters
would go to register, candidates would go to file? My heartburn is there is an absolute drop dead for
where we're doing this. I mean, it's kind of a must be done by the beginning of the election season.
This isn't something that can push off. And we have people going to one location for half of the
the primary and other location for the other primary. You follow where I'm saying this. This one feels
incredibly time sensitive and I'm just concerned about the project plan to get it done. Okay, so originally
I kind of viewed this as two phases. Early voting being the top priority and in my mind that's not much
different than having early voting at Napa. Voters registration is still at Johnson. So I thought worst
case scenario, we get early voting done. It's complete and if
Uh, if a voter's registration has to stay at Johnson until after the elections, we finish it, get, move
them over there. Okay. That's fair. I mean, I, I hear that logic. I mean, at the same time, like voters
were registered before the election. And so like my, my mind goes differently on that because I mean,
yeah, April is when we have to start the early voting January to April. Yeah. People are trying to find
where to do their, I would hate to be
in a project plan that starts to, and I'm not gonna say, let's just say voters get confused about where
to go. I'm not gonna use big words like, yeah, I'm not gonna say it. You follow what I'm saying though?
This one's incredibly sensitive as opposed to, yeah. I think we would be able to determine if we'd be
in a situation to where, hey, we're not gonna get the voter's registration office piece complete, but
we're gonna get early voting complete. And in my mind, that's no different than the way it's been the
last two years, I think.
with NAPA rovers registration, it's the same difference.
except there's not the opportunity that we would have been moving voter reg to Napa in the middle of
the primary is my point. I mean, so I guess to me, and this is me micromanaging, I'm fine to say it.
I mean, this is why we need to understand the project plans. So if that all holds, great. But that's
a very small one compared to why haven't we spent a bond that's been sitting in an account for 11 years.
But that's, I think, why we have to get these project plans before so we understand
what those investments are, but I appreciate that piece. I don't have any other questions about the
clerk's line, I'm good. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna go to Councilor Wilton, then I'll pop back to Councilor
Haug. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. I had something to say. Regarding the parks, because that's the
one that I know more about, I agree that if you're putting things
aside from this list that the dog park would likely be one of them. I do think that we would want to
check in with our one attorney who's not here tonight because there are some stipulations for timing
and use of property. I mean, it's passive recreation that's mandated.
but I don't know if the timeline, we have some legal obligations regarding that property. We can't just
like hang out with it. So I would be hesitant to completely remove the main line for the nature preserve
without a contingency plan. That said, I've said a couple of different times in a couple of different
venues that I think
this park could be included in some of the plans for food and beverage dollars along with the quarry
park plans. And that would make a lot of sense and ease our debt burden. So I can't do that. I mean,
that's something that the commissioners put the plan together and the Fabtech then needs to consider.
But that's the kind of thing
that would make sense to me. And all of that said, I know that doesn't solve any problems. But I can
see lots of places here like courthouse lawn sprinkler system that perhaps isn't something that we have
to have this year. I hesitate to cut out entirely things that affect public safety, things that
effect emergency management, although I hope to goodness in the exhibit, it doesn't say and other stuff
like it does on this list. Siren and other stuff is what it says. So hopefully it's a little bit more
sirens and equipment. OK, yes, that's better. So I'm not suggesting that, but perhaps perhaps
Like I said, the courthouse lawn sprinkler system is not something that we have to have, right? It's
a want to have. It would be lovely to have. I think there's some other things on the list as well. Those
are my comments. All right. Council Hawk, the floor is yours. Yes, I would thank you for looking through
this and if we've been really involved in seeing what the community is worried about.
And that's what's going to happen in the justice building. Because we know we're going to be in that
justice building. We're not moving out tomorrow. We're not moving out next year or the year thereafter
or the year thereafter. I would say we're doing good to get out of there in four or five years. And
when I hear from the commissioner that, well, we don't really know what HVAC would cost and maybe a
million dollars. Why don't we have an amount?
Because if that's where the problem is, if it's not gonna hold out for another four or five years, we
need to do something about it now. Because if that building is gonna go kaboom in five years, we don't
wanna put it in in four years and have it only last a year. I mean, at least let us know what the problems
could be. And it seems like it's all around that HVAC system.
What is the HVAC system? I think the HVAC system was put in in like 13 or 14, 2013, 2014. So it's not
terribly old. The HVAC system's not. OK. So we need an expert looking at that to say what corrections
need to be made with that. Get a whole brand new set of eyes. Looking at an HVAC expert to say, this
is what you need to do to stop all these problems.
I think that's one of our higher obligations because we actually have people in that facility. We're
not just talking about the courts. We're talking about the people in the jail system, whatever. And
so I would think that would be top priority. Now, as far as some of these other things, like what are
the facility improvements that the Youth Services Bureau are you suggesting?
There's several. It needs a new sanitizer. Half the building is on old door hardware that doesn't match
the door hardware from the new construction. We'd like to update that. Plus, it's beginning to break
down. We want to add some security hardware to the three of the entrances, which will include electronic
locks, proximity readers. That's it.
okay you have a price tag on that yeah it was right around 50 000 okay well i don't think we ought to
include that here because remember the legislation says that the dollars uh can be used for operations
and maintenance so what you're talking about is maintenance so we could do those uh projects out of
that fund and and we've been talking about expanding uh
you know and putting back a portion of that to make them whole again because we took out part of that
revenue but there's absolutely unless there's something that's going to fall apart tomorrow that we
need to just go ahead and fix now but but 50,000 I think we ought to just budget it out of their revenue
we we cannot build on to that building with those that revenue but we can
It's for the maintenance, the operations and maintenance of a juvenile facility. And so that sounds
like maintenance so far. It's all I'm hearing. But if we wanted to add on and make it bigger and more
beds or whatever, we cannot do it with that fund. It has to be bonded for. I'd like to remove that off
of there. Not that I don't want it done, but
you know, we can find another way to do it. Also having to do with the emergency management sirens.
Is that could that be included in their budget because their reimbursement is like a certain dollar
amount for everything they spend or something? What's the rule on that? She she's online if you'd like
to speak to to Jamie.
Jamie's online, if we could promote her, please. And I will just say that I've talked to Jamie and the
reimbursement is only for salaries. It's not for any equipment or anything like that. OK, thank you.
That was my question. And who are the vehicles for? I just see vehicles. Well, you know, that might
be, who knows? Two for the building department, two for the maintenance department.
And then you also have the street sweeper, some of the highway vehicles. I don't monitor the highway
vehicles. Lisa Ridges online. We have trucks, parking lot, sidewalk repair at highway as part of it.
So vehicles fall into multiple categories from street sweeper under stormwater, under highway trucks,
And then under our office, four trucks, which are just general pickup trucks for building department
and maintenance. Ms. Ridge actually is unmuted and she's online and can speak to this. Yeah, sorry.
So yeah, the trucks is actually, we have nine salt spreaders and that number with stands.
for the winter season. We do have a pickup truck for replacement. We have a John Deere mower for replacement
that's 13 years old. The parking lot repairs is for the highway garage where people fuel up and such,
fixing some drainage there. And then the sidewalk repair is going above and beyond of what we already
spend. I think we have budgeted 150,000.
for sidewalk repair, and that's just helping improve for pedestrian traffic. At the highway garage?
Not at the highway garage. No, that sidewalk repair is actually on Kings Road. There you go. I'm gonna
go, I saw Councilor Henry had your hand up. Let's do some work, let's start making some amendments.
Let me start with Madam President, I have an amendment to the exhibit A to strike Monroe County Nature
Preserve and to reduce the parks line items, Nature Preserve $775,000 and Nature Preserve Dog Park $130,000
from the bond. Second.
so there's a motion and a second is there any other first further discussion counselor hog better hand
up and then i'll go to council iverson that was to remove that from the list yes and the and the line
items yes so just to clarify both line items yes thank you okay councilor i really wish someone from
the parks department
was online here. We asked this question when they were here last time. And I asked a lot of questions
about this park, because I was really excited, because it's a county park in my district. Or it might
be in your district. It's on the edge. All right, it's on yours. All right, fine. But it's an Eastside
Park. This is fantastic. I'm really excited about this. And I was asking all these questions. They said,
oh, well, we have a plan. There's a plan. Phil's part of their master plan that they've had for years.
So it's really exciting. But there's no one here to talk about it.
I know a little bit, but I know it a little bit to be dangerous, so I don't know a lot. But I believe
that it was broken up into two different pieces for a purpose. I think the dog park was one purpose.
I think that 700,000 figure was basically for the equipment necessary to operate or to keep the park
in good shape, right? So it is a maintenance equipment type of thing and probably a building that houses
those pieces of equipment.
I'm pretty sure that's what that funding is for. I think it's the initial parking lot too, because you
have to be able to access the park. Can you pull your mic over? I believe this also included the initial
parking lot, which is not anything fancy, but you have to have a place to land people when they arrive.
And we are under an obligation to make this park publicly available.
It's, you know, we're not doing gold tap faucets and a palace here. This is all very, very minimal stuff,
but it is an investment. And there's also going to have to be some money invested in securing the two
homes that are currently on the property, securing, removing, moving,
whatever happens to them, we don't know that yet, but that is not gonna be free. And even if you say,
well, just build a fence around it, don't demolish them, well, that fence costs money too. And that's
an insurance issue and a liability issue for the county. So there are other expenses. So to that point,
and to kind of pick up where Councilor Wilts was saying, would there be an appetite, Commissioner Thomas,
use nature preserve or those two items as a food and beverage tax um you know we we've done it with
karst this is another park we're saying that you know this is a good idea however i'm looking at this geobahn
this list that's in front of us, and I'm going, what is a need versus what is a want or what could wait
until another couple of years? So if we strike this from the GO bond, is there an appetite for you all
to put that in for food and beverage? I think we could. I think it limits what can happen with the Cory
Park project and delay things, and that's a decision, and that's fine. I don't know if we could split
the difference.
We could work a little deal here. We could split it. I think we could manage that. And in fact, we do
have another food and beverage meeting coming up and I could bring a revised plan to them as long as
I can get it in front of the board for a vote first. So I'd be happy to split the difference. But I
think this is, I know there were some things in the plan that are not
now items for the park as well. And I know that that involves the trees and some of the plantings and
the invasives and things that can be left as is for now. So I don't have that detailed information in
front of me and I really did think somebody from parks would be here. So I don't know if you want to,
can we postpone this till the 20th? I don't.
I guess I would. Dennis, Mr. Otten, I guess what is the timeline where this has to be approved by? Is
it tonight or could this be back to the council on the 28th with some of these questions resolved? Can
you all hear me? Yes. Okay, yes, there is time if the council desires
I think you indicated the next meeting is October 28th. Yes. Yeah, that would certainly work. Our issue,
I think we all know is that these funds have to be issued by the end of the year, but pushing this two
weeks is not going to be anything that's gonna prevent us from doing that. Okay, yes, Councilor. I just
wanted to speak on the amendment and why I made it. So it's to, we have discussed,
There may be other funding streams to do this. Food and BEV tax has already been collected. We're not
paying a premium to put a bond on the market plus interest to take that money and put it into the park.
And I gotta say, I don't wanna keep beating this drum, but we just heard an enumerated list of project
tasks about what apparently needs to happen, and that's not in these documents. When we go from everything,
and we have heard about the parking landing spot, I've heard that before, but securing the houses is
a new thing that has been said in this room, and this is what I mean by
what are we buying in particular and checking down on the list and I got to tell you it is a place where
if we've just wrestled for eight weeks or the budget we barely kept things together with with moving
funds around and and I hear things like we're obligated to do this we have to do that I mean this is
the the chess moves that continue to put this council in place where we're only left with
choice. I'm saying there's another choice here tonight, and we have to go a different direction. Whatever
is minimally required by yet another legal agreement that we have to meet, if we can put it in the food
and beverage tax, makes sense. But to sit up here and have two line items become a dozen in the course
of a discussion is frustrating. So better to zero out, find a different home for this resource,
I understand the idea of let's table it and have two weeks of discovery and bring it back and let's
try to build this out. I hear that's what we just had with the bond council. I'm a no on this because
it needs to move into a fund that we're not paying a premium for these dollars if it is that important.
It is abundantly clear to me the dollars are elsewhere in this county, food and bed, or even repurposing
the 5.9 million in bonds that are already sitting in the council or the commission coffers. Thank you,
Madam President.
So is there any other further discussion on this? I don't know when you're going to take public comment
on this now because one of the questions I was going to have, I know when the commissioners went to
the food and beverage tax committee, they indicated to that committee that we'd already had plans for
where we're going to take care of this nature preserve. That's what was told to the committee.
Yes, I watched it. I think I'd have something better to do. And we already had that covered. Well, do
we not have to, they have to go to ask to spend the money. But then Food and Beverage Tax Committee
can no longer stop them. They have to go ask. But they do have to come back to us for the appropriation.
So has there been some sort of overall appropriation I've missed and they can just do it? Because I
think that they need to work with the council. And if we think a nature preserve should, if we're required
to do that nature preserve, some portion of it, when we accepted it, then that needs to be done with
food and beverage tax money because that query parks not going anyplace. That query has been there forever
and it's not moving.
Yes, I appreciate a counselor Henry's motion. Because I think that, first of all, I have serious discomfort
around our lack of detail on these two line items, the nature preserve and the dog park. But I do believe
that we need to hear from parks, what it is we are
the basic requirements that have been agreed to or the other requirements that we have to consider about
reducing that line. I'd like to see that all come down quite a bit. I don't know that it's to the level
that Councilor Henry's offered, but I think that to me would indicate that we need this entire item
to come back as bond council said in two weeks and we're better informed. One thing the council does
not do very well
is slug through things that have not been well vetted out outside with whatever dangling details there
are. And I think for this item alone, there's things that have to be still figured out. I do want to
know, there are things in here that people cannot live without.
that were moved out of the budget and into this and things like things that were not responsibilities
that counties had years ago which I brought this up numerous times like body cameras that are now it's
an expectation by everyone that you have that DR libertarian green and the guy that doesn't give a you
know what down the street they want that body cam and so that's something that we have to pay for I
also it would be interested to know on detail how much
we're getting with this emergency management line. I'm very worried that we are maybe because sometimes
council can be, don't spend money, don't spend money, be cautious with money that we might be nickel
and diming sirens. Does that need to come up slightly in some of these other things that may be not
essential come down. So to me, we need,
We need the two weeks to get that concretely and we come back. I'm happy that we added the justice building
in here though, today to amendment A. Okay, so again, we got the motion that Councilor Henry made and
I'll open it up to public. Excuse me. I'm so choked up on all of this. All right, so if you have public
comment on this item,
You can come forward to the lectern here and then at U-Hill. Actually, let me rephrase. If you have
public comment on the motion that was made to remove this from or the nature preserve out of the geobahn,
you could come forward to the lectern here in the night U-Hill room or you can raise your hand via Teams.
And I already see a hand raised via Teams. You'll have up to three minutes so you can state your name
for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
Hi Council, Eric Spoonmore, Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. Just wanted to say, I think this
is a really good amendment. I appreciate Mr. Henry bringing it forward. I also appreciate the great
discussion that you all have been having tonight. These are the really hard questions that we need the
County Council to be asking on a regular basis. So please continue to do this. It is great to see the value
that the council is adding to taxpayers through this type of examination of issues. I got to say, Nature
Preserve, Nixit, Dog Park, Nixit, we have real human beings that are suffering in the jail, in the justice
building. We had an entire legal community
in Monroe County that was disrupted multiple days because of the issues that we're facing in that building.
These are human beings. They're not dogs. I'm a Boston Terrier owner. I love dogs more than anybody,
but I can tell you my dog is not going to care one bit whether or not there's a dog park out there at
this new nature preserve or not that's funded by this bond. What we want to see though is we want to
see human beings being taken care of through taxpayer dollars. And so I appreciate
Mr. Henry's suggestions. I appreciate Mr. Deckard's suggestions and really from everybody that we've
heard tonight. I think, you know, it's really astounding that the justice building and all the issues
that we've been facing with that over the last month or so, two months, well, actually when I was on
council, we were dealing with the same issues 10 years ago and we still have not been able to resolve
them. And so for this to not even be included in the initial
iteration of the bond and it took the council to suggest it to get put in there, I think is astounding.
And so please continue to insist that we get these repairs done to the Justice Building. Human beings
and our people there need this help and let's make sure that we get that repaired. We don't need to
worry about dog parks. The Nature Preserve can wait.
I voted to purchase when I was on the county council voted to purchase the land for the quarry park.
We're still waiting on that to happen. So we can wait for the nature preserve as well, too. Thank you
very much. Appreciate your work tonight. Have a good evening. Thank you. All right. Is there anybody
here in the night that would like to speak to the amendment? Again, you could come forward to the lectern
or you can raise your hand via teams.
done. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Okay, so this is the amendment to remove the nature preserve
amount and the nature preserve dog park. What's the total on that, please? The total is $905,000.
for both things. First combined. Councillor Wills. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Hawk. Yes.
Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson.
Councilor Decker. Yes. Fiddle is not present and so the motion passes 6-0. Okay, thank you. I guess
my question, yes, Mr. Cockrell. I guess I want to be clear when you guys made that vote, what I interpreted
B is that on Exhibit A, description of projects, the Nature County, like Monroe County Nature Preserve
is removed from the Project Lutz description.
and the budget has been adjusted accordingly. So, Ms. Turner King, I have a quick question for you.
Would it be a time that, well, I guess, if we have this come up in the next couple of weeks, is there,
would it be, could we, I guess, make a motion to add those two things back into food and beverage pending
review from Fabtechs?
I think it would be reviewed by FabTAC and then inclusion and approval by commissioners and their plan.
Okay. And I think we could add it to FabTAC. We budgeted FabTAC, correct? We have a FabTAC meeting on
October the 31st. Okay. Point of information, Madam President. Yeah, so point of information, I got
it here and then I'm gonna go to Councilor Wilts, yes. What is the current balance in the food and bev?
Do we have that, Michelle?
2,471,055. Thank you. And then how much of that is obligated by the current proposed plan or approved
plan? 1.6. So there's only, there's not enough to cover the whole thing. Is that what I'm hearing? So
we'd have to set in a new plan, which we can do. OK. Yeah. Right now, right here.
of course yeah i appreciate you considering it i really do miss turner king did you need to add anything
else before i go to counselor decker in consultation with the auditor i believe we would just do an
additional next year out of fabtech instead of amending the budget that you just passed okay oh yeah
because we don't want to do that okay please go now what about yeah counselor decker and then i'll go
to council hawk now
I just want to kind of in light of things I know that bottom council said that we have a wee bit more
time and there's two years where I would kind of focus in on that wee bit of time if I could with that
with the change under Councillor Henry I would recommend that we just make sure that that item that
we added to exhibit a
for the justice building that the amount that we have in the description by Angie Purdy is correct.
I believe I looked at it was 270. Let's make sure that that would be right in these two weeks. And the
other thing I would say is that for emergency management, I want to make sure that that request for
sirens and equipment reflects what
they need and it's not just a piecemeal smaller amount that they did because that is something that
as we think about June next year, June seems to be our storm witching hour. I think communities that
are nickel and diming this and doing other things to me this is where a bond can can move a little bit
quicker and so that would need to come up into some of this space. I'm all about
having the bond not cost the taxpayers more. But I also know that if we get something wrong around emergency
management, we will pay for it forever. And so if there's something that we could do a little bit of
here more than what they've got, I'd recommend that along with that justice building at that cost, maybe
needs to come a little higher from what Miss Angie already said. So and with that, I would table this
to our October 20th meeting. Wait, wait, wait. We have people here wanting to speak to it. Well,
that's fine. But I still think there's things to be said. I will second the motion. I hear them out.
I will second the motion. If they disagree with it, they're welcome to say as well. OK. All right. So
we got a motion and a second to table this information. And so OK. Well, hold on for just a second.
So is there any other further discussion? Council Hawk, it sounds like you have. We have people here
from the jail, been standing there waiting to comment, waiting their turn, and we need to give them
an opportunity to speak. I can't believe we wouldn't. I know you want to. I withdraw on motion,
Council Hawk, in the spirit of open transparency. I'll bring it back shortly.
So we will proceed. Okay. All right. So we have a motion withdrawn and I think we'll look to back to
public comment here in the NatU Hill room. If you have public comment, please come forward to the lectern.
You'll have up to three minutes to speak. Is there anybody that wishes to speak to this evening?
falls in the category of public comment. I thought I was understanding you were looking for more specific
information on some of these requests. So I'll get to it as quickly as I can. But what what I noticed
in the in the budget in the sheriff and I've talked about this extensively was things that we know are
coming that we can remove from the general fund as as expenses if we can.
that are necessary, and we know there are going to be expenses as they come up in the future. So we
went through the things that we were looking at here in our facility. And all the things we looked at
had really basically three basic tenants to them. That's ensuring the public safety, reduction of liability,
and assuring accountability. So on the body cams, right now all of our officers has body cams both in
the field and
in the jail there's a bank of those not each officer has their body cams but it's really important to
note that our contract with axon uh from what i understand and jeff you correct me if wrong is ending
so we we've got to renew that contract so what what they did is we looked at all of our needs there
and we're able to bundle some things and if we bundle that it's going to save us about five hundred
sixty three thousand dollars over the course of five years so what that bundle includes is uh updated
body cameras for
the merit deputies on patrol. It includes body cams for the jail. It includes in-car video cameras for
the merit deputies. And I don't know if you guys have ever watched body camera footage where you see
the guy's hands running up and their cameras get knocked off. And it gives you a very distorted view
sometimes of what happens. Those in-car cameras are stable and the police officers are trained
point that car in the direction of whatever situation you're going to be looking at and it gives a whole
lot bigger broader picture of that so that would be included in this in this contract. Also our non-lethal
force equipment is about to be not supported anymore so this would include non-lethal force equipment for
some for in the jail and some for in on the field the tasers is basically what we're talking about so
we're getting close to really not being able to have the ones that we have even supported or repaired
us as time goes on so the issue with that though is uh that i think that total contract is about 1.9
million so it's uh if if you look at it i think i've got the notes here on the quote it's i'm trying to hurry
For 2026, that's $286,000. And in the following remaining five years, it's going to be $425,000 per
year in each respective bond. So I just want to make sure that everybody's clear. It's not a one-time
bond thing. This is a five-year every year. So that was the main reason I want to come up here so everybody's
clear that this will
This contract will be paid in a bond until the time to renew the contract five years from now. So it's
a lot of money, a lot of very, very technical equipment. The next thing we had on there is our transport
vans. We have two, one has 136,000 miles on it, one has 117,000 miles on it.
uh they are we're starting to have maintenance issue with with those vehicles they are they are big
expenses i don't particularly have a quote on it uh i estimated that those two vehicles now this would
be a one-time expense it'd be around 180 000 i can get quotes uh just didn't have time to get those
in before tonight's meeting but one of the things that sends chills up your spine if you're on a prisoner
transport if your vehicle breaks down it's a very very unsettling
thing to have happen to you. And it has happened in places I've been before. So those are expenses that
are going to come. It's a vehicle. It's going to wear out. They get driven daily. So those are coming
at us. The next thing is our body scanner in the facility, where every inmate that comes in that facility
is scanned with the body scanner to see if they have any type of contraband on them or anything. That
was purchased in 2018.
So that technology, as you know, improves. And we have a maintenance on that agreement. I don't think
it costs us, I think, $10,000 a year. So the rough estimate on that, and I can get you a more specific
quote, is somewhere between $150,000 to $180,000. Again, that would be a one-time purchase. And that
piece of equipment would be transferable to a new facility. It's not like they build them in a facility there.
So let's see here. Make sure I'm not missing anything because I'm trying to hurry. So Kyle is going
to talk to you a little bit about this other thing that he's asking for is the Guardian Pro ID. Kyle,
if you want to throw in on that. The Guardian RFID program is a system used for tracking. We primarily
use it for audits. Like for instance, if
We do an inmate count where we're checking each individual and their sales conditions, everything, how
they're doing. We then leave that and we, we log it on a, it's on a word document as of now, a lot of
places you just, they just write it into a log book. And over time, those things get hard to track,
obviously. So this specifically, when an inmate leaves to a church library lunch,
recreation, all things that are required to have at certain dates at certain times throughout each day.
This logs that movement throughout the facility. What happens is the Indiana County jail standards require
a grievance system. And every day we feel grievances for things from inmates in the facility that we
have to follow up on and verify. And we go through, we check our logs, we check our videos, we check
our body cams, we do all those things. And it takes hours and hours and hours.
because just like anything else, people can say whatever they want. We have to verify that. What this
would allow us to do is go back and see when that person went to recreation, their wristband was scanned
and it showed where they went. And when they came back and we can show that they got their one hour
per day that they're mandated to have. This is a system that most jails have moved to. Obviously, this
is not something we had here because you guys moved to Spillman.
number of years ago. And that's kind of encompassed all of emergency services. So that's not something
the jail has been able to utilize because it was stuck in Spillman. This will integrate with Spillman.
And if we move into a new facility at some point and have a new system, this will integrate with that
system as well. Last thing I'd like to say in closing there that
You know as we look at the things that we're talking for what we're trying to demonstrate is that For
example for the cameras, I don't I don't think an agency in this in the current modern area can operate
without body cameras or in-car cameras The things that document what occurs out there. It's so volatile
we're questioned and the liability of not having that there far exceeds the
the cost of having them. I know it's a big bill. The scanner. That is one of the biggest things that
we have to our advantage of preventing a death in our facility, where you can detect contraband before
it gets in there to the extent that you can. It's almost impossible to detect it sometimes. So I know
I didn't want to start any controversy by coming up here and talking, but I noticed that one of the
things we were looking at were looking for specifics. So what we will do, we will go get additional
quotes on the things that I'm estimating today and have those prepared for you at the next meeting.
Councilor Decker. Thank you very much for that. And I want to be clear on something, my impatience
on all this is not any of those items. I want you to have those items. I want to be clear on that. I
don't want anyone to take that otherwise. My impatience on this is I don't think that there's
much controversy around it. Although the more you talk, here's what I'm worried about. When I look at
the list that Angie has sent to us, I don't see what you're talking about. And so when I talk, so all
that scanner, I don't know if that's TSD Sheriff,
440 for body cameras and tasers, times five years. I see 500,000 for laptops, LEO. My point earlier
is that we need two weeks to make sure they get what they need, that all those other things I went on
about earlier, that that's where it needs to be. The justice building is where it needs to be because
some of those things you described, I'm not seeing them here and I want to make sure we're not screwing this up.
and and i'm not putting that on anyone but that's what you said i'm not necessarily seeing now i might
not be looking at it right but i have a question no this is this is information i didn't have so i don't
know it's not on the list it's not in the it's not on the budget list which means it's not accounted
for so we're going to have to sit down with um miss purdy with the sheriff's department um
commander givens and and we're going to figure this out because this is we have on the list what we
have on the list and you see it.
were describing, I mean, I want to make sure the first things you listed were on the list,
the body cams, the non-lethal laptops, that kind of stuff. But then you did mention a couple of other
things that you were still getting quotes for, I think. I mean, I might have not gotten everything.
Are those intended for this year's bond?
Well, I can't answer that question. I just know that those are things that have some urgency for our
agency, whether they're on next year's bond, this year's bond. OK, I thought that's kind of we've had
discussions about them. Matter of fact, Jeff and I talked earlier today and I don't I don't know how
they categorize these things. You know, whether it's in vehicles and I be honest with that, didn't pay
a whole lot of attention to that list.
I just know that those are the things that we felt a bond would support. And give me some latitude that
I don't know a whole lot about this fiscal stuff. I just know what we need, and I know what is approaching
our agency. And the sheriff asked me specifically to look into these things with Kyle and bring them
to your attention tonight. That's the reason we've been sitting here
to make sure that you knew specifically what we were talking about. Appreciate that. Commissioner Thomas,
if you want to add anything else? Yeah, I think we need to have a chat because we didn't have
that information. And because Angie's on vacation, it may be that some of this information has already
been given to Ms. Purdy and she planned on using cumulative capital for it because that sometimes is
what we use first. So let's revisit, please.
Are we still able to discuss the bond or are we? So yeah, so we're still in discussion. But again, it
sounds like there are more questions than answers right now. And so I guess I would advise us to think
about tabling this information. We've heard from everybody now.
I'm just gonna do it. All right, Council, I move that we table this item until our October 28th meeting.
Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this item? All right, all
those in favor of tabling this until October 28th, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
same sign. All right, motion carries. So this will come back to
our October 28th meeting. All right. Next up. We own something on this agenda here. 12 a which, okay.
So yeah, we are on new business.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the Treasurer's Request and Fund 1000-0003
County General Treasurer to fill a part-time cashier position during the temporary hiring freeze established
by Resolution 2025-42. I see the auditor has a hand up, but I don't see the Treasurer online or
in person here, so. Yes, if I may, I am ready to cover this item for the treasurer. She had a family
emergency, unfortunately, and I'm prepared to cover for her, if I may. The only, I guess I'm going to
look to council to see what y'all think about this because personally, and this is no offense, like,
I would because this is the first one to kind of come through with iron freeze. I think it would be
ideal for us to have that. We understand things happen, of course, and I hope everything is OK. But
I think it would be wise to have the actual department head or the elected here given that information.
Again, not saying anything bad about the auditor. I think it just would be a preference. So look into
council. I'll go to Iverson and then I'll go to Henry. I completely agree. This is the first test of
the temporary hiring freeze and I've got a lot of questions and I'm sure everyone else does too. And
I think those are, again, no offense to our auditor, but I think the department requesting this should
be here to answer those questions.
I would only add one line to say as I feel that since we passed a budget tonight that it is a new day
since that passage and we are trying out some things here in terms of the level of accountability and
and and working through these things for the first time in our new kind of model so yeah I echo all
that okay anybody else wants to add anything else okay
Councilor Anderson. Council, I move to table this item to our October 28th meeting. Second. Okay. Any
other further discussion about tabling this? Again, I think it's just the preference for us to have
the department head selected here for this type of discussion. All right. So seeing none, all those
in favor of tabling
the item A until October 28th, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Oh, she carries.
All right, next up is item B from the legal department. Council, I move to approve resolution 2025-39,
the renewal of the interlocal cooperation agreement between the city of Bloomington and Monroe County
regarding building code authority. Second. All right. Mr. Cockrell. Yes, and I.
express a day of showing that I thought this might be a late meeting so I would cover this item for
him. This is interlocal we've had it in a substantially the same form since 1995 whenever do we do an
interlocal with the city of Bloomington we have two courses once the executive sign it we could either
go to our respective fiscal bodies and have them approve it or we could send it to the Attorney General
our preference is always to bring this to the the County Council.
This has been approved by both the mayor's office and the county commissioners. Again, I think it runs
through April of next year. So if you guys have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them. Otherwise,
I think it's pretty straightforward. I'm going to look over here to my right to see if anybody has any
questions or comments on this item. No. OK. All right.
Nope, seeing none. All right, anybody that has public comment on this item, please come here in the
night, you know, Roman, speak your piece or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may
we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor
Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes.
Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Wilts is not currently present so the motion passes 6-0. All right
next up is item C. Council I move to approve resolution 2025-37 requesting a distribution of funds to
be used for the preservation of the county's historic structures. Second. All right Mr. Cockrell. Yes
and hopefully this will this will be a fairly simple one when we
redid this building and we built the justice building there's extra funds that went into a community
foundation account that can be used for the maintenance and repair of historic structures within the
county this is a request for the amount of money in that fund that we can request I believe the next
item is going to be an appropriation request that will express
how I think the plan is to spend them, but this is just the request to say, hey, community foundation,
give us the money you're holding for us. Okay. Anybody have any questions on this item to my left and
to my right? All right. Um, if you have public comment, you can make your public comment. You're in
the net, you know, where you can raise your hand via teams.
and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilz? Pass. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes five one one.
501. 501. Beg your pardon, 501. Okay. Okay, 501. All right. Thank you for that. And next up is item
D. Council, I move to approve the Commissioner's request and fund 4904-0000 Mineral County Building
Preservation slash Bloomington Foundation for an additional appropriation of $158,801.91 in the services
category. Second.
Hello, I think the goal here is to move these dollars around so that we can fund some projects here
on the courthouse grounds, the courthouse steps, the sidewalks, and then replace the Peace Memorial
Hand and some new handrails. Any questions or comments to my right on this item? Nope, seeing, shaking hands.
I see a hand raised. It was a hand for the hand, and that's all it was. OK, any other? All right,
seeing none. If there is public comment on this item, you can come forward here in the Net You Who room
if you're still here to want to talk about anything else. You have up to three minutes or you can raise
your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Wilks? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor
Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feinhold? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay and so that is all of the business that
is on the agenda.
We have no other presentations, no other county council business. So we are up to item 15, which is
council liaison updates and comments. Keep it brief y'all. And I'm gonna look to my left and see if
anybody has any updates or comments that they would like to make. I just want to wait till next time.
Okay. I just want to say thanks to our president and our pro tem for getting us through
tonight alone was more than I had my entire years president's council. And we've got strong leaders
that do that. And gosh knows we all have tempers and fly off the handle and they have to listen to every
bit of that crap. And I'm grateful to all of them and their vision for it. So we get through to another
day. So thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Looking down to my left or my the left, my right. What's
the best that can happen? That's all I'm going to say. OK.
I'll just say two brief things. And just because it is more updates. First is, I just want to thank
the election supervisor, Kylie. She's always Ferris to me or more Moreland Ferris yeah for sharing them
in our county vote center plan with the Secretary of State at the field hearings.
for consideration. And so the good news, at least that I have so far, is that the good work that was
done to try to move us to a vote center county is now in the hands of the Secretary of State, hopefully.
it informs the state level decision to move the other counties there. There are now 70 counties that
are, as of this week, that are using vote centers. We're not one of them. I want to thank Kylie for
her work in forwarding that case. And then secondly, for those that would like a freeware version of
my emergency management course at IU, I'll be on noon edition on Friday with Dan Combs talking about
the tornadoes. So I know that was of interest this evening. So tune in and hear me opine with CARP about,
well, CARP about carping about
tornadoes. That's it, Madam President. Thanks. Thank you. I would say more, but I sound like Jim Carrey's
character from In Living Color. So I'm not going to say anything else except for I appreciate the hard
work and dedication that each
all seven of us have in making this 2026 budget work. Again, many thanks to the auditor's office,
our staff, Kim and Lehua, and Ms. Turner King that is in the building right now. Other than that, oh,
hey, you are waving at me. Hey. And I'm so glad to see your smiling face here back with us again.
Go Hoosiers, number three, and we are adjourned. Thank you.