Good evening, everybody. Welcome to spring and welcome to yet another county council meeting. Today
is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026. And we have a quorum. So we will go ahead and start here in the night.
You know, we have counselors, David Henry, Iverson, Decker, Wilt and Fidel and not present yet or virtually
is counselor Hawk.
So we'll announce her when she's here. But since we have our quorum and we can go ahead and do our business,
first thing is first. All those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of the pledge.
I pledge allegiance to the flag 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.
Okay, all right. Next up is the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody wish to amend tonight's agenda?
Yes, Councilor Iverson. Madam President and Council, the Aviation Department has requested that their
request for additional appropriation, item 8C, to be tabled to our April 14th meeting. All right, and
are there any other
amendments to tonight's agenda. All right. And seeing none. All right. So seeing there are no other
amendments or changes to tonight's agenda, we have a
We still don't have anybody joining us virtually, so we can still do this by voice vote. So all those
in favor of adopting tonight's agenda as amended signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign.
OK, motion carries. Next up, we are.
Item four which is public comment. And so this is for items that are on that are not excuse me on tonight's
agenda So if you are here present and then at you Hill room, you can come forth to the lectern here
sign in you'll have up to three minutes to You'll state your name and speak on items not on the agenda
If you are joining us virtually via teams, you can raise your hand. It looks like we already have somebody
but again, you can raise your hand state your name and
and y'all have up to three minutes in Teams land as well. And you can speak on items not on tonight's
agenda. So before I go to Teams, do we have anybody here present in the Natt U Hill room? Okay. Anybody, anybody.
My name is Talisha Coppock. I'm with Downtown Bloomington and the Convention Center. And I'm here to
speak tonight about the properties and the residential units at 424 South College, 432 South College,
and 222 West Second. As you know, those were purchased by the innkeepers revenue with the purpose to
develop the Convention Center and tourism 16 years ago.
It's been part of a long-term vision for that area. I wanted to share with the council tonight that
we're super grateful to the Monroe County Apartment Association. Together with local landlords, they've
come together to provide some housing options for the 17 residential tenants that are in those buildings.
A letter was sent to the tenants last week listing five apartment buildings in one house.
that represent over 35 units. It's a variety of rental rates from $549 to $800 a month, and we also
included a heading home telephone number
the 812-955-0538 number to call for additional assistance if they're interested in deposit information
or utilities. But I would like to share also that those landlords have come together with some ways
to reduce a few of the barriers for a tenant who's moving into a new place.
waived application fees, some credit checks that will save them a cost if they use their current payment
history. So it's taking some time to work through all those little nuances, but I think it's very beneficial
and educational of
you know some of the properties that are out there and are available. Yesterday we sent a flyer and
today we posted some flyers in the hallways.
About an open house that those apartments are going to be hosting on April 11th from 1 p.m. To 4 p.m.
There'll be representatives on site that can help address questions and address some of the You know
different nuances of those those units. So I think that'll be a
helpful. It's a tough time and recognizing any kind of help like that is important, and these are options.
Nobody has to take them, but they're just options and they're available. But we'd just like to thank
the apartment association for coming together to help provide that for them. Thank you. Thank you very
much for that update. We appreciate that.
Now you can go ahead and come on up. And again, sign in, state your name for the record, and you'll
have up to three minutes. Okay. Good evening, council, county council. My name is Tia Arthur. I'm the
executive director for Monroe County CASA.
I think this is my first meeting that I've been to in my official capacity, although I've been with
CASA for 14 years. I wanted to just share with you a few things that we have going on at CASA. A lot
of people ask, why should I be at CASA? Why is this important? And it's important to our community because
we have a problem with child abuse, and that's why CASAs are needed. So the month of April is Child
Abuse Awareness Month,
Also Prevention Month, so we'll be kicking off this month of April with a rally here at the courthouse.
We'll have some speakers, including State Senator Shelley Yoder. She'll be offering some remarks. And
after the speakers, we'll be doing a walk around the courthouse square. We'll have signs, we'll be offering
blue ribbon pins
in order to promote awareness about this issue in our community. Beyond that, we'll be doing every Friday
in the month of April walks around the courthouse in the afternoon. So feel free to bring someone with
you and just have a walk around the courthouse square. We'll be on the south side with, there'll be
a representative from CASA to offer blue ribbon pins to you, signage, some talking points. So if anyone
asks you what you're doing, you can tell them.
And also beyond that, I would like to, in addition to inviting the whole community and the council to
participate in that, we've moved to a new office and we'll be having an open house. It's next Tuesday
from 5 to 6 30. We're in Fountain Square Mall now. So we are just right across the street. We love our
new space. We just moved in yesterday.
officially. And so I would invite anyone in the community who's interested in talking with us or seeing
our new space to please come and visit us. We're in Suite 321. And in addition to that, we are always
in need of volunteers. We've got a wait list for kids waiting for a casa. We are always looking for
board members who are interested in supporting our mission. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.
And I have these if anyone is interested.
We actually have an extra one up here for her, so you're good. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank
you very much for that, and we look forward to participating. And for the record, we do have Councilor
Hawke that has joined us, all seven of us that are here. All right. Next up, we will go, since we've
already had two public commenters here, I'm going to go to Teams.
and it looks like the person with the screen name of Susan Hingwa has their hand raised, so you should
be able to unmute yourself, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes.
Good evening, this is Susan Hingwa with the Monroe. Can you hear me okay? It's a little faint. I don't
know if TSD would be able to help us with that. Is this any better?
much better. Okay, perfect. Okay, good evening. This is Susan Hingle with the Monroe County Women's
Commission. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. I wanted to briefly address an incident
that occurred last week involving the Monroe County's Women's Commission, not to assign blame, but because
it raises an important issue about process and support for our boards and commissions.
Our March meeting was properly noticed in full compliance with Indiana's open door law. When commissioners
arrived, the building was locked. After some time, we were eventually let in, only to be told we could
not remain in the room because our meeting was not listed on the county calendar.
It was also spring break, which may have contributed to the confusion. This was inconvenient and frustrating,
but more importantly, it put us in a position where a public body that had followed the law was effectively
prevented from using public space to conduct public business. What we did, we did what we were,
what we were required and allowed to do. We had forum and agenda and a lawfully noticed meeting, so
we met anyway outside on the benches on county property. I want to be clear, I don't believe this was
intentional, but I do think it is symptomatic of a deeper issue, namely the fragility of the systems
that supports boards and commissions, especially
volunteer bodies. Boards and commissions rely on basic infrastructure, access to meeting space, clear
scheduling processes, and consistent staff coordination. When those systems fail, even unintentionally,
it sends the message that this work is optional or incidental rather than an essential part
part of county governance. This matters all the more in a moment when there are conversations about
reducing or restructuring support for boards of commissions. More broadly, if meeting rooms
and administrative coordination are uncertain, then public service becomes unnecessarily difficult and
public participation suffers. My ask today is simple and constructive. First, that the county review
and clarify the internal processes around room access and calorie
calendaring to ensure that a properly noticed public meeting cannot be displaced by clerical
or communications gap. Second, the council reaffirmed its commitment to boards and commissions by ensuring
that the basic logistical support required to function is treated as a core responsibility, not an expendable
one. The Women's Commission and all county boards are often made up of volunteers who show up because
they care about this community and want to contribute
meaningfully. The county created these bodies for a reason. Our system should make it possible for them
to do their work not harder. Thank you for your time and for your attention to this issue. Thank you
and we appreciate you bringing that to the attention of the full county council. Thank you very much.
Next up I will go to the screen name Maria Douglas. You can unmute and state your name for the record
and you'll have up to three minutes.
Good evening, my name is Maria screen name Maria Douglas and I serve on the Monroe County Women's Commission
as well at this Council's appointment.
I also want to speak about what happened at our last scheduled meeting and why it matters beyond a single
incident. So, as Susan already said, when commissioners arrived for our monthly meeting, we were met
with locked doors. The meeting had been properly noticed in accordance with Indiana open door laws.
We finally, you know, were able to, I think,
Well, somebody let us in the building that knew that we have been meeting there for about four years.
And then we were told by Joshua Huber, which I believe is on this call today, that we had to leave because
we were not on the internal calendar. So we did, as Susan reported, we met on the Sophia Travis benches
out on the south side of the lawn with the lovely placard that has a commitment to
women and women in this community. And just as a reminder, the Women's Commission does exist to advise
local government on issues affecting women, girls and marginalized genders to bring gender equity into
policy decisions. Over the years, it has included civic leaders such as Shelley Yoder, Senator Shelley
Yoder and current county council member Liz Fiddle. It has historically served as both a watchdog and
a pipeline for public leadership.
Despite this legacy, this commission, in my time, the last four years, has been largely underutilized,
even as commissioners continue to show up and do substantial work. Attending public meetings, contributing
to justice reform discussions, and most recently developing a gender equity rubric to help county officials
or businesses to evaluate how our policies impact women and marginalized genders.
It would be easy to dismiss the locked door incident as a scheduling mistake, but process, as Susan
has said or alluded to, is the backbone of public accountability. So when the commission follows law
and is still prevented from using a public meeting space because of an internal clerical oversight,
it sends a message.
There's also broader history here. This commission has experienced internal tensions, leadership turnover
and years of being sidelined. That context makes incidents like this feel less isolated, less like isolated
miscommunication and more like a pattern of marginalization. So as you know, Susan mentioned and said
that we are volunteers giving up our time because we believe in civic participation.
We had quorum and we fulfilled every legal requirement to meet, so we went ahead and meet. I personally
take this body very seriously, especially in this climate when women's rights are being rolled back.
And I do ask also for a review to what happened and to ensure that this advisory commission, all advisory
commissions are supported in practice and not just in name. Thank you so much. And again, thank you
for bringing that to our attention.
All right. I don't see any other movers here in the night you who room or hands raised via teams, but
kind of want to go back to both rooms here. So just want to do last minute call for anybody that has
not had an opportunity to speak on items not on or that are not on tonight's agenda in the room here.
If I may, Madam President, provide some commentary based on the last two public comments.
became aware of this issue the night of the meeting. Contact was made with TSD. They did say it was
an oversight. The TSD was prepared to come in for that night, but the meeting occurred outside on the
benches and we are looking into the matter. Okay. And then I'm glad you had mentioned that. And has
anybody reached out to formally apologize to the commission?
the information that I just provided. In reality this is the first time I'm hearing of this incident
in detail. I do know that a contact was made with Commissioner Madera that night but I don't know I'm
assuming she did apologize but other than that I'm not sure. And then I guess once we have a protocol
put in place
like to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. In part, this oversight happens because
typically boards and commissions adopt an annual meeting calendar, and that hasn't occurred yet for
the Women's Commission. So that led to part of the unusual circumstances for this event, because if
a board and commission adopts the annual meeting schedule,
the beginning of the year, the meetings get put in the book, and then it's a reoccurring thing. This
board meets every Thursday. And I think that led to some of the confusion, and that's neither the fault
of the Women's Commission for not adopting a schedule yet, and I don't want in any way to make it sound
like that. But I think that led to some of the confusion because we do get in the habit of those reoccurring
meetings. Right. And just to be clear, they don't have to as well.
knowing like my other job and dealing with boards and commissions. You don't have to. Right. Routinely
all of the boards and commissions do. Correct. And I just like I know you said it but I don't want them
to hear like just because they didn't this was again a clear oversight. And so something like this you
know happening. So we'll apologize. You know and we want you all because we have council appointments
as well want to make sure that we
have an understanding that we don't want you all to feel like this is something that is completely
intentional. And being a liaison to the boards or the Women's Commission before and seeing some of the
past history, we don't wanna make you all feel that way at all. And I hope you all hear the sincerity
in our voices that we will work to rectify the situation. Let me present that, yep. Hand raise. Okay, okay.
And so I see Commissioner Madeira has her hand raised. And before we move on, I just wanna take a look
at any more last minute public comment here. And then I will go to Commissioner Madeira. Hi,
thanks so much. And just to confirm,
Yes, it was very, very unfortunate. It will definitely not happen again. We don't want any commission
to feel disparaged. We don't want anyone to show up and feel that their time was wasted. And it was
very unfortunate. I could not attend that meeting since I was on the road and for the meeting was absolutely
properly noticed. And we will absolutely get to the bottom of what happened and make sure that that
does not happen again.
Thank you very much for that, Commissioner Madeira. And seeing no other hands raised virtually, we appreciate
all the public comment that we have received tonight, so thank you all very much for that. Next up.
we will have department updates. And again, these are for items not on tonight's agenda. So if there's
a department here in the Net Youth Room that would like to give the council an update, you can come
to the lectern here, or you can raise your hand via Teams, and you'll have up to 10 minutes per department
to speak on those items. So do we have any takers? Seeing none there, and do we have any virtually?
also seeing none. Okay. We will move on. So thank you so much for that. All right. So next up is item
number six, which is consent agenda items. Council, I move to approve the following consent agenda items
for March the 24th.
A, the treasurer's request to fund 1000-0003 County General Treasurer, the creation of account line
38010 service maintenance slash repair dash equipment. B, the probation department's request to fund
9143-0000 JDAI coordination grant for a category transfer of $1,800 from the supplies category to the
services category.
C, the probation department's request and fund 9145-0000 JDAI programming grant for a category transfer
of $820 from the supplies category to the services category and finally D, the approval of the following
summary minutes as presented January 22nd, 2026, joint council and board of commissioners work session.
February 9th, 2026, joint county council and board of commissioners executive session.
February 9th, Joint County Council and Board of Commissioners Work Session. February 10th, 2026, County
Council Meeting. February 16th, 2026, Joint County Council and Board of Commissioners Executive Session.
And February 24th, 2026, County Council Meeting. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second on
tonight's consent agenda items as presented. Does any council members rather have any questions or comments
on these items? All right, let's see.
none. We'll go to public comment. If there's public comment on tonight's consent agenda items, you can
come forward to the lectern here in the night. You have a room or raise your hand via teams.
Seeing none, since we have everybody here in person, we can voice vote. So all those in favor of approving
consent agenda items as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay.
Motion carries. Next up, we are into item seven, which are the hiring freeze reviews. Council, I move
to open for discussion and possible approval of the clerk's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze
and be allowed to hire and fund 1215-0010 election fund voter registration and one part-time
voter registration clerk with a request to fill date of March 25th, 2026. Second. All right.
We got a motion and a second, and I see that we are represented here with the county clerk, Nicole,
or county clerk Brown and Kylie, hey, welcome. Okay, call me Nicole. No. Informal settings, you will
get your title. All right. And what do you have to add on this item? Are we just doing them in a row?
Yes, we're gonna do each one separately.
So this one is the voter registration clerk. I'm largely going to let my election supervisor speak about
the vacancy, but it was very unexpected for a very good reason. Our part-time voter registration deputy,
her partner in life got a fancy smancy chef's job in Michigan and
Was leaving and so she wants to be with her partner understandably. It was it was a shock. She's a very
talented young lady Obviously it comes at the most inopportune time given that we're preparing To start
early voting and we will miss her dearly, but we do need to fill that position as quickly as You take
over so for this position it is a part-time position so for them they are very
mainly focused on getting all the materials ready for Election Day. So while the rest of us, the full-time
employees and myself are busy helping with early voting and making sure things are covered,
They help with covering lunches for us so that we do get a break. And they help with making sure items
are getting finalized. And it's just very crucial that we have a bipartisan team of them. So at this
point, we are short on the Democratic side. So it's very important for us to get this filled so that
we do have the bipartisan. And we're not having to pull our full-time employee to help with the tax
that they're doing. As for early voting, we will have to have one of our early voting full-time
voter registration clerks at early voting. Thank you. I already saw hands raised, so I will go to Councilor
Hoff first and then I'll go to Councilor Iverson. Yes, you answered the question that I was going to
ask because I know you have to do the bipartisan. I'm sorry that it didn't click with me when I was
speaking with you at earlier time.
But you've already covered that, and so I appreciate that. So I understand it needs to happen. Of course.
Councillor Iverson. As always, we put this hiring freeze in place because of our concern about the fiscal
situation here in the state of Indiana and particularly Monroe County. Can you talk a little bit about
the fiscal impact of this request?
So for this individual, they are here typically 28 hours a week. We do have them currently set up on
a schedule of 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday. They're leaving earlier on Friday that a way
that they are able to still be within that 28 hours. But if there is an instance where they have to
stay over, they are just working their normal hours. So it's not increasing by having overtime or having
any of the comp time or any of those individual items. It's just their base pay.
Any other questions on this item? Yes, Councilor Hall. To be clear, there's no benefits covered. You
wanna make sure, thanks. And seeing no other questions or comments from Council on this item, we'll
move forward to public comment. If there's public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here
in the room or raise your hand via TAMES. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawthorne? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor
Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Next
up is item
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the clerk's request to be exempt from
the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0001 County General Clerk a full-time cashier
clerk with a request to fill date of March 25th 2026. Second. Okay and clerk Brown what would you like
to add to this? Madam President esteemed members of the council as I stated in my
paperwork that I was submitted. This is a critical role. We are down to two cashiers from four with
my predecessor and we bring in an incredible amount of money on behalf of the courts on behalf of,
you know, prosecutor's office, uh, infraction diversion program where you can pay to avoid getting points
on your license. And of course,
As you know, we are subject to the State Board of Accounts, and so those two people help to cover, we
have a limited number of people who handle the money, and that is to be able to trace back errors or
concerns or issues, and so it is imperative that we have two people in that role. One person is absorbing
it now, but the sooner we can get someone in that role,
Thank you. Thank you for that. I actually had a quick question because I was looking at this. It says
currently down to down from four. So you already to be clear, like you're asking for one right now.
OK. And then the other thing that I wanted to ask a couple of things is it says and the checkbox here,
which Michelle, is this the one
that you created recently. Okay, it helped tremendously, so thank you for that. Let's see, sorry. Ah,
this is where it is. It says, have you attempted to distribute these duties among current office personnel?
And it checked yes, but I just wanted to check in with you since you checked yes. How is that working
right now?
One person obviously is very difficult, and if there is an absence, an emergency, a vacation, I do not
have someone. As far as internal controls, we do not want everybody in previous clerk's administrations
Everybody had access to the money. Anybody could collect money. There were clerks having to pay out
of pocket because I know of at least one clerk who took some copy money and put it in their pocket instead
of receding it in. That does not happen under my administration and largely that is because my predecessor
narrowed it down.
so that only a limited amount of people are touching the money. And that helps us. We have always had
a clean state board of account audit. I want to continue that. I'm sure the future clerks as well. And
so because of that, the limited number of people who touched the money, I want more one, which is where
I'm at now with this unexpected vacancy. OK.
Okay. And then the last thing is because I know other departments have kind of looked at the idea of
trying to do this as well, but I wanted to ask you since so there's currently a full time person that
is a cashier clerk right now, right? Okay. Have you given any thought to potentially making the second
one part time?
the amount of money that comes through the clerk's office which is in the millions I would be concerned
with only having a full time and a part time. My preference would be to have it be the full time. Okay.
Okay. All right. Well, I will open it up to council members and I'll go to Councilor Haug first and
then I'll kind of background. Right. I know you have a large staff
So I'm wondering if rather than to see if there's someone that you could move part of the duties over
maybe you look at the full staff and see which duties you could combine and move one full-time person
over here so that you know you have that double eye setting on that because that's what I would certainly
suggest and what I've suggested to other departments who say
I'm short a person, and I'm going, you're the department head, you're really smart, you're going to
have to work hard to work this out. And remember, when everybody's talking about how much money the
county's going to have when we get this income tax, the city will keep their hands to themselves,
at any rate, that's not going to happen this year, and it's not going to happen next year.
So we're still, and then to be short,
But nevertheless, I appreciate if if you've looked at the full staff and see what you might do. Right.
I actually thank you so much. I would just gently remind the council that my predecessor started seven
people down. I've lost people as well. And I know of at least one other position that I have not been
able to fill. So we have distributed the work and we have you know, there does have to be cross training and
respect to the State Board of Accounts. We don't want any one person to not only handle the money, but
be able to write themselves checks. So there is a division of labor. And so that's why I'm saying that
it is critical that I fill this role. Thank you. Councilor Wilts. How long has this position been open?
Less than a month.
Thanks. All right, are there any other questions? Yeah, Council Member Blair. Same questions before
the fiscal impact of filling this position. I believe that would have been submitted to you, and I apologize
that I don't have it with me. But the person who left had some seniority, so I mean, I feel that this
person would just be starting out, so we wouldn't be paying out longevity.
you know, or anything like that. Great. That appears in the documentation. And I think it's up on the
screen here. So thank you for putting whoever put that up on the screen. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Any other questions or comments on this item? Yes. I just wonder if there has been any consideration
to delaying hiring.
I know this is a busy time of year on the voter side, but, you know, is it possible that you could put
this off? Counselor, my preference would be not the person who the only person that I have as a cashier
now is getting ready to go on an extended vacation out West. And so I have somebody who covers lunch
and bathroom breaks, but they are in a primary role within
the clerk's office, and so the opportunity to get it advertised, get someone in there and get them started
so that they can at least take simple payments. There's all kinds of payments that come through the
clerk's office, as you know, garnishments, judgments, things like that, and so even just taking simple
payments and building on that knowledge base would be helpful to me.
you're saying maybe I misunderstood that. Oh, one of your staff members is his name on the ballot in
a primary. So their time is sure. I didn't understand what I did not. I heard you say something about
primary, so I didn't know what you meant. Did you not hear? I don't know what I don't think she did
asking me about.
asking when you if you look back there I think you'll see that that there was something said about there
was one staff member who was in a primary what I don't understand their primary task are something else
not to do primary task okay thank you sorry oh my goodness you scared me
I thought if you get off work to go because you're running a primary we need to know about it. Councillor
Henry. Yeah, thank you. I'm back on that. Picking up on Councillor Wilz's question though. So you have
staff that's taking vacation? The cash year, the loan cash year that I have now had already put in to
go on vacation and it had been approved. I think what she was referring to
I have someone who typically covers very simple payments so that someone can go to the bathroom or get
a lunch. It's those garnishments. Yeah, I track that part. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is
the position has been open 30 days. Do you have a candidate in mind and one staff on vacation where
you're short staffed? I have some resumes that I can go back to, but I do.
It's been long enough that I do need to advertise for that. And so I'd like to advertise and get some
other candidates and get them hired as quickly as possible. So just going a little farther with Councilor
Walts question. And so is your person that you're so you have a how long is the person on vacation?
This like does that vacation hit before you expect the person to start? Because if the idea is that
you're trying to expedite the hiring to cover a I don't know how long this
If I can advertise. But yeah, if there's advertising hire, the vacation happens in here. There's some
cross training. I'm just trying to understand your timeline of what you're trying to cover and when.
So I believe that I can get someone hired quickly. I have a trainer that can work with them to get them
through or. Understanding having. Having an understanding of what
the different kinds of payments. We can, not for very long, but for some time, like a garnishment doesn't
have to be processed today, but it should be processed relatively quickly. So simple payments, I can
get a new person to learn how to do those are pretty easy to pick up with our Odyssey payment system.
But the more complicated payments that are gonna take more training
It helps to have both of them in the office, somebody who's processing those payments while the other,
the new person is getting trained. I understand that. I mean, I'll get off of it, I guess, but just
one more time. So the one's the vacation for the employee? When are they leaving? When they are in leave?
In April. So that's like two weeks from now. Yes, I believe I can have someone hired in less. And they're
back presumably in May? In end of April.
And then, but we need to re-advertise the position. Yes, but I'd be prepared to do that tomorrow with
your approval. So, but you're not going to have coverage for that person with this new hire in that
time period? They'd have to start like in two weeks, right? Yes. Thanks, Madam President. I guess,
Again, I just kinda wanna go back to the fact that is there a consideration to potentially, because
I think this is where, again, just crunching numbers and kinda going through my head and hearing our,
or remembering our presentation of what we have. I'm a little concerned about
this full-time and I'm just wondering could it work if you have the full-time person and potentially
partner that with a Part-time person could you take that into consideration? Because that's kind of
what is on my head on whether or not like how to vote on this and
Yeah, I'm just I'm curious again to think or to wonder if because it sounds like other other departments
have done this as well. And I'm not saying one size fits all approach for other departments, but I know
the further and further we get into the year, the further and further it's going to be really difficult
for us to continue to keep saying yes to positions. And so I'm just wondering if there is an opportunity
where you could take a look at this and go, maybe we could get by.
with having this as a part time instead of full time. And if we were talking about something other than
significant amounts of money, it might be something that I could entertain, but there's not a lot of
margin for error, of course, and to keep it as far as keeping the clean record that we have with the
money. And so,
We've we've we tried when we had to full time into part time because that allowed you know for some
more flexibility. I no longer have that flexibility and it's very positive. So when I talk about the
employee who can cover lunches and bathroom breaks right now she's
Having to take off to take care of her mother-in-law and again Which I think is what counselor the counselor
heard me say her primary duties are not that she's just covering intake Excuse me She's just covering
and taking simple payments so that long enough for you to go to the restroom long enough for you to
get you know some lunch down and most of the time, you know lunches are not even possible if if
It's a day, especially where Mondays and Fridays are really, really tough days because people are they
got paid on Friday. So they're trying to get tickets and judgments and, you know, child support and
all kinds of payments through through the system. And so it would leave me tighter than I am. And I
started at a deficit following my predecessor. OK, thank you. Thank you. Yes. I appreciate the clerk's
comments here and some of the back and forth that we've had trying to figure out a solution for it.
Let me throw something else out to see if this might help the situation and see what the clerk thinks.
I appreciate that you said because of the financial components of this position that this is not the
one where you want to try one full time, one part time, and I wonder if a path forward here is as the
clerk either looks at upcoming
vacancies in other roles or upcoming opportunities in other roles as this would make itself available
if that down the road since that whatever role that might be would not have a financial component perhaps
that goes to a part-time to help the county council start to meet some of these obligations gives you
what you need now on the financial end of this and maybe gives us sort of a path to get
where councils got the financial considerations and you also have different financial considerations.
So thank you, counselor, and that is a sell. If you're gonna do a sell today on a path forward, you
have given me the best sell in terms of consideration. Obviously, it would depend on the role. I didn't
anticipate my voter registration person moving to another state to get another job ahead of early voting,
early and absentee voting.
It just depends on which department it is. I have some that are incredibly busy, like my criminal division,
for example. They kind of are appalled when they see the number of arrests from the previous weekend,
and we just start off behind the eight ball on Monday morning.
I could maybe consider a path forward in a different division, but it would just be, I couldn't promise
you, the very next role, I'd be ready to go to a part-time opportunity. It would just really depend
on who left and how dire it was that that role be filled. But I again would remind you, I started off
with lower numbers than my predecessor, and you know,
their regard thing to say is you can always come back and ask us for another position that has never
happened under my administration and I don't I'm not a crystal ball reader that's not in my job title
but I don't see you approving a brand new position if I came and said I needed one. I appreciate that
very much and you know I've had that conversation over the years. Yes I wonder if
maybe to specify a little bit clearer for me. I look at the calendar and I'm amazed how fast this year's
going, but it's still March 24th. There's still more year ahead of us than not. And we will do budgets
August, September. I wonder if the clerk would be willing to commit between that this time now and then
we would find another role that could do that, help us hit some of this fiscal
concerns that we've legitimately gotta hammer down and figure out. To be clear, do I understand you
wanting me to ask a full-time person to go part-time? No, just as we, as you're looking at other, I
mean vacancies occur, other things occur, can we look at some other role that might fit this shoe a
little bit? Should other things occur? Yeah. I would be honored to sit down with you and figure out
if there was a path for it, is that fair? And I don't know that that council
is willing to take it, but we gotta figure out a way forward around what you do running your own department,
but also how we're going to get through the gate on some of these constraints that we've probably yelled
about too much up here, but are important to mention. All right, any other questions or comments for
the clerk on this item? Seeing none.
None we'll move on to public comment if there's public comment on this item You can come forward to
the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via teams Yeah, oh looks like I thought a hand raise
okay This is a screen name is a telephone number so you will Unmute yourself state your name for the
record and you have up to three minutes to make your comment on this item. I
Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead and state your name. Yeah, this is Garrett Fig. I'm
a Monroe County resident and also work at the Monroe County Clerk's Office. And I just wanted to say
real quick, I just. Can you still hear me? We can hear you. I'm sorry, yeah, I just wanted to.
kind of reiterate what Nicole was saying, that it is a very important position, especially I believe
to have two full time ones, mainly just because like she said, they are, they're very complex payments
on some of them. And when you get, you know, a hundred checks in the mail on Monday or something to
be processed, you know, some will be garnishment, some will be just other random checks for
all kinds of different stuff. It could be case fees and people are just confused on what to pay,
how to pay, because they're paying a different party. But yeah, it's coming through our office,
you know, it kind of gets lost in translation once they get out of court and stuff. And it's just a
constant, a constant turnover, constant questions. And it takes probably two years for someone to really
start to understand all the details of like the different payments that there are. And it is good to
just have someone seasoned who's full time and you know, it's part time people are good too to be helpful.
But I think in the past, we've had a minimum of two full times and then hopefully a part timer as well.
And yeah, I just don't see how it would be possible for that one person
to be covered with a part-timer in the meantime. But I know that there's obviously fiscal decisions
you guys have to make. So I just wanted to throw that out there and thank you all for your time.
Thank you. Are there any other public commenters wishing to speak on this item? All right. Seeing none,
maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl.
I would like to hear again exactly what we're voting on. Can we do that? You are voting to allow Clerk
Brown to hire a full-time cashier clerk. Yes. Councillor Hawke? Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes.
Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes majority five to seven or five to two.
All right. Thank you for that. We will move on to item C.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the clerk's request to be exempt from
the hiring freeze and allowed to hire in fund 1215 dash zero zero six to election fund election board
45 additional election day positions as outlined on the agenda Second all right. We got a motion and
a second and yes, okay, so most of these are going to be
Judges and clerks, those additional numbers that we have added are corresponding with our numbers that
we have anticipated to be working at the polls on election day. So I think originally our number for
judges was 70. We're asking for an additional 10, which would bump it up to 80. Right now we have 76
that will be stationed out on polling locations on election day.
These are to give us that space for the backups for individuals who call in on Election Day the morning
of or they don't show up or they leave halfway through the day so that we have those backups to cover
and ensure that there is a bipartisan team for all of the different tasks during Election Day.
And for judges, that's going to increase us to $1,750. For clerks, it would be an additional $2,550.
And absentee counters, it's an additional $1,750 for that line. And then our absentee worker B, we are
increasing to another eight. And they are $25 an hour.
that is again for us to have those backups in case if a team that we have for travel board is unavailable
to go out or if one of those members of the travel board are unable to go out that a way that we have
them already in their paperwork's ready and if we need them we can pull them. And then the last one
is the absentee worker C and those are the ones of requesting that they begin immediately. Those are
our leads who are
taking care of absentee military overseas ballots, mail ballots, and then also training will begin next
week on Wednesday, Thursday, sorry, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and just ensuring that we can
get them in here, get their paperwork done, and for them to go through their training for early voting
in less than two weeks.
Thank you for that. I'll start off because I had a quick question and thank you for the breakdown of
the absentee workers because that was one of my questions here, so I'll cross that off. My other question
is, I know when we did the 473 positions that we approved back in February, February 24th meeting, absentee C
Had eight and originally they were supposed to start early voting And so this group of C says that we
need to start immediately. So would we approve in February also start immediately or would they still
be in early voting? This is the same eight so it's not increasing the number of positions. It's just the
those that line needed to start immediately. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments from Council? Yes, Councilor Iverson. Could I
have someone please pull up the fiscal impact, which is page 59 of the packet? I'm a very visual person.
I like to see things. So this helps me a lot. And for older eyes, could you zoom in?
Please. I'm not going to. All right. First of all, I the the recruit the note I wanted to make the first
one I wanted to make here is that there's on the bottom in I guess that salmon. It says the recruiters
start March 28th. That's four days from now. Correct. So there's there's some some urgency to this request.
Yeah. And then the blue
are the numbers that you articulated earlier. That's ten positions for judges, 17 for clerks, 18 for
absentee board, and then zero for absentee workers because of the change in time. So we're looking at
an investment in elections about for a total of it's in the green box $22,050.
Okay. So that's the total fiscal impact of these, what did I say, 45 additional positions. Yeah. So
that will be also covering your absentee worker B line. Those are where you're going to have quite a
few hours because they are our travel board. They will travel
Monday through Friday. They also travel on Saturdays sometimes on Sundays if they need to they're also
occurring mileage. So if they are going further away, they will be getting extra same thing with the
hours. I do know that last year we did have one into one
of our teams that did travel up north went past Indianapolis to go to a hospital. An individual had
been in a car accident and they wanted to be able to vote. They got to vote, but we had to bring in
a second team of travel board members in order to cover the rest of those
trips that we were supposed to do that day and so that's just giving us that extra cushion in case if
something happens. That way we're not having to rush in here and get a couple of people approved. We're
not having to try to get paperwork finalized in the last couple of hours and just making sure that we're
covered for this election. Council Henry. Thank you for pulling together the fiscal impact. So I wanted
to maybe ask a few questions here. So help me understand.
of the judges and the clerks and the Election Day staff. So our numbers increased for the Election Day
staff. Our judges went up in a couple of locations. We've had to increase to four judges at some of
our locations due to the number of registered voters at them. So our highest location will have
7,215 registered voters that will go to that location if they do not take early voting as a benefit
for them. And then our next highest location is 6,179 voters. So ensuring that there's enough staff
at those to cover those people and not knowing the anticipation of who's going to go to early voting
and who's not going to go to early voting. Okay, that makes sense.
Are these judges that could float or be moved to another polling location in the event? Like those locations
aren't as robust as you're hoping for. Yes. So what we've done in the past is if a polling location
has somebody that leaves in the middle of the day due to them not feeling well or any of those items,
then we'll ask a location that has more if they are comfortable with sending somebody over.
If they are, then we do that. If not, then we pull from our backup list. And I guess the question I'm
getting to is,
These are this is kind of surge numbers right like this would be if we needed to call them in but right
so you actually want to process them as ready to go employees, but they wouldn't actually start incurring
a like we wouldn't start paying them unless they actually are called.
Yeah, so we've actually already worked with HR and E on this. We have we're going to get the paperwork
ready for these individuals, but it will not be processed until we know they are going to be working.
So for early voting, we're doing it by week. And so then we have their paperwork. They're trained. They're
ready to go if need to be. But if we don't need them, then they know that they're not necessarily going
to work. I appreciate the amount of work and
Unfortunate amount of paperwork. I kind of missed the days of just hey, it's a pretty I'm here some
money or not And now they're almost employees that may or may not get an hour's worth of work in Yeah,
I guess the comment then is that while this is the fiscal impact it is a ceiling and it's possible that
we will not actually incur the 22,000 depending on how things go. Thank you for that Councillor Fiddle
and I'll go back to Councillor Decker
Yes, I was going to follow up on that. So it seems like this would be the max that it would cost but
it could cost less. So there are they essentially on call. Yes. So for all of our backups we treat them
as on call individuals. They understand that whenever they're signing up they know that they have to
go through the training even if they are almost positive that they're not going to work because for
every election every single poll worker has to go to training.
election so even if they work in the primary they still have to go to training in the general even if
nothing changes so I mean we're constantly making sure that they're getting their training done and
only utilizing them if we absolutely have to if there's a way for us to during early voting especially
if somebody in the morning leaves early we just call somebody from that afternoon shift to see if they
want to come in a little bit earlier and then that away we're not having to pull in extra people or
any of those situations so
I don't know. Remind me do they get paid for the training? Yes. So they get paid for the training and
then they're on call but there's no pay unless they actually go in. Correct. Is that correct? Yeah.
Okay. So they have to sit at the ready. Yes. Go in if necessary. Chancellor Decker. First of all I appreciate
very much always an election administrator that's thinking about the management of
the people that you have in both early and election day voting. So I'm going to ask you some questions
because I think this is a public education component that people truly need to understand because these
are relevant to things going on. So first, just the travel board. Can you walk through a story scenario?
of how that, if somebody's out there watching and they think Travel Board is someone that helps you
take your trip to Panama City, what actually is the Travel Board and what do they do with an interaction
with a voter?
So for travel board, there are multiple different people that can take advantage of this. We have individuals
who are just homebound or they're uncomfortable with being out and about on their own. So we send a
team to their homes or if they are in a facility or if they're in a hospital, they'll go to that location
that the individual's at. They come in and they help them with filling out their ballot if they need
it. They have a communication with them that is better than what
they sometimes can get at early voting. And so having that is very crucial for all different types of
people. We've had a couple of individuals who take advantage of travel board as they're blind, and it
would be easier for them to just have somebody read it to them than to try to use our VPD system, which
is through, we just switched brands. It's the election,
We just switched brands. We used to use not micro vote, omni vote and the state just switched over to
a new one. Enhanced voting. And sometimes it's difficult for them to use those so travel board is a
much easier solution for them and just being able to have that as an accommodation that we can use is
very crucial. Is two travel board members why? One Democrat, one Republican so everything is always
bipartisan.
see that really throughout that entire both election day and and early voting and just about everywhere
throughout the election office. So if anybody thinks that their local election is fixed, they've not
met our workers yet who are pretty tough and they're on both sides, right? I had to tell something that
Miss Kylie said. I'd like to gently remind the council that
While I don't expect these kind of numbers in this election, we had an increase in the number of travel
board members who went out during COVID because, and a lot of it was, my recollection is on the IU campus
because students who intended to vote early take advantage of that polling site at the Indiana Memorial
Union. That was me, sorry. Okay, take advantage of that polling site that we have at the Indiana Memorial Union.
wake up on election day, realize that they have COVID. So I got in my car ahead of time, went to Lowe's
and we bought the goggles and we brought hoods and things like that so that they could be safe and that's
back when we put things in plastic bags because we didn't realize that it really doesn't transfer via
paper. So I don't expect those kind of travel board numbers on election day now like I did when we were
in the midst of a pandemic, but people certainly as they become aware of Travel Board, certainly it's
an option that leaves you with some dignity still allowing you to be able to vote and I appreciate your
consideration of that. I also wanna add the ABSB line is also our reconcilers during early voting. So
they are the ones that are in the ballot room
Processing the ballots from the day before alphabetizing by precinct by day and putting them into each
of the bins So that is also including in case if we need a backup for one of them that a way we can
bring them in and not have to worry about Not having a bipartisan team or having to pull a lead or one
of our full-time staff members to help take care of that Here's the last question that I swear. I won't
I don't there's no more when you think about
the kind of headaches of Election Day. Election Day is a little different than early, and it's almost
like two different sports games, but Election Day, what is the headache that you think about that makes
you say we might need additional staffing at either the bigger ones or whatever needs floated to? What
is it that you are thinking of so the public kind of hears a little bit about that in your management?
So the main thing on that is just ensuring that we are providing the most accessible possible
interaction of voting for each of the voters. And it's not necessarily making sure that we're covered,
it's to make sure that the voters are covered. Knowing that they can come in and they know that there's
gonna be a team that's bipartisan, ready to help serve them and help them. And it generally is just
on election day, when you come in, you don't know if you're gonna come in to 15, 20 people who just
didn't show up, or if you're gonna come in to only having one or two. In 2023, my first election,
within the office. I was just down there as a helper, honestly, and we had made phone calls to five
different people who just didn't show up, didn't call, didn't do anything, just completely were nowhere
to be found. So then we had to bring in extras to cover those positions, and a couple of them ended
up coming from another location. And then in 2024, my primary, very first election as supervisor, we
came in and there was about 25 of them that
Either are called in saying they weren't feeling well or they just didn't think that they could do it
or they didn't show up. So it's Really? That's your main concern on Election Day coming in is is the
staff going to be there and Do we have enough time to get them replaced before 6 a.m? And we in this
community if we have bad lines
Everybody up here will be screaming, yelling, and they won't remember this meeting, right? And you will.
You will, but that's not enough in the moment. And that's 6 a.m., 6 p.m. So I just appreciate you talking
through that. I think sometimes that gets skipped past and people need to understand for what is essentially
a part time public service that acts kind of like a part time business. This is a real struggle, particularly
in that finite time.
We're doing everything that she said and more, but also on election morning, we're using couriers because
you may have gotten there and thought you had everything that you needed or there wasn't something in
there, and we've gotta get those to the polling sites. I get out and drive to the polling sites if someone
has forgotten something or we didn't have it available at that time, but we would have it before six
o'clock. There's just a number of balls being juggled ahead of,
six o'clock and I may remind you that I believe there was a home in Ellitsville that caught fire a few
election. And the fire department was our polling site, can you imagine? And so there's just a lot of
different balls trying to get somebody to help us do what we need to do. So because at six o'clock we're
wanting to
open those polls and get everybody who's in line ahead of going to work ready to rock and roll. Thank
you for your consideration. I'm still a little confused on absentee worker C. Are you asking for eight
positions tonight or is that part of a previous request?
No, so the previous request was the eight positions, but their start date was early voting. And these
individuals are the ones that take care of military oversea ballots, mail ballots, and all of those
ballots had to be out by the 21st. So they worked last week to process those and get them out in the
mail. But then also the other four ABSC workers are our leads for early voting, and they need to be
making phone calls, getting people scheduled,
We're coming down to the last couple of weeks, actually days, honestly, because we have training next
week. That helps. Thank you. Yeah. So in this just kind of conjured, another thing is for absentee see
because originally it was said that these are additional positions that we are needed, that we approved
from almost in May, February 24th. So
because absentee see originally back in February, we approved had eight and then there's eight here.
Are we saying this is an additional eight? So that's 16 total or no, it's just eight, just eight. And
this is the group of people that are going to be started immediately. Yes. Got it. Yes, Michelle. I
just want to say there there there's this confusion with requests that they begin immediately. There was
no timeline with regards to absent worker C, that only applied to the recruiters per that fiscal impact.
So is absent worker C and recruiters the same? No. So when I looked at the one that was approved the
original time, it says early voting dates. So it would have been prior to the early voting dates.
Well, OK. Early voting dates begin on April 7th. All right, because that was what was forwarded and
I put that in there. So let me I want to pull something really quick. Yes, for clarification.
I think it was right when we pulled up the fiscal impact on the screens, absentee worker C was blank
in terms of positions for tonight's request. This was what was submitted for the 473. So it says no,
absentee or down at the bottom it says ABSB and ABS and mileage.
The only thing that says recruiters start March 28th and through including Election Day. There's nothing
else on this that said any other dates. So that's why I was confused on why you were saying could they
start immediately. So when I looked at it, it was showing that it says that the judges, clerks,
not judges, clerks, absentee worker A, B, and C would begin early voting dates
And my assumption was that that would be April 7th, which is the first day of early voting. And I'm
not seeing that. Where are you seeing that? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Where did that come
from? What is that on? That was on the document that was presented to me. I'm not sure where it came
from. From our last meeting? I think it might have been from the meeting where we approved it. Yeah.
This doesn't really have a fiscal impact though. I was just saying there shouldn't have been a timeline
because there was never one stated. The only one would have been for the recruiters, correct? Yeah,
there was only one for the recruiters. Okay. So there any other questions or comments on this item?
All right, and seeing none, I'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item,
you can come forward to the lectern here in the room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. Seeing no
hand movement, or anybody coming in the room here, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Hock?
Sorry. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you very much. Have a
good night. Next up is item D from the probation department.
Council, I move to open for discussion and approval of the probation department's request to be exempt
from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire two part-time probation officer assistants with a request
to fill date of June 1st, 2026. The two positions will be paid from several funds that are outlined
on the agenda. Second.
All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined here by our chief probation officer, Linda Brady.
Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my request. I did come before
you the last time at your February 24th meeting. And at that time, I mentioned that the probation department
had 18 staff vacancies. There were five full time vacancies and 13 part time vacancies.
However, in the past four weeks, we've had two additional probation officers resign plus one community
corrections field officer resign. So yeah, so at this time we have 21 staff vacancies. So of that eight
full-time, 13 part-time. So at this point, we also know that two of our community corrections field
officers have advised us they're gonna leave us in the next one to two months. We don't have dates,
but one is,
Leaving when her lease ends in May and the other has been given a job opportunity in another county
He's waiting on to come through so we know we're losing two more So at this point, we're asking to only
refill some part-time positions our probation officer assistance just a reminder I
spoke about this last time I was before you and also during the county budget hearings that we didn't
refill 12 probation officer assistant vacancies in 2025 to save money in our user fee funds because
at the time we those of you who've been council liaisons to our department know that our user fee funds
were just dipping and dipping and dipping and so in order to stabilize those funds we didn't refill
those positions
So we're down to now two probation officer assistants, and what their job is is to operate the day reporting
program. Some people call it blow and go. People come in in the morning, somewhere between 100 to 200
people in the morning between 7 and 9 a.m., and take alcohol tests. And also, if their number comes
up, their color comes up, they would submit to a drug test. And all of our drug tests, for the most
part, are urine drug tests. They're observed.
Collections with most of our clients being male and so we only were down to one male and one female
On staff at this point and they are working the maximum number of hours that they're allowed to work
as part-time workers So we reassigned POA duties probation officer assistant duties to our full-time
community corrections field officers However, we're now three short of them and two more leaving so
we're just down to the bare nubs of
being able to reassign duties. We just, we can't do anymore reassignment. So the season for filling
POA positions is right now after IU spring break. That's the time their students start looking for jobs
for the summer and for the next fall. And so we would like to go ahead and during this hiring season
to go ahead and refill the equivalent of two 28 hour part-time
probation officer assistance for up to 56 hours a week. Now, we always work around class schedules,
so we never know. It's almost always IU students who get these jobs. That's who applies. That's who
It's not the most glamorous job. Let's just be honest about that. So IEU students want to get some experience
and that's typically who applies for these jobs. So we try to work around their class schedule. So it
could potentially take two, three, or even four people to
get to the 56 hours it just depends on the class schedule because we have very specific times the 7 a.m.
to 9 30 ish a.m. in the morning is our big big day reporting time and then we have an afternoon drug
testing session as well so we need very specific times for them to be working and so I can't sit here
and say I've got it's going to be two people because
I have to be sure that we have at least one if not more males and have to make sure their class schedule
matches. So I'm really asking for the ability to fill the equivalent of two 28-hour POA positions around
56 hours. So that's it in a nutshell. Thank you for that explanation. Thank you. Looking to my colleagues
here to see if anybody has any questions. Councilor Iverson.
Yeah, I was wondering if you could walk us through briefly the different funds that you're utilizing
to make this happen. I was afraid you were going to ask me. Well, if it's confusing me, then I imagine
it's confusing other people too, so. Well, it is very confusing. We have eight different funds that
pay for probation officer assistance, and I can read them here. It's also in the packet on page 61.
In case folks want to look at it, too. I have it. I have it with me. So so county general is one special
purpose lit and the public safety lit for alcohol and drug program user fees and adult probation user
fees, community corrections, user fees, problem solving court, user fees, juvenile probation, user fees.
be it. They're eight. Right. And those eight accounts are then on the screen here. And so what you're
doing is you're taking the percentages listed on the right hand column from those accounts and that's
how you're splitting this up. That's how Anthony split them up to be clear. I was on vacation. Credit
due or credit is due. Right. I think Anthony's watching. Anthony Williams, he's the one who came up.
It's very confusing because
So many of these budgets have very specific things that we can spend them on. And so if it's adult,
it has to be for adult services. Juvenile has to be for juvenile services. So we just have to be really
careful how they're used. So it all fits together. But just to let you know, we were very careful with
how we assign duties. And what I guess the takeaway that I'm coming from here is that reduces the burden
on the general fund.
by using these different funds to split out? It does. That's how we've done this for the past couple
of years this way, so the general fund is just one of the many funds. Right. Okay. All right. Any questions?
Yes, Councillor Hock. Yes. What's the dollar amount that you're suggesting come out of the special purpose
because we're watching. Whatever is budgeted. I don't have that in front of me. I'm sorry. Whatever
is budgeted. The reason why I ask that is we know that we're running tight, trying to make sure that
we get through before we need to change the rate there. Just for the public, we reduce that rate and
purposely in order to spend down because that
Oh, you're talking about the I'm sorry. I was thinking the special public safety special purpose. Yes.
OK. So that I'm asking because we need to be watching that very carefully because we did reduce that
rate and the dollars going into there. And we know we're going to have to adjust it at some point in
time to make keep making them whole, which we promised. Right.
And I don't want to break that promise. So I want to make sure whatever is happening that we are watching
it carefully. Well, to let you know, all of this is already I mean, it's all budgeted. There's nothing
there's no appropriations being asked for. That's all was already approved during last year's budget.
So everything's accounted for. I understand that we have to recognize that even if we did approve a budget,
we approve budgets far more than what our revenue. See, that's what a deficit is. When you plan to spend
more than you plan to bring in, that's what brings in a deficit for some reason. Some people didn't
seem to understand what a deficit was. I know that you don't. Well, I do understand what a deficit is,
Marty, and I also want to point out that we've been around this a lot before. So I just want to make
sure that we're
keeping an eye on special purpose. Yes, we are. And which of the other positions are you speaking of?
You're saying I heard you say 28 hours. So. On some of them at any rate, so I'm just asking, is there
anything that is needed for benefits for any of these folks? I'm sorry, you're you're talking about
the POA. Sorry, I need to say benefits for any of these folks that you're hiring.
And also to let you know, Marty, we had a long-term 20-year-plus juvenile probation officer retire at
the beginning of this year, so her salary in special purpose lit is sitting there not being spent because
we haven't asked to come refill that, so it's more than covering that. Good, don't. Let's keep us whole
there. Okay, but the others, you were talking a lot of
The part-time only gets FICA. That's my question. That's it. Okay. No health, no overtime. No. We don't
have any paid overtime for anybody in our department. No. Health benefits. No health benefits, no. No
part-timers that I know of in the county get health benefits.
Correct. Okay. And considering how long you've been in county government, is it between 38 and 40 years?
41st year. Okay. Thank you. I'm pretty sure you know what deficits are and how to run budgets. So I
appreciate that. All right. Council members Decker.
Well, one thing, I'm sorry, I can't use the microphone. You should probably be careful about the advice
you take from this side of the podium sometimes. But one thing I just want to say is, when I look at
this and what you've done, essentially, you've had a pantry of things we've not gotten into. And it's
now at a point where, what, two to three years, maybe beyond, it's got to get in a little bit so that
functions happen.
Am I trying to sum this up pretty well? I'm not sure. I'm not sure which one. Basically, you've kind
of held the fort and we've not had to engage these positions, but you've reached a point where... Right.
We, on our own, came up with a way to try to cut spending because
All of you know who worked with us before that the user fees are just going down, down, down in terms
of the collection percentage. There's only so much you can do to get people to pay. We don't want to
put people in jail, and we don't. Our judges would never put anybody in jail for not paying their fees,
but because people can't pay their fees,
It gets absorbed somewhere. And I believe one of you had even asked me the question about what about
like pretrial? Does that if someone can't pay fees to be on pretrial, does that keep them from being
on the programs? No, it doesn't. But it gets paid somewhere. So if they're being ordered to get drug
tests, it's coming out of our budget, meaning our budget. And if they're put on home detention instead
of being in jail, it's coming out of our budget.
budgeted by you all and being absorbed for those kinds of things. So we don't turn anybody away because
they can't pay or can't afford to pay. That just that doesn't happen here in Monroe County. Well, and
the reason I asked that question and my metaphor is poor, but
the reason I ask that is if we have a department head who is being exceedingly thrifty and trying to
figure out how to manage it and also the state is always watching how you do it and trying to either
model it or the legislature trying to change it or whatever, but if we have that I think we need to
occasionally say thank you and reward that a little bit with
Otherwise other department heads will say I didn't matter if you don't save them or you do save them.
It'd be better just to kind of con them and and move on down the road because they just they don't recognize
it. So thank you for doing that. I also think that the values of the community are reflected in supporting
the effort to keep people either out of jail or into programs that help to keep them out of jail.
So I just want to offer that. Well, thank you. And you bring up a good point, too, because we have an
annual justice services conference in Indianapolis every year. It's all the probation officers in the
state, pretrial officers, court alcohol and drug program officers, and problem solving court staff.
So it's a really big conference. And they have asked our department and Judge Dikoff to present about
our pretrial program. And so they know that
we are a high quality program or they wouldn't be asking us to train other programs in the state. So
that's a compliment to our judges, Judge DeKoff and our staff. Any other, yes, Councilor Wilts. It looks
like it's 6% of the position what comes out of special purpose lit.
It's a really small amount that comes out. Regardless, I thought I would get that out there.
First of all, thank you for your diligence. I support this for all the reasons that Councillor Decker
points out. You've been very thrifty and it's much appreciated and obviously we need these positions
and you're cobbling together
Basically, you're cobbling together this role out of part-time positions. I think this is a great example
of what we were talking about earlier, or I should say Councilor Deckard was talking about earlier with
different departments. Looking at these, what can we do? So thank you for that. This past week, as a
member of the Community Corrections Advisory Board, I received an email from
Becca, and in it, we were being asked to look at several things that need to be submitted, and that's
fine. One of those was the collaboration plan that is being submitted to the Department of Corrections.
That's required by statute, right? So when I read that, it really lays out
beautifully. I mean, if not a little stilted because it's question answer, but it really lays out what
y'all do. And I was wondering, is it possible to share that with the rest of council? Yes, absolutely.
That would be for your reading pleasure, just because it's not long. It's not long, but it really is
like, okay, so this many people work on this, and that does this, and so this many people work on this
anyway. It's just
Those are the types of things where you're like, oh, this is just a handy resource. It is. And it was
actually required because years ago, there were many probation departments and community corrections
departments across the state. They were in competition with one another for the same clients you might
have in some county. You might have a probation officer and a community corrections officer, which is
kind of redundant, as we know, and because there are
There are only about 20 counties like ours where community corrections is part of probation. So the
legislature wanted to ensure that everybody's collaborating with all the different partners. And this
was even before the local JREG, Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council. And we always post this on our
website. And I do get calls from judges, actually, from other counties and other chief probation officers,
you know, can we borrow your collaboration plan?
have at it, we'll share with anybody. So absolutely, we'll send it to you. That'd be great, thank you.
All right, any other questions or comments from Ms. Brady on this item? Seeing none, we'll move on to
public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the
lectern here in the room. And seeing none, may we please have, before we do?
I think what I would like is to have the motion restated because the motion says two positions,
but Ms. Brady is actually needing two to four positions with a maximum hours of 56 hours per week. So
we don't wanna limit her to two people, but she's actually going to need three.
Am I understanding that request correctly? Correct. Council, I'm going to restate the motion given the
information just shared. I move to open for discussion and approval of the probation department's request
to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire two and up to four probation officer assistants
with a request to fill date of June 1st, 2026. The two positions will be paid from several funds that
are outlined on the agenda.
And limited to 56 hours per week. And limited to the 56 hours per week. I think that should say 56 hours
for total of all positions. So it's not 56 hours per position. Right. Gotcha. The total request.
All right, so I'm going to restate the motion so that it's nice and clean because I can see the legal
department screaming over there. I move for I move to open for discussion and approval of probation
departments request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire two and up to four part
time probation officers assistance with a request to fill date of June 1st, 2026 and the minimum numbers
of hours needed to 56 per week for all positions.
The two positions will be paid from several funds that are outlined on the agenda. Why did you say minimum
instead of maximum? I meant maximum. Okay. That's all they're going to get paid. The most that they
could get paid and they could use is 56 hours. And we're good. At a minimum but a maximum, right? Isn't
that what you're saying? That is exactly what I said. Okay. And you don't need them before June 1st.
It just depends if I can get them hired before June 1st. Any other changes? Okay. We're going to open
for discussion and approval of the probation department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze
and be allowed to hire two and up to four part-time probation officer assistants.
with the maximum number of hours needed 56 per week for all positions. These positions will be paid
from several funds that are outlined on the agenda. Second. That was beautifully stated and restated.
Okay. So we all got it. Okay. So everybody clear on the motion? And as we were going before, may we
please have a roll call vote? Thank you very much.
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes.
Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right. Thank you. Thank you very much.
All right. You need to buy a lottery ticket. All right. I know. Next up, we're going on item eight,
which is council business. And first up is Highway Department Council. I move to approve the Highway
Department's request and fund eleven sixty nine dash zero zero zero zero local road and street for an
additional appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars in the services category. Second. Right. And
we have Miss Lisa Ridge here. Welcome. Good evening.
We're still working on closing out these projects. We've been negotiating back and forth with contractors.
So we did actually get it down to a decrease of $58,370. So we just need to do the appropriation so
we can work towards getting this project closed out. Pretty self-explanatory. But checking with my colleagues
to see if y'all got any questions on this item.
Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via
Teams or come forward to the lector. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Henry?
Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
Councillor Hawke? Yes.
Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, thank you. Next up is item B. Council, I move to open for discussion
and approval of the Highway Department's request to amend the salary of account line 15815 Highway Engineer
SO Special Occupation Exempt. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Ms. Ridge, what would
you like to say on this item?
I provided some information in your packets for comparisons for county and licensed engineers across
the state. Also for the four current licensed engineers at the city of Bloomington. I believe they actually
were getting ready to hire their fifth. You have those comparisons in there. We've had this job posted
since November with not much luck of getting some good candidates.
We also can receive a $40,000 stipend which we have for the last ten years for having a licensed engineer
on board. Since we had one in 2025 we've already received that. We would really like to work hard of
getting another licensed engineer on board so come 2027 we can apply for that 2026 stipend and continue
forward. So my request is increasing that salary.
I believe in my work back here. So if you did an average across the state of Indiana for engineers,
it came out to comparable counties, $109,440.63 as an average of just those comparable counties.
Those counties which was Clark County Gibson County Harrison County Morgan Bartholomew Madison Vigo
and boom Monroe County right now in the salary ordinance our engineer would be paid ninety seven thousand
three sixty five if you look at the current 2026 salaries for the city of Bloomington The city averages
a hundred and twenty one thousand four hundred and seventy four dollars I believe they were actually
getting ready to offer a
the fifth position at a higher rate than the base of the 92-474, which will go up. I'm just asking to
come up to the county comparisons. The extra funding, right now the county engineer position is paid
from 1176 and 1197, which is Stormwater and MVH Motor Vehicle Highway. I would be requesting that this
additional be paid out of cumulative bridge
we've always considered of taking some of the salary from that because it is such an important role
for our bridge program and our federal aid projects and overseeing those projects. So if it is approved,
the extra funding from the difference between the 109-440-63 to the 97-365, I would come back to you
and create the line in the Kuhn Bridge Fund.
Right. Thank you very much for that. And council members, do you have any questions? Council Member
Henry's hand first. So Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Lisa, for walking
through that. So the use of the CUMBridge caught my attention in that you had mentioned certain federal
activities there. Do we have to
Identify if the engineer do they have to bill against that fund? The hours must only be for federal
or certain things. Are any of these restricted in that way? Counties actually pay 100% of their engineer
out of Cambridge. So we're tapping three funds to fund the position at this point. Again, we wouldn't
have to catalog. Correct. Our engineer does serve on different capacities with all those divisions of
the department.
They will look at plane reviews. They help with drainage calculations. They help with the stormwater
projects, especially the ones that are in-house right now. Redbud Heights is going on. So we utilize
that engineer. Bid documents, bid preparations. So. I got that. And then the benchmark counties, are those
for just this role or are they the ones you usually go to as benchmarks for like county highway things?
So I went through the most recent copy that I had that LTAP puts out that are comparable counties to
us and I think there's around five listed in that list and they list that out by population. I believe
the latest copy I had of that was 2023 so I just pulled those counties but then I went online to Gateway
and pulled what the salaries were. I appreciate just
for public edification where the basis of why those counties we have had other department heads I think
select counties that might have maybe bumped the average up a little bit if we're comparing to say you
know Hamilton County for example which would not be comparable. I see the smiles because we all know
what that means. I looked at some of those. I appreciate that. I appreciate the good benchmarking there
too. I think we're good here.
Yes. I'm just wondering really how much the reluctance here for administration here at the county for
allowing housing starts and be assisted so that people will want to live here and can afford to live
here because
an engineer can pretty much choose to live other places and so we need to put our best foot forward
and make sure that these folks want to come to Monroe County and that we welcome them with an opportunity
for housing. Now it's not our place to build houses but it certainly is our place to get out of the
way and let others build this housing for the
people we'd like to employ and in addition to which I would like for them to live here so that when
they pay their income tax we'll get it to help support county services so I know you don't have anything
you can't stop or start housing projects but I think that's something we have to keep in mind at the
forefront is what are we doing to
make sure that we are putting our best foot forward to get the best employees we can and that they'll
want to live here and that they can afford to. Any other questions or comments on this item? Yes, Councilor
Wilts. I am just now, I'm sorry, seeing this because I missed the email. So I got, you know, I read
the agenda request but I'm just now seeing the numbers.
And so I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that your request is asking for an additional
$12,000? $75,000? Okay. I'd have to come back to do the official create the line and I just wanted to
start the discussion that if it's possible to move in that direction to be able
So I have to come back to create the line, do the salary ordinance, and do an additional encumbridge.
I'm going to go to the auditor since I saw her hand up. Sure. I was just going to comment on the health
of this fund. The cash balance is currently $2 million, roughly $29,000. It's budgeted at $2 million,
almost $73,000, and we're
we're expecting, you know, for two settlements to get about $2,362,000. So it's, you know, it will roughly
have that balance remaining that we expect to get this year between the two settlements. I was just
going to say I also appreciate you bringing it forward discussion. In fact, I think when we were having
the conversation about this,
or three weeks ago. The recommendation was that this is now an issue that's larger than what a department
head can do. It's larger than what a liaison and a department head can do, and you have two of those,
and now the council has to, with all the constraints that we have, have a discussion out here in the
open about this, and I think that what you presented
And again, when we have thrifty department heads who figure out how to bring money in and manage money
in that kind of way, I think we often need to just stop sometimes and say thank you for that. And also
we've got to be aware that there's a reason there's a vacancy here and how do you get this moving so
that you fill it. So I appreciate the discussion and look forward to hopefully this coming back with
the specifics that we'll vote on.
So I have a question about engineers. So it says 2025 engineer salaries, county comparison, and I get
that. But then down below, it talks about the city of Bloomington and you have different types of engineers
there. So I'm wondering why those figures were there. That's the they're all licensed engineers,
transportation engineer, but I don't know why they call them what they title them.
Are your engineers what type of engineers do you have? Basically a transportation can special specialize
and do minimal drainage calculations and such can do some bridge design review Paul was Paul was unique
as our engineer. We were very fortunate to have him for ten years. He was very knowledgeable on railroads and he
learned more about the bridges, but he was a much more transportation type engineer when he came in.
But he had he brought so much knowledge of everything else and different aspects of the projects. So
we would probably be looking more of a transportation engineer like other county highways tend to hire
versus a drainage engineer or some specialty in that area. So are the engineers you have, are they licensed
professional engineers, LPEs?
The one that I'm requesting to hire, I only have one. OK, yes. And to be able they have to be licensed.
OK, and that's in the job classification. And then that's the only way that we can get the $40,000 stipend
back into the county. Thank you. Michelle, did you have something? Yes, I have a couple of questions
if I may. Currently have a highway engineer on in the salary.
ordinance or he's retired? He retired February 6th. February 6th. Okay. Because I was just going to
ask where, you know, this salary needs to be effective just for the new person because I didn't want
there to be any confusion with the current person and the new hire. So that's why I wasn't sure if we
still had someone.
It's bacon. It is bacon. Okay. All right. And then the other thing is, if you could, when you make your
salary recommendation, could you round it up to the nearest dollar? Because that's what we do with all
of our salaries. So there's no change. All right. Councillor Wilts. So in just still processing your
your information sheet here. It does sort of look as though you are comparing 2025 salaries from your
comparison counties to the 2026 salary for us. So you're actually shorting your request. Sure,
I'm sure I am, but that's the only way I could find it in Gateway was the 2025s and calling around.
compare it then, but if you compared that to the $94,000 salary, which is our 2025, and then you look
at that difference to request. Ours is... Okay, I see what you're saying. See what I'm saying? You could
be asking for more and justifying it, and I'm making... I don't know why I'm doing that, but it just
seems like... No, I totally... I completely understand. That makes more sense. If we're really trying
to look at, hey, getting this on par with others, that
And that's why I kind of threw City of Bloomington in there, even though I knew it was really out of
range for us. But it was their 2026. Yeah. And I didn't want to. You also have to look at the special
occupations and things and where other positions fall and where they fall in the classification and
the flow chart.
in the organizational chart. So that's also keeping that within that chart, if that makes sense. Okay,
thanks. I'm just doing a little. And you know, I don't even know if the salary will work.
I could be coming back to negotiate something else. You know it's really hard to get an engineer right
now. They're in high demand and then other places offer you know they work from home. So many days we
don't really do that because we don't do VPN and everything anymore. But some work 35 hours some work
40. So it might come down to have to negotiate if I get
It's just this is getting us into at least a more competitive area to be able to get candidates to even
be able to talk to. Councillor Henry, I think you had your hand up next.
Yeah, I did. Thank you. And I thank you for bringing up the VPN. It seems like every three months we
hear about that. It's a benefit that never came back. And yeah, I know that at least the commissioners
and their staff are listening to this on our meeting tonight. But there's another example of how a benefit,
which gives us really no cost, would give us an opportunity to bring people to the counties an added
benefit and the offer to somebody. I guess my question is,
Focused on the benchmark counties, we may have already touched on it, but I just may want to ask this.
So Harrison County and Morton County, and yeah, those are counties that population and geography are
considerably smaller than ours. Do we know what mix they're using to get to the salary band there? Harrison
County has, I believe, the riverboat. Okay, so. They have more money than we do.
Is the city wants to create a district north of here that maybe we can put a riverboat in Miller showers,
I don't know Morgan Morgan County, I mean that we it's neighbor neighbor But do we know the mix as to
how they're funding or I do not okay? Cuz that's like right up the street and they're paying considerably
I do know they've had a lot of turnover in the last few years So I don't even know if they have a position
filled at this point Probably the Harrison County
Okay, anyway, so I guess the reason I'm asking this is that, yeah, I'm looking at counties, but I understand
those populations are a third to a half of ours, and they're finding ways to fund this position north
of us in terms of it is a comp. So we're lagging a market of counties that are much smaller in what
I'm seeing here to try to attract that personnel. In this case where maybe. Some counties split engineers now.
Some of them will hire one engineer but then split them within within two counties. It's just it's so
broad over the whole state of how everybody is dealing with the engineer capacity.
I see your hand raised. Yes. Thanks for mentioning the fact that many counties share the same engineer.
That's something I was going to bring up. I know that's something we talked about road school years
ago that it was so important for us to get a good engineer and to pay them the proper amount many counties
had to share one and it worked better because you could get someone who was top tier to
to make sure you get the job done right. I think when we talked about this, it's been a month or so
ago, that I was suggesting, I know highly unlike me, but I was suggesting you go for a higher amount
because that lower amount, it's clear, unless they just love Monroe County and want to live here and
can afford to do so, I don't know
that what we would be offering would be enough of enticement to get them to take a position here rather
than someplace else. I don't remember the number we were talking about, but I know I was talking about
something higher. I think we were just talking like the 110 range, basically. If I recall right. Well,
at the time I was trying to hopefully
thought maybe we could take it out of major bridge but that didn't get us where we wanted to go because
we could get that done. It's much easier if we could take it out of major bridge. More money there.
There is more money there. You just need to get that restriction taken off at the State House. That's
your answer. It's been done. That's just your answer. I've reached out. Allen County did it. If Allen
County can do it, we can do it.
I know somebody up there. That's next year's agenda. All right. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
if we're getting to anything, you know, settling on anything except that it looks like you're making
the case and it makes sense. I would point out that Kim added change our put in the difference that
would be make a make it a line with the
I felt I needed to go this route because I can't post it. I can't post it without having approval that
the salary is going to be higher. That's that is correct because the motion was a discussion and impossible
approval. So if we I cannot read that. But OK, hang on. Oh, you're putting in the total. Thank you.
That's what I was going to ask. So this is
The 109, 440 is the total of, it's the current amount plus the 12, or the 112 is the current amount
with the 14, 924. Basically, you know, adding the 3% from last year. Correct. I guess I can't read the number.
I'm going to move to open for approval for the Highway Department's request to amend the salary of account
line 15815 Highway Engineer SO Special Occupation Exempt and set to $112,289.63. I think she wanted
us to have a rounded up. But we didn't have the cents in there. All right, then I will. You're good.
That we approve the highway department's request to amend a salary of account line one five eight one
five highway engineer SO special occupation exempt to one hundred twelve thousand two hundred ninety
dollars All right, we got a motion and a second by counselor Henry. Are there any other further discussions
on this item? Seeing none
We'll move on to public comment. If there's 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 still seeing none, may we please
have a roll call vote? Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl.
Yes. Councillor Hogg. Yes. Councillor Wilz. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right. Thank you very much. All right. And as you recall, we tabled the aviation department's request
to April 14th. And next up is item D from the surveyors office. Council, I move to approve the surveyors
request and fund ninety one eighty dash zero zero zero zero IGIO seed grant the creation of account
line three zero zero zero six contractual and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of
twenty nine thousand nine hundred thirty dollars in the services category.
second. All right, we got a motion and a second and coming up next is the surveyor, Mr Tron. Welcome.
Hi. I'm going to just kind of start it off. Unplanned I was high fiving Linda Brady just a moment ago,
not because she got the support and approval, but she was been with the county for 41 years and I thought
that was amazing.
As of Saturday, last Saturday, I've been with the county for 21 years. So that's pretty cool.
Thank you. And this is the first time I've ever worked on a grant and I'm excited to be here.
So as stated, I'm looking to create a line and simultaneously appropriate the grant, the full grant
amount. It's a contractual grant.
So we'll be meeting milestones. And as we meet those milestones, we'll upload it to Unigov. The state
Indiana office or GIO, Indiana Geographic Information Office will send us the installments of that grant.
And I'm here for any additional questions.
Sorry about the 100 plus probably pages I put in your packet, but I'm very thorough and gave you everything
that I had. We appreciate your thoroughness. All right. Any questions or comments for Mr. Randolph?
Council votes. I'll at least say congratulations on the grant. Yeah. It's fantastic. Thank you. Yeah.
I think going through this I've learned a lot and I think I'm going to try to keep my eyes wide open
and cast a larger net to bring in other funds through grants to, you know, invest in our county. So
I'm excited. I'm sorry, Madam President. I am the department's liaison. I already said that to Tron behind
So I'm sorry. I just I should have publicly taken the baits, but thank you for the praise. Good job.
Thank you. Any more kudos for or any questions? I have to say it's it's a team effort at the office.
So all your thank you and congratulations is also for everyone at the office that helped support this.
And that's our G.I.S. team. John Baten and Nick Angelo's our new G.I.S. technician.
Okay. Seeing no other questions or comments from the council here, we'll move on to public comment.
If there's public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here in the night you Hill room or raise
your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Fiddle. Yes.
Yes. Councillor Wilz. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Cross. Motion passes
unanimous. All right. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Next up is the Health Department. Council
I move to open for discussion possible approval of the Health Department's request for the creation
of a new position, clinical assistant. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second.
Looks like we have Lori Kelly here and then board member Lisa Robinson joining us. Hello. Good evening.
Good evening. So just to start us off this evening, as we know, we are transitioning our public health
nursing services to public health nurses that are county employees within the department. So we have
had two new nurses.
who will complete six weeks of training as of April 6th. And we are going to be again starting services
for the public in April. So opening up our vaccines and our health screenings. So the request tonight
is to discuss a clinical support position that will help
supports the nursing services and in the clinic. So this role will essentially be answering the phone,
scheduling appointments, be able to do inventory, medical records, be able to pull vaccine records for
public, be able to assist with our milk bank. So if people need to come up and pick up their supplies,
we'll have somebody who's in the office Monday through Friday to assist with that.
and handle billing for our services through our vaccines. And we would like to be able to expand our
billing services for the lead testing, lead risk assessments, and for maternal child health. Thank you for that.
Council for any questions or comments. Yes. So this is news. Congratulations on the forthcoming press
release. And can I mean I don't want to break the news cycle. But can you tell us more about what's
going to be in this clinic and kind of more about what's going to be part of that.
Sure, so we will be providing vaccines, so both public stock and private stock, so if you have private
insurance or if you just need access to a free vaccine, we'll be able to stock and provide those for
all age groups. As far as our health screenings, we're really focused on chronic disease, so cholesterol,
glucose, A1C, blood pressure, so those are all free for anyone who comes in to schedule an appointment.
because the nurses will have to balance the work that they're doing in the clinic with other duties,
so our communicable disease investigations, school health, community outreach programs, we will have
dedicated times where we'll schedule the services in the clinic, and then there will be times that they'll
be out in the community working. And who's gonna be directing this new clinic? Me.
We don't have a health services director. Okay. And how long has that position been vacant? Most recently,
maybe six weeks. Almost. Okay. And then underneath that direct or you or in the best of times a health
services director, are there other vacancies that we currently have within that administrative structure
for the clinic?
No, but we have one other public health nurse position that is vacant. Okay. I'm going to I have a lot
of questions. I'm just going to stop talking and let my colleagues ask questions. Well, let's look to
see if anybody has any other questions or comments first. We're enjoying the listening. I thought you
were doing great, Peter. I don't want to like. Just keep going.
I was asked to share the org chart. So here's the org chart. You have one of the largest departments
in the county. Where in this org chart should we be directing our attention? So the purples and the
pinks, if that looks right. Let's see.
We'll also note that we have two vacancies within that division. When those became vacancies, we did
not backfill those positions. So that is our senior community health specialist towards the left there
and the community health specialist tobacco MRC. So those duties were transferred to other positions
within the department
to oversee some of those services. And then the three nurses are down there in that purple color. So
all of the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight direct reports to the health services director,
they're all in place. There's no vacancies. So there's a vacancy with the public health nurse. Okay.
All right.
So, and we don't currently have an intern, but those, you know, come and go. So the public health nurse
positions, the way that they are structured is and why their titles are a little bit different are they
have primary duties.
And then they each have duties where they're cross trained to provide cross coverage and make sure that
we're covering all of our nursing services, but also making sure that we still consistently have who
that main person is for our school health liaison, who is our main person with there's a large communicable
disease outbreak, who's focused on those health first Indiana,
core services that we have to meet while they will all be providing vaccinations and health screenings.
So they do a lot. And to think about having to add on, when you're doing that case investigation,
You're also going to need to answer the phone and schedule appointments or make sure that you're entering
insurance in and doing the medical records. So they're still trained to know how to do those duties
and be able to cover lunches and vacations and short term absences, but not take these on in a full
time capacity day to day that this clinical assistant position would be.
And where does the clinical assistant fall into this organizational chart that you're showing us today?
So it would be going to the director. So it's an arrow yet to be determined. Correct. There's no it's
not currently on this. And where is the financial manager? I think all the way to the right.
Thank you. Laurie, thank you for answering an email earlier today to get me a little caught up on our
timeline here. I just had some questions I wanted to ask on it. There's a startup activity going on
to get ready for all this, right? So before the clinical position, if that were to be put in place,
Who's managing some of those activities right now? Because before you open the doors, you have to have
some processes in place. There might be already invoicing behavior at the state. Where's all that activity
going on right now in this potential future position? As far as developing and creating some of those systems,
That's really where a lot of my time has been spent. So creating the forms, what patient intake forms
are we going to have? Making sure that we have all the vaccine information statements available that
we're required to have available to the public. How are we going to compile the medical records? What
is our scheduling system? So creating the scheduling templates, submitting all of the paperwork to the
state and to our third
party backs care for the vaccine program. So I've really been pulled away from other duties that have
kind of fallen to the side to be able to work on some of these. Yeah, thanks for that. How much of that
has to be recreated or can be borrowed from either the last clinic we had or the IU health
public health clinic or other clinics the counties run. I mean are you whole cloth recreating this or
are we absorbing their processes? We're creating everything from scratch essentially. I mean even the
VAX care was a huge issue trying to transfer that from IU and Laurie got it transferred to us and we
basically are starting all over again. So we're trying to create the infrastructure to have patients
be able to call, make an appointment.
business side, so to speak, of this clinic, which will generate some income, but we're just having to
recreate everything, and we have to be ready to go mid April. We're going to be administering vaccines.
You know, we had abruptly IU left, or deciding not to renew their contract, so we're doing this all
from scratch. Yeah, and I appreciate that. I guess when we last really talked about this,
You know, late last year, early January, there were two kind of overriding questions. You know, one
was an urgency that we had to have something in place come the beginning of the year. You know, it's
April now. And the good news is we're going to have something open. But in the intervening months, have
we had any communication from State Department of Health on our activities or lack thereof or not having
the clinic in the county? Has there been any correspondence?
As far as like providing updates and where we're concerned that we wouldn't be meeting our obligations
I think that was the big question that if we didn't have a clinic we would be in some sort of hot water
Have we received anything on that from the state? No, we're providing we're referring individuals to
the Morgan County Health Department For that for that vaccine all of for that particular but we are
providing Access to all of the other services. So we're doing the
investigations. If someone needs testing, we can technically provide that. We're just not fully open
and functional to the public for all of these. So we're building it up and getting ready to hand it
to hopefully a clinical assistant to manage these things. I guess my last thought is do we have a you
mentioned kind of the gender revenue generating piece of this. Do you know how many referrals we've sent out
in the past quarter, because it's been three months, there would have been potential Monroe County patients.
Do we have a number of how many humans that is, or how many? I don't have a number on that. And this
may go back to, I know when we had this conversation, Councilor Hawk and I were talking about, I think
we called it a business plan and confused half the county when we used that word, business, but some
sort of operational plan. It sounds like that's been, that's what you're building right now is that
plan. Is that something that's shareable to us to see how
Operations would work. I think the issue has been thus far We had a really difficult time trying to
get data and information from IU When we made that transition, so it was entirely unclear You know exactly
they had different employees doing part-time work and exactly how many full-time employees they had
and then I frankly, you know, I I kept asking for sort of an accounting and
some sort of PNL and they just weren't, I mean, that wasn't available to us at all. So we're creating
all of those things real time. We don't have any past data for you. No, I appreciate that because,
I mean, and you raise a good point there too to say these aren't one for one. Like we didn't have however
many employees they had and there's 15 over here to catch 15 people's effort over at IU Health, right?
It's really, I appreciate that this is sort of being recreated.
a government service rather than a what? Thank you for that. I appreciate it. The contract amount was
$350,000 and so that is at least that is what they were using to provide services for our county. Thank you.
just take a liberty here and ask a couple of questions, because I wrote this down just to make sure.
And I think Council Henry kind of touched briefly on the January deadline, since that was one of the
things that we kept hearing about last year. So since this is something that we're moving to that will
be open in mid April, which sounds great. Are we in jeopardy of losing any funding because this is open at late?
Not to my knowledge, and the state's been working with us well, and we've been keeping them up to date.
I just met earlier this month, I think a week or two ago, with the Director of Immunizations, so came
down and did the site visit, reviewed our vaccine management plan, and our refrigerators, and the data
loggers, and everything that kind of goes with that system. So, you know, making sure those ongoing
communications are occurring with updates.
From my understanding, the state understands that, you know, even there's times that a health department
only might have one nurse, and if that position becomes vacant, then they're gonna have a little bit
of a gap in times that services are being provided, so. And the other question that I wanted to
ask is since you just talked about the vaccine plan. So because it's my understanding that we had to
have everything like the plans and everything put into play before this could open. So it sounds like
we're good on that front. So I've submitted all of the paperwork and we have that's been approved from
the state. Okay. And then the only other question that I had left
was going back to this position and seeing how it says process and payments and billing. Is there any
particular reason why the financial manager that you currently have couldn't do some of that financial
or process and the payments and billings or payment and billing for this instead of putting it on this
particular person here?
the financial manager handle that? So I have thought about this and so I think potentially some of those,
yes. If we start kind of divvying up certain who's billing for which services and is it private insurance
for one position and Medicaid for another position, you know, is that going to create
more kind of confusion and chaos and then you have a financial manager who's reporting in a different
division but it's crossing over now to the clinic and so then that's kind of getting involved in clinic
duties but then they're really supposed to be working in this other division. When I've gone to see
how our VAX care system works so when people are coming in you have to you know enter in all of that
information you have to make sure that you have a go button that
You're not gonna get chargebacks is what it's referring to. So then are we having the financial manager
sitting at the desk entering that in? So it's just kind of, I think it would be too chaotic. And visiting
and talking with other health departments, they really have a person who's kind of working that front
office and taking on those duties within that position.
Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. There's also insurance denials are very frequent and so there's
going to be a small margin to aid if it's private insurance. So if that's rejected then there has to
be someone who's versed enough in rejections and appeals to try to get paid for those services. Thank
you for that.
A question about the motion that I read. This is a new position. So does this need to be factored by
WIS and classified by WIS? So we're not actually... I'll let you answer the question. Sorry.
You're correct. This would have to be... It needs to go through the process of filling out the forms,
going through the process with the
council office, and then it would have to be forwarded to WIS for classification and review. So council,
should we be approving this, or simply approving it to go to WIS, we're not saying that this is available
to be advertised immediately? Yes. I mean, we can't advertise because we have no salary. I mean, there's
no way to classify it.
So if we do approve this, it will come back to council once there's a classification which allows us
to put it into the salary good. Correct. Ernie King, were you like, I couldn't tell if you were. I had
a thought. Part of the process to that we have to go through is I think in other job descriptions that
were recently created, there might be some duplicative duties. So we need to look at the other
job descriptions to clarify.
how those interact and things of that nature, like we would with any other job description that's created.
I'm going to switch over here now. Yeah, I go to Councilor Decker and then Wilts next and then I'll
circle back. So the clinic opens April 1st. Am I saying that right? No, we're looking at starting to
schedule April 7th, April 7th.
OK, I'm sorry. I had it wrong. One one question I had just is kind of listen to this. I would be curious
to know about referrals, particularly folks getting vaccines in Morgan County, because the thing I always
think about is just distance traveled. Right. And I always get a little heartburn over sending anyone
somewhere else for anything, let alone for vaccinations. And I'd just be curious about that if you all
have it. But the one thing I as I listen to kind of some of the things you're talking about and I know
that we get into the details of like a WISC classification and the org chart and those are all important
things. But when something opens and it it's going day to day and managing it
It's just got to be managed well. And so when you were talking about the clinic manager position bacon
right. And you're kind of filling in doing that in addition to your own role and you're looking here
to create this position to help kind of manage the managerial kind of you know who's coming in what
they're getting scheduled for. Am I saying that right.
that that's fair. So who's that point person who's interacting with patients who can help you know here's
the scheduling template. So you know if I've identified this is when nurse A B and C can schedule and
see these types of point of appointments then this position is basically then plugging in appointments
for that time. So I could see that kind of being like
So when I think about it, and I'm not in your field, I'm just kind of listening, and I'm glad that the
chair of our board is someone who manages the practice and knows the hard questions to ask that I'm
too dumb to figure out. But when I kind of look at this for the function as it starts, as it starts
off, getting someone that is managing
how people get into the services that are offered to see what I would call the talent, the talent who
then treat or do all the things. Again, I'm not smart enough to know. To me, that's a bulk of the kind
of management that's missing, at least for the public's need. Like I got to get in there. That's all
I really care about. And while having a manager
is probably ideal. I am worried about that function. I am also I just want to say I'm worried about
you having to do both because public health is a massive thing and here in 12 seconds something else
is going to be invented that becomes a headache and then in two months the legislature will change something
else or Congress will or a bird flies the wrong way and suddenly we have something else. I just
long-term I worry about it I feel better if the person making sure people get in and all that were managed
better so I guess that's more of a comment here's just the last question I'll throw out to you is there
anything we are doing not doing not asking not considering that makes that April 7th not possible so I think
this is tricky right because some of this is reputational so and for our clients and for our taxpayers
I mean they have to have a level of hey I can pick up the phone I can call I can get what I need so
if we can't provide that then they're going to be going to another county and then we're going to be
dealing with another futures situation where the health department is on everyone's
not good list. So you're right. We have to get this right. But the thing that we need from council is
I guess maximum cooperation to try to. Well really what we need to know from council is do you want
us to be providing these services take over these services that you can no longer provide. And you know
we we are moving forward hoping that we can provide those things. So is that is that what council wants
from us because I would think
you know, the taxpayers would expect that. And I expect that. So yes, we need this person. We need this
person yesterday. And I would like to see cooperation so that we're not then in budget time, September,
and we still don't have this person so that we can provide the services we need to provide adequately.
Thank you. I appreciate that candor. I think that's the kind of thing we've all just got to say a little
bit more of.
among the semicolons and other things that we get into in here, and those are all important. I'm not
discrediting that, but ultimately someone at that phone saying the 8 a.m. or some system. So the next,
right, I'm sorry to interrupt you. The next scenario will be someone's gonna be publicly saying, well,
they're sending people to Morgan County to get these vaccines, and the person has to get on the road,
as you said, and that is not gonna be good.
short for anyone. So we're the only we were and we heard this in the Community Health Day. You're the
only I think we're the only health department, maybe one of two that is not providing these services.
So it is a for anyone watching at home. This is a going from what we use. We did for a long time. Right.
Yes. To a new system. And that's really what we're bridging here.
So before I go back to, there's lots of hands, so I want to make sure we get adequate time. I see Ms.
Turner-King has something, and then I'm going to pop over to Councilor Wilts next. I just had a comment
related to Councilor Decker's comment about the April 7th and if that's possible. And I just wanted
to note that since this would be creating a new position and there isn't a job description and there's
a whole process, there is no way the WISP process can occur by April 7th.
even after it comes back from West it has to come back to council and there's salary amendments and
that's not gonna happen before April 7th. So yes we're we're behind and so you know it's it's frustrating
for me because it's really challenging to try to set systems up in place
you are going to have to work with. So we're a little bit behind in that way. So, I mean, what we're
going to have to do is the phone calls are going to have to go to a voicemail and try to return those
calls and schedule appointments when you can because that's like without a dedicated person kind of
filling that capacity that's, you know,
the option. We have to slowly just start providing the services that we can and try to adjust along
the way. We can get positions if we can fill the director role and just kind of adjust. But you know I've
I've talked with the nurses and said, you know, we're moving forward. We're going to do this. It's going
to be okay. And, you know, we'll start slowly. But I'm not comfortable just sitting back and not doing
anything. We have to move forward. Councillor Wilts, did you still have something? I do. Yes. The director position.
still open. You'll have presumably this position open. That's two important pieces to the puzzle of
making this work that have not been filled. So Mike, I guess what's happening with the director position
right now? It's posted.
You know, it's Morgan County, their starting rate just for their nurses, their starting pay is $36 an
hour. These positions in this health services, the nurses and the health services director covers so
much. I think it's really hard to bring in the qualified candidates at that pay.
You have to get all the work done in 35 hours a week. I think it's just really challenging. So you're
not getting qualified applicants still? We have not gotten received any applicants recently. We've done
paid advertising. But yes, for the qualifications, background, history, experience.
Yeah, so, I mean, clearly, that makes me a little nervous. It makes me a lot nervous. I mean, as one
of your liaisons, clearly, I mean, I see it posted, and I know it's been posted for a long time. So
the creation of a new position, that makes me really nervous. As a fiscal agent, right? I mean, that's
just another FTE that we're going to have to
be putting and considering for our future budgets. So feeling a little nervous. I guess one of the questions
that I think about where to take this. Are we still going down the route of having that mobile unit
that can provide vaccines at like township trustee offices or other community sources? Like, is that
still happening too?
Yes, we are still working on that. OK, all right. And but. That's also a yes. Councilor, I think proceed.
I mean, again, this is a huge department. You have a lot of FTEs. You're dealing with a lot of community
like issues. OK, so I there's a lot of grace that needs to be given here. And there's a lot of understanding
that those of us sitting up on the dais do not do what you do. And and there's there's a lack of
I think there needs to be some some empathy here. OK, so I think that needs to be put out there. So
but but I do think if we're going to have this clinic and have the mobile unit, that's that's I'm asking,
is that still the vision? Yes, that vision has not changed. OK. All right. And then the the the generators
still coming and that's that's coming soon, right? So we have the generator to
I know when they were doing the installation, they found out that the gas line needed to be resized
because it was not going to meet the capacity of the generator. So that work has been being done.
All right. And the generator is important because that's how we keep vaccines at the temperature they
need to be kept at, right?
It's our backup. Should the electricity go off? Otherwise all the stock is ruined. Right, right. Okay.
I'll go Councillor Henry and then I'll go to Hock next. Thank you. I appreciate that. The longer we
go sometimes the more questions come up and much of it's been answered.
Let's talk about mitigation here because we got a timeline problem. So at best, if we approved a position,
this person wouldn't be in place for a bit because of the WISP piece. I appreciate Dr. Robinson, your
comment about what it comes to
what led to other clinic failures, which was in part the trying to manage the paperwork, right? When
we lost those paperwork management positions, we had nurses that felt overburdened and then left government
service as a result. So to avoid that happening again, if we go live on the seventh, you know,
right now, Lori, you're handling the paperwork. Is there an opportunity to train other staff in the
health department to handle the finance piece and the other pieces? Because this might
be a bit you know as I'm trying to I'd like us not to have that conversation again in a few months I
agree but I but right now it's I think I kind of need to understand you open the doors you start invoicing
people. What is your mitigation for that right now while we're trying to work through our process if
we do move forward with. So the nurses will be trained.
but they'll be doing so one will be covering like that front office some of these capacities when the
patients are coming in and the other one will be doing like the vaccinating. So they'll be flip flopping
but doing those sort of dual roles so that they have knowledge of that. We could look at training other
employees in the department. That's
take us down a different path. So it's not going to have this position. And so so doors are open and
voices are coming. I guess on one one difference here from the last time we went through this is that
the new hires understand this is part of their job description. It's not an added duty just already
been hired and then has been asked to do other things like these folks are hired understanding they're
going to have other things to do. Right. That was in the job descriptions. That's good news. These are
the same people that are also potentially going to be driving the mobile
unit out from the building. How soon do you think that mobile unit goes into operation? I'd have to
check with facilities to see where they're at. Soon. It's not going to be like, is it possible that
gets mobile and active before we have a clinician assistant in place? I think that's possible. You've
got two clinics for managing with staff. I mean, one's moving around, one's here.
and we don't have that administrative piece. And it sounds like at least the nurses can handle some
of the administration piece, but then there's other pieces that you're either doing or being delegated
at this point. Okay, that's it, thanks. Council Hawk. Yes, when I was hearing all of this and thinking,
well, this is a great thing, we've decided to do what I hope we do to begin with,
instead of running around in a mobile unit, keep it where the public knows where it is, where they're
able to get to it, where public transportation can get it there, and it's a better operation. We don't
have to worry about what we're going to do if the mobile unit is broken down or repairs or where we're
going to store it or whatever. We're going to have it in a county building and where people will know
every day where that is. And now you're saying, no, we want to do both. And so that sort of spoiled
my joy. I just don't think it's wise whatsoever. And because I think wasn't that almost like a half
million dollars or something like that for that mobile unit? We had covid funds. A big one.
We had COVID funds left that we could use for a one-time purchase. And so those funds we decided would
be best served, the board did, with a mobile unit to go to where people were for chronic disease management
or what people needed. But you do understand.
the money fell out of the sky, which you're saying it just fell out in your pocket somehow. And so we'll
go out and buy this mobile unit. But let me tell you what. Buying that piece of equipment is not the
end of an obligation. You still have to maintain it. You have to have the insurance on it. You have
to figure out where you're going to park it, how long it's going to last, where's the money going to
come from to replace it, and repair costs. It's just I thought, well,
they woke up there and we're going to put it where the public can see it and reach it and everybody
throughout this county will really know right where to go and it won't be running around trying to be
chasing around where they are so anyway and I don't see an operational plan and you know
I remember when Bill Cook could say ready fire aim because he could afford to say that. He had the money.
Well guess what? This is not ready fire aim. We cannot do that in county government. We need to see
an operational plan, something. I applaud your enthusiasm for moving forward, but for the fiscal body
to move forward with you, we need to see
more of a an operational plan. For me, I'm disappointed that you're going to go consider going ahead
with this boondoggle of a moving van. So I was excited about having a clinic. We department building
has a clinic on the main level.
the public will be coming to the health department just across the street to access these services.
The purpose of the mobile unit is to be able to go out on certain scheduled times to provide these services
in special capacities because if you, for example, want to have a large testing event, it can be challenging to try to
have a whole lot of people coming into the department. If you can, we were going out and providing community
outreach services, now we have a mobile unit that has the equipment and has the personnel that can go
out into the community to provide these services. But that's separate from the clinic that's on the
main level of the health department. The only thing I'll say to kind of get us back to
where we are here is, I guess from my understanding, last year, late last year, I was, maybe it's just
me, was thinking that you all were, in addition to trying to get the clinic up and running, the mobile
unit always was something that you were doing to both of those at the same time. Okay. A lot of hair
changes have changed for me too, so I just wanna make sure I understand.
Then it was something that we had had discussions about with IU Health and before Health First Indiana
and these new positions about how can we have this mobile unit and work collaboratively to go out into
the community. So it was something that was already in discussion. Yes, Councilor Wilts. Okay. I still
have basic questions and then a bigger picture would.
Just to clarify something that was said very early on, do any of these services overlap with the IU
community health services that are now? I know they used to, but are there is there now overlaps of
what you will be doing in the clinic? To my understanding, I think they're going to try to provide some
vaccines, possibly two days a week. But I know
The last we were aware of, they're really focusing on reaching these other counties within the southern
region and being able to do some community health and outreach. I don't know what specifically those
plans are, but a lot of kind of tapping into more of those rural areas instead of having people here
in full-time capacity.
Is there any level of coordination with them at this point? They're separate from them. Okay. Yeah.
That makes it difficult, I'm sure. Have you? I guess my question now is given kind of the fact there's
no director yet.
clinic or office manager type of position, whatever this is. Is there a reason you're targeting April
7th and would there be a possibility to delay that or are there implications that we're not aware of?
Well, so then you're going to have staff that we've hired, I think, waiting to get vaccines and we have the
refrigerators and we're working on the generator. And so you want to, you know, utilize those people
and those resources. I guess I'm kind of envisioning. Yeah, and I appreciate that you've got stuff in
place. Let's not just sit there and twiddle our thumbs. But my understanding is there are other things
they mentioned that these nurses would be doing so they probably are able to do.
whatever the outreach components of their jobs are, right? They could certainly stay busy doing other
things. I think the concern in my mind would be, well, how long are we not going to be providing all
of the services by law and by our funding? Totally agree. And don't get me wrong, I'm just, I'm concerned
about starting something that
not ready and then fails and how does that, like how do we make sure it's going forward with its best
foot forward? You know, is there a difference in your mind between maybe soft launching, like starting
to provide, but then, you know, we've got these positions filled to kind of announce and go with it.
If we wait until we have positions filled, it will be probably set
October. And so we've missed this window where we're communicating with the public, hey, this is where
we can provide you, you know, we have taxpayer dollars, your money to take care of public health issues.
And so while I don't want it to be all focused on reputation, that is part a piece of it because we
don't want to lose that momentum.
Because people will be kind of lost as well. So I understand I understand your concern. I certainly
do I Think I would it would be helpful for me to know like well, how are we defining failure? Question
but I mean Maybe
I think we've seen it in the closing of the clinic before. I think that probably... I don't think it's
the only way in which that could happen. I guess I have concerns around... I don't think there is a
lot of momentum in the public. I feel you all have momentum and I guess it's...
we're trying to get on board that train and see that momentum and I sense my colleagues having some
trouble with that and while I would be supportive of a position like this because I think that is a
critical piece to make it work, there's more, I see more need and I'm concerned about the whole and
maybe I'm looking for reassurance that it's been
thoroughly thought through. So on this I went and looked at the health services director job posting
and then I got thinking again about where you want to go from what I'm picking up today and I thought
about the April 7th opening the fact that you're sort of double
kind of double teaming administration of both, and you're looking for someone to come into this role
and to do the clinical assistant position. If I were having my druthers today, like if this were left
to me and what I would be doing, I would say, and again, there's seven of us up here, but for me, I
would say that we would send this to WIS for evaluation of what that clinical assistant position would look like
But when I think about what the service that's provided I think about this kind of reality. We've got
to get people successfully from the public into the facility to meet the medical talent that we have
that treats them. And I'm wondering if it's not fully dependent upon the clinical assistant being in
the role but it's dependent on
the department much like you're saying you're kind of double timing the administration of both. It's
the department managing that intake through what we have until the council would get something back
from with get the position codified. I mean if we're really talking about the schedule and again I may
be way off here but we're talking about scheduling people getting people in matching
A to B with the right personnel or right medical personnel in there, to me that would be a holdover
until WISC came back with something. I will also say this council, as long as it has 48 hours notice
and has, and I'm not committing the council to that, I'm just making this comment, but the council,
as long as it has 48 hours notice, can be in here as long as we've notified the public and our media.
there's there's flexibility and ability. I'm thinking if we have the administrator who's kind of managing
both and trying to figure out how to get this started. I'm wondering if the task of managing here's
here's some openings for this software or whatever would would be in. And perhaps that gives confidence
for opening. I do worry about it not opening and people getting there and getting a hard reputational
Because, you know, and to be honest with you, all these questions come from places, right? They come
from things. In 2024, I had to sit in a public meeting, I'll just say, of an electoral nature where
somebody, they wanted answers. And I said, well, I was council president. I'm sorry it happened. Shouldn't
have happened. I'll accept responsibility. So for the solution, I'd like to accept some sort
of responsibility of perhaps a path forward. But ultimately, it's you that could say whether or not
that sort of, we've got someone that can manage intake while I continue to double so that people get
to the medical personnel. But if that isn't possible, it might be April 7th is a week too early, two
weeks too early, or something along those lines. My concluding remarks, I think, are going to be along
the lines of, I think,
of this new position, clearly the building is needed. That's a needed service, right? And particularly
when you have the doors open in the clinic. But I mean, if you were gonna ask me as a fiscal agent where
I would invest taxpayer dollars, it would be in fixing whatever's wrong with the health service director
position. It seems to me that when you're in front of an open mic with the cameras going saying, we're
just not getting any applicants,
there needs to be some tweaking done there. And I think that for me, that would be top priority moving
forward. That would be a salary increase, essentially. There's a lot of options. Okay. I'm sorry. I
come at things from a business owner perspective and not necessarily county government.
But the bottom line is if you need someone who's talented in this realm and you're dealing with people
and they're a nurse, so you have to have a competitive salary. And so the end of the day, no matter
how we get there, it would be an increase in the salary. Because if this comes back at a salary that
you like, at a classification that you like, and there's still no director, that's still a problem.
But if we get a director in,
and this person comes on board, I think that's a path forward. And I share Trent's optimism, Council
Member Decker's optimism, and I think we want to see this done, and we want to see it done well, because
we're part of county government with you, and we want to see this succeed. Yes, Councillor Feil. So
I've listened a long time here. Ultimately, at this point,
How do we even know what the need is if we don't know what everybody's doing? I'm struggling with that.
You mean by what everyone is doing? I thought I heard that we don't know what IU is doing as far as
serving things, or did I misunderstand? IU's finished. IU's finished, but is there something that, I
thought I heard some verbiage at some point during the conversation about not knowing something about
IU, and I'm concerned about that.
I don't know what their regional plan is for going in and into those rural counties. So this we have
taken over the services that are required that were required by law as a local health department to
provide. They are no longer providing that they don't do any of that. What's that? They don't do any
of that. IU doesn't do any of that now. I believe that they are still planning to vaccinate provide
some vaccinations. I don't know what
that stock is, but they are not providing a communicable disease investigation. I mean, we've taken
all of those other services back over. Well, I think some of us went to an open house on Miller Drive
also for IU Health recently, and it seems to me like there were some conversations there about some
of the things we're talking about in services.
seems to me like they are doing some things. Now, whether it's under the same umbrella that was done
before, I don't know, but I'm concerned about what the real need is. It would be really nice to figure
that out. I don't know how to do it, but it'd be really nice to figure that out. I think from
our perspective, our need is we have services that we have to provide by law.
as in vaccines, those kind of things, or? As the communicable disease, we also have to provide all of
the additional core services under Health First Indiana, so the trauma and injury prevention, the chronic
disease, the school health fatality review, lead case management, tuberculosis, infectious
disease prevention. Let me just interject this question. Is there a way to figure out, we know what
the population is, is there a way to figure out
how many people have actually had those services in our county? Is there data somewhere that tells us
this? Is that previously, is that what you're saying? Does the state keep track of the things that you
provide or whoever provides in vaccines or whatever, right? Yes, so we have data from 2025. So that
shows some of our services. So for access and linkage to care,
Let's see we had nine hundred and one referrals for adult referrals for clinical care immunizations
two thousand four hundred and ninety six children in twenty twenty five adults two thousand and forty
eight. So I mean there's there's data that's on the Health First Indiana Web site that shows some of
this information.
But then that still doesn't tell me what percentage we're missing, right? Who are we missing by not
providing these things? I think we're missing Monroe County. OK. All right. OK. So I guess. Lastly.
You're opening April 7th, no matter what, is that?
we're slowly going to start scheduling appointments. I mean, I suppose that we cannot, but that's not
a decision that I can make. Okay. Yes, Councilor Wilts. So what's it before us?
I'm looking for a little clarification that we can take the next step here. So we should decide yay
or nay on sending a job description to WIS and following the normal processes. In the meantime, it sounds
like it's the hope of at least some of the people here on council that the health board and the
the health department can, as a whole, consider the idea of a soft launch while maybe really re-examining
how the director position in play as we're working on administratively trying to get this clinic assistant.
That, because that's the messaging I'm hearing. It's like we don't, I think Dr. Anderson said it.
And as one of two liaisons and part of a seven-member body, I think that's something that we can continue
to talk about. Clearly, the motion before us today is simply to take this position and ask WISC to classify
it. And no, it's, and Council Member Feidl, to your point, that will come back
to council, we'll have to have a conversation about it. And to Ms. Molly Turner-King's point, that is
going to take longer than anyone wants. Well, to be clear, though, there is no, like, this is a discussion
to figure out what we want to do next, right? And so it sounds like if it is the will of council to
say yes and take this to wilt, take this to wilt, to not take this to wilt, but to take this to wits,
then somebody would have to make that motion. So that is the decision that we, yes, council member Decker.
Council, I would ask that the position of clinical assistant for the health clinic within the health
department be sent to WIS for potential classification to be considered by council.
All right, we got a motion and a second for this position to be considered by WISC. Is there any other
further discussion that has not been exhausted yet on this item? I'd like to declare. So I want to offer
this to preserve us this option to help the department figure out how this is done, because I've not
I've not yet heard us have something that will solidly
make us feel comfortable. This is what they've proposed, and I think that we need every option on the
table for the public good that's got to be done. Any other questions or comments? Councillor Hock. So
is there a job description that's ready to be sent to us? If we can't do it, we'll send something that
we don't have.
There's one in the packet, but I will need to work with the health department, as well as Molly, just
to ensure that duplicative duties over other job descriptions. Can that happen? Yeah, I will reach out
to Lori tomorrow, and we'll schedule a date to get that done as soon as possible.
Any other further questions or comments on this motion? All right, seeing none, I'll ask for public
comment on this item. If you have public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here and raise
your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
Hawk? No. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes six to one.
Okay. Thank you very much. So the next step is you all will work with Michelle and Ms. Turner-King and
we will go forth and we'll await and see what WIS has to say. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Thank you for your time. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you so much.
Next up is item F from the legal department. Council, I move to approve resolution 2026-07, approving
the interlocal cooperation agreement between the Bloomington Public Transit Corporation and Monroe County.
Second. All right. And I believe Ms. Turner-King is going to be presenting. So this is the interlocal
agreement that would provide for that transit route that was discussed at a couple meetings ago.
I believe that the interlocal was already presented to the commissioners and approved with a vote of
three to zero. And so this is a resolution that would approve the interlocal agreement by council.
All right. And is there any other further questions or comments from council? I see that we
have a commissioner aligned. I want to put them on the spot, but not sure if they need to say anything
or add to the conversation here.
I'll go to Council Hogg. Yes. Could you tell me the beginning and ending date of this interlocal? The
term of this agreement shall begin on January 1st of 2026 and shall end on December 31st of 2026. It's
just for one year. Is there anything in there that says it's going to be extended? But unless we give
them so much notice,
certainly not trying to stop this. I'm trying to figure out where we need to budget for the dollars
because it's not going to go on for free. Why not? I like free.
I don't see language regarding an extension. I just see language in the agreement regarding
early termination. So I think that is a set term. And if I recall when this was being presented to us
a few weeks ago,
that this was a conversation where it was said that we need to figure out the funding mechanisms going
forward on how we would like to have this. And so considering that it's a year, it looks like it's the
end of the year, yep, December 31st, 2026, and that's a conversation that we should probably have maybe
prior to budget, definitely prior to budget.
So that we could start thinking ahead of some things Throwing it out there And I was just whispered
that there is an LTF meeting coming up so maybe that's something they could talk about all right As to why
We have the pleasure of signing on to the interlocal. The interlocals have to be approved by both the
commissioners and the county council and if that doesn't occur the interlocal gets sent to the Attorney
General for approval and since also have to be approved by transit so for example when we do interlocals
with city it's approved by all parties to the interlocal. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you.
Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we will move on to public comment. If there's
public comment on this item, you can come forward to the left and if you're still here or raise your
hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor
Wilts? Yes.
Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor
Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 7-0. All right. Next up is item G. Council, I move to approve the resolution
2026-05, updating a Sophia Travis community service grant for people and animal learning services or PALS.
This is an amendment to the 2025 Sophia Travis agreement that Powell's received.
So originally in the agreement it provides that PALS will offer weekly equipped sessions for four eight
week sessions totaling 32 sessions. However PALS had the opportunity to partner with Girls Inc. and
kind of change the structure of those lessons. So what they would be doing instead is offering an hour
and a half grounded based equipped
sessions for up to ten youth in each session and it's going to be ran more like a camp that will serve
20 girls. The camp will run from ten to four instead of the original plan. So they are still doing and
providing the equipped lessons. This is just to clarify the structure of the lessons and so we just
wanted to do an amendment out of basically precautionary.
And this was presented to the Sophia Travis committee. Correct. It was presented to the Sophia Travis
committee and they approved unanimously the amendment or recommending the amendment to council.
I was there. All right. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Council Henry. Thank you,
Madam President. Mr. King, thank you for bringing this forward.
Are you able to speak to the sentiment of the water commissioners and their support of this? No, because
I doubt it hasn't been brought up to them yet. So I don't I don't know. I think it's worth raising this
evening from the dais here that we've had. I've seen something like this before come through with I
think it was the Women's Commission, in fact, that attempted to fund stem program.
for young girls and at the time the board of commissioners had I guess some concerns about I guess gender
based STEM training and I'm raising it because it's been raised publicly in the past. My concern is
that's basically what this is but through a different. I do think that was a different situation because
the Girls Inc. or not the Girls Inc. the Women's Commission
STEM camp was in partnership with Luddy and there was concerns expressed by IU about not opening the
camp to both genders, and this is not specific. The PALS, they're not going to use all of the Sophia
Travis funding for the Girls Inc camp, so they will still have additional funds to provide other equipped
lessons that would be open to all youth.
I appreciate the distinction. I mean I'm in support of this period. I was also in support of that activity
before period. So I just want to make sure this is not another round of the council's expressed its
will on a Sophia Travis grant only to bump into something on Thursday. So if you're if the thought is
this should be kosher you know because of the variations of the funding. Great. But again I don't want
the deja vu all over again. It feels like deja vu night between the Board of Health conversation and now
So thank you, Madam President, on that. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or
comments on this item? Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment, you
can come forward to the electorate here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may
we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes.
Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. And I want to note for the record that Councillor
Hawke has left the meeting. Motion passes six to zero. All right. Last but not least, item H. Council,
I move to approve resolution 2026-06.
reestablishing the Long Term Finance Planning Committee and amending membership composition. Second.
All right. We got a motion and a second. And look into Mr. King for this item. So when the Long Term
Finance Committee was originally established, it's by resolution, the resolution provided that the committee
shall consist of the council president and two additional members selected by the president. However,
this amendment makes it so that the committee would either consist of the Council President or the Council
Pro Temp and two other Council Members selected by the President. Pretty self-explanatory. Council Iverson.
I'm in full support of this because I think at the time that President Crossley was running for presidency
the comment was made we need to be really careful about how much we put on the President's
And I think that's slowly crept up and up and up and up. And presidents are expected to do more and
more and more. So I think this is a good step out of the direction. And I'm willing to share. Other
questions or comments on this? And also for the I'll say I know Council Iverson has been very much interested in and
trying to like with budgets and things like that. And so I think it's only fair that you get an opportunity
to. So I'm sharing the wealth. You're welcome. All right. Yes. Is this just kind of codifying
the appointments that we made in January? OK. Thank you. And it also there was the appointments in January
and then I believe there was a modification to the LTF appointment as it went from
President Crossley to Councilmember Iverson. So it's to ratify everything that we've done. Thank you.
So the other two people are still the same? Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure. And the wealth between
the pro tem and the president. You're welcome. All right.
Seeing no other further questions on this item, we'll go to public comment. If there's public comment,
you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern in the room. And still seeing none,
may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Henry? Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley?
Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous six zero Great. Thank you all for that And we don't have any other presentations
or discussions. And so now we are at the tail end of our Items here, which is council a liaison updates
and comments and so I'm gonna surprise everybody and start over here to my right this time I'll start
with councilmember Henry. Thank you, madam president. I don't have any
real thoughts to share about community activities or liaisons. I actually wanted to reflect a little
bit about the beginning of our meeting with I think the public comments from the Women's Commission.
And it's not just about I think the Women's Commission in terms of the volunteers and people who give
their time to the boards and commissions in the county. We're having some challenges I've noticed in
some of my other boards and commissions that I'm on. For example, the EMAC, the Emergency Management Advisory,
commission, we've now had two consecutive meetings where we've not had quorum to meet. And so we haven't
had a formal meeting of that body since October. A challenge with that is that people do volunteer,
and if they feel like they all can call in on a hybrid, we can't do the quorum for the meeting. And
some of that is just, I think, it raises questions for me about how we maybe value our board and commission
volunteers or assignees or proxies.
Yeah, if they feel supported I mean we heard from two women's commission members about feeling supported
and their work and whether or not their work maybe has value or is heard you know because if you why
would you come to meetings if you don't feel like.
what you're producing is actually impacting as an advisory body in the community. So I think what's
on my mind is I heard that this evening, you know, and I don't know how much it is, you know, us recruiting
people and trying to attract people to serve in boards and commissions, or if we're just treating this
sort of box checking, which is a challenge. You know, I actually remember I wrote an op-ed about this
about a year ago in the Herald Times that talked about what our board and commission composition looks
like in the county.
You know, when I ran the data, it's mostly white, mostly over the age of 65, mostly men and mostly people
that own houses in the community. They're half a million dollars or more. You know, that's a very homogenous
group of people that get appointed to things. And so when I hear a body like Women's Commission members
who are much more diverse than that, you know, speaking up about maybe being locked out of the building
or forgotten about it, it has my concern tonight.
The last thing I want to say about this is, I mean, I think we do a great job of pointing diversity
to our boards and commissions and trying to attract new or newer different voices from our council seat.
But there's another thought on my mind, too, about this, is that some of the boards and commissions
operate as patronage positions. I think of the Affordable Housing Advisory Commission I was on a few
years ago. That was a project of
former Commissioner Barge and when she left office the commission was disbanded shortly thereafter.
I think about the opioid settlement fund committee that Commissioner Giddens was involved with quite
a bit that still has money to disperse and hasn't met probably as frequently as it should to get that
money into the community. And so I guess that's just a lot of meditation on what I think
I heard this evening to make sure we value the people are serving in these bodies that we support them
We pull their work into our decision-making. Yeah, and if there are blocking blockers making you preventing
their good information getting to us We need to open that up a little bit but but I don't want to lose
good board members over things that feel like I don't say neglect is the right word, but it just feels like I
maybe showing more gratitude and appreciation for the hard work people put in. On that note, again,
EMAC did not meet today, which I think was the long way of me saying that, but we have a...
We have a scheduled meeting in April and that list is getting longer. I will ask my colleagues to if
there's someone who would like to be my proxy for that meeting in the spirit of making sure that meeting
happens, I would appreciate some cross coverage. And I know they're working hard to make sure there
are proxies that that meeting continue those good conversations. But thank you for letting me indulge
here. But I just wanted to let folks know I heard them at the beginning of this meeting and we got to
do some we got to do better on this. Thank you.
All right, thank you, Madam President. I have four things this evening, and I'm going to start with
the cost of an unconstitutional war. We now know that what is going on now over in Iran has cost 1,407
lives. Of those, 214 are children. This is a costly unconstitutional war, but it's coming home.
The Circle K gas station in the first district, it's on East 3rd Street over by Brewster's Ice Cream.
One week ago the price for a gallon of gas was $3.89. Today on the way over it was $4.19 and everything
that we know is that this is not going to get better, it will only get worse. The second thing that
I'd like to point out is that
If you're interested in the ways that fiscal policy is impacting Monroe County, the Long-Term Finance
Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday at 1.30 p.m. That is on the county calendar. You can join virtually
or come here to the NatU Hill Room. We will be discussing topics that include but are not limited to
the health of Monroe County, employee self-insurance,
jail funding, and potentially more. It's going to be a very full agenda, and we're actually talking
about maybe even splitting it into two. We hope that you can join us Tuesday at 1.30 p.m. for the Long-Term
Finance Committee meeting. I will note that the Substance Use Disorder Advisory Commission continues
to be very busy. We are moving full speed ahead with the Recovery Summit
which is going to be September 1st and 2nd. We are very close to publishing the Eventbrite page where
you can register for this event. In the meantime, if you or your organization can sponsor this event,
we are taking those sponsorships now. And the last and final thing that I'll be sharing is that the
A lot of us at the last meeting came into this meeting and were surprised to hear that yet another eviction
was happening in Monroe County on Monroe County property and our hearts went out. And I know a lot of
us talked about the different resources that were available to folks. And I think at the beginning of
today's meeting, we heard that the Monroe County Apartment Association is going to be hosting an apartment
open house.
particularly targeted to people who are facing this special eviction. That'll be April the 11th. We
will at least I will post the flyer on my socials and on my website. We want to make sure that folks
are aware of this and that we are not throwing people out into the cold. Instead, this county council
is part of the solution, not part of the problem. Thank you.
Well, I also want to join in comments honoring those folks that stand up as volunteers serving on our
commissions, our committees. You know, a long criticism that I've had over the years is that often some
of these ad hoc organizations come about due to the tremendously bright ideas that people have during campaigns
But unfortunately, sometimes those things go away when something changes, either an office holder leaves
or they get settled into a job and they get busy or the headaches are there. I truly think if you ask
someone to come forward to serve on a board or commission, you should honor what they do, listen to
what they do. And here's a big thing with all of that, accepting.
what comes from a boarding commission. The Sophia Travis Grants Committee, which has met since the last
time we met, it's got two community reps that join three council members. The ordinance very specifically
cites how we get our membership. Those individuals in turn wrestle and make decisions about
which not-for-profits receive crucial dollars.
probably more crucial by the day due to larger economic factors that go beyond our borders but still
affect us much the same, and I think that when there's a recommendation the county at every level, council,
commissioners and beyond, has to honor some of those wishes, and I know that you can always do a lot
of things under the law, but it doesn't mean you always should. So I think that all of that
said I appreciate those folks that step up public services hard enough public service that you're doing
as volunteers even harder and we definitely don't want to discourage it. Beyond that I just want to
say I had a very lovely meeting with our superintendent and I appreciate Dr. Winston very much because
of the way that she outwardly communicates.
on a lot of crucial issues that really affect the public. And I just enjoyed the ability to sit down
with her, learn more about the MCCSC school system.
not from the view of a parent, but from one leader sitting and talking to another. And I think that
that was just, it was a real breath of fresh air. Sometimes as a constituent looking inwardly into schools,
school policies, school calendars and everything, things get overwhelming. But I was really pleased
by the way that the superintendent really takes
all the complexities of that and makes it so clear and is so engaging with care for our kids. She said
just a wonderful thing is she said, you know, I worry about when the babies get here until the last
school bus drops them off. I think sometimes in public service, we've got to get down to those basics
in turn ourselves. But I'm going to keep it short and wrap it up from there. I know we all have a lot
going on and I just appreciate
The ability to kind of report out on what what's going on Okay I'm gonna just talk for a second about
the housing summit that is taking place in our community on April 14th, which is rapidly approaching
I cannot believe it but it is and That's being
brought to you by Heading Home of South Central Indiana and the Community Foundation is sponsoring.
To that point, they are accepting other sponsorships as well. Since we already had the one plug, I'm
gonna give the other plug if you're feeling in the sponsoring frame of mind. Here's another opportunity
for you and you can contact Marriott Heading Home.
for that. The keynote speaker is Vu Lee, who is an internationally known keynote speaker, writer, and
nonprofit leader. So that's pretty exciting. And there'll be a variety of sessions, breakouts, and all
kinds of things really focusing on all aspects of affordable housing and
community-based housing efforts, and a lot of the types of barriers to housing that people experience
in the community. So it's really coming at things from a variety of viewpoints and positions. I think
there'll be something for everybody there. So be sure to check that out. And then again, that's the
Housing, Regional Housing Summit taking place on April 14th.
The other thing I wanted to mention also has to do with housing and heading home and a small group of
just those of us in government, city and county have met and begun kind of thinking through
what possibilities there are for coordinated
Action addressing homeless encampments in our community and we're at the very beginning stages, but
we are looking at Working with heading home and their partners Who offered a technical assistance training
actually a couple of weeks ago on moving
folks from encampment to directly to housing. And it's a really innovative approach. There have been
other communities around the country who have employed this specific kind of methodology to really just
rapidly address encampments.
and meet people's needs working intensively over a shorter period of time. So we're looking at that
as a possibility among other things trying to think innovatively. But I just wanted to let you all know
that we are we are working on things and hopefully bringing opportunities and discussions to broader
community focus.
So I participated in seven events or meetings, and I want to highlight three of those meetings and things
I learned there that I wanted to share. So I learned that the Indiana Avenue Safety Committee improvements
will happen in twenty twenty seven and twenty eight. And that will be a big project. They're they're
looking forward to all those things. So stay tuned for that. The little five hundred this year is a
special year. It's seventy five years.
so I'm not sure everybody realized that. There's gonna be a documentary about the Little 500 on April
21st at the Buskirk Chumley. There will be a concert on Little Five on the 22nd at the auditorium. There's
an alumni race on April 23rd. The upcoming graduations for graduate students is Friday, May 8th at 2.30.
coming graduation for undergraduate students this Saturday, May 9th at seven fifteen at the Memorial
Stadium, which I will see a grandson graduate. I'm excited about that. The Convention Center, you may
or may not know, is scheduled to open on January 8th, which they're billing as Elvis Presley's birthday.
So that's a nice tie in. Then so far they have right now they have 100 contractors working down there
now, it's been told.
There's nine conferences scheduled in the new space already. So the downtown Bloomington group has been
working on a five year downtown activation plan and excuse me I've got it mixed up. So there's a downtown
activation plan headed up already in Bloomington April through October. It will include each the first
week of the month will include Bloomington Bites Bingo.
The family night out on Kirkwood the second Wednesday five to eight thirty each month. Downtown shop
night will be the third Wednesday four to seven. The bus get dusk. I'm still learning about that will
be the fourth Thursday each month from five to eight. Then it was mentioned at that meeting that there
was the vote for Hopewell should be tomorrow with the city. The city economic development
group that I go to talked about the opportunity zones and they'll be identifying them and working on
it with ROI which is regional opportunities initiatives. It was highlighted that the city has 52% tax
exempt properties.
It was announced and reminded us that Senate Bill 89, this time, approved two additional alcohol permits
for Bloomington. And David Hittle is working on small business UDO. The last Downtown Bloomington group
talked about the annual Shred Day coming up at Comprehensive Financial Consultants on South College
Thursday, May 7th.
130 to four only, so they won't do it in the morning and not until 130 in the afternoon. Applications
are coming in for their two arts positions they have. They've had over 156 applications so far. Sidewalks,
I learned, are going to be power washed. I don't remember that ever being done before, and nobody else
could either. Between College of Walnut and Kirkwood and Eight. I don't know the exact date yet, but
it's upcoming.
Then the strategic action plan for the downtown Bloomington group is a five year plan. And some of the
highlights I thought were interesting. They've discovered where that 81 percent of households connect
with IU. They're going to be create creating engaging environments and having an authentic experience
for visitors. Exploring creative partnerships with IU.
thought about doing was selfie stations, right? Then maybe promoting wearing red days and then more
murals. Who doesn't like a good mural? And that's all I got. Thank you all, as always. The only couple
of things I wanted to remind people of is just a couple of, since Councilor Decker had talked about
or mentioned something about Sophia Travis is the fact that this year we've done Sophia Travis a lot
earlier this year and so for the public and I know our council staff has asked all of us to really help
spread the word so anybody here that wants to help continue to spread the word since we've bumped up
Sophia Travis since it's not
bumping against our budget seasons so we are now accepting applications and applications will be accepted
from by now up until Monday April 27th and so this is a great opportunity for any social service programs
and organizations that are really doing some good work and you need a little bit of help of funding
this is your opportunity to apply for
I think also the city of Bloomington is bumping up their Jack Hopkins grant as well this year. So it
sounds like all of us are doing the same thing around the same time. But since I represent the county
in this regard, I'm representing Sophia Travis. And so again, applications are available through Monday,
April 27th, and that deadline will be fastly approaching.
I'm speaking of Sophia Travis. I think sometimes we don't get to hear the good deeds of what council
does as well as our committee does in terms of what people are receiving and their gratitude. And so
we got an email today from Catholic charities and I just wanted to just kind of read a little bit in
the record for this because I really and a lot of darkness and a lot of
hopelessness that I think we all feel right now. Sometimes you just need a little bit of light. And
so they said, Dear Council, it is with a grateful heart that we say thank you for your partnership with
Catholic Charities. Your cash contribution has been received and allocated to Catholic Charities Bloomington
where most is needed. In a time of widespread mental health challenges,
Catholic Charities Bloomington is a vital source of hope and healing, providing essential mental health
care to our community's most vulnerable. With a dedicated team of professionals, we ensure that every
dollar of your generosity makes a meaningful impact, directing 92% of your gift straight to those in
need. Your support is more than a donation. It's a lifeline, a fresh start, and a beacon of hope for
those struggling to find their way. So we just appreciate, you know,
Hearing those types of things come about and so I just wanted to read that into the record until Then
thank you for your words And I'm sure we might see them again this cycle Lastly, I know some of my colleagues
kind of touched base on this But I also again want to reiterate as well that
In the time where people feel like they are wanting to be called to action and they want to be able
to do something because of whatever we feel, I got myself started and activated by actually being a
member of Jack Hopkins Social Service Committee. I was a young lad and was trying to figure out how
to be involved in any way possible. And if it wasn't for
Miss Beverly calendar Anderson who is now retired from the city who I talked to to say get involved
You know, that was my jump start to where I am and sitting in front of y'all and so I say all that to
say that You know as we think about boards and commissions it is really hard to find true talent and
to really try to
to be in these seats and to actually stay in those seats for a really long time. Um and so new fresh
faces and perspectives are always needed. And so again, I know we had two members of the Women's Commission
speak, and I know I said it earlier at the meeting, but I also want to reiterate that we do take your
participation very
intentions or any way of you all feeling like no one cares about the work that you're doing, because
you are doing some good work. I see the work that they do in conjunction with the Women's Commission
in the city, and I'm pretty sure we'll see those members tomorrow at the Women's History Month luncheon
that's also happening tomorrow as well. So I just want to make sure that anybody that's watching, anybody
that wants to get involved in something,
you are definitely wanted and needed and we appreciate the work of the Women's Commission, all of the
commissions and hopefully we can get quorum happening on all of these commissions so Council Henry could
finally meet with ERAC in April. So with that being said we close out March and we are closing out this
meeting and without that being as my last thoughts being said we are adjourned. Thank you.