WEBVTT 00:00:00.610 --> 00:00:11.245 - Okay, all right, good evening, everybody. I will go ahead and call our meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, 00:00:11.245 --> 00:00:21.185 - July 28th, 2026, and the time is 5.01, and we are going to start the Monroe County Council meeting. 00:00:21.185 --> 00:00:27.646 - Literally here, all of us are here in the room, so yay, go team. 00:00:27.746 --> 00:00:33.346 - And we got a lot to cover on our agenda, so we will go ahead and get started. But first, before we do 00:00:33.346 --> 00:00:39.166 - all of that, all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of our Pledge of Allegiance. 00:01:03.202 --> 00:01:10.629 - Thank you. Next up is the item number three, which is the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody 00:01:10.629 --> 00:01:18.424 - wish to make any amendments to it? Yes, Councilor Iverson. Madam President, I have two amendments. First, 00:01:18.424 --> 00:01:25.851 - we have a request from the commissioner's office to table items 8J and 8K. I move that we table item 00:01:25.851 --> 00:01:29.086 - 8J, a de-appropriation and cable franchise. 00:01:29.218 --> 00:01:37.909 - and item 8K, a fund to fund transfer to the August 11th council meeting. Second. Okay, we got a motion 00:01:37.909 --> 00:01:46.685 - and a second on that. Any discussion on that? Great. Yes, Councilor Iverson. Do we need to, do you want 00:01:46.685 --> 00:01:54.110 - me to do my others or? Well, we had a motion in a second, so we can vote on that. Okay. 00:01:54.306 --> 00:02:01.416 - run down the whole gamut of all the other changes. Okay, so all those in favor of tabling those items 00:02:01.416 --> 00:02:08.805 - from the Commissioner's office to the August 11th meeting, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, 00:02:08.805 --> 00:02:15.914 - same sign. Okay, motion carries. All right. Yes, Councilor Iverson. My last change, Council, would be 00:02:15.914 --> 00:02:23.582 - to add item 9C, a brief discussion pertaining to notice related to the adjustment of the special purpose tax. 00:02:24.418 --> 00:02:32.767 - Second. We got a motion and a second. And then did I see somebody else? Yes. Councillor Decker. Madam 00:02:32.767 --> 00:02:41.607 - President, I move to amend the agenda to add item 90, a discussion regarding LATCF funding in consideration 00:02:41.607 --> 00:02:49.874 - of the streets to stability program. Second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to add the items 00:02:49.874 --> 00:02:51.838 - 9C, the special purpose 00:02:51.970 --> 00:03:06.676 - tax change information and then to add items 9D to discuss the LATCF. Okay, so that's cool. All right, 00:03:06.676 --> 00:03:16.670 - any other changes to tonight's agenda? Any other discussions on this? 00:03:17.986 --> 00:03:25.208 - All right, and seeing none, all those in favor of amending the agenda as presented again, signify by 00:03:25.208 --> 00:03:30.142 - saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. 00:03:30.498 --> 00:03:36.710 - Next up is item four, and this is to hear from our public. So these are for items that are not on tonight's 00:03:36.710 --> 00:03:42.635 - agenda. And so if you are here in the Net and Hill room, which there are a lot of people here and we'd 00:03:42.635 --> 00:03:48.617 - like to see that, you can go ahead and sign in with the sign in sheet. You'll have up to three minutes. 00:03:48.617 --> 00:03:52.126 - The monitors will let you know your three minute time frame. 00:03:52.546 --> 00:03:58.454 - and of course you'll need to state your name for the record. And then if you are virtually via Teams 00:03:58.454 --> 00:04:04.597 - and you would like to make public comment on tonight's, for items not on tonight's agenda, you can raise 00:04:04.597 --> 00:04:10.622 - your hand via Teams. So while we look via Teams first, we'll go ahead and here, and I know this space. 00:04:10.622 --> 00:04:16.706 - So just state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Ari Bennett, I'm Operations 00:04:16.706 --> 00:04:19.806 - Director with Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. 00:04:19.938 --> 00:04:26.479 - This message is for the council, but also all Monroe County officials who may be present or listening 00:04:26.479 --> 00:04:33.405 - today. Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County and Osage Place neighborhood homeowners continue to experience 00:04:33.405 --> 00:04:40.075 - challenges with encampments in the Thompson property that is just north of Osage Place. We believe that 00:04:40.075 --> 00:04:46.488 - there may be a plan to help the people in the encampments find better housing options, and we would 00:04:46.488 --> 00:04:49.502 - appreciate hearing about the status of a plan. 00:04:50.178 --> 00:04:56.818 - We recognize that this is a difficult situation to navigate. We do not agree with the policy of the 00:04:56.818 --> 00:05:03.457 - state law that criminalizes homelessness. It is cruel and counterproductive. Yet we are sympathetic 00:05:03.457 --> 00:05:10.429 - to our homeowners, volunteers, and staff who feel fear and discomfort in certain interactions. I'm going 00:05:10.429 --> 00:05:17.268 - to share some common situations that our homeowners, our employees, and our volunteers experience just 00:05:17.268 --> 00:05:19.326 - to give that lived experience. 00:05:19.874 --> 00:05:27.741 - People who are going to our homeowners' front porches to use hose bibs to obtain water. People scouting 00:05:27.741 --> 00:05:35.759 - for food and water from construction site hospitality. Groups of dogs roaming the neighborhood, sometimes 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:42.718 - exhibiting aggressive behaviors, including growling, barking, and running towards children. 00:05:44.418 --> 00:05:53.566 - property on Thompson Street or the Thompson property using Bernard Drive. Um and that is a stub street 00:05:53.566 --> 00:06:02.624 - that ends at the Thompson property. Habitat has not been able to stabilize the soil in this area, and 00:06:02.624 --> 00:06:11.595 - we've gotten notices of violation from the city of Bloomington utilities for erosion and runoff when 00:06:11.595 --> 00:06:13.726 - it rains. Car break ins 00:06:13.890 --> 00:06:20.798 - and tools, general concern and discomfort about safety, especially for children, general noise, including 00:06:20.798 --> 00:06:27.575 - frequent yelling and screaming coming from the encampment areas. Our neighbors are unsure whether there 00:06:27.575 --> 00:06:33.310 - are crimes being committed when that happens and whether they should be reporting them. 00:06:34.210 --> 00:06:41.557 - And we have had habitat partner families who have refused lot offers to move into Osage place because 00:06:41.557 --> 00:06:44.510 - of concern for safety of their families. 00:06:44.610 --> 00:06:52.087 - Many of these incidents are reported to law enforcement, either by the homeowners who are experiencing 00:06:52.087 --> 00:06:59.710 - them or sometimes when Habitat does directly, either by calling 911 or calling the city of Bloomington's 00:06:59.710 --> 00:07:07.260 - non-emergency line. Without a solution to find better housing situation, these incidents will continue. 00:07:07.260 --> 00:07:14.302 - We appreciate your attention and we would appreciate any information that you can share with us. 00:07:14.594 --> 00:07:16.222 - Thank you. 00:07:44.386 --> 00:07:51.918 - Good evening. I'm gonna start off by acknowledging that Julie Thomas is online and I would thank her 00:07:51.918 --> 00:07:59.673 - for that and also sort of by thanking her for responding to my email. But my comments tonight are about 00:07:59.673 --> 00:08:07.280 - my continued concern for the lack of a jail and the recent actions and some lack of love by the board 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:12.798 - of commissioners. So first I wanna talk about a somewhat sensitive topic. 00:08:13.154 --> 00:08:19.514 - that being Commissioner Jones we don't know where you are I'll state for the record I live in district 00:08:19.514 --> 00:08:25.751 - one and on all of these jail votes I'm not being represented at all and thus I'm thankful that Julie 00:08:25.751 --> 00:08:32.111 - Thomas does you know respond to my emails but it's very concerning I recognize your health concern but 00:08:32.111 --> 00:08:33.470 - when you told Dave on 00:08:33.602 --> 00:08:39.177 - October 3rd that you'd attend at least three monthly meetings and you haven't done that. I just don't 00:08:39.177 --> 00:08:44.642 - know how that's right to your constituents when you don't show up to meetings and I sympathize with 00:08:44.642 --> 00:08:50.272 - your diagnosis. My grandfather has cancer for the third time and it's almost 80 but I just don't think 00:08:50.272 --> 00:08:55.846 - it's responsible when my tax dollars are continually going to you but you're not representing me most 00:08:55.846 --> 00:08:58.142 - of the time. I will credit the attendance 00:08:58.882 --> 00:09:05.423 - that you have there, but I just don't think it's fair to your constituents that I haven't been hardly 00:09:05.423 --> 00:09:11.835 - represented at all, but yet my tax dollars have gone to you. And secondly, I'll go on to some of my 00:09:11.835 --> 00:09:13.374 - continued comments from 00:09:13.698 --> 00:09:20.402 - about Commissioner Thomas, I did respond to email, but I just think if you have been in county government 00:09:20.402 --> 00:09:26.726 - since 2008, it's now 2026, that is the time of a legal adult, and if you haven't been able to solve 00:09:26.726 --> 00:09:33.114 - the problem, especially when we know that the ACLU has gotten more concerned about us after COVID, I 00:09:33.114 --> 00:09:39.691 - just think you should resign. You said on May 29th, after the council voted no a second time, you would 00:09:39.691 --> 00:09:40.766 - not speak public 00:09:40.994 --> 00:09:46.988 - publicly about it. You then privately make a design on June 3rd that you then later present to the city 00:09:46.988 --> 00:09:52.924 - council last week. I just don't understand how that's collaborative at all. And then the one time that 00:09:52.924 --> 00:09:58.802 - you say you host these public forums, but the one time you did was June 25th at the Rotary Club. That 00:09:58.802 --> 00:10:04.565 - was not a public event and that I was not at. And the only example you gave in your email was about 00:10:04.565 --> 00:10:09.406 - the fire district when if the jail is the, I would argue the most concerning issue. 00:10:09.986 --> 00:10:16.076 - in this last year, I don't know why you haven't had any public forums. Well, actually, I know the reason 00:10:16.076 --> 00:10:22.108 - you haven't had any public forums is we would show up in... I just don't think the general public wants 00:10:22.108 --> 00:10:28.140 - this. I mean, I'm happy to know that you're now considering the other sites because I don't think North 00:10:28.140 --> 00:10:33.534 - Park is it, but I'm just really concerned. I just think we need to move the power lines now. 00:10:33.634 --> 00:10:40.398 - At this point, I don't think we can't really do anything with the Thompson site because of that. So 00:10:40.398 --> 00:10:47.636 - I just think whether that starts with the commissioners or the council, we should start with that. Whether 00:10:47.636 --> 00:10:54.739 - we do housing or a jail or anything with the Thompson site because those power lines are super limiting. 00:10:54.739 --> 00:11:00.894 - Thank you. Can you please state your name for the record? Oh, Kayden Smith. Thank you. OK. 00:11:01.378 --> 00:11:11.168 - Thank you. Is there anybody that is online via Teams that would like to make public comment? You can 00:11:11.168 --> 00:11:21.249 - raise your hand. See anybody there? And Lynn, last call for anybody here for public comment? All right. 00:11:21.249 --> 00:11:27.550 - Seeing none, we appreciate those for public comment for tonight. 00:11:27.650 --> 00:11:35.165 - Next up is item five, which are department updates. And so these are for items that are not also on 00:11:35.165 --> 00:11:42.830 - the agenda. Each department will have up to 10 minutes to give your update to us and ask that you use 00:11:42.830 --> 00:11:50.645 - your time wisely. So is there anybody here that would like to make an update on items not on the agenda 00:11:50.645 --> 00:11:51.998 - or via Teams that 00:12:09.666 --> 00:12:16.980 - Good evening, Council colleagues. So I would like to come before you regarding our 144 letter. So as 00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:24.367 - required by law, the Auditor's Office has presented the 2027 form 144s, a budget estimate of proposed 00:12:24.367 --> 00:12:32.261 - salaries and wages to the Board of Commissioners. So our role in this process is to provide a recommendation 00:12:32.261 --> 00:12:39.358 - to the Monroe County Council for consideration prior to setting the salaries and budget for 2027. 00:12:39.554 --> 00:12:45.698 - We appreciate the council's commitment to ensure that all Monroe County employees are paid equitably 00:12:45.698 --> 00:12:51.841 - and adequately, reflecting the current local employment market and the local cost of living. We also 00:12:51.841 --> 00:12:58.046 - understand the fiscal pressures that county government faces. The state budget agency issued a growth 00:12:58.046 --> 00:13:04.372 - quotient, a six-year increase in non-farm income of 6%. While not all county employee wages are derived 00:13:04.372 --> 00:13:06.014 - from property tax revenue, 00:13:06.114 --> 00:13:11.612 - The GQ represented represents an increase in tax revenue for the county. We recommend a salary increase 00:13:11.612 --> 00:13:16.898 - of six percent from Monroe County employees. The consumer price index or CPI increased five percent 00:13:16.898 --> 00:13:22.237 - in the Midwest from May twenty twenty five to May twenty twenty six which demonstrates the impact of 00:13:22.237 --> 00:13:27.523 - inflation on employees paychecks. In some we recommend that the council provide an increase for all 00:13:27.523 --> 00:13:31.646 - employees except those who have statutorily mandated salaries of six percent. 00:13:32.226 --> 00:13:37.197 - We asked the council to ensure relevant salaries for employees who hold similar positions at the city 00:13:37.197 --> 00:13:42.411 - of Bloomington and Monroe County are equitable. And we recommend that the council continue to work towards 00:13:42.411 --> 00:13:47.528 - pay equity and ensure all full-time county employees earn a living wage. We're proud every day of Monroe 00:13:47.528 --> 00:13:52.548 - County employees and the work they do for our community. As our colleagues on the county council know, 00:13:52.548 --> 00:13:57.713 - ensuring adequate pay and keeping up with the cost of living will have an impact on our ability to retain 00:13:57.713 --> 00:14:01.758 - an excellent workforce. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions or comments for 00:14:01.858 --> 00:14:10.924 - Commissioner Madera on a presentation. Yes, Councilor Hawke. Yes. Have have you or your staff reviewed 00:14:10.924 --> 00:14:19.989 - our projected revenue for all funds, not just the frozen property tax levy funds, because that we have 00:14:19.989 --> 00:14:25.886 - employees throughout all the different funds. And so I think it's. 00:14:26.946 --> 00:14:34.617 - I hate to say irresponsible, but there it is. If you haven't studied the finances, then I think it's 00:14:34.617 --> 00:14:42.743 - disrespectful to the council to suggest 6%. I think last year that was the suggested 8%. And we're sitting 00:14:42.743 --> 00:14:50.489 - here knowing that when our financial advisor came to us and first of all said 2% and then during that 00:14:50.489 --> 00:14:55.198 - meeting, he got an update that made the 2% not even possible. 00:14:56.322 --> 00:15:05.648 - So I think we ought to have stronger reliance on the financial expert. And I just would like for the 00:15:05.648 --> 00:15:14.973 - county commissioners to also rely on a financial expert as we do. And I'm not expecting you to know, 00:15:14.973 --> 00:15:23.006 - but you pay people to know. So I just would hate for the people, the employees of this 00:15:23.234 --> 00:15:31.740 - the county to think, well, commissioners want to give us six or eight or whatever, and then we have 00:15:31.740 --> 00:15:40.756 - to say there's not enough money for that. And so I just would like for us to be better colleagues, better 00:15:40.756 --> 00:15:50.622 - working partners in all that we do for county government, including its employees. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Wilks. 00:15:51.906 --> 00:16:00.588 - I've been on this council for a number of years now and every year we receive the same letter with a 00:16:00.588 --> 00:16:09.441 - recommended cost of living increase for employees. And I remember when I first started, it seemed like 00:16:09.441 --> 00:16:18.639 - a more reasonable percentage and one more in line with what we could do. 3% was the norm being recommended 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:20.702 - and it increased a lot. 00:16:22.018 --> 00:16:31.073 - And while I don't find it disrespectful, I know it's part of the process. I do feel obligated to point 00:16:31.073 --> 00:16:40.392 - out that we do have a lot of other things to take into consideration besides the factors that you listed. 00:16:40.392 --> 00:16:49.272 - And as I feel compelled to say every year, no one wants more to give a hearty raise to our employees 00:16:49.272 --> 00:16:51.294 - than we do. I think we 00:16:51.778 --> 00:17:01.570 - would all vote in favor of extraordinary raise because we know how hard things are out there, 00:17:01.570 --> 00:17:12.090 - so to speak. But I do want to acknowledge that Councilor Hawk is absolutely correct on the facts and 00:17:12.090 --> 00:17:19.486 - it's gonna be really difficult to even come close, I think, this year. 00:17:22.338 --> 00:17:29.103 - Councilor Henry and then Iverson. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Commissioner Madera, for reading 00:17:29.103 --> 00:17:35.485 - into our record, the letter we received. I echo the sentiments of my two colleagues on the left and 00:17:35.485 --> 00:17:41.931 - right here. That's literal, not been both, I guess, right? Anyway, it's interesting. I've been doing 00:17:41.931 --> 00:17:46.654 - a bit of a deep dive on these constitutional and statutory roles we hold. 00:17:46.754 --> 00:17:52.126 - You know, and I wonder about this letter if it's some sort of leftover from 100 years ago that when 00:17:52.126 --> 00:17:57.498 - the commissioners used to decide all of it on your side of the table and there was no such thing as 00:17:57.498 --> 00:18:02.924 - a council. You know, how we have a letter suggesting a salary increase but it's on us to go find it. 00:18:02.924 --> 00:18:08.564 - It's an interesting parlor game we're doing here. But where I want to take it in the 21st century anyway 00:18:08.564 --> 00:18:12.862 - is where I think Councilor Woltz was going with the idea of total compensation. 00:18:12.930 --> 00:18:18.389 - Look at things like the self-insurance in the county and the escalating costs and our inability really 00:18:18.389 --> 00:18:23.688 - to really ratchet that down the past few cycles. It's really incumbent on the commissioner's office 00:18:23.688 --> 00:18:29.041 - to understand the budget for the whole 12 months of what that insurance increase is. It is the total 00:18:29.041 --> 00:18:34.447 - compensation of our employees in the county. And so that's something we absolutely have to hold of as 00:18:34.447 --> 00:18:40.117 - our tax base changes. The MLGQ, yeah, for this year, it's interestingly generous, but we know that there's 00:18:40.117 --> 00:18:42.078 - a lot of changes coming in tax code. 00:18:42.146 --> 00:18:47.694 - One of which, of course, is what we do with the funds we currently have, like the edit, that we need 00:18:47.694 --> 00:18:53.571 - to put to work and fully expend to make sure we're able to offer that total compensation to our employees. 00:18:53.571 --> 00:18:59.174 - So I hope that when we get into budget time, you know, we are having a lot of communication about the 00:18:59.174 --> 00:19:04.722 - many ways we can put the edits to work to add to, if we can't do a robust COLA, how we are adding to 00:19:04.722 --> 00:19:06.974 - the total compensation of our employees. 00:19:07.042 --> 00:19:13.081 - Lastly, I'd add to that pile things like telework, which is a little disjointed. I understand that there 00:19:13.081 --> 00:19:19.004 - are some county employees that are able to do some work from home even on cycle with filing well right 00:19:19.004 --> 00:19:24.813 - now, which is interesting. But as we have a closed facility right now, just making sure that we have 00:19:24.813 --> 00:19:30.564 - options available to keep our employees working here, even if the compensation is not in the market 00:19:30.564 --> 00:19:34.302 - compared to other counties. But thank you for coming in on that. 00:19:34.466 --> 00:19:39.806 - We're clearly getting into budget season. It's on our minds. Thank you, Mr. President. 00:19:39.806 --> 00:19:46.005 - Thank you, Commissioner Mandira, for being here and reading the letter that we receive every year. I 00:19:46.005 --> 00:19:52.450 - wanted to remind the public that many of the topics that have been discussed in this departmental update 00:19:52.450 --> 00:19:58.650 - were discussed on the June 30th Long-Term Finance Committee meeting. That is recorded for perpetuity 00:19:58.650 --> 00:20:00.798 - and for you to go back and review. 00:20:00.994 --> 00:20:07.537 - That's where we went into detail on a lot of the topics that we discuss in budget seasons every single 00:20:07.537 --> 00:20:14.017 - year. And of course, Commissioner Madeira, this is not directed at you, but rather the public. I will 00:20:14.017 --> 00:20:18.718 - also remind folks that on September the 2nd, which is about a month away, 00:20:18.978 --> 00:20:25.908 - We are going to be starting our budgets. So the first budget hearing is about a month away. So if folks 00:20:25.908 --> 00:20:32.572 - want to take it to heed what my colleagues are saying, I would certainly encourage all of you to go 00:20:32.572 --> 00:20:39.303 - back and review that June 30th long-term finance committee meeting. Thank you. Anybody else with any 00:20:39.303 --> 00:20:46.233 - questions or comments for Commissioner Mendeer? Yes. I don't have a question. Thank you for being here, 00:20:46.233 --> 00:20:47.166 - Commissioner. 00:20:47.266 --> 00:20:54.770 - on reading the letter. My colleagues have expressed some strong thoughts on where this is in the process. 00:20:54.770 --> 00:21:02.415 - Here's one thing I don't want to get lost in kind of the shuffle of the budget is that for county employees 00:21:02.415 --> 00:21:09.565 - who watch these discussions exceedingly intently, this council is grateful for your service and your 00:21:09.565 --> 00:21:15.582 - work. And part of that is a record of pouring through this budget to figure out what 00:21:16.002 --> 00:21:22.565 - or adjustments, or in certain years in the past, we had to do retention bonuses and training, all sorts 00:21:22.565 --> 00:21:28.875 - of things that we've had to do over a number of years. Some of us have done this a number of years, 00:21:28.875 --> 00:21:35.437 - but that effort is to speak to county employees about where it matters, what they take home in the best 00:21:35.437 --> 00:21:36.510 - way that we can. 00:21:36.674 --> 00:21:43.363 - we're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. 00:21:43.363 --> 00:21:50.052 - We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. 00:21:50.052 --> 00:21:56.741 - We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. 00:21:56.741 --> 00:22:03.431 - We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. 00:22:03.431 --> 00:22:05.278 - We're going to be able to do 00:22:05.890 --> 00:22:12.107 - And it's like we're walking into quicksand while dodging pies that are being thrown at each other. That, 00:22:12.107 --> 00:22:18.147 - too, is part of our discussion. And I think that that discussion has done best when everybody remains 00:22:18.147 --> 00:22:24.127 - at every table talking openly and accurately about all those things. And that's what I'm going to be 00:22:24.127 --> 00:22:30.048 - doing in the next few months alongside these colleagues, that colleague, and a few other colleagues 00:22:30.048 --> 00:22:35.614 - along the way. And I think that's the order of the day. But in that wash, I don't want to get 00:22:36.066 --> 00:22:43.654 - our problems, our mistakes, I don't want it to get lost that we are grateful to the folks that make 00:22:43.654 --> 00:22:51.698 - things happen. And we have to think about all the conditions in which they make it happen. Yes, Councilor 00:22:51.698 --> 00:22:59.514 - Feidl. So I come from the labor representation field, as many of you know, and I can't help but wonder 00:22:59.514 --> 00:23:04.446 - if we might want to think about doing a survey of our employees. 00:23:04.834 --> 00:23:12.946 - I mean, I know that when I represented folks earlier in my career, that you'd be surprised what it is. 00:23:12.946 --> 00:23:21.373 - They really wondered, and it wasn't always money. And so I don't know if that is something that's possible 00:23:21.373 --> 00:23:29.406 - to do for the workers here, but I would certainly like to explore that avenue. Yeah, I don't say much 00:23:29.406 --> 00:23:31.454 - what everybody is saying. 00:23:31.778 --> 00:23:39.524 - among, upon, rather, the most wonderful time of the year, and it's a lot to take into consideration. 00:23:39.524 --> 00:23:47.269 - While I have you, Commissioner Thomas, I do want to, okay, I just wanted to ask a question because I 00:23:47.269 --> 00:23:55.245 - like watching CATS TV and I like watching government, and I noticed last week that you and Commissioner 00:23:55.245 --> 00:24:01.150 - Thomas went to the city council to present Hopewell as a possible jail site. 00:24:01.282 --> 00:24:10.541 - I was a little bit surprised on that, but I guess out of curiosity, I just wanted to ask while you're 00:24:10.541 --> 00:24:19.890 - here, has anybody from city council, what feedback have y'all received from that presentation? I would 00:24:19.890 --> 00:24:25.790 - say that the feedback has been in some ways mixed. We've had one 00:24:26.434 --> 00:24:33.953 - city council member reach out with useful feedback and one reach out with primarily negative feedback. 00:24:33.953 --> 00:24:41.473 - And then the rest have been silent. Have you all talked with Mayor Kerry Thompson about your proposal? 00:24:41.473 --> 00:24:48.992 - Actually, the mayor has invited us to try to schedule a meeting and we are in the process of doing so. 00:24:48.992 --> 00:24:54.686 - OK, I'm just I was curious because I think I know I heard from some county or 00:24:54.786 --> 00:25:01.328 - from some colleagues in the city, and they were just as surprised as I was in watching that. So I just 00:25:01.328 --> 00:25:07.807 - wanted to ask while we add you. So I guess stay tuned. Okay. All right. Anything else for the good of 00:25:07.807 --> 00:25:13.778 - the order for Commissioner Thomas said anybody or sorry. Well, Commissioner Thomas is online, 00:25:13.778 --> 00:25:20.129 - but Commissioner Madeira. All right. We'll let you get to it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Last 00:25:20.129 --> 00:25:24.766 - call for any other department updates for items not on tonight's agenda. 00:25:28.194 --> 00:25:34.899 - Seeing none, we will proceed. We don't have anything for consent agenda items this evening, so we will 00:25:34.899 --> 00:25:41.538 - go into our conversations that we will have for the hiring freeze review. And up first is the clerk's 00:25:41.538 --> 00:25:47.006 - office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the clerk's 00:25:47.138 --> 00:25:54.167 - clerk's office request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1215-0062 00:25:54.167 --> 00:26:01.265 - election fund election board one part-time voter registration clerk position. Second. We got a motion 00:26:01.265 --> 00:26:06.206 - and a second and we are joined by the chief deputy clerk Tana Branham. 00:26:06.946 --> 00:26:12.545 - Good evening, Council. Thanks for having me. So I hope this is quick and easy. So this is a request 00:26:12.545 --> 00:26:18.200 - to fill a vacant part-time voter registration position. This was previously approved to be filled by 00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:23.799 - you earlier this year in April, I think it was. We posted the position. We accepted resumes. We did 00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:29.566 - interviews. We found a great candidate. We hired him. He worked for one day and then unfortunately had 00:26:29.566 --> 00:26:30.462 - a family health 00:26:31.010 --> 00:26:38.590 - emergency and he just felt that he wouldn't be able to fulfill the duties of the role. So he resigned 00:26:38.590 --> 00:26:46.243 - and the position is now vacant and we're now requesting to fill it once again. Thank you very much for 00:26:46.243 --> 00:26:53.749 - that. Any questions on this item? Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes, in a related incident, I think some of 00:26:53.749 --> 00:26:58.430 - us were informed that the voter registration office was closed 00:26:58.594 --> 00:27:05.964 - and many wondered, did they really think that because the justice building was closed that the showers 00:27:05.964 --> 00:27:13.334 - building people didn't have to go to work? And before I would suggest we spend one more penny, we find 00:27:13.334 --> 00:27:20.489 - out who gave them the permission to stay home. I'm not faulting the employees because I'm sure they 00:27:20.489 --> 00:27:28.574 - did what they were told, but who told them that? And yes, it's a budgetary question because we're being asked to 00:27:28.770 --> 00:27:34.888 - bill of the slide, plus money out of that election fund, and that's where these folks were getting paid 00:27:34.888 --> 00:27:40.888 - from, I would believe, from the election fund. So do you have an answer as to who gave them the order 00:27:40.888 --> 00:27:46.889 - to stay home? Yes, so that was Clerk Nicole Brown decided to close, and that was because we had a few 00:27:46.889 --> 00:27:52.830 - voter registration people who were going to be out on vacation anyway this week, and then I wouldn't 00:27:53.346 --> 00:27:59.122 - you know, so we so we just decided to go ahead and close with the justice building being closed on, 00:27:59.122 --> 00:28:05.129 - and we wouldn't have any employees who would be able to help potentially help out any issues that would 00:28:05.129 --> 00:28:11.136 - arise down in election central because they wouldn't be in. Well, certainly there were folks there that 00:28:11.136 --> 00:28:17.144 - could have made up whatever shortfall. But what that is simply a use of county taxpayers that just went 00:28:17.144 --> 00:28:19.454 - out the window and it's not acceptable. 00:28:19.554 --> 00:28:28.162 - And remember, that that showers building has a lot of county employees working there. And many of them 00:28:28.162 --> 00:28:36.686 - noticed, oh, we had this group who were taking a day off and getting paid. And so did they go back to 00:28:36.686 --> 00:28:45.544 - work today? There were one employee. One employee did go back today. I remember correctly. But the office 00:28:45.544 --> 00:28:49.054 - itself was not open. Just not acceptable. 00:28:49.666 --> 00:28:56.425 - I understand you didn't make that choice. If it had been you, I was going to be very unhappy with you. 00:28:56.425 --> 00:29:03.052 - It was a very poor choice and disrespectful of the people who paid the bills around here, and that's 00:29:03.052 --> 00:29:10.270 - the people of this county. Thank you, Councilor Hawke, for bringing that to our attention. Councilor Iverson. 00:29:10.722 --> 00:29:18.225 - I want to say that as one of your liaisons, I was disappointed to hear that this position, or the person 00:29:18.225 --> 00:29:25.442 - filling this position only lasted one day. And I think this position is vitally important, given the 00:29:25.442 --> 00:29:32.801 - fact that where the workforce is right now. So we approved this the last time, and I'm looking forward 00:29:32.801 --> 00:29:34.302 - to approve it again. 00:29:35.074 --> 00:29:41.526 - Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, we were very disappointed. We were very excited to have 00:29:41.526 --> 00:29:47.915 - this candidate on board. He was highly qualified and it was just a very unfortunate, you know, so it 00:29:47.915 --> 00:29:54.494 - is what it is. Anybody else? Yes, Chancellor Decker. I have one question. So much of what this division 00:29:54.494 --> 00:30:00.884 - of your office does comes down to making sure that any voter when they go in, they're guaranteed the 00:30:00.884 --> 00:30:02.718 - administration of elections. 00:30:02.946 --> 00:30:11.327 - has a Democrat or Republican involved in that. Does filling this assist you all with doing that? Yes, 00:30:11.327 --> 00:30:19.790 - this would be a Republican position which, yeah, which we do need to fill in the office to ensure that 00:30:19.790 --> 00:30:28.171 - we have an equal balance. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? Councillor Feidl. So the fact that employees 00:30:28.171 --> 00:30:30.718 - were told to not work whenever 00:30:31.426 --> 00:30:39.216 - the money come from? Do they have to take their time off? Or how is this happening that they get paid? 00:30:39.216 --> 00:30:47.005 - I believe it will be an emergency closure. She. That that means go ahead for clarity. If the employees 00:30:47.005 --> 00:30:54.719 - had already scheduled vacation times, they will not receive emergency time. So how many employees are 00:30:54.719 --> 00:31:01.374 - we talking about that are being paid on the emergency? Let's see, it would be two full. 00:31:01.474 --> 00:31:13.518 - one full-time employee and one part-time employee. For how many days? For three days. Okay, Ms. Turner-King, 00:31:13.518 --> 00:31:24.568 - I'm gonna look to you and ask a question. I know we are all in here, so since it was brought up and 00:31:24.568 --> 00:31:31.198 - how is that possible that that is something like that could 00:31:31.426 --> 00:31:40.623 - happen, um, in which a building that's not even affected by what is happening in the low justice building, 00:31:40.623 --> 00:31:49.649 - um, be able to do something like that. Cause I mean, essentially we're saying that they've been affected 00:31:49.649 --> 00:31:51.454 - and that's not true. 00:31:53.954 --> 00:32:00.655 - I don't have an answer right off the top of my head, but I'm happy to research it and talk with the 00:32:00.655 --> 00:32:07.355 - board of commissioners to figure out how that happened. I know that the commissioners work with the 00:32:07.355 --> 00:32:13.587 - board of judges in these closures, and so I don't know how other elected officials play into 00:32:13.587 --> 00:32:20.958 - that calculation. Thank you. I think I saw Councilor Wilk's hand go up, and then I'll go to Councilor Decker. 00:32:21.346 --> 00:32:27.675 - asking the same thing. So I think if we could get more information, that'd be great. Okay. I'm glad 00:32:27.675 --> 00:32:34.131 - somebody else is thinking that too. Okay. Counselor Decker. My question would be this. I know that we 00:32:34.131 --> 00:32:40.777 - have all separate elected officials, which is the root of sometimes a lot of our headaches that we have, 00:32:40.777 --> 00:32:47.233 - right? But even with separate elected officials, I would be very curious, and maybe this is something 00:32:47.233 --> 00:32:50.334 - that legal could look at and maybe advise us on. 00:32:50.722 --> 00:32:57.449 - Can our commissioners not adopt an ordinance that says the hours of our buildings are open into the 00:32:57.449 --> 00:33:04.446 - public? I'll give you a wild scenario. I'll pick on the recorder's office because Amy Swain is the best 00:33:04.446 --> 00:33:10.366 - in the world, but you get a wild recorder elected, not named Amy Swain. We'll say that. 00:33:10.498 --> 00:33:17.298 - And they just say, January 1st, I took an oath and I'm never going to turn that lock and that key again 00:33:17.298 --> 00:33:23.968 - to open that door. Employees are not employees. Isn't there a requirement legally that a door open to 00:33:23.968 --> 00:33:30.638 - an office? And if not, can we make one? And I'm not asking you to answer all that, but surely to God, 00:33:30.638 --> 00:33:37.438 - there is a way to make sure that our services are open to the people beyond this kind of scenario here. 00:33:38.978 --> 00:33:46.776 - So that's probably more homework than that. I'm not sure I want a response, but I will look into it. 00:33:46.776 --> 00:33:54.574 - Council Henry, and then next. Thanks. I'm trying to find a way to tie the bends together here. So do 00:33:54.574 --> 00:34:02.681 - you know what your average voter registration has been looking like lately per day? Like how many people 00:34:02.681 --> 00:34:04.766 - are coming in to register? 00:34:05.058 --> 00:34:10.644 - I do not know. I mean, most of the people who are coming into the office are candidates and candidate 00:34:10.644 --> 00:34:16.340 - staff who are coming in for those kind of reasons, filing relief reasons. We don't have a lot of people 00:34:16.340 --> 00:34:21.214 - coming in to register in the office. We'll get voter registration forms delivered to us. 00:34:21.314 --> 00:34:26.523 - to process. I know we're all, we got a wild hair here, but I feel like I got to chime in. So I think 00:34:26.523 --> 00:34:31.835 - the answer, maybe Councilor Deckard, is looking at a COOP. It's a continuity of operations or COOP for 00:34:31.835 --> 00:34:37.044 - the county. Because you could go the other direction and say, we have another clerk facility that we 00:34:37.044 --> 00:34:42.511 - could have had people working at, at the showers building. Instead of closing both, you could have moved, 00:34:42.511 --> 00:34:43.646 - like whatever was not 00:34:44.066 --> 00:34:49.187 - courthouse related or not essential to those computers. That's not you as the chief deputy, but in a 00:34:49.187 --> 00:34:54.308 - way it is to dust off some of the county's continuity of operations plans that probably haven't been 00:34:54.308 --> 00:34:59.430 - looked at since I wrote them 20 years ago with contractors here. But it's some of it. I mean, how do 00:34:59.430 --> 00:35:04.601 - you keep things open if we have to close and do other services elsewhere? And I tie it back to, yeah, 00:35:04.601 --> 00:35:09.773 - I mean, if right now we're kind of in maintenance mode between elections, there's not like a line out 00:35:09.773 --> 00:35:10.686 - the door of voter 00:35:10.786 --> 00:35:16.849 - registration or people dropping forms. I mean, we obviously weren't offering that service for a few 00:35:16.849 --> 00:35:23.154 - days. I think that's probably where some of the heartburn is up here. But just thanks. Councillor Hogg. 00:35:23.154 --> 00:35:29.277 - Yes. Just as a heads up and I don't know who's on vacation, but I think what you're going to find is 00:35:29.277 --> 00:35:35.582 - if they get back from vacation and they took a part of their vacation day to be gone and another person 00:35:35.714 --> 00:35:44.379 - got paid, emergency pay, and they didn't have to take part of their vacation day. I mean, I'm just saying 00:35:44.379 --> 00:35:53.207 - there's situations where you have to look at the big picture, and it's just regrettable that this happened. 00:35:53.207 --> 00:36:01.382 - And I'm not faulting the employees because they do as instructed. All right. Any other questions or 00:36:01.382 --> 00:36:03.262 - comments on this item? 00:36:04.962 --> 00:36:15.311 - Seeing none, we will move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your 00:36:15.311 --> 00:36:25.460 - hand via Teams or make an appearance here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:34.814 - vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Wilts? Yes. 00:36:36.450 --> 00:36:45.768 - Thank you very much council. All right next up is item B from courts. Council I move to open for discussion 00:36:45.768 --> 00:36:54.740 - and possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire 00:36:54.740 --> 00:37:03.454 - and fund 1000-0225 county general courts one full-time case management coordinator position. Second. 00:37:07.234 --> 00:37:13.754 - Hello. We are joined by a good old crew. Yes. I first want to start off by introducing our deputy court 00:37:13.754 --> 00:37:20.274 - administrator. This is Shani. She was the previous case management coordinator. So we're trying to fill 00:37:20.274 --> 00:37:21.214 - that position. 00:37:30.786 --> 00:37:35.854 - The courts are requesting to approve to fill the vacant case management coordinator's position. This 00:37:35.854 --> 00:37:41.174 - position performs critical administrative and case management functions that support court administration 00:37:41.174 --> 00:37:46.543 - and ensures the efficient operation of the courts. Primary responsibilities include analyzing, evaluating, 00:37:46.543 --> 00:37:51.562 - and reporting statistical court data to the Indiana Supreme Court, compiling and distributing daily 00:37:51.562 --> 00:37:56.630 - arrest lists and defendants and custody reports to appropriate parties, and ensuring compliance with 00:37:56.630 --> 00:37:59.390 - the state criminal statute and reporting requirements. 00:37:59.682 --> 00:38:05.118 - The position also coordinates court-ordered mental health evaluations by communicating with psychiatrists 00:38:05.118 --> 00:38:10.298 - and psychologists, scheduling appointments, monitoring the timely receipt of evaluation reports, and 00:38:10.298 --> 00:38:15.376 - distributing reports to the appropriate parties. In addition, this position prepares and maintains 00:38:15.376 --> 00:38:20.812 - documentation necessary for invoice processing and payment and performs other daily administrative duties 00:38:20.812 --> 00:38:23.838 - essential to effective operations of court administration. 00:38:26.946 --> 00:38:33.213 - I was going to look to Judge DeKoff here and see if you had anything to add to this as well. No. 00:38:33.213 --> 00:38:39.996 - As usual, Jamie has done a very succinct and thorough job of explaining it to you. So I'm here basically 00:38:39.996 --> 00:38:46.715 - if you have any questions that you can't answer. Thank you very much for that. All right. And look into 00:38:46.715 --> 00:38:50.462 - counsel to see if anybody has any questions on this item. 00:38:51.842 --> 00:39:02.201 - I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say that the liaisons met with these three wonderful people 00:39:02.201 --> 00:39:12.066 - last week and talked over this and a number of other issues around their budget and their staffing. 00:39:12.066 --> 00:39:21.438 - And they've done a really nice job laying everything out. I hope everyone's looked through the 00:39:21.570 --> 00:39:37.117 - I think it's a little bit of a case. Yes Council log. Yes and not just this position, but other positions 00:39:37.117 --> 00:39:47.678 - that are being requested this evening. Uh. We've seen this happen every 00:39:48.194 --> 00:39:55.290 - are coming before we get into budget hearings and ask to have slots filled when we've asked them to 00:39:55.290 --> 00:40:02.527 - hold back for a while. And it seems to me that if we're going to be fair to all departments, we don't 00:40:02.527 --> 00:40:09.765 - start filling these slots until we've gone through the budget session, then we decide which positions 00:40:09.765 --> 00:40:17.003 - are the most needed for whatever dollars we have to work with. Because if we indeed move forward with 00:40:17.003 --> 00:40:17.854 - some select 00:40:18.402 --> 00:40:29.470 - the other departments who are waiting. And so this is really when you're in a situation where we were 00:40:29.470 --> 00:40:38.910 - in. More than $5 million deficit for this year. And we were told to watch what we were 00:40:39.010 --> 00:40:46.384 - that we would at least wait until all the budgets are turned in, see what the total requests are, look 00:40:46.384 --> 00:40:53.757 - at the total revenue report from the auditor's office and see what money we have to work with. Because 00:40:53.757 --> 00:41:01.202 - otherwise, we will be moving forward with some departments and then tell everybody else, you know, cut. 00:41:01.202 --> 00:41:06.142 - So I think it's a matter of fairness to everyone to wait for budget. 00:41:11.778 --> 00:41:20.568 - I'm guessing that the budget isn't part of our packet, but I mentioned that we reviewed their preliminary 00:41:20.568 --> 00:41:29.110 - budget for next year as part of this meeting. And I'm not trying to play favorites, but I do feel like 00:41:29.110 --> 00:41:37.485 - it's relevant that that was a big part of the discussion and where they've been able to hold back on 00:41:37.485 --> 00:41:40.222 - some things and not feel averses 00:41:40.354 --> 00:41:47.118 - pushing some things forward because of a need. And I'm not gonna make your own case for you at all, 00:41:47.118 --> 00:41:53.949 - but I just wanted to point to the fact that they've been very communicative and provided information 00:41:53.949 --> 00:42:00.983 - specifically when they first submitted the request. And my response was, I think you need to make more, 00:42:00.983 --> 00:42:07.070 - provide more information so that council can think about this from a broader perspective. 00:42:08.674 --> 00:42:15.410 - at four positions that we will not be filling next year so and with that fiscal impact combined of those 00:42:15.410 --> 00:42:21.824 - four positions is two hundred and eighty one thousand fifty dollars and I'm to council will to this 00:42:21.824 --> 00:42:28.496 - point though I will also say like you all have been one of the very few departments that have been very 00:42:28.496 --> 00:42:34.654 - willing to like work and not feel things and want to actually one of the first ones that took a 00:42:34.754 --> 00:42:41.865 - full-time and switched it to part-time as well. So, I mean, to be fair, like, you all are doing that 00:42:41.865 --> 00:42:49.187 - with us in light of all the other things, and I wish other departments would take a note out of y'all's 00:42:49.187 --> 00:42:56.298 - book, but I think there has been a little bit of a give between y'all, and I really appreciate that, 00:42:56.298 --> 00:43:02.142 - and I appreciate the fact, you know, in the packet that I had a lot more in-depth, 00:43:02.914 --> 00:43:08.945 - I was looking forward for that, so I appreciate that. Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you. I would just 00:43:08.945 --> 00:43:14.796 - add, just because it came up, I appreciate the budget preview just there. I think that helps to, 00:43:14.796 --> 00:43:20.647 - you know, very rough order of magnitude balance numbers in my head as I'm looking at position X, 00:43:20.647 --> 00:43:26.859 - but 200,000 off to the side Y. So I just appreciate that preview of what's to come there and what will 00:43:26.859 --> 00:43:31.262 - look like a reduced budget on some of those account lines. So thank you. 00:43:33.538 --> 00:43:43.164 - All right. Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, you can come forward 00:43:43.164 --> 00:43:52.696 - to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may we please have a roll 00:43:52.696 --> 00:44:01.662 - call vote? Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hogg? No. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry? 00:44:02.370 --> 00:44:08.638 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes, majority 6-1. 00:44:08.638 --> 00:44:14.844 - Thank you. Next up is item C, also still with the court. Council, I move to open for discussion and 00:44:14.844 --> 00:44:21.112 - possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire, 00:44:21.112 --> 00:44:27.442 - in fund 1000-0225, County General Court's one full-time court bailiff position. Second. All right, we 00:44:27.442 --> 00:44:32.158 - got a motion and a second. And what would you all like to add to this item? 00:44:32.418 --> 00:44:38.971 - So we have a bailiff that's going to be retiring August 31st. So in anticipation for that, we're asking 00:44:38.971 --> 00:44:45.839 - that this position be granted to fill. And due to the retiring employee's payout obligation, the replacement 00:44:45.839 --> 00:44:52.330 - bailiff will not even be able to begin until October the 2nd. But we want to start getting feelers out 00:44:52.330 --> 00:44:55.102 - now. All right. Yes, Councillor Hoppe. Yes. 00:44:55.234 --> 00:45:02.599 - Of course, it continues to baffle me why this isn't under the Sheriff's Department, as I've said before. 00:45:02.599 --> 00:45:09.684 - But indeed, because this has to do with the safety of the courts, I'll be supporting this because we 00:45:09.684 --> 00:45:12.350 - have to provide safety to the courts. 00:45:13.410 --> 00:45:19.655 - somebody gets confused about why I say yes on some and no on others, there's the answer. Public safety 00:45:19.655 --> 00:45:25.719 - will come first for, not just for our employees, but of course for the employees, but for all those 00:45:25.719 --> 00:45:32.206 - who are attending in the court. You need a competent bailiff. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Decker. 00:45:32.206 --> 00:45:38.270 - I had just a quick question. Is the bailiff under the courts because you have to be able to command 00:45:38.270 --> 00:45:41.726 - them right quick? We do. Yes. Well, that speaks to that. 00:45:42.370 --> 00:45:49.234 - So, and then the other thing, how many bailiffs do you have roughly? We have seven. Thank you. Welcome. 00:45:49.234 --> 00:45:56.164 - Yes, Councilor Iverson. I want to take a point just real clear to commend you on the detail that Council 00:45:56.164 --> 00:46:03.028 - Member Wilts just brought up. I love a good org chart, and there's not only an org chart for this year, 00:46:03.028 --> 00:46:09.694 - but there's an organizational chart for next year included in our packet. And it looks like you paid 00:46:09.826 --> 00:46:16.085 - really close detail to not only the salary changes from year to year, which I really appreciate that 00:46:16.085 --> 00:46:22.469 - spreadsheet, but also lastly, the savings, which predominantly come from step increases. That's really 00:46:22.469 --> 00:46:28.542 - good to see too. So thank you for including all that detail that Council Member Wilts referenced. 00:46:33.762 --> 00:46:44.073 - Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item from Council, I'll move on to public comment. 00:46:44.073 --> 00:46:54.285 - If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the room. Now maybe please have 00:46:54.285 --> 00:47:03.614 - a roll call vote. This is on the bailiff. Yes. Thank you. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 00:47:03.874 --> 00:47:11.103 - Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up item D. Council I'm 00:47:11.103 --> 00:47:18.618 - going to be combining items D and E into one motion. I move to open for discussion and possible approval 00:47:18.618 --> 00:47:25.847 - of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0225 00:47:25.847 --> 00:47:27.422 - County General Courts 00:47:27.554 --> 00:47:36.252 - one full time floating court reporter position and simultaneously amend the 2026 salary ordinance to 00:47:36.252 --> 00:47:45.466 - add new account line 14176 floating court reporter and remove account line 14167 associate court reporter. 00:47:45.466 --> 00:47:52.958 - All right, we got a motion and a second. Go ahead. So we are requesting to have vacant 00:47:53.090 --> 00:47:58.135 - court reporter position filled and retitled the floating court reporter and although the court will 00:47:58.135 --> 00:48:03.280 - lose one court in twenty twenty seven the workload associated with that court will remain and will be 00:48:03.280 --> 00:48:08.628 - redistributed among this existing courts. As a result continued staffing support is necessary to maintain 00:48:08.628 --> 00:48:13.925 - efficient court operations and timely case processing. The floating court reporter will provide flexible 00:48:13.925 --> 00:48:19.272 - support across both criminal and our civil courts. Assisting were needed to ensure continuity of services 00:48:19.272 --> 00:48:23.056 - and adequate staff coverage. Duties will include monitoring and processing 00:48:23.056 --> 00:48:28.511 - processing odyssey, e-file daily queues to ensure timely case updates and workflow completion, processing 00:48:28.511 --> 00:48:34.120 - and issuing orders through the Indiana Court Technology Extra Net, known as INSIGHT, answering and directing 00:48:34.120 --> 00:48:39.780 - incoming phone calls, and providing assistance to court users, the public, and other stakeholders. Additional 00:48:39.780 --> 00:48:44.977 - responsibilities will include processing expungement cases, preparing and reviewing various reports, 00:48:44.977 --> 00:48:48.734 - and performing the daily duties traditionally signed to court reporters. 00:48:49.730 --> 00:48:55.814 - position will also provide courtroom and office support as operational needs require. This position 00:48:55.814 --> 00:49:02.506 - as a floating court reporter is necessary to maintain operational efficiency, support timely case processing, 00:49:02.506 --> 00:49:08.711 - and ensure adequate staffing coverage in both the courtroom and our court offices. Thank you for that 00:49:08.711 --> 00:49:15.038 - explanation. I'll go Councilor Iverson and then Hawk. I want to emphasize the second sentence you read. 00:49:15.554 --> 00:49:21.642 - Because I think that's really important. And you added more detail in the packet in your narrative. 00:49:21.642 --> 00:49:27.852 - And I just want to make sure that this number is correct, that the workload associated with the court 00:49:27.852 --> 00:49:34.000 - that's being lost is currently 2,393 cases. As of July 1st, yes, that was our pending caseload for a 00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:40.210 - court that we're going to lose. So the fact that Monroe County is losing a court, does that mean that 00:49:40.210 --> 00:49:44.350 - any of those cases are going to go away? No, they will not go away. 00:49:44.866 --> 00:49:52.983 - They will not follow that judge out of that justice building like little ducklings. They will be there. 00:49:52.983 --> 00:50:00.865 - All 2300, which is six months, which means we have six more months of filings in that court. And the 00:50:00.865 --> 00:50:08.903 - other thing that I want to emphasize is this, is that with that comes changing numbers, changing data, 00:50:08.903 --> 00:50:09.918 - doing input. 00:50:10.178 --> 00:50:19.117 - The Supreme Court requires a great deal of us in terms of that. So it is not just here is a court, here 00:50:19.117 --> 00:50:28.229 - is now another court, it involves a great amount of work. And so it is necessary that we have the ability 00:50:28.229 --> 00:50:37.598 - to do that because those cases as of right now are 2,300 by the end of the year that will be more than that. 00:50:37.986 --> 00:50:44.906 - our concern. And I will also say to you that losing that court is also new to the Supreme Court. This 00:50:44.906 --> 00:50:51.825 - is the first time that they are experiencing this as well, that we have got to absorb what is left of 00:50:51.825 --> 00:50:58.745 - what we are doing. So it's going to be a tremendous amount of work. The court administration has been 00:50:58.745 --> 00:51:05.529 - working alongside the Supreme Court as well as trial court technology to ensure a smooth transition 00:51:05.529 --> 00:51:06.750 - come January 1st. 00:51:07.842 --> 00:51:17.407 - Thank you for extrapolating. I think it's vitally important that that gets out to the public. Yes, so 00:51:17.407 --> 00:51:27.160 - much that questions that can be asked. But one, I will ask of the auditor. When we were being presented 00:51:27.160 --> 00:51:36.350 - the numbers from our financial advisors, I thought, and I'm not looking at it, but I was thinking 00:51:36.482 --> 00:51:45.335 - that he included in the revenue and expense items that we would have a savings of about a half a million 00:51:45.335 --> 00:51:54.020 - dollars. Is that right? About a half a million dollars because we would no longer have the additional, 00:51:54.020 --> 00:52:02.705 - what was that number? I'll have to look into that. I can't think of the number off the top of my head, 00:52:02.705 --> 00:52:05.150 - but I will get that for you. 00:52:05.794 --> 00:52:13.734 - I'm usually pretty good at numbers, but I don't have it memorized. I just thought that was quite a lot. 00:52:13.734 --> 00:52:21.749 - And it probably included benefits and so forth. And we were advised early on that if any position needed 00:52:21.749 --> 00:52:29.918 - to be filled in the court that's going to be vacant, that we do it on a temporary basis so that it was not 00:52:30.594 --> 00:52:39.963 - the people who were hired would know it was a temporary position until the end of the year. Now I understand 00:52:39.963 --> 00:52:48.902 - this is gonna go through. You had six people go say yes. I just think people need to know why I'm gonna 00:52:48.902 --> 00:52:57.669 - say no. I do recall that our consultant did say we would have a cost savings from losing a court. I'm 00:52:57.669 --> 00:52:59.646 - wondering, do you have 00:52:59.970 --> 00:53:05.585 - numbers on that that you can share because I do so with our proposed budget even though we're going 00:53:05.585 --> 00:53:11.481 - to be asking for some increases in certain line items our overall cost saving is going to be two hundred 00:53:11.481 --> 00:53:17.320 - and four thousand nine hundred and twenty three dollars and I just want to point out since 2025 between 00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:23.103 - 2025 26 and our proposed budget for 27 we will have reduced our budget by four hundred and sixty eight 00:53:23.103 --> 00:53:25.630 - thousand five hundred and fifty nine dollars 00:53:27.394 --> 00:53:35.169 - like me to repeat that. Can you say that slow? Both numbers you had were really important and I would 00:53:35.169 --> 00:53:43.477 - love to hear them. So with our proposed budget for 2027, including the positions we're asking for, increases 00:53:43.477 --> 00:53:49.118 - in certain line items, we will have still reduced our budget by $204,923. 00:53:49.858 --> 00:54:02.601 - 25, 26, and our proposed budget for 27, we will have reduced our budget by $468,559. Welcome. Yes, Councilor 00:54:02.601 --> 00:54:14.526 - Iverson. And I do want to remind Council that that is in the packet in a spreadsheet, particularly as 00:54:14.526 --> 00:54:17.566 - it pertains to this item, 00:54:17.698 --> 00:54:24.926 - That's on page 30 of the packet that's available to the public. Those numbers you just read out. Just 00:54:24.926 --> 00:54:32.296 - to be fair, I do think it is worth following up on Councillor Hawke's question because I don't remember 00:54:32.296 --> 00:54:39.453 - the number, but my thought was that it was closer to a quarter million, not a half million, and this 00:54:39.453 --> 00:54:46.398 - is very close to that. That's my recollection as well, but we'll follow up and get those numbers. 00:54:49.698 --> 00:54:58.311 - Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, we'll move to public comment. You can raise 00:54:58.311 --> 00:55:06.593 - your hand via team so you can come forward to the microphone in the room. Seeing none, maybe please 00:55:06.593 --> 00:55:14.875 - have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor 00:55:14.875 --> 00:55:19.678 - Cross? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. 00:55:19.938 --> 00:55:29.512 - No. Motion passes majority six one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can I take one more minute? Yes, 00:55:29.512 --> 00:55:39.276 - I want to and I think this kind of goes to the discussion that happened previous to us. The is closed. 00:55:39.276 --> 00:55:42.878 - The courts are not. We have we are on 00:55:43.138 --> 00:55:50.188 - minimalistic what we are doing, but for me to shut the courts, for the judges to shut the courts requires 00:55:50.188 --> 00:55:56.971 - the special petition filed with the Indiana Supreme Court, who then has to grant us the permission to 00:55:56.971 --> 00:56:03.821 - do so. To do that is involved, and so we try not to do it. But I also want to point out that on Friday 00:56:03.821 --> 00:56:11.070 - afternoon when this took place, I have been around a long time. I have seen a lot of things. This was awful. 00:56:11.522 --> 00:56:18.888 - There was water just by the gallon full, just spreading everywhere. And it was toilet water. I was there. 00:56:18.888 --> 00:56:26.393 - They were there. There was others who were there. And we were trying our best. It was kind of like watching 00:56:26.393 --> 00:56:33.481 - a blah movie. And then Dave Gardner showed up and shut off the water. Had that not happened, he tells 00:56:33.481 --> 00:56:37.790 - us that it would have just continued down offices to offices. 00:56:38.434 --> 00:56:45.227 - Yesterday, there were these folks and other court reporters and other office staff and me and other 00:56:45.227 --> 00:56:52.428 - judges who were in there taking everything off of bookshelves, desks, et cetera, because they are ripping 00:56:52.428 --> 00:56:59.222 - out carpeting. They are ripping out baseboards. They are trying to put us back together. I tried to 00:56:59.222 --> 00:57:06.015 - negotiate for Wednesday. They convinced me Thursday. So they are telling us that we will be able to 00:57:06.015 --> 00:57:07.102 - have the courts 00:57:07.426 --> 00:57:15.234 - operational, we will still have people in jury rooms, court personnel in jury rooms, in the court conference 00:57:15.234 --> 00:57:22.540 - room, so that we can function and proceed. I was supposed to have a jury trial next week. I contacted 00:57:22.540 --> 00:57:29.704 - the attorneys and told them that cannot happen because I don't have space right now to put them. We 00:57:29.704 --> 00:57:36.222 - were concerned there was a health hazard, which was also addressed and is being addressed. 00:57:37.090 --> 00:57:44.979 - So we are not closed, because to close us requires the Indiana Supreme Court. But we are not 00:57:44.979 --> 00:57:53.632 - fully operational, because we cannot be. So the prosecutor is doing the probable causes from all this 00:57:53.632 --> 00:58:02.115 - time. I'm the duty judge this week, so I have released people from jail. We are still doing that so 00:58:02.115 --> 00:58:06.526 - that we can continue to function as best as we can. 00:58:06.882 --> 00:58:14.554 - but I do want to commend Jayma and Shannon and others in court services and there was other court personnel, 00:58:14.554 --> 00:58:21.875 - other court staff, other judges who we were there because the more quickly we could get our stuff done, 00:58:21.875 --> 00:58:28.913 - then they could start being there and they have been working on it and working diligently on it. We 00:58:28.913 --> 00:58:29.758 - will not be 00:58:30.210 --> 00:58:37.222 - They're working on court services first because that is the one where contact is first with the public. 00:58:37.222 --> 00:58:44.032 - But we fully anticipate that Thursday we will have the justice building open, but definitely we will 00:58:44.032 --> 00:58:50.302 - be. But I would like to also point out that when this happens, we now have to play catch up. 00:58:50.530 --> 00:58:57.500 - because we have got to now re-dock it, re-do, re-inform so that we can keep those timelines where they're 00:58:57.500 --> 00:59:04.076 - supposed to be. And by not shutting the courts, those timelines continue, which is important to the 00:59:04.076 --> 00:59:10.915 - people who have business with the courts. So I just wanted to point out that I know that it sounds like 00:59:10.915 --> 00:59:17.885 - when people say, well, you know, you're getting paid because you're shut down, you're not doing anything, 00:59:17.885 --> 00:59:20.318 - it's because we can't fully operate. 00:59:20.418 --> 00:59:29.810 - because of the hindrance, basically, of what this was. But I wanted to mention the court personnel and 00:59:29.810 --> 00:59:39.202 - people who, like you, want us to be, we don't like sitting idly by. This causes for us a lot more work 00:59:39.202 --> 00:59:44.126 - and a lot more headache, and we don't like it either. 00:59:44.450 --> 00:59:52.228 - I just wanted to bring that to your attention, because it's a process, and it's a process again, and 00:59:52.228 --> 01:00:00.622 - here we are still. But just so that you're aware. If I can, Judge DeKalb, thank you very much for explaining 01:00:00.622 --> 01:00:08.399 - that and bringing that to our attention and the public's attention as well. And I'm sorry that we're 01:00:08.399 --> 01:00:13.790 - having to go through this all over again. It wasn't your fault. Yeah. 01:00:13.890 --> 01:00:21.191 - I just wanted to make sure that you mentioned like courts are on and people are calling and asking questions, 01:00:21.191 --> 01:00:28.027 - and I've had people from the public ask questions and Mother job. We've gotten phone calls from people 01:00:28.027 --> 01:00:35.063 - thinking that we are dealing with that. For folks because I think I read in the Herald times like there's 01:00:35.063 --> 01:00:42.430 - a number that people could call. Is there a certain number if I am a person that has to be rescheduled and I'm 01:00:42.818 --> 01:00:51.779 - Who should they contact to get that information? Right now the extension that they've put out there 01:00:51.779 --> 01:01:01.098 - is the 349-2615, but we don't have anybody able to get to that phone right now because it is completely 01:01:01.098 --> 01:01:11.134 - blocked. And there's folks that are in there working and we've been asked to stay out. So. Yes, Councilor Hawk. 01:01:11.874 --> 01:01:18.023 - First of all, for you to know what my feelings on this, it's very small as compared to what you've been 01:01:18.023 --> 01:01:24.113 - through, but when the sewer backed up at my house, same kind of situation because it was all under the 01:01:24.113 --> 01:01:30.262 - concrete and they had to bust up the concrete and it was everywhere and everything had to be sanitized. 01:01:30.262 --> 01:01:36.292 - There was nothing you could save. So what you're going to save of paperwork, I don't see how it could 01:01:36.292 --> 01:01:37.534 - be. I'm just saying, 01:01:38.722 --> 01:01:45.408 - What a horrible situation. Now, I'm probably not going to be everybody's favorite person when I say 01:01:45.408 --> 01:01:52.495 - this, but this is going to happen again and again as long as the jail is above the courts or the offices. 01:01:52.495 --> 01:01:59.314 - Because we know this has happened in part before, maybe not this bad. But there are those who seem to 01:01:59.314 --> 01:02:06.000 - want to clog up the toilet stools on purpose. I mean, they get bored. They've got to have something 01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:07.070 - to do, I guess. 01:02:07.458 --> 01:02:14.488 - We don't know what goes downhill. And that came right down there. And it's a nasty, expensive situation. 01:02:14.488 --> 01:02:21.518 - It's not fair to the public, and it certainly is not fair to the people who live there. And like I said, 01:02:21.518 --> 01:02:28.347 - I didn't ask anybody if I could say this. I just said it, because it's not right. And it cannot, when 01:02:28.347 --> 01:02:32.766 - we get through with doing another jail, which we are going to do, 01:02:35.106 --> 01:02:43.671 - Do not put the courts or any offices below the jail. Anybody who understands water goes downhill, well, 01:02:43.671 --> 01:02:51.906 - you know what went with this water. It went right down their heads, and it's not right. Yes. I just 01:02:51.906 --> 01:03:00.223 - want to state that the motion and everything that was voted on had a salary ordinance amendment. And 01:03:00.223 --> 01:03:04.094 - because that has a salary ordinance amendment, 01:03:04.322 --> 01:03:11.599 - it has to require a second reading. So this will be back on the agenda for 8-11. Okay. Thank you. I 01:03:11.599 --> 01:03:19.021 - just can't. Just to avoid. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. 01:03:19.021 --> 01:03:26.734 - And I think Judge DeKoff, you might be sticking around for . . . What I'm going to do now is my probation 01:03:26.734 --> 01:03:28.990 - chief and her deputy chief and 01:03:30.882 --> 01:03:36.461 - title is. They're going to sit up here and I'm going to sit right behind them because they're again 01:03:36.461 --> 01:03:42.375 - who have prepared all the paperwork for you but I'm also here to answer any questions or to be available. 01:03:42.375 --> 01:03:48.290 - So I'm going to let them all sit up here and I'm just going to sit right back here. Okay thank you Judge. 01:03:48.290 --> 01:03:53.813 - All right next up is item F from the probation department. Council I move to approve the probation 01:03:53.813 --> 01:03:59.448 - department's request and fund 9142-0000 community correction grant even to create a count line 17801 01:03:59.448 --> 01:04:00.062 - part-time. 01:04:00.514 --> 01:04:07.312 - Thank you. All right, we got a motion and a second, and we are joined by Ms Linda Brady and her wonderful 01:04:07.312 --> 01:04:14.366 - staff. Thank you very much. Good evening. And on my left is Becca Strickland. She's the community corrections 01:04:14.366 --> 01:04:20.843 - executive director and deputy chief probation officer. On my right, Anthony Williams, another deputy 01:04:20.843 --> 01:04:27.705 - chief probation officer. And they are our financial team, and they are just amazing. And I'm very grateful 01:04:27.705 --> 01:04:30.078 - for both of them. So this request is 01:04:30.466 --> 01:04:37.506 - I hope a quick one for you all. I came before you in March because we had probation officer assistants 01:04:37.506 --> 01:04:44.410 - who run our day reporting and drug testing program. We were down to two probation officer assistants 01:04:44.410 --> 01:04:51.245 - at that time. You gave me permission to hire up to four part timers up to 56 hours per week. By the 01:04:51.245 --> 01:04:56.030 - time we got them hired, the two probation officer assistants on staff 01:04:56.354 --> 01:05:03.645 - we were back to kind of being in the hole again. So because we didn't fill some of our Community Corrections 01:05:03.645 --> 01:05:10.402 - field officer positions throughout 2026, there's extra money that won't be spent. And this user lose 01:05:10.402 --> 01:05:17.225 - money will either use it or have to give it back to the state. And Anthony has figured out that about 01:05:17.225 --> 01:05:24.048 - $42,500 would go and spent in our Community Corrections grant, and we have received back has received 01:05:24.048 --> 01:05:25.854 - permission from the state. 01:05:25.986 --> 01:05:33.966 - the D O C to be able to use that to fund probation officer assistance. So this request not only would 01:05:33.966 --> 01:05:42.024 - save county general to the tune of $37,403, and that's an appropriation we already have for part time, 01:05:42.024 --> 01:05:43.198 - but also would 01:05:43.682 --> 01:05:50.370 - to reduce the money that we need from special purpose lit, public safety lit, and all department user 01:05:50.370 --> 01:05:57.256 - fee funds for part time staff. So it's basically a savings across every place we've got part time staff. 01:05:57.256 --> 01:06:04.075 - So the request is to create new community corrections grant line item for part time and permission from 01:06:04.075 --> 01:06:10.698 - you all to fill up to 56 hours per week for up to four probation officer assistance. This is just to 01:06:10.698 --> 01:06:12.862 - add the new account line, sorry. 01:06:13.314 --> 01:06:20.874 - Oh, oh, so we're separating the two. Okay, new account line. Any questions for Brady on this item? Yes, 01:06:20.874 --> 01:06:28.216 - Councilor Iverson. Just real quick, Mr. Thank you for getting all the documentation into the packet. 01:06:28.216 --> 01:06:33.086 - That email exchange was pretty fun to read. So thank you for that. 01:06:39.106 --> 01:06:47.479 - Yes, what other things could you do with this money? Could you perhaps put it into we know where we've 01:06:47.479 --> 01:06:55.852 - got the shortfall and that's in providing insurance for employees. Is there a way that we can use that 01:06:55.852 --> 01:07:03.982 - to help fill that gap between what is needed for the health insurance? Rather than because it looks 01:07:03.982 --> 01:07:06.014 - like what we're doing is 01:07:06.498 --> 01:07:13.891 - allowing for positions to be filled with this. And when that money is gone, it's not going to be there 01:07:13.891 --> 01:07:21.213 - the following year. There's this money that's left over. Well, I have to say that these positions are 01:07:21.213 --> 01:07:28.463 - important, that we cannot continue to run our day reporting program in our drug testing program with 01:07:28.463 --> 01:07:33.918 - only four probation officer assistants. Before the hiring freeze, we had 15 01:07:34.082 --> 01:07:47.091 - that we would still need staff to be paid some place, which it's budgeted right now in county general. 01:07:47.091 --> 01:08:00.352 - So. Yeah, we could go ahead and spend the 37,000. We would still need staff to be paid some place, which 01:08:00.352 --> 01:08:02.878 - it's budgeted right 01:08:03.234 --> 01:08:10.430 - dollars plus that's already budgeted in County General, plus the money in public safety elsewhere, if 01:08:10.430 --> 01:08:17.627 - the DOC would allow us to do that. But again, we still need the staff. Seeing no further questions or 01:08:17.627 --> 01:08:24.894 - comments on this item, we'll go ahead and take public comment. If there's public comment on this item, 01:08:24.894 --> 01:08:30.750 - you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. 01:08:34.306 --> 01:08:43.217 - Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? This is to add an account line. You can do a voice 01:08:43.217 --> 01:08:52.570 - vote. Okay. All those in favor of adding this account line signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, 01:08:52.570 --> 01:09:00.158 - same sign. No. Okay. And motion carried 6-1. All right. Thank you. Next up is item G. 01:09:00.546 --> 01:09:07.541 - Council, I will be combining items G and H in one motion. I move to open for discussion and possible 01:09:07.541 --> 01:09:14.883 - approval of probation's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire four full-time 01:09:14.883 --> 01:09:21.878 - probation officer positions and fund 1,000-0226 county general probation and two full-time probation 01:09:21.878 --> 01:09:29.150 - officer positions and fund 2504-0000 court alcohol and drug user fees as outlined on the agenda. Second. 01:09:29.570 --> 01:09:35.043 - We got a motion and a second. What would you like to add to this? Okay. I'm Kim. I'm confused because 01:09:35.043 --> 01:09:40.409 - when are we going to talk about the probation officer assistance filling them? I didn't see that on 01:09:40.409 --> 01:09:43.038 - the agenda elsewhere because that was a request. 01:10:12.098 --> 01:10:34.814 - what I have is the probate yeah the probation that was just read in I don't have anything with regards to the 01:11:16.450 --> 01:11:25.963 - I believe it got missed. So while we're looking at that, while Steph is looking at that, why don't we 01:11:25.963 --> 01:11:32.958 - just go ahead and do this and then we can come back, circle back. Perfect. 01:11:33.250 --> 01:11:42.522 - Well, prior to the Monroe County hiring freeze, the probation department had 87 employees with 71 full 01:11:42.522 --> 01:11:51.794 - time and 16 part time. And as of today, we have 24 staff vacancies. That is a 28% vacancy rate overall 01:11:51.794 --> 01:12:01.066 - and a 20% vacancy rate for full time alone. And we have done a number of things to reassign duties and 01:12:01.066 --> 01:12:02.686 - increase workload 01:12:02.850 --> 01:12:09.605 - decreased workload where it's publicly safe to do so. And this is something we talked about with our 01:12:09.605 --> 01:12:16.694 - county council liaisons and also Liz was able to join us for that meeting as well. We talked a lot about, 01:12:16.694 --> 01:12:23.583 - should we go back before the county council as these vacancies have occurred and decided, no, we would 01:12:23.583 --> 01:12:30.404 - wait and just as you had asked us to and see, can we reorganize the department? Are there duties that 01:12:30.404 --> 01:12:31.742 - can be reorganized? 01:12:31.874 --> 01:12:38.909 - And we worked with our presiding judge, Judge Decoff, Judge Harvey, our juvenile judge, the Criminal 01:12:38.909 --> 01:12:46.501 - Division Board of Judges. And we reexamined duties across all divisions and all units across the department. 01:12:46.501 --> 01:12:53.536 - And we did make some operational changes to the department. But after months of trying to manage, we 01:12:53.536 --> 01:12:55.486 - have hit a wall. We cannot. 01:12:55.778 --> 01:13:03.426 - go any further with this many staff vacancies. We believe we've exhausted all of our possible ways to 01:13:03.426 --> 01:13:10.924 - reassign duties and we have to function. We're public safety officers and we have statutory duties. 01:13:10.924 --> 01:13:18.572 - We have grant duties that we have to fulfill in order to get our grant monies. So the current request 01:13:18.572 --> 01:13:25.470 - before you is to refill six of the eight probation officer vacancies. So still keeping two. 01:13:26.018 --> 01:13:34.731 - vacant. Four of the five PO vacancies that are paid out of County General, two that are paid out of 01:13:34.731 --> 01:13:44.055 - alcohol and drug program user fees. And then the savings, this would be a minimum return to County General 01:13:44.055 --> 01:13:52.158 - of $222,173. And that's assuming a few things. Do you want to say what you assumed with your 01:13:52.738 --> 01:13:59.710 - that we will have somebody start by that date. So that savings is going to increase along the way as 01:13:59.710 --> 01:14:06.682 - well. Right. And again, we know that from past experience, it takes a long time to fill all of these 01:14:06.682 --> 01:14:13.723 - positions. So we're going to have to do that. And we're going to have to make sure that we're able to 01:14:13.723 --> 01:14:20.350 - fill all of these positions. So we're going to have to make sure that we're able to fill all of 01:14:20.482 --> 01:14:26.722 - any probation officer position. We've just gone through several rounds of hiring for a receptionist 01:14:26.722 --> 01:14:33.150 - position and it's just one of those things when people are looking for a job they're looking for a job 01:14:33.150 --> 01:14:39.515 - but it takes a while to get through the process and sometimes people get another job in the middle of 01:14:39.515 --> 01:14:44.382 - the process or drop out or start ghosting Becca. Becca does the hiring and we 01:14:44.578 --> 01:14:50.563 - We it does take a long time to hire. So we know that even if you say yes tonight to all of this it's 01:14:50.563 --> 01:14:56.844 - going to take time That's he went with he didn't want to over promise Anthony didn't want to over promise 01:14:56.844 --> 01:15:03.066 - but to say minimum the return to county general would be two hundred and twenty two thousand one hundred 01:15:03.066 --> 01:15:07.806 - seventy three dollars likely to be much more than that and also to let you know 01:15:08.130 --> 01:15:15.187 - We have already been advisors, at least two more probation officers who've let me know they're probably 01:15:15.187 --> 01:15:22.108 - going to leave in August. So that's, yeah. But this is what we're asking for right now. I did want to 01:15:22.108 --> 01:15:29.098 - point out a few things we're not asking for before we get into the ask. The juvenile probation officer 01:15:29.098 --> 01:15:34.526 - that's been vacant since January, we're not requesting to refill that position. 01:15:34.658 --> 01:15:41.172 - We have a problem-solving court program, our mental health court probation officer. She's very talented 01:15:41.172 --> 01:15:48.062 - and got hired away by Centerstone, and we're not requesting to refill her position. The other problem-solving 01:15:48.062 --> 01:15:53.950 - court probation officers have taken on the mental health duties with the mental health court. 01:15:54.178 --> 01:16:01.108 - We had a part-time, very experienced probation officer assigned to adult intake unit. She was a 20-year 01:16:01.108 --> 01:16:07.771 - probation officer. She did pre-sentence investigations and intake assessments. She left in January. 01:16:07.771 --> 01:16:14.768 - We're not asking to refill it now, nor for next year. And then here's the biggest, community corrections 01:16:14.768 --> 01:16:18.366 - field officers. So I've been before you before to say 01:16:19.458 --> 01:16:26.182 - community corrections field officers are very difficult to fill and keep filled. They don't require 01:16:26.182 --> 01:16:33.039 - a degree, and it's a position that we tend to lose people to law enforcement. That has happened many, 01:16:33.039 --> 01:16:40.435 - many times. So this past year, there are eight of those positions. Six of the eight have left the department. 01:16:40.435 --> 01:16:47.293 - We're down to two. And we have decided that we've reallocated some of their supervision duties to the 01:16:47.293 --> 01:16:48.638 - probation officers. 01:16:48.994 --> 01:16:56.101 - They're responsible for home detention electronic monitoring, the community corrections probation officers. 01:16:56.101 --> 01:17:02.878 - So they're doing the after hours calls when, like the cut and run, if somebody violates home detention 01:17:02.878 --> 01:17:09.590 - electronic monitoring, they're the ones getting the alerts instead of just the field officers. And so 01:17:09.590 --> 01:17:16.170 - we are going to, we plan to continue with two field officers for the rest of this year and also for 01:17:16.170 --> 01:17:16.894 - next year. 01:17:17.090 --> 01:17:24.398 - We were just reorganizing our duties, and that's been with the help of our judges to agree to manage 01:17:24.398 --> 01:17:31.705 - things in this way. So those are things we're not asking for. And that's a lot, losing six full-time 01:17:31.705 --> 01:17:39.302 - officer positions. Then the request is to refund four of the probation officers who are funded by county 01:17:39.302 --> 01:17:44.222 - general and two that are funded by court alcohol and drug services. 01:17:44.354 --> 01:17:51.447 - And if you have any specific questions, I know I gave you a packet with a lot of information. Just be 01:17:51.447 --> 01:17:58.470 - glad to answer any other questions. Thank you. I'm sure we have some questions, and I'll ask. And so 01:17:58.470 --> 01:18:05.702 - I know over the years, you were not like when I was your liaison with the late and great Cheryl Munson. 01:18:05.702 --> 01:18:12.586 - Like you would always tell us about the kind of merry-go-round circles of people leave, they come, 01:18:12.586 --> 01:18:14.046 - they go, they leave. 01:18:14.242 --> 01:18:22.716 - And in researching and looking at the packet for this evening, I guess, to me, and you have over 40 01:18:22.716 --> 01:18:31.359 - years of experience with this. Is this the worst that this has ever really been? Oh, absolutely. This 01:18:31.359 --> 01:18:34.494 - is a post-COVID world. Before COVID, 01:18:34.594 --> 01:18:41.393 - it would be rare that we'd ever have two probation officer vacancies at the same time. Now the community 01:18:41.393 --> 01:18:47.869 - corrections field officers, that's a whole nother matter because that has been a difficult position 01:18:47.869 --> 01:18:54.733 - to keep filled. But if we had two probation officer vacancies, that would be a lot. And ever since COVID, 01:18:54.733 --> 01:19:01.273 - we've gone, I think we had once three months, three weeks one time and three months one time that we 01:19:01.273 --> 01:19:04.446 - had a full staff, that's it. And so it is a new, 01:19:04.578 --> 01:19:11.793 - world we're living in. And so, yes. And if you go to any trainings that talk to you about the younger 01:19:11.793 --> 01:19:18.866 - generation that's in the workforce, they have different values than I'm a boomer. And so we boomers 01:19:18.866 --> 01:19:26.010 - tend to stay in our places of employment. I forget what these two are. They're much younger than me, 01:19:26.010 --> 01:19:33.790 - obviously. But they do have different values in the workforce. And they're not as likely to stay in a job for 01:19:34.082 --> 01:19:41.025 - forever, like basically I have, until retirement. So it is a different workforce that we're dealing 01:19:41.025 --> 01:19:48.246 - with, for sure. In the post-COVID world, we've never had vacancies like this, ever. So we're not alone. 01:19:48.246 --> 01:19:55.536 - I'm in contact with probation chiefs across the nation. I serve on the National Association of Probation 01:19:55.536 --> 01:20:01.438 - Executives. So there's probation chiefs from all over the country on this committee. 01:20:01.698 --> 01:20:08.633 - They're dealing with the same kind of things in every state. So we're we're not alone and we're not 01:20:08.633 --> 01:20:16.054 - special. So I appreciate that. My colleagues to see if anybody has any questions. Yes. Councilor Anderson. 01:20:16.054 --> 01:20:22.989 - I wanted to start this off by first regardless of what people think about this request. It is clear 01:20:22.989 --> 01:20:29.022 - that you bent over backwards trying to figure out a way to make this work. I think the 01:20:29.218 --> 01:20:36.414 - I've said it a lot of times before, I'm a sucker for a good organizational chart. And the organizational 01:20:36.414 --> 01:20:43.404 - chart that you've provided really outlines just how many vacancies you have and where you have looked 01:20:43.404 --> 01:20:50.325 - to strategically try and place this request. So first of all, thank you. It seems like you really do 01:20:50.325 --> 01:20:57.658 - understand some of the fiscal situation that we discussed earlier this evening that we just cannot fulfill 01:20:57.658 --> 01:20:58.686 - every request. 01:20:58.914 --> 01:21:10.654 - That being said, I'm in favor of this request. And the reason is that when we look around 01:21:10.754 --> 01:21:19.924 - for evidence-based programming. You folks have been doing it. Quite frankly, when we're looking for 01:21:19.924 --> 01:21:29.278 - folks to go into award-winning programs, these positions are going to be doing that work. I really am 01:21:29.442 --> 01:21:36.590 - you know, I've been your liaison a couple of different times now in my tenure. And, you know, the vacancies, 01:21:36.590 --> 01:21:43.475 - like President Crossley said, they just keep coming and coming. But I think it's important to keep these 01:21:43.475 --> 01:21:50.032 - positions. I think it's important to provide these services to the community. And so that's why I'm 01:21:50.032 --> 01:21:51.934 - in favor of this. Thank you. 01:21:52.034 --> 01:21:59.152 - We've basically been kind of talking bean counting so far about how much it costs and that sort of thing, 01:21:59.152 --> 01:22:06.002 - but you bring up the evidence-based practices. Not every probation department, certainly in the state 01:22:06.002 --> 01:22:12.382 - or even across the nation, works on evidence-based programs, which means recidivism reduction. 01:22:12.802 --> 01:22:19.389 - methods to reduce recidivism. And that's something we're very committed to. And our evidence-based practices 01:22:19.389 --> 01:22:25.553 - team, our continuous quality improvement team, we work really hard to do things with fidelity. And we 01:22:25.553 --> 01:22:31.657 - can't just say we're doing it. We're judged by the Department of Correction who gives us money. They 01:22:31.657 --> 01:22:32.926 - come and evaluate us 01:22:33.122 --> 01:22:39.985 - basically every three months now, they're making sure that we're moving towards becoming an evidence-based 01:22:39.985 --> 01:22:46.527 - organization that's requirement of the grant. And Becca is the one who's taking the meetings with the 01:22:46.527 --> 01:22:53.070 - Department of Correction, but they are, sometimes they come on site, sometimes they do these meetings 01:22:53.070 --> 01:22:59.804 - through Zoom, but they are watching us to make sure we are doing what we say we're doing. Yes, Councilor 01:22:59.804 --> 01:23:00.574 - Hawke. Yes. 01:23:00.994 --> 01:23:10.736 - something that I wasn't aware until fairly recently, that in some other counties, I was given to understand 01:23:10.736 --> 01:23:19.757 - most other counties, the supervisors, maybe I'm using the wrong title, they also carry cases and in 01:23:19.757 --> 01:23:27.966 - our county, we do not assign cases to those folks. Can you tell me if we decided to assign 01:23:28.354 --> 01:23:35.398 - cases and take some of the workload off of the other probation officers and sign those to the supervisors, 01:23:35.398 --> 01:23:42.113 - would that not help out that stress level of our probation officers who might be leaving because they 01:23:42.113 --> 01:23:48.696 - just can't take it anymore? That's a good question. And our supervisors have actually asked if they 01:23:48.696 --> 01:23:55.279 - can take on some caseload. And you're right. Some counties, the supervisors do. But every county is 01:23:55.279 --> 01:23:58.110 - organized differently in this state as you 01:23:58.210 --> 01:24:05.206 - Probably no. 92 counties do things 92 different ways. But some of the supervisors are ready to take 01:24:05.206 --> 01:24:12.412 - on some supervision of some cases for sure. And that's something we're looking into. And yeah, so it's 01:24:12.412 --> 01:24:16.190 - a good question. Thank you. I would like to see that. 01:24:16.514 --> 01:24:23.320 - happen before we start filling slots? Because how many supervisors do we have right now are not carrying 01:24:23.320 --> 01:24:29.997 - caseloads? Well, it isn't really as simple as that, Marty, because they have to supervise their staff, 01:24:29.997 --> 01:24:36.479 - which means they have to do annual evaluations, which is required by the probation rules. They have 01:24:36.479 --> 01:24:43.285 - to train new staff. They actually have to watch their staff do their appointments and give them feedback 01:24:43.285 --> 01:24:43.998 - and coach. 01:24:44.194 --> 01:24:50.862 - Becca, if you want to pipe up for anything else, OK. So supervising seems like a generic thing. 01:24:50.862 --> 01:24:58.086 - It's not. They're coaches. And they're coaching their staff. And we have so much turnover. If we didn't 01:24:58.086 --> 01:25:05.171 - have all this turnover, they wouldn't have to spend quite as much time coaching and trying to get the 01:25:05.171 --> 01:25:11.006 - people up to speed. But right now, we're just spinning. It's like kind of drowning. 01:25:11.330 --> 01:25:17.729 - That's not going to be the answer, though, to give probation supervisors caseload. At some point, I 01:25:17.729 --> 01:25:24.128 - had a caseload, and I'll tell you, I could not keep up with the casework and my supervisory duties. 01:25:24.128 --> 01:25:30.655 - It was very, very difficult. So if we're going to do that, Marty, it's going to have to be a decision 01:25:30.655 --> 01:25:37.054 - that's made by including our judges and all the supervisors, but it isn't going to be the answer to 01:25:37.054 --> 01:25:40.318 - how many POs we need. Okay, but my question was... 01:25:40.514 --> 01:25:51.047 - back to the question, how many supervisors do you have? Let's see, including them and myself, 12. Well? 01:25:51.047 --> 01:26:01.581 - Well, myself, so there's nine. Nine under us. So if there was nine, would they, let's say, if each took 01:26:01.581 --> 01:26:09.886 - three? I mean, if you split it up somewhat, I'm not saying that they could handle 01:26:09.986 --> 01:26:17.196 - the same amount that others could, because you still have to supervise. But just like in the auditor's 01:26:17.196 --> 01:26:24.476 - office, they've got people who are supervising, but they still have another job to be doing. And I know 01:26:24.476 --> 01:26:31.616 - that it's much different when we're talking about probation officers. I'm just trying to come up with 01:26:31.616 --> 01:26:36.446 - a way that you can provide the same services and share the workload. 01:26:36.578 --> 01:26:43.664 - Because I think that you've got probation officers who feel that they cannot carry much more. Well, 01:26:43.664 --> 01:26:50.750 - that's absolutely true. That's why I'm before you, because they don't feel like they can carry much 01:26:50.750 --> 01:26:58.119 - more, because we have eight PO vacancies at this point. So they're absolutely right. But how many cases 01:26:58.119 --> 01:27:05.630 - to give to a supervisor? How do you measure that workload? I mean, it's a decision that needs to be made. 01:27:05.826 --> 01:27:13.336 - with our board of judges. Before we move on, I think you all continuously over the time here have made 01:27:13.336 --> 01:27:20.920 - the case of what you all are trying to do. Try to believe that and try to ration out everything in this 01:27:20.920 --> 01:27:28.722 - possibility. Like you said, 92 counties, 92 different problems. So with that being said, any other further 01:27:28.722 --> 01:27:32.222 - questions or comments for council on this item? 01:27:34.754 --> 01:27:43.558 - Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your 01:27:43.558 --> 01:27:52.276 - hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Still seeing none, maybe have a roll 01:27:52.276 --> 01:28:01.080 - call vote. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? No. 01:28:01.080 --> 01:28:04.446 - Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? 01:28:04.898 --> 01:28:13.414 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes, majority 6-1. And Michelle, because there was some confusion about 01:28:13.414 --> 01:28:21.687 - some of their items, is that something that I guess now we'll have to address at the 11th? Yes. Okay. 01:28:21.687 --> 01:28:30.203 - Okay. Okay. So as far as hiring the probation officer assistance, I need to come back? Yes. On the 11th. 01:28:30.203 --> 01:28:32.798 - Okay. So we have the line item. 01:28:33.218 --> 01:28:40.046 - then we'll come back to ask for permission to hire. And that'll work out just fine, because the POAs, 01:28:40.046 --> 01:28:46.740 - or probation officer assistants, are usually IU students. And they'll be back, I guess, next month. 01:28:46.740 --> 01:28:53.367 - So coming right up. So thank you very much. And so then that was all of it. OK. Thank you so much. 01:28:53.367 --> 01:29:00.262 - Thank you. We'll see you next month. Next up is item eight, which is council business. And that starts 01:29:00.262 --> 01:29:02.270 - with the aviation department. 01:29:03.010 --> 01:29:09.672 - Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request in fund 4801-0000 aviation construction 01:29:09.672 --> 01:29:16.335 - to create new account lines that are outlined on the agenda and approve additional appropriations of 01:29:16.335 --> 01:29:22.997 - $1,000 in the supplies category, $1,000 in the services category, and $2,500 in the capital category 01:29:22.997 --> 01:29:29.660 - for a total appropriation of $4,500. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. And I see that 01:29:29.660 --> 01:29:32.958 - Mr. Labarty is online and he has his hand raised. 01:29:33.890 --> 01:29:44.119 - Um, you should be able to unmute and state your case. Yep. There we go. Hello, Mr. Larry. Go. Good evening. 01:29:44.119 --> 01:29:53.874 - Yeah. It wouldn't let me for a second. I think I had to be enabled, but here we are. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. 01:29:53.874 --> 01:30:02.398 - Good evening. The airport's requesting the creation of a dedicated Airbnb related receipt 01:30:02.882 --> 01:30:09.366 - and expenditure lines within fund 4801, our aviation construction fund, so that all Airbnb revenue and 01:30:09.366 --> 01:30:16.102 - expenses associated with the airport double wide can be tracked separately and consistently in the ledger. 01:30:16.102 --> 01:30:22.586 - The request of appropriation will allow current and future Airbnb related expenses to be paid from the 01:30:22.586 --> 01:30:29.007 - proper fund and account lines. This amount includes consideration of 2026 Airbnb related expenditures 01:30:29.007 --> 01:30:31.966 - that may need to be corrected into these lines 01:30:32.290 --> 01:30:41.085 - from the beginning of the year through the current. And so again, the aviation construction fund 4801 01:30:41.085 --> 01:30:49.879 - is separate from our levy fund. And it's funded by all, I'm sorry, I'm getting a really bad echo, but 01:30:49.879 --> 01:30:59.105 - it's funded by on airport generated revenue, which is part of what the Airbnb is part of. And historically 01:30:59.105 --> 01:31:01.950 - those revenues have been receded 01:31:02.082 --> 01:31:08.883 - Historically, they've been receded into the 1107 fund. So we're trying to separate all of that and kind 01:31:08.883 --> 01:31:15.423 - of help us do some better accounting at the airport. We've been working with the auditor to kind of 01:31:15.423 --> 01:31:21.962 - make this happen. She may wanna add something to this, but this is all we're trying to do. And none 01:31:21.962 --> 01:31:28.501 - of this touches any of our levy fund. Thank you very much for that and looking at council to see if 01:31:28.501 --> 01:31:31.902 - anybody has any questions or comments on this item. 01:31:33.570 --> 01:31:46.496 - Yeah, I apologize. I was out of the room at the beginning. So if this was already stated, I'm sorry. 01:31:46.496 --> 01:31:59.934 - I did have a question about what is the revenue generally for the Airbnb? I'm not I think annually we're 01:31:59.934 --> 01:32:02.110 - averaging around 01:32:02.594 --> 01:32:11.098 - $15,000 to $17,000 a year. Okay, so and revenue then will go into this new... Yes. These new lines. 01:32:11.098 --> 01:32:19.602 - Yeah, and then the expenses that we have to maintain the Airbnb will come out of that fund as well. 01:32:19.602 --> 01:32:28.106 - Okay, and you're going to go retroactive a little bit, I think, for 2026, you said? Yeah, for 2026, 01:32:28.106 --> 01:32:31.678 - yes. Is everybody else getting that echo? 01:32:32.866 --> 01:32:39.283 - Okay, just me, okay. But I do like your new goth look. Ah, yeah. You guys, you guys don't want to see 01:32:39.283 --> 01:32:45.574 - the shade, the pale, the color that's going on here. You don't want that. It's all good. Thank you. 01:32:45.574 --> 01:32:51.991 - Yes, Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, thank you for the, yeah, thick at night, 01:32:51.991 --> 01:32:55.262 - black and white view here. This has been different. 01:32:55.362 --> 01:33:01.029 - to say the least. This is part of, I think, the ongoing effort we've had to work with the Board of Aviation 01:33:01.029 --> 01:33:06.329 - to develop some different account lines to help manage that very unique operation we have out there. 01:33:06.329 --> 01:33:11.629 - We've talked about this with the disaster work and now, of course, this line too. I just want to ask 01:33:11.629 --> 01:33:16.877 - the auditor's table if this is all in line with where we were going in terms of helping to just get 01:33:16.877 --> 01:33:21.022 - clarity on the funded lines and how this revenue is moving through our county. 01:33:22.242 --> 01:33:28.634 - this is definitely in alignment with what we have discussed at a few different meetings we've held, 01:33:28.634 --> 01:33:35.026 - so we do have, you know, other steps to the plan where we're gonna maybe adjust some fund names and 01:33:35.026 --> 01:33:41.674 - how those funds are utilized on the line, but this is kind of step one moving toward that. Just a quick 01:33:41.674 --> 01:33:48.386 - note, and I know Michelle is going to be all over it, but we do not need to add the revenue line. That's 01:33:48.386 --> 01:33:51.710 - something that we kind of do behind the scenes, so. 01:33:51.874 --> 01:33:58.423 - that will occur separately. Carlos, thanks for the work on it and getting us this far and happy to support 01:33:58.423 --> 01:34:04.849 - it as the liaison for the aviation folks. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks to everybody at the county, especially 01:34:04.849 --> 01:34:11.275 - in the auditor's office has been helping us get, you know, walk down this road. All the team. All right. 01:34:11.275 --> 01:34:17.579 - Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, we'll move on. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see 01:34:17.579 --> 01:34:21.374 - your hand, Councilor Hall. Just for the public to understand, 01:34:21.954 --> 01:34:29.879 - When I say no to additional appropriations or something and maybe some other fund, this is like taking 01:34:29.879 --> 01:34:37.573 - the revenue out of one fund and putting it over in the other fund. It doesn't mean that the revenue 01:34:37.573 --> 01:34:45.498 - would be any different or the expenses would be any different. It's just that for accounting purposes, 01:34:45.498 --> 01:34:51.038 - it needs to be, this needs to have happened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. 01:34:51.778 --> 01:35:01.172 - this is just for overall transparency. So we can easily see what this unique project at the airport 01:35:01.172 --> 01:35:10.566 - is bringing in, and then we can isolate that revenue and then use that revenue for the expenditures 01:35:10.566 --> 01:35:20.055 - related. So it's a really great thing we're doing to move forward transparently. No other hands that 01:35:20.055 --> 01:35:21.182 - are raised. 01:35:21.954 --> 01:35:29.359 - go back to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams 01:35:29.359 --> 01:35:36.911 - or come forward to the lectern here in the room. All right, and seeing none, can we please have a roll 01:35:36.911 --> 01:35:44.755 - call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilk? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor 01:35:44.755 --> 01:35:51.134 - Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. 01:35:52.322 --> 01:36:07.006 - Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is item B from the Youth Services Bureau. 01:36:07.106 --> 01:36:16.754 - to approve additional appropriations of $48,150.23 in the personnel category and $1,000 in the services 01:36:16.754 --> 01:36:26.309 - category for a total appropriation of $49,150.23. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And 01:36:26.309 --> 01:36:35.678 - we have Ms. Vanessa Schmidt. And we also, I think it looks like Ms. Sarah Jamison is online as well. 01:36:36.034 --> 01:36:42.509 - So TSD, we might need to promote Sarah as well, too. I think Sarah's just going to observe. Oh, OK. 01:36:42.509 --> 01:36:46.718 - So we should be OK. I appreciate it. All right. Please go ahead. 01:36:47.554 --> 01:36:53.420 - Okay, thank you, Council. Like mentioned, we are here just to request the appropriation of some additional 01:36:53.420 --> 01:36:58.957 - funds that we were able to earn during the first fiscal year of our grant. And then we are asking to 01:36:58.957 --> 01:37:04.493 - just appropriate the second fiscal year of that grant that has already been awarded. It's a two-year 01:37:04.493 --> 01:37:10.195 - grant. So the first small amount of money was awarded in the first year. We're just here to appropriate 01:37:10.195 --> 01:37:13.758 - that. And then we're asking that we appropriate the second year. 01:37:16.226 --> 01:37:25.486 - Thank you for that. Is there any questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Councilor Woltz. 01:37:25.486 --> 01:37:34.834 - I have a question generally about youth services. It's not about this exact issue, but I've been talking 01:37:34.834 --> 01:37:44.094 - with some folks lately and I'm curious, the children that you serve, typically my understanding is that 01:37:44.258 --> 01:37:54.026 - They come to you in a variety of ways, but it's mostly self-admit, and they are able to leave at any 01:37:54.026 --> 01:38:03.988 - time, and you work with them to figure out what's best and all that. My question is, how many of those 01:38:03.988 --> 01:38:09.598 - youth would be categorized as homeless or unhoused? Sure. 01:38:09.858 --> 01:38:16.761 - Well, it's a little hard to answer, because the federal definition of homelessness is a little bit different 01:38:16.761 --> 01:38:23.221 - than, you know, it varies state to state, even though there's a federal definition. So, children that 01:38:23.221 --> 01:38:30.123 - are placed by the Department of Child Services who aren't self-admitted or youth that could be court-ordered 01:38:30.123 --> 01:38:31.390 - could be considered 01:38:31.618 --> 01:38:38.614 - because there is no other place for them to be. However, the kids that are typically counted under the 01:38:38.614 --> 01:38:45.405 - federal rule are youth that are either at risk of runaway, homelessness, or throwaway, and are safe 01:38:45.405 --> 01:38:52.265 - place placements, who are the youth that are self-initiated and voluntarily come to the shelter. So, 01:38:52.265 --> 01:38:58.174 - while we are unlocked from the inside, because we are a low-barrier, unlocked shelter, 01:38:58.658 --> 01:39:05.194 - kids can walk out the door, that enacts an elopement procedure, in which we have to call law enforcement, 01:39:05.194 --> 01:39:11.606 - since running away in Indiana is a crime. So, we don't function like a drop-in shelter, like many other 01:39:11.606 --> 01:39:17.895 - states have, where kids can come and go, because unaccompanied minors, it's not legal in the state of 01:39:17.895 --> 01:39:24.555 - Indiana. So, if a youth unfortunately chooses to leave property after we have tried to verbally de-escalate 01:39:24.555 --> 01:39:28.624 - and get them to return, we do have to enact elopement procedures. 01:39:28.624 --> 01:39:36.198 - So we want to make sure that youth that come are willing to be here, willing to follow the rules, and 01:39:36.198 --> 01:39:44.144 - they sign a youth admission agreement as well. But that's done through a lot of conversation and mediation 01:39:44.144 --> 01:39:51.347 - between whoever's placing the child and the child themselves. I hope that answers your question. 01:39:51.347 --> 01:39:56.990 - So it does. Well, actually, it tells me a lot more than I even knew to ask. 01:39:57.250 --> 01:40:07.276 - So typically then, um, what percentage of your, of your youth are, um, falling under that federal definition. 01:40:07.276 --> 01:40:16.391 - So the court appointed, et cetera. Sure. I would say, um, without having the annual report right in 01:40:16.391 --> 01:40:23.774 - front of me in 2025, a majority of our placements actually fell under that rule. 01:40:24.194 --> 01:40:32.824 - So they were either safe place or parental placements, which are all voluntary placements. So they were 01:40:32.824 --> 01:40:41.455 - not DCS and not court-ordered youth. But I would argue that DCS placements are homeless children. Also, 01:40:41.455 --> 01:40:50.334 - it just doesn't fall under the federal rule. OK. OK, thank you. Yeah. All right, John. Yes, thank you for. 01:40:51.394 --> 01:40:58.992 - commenting that it could be a parental placement as well. We see many times, well, at least we did when 01:40:58.992 --> 01:41:06.590 - I was falling in so closely when I felt like I was camping out there. When you see parents who are just 01:41:06.590 --> 01:41:14.042 - having so much problems with some of their youth and they just no longer know what to do to keep them 01:41:14.042 --> 01:41:18.206 - safe and to keep the other people in the household safe, 01:41:18.498 --> 01:41:28.095 - then they can take them in and take them to our youth shelter. And as a reminder, many times when you 01:41:28.095 --> 01:41:37.505 - look at the number of placements at the shelter, Monroe County residents are not always the biggest 01:41:37.505 --> 01:41:47.102 - number that's there. But because we do the safe place grant, then we are required to do that as well. 01:41:47.554 --> 01:41:55.927 - But the other thing that I noticed on some of the correspondence was that the revenue in the past, just 01:41:55.927 --> 01:42:04.219 - for an FYI, their per diem amount that they get from the state, then that comes in and we were keeping 01:42:04.219 --> 01:42:09.854 - that separate at like a savings account for the YSB because we wanted 01:42:09.986 --> 01:42:18.534 - to do some construction work there. And we were able to save that back and pay cash for what we wanted 01:42:18.534 --> 01:42:27.496 - to do. But then after they did that, we were advised by the state that was like having two savings account, 01:42:27.496 --> 01:42:36.542 - which we're not allowed to do, can't have two rainy day funds. So that per diem amount that they receive now 01:42:36.898 --> 01:42:48.057 - revenue. And the amount that they have been bringing in under miscellaneous revenue is supposed to be 01:42:48.057 --> 01:42:59.215 - reduced this year because the state is changing some of their. And. Theory about how they want to use 01:42:59.215 --> 01:43:06.654 - the money. Am I using that correct? So I forget what the difference 01:43:07.042 --> 01:43:15.172 - They may even have more people, but it may be people that are not paying through the state. It may be 01:43:15.172 --> 01:43:23.143 - more parents dropping off or something. We just never know. Yeah, it's variable. The state with the 01:43:23.143 --> 01:43:31.353 - new DCS state director is looking towards more of a model of kinship and foster care, which is overall 01:43:31.353 --> 01:43:34.302 - a cheaper expense. They've also been 01:43:35.010 --> 01:43:41.974 - more restrictive about how long they will place in an emergency shelter. And they're requiring DCS staff 01:43:41.974 --> 01:43:48.739 - workers to do like cost analysis of what's the cheapest shelter. And so sometimes kids get moved from 01:43:48.739 --> 01:43:54.974 - shelter to shelter just based on how much it's going to cost the state. And so we have seen a 01:43:55.362 --> 01:44:03.608 - that we're not going to be able to. Um reduction in those premium funds. And so when we were, yes, speaking 01:44:03.608 --> 01:44:11.778 - about budget, we just wanted to be transparent with that as far as what we might be looking at for revenue 01:44:11.778 --> 01:44:19.795 - in 2027. Right and if they want to cut off time, they can be there for 30 days, but then they must leave 01:44:19.795 --> 01:44:22.238 - after 30 days. Is that correct? 01:44:23.170 --> 01:44:31.033 - They've actually changed. So they can stay 21 days. And by day 15, I have to determine if we're willing 01:44:31.033 --> 01:44:39.047 - to provide an extension. The extension is only supposed to get them to 60 days. But by putting the waiver 01:44:39.047 --> 01:44:46.607 - in, the state says they don't have to follow that. So we have had children placed for over 100 days 01:44:46.607 --> 01:44:52.958 - by the state of Indiana in our shelter. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? 01:44:53.474 --> 01:45:02.412 - on this item. That's a lot. All right. Seeing none, we will go to public comment. Please raise your 01:45:02.412 --> 01:45:11.618 - hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll 01:45:11.618 --> 01:45:20.645 - call vote? Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crossley? 01:45:20.645 --> 01:45:23.326 - Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. 01:45:23.618 --> 01:45:36.268 - Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Right. Um, uh, counselor Decker didn't vote. It matters, but I was a guest 01:45:36.268 --> 01:45:48.798 - too. So the motion is unanimous. Seven zero. Sorry about that. Thank you. All right. Next up is item C. 01:45:49.186 --> 01:45:54.433 - council I move to approve the Youth Service Bureau's request and fund nine one zero three dash nine 01:45:54.433 --> 01:45:59.681 - six two eight project safe place to create new account lines are outlined on the agenda and approve 01:45:59.681 --> 01:46:04.928 - additional appropriations of three thousand dollars in the supplies category and six thousand eight 01:46:04.928 --> 01:46:10.438 - hundred eighty dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of nine thousand eight hundred 01:46:10.438 --> 01:46:16.158 - and eighty dollars second all right we got a motion and a second and what would you like to add to this item 01:46:17.154 --> 01:46:23.866 - Thank you, Council. Again, this is just to approve our two years of a Safe Place grant. We were awarded. 01:46:23.866 --> 01:46:30.386 - This grant will run from July of 26 to July of 28 and really helps to support our Safe Place program, 01:46:30.386 --> 01:46:36.906 - including outreach materials, the things that we take out and give to kids who are at county fairs or 01:46:36.906 --> 01:46:43.874 - at other events, promotional items during school presentations. This money helps to support those endeavors. 01:46:43.874 --> 01:46:47.070 - Thank you very much, and congratulations on that. 01:46:47.618 --> 01:46:56.563 - Thank you. Very important. Any questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public 01:46:56.563 --> 01:47:05.507 - comment. If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern 01:47:05.507 --> 01:47:14.629 - area in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor 01:47:14.629 --> 01:47:17.374 - Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? 01:47:18.434 --> 01:47:27.153 - Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Motion 01:47:27.153 --> 01:47:35.705 - passes unanimous. Thank you, councillors. Thank you. All right. Next up is a series of items from the 01:47:35.705 --> 01:47:37.214 - sheriff's office. 01:47:37.602 --> 01:47:44.844 - Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the sheriff's officer request to approve 01:47:44.844 --> 01:47:51.807 - an in-house transfer of $69,000 and fund 1000-0005 County General Sheriff into the overtime account 01:47:51.807 --> 01:47:59.048 - lines that are outlined on the agenda within the personnel category as per resolution 2025-41A. Second. 01:47:59.048 --> 01:48:02.878 - All right we got a motion and a second welcome. Hello. 01:48:03.330 --> 01:48:10.009 - Our overtime lines are about to be overexpended. One of them, they're both about 75% we've already used, 01:48:10.009 --> 01:48:16.497 - and we just need to transfer more money in. We've had some high priority cases that have clearly used 01:48:16.497 --> 01:48:22.922 - a lot of time, overtime resources. And the one is CHIRP. It's just the in-house. We need to transfer 01:48:22.922 --> 01:48:30.046 - money in so that we're not in the negative by the end of the year. OK. All right. Thank you very much for that. 01:48:30.146 --> 01:48:38.051 - Any questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Councilor Hawk. Yes, I understand that you 01:48:38.051 --> 01:48:46.346 - will be receiving the reimbursement from CHIRP, but could you not just transfer within the same category? 01:48:46.346 --> 01:48:54.173 - You don't have to come to us if it's in the same category. You can do it with a letter of transfer. 01:48:54.173 --> 01:48:56.990 - Is your overtime line not in there? 01:48:58.754 --> 01:49:06.853 - We are wanting to transfer from the vacant merit deputy position into the TURP one, and the next item 01:49:06.853 --> 01:49:14.953 - is actually the deappropriation and appropriation. I'm just saying, is your overtime not also in with 01:49:14.953 --> 01:49:23.529 - all your personnel in the same category? Yes. Well, then you don't have to, if you already have an overtime 01:49:23.529 --> 01:49:27.102 - line. Excuse me, Councilor Hawke. Thank you. 01:49:27.330 --> 01:49:35.413 - We have a resolution where a department has to come to the council to be able to move any funds into 01:49:35.413 --> 01:49:43.817 - the overtime lines. So that is part of this process that you guys approved back earlier at the beginning 01:49:43.817 --> 01:49:52.460 - of this year. So that's why she can't just move it on her own. She has to get council permission. Sometimes 01:49:52.460 --> 01:49:56.862 - we just make things harder for them and for us because 01:49:59.714 --> 01:50:07.045 - because she says she wants to do this, so she doesn't have to come back multiple times. But if we move 01:50:07.045 --> 01:50:14.305 - down a rather large sum into the overtime more than what the chirp is going to reimburse, then that's 01:50:14.305 --> 01:50:21.564 - something we've done, something we didn't intend to do. I mean, again, the overtime resolution was we 01:50:21.564 --> 01:50:27.614 - couldn't pick and choose which department to say, nope, you stay. Yes, you go do it. 01:50:28.130 --> 01:50:40.586 - So I think that's what that was about. Okay, and yes, Councilor Wilts. So I understand the resolution, 01:50:40.586 --> 01:50:52.800 - that part, but the second part, I think, of Councilor Hock's point makes sense in that we do want to 01:50:52.800 --> 01:50:57.758 - know that those funds will be reimbursed 01:50:59.138 --> 01:51:09.253 - And so I guess we've worked before on how to track the CHIRP money, and it's difficult to know because 01:51:09.253 --> 01:51:19.271 - it's reimbursable. I mean, I get all of that. What exactly is the anticipated reimbursement? Is there 01:51:19.271 --> 01:51:27.422 - a way to know? And what are we doing about this? Might be auditor or I don't know. 01:51:28.194 --> 01:51:39.363 - we're going to ask for the $13,500 from the second quarter. We put back in and then the third quarter 01:51:39.363 --> 01:51:50.641 - was on the find it. Once we received that reimbursement, that's going to be $11,268.75. I have no idea 01:51:50.641 --> 01:51:57.758 - what the fourth quarter will be by that time. 13 and 11 for six. 01:52:04.034 --> 01:52:11.649 - Ms. Turner-King, would you like to add anything for that? Yes. So in regards to overall CHIRP management, 01:52:11.649 --> 01:52:19.335 - as a reminder, this is a grant that is managed by BPD and that is shared by Bloomington Police Department, 01:52:19.335 --> 01:52:26.734 - the Sheriff's Office, IU, and Ellisville. We have been, we have in the past just talked with the grant 01:52:26.734 --> 01:52:33.918 - manager for Bloomington Police Department on how to better put in place a management system so that 01:52:34.018 --> 01:52:40.859 - Each person who's spending a piece of that pie has an idea of how much of that pie we're getting. Bloomington 01:52:40.859 --> 01:52:47.327 - Police Department has a new grant manager handling the chirp grant right now. And so I'm going to reach 01:52:47.327 --> 01:52:53.858 - out to that individual and ask to schedule a meeting because I really feel like we're going more towards 01:52:53.858 --> 01:52:58.398 - the need for a memorandum of understanding on how this grant is managed. 01:53:04.706 --> 01:53:13.617 - Any questions or comments? Council Hoppe? It seems to me we ought to have a line that just says overtime 01:53:13.617 --> 01:53:22.528 - with chirp, keep it separate. And know that it might, that line might be overspent, but the whole budget 01:53:22.528 --> 01:53:30.590 - won't be overspent. We overspend in quite a bit if I'm wrong, because boy, I hate being wrong. 01:53:31.618 --> 01:53:40.551 - on our reimbursement grants, we have to spend first before we get it. So correct. So this is a reimbursement 01:53:40.551 --> 01:53:49.155 - grant. If we have a line item in there, then when the money comes in, we can put it in there. So I mean, 01:53:49.155 --> 01:53:57.351 - I'm just trying to make sure we're not undoing what we tried to get done before. The other side was 01:53:57.351 --> 01:53:58.334 - killing us. 01:54:01.890 --> 01:54:09.833 - Ms. Gregory, would you like to, somebody? We've been working very closely with the sheriff's department 01:54:09.833 --> 01:54:17.470 - on this grant and the general ledger and grants managers and almost constant communication back and 01:54:17.470 --> 01:54:25.107 - forth, ensuring proper management and that the funds are separated as necessary. So this is, if I'm 01:54:25.107 --> 01:54:28.926 - remembering correctly, this is corrected into the 01:54:29.090 --> 01:54:35.484 - chair grant wants we receive funding to ensure that the separation and that we're not spending money 01:54:35.484 --> 01:54:41.941 - that we have not received, if that makes sense, just because this is handled and managed a little bit 01:54:41.941 --> 01:54:48.271 - differently. All right. Thank you very much for that. Any other questions or comments on this item? 01:54:48.271 --> 01:54:54.602 - Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the 01:54:54.602 --> 01:54:58.590 - lectern here in the room. May we please have a roll call vote? 01:55:04.706 --> 01:55:14.112 - Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor 01:55:14.112 --> 01:55:23.700 - Feidl? Yes. Councilor Locke? I'll say yes and I look forward to getting a report back how much we really 01:55:23.700 --> 01:55:33.014 - got insured and what we're paying out in total for. Because this is clerical over time too. Councilor 01:55:33.014 --> 01:55:34.110 - Wilts? Yes. 01:55:34.850 --> 01:55:43.373 - Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Next up is item F. Oh, I'm sorry, item E. Council, I move to approve 01:55:43.373 --> 01:55:51.976 - the Sheriff's Office request and fund 8103-0000 Operation Pullover to approve an additional appropriation 01:55:51.976 --> 01:56:00.256 - of $13,500 in the personnel category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. What would you 01:56:00.256 --> 01:56:02.366 - like to add to this item? 01:56:03.458 --> 01:56:12.391 - this is just the housekeeping item where we're moving the funds from where we got reimbursed for the 01:56:12.391 --> 01:56:21.590 - chirp grant. Other questions or comments on this item? All right, we'll move to public comment. Raising 01:56:21.590 --> 01:56:30.434 - hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Maybe please have a roll call vote. 01:56:30.434 --> 01:56:32.734 - Yes, Councillor Crossley. 01:56:33.250 --> 01:57:03.102 - Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 01:57:03.778 --> 01:57:11.652 - All right, we got a motion in a second. What would you like to add to this item? Nothing new. All right, 01:57:11.652 --> 01:57:19.226 - yes, Councilor Williams. I just want to take this moment to ask before I forget, could you reach out 01:57:19.226 --> 01:57:26.875 - and set up a time to talk with us, Councilor Hock and myself about the budget? Absolutely. Because we 01:57:26.875 --> 01:57:32.574 - haven't done that yet. That would be great. Thank you. Any other questions? 01:57:33.058 --> 01:57:41.536 - on the side. Seeing none. Um, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via team. So come forward 01:57:41.536 --> 01:57:49.931 - to the lectern here in the room and still seeing them. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Counselor 01:57:49.931 --> 01:57:58.242 - Crossley. Yes. Counselor Iverson. Yes. Counselor Fidel. Yes. Counselor Hawk. Yes. Counselor Wilkes. 01:57:58.242 --> 01:58:02.398 - Yes. Counselor Henry. Yes. Counselor Decker. Yes. 01:58:02.594 --> 01:58:09.616 - Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Next up are some items from the prosecutor's office. 01:58:09.616 --> 01:58:16.637 - Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the prosecutor's office request to be 01:58:16.637 --> 01:58:23.659 - exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor one 01:58:23.659 --> 01:58:26.206 - to two part-time clerical positions. 01:58:26.402 --> 01:58:34.390 - All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined by the prosecutor and Ms. Beth Hanlon. Welcome. 01:58:34.390 --> 01:58:42.687 - Hi. Thank you. Good evening. We have typically carried at least a couple of part-time folks in our office, 01:58:42.687 --> 01:58:50.520 - usually for some sort of overflow tasks from the legal secretary. So a lot of it is data entry. Some 01:58:50.520 --> 01:58:51.838 - of it is filing. 01:58:51.938 --> 01:58:58.742 - But it tends to be the more mundane aspects of the legal secretary's job that the legal secretaries 01:58:58.742 --> 01:59:05.749 - just can't get to. Do you want me to wait for the bell to stop? Okay. You guys are used to it. I'm not 01:59:05.749 --> 01:59:06.974 - used to it. Okay. 01:59:07.138 --> 01:59:14.190 - In this particular instance, we're having trouble getting our cases closed out in our case management 01:59:14.190 --> 01:59:21.519 - system timely. Right now, we have a legal secretary who serves as our receptionist, and one of her duties 01:59:21.519 --> 01:59:28.501 - is to close out files. Unfortunately, our system won't just draw down closed case data from Odyssey, 01:59:28.501 --> 01:59:35.623 - which is the program that the judges are using. So it has to be manually entered and compared with the 01:59:35.623 --> 01:59:36.798 - judicial orders. 01:59:36.898 --> 01:59:44.019 - And the reason it's important to do this is because we rely on it for criminal history information. 01:59:44.019 --> 01:59:51.354 - But so does every other prosecutor in the state of Indiana. So it feeds into the state prosecutor case 01:59:51.354 --> 01:59:58.618 - management system. So right now, we're currently about three months behind on our case closeouts. And 01:59:58.618 --> 02:00:04.030 - we'd like to get to a position where those are taking no more than a month. 02:00:04.194 --> 02:00:11.595 - We have a particular person in mind if we're permitted to hire who used to be a part-time person in 02:00:11.595 --> 02:00:19.439 - our office, decided he wanted to fully retire, but now he wants to come back. And that would be wonderful 02:00:19.439 --> 02:00:24.990 - because he already knows how to do the work that we're trying to get here. 02:00:25.122 --> 02:00:31.592 - But he also wants to work fewer hours than he did previously, so that's why we would like to be able 02:00:31.592 --> 02:00:38.063 - to hire a second part-time person, which again will be hopefully, if we're approved, somebody who is 02:00:38.063 --> 02:00:44.469 - retired who's been involved with the system, who has some institutional knowledge, won't take a lot 02:00:44.469 --> 02:00:51.132 - of training, but again can keep us from having to request overtime or use comp time for the secretaries 02:00:51.132 --> 02:00:53.566 - to get some of this work done timely. 02:00:55.330 --> 02:01:02.516 - that explanation. I'm looking to my colleagues to see if anybody has any questions on this item. Yes, 02:01:02.516 --> 02:01:09.702 - Councillor Hawke. Yes, and you tell me why you're not waiting and putting this in your budget request 02:01:09.702 --> 02:01:16.748 - for next year instead of getting ahead of all the other departments such as others. Nobody else has 02:01:16.748 --> 02:01:23.934 - been doing today too, so not just pointing my fingers at you, but we see this every year, but we have 02:01:24.610 --> 02:01:30.664 - Select departments who come and get ahead of all the other departments to get this included in their 02:01:30.664 --> 02:01:37.198 - budget now, then it's already in there, and that's what happens. And it's not fair to the other departments. 02:01:37.198 --> 02:01:43.372 - And so is there a specific reason why you cannot wait for budget session? Yes, because these cases are 02:01:43.372 --> 02:01:49.547 - getting behind now. If we wait until the next budget session, we're waiting another six months to fill 02:01:49.547 --> 02:01:50.206 - this need. 02:01:50.690 --> 02:02:03.128 - We also have had lines for these. This isn't an additional appropriation. For this particular request, 02:02:03.128 --> 02:02:13.150 - we're just asking to fill a vacancy. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none. 02:02:13.634 --> 02:02:21.535 - I know I wanted to go there, but before we go there, we need to go to public comment. If there's public 02:02:21.535 --> 02:02:29.208 - comment on this item, you can come forward to the room here or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing 02:02:29.208 --> 02:02:37.184 - none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Peidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? 02:02:37.184 --> 02:02:42.654 - No. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckert? Yes. 02:02:42.882 --> 02:02:51.550 - Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes majority six one. Thank you. Next up is item H. 02:02:53.026 --> 02:02:59.946 - Council I move to approve the prosecutor office request and fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor 02:02:59.946 --> 02:03:06.728 - to amend the 2026 salary ordinance account line 13029 Forensic Analysis and Technology Specialist, 02:03:06.728 --> 02:03:13.579 - Pat B, not exempt from 35 hours to 40 hours with an effective date of August 9th. All right, we got 02:03:13.579 --> 02:03:18.238 - a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item? 02:03:18.946 --> 02:03:26.636 - Great, thank you. This is for a forensic analyst slash tech specialist. And this is someone in our office 02:03:26.636 --> 02:03:33.964 - who is becoming increasingly more invaluable. The person who's in that position has been with us for 02:03:33.964 --> 02:03:41.437 - about 20 years. And the duties have changed with the introduction to our case flow of body worn camera 02:03:41.437 --> 02:03:45.790 - videos, more and more surveillance video items, cell phone, 02:03:45.890 --> 02:03:54.265 - data and other kinds of digital evidence. I have now had him working over in the Ellisville Police Department 02:03:54.265 --> 02:04:02.336 - part-time as part of the Monroe County High Tech Crime Unit to process digital evidence. And as a result, 02:04:02.336 --> 02:04:10.331 - he has been able to get cases moving in our courts here in Monroe County because phones that were taking 02:04:10.331 --> 02:04:12.158 - seven months to process 02:04:12.290 --> 02:04:19.643 - to process or being processed in under 30 days because of his work. But we have a lot of work on his 02:04:19.643 --> 02:04:27.068 - plate, and he is always close to going overtime. We're not allowed to do overtime, so sometimes we're 02:04:27.068 --> 02:04:28.670 - giving him comp time. 02:04:28.834 --> 02:04:37.894 - But we really just have enough work for him. And his work is so valuable to moving our cases forward. 02:04:37.894 --> 02:04:46.953 - I can give you a couple of examples. He was recently able to crack into a phone in a murder case that 02:04:46.953 --> 02:04:55.835 - had been pending for nine months. And his first week in the lab, he was able to crack that open and 02:04:55.835 --> 02:04:56.990 - get into it. 02:04:57.122 --> 02:05:03.418 - We had a jury trial last week he edits the videos to be in compliance with the rules of evidence so 02:05:03.418 --> 02:05:08.958 - that we can present them to a jury without violating those rules and sometimes we have. 02:05:09.122 --> 02:05:16.709 - evidence rulings that happen on the fly in the moment, and he can very quickly do that work and make 02:05:16.709 --> 02:05:24.445 - sure that it doesn't violate constitutional or evidentiary rights. So he's very valuable. The workload 02:05:24.445 --> 02:05:28.126 - is increased. He is constantly working more than 02:05:28.610 --> 02:05:36.707 - than his 35 hours, and so it is my hope that we can give him a little more time to do this really important 02:05:36.707 --> 02:05:44.354 - work for our office. I will say another aspect of his job, you know, Greg Cron and his department are 02:05:44.354 --> 02:05:48.702 - great, tech services does a lot for us, but Rob keeps his 02:05:48.802 --> 02:05:56.599 - folks out of our office for silly stuff. He's always doing our tech support both in the criminal division 02:05:56.599 --> 02:06:03.955 - and in the child support division. He also sometimes gets loaned out to the judges for that purpose 02:06:03.955 --> 02:06:11.311 - and defense attorneys. He's really good at what he does. He's very efficient. It's my hope that you 02:06:11.311 --> 02:06:18.078 - will allow me to move him to 40 hours. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. 02:06:21.410 --> 02:06:33.915 - or comments on this item. Yes, Councilor Woods. I just wanted to mention that, again, I've met with 02:06:33.915 --> 02:06:47.295 - these fine folks and looked at a lot of what they've talked about and what they've included in the packet. 02:06:47.295 --> 02:06:50.046 - And I think that this 02:06:50.242 --> 02:07:04.832 - particular move makes a lot of sense in trying to be more efficient with the folks that we have and 02:07:04.832 --> 02:07:15.774 - not having to add positions. So I think I'm usually a little bit more like 02:07:16.130 --> 02:07:23.570 - is everybody in the whole department at the same 35 or 40 and thinking around those things. So I just 02:07:23.570 --> 02:07:31.156 - want to kind of explain that I think this is a good strategy, especially given the way in which they've 02:07:31.156 --> 02:07:38.597 - explained the workload for this particular position. Also, an email exchange was mentioned earlier as 02:07:38.597 --> 02:07:46.110 - being entertaining. And I have to say, if you missed out on this one, it was pretty entertaining, too. 02:07:48.130 --> 02:07:57.368 - Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we will move to public comment. Raise your 02:07:57.368 --> 02:08:06.425 - hand via Teams or you can come forward to the room or come forward to the lectern here in the room. 02:08:06.425 --> 02:08:15.935 - And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Haas. Councillor 02:08:15.935 --> 02:08:17.022 - Wilts. Yes. 02:08:17.570 --> 02:08:27.582 - Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosby? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes 02:08:27.582 --> 02:08:37.216 - majority six to one. This will need to come back for a second reading. On August 11th, but before you 02:08:37.216 --> 02:08:41.278 - go, we got one more item, which is item I. 02:08:41.666 --> 02:08:47.823 - Council I move to approve the prosecutor's office request and fund one thousand dash zero zero zero 02:08:47.823 --> 02:08:54.102 - nine county general prosecutor to amend the twenty twenty six salary ordinance account line one three 02:08:54.102 --> 02:09:00.505 - zero three three criminal investigator and account line one three zero three four criminal investigator 02:09:00.505 --> 02:09:07.031 - Civ poll D not exempt from thirty five to forty hours with an effective date of August the ninth. Second. 02:09:07.031 --> 02:09:10.910 - What would you like to add to this item. All right. Thank you. 02:09:11.202 --> 02:09:17.866 - To give you a little insight into the investigators, we have two of them in the criminal division. And 02:09:17.866 --> 02:09:24.918 - those are the two positions I'm talking about. They have a very active role in our intake process, receiving 02:09:24.918 --> 02:09:31.646 - information from law enforcement, making sure that it's matched up with cases that are pending or cases 02:09:31.646 --> 02:09:38.504 - that are in review. They do make some charging recommendations to our chief deputy, who does the majority 02:09:38.504 --> 02:09:40.510 - of our charging and screening. 02:09:40.866 --> 02:09:46.535 - The biggest backlog problem that they have with their workload are warrant requests. We receive requests 02:09:46.535 --> 02:09:52.043 - from law enforcement for arrest warrants based on probable cause that crimes have been committed, and 02:09:52.043 --> 02:09:57.496 - those get put on the back burner because nobody's in jail yet while we focus on those people who are 02:09:57.496 --> 02:10:02.949 - arrested and who need charging decisions and probable cause determinations much quicker. And so as a 02:10:02.949 --> 02:10:08.348 - result, we sometimes can get as far as three or four months behind on our warrant requests, whereas 02:10:08.348 --> 02:10:10.832 - ideally we would like to have those reviewed, 02:10:10.832 --> 02:10:17.270 - a decision made within a week at the outside. So like I said, it's just partially the workload. We're 02:10:17.270 --> 02:10:23.771 - usually focused on the arrests and the things that are coming in right now and some of that stuff gets 02:10:23.771 --> 02:10:30.398 - put on the back burner. They are responsible for doing background checks, criminal background checks for 02:10:30.658 --> 02:10:38.233 - criminal cases as well, like for defendants, but also for witnesses and victims. We have to provide 02:10:38.233 --> 02:10:43.838 - that information to defense attorneys by statute and ethical obligations. 02:10:45.026 --> 02:10:51.720 - If we are able to increase their hours, we're hopeful to have a quicker turnaround on our arrest warrants, 02:10:51.720 --> 02:10:58.414 - but also hopeful that they can help us locate missing witnesses and victims a little bit faster. Sometimes 02:10:58.414 --> 02:11:04.670 - it can take some time. People change their phone number or move, and they don't let us know. And so 02:11:04.670 --> 02:11:11.113 - sometimes we have to have our investigators dig into that. They can respond to emails quicker. We send 02:11:11.113 --> 02:11:14.992 - monthly reports to law enforcement about what cases of theirs 02:11:14.992 --> 02:11:22.473 - we've declined and what we've taken and where they're at, and so they can get onto those a little bit 02:11:22.473 --> 02:11:29.808 - faster. They're usually about two weeks late now. I would just point out from a parity perspective, 02:11:29.808 --> 02:11:36.702 - Mr. Hunt is here in the room. The public defender investigators are at 40 hours, so just from 02:11:36.834 --> 02:11:43.804 - parity sake, I think it would be nice if we could pay our investigators at 40 hours and give them a 02:11:43.804 --> 02:11:51.122 - few more hours to get some of these important tasks done. If you have any questions, please let me know. 02:11:51.122 --> 02:11:58.370 - Thank you for that. Any questions or comments on this item? Yes. I was surprised by the last thing that 02:11:58.370 --> 02:12:02.622 - you said. Do you have any idea how long it's not had parity? 02:12:03.682 --> 02:12:12.234 - I don't know. I know that their support staff, I believe all of them work 40 hours, whereas the majority 02:12:12.234 --> 02:12:20.380 - of my support staff works 35 hours. All right. No other further questions or comments on this item? 02:12:20.380 --> 02:12:28.851 - We will move to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand 02:12:28.851 --> 02:12:33.086 - via Teams. And seeing none, maybe a roll call vote. 02:12:34.306 --> 02:12:57.636 - Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 02:12:57.636 --> 02:13:02.302 - Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 02:13:02.402 --> 02:13:12.030 - So items J and K as you can recall were tabled to what already seems like a packed August 11th meeting and so. 02:13:12.098 --> 02:13:20.187 - We will move on to item L from the Board of Commissioners. County Council, excuse me, I move to approve 02:13:20.187 --> 02:13:28.354 - the Board of Commissioners request and fund 1000-0068 County General Commissioners to create new account 02:13:28.354 --> 02:13:36.676 - lines 30071 Community Access Television and 32115 WFHB Weather Alert and simultaneously approve additional 02:13:36.676 --> 02:13:40.798 - appropriations of $167,718 in the services category. 02:13:41.602 --> 02:13:48.954 - second okay we got a motion and a second and I see we are joined by Commissioner Madeira and Miss Angie 02:13:48.954 --> 02:13:56.236 - Purdy welcome thank you um so the part that might be missing because we asked that you table the prior 02:13:56.236 --> 02:14:03.306 - items is that the cable franchise fund um presently there I believe has a cash balance of just over 02:14:03.306 --> 02:14:09.598 - three thousand dollars started off with a an appropriation of five hundred and something 02:14:09.730 --> 02:14:22.071 - And so it's not able to sustain the accounts that are within that fund. So what this is is a request 02:14:22.071 --> 02:14:34.290 - to put the lines that we are aware of. And I do believe we can reduce the community access TV line. 02:14:34.290 --> 02:14:39.422 - Let me confirm. I was just looking at it. 02:14:43.138 --> 02:15:00.883 - I request for the Community Access TV, we need to ensure as a balance of $80,859. So that instead of 02:15:00.883 --> 02:15:12.478 - the 160 that I had initially presented, we can reduce that amount 02:15:14.370 --> 02:15:43.070 - Did you catch that number? $80,859. I'm sorry, it was. Let's see here. So yes, $80,859. 02:16:02.594 --> 02:16:09.913 - Council, I wish to amend my motion that we would approve additional appropriations of $86,859. Second. 02:16:09.913 --> 02:16:17.019 - All right, we got a motion and a second to amend that to the amount as Councilor Iverson mentioned. 02:16:17.019 --> 02:16:24.125 - Is there any other further questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes. Council President, 02:16:24.125 --> 02:16:31.444 - is this about the amendment or the item at this point? The amendment, sorry. I have no questions about 02:16:31.444 --> 02:16:32.510 - the amendment. 02:16:33.730 --> 02:16:40.047 - All right seeing none all those in favor of amendment or approving the motion as amended signified by 02:16:40.047 --> 02:16:46.365 - saying aye aye all those opposed same sign okay motion carries so now we'll come back to the original 02:16:46.365 --> 02:16:52.620 - one and council Henry did you have a question yeah thank you madam president first I want to confirm 02:16:52.620 --> 02:16:58.876 - the actual balance of the cable franchise fund you said three thousand I'm looking at a ledger today 02:16:58.876 --> 02:17:02.654 - that says something differently can we get the actual number 02:17:03.746 --> 02:17:14.467 - I'm looking at it right now and it shows a balance of $3,747.51. I'm seeing a cash balance that's different. 02:17:14.467 --> 02:17:24.401 - I ran mine through the end of the year. I did not run through the end of the year, so let me do that 02:17:24.401 --> 02:17:32.958 - quickly. I'm sorry, my computer restarted in an inopportune time, so give me a second. 02:17:40.098 --> 02:17:47.457 - because I have what's current today so I think that's what was shared earlier. You're correct on the 02:17:47.457 --> 02:17:54.888 - current balance today but departments often put in anticipated expenses ahead of time like if there's 02:17:54.888 --> 02:18:02.174 - like a reoccurring invoice for example something similar so if you go out to the end of the year so 02:18:02.174 --> 02:18:06.910 - December 31 of 26 the cash balance is looking like it will be 37 02:18:07.010 --> 02:18:15.740 - Well, $3,747.51. Cash on hand today is $84,861. That's correct. OK. So just some questions that I have 02:18:15.740 --> 02:18:24.894 - as we're trying to sort this out. We had originally appropriated in the cable franchise fund about $533,000 02:18:24.894 --> 02:18:33.370 - at the beginning of the year. Presuming there was revenue coming in, do we have an understanding of 02:18:33.370 --> 02:18:34.302 - the, like, 02:18:35.426 --> 02:18:41.986 - that dropped off, can you walk me through that? Shouldn't we be getting receipts for fees from? This 02:18:41.986 --> 02:18:48.935 - has been a conversation that we've had for a number of years now actually with the cable franchise because 02:18:48.935 --> 02:18:55.560 - our revenue has been decreasing steadily over time. It's anticipated that next year our gross revenue 02:18:55.560 --> 02:19:02.055 - will be about $254,000 in that particular fund. You were not on the council at that time. We've had 02:19:02.055 --> 02:19:03.614 - numerous conversations. 02:19:04.034 --> 02:19:10.979 - about putting some things in this fund and knowing we're going to be able to sustain it or support it. 02:19:10.979 --> 02:19:17.317 - So this is why we're here now. So we had a carryover last year of 294-ish thousand. And then, 02:19:17.317 --> 02:19:24.195 - so do we have, and right now it looks like the differential is like 310,000. So do we get any, that's 02:19:24.195 --> 02:19:30.398 - what I'm asking. Do we get any receipts from any franchise fees? Because we have carryover. 02:19:30.850 --> 02:19:39.284 - We clearly budgeted based on previous years. I'm just trying to figure out where the revenue is. Do 02:19:39.284 --> 02:19:47.803 - you have any revenue on this? That's what I guess I'm asking. Yes, we have revenue. So for instance, 02:19:47.803 --> 02:19:56.912 - the AT&T quarterly franchise, we have received $4,405.80 thus far. That is as of 728 of this year. Comcast, 02:19:56.912 --> 02:19:59.358 - we have received $68,087.40. 02:19:59.458 --> 02:20:06.353 - That was receded in February. Okay. I guess where I'm going with this is that, you know, as we budgeted 02:20:06.353 --> 02:20:13.182 - last year, it was, you know, we had a four-year trend of account lines there, and we've been budgeting 02:20:13.182 --> 02:20:20.143 - training and some of these things, and they're from year in, year out. It's July. It's the third quarter 02:20:20.143 --> 02:20:27.038 - of the year. We're seeing this now. I guess at what point did you start to anticipate that we'd be down 02:20:27.426 --> 02:20:34.102 - where we are. I'm just trying to understand the tracking of finances month to month. Certainly you would 02:20:34.102 --> 02:20:40.651 - have, I thought, or one would assume there would be projections of how bad is bad until we get to this 02:20:40.651 --> 02:20:47.645 - point where there's 3,000 left in the fund. When were you tracking this? When did this get to your attention? 02:20:47.645 --> 02:20:54.130 - It came to my attention just before, I actually sent an email, I believe, to Councilors, when it came 02:20:54.130 --> 02:20:57.118 - to my attention. So I don't know, a month ago? 02:20:57.506 --> 02:21:03.803 - So we got six years into the fiscal where we were running out of funds, and we're at this point now, 02:21:03.803 --> 02:21:10.224 - six months in. I guess I'm just trying to understand the forecasting and where the appropriations have 02:21:10.224 --> 02:21:16.458 - gone. I guess I would have liked to know a little earlier. Sorry that that didn't work out for you. 02:21:16.458 --> 02:21:22.693 - I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. I got it to you as quickly as I came to my attention, and I 02:21:22.693 --> 02:21:26.558 - brought it to the council. Sorry that didn't work out for me. 02:21:27.458 --> 02:21:34.148 - You have a finance person in your office, right? Every department has a finance person. Do they run 02:21:34.148 --> 02:21:41.106 - this report monthly so we can understand that? No. I don't know that they actually run these particular 02:21:41.106 --> 02:21:47.862 - reports because of the number of claims that they have to process each week. And we're also a person 02:21:47.862 --> 02:21:54.619 - down in our office. So they're dealing with not only the claims that come in, but also responding to 02:21:54.619 --> 02:21:55.422 - the public. 02:21:56.962 --> 02:22:03.828 - Here's my heartburn. So we have a cash on hand and then I guess anticipated expenses. Of the anticipated 02:22:03.828 --> 02:22:10.433 - expenses, which is like $83,000 between now and where your number is, of those anticipated expenses, 02:22:10.433 --> 02:22:17.233 - how many of those must be paid or can be canceled in order to burn this fund a little more efficiently? 02:22:17.233 --> 02:22:23.773 - I believe that these are all obligated. I can't speak for the technical services training line, but 02:22:23.773 --> 02:22:25.342 - I can tell you that the 02:22:25.538 --> 02:22:38.105 - Cat's line is certainly obligated. The WIU line is obligated. So I don't choose to not pay. Okay. Fellow 02:22:38.105 --> 02:22:48.638 - Councillors, I guess we have sort of like half a thing here today. We're being asked to 02:22:49.314 --> 02:22:55.124 - De-obligate funds from the remainder of the cable franchise fees. There's no minimum fund balance on 02:22:55.124 --> 02:23:00.991 - that fund. We could burn it to zero. We don't have to hold any back in there. We have a point in time 02:23:00.991 --> 02:23:06.744 - of how much cash is on hand. And what we have is like seven months into the year where I don't know 02:23:06.744 --> 02:23:12.496 - what the burn rate is on your account lines. My concern is that we budgeted, there's a $300,000 gap 02:23:12.496 --> 02:23:16.350 - that we're looking at. Either that was revenue that we should have 02:23:16.866 --> 02:23:22.307 - talked about last year during budget season, or should have been informed about that wasn't coming in. 02:23:22.307 --> 02:23:27.695 - I just hate to do another budget cycle this year, where we have hundreds of thousands of dollars that 02:23:27.695 --> 02:23:32.502 - are kind of gapped, and we don't really, because we budgeted for this, we appropriated for 02:23:32.502 --> 02:23:38.049 - it. The appropriations were there, we went through the appropriation process. The appropriations matched 02:23:38.049 --> 02:23:43.332 - previous calendar years, 21, 22, 25, it's the same, I mean, there's a trend line there. But this is 02:23:43.332 --> 02:23:45.022 - a big move around, and I guess, 02:23:45.250 --> 02:23:51.237 - you know, maybe this is me just getting a little into the Excel sheets this evening, but, you know, 02:23:51.237 --> 02:23:57.344 - we're more than halfway through the year to have this kind of adjustment. This should have been maybe 02:23:57.344 --> 02:24:03.452 - better. Thank you, Madam President. And I guess to that point, Council Iverson and I are the liaisons 02:24:03.452 --> 02:24:08.960 - board and we will go over this in our meeting when we go over budgets. So, Madam President, 02:24:08.960 --> 02:24:13.630 - if I may just say, I don't believe it's a liaison issue. I mean, I think that 02:24:14.018 --> 02:24:23.175 - is maybe been. No, I know. I understand. But again, it's like we can go over that. And then, you know, 02:24:23.175 --> 02:24:32.331 - when it's coming down the pike for budget, that's something that we can, you know, talk about as well. 02:24:32.331 --> 02:24:38.910 - Any other? Yes, Councillor Woods. Why were the previous two items tabled? 02:24:40.258 --> 02:24:47.772 - answer that that's because we are trying to determine whether or not we have this is a statutorily defined 02:24:47.772 --> 02:24:55.005 - fund or if it's a home rule fund if it's a home rule fund then we can the commissioners can modify the 02:24:55.005 --> 02:25:02.239 - resolution to allow for those receipts to go directly into county general which would be the intention 02:25:02.239 --> 02:25:07.646 - if we can do that we have like a message out to find out and don't know yeah 02:25:08.258 --> 02:25:14.924 - I've been working with Miss Purdy and we discussed talking with the State Board of Accounts just to 02:25:14.924 --> 02:25:21.657 - ensure, obviously, we're always very cautious to ensure we're handling the revenue appropriately. So 02:25:21.657 --> 02:25:28.990 - I just want to confirm with the SBOA that the revenue, it does not need to be in its own separate fund, which 02:25:29.538 --> 02:25:36.369 - I'm not satisfied with their response yet, so we're going to ask a few more questions before we proceed. 02:25:36.369 --> 02:25:42.940 - But it appears that we can potentially dissolve this fund, which we could then move the balance then 02:25:42.940 --> 02:25:49.706 - of the remaining funds into the general fund, for example, just so they could budget then appropriately 02:25:49.706 --> 02:25:56.862 - from the general fund if that's what everybody chooses to do. So I'm simply investigating to give us options. 02:25:57.026 --> 02:26:08.488 - and then we can proceed from there once I have all the information to share. Do you have another one? 02:26:08.488 --> 02:26:19.726 - You go. That makes sense, thank you. And my other question then is, because we're looking at just L 02:26:19.726 --> 02:26:24.446 - right now, correct, okay. We're gonna do, 02:26:25.122 --> 02:26:41.019 - an additional appropriation in county general for a hundred and oh no 80 something we changed but do 02:26:41.019 --> 02:26:54.398 - you have money extra lying around in yeah no so this is coming out of general pocket 02:26:54.658 --> 02:27:05.748 - So just got it. Okay. Thank you. Did I see your hand raised? Yes. I remember distinctly when our council 02:27:05.748 --> 02:27:16.416 - attorneys, Michael Flory, uh, pulled up the documents for this fund to make it clear that it did not 02:27:16.416 --> 02:27:19.902 - have to have be cable related or 02:27:20.258 --> 02:27:28.629 - it could be for telephone or communication. It could be for anything that the council would choose. 02:27:28.629 --> 02:27:37.000 - To spend it on so. I don't know whether that helps in any way, but there was documentation on that. 02:27:37.000 --> 02:27:45.538 - Uh and so that's when we started putting other things in there just to try and make budgets work. But 02:27:45.538 --> 02:27:50.142 - everybody knows that the revenue would be coming down. 02:27:50.466 --> 02:27:57.883 - And just for us to know, this is just another thing where we had in past counted on revenue that it 02:27:57.883 --> 02:28:05.744 - will no longer sustain what we've been putting in there over the years. So that's just more money cutting 02:28:05.744 --> 02:28:13.309 - into what our growth should be of the new revenue coming in. I mean, it's just that's just the way it 02:28:13.309 --> 02:28:14.718 - is. You move over. 02:28:14.818 --> 02:28:22.981 - The revenue over in the general, but the expenses are going to be more than the revenue you're moving 02:28:22.981 --> 02:28:31.225 - over there. It's just like it's a whole brand new expense. That's the reason why I think a lot of this 02:28:31.225 --> 02:28:39.548 - stuff about spending money should have waited for budgets. 9.90%. At this point, we don't have a better 02:28:39.548 --> 02:28:43.710 - option right now. I mean, we can be upset about it. 02:28:43.938 --> 02:28:50.237 - all that, but really, we have to pay our bills and these are obligations. So, all right, just 02:28:50.237 --> 02:28:57.073 - so I understand, thank you. Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I would just, Councilor 02:28:57.073 --> 02:29:03.774 - Rosse, I'd follow up. I mean, we have cash on hand to pay the bills. I mean, you don't have $86,000 02:29:03.774 --> 02:29:10.878 - in bills coming in the next two weeks, do you? I don't think so. We've already paid the third quarter for 02:29:11.010 --> 02:29:18.689 - for Comcat or for cats. We do owe WFHP $6,000. So I don't know when they're going to send that particular 02:29:18.689 --> 02:29:25.933 - invoice. OK, so it's not like we can't pay the bills this month. I mean, at the end of the year, we 02:29:25.933 --> 02:29:33.684 - have to have this. The urgency, if there's a feeling of urgency, I don't share it. That's what I'm saying. 02:29:33.684 --> 02:29:40.638 - I'm sorry. I didn't imply urgency. It was more of despondency, if that's a word. I'm just late. 02:29:40.770 --> 02:29:48.722 - I mean, it is what it is, is sort of where I was. I wasn't saying it was having to happen tonight, but 02:29:48.722 --> 02:29:56.519 - it's housekeeping that, you know, we kind of have to figure out. Yes, Councilor Decker. Well, on the 02:29:56.519 --> 02:30:04.394 - counter that we have to be cautious about, when you don't, when bodies and we're seeing this a lot in 02:30:04.394 --> 02:30:08.254 - our country, particularly when you don't back up, 02:30:08.482 --> 02:30:15.205 - what you have either obligated historically or appropriated, whatever the lines are filled in with, 02:30:15.205 --> 02:30:21.996 - it starts sending messages that you're cutting those things. And when I look at these two particular 02:30:21.996 --> 02:30:28.585 - community values listed on here, those are a little bit more external than not in this community. 02:30:28.585 --> 02:30:33.022 - I mean, one of them we're literally broadcast out on as we speak. 02:30:33.186 --> 02:30:40.083 - and everyone in their sister and especially the Marty Hawks of the world and Jennifer Crossley's, they 02:30:40.083 --> 02:30:47.048 - anticipate that they'll go on and they'll see those. So I always get worried that any of our discussion 02:30:47.048 --> 02:30:53.811 - here turns into rumors out there that we're changing course on how we pay bills. Internally, I think 02:30:53.811 --> 02:30:59.838 - there's some discussion here that is exceedingly valid, but beyond it, to go to the point 02:31:01.762 --> 02:31:09.322 - Versing on either of those lines is a massive policy change that's not been in this community for at 02:31:09.322 --> 02:31:17.106 - least since my birth. Got to watch stuff like that. It's a very large conversation. Yeah, that's a big, 02:31:17.106 --> 02:31:24.965 - big, large thing. Maybe that we should have had over the years about cable, but no one will care because 02:31:24.965 --> 02:31:26.686 - they will still expect 02:31:27.106 --> 02:31:35.402 - those items to be on that budget. And the same for our counterparts across the way at Morton Street. 02:31:35.402 --> 02:31:43.698 - Council for that discussion. I'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, 02:31:43.698 --> 02:31:51.911 - you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may 02:31:51.911 --> 02:31:54.622 - we please have a roll call vote. 02:31:54.722 --> 02:32:11.303 - So just so everyone is clear, account line 30071 was reduced to $86,859. No, it was $80,859. Okay. Correct. 02:32:11.303 --> 02:32:17.598 - Thank you. That's what I needed to know. 02:32:24.226 --> 02:32:32.943 - So then one eight fifty nine eighty thousand eight fifty nine six thousand four. OK. So yes. So then 02:32:32.943 --> 02:32:41.747 - that brings your new total to eighty six thousand eight fifty nine for this additional appropriation. 02:32:41.747 --> 02:32:50.378 - Yeah. Sometimes I get my math wrong. So I appreciate you double checking. Yeah. I just want to make 02:32:50.378 --> 02:32:53.054 - sure we were on the same page. 02:32:53.634 --> 02:33:05.271 - because that's not what I talked, so thank you for that. Okay, Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley. 02:33:05.271 --> 02:33:16.364 - Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hogg. Yes. Councilor Wilk. No. Councilor 02:33:16.364 --> 02:33:20.606 - Henry. No. Motion passes majority 6-1. 02:33:22.082 --> 02:33:31.430 - Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, next up is item M from TSD. Council, I move to approve the 02:33:31.430 --> 02:33:41.054 - technical service department's request and fund 1000-0106 County General TSD to create new account lines 02:33:41.054 --> 02:33:43.070 - 3002A training travel 02:33:43.170 --> 02:33:49.899 - and 35003 reprographics and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $46,000 in the services 02:33:49.899 --> 02:33:56.627 - category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And we have our TSD director, Mr. Cohn here. 02:33:56.627 --> 02:34:03.356 - Good evening, everyone. This is carryover again from the cable franchise. These were items that weren't 02:34:03.356 --> 02:34:10.408 - previously in cable franchise that got moved in during the last budget. So I'm running in the same situation 02:34:10.408 --> 02:34:12.478 - as just described by Ms. Purdy. 02:34:12.610 --> 02:34:19.428 - We're not asking for any additional monies more than we'd already budgeted for and had that remaining 02:34:19.428 --> 02:34:26.246 - balance left. For the reaper graphics, those expenses cover our monthly black and white copier costs, 02:34:26.246 --> 02:34:33.466 - service agreements, and all that comes out of that reaper graphics line for the entire county. The training 02:34:33.466 --> 02:34:41.086 - and travel, we cover our GMS subscription with that, our MS-ISOT subscription with that. We do advanced training. 02:34:41.218 --> 02:34:46.696 - Since we've been changing infrastructure at the county and a lot of radically different than what we 02:34:46.696 --> 02:34:52.391 - had before there's some knowledge gaps So we've been using utilizing those funds to plug those knowledge 02:34:52.391 --> 02:34:57.978 - gaps so we don't have to keep leveraging professional services as a constant move so That also anytime 02:34:57.978 --> 02:35:03.782 - I go I'm typically the one in my office who has to travel to conference That does cover my travel expenses 02:35:03.782 --> 02:35:09.694 - for going to conferences as things It's very rare that I spend the evening at a conference. So that's been a 02:35:09.858 --> 02:35:16.974 - a one-time-a-year charge where I have to go up for a two-day conference for the state where I'm typically 02:35:16.974 --> 02:35:24.023 - a speaker, so. Thank you very much for that. Counselor? Yes. Do you plan when you're putting your budget 02:35:24.023 --> 02:35:30.803 - together to bring to us, and before we get turned around, do you plan on putting these expenses over 02:35:30.803 --> 02:35:37.517 - into QMCAP with your other expenses that you have there, or where do you plan to put these expenses 02:35:37.517 --> 02:35:39.262 - for the next budget year? 02:35:40.130 --> 02:35:45.374 - Well, it was my understanding that would continue to be in county general, but that's a conversation 02:35:45.374 --> 02:35:50.565 - I'd have to have with Ms. Purdy and get direction on that, how they want me to go with that. It was 02:35:50.565 --> 02:35:56.276 - my understanding county generals where these funds came from initially before I got moved to cable franchise. 02:35:56.276 --> 02:36:01.624 - That's why they were going back there. So. Well, since the man is not going to be coming in and future 02:36:01.624 --> 02:36:06.867 - the same, right? We need to figure out if I need to look for other locations. That's right. Yes. And 02:36:06.867 --> 02:36:07.646 - what you know, 02:36:07.810 --> 02:36:15.995 - you've been around long enough to know that we do all we can to try to protect County General so that 02:36:15.995 --> 02:36:24.020 - we can pay our employees. And so I'm suggesting you take a look to see if there's room there in the 02:36:24.020 --> 02:36:32.205 - QMCAP budget where you have a separate budget in QMCAP for that. Council Henry. Thank you. Thanks for 02:36:32.205 --> 02:36:37.662 - the presentation. So I want to start off by saying since we haven't 02:36:38.850 --> 02:36:45.860 - We haven't dealt with the current cable franchise fee, which was tabled, and we just now moved money 02:36:45.860 --> 02:36:53.078 - out or created account lines for the Community Access and WFHB. Those resources are in cable franchise, 02:36:53.078 --> 02:37:00.366 - right? Half of things. Maybe got checked. The auditor, is that reasonable? Okay. Right now, that money's 02:37:00.366 --> 02:37:05.502 - sitting in one fund. We haven't closed that fund out and moved it, right? 02:37:07.106 --> 02:37:14.214 - And we just took off the books, 80,000 that is not going to be covered in the general fund. So I'm not 02:37:14.214 --> 02:37:21.461 - positive of the question if you could repeat it, but we know that today's balance of the cable franchise 02:37:21.461 --> 02:37:28.500 - fund was 80-some thousand. But if you put that to the end of the year, then there were, I don't know, 02:37:28.500 --> 02:37:35.678 - I think 3,500 or something remaining, 3,700. And we just voted to approve account lines and the probes. 02:37:36.226 --> 02:37:43.026 - for things that were covered by cable franchise. So there's more in that account right now. I just want 02:37:43.026 --> 02:37:49.629 - to maybe clarify this. I'm looking at our budget from last cycle and on the training and travel line 02:37:49.629 --> 02:37:56.233 - and the reprographics lines, we had expenditures going back to 2021 in here. So when you say like it 02:37:56.233 --> 02:38:01.790 - wasn't, do you mean like last year you felt that we moved it in? I didn't take over. 02:38:01.890 --> 02:38:07.261 - I didn't come into this position until 22, so I only know from there going forward where things were 02:38:07.261 --> 02:38:12.845 - budgeted. That's fine, Greg. I just want to make sure, because we've been using that fund for some years 02:38:12.845 --> 02:38:18.429 - to do this work. I mean, at least back to 2021 on our expenditures in there for those two account lines. 02:38:18.429 --> 02:38:24.120 - So like that, it's not a recent thing. It's been like five years of that. You've expensed $354 in training 02:38:24.120 --> 02:38:25.662 - and travel up to this point. 02:38:26.050 --> 02:38:31.647 - Correct. Yes, that's correct. We have five months left. I mean, are you going to spend $11,000 in travel 02:38:31.647 --> 02:38:37.138 - between now and the end of the year? No. Where that's actually going is for certification courses that 02:38:37.138 --> 02:38:42.788 - we've already signed up for that we paid last year. They're not due again until this September. So that's 02:38:42.788 --> 02:38:48.332 - what our next payments do on that. That's $8,000 for certification courses coming up. This isn't really 02:38:48.332 --> 02:38:53.982 - a question for you, but we committed to those purchases while out of a fund that we knew was running hot. 02:38:55.586 --> 02:39:03.222 - I would go back to the board commissioners managing this account. Hey, I guess when you're ready to 02:39:03.222 --> 02:39:11.010 - put your phone down, we could probably ask a question again. So did we do we? Hey, I'm just gonna say 02:39:11.010 --> 02:39:18.646 - let's let's let's like, I don't know if she was paying attention to you calling her out. I will say 02:39:18.646 --> 02:39:19.486 - that less. 02:39:20.258 --> 02:39:25.891 - President, I apologize for the outburst, but it's been a hot evening with that particular table. It 02:39:25.891 --> 02:39:31.581 - really has. So let's take the temperature down. Let me ask it again. So we've committed to costs for 02:39:31.581 --> 02:39:37.439 - training, which is great. But when did we invoice those, or have those been paid out yet? Those haven't 02:39:37.439 --> 02:39:43.129 - been paid out. I won't be invoiced on those till September. And we did that knowing this account was 02:39:43.129 --> 02:39:49.438 - running hot anyway, that we were going ahead and spending down on an account line for training and travel while 02:39:49.570 --> 02:39:56.847 - Not sure about the revenue. I brought this to you guys as soon as I knew. The best I can do. All right. 02:39:56.847 --> 02:40:04.055 - So just and so where I'm at on this one is there's still cash on hand in the current fund to six spend 02:40:04.055 --> 02:40:11.262 - that we just move stuff around. No there's not. Ma'am there is. We just please listen to your auditor. 02:40:11.682 --> 02:40:20.120 - Respectfully, we just approved by this one vote $80,000 on account the salad coming out of general fund. 02:40:20.120 --> 02:40:28.236 - It's not being expensed in the cable. So we can math it. Yes, we can. Please listen to your auditor. 02:40:28.236 --> 02:40:36.674 - Mr. Green. Yes, there is a payment scheduled to go out on August 6th in the amount of $80,859. So that's 02:40:36.674 --> 02:40:39.326 - in our claims process right now. 02:40:40.322 --> 02:40:47.648 - We're juggling on a few different sheets here tonight. I just want to make sure, again, in this particular 02:40:47.648 --> 02:40:54.838 - account that's just tricky for your office, we have funds that we're pulling from cable service or cable 02:40:54.838 --> 02:41:01.890 - fees, a cumulative cap, general fund. It's a unique office, how we fund you. And maybe the longer term 02:41:01.890 --> 02:41:07.710 - conversation is getting this all to one fund like the other, like a lot of our other 02:41:08.130 --> 02:41:15.505 - I mean, I know there's a long history of how we fund technology and account, but this is a lot to juggle. 02:41:15.505 --> 02:41:22.742 - My concern, going back to the training and travel line, is yeah, if we have anticipated appropriations, 02:41:22.742 --> 02:41:30.117 - we had an account that we thought we had resource for removing stuff around, a bit of a challenge. That's 02:41:30.117 --> 02:41:37.214 - all I got. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions on this? All right. 02:41:37.314 --> 02:41:46.668 - Seeing none, I'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or come 02:41:46.668 --> 02:41:56.023 - to the microphone here in the room. Sorry. I went off. Okay. And that being said, since says don't see 02:41:56.023 --> 02:42:05.377 - any, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor 02:42:05.377 --> 02:42:06.558 - Fiddle. Yes. 02:42:07.202 --> 02:42:21.191 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 02:42:21.191 --> 02:42:36.734 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 02:42:36.834 --> 02:42:45.249 - I'll give us a little more than that. $755,000, that would be excellent. Thank you. I guess you all 02:42:45.249 --> 02:42:54.169 - good upstairs? All right. Okay. And we're back. And for the record, we are down to six councilors because 02:42:54.169 --> 02:43:02.668 - Councillor Hawke has left the building. So that being said, we just got finished with item M, and we 02:43:02.668 --> 02:43:05.950 - will move into item N, still with TSD. 02:43:06.498 --> 02:43:15.679 - Council I move to approve the technical service department's request and fund 1170-0106 lit public safety 02:43:15.679 --> 02:43:25.033 - TSD to create account line 30072 telephone maintenance and simultaneously approve additional appropriations 02:43:25.033 --> 02:43:33.780 - of $50,000 in the services category and $75,135.26 in the capital category for a total appropriation 02:43:33.780 --> 02:43:35.166 - of $125,135.26. 02:43:36.130 --> 02:43:41.989 - All right, we got a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item? All right, 02:43:41.989 --> 02:43:48.272 - thank you. So this item is actually two parts. The telephone maintenance is part of what got moved into 02:43:48.272 --> 02:43:54.312 - cable franchise. That is your law enforcement phone systems, their cell phones, their cradle points 02:43:54.312 --> 02:44:00.353 - that give communications in the car. That's what that line pays for there. The second part of this, 02:44:00.353 --> 02:44:04.702 - we're running into an issue, acts on body cameras and acts on evidence. 02:44:04.802 --> 02:44:10.947 - is what our Sheriff's Department and our jail or prosecutor everybody uses. That's the gold standard 02:44:10.947 --> 02:44:17.032 - for these body cams, the evidence storage, the interrogation rooms. Axon has changed their product, 02:44:17.032 --> 02:44:23.603 - and I've brought Eric Oliphant with me and Michael Hunt to speak a little bit more on what the conversation 02:44:23.603 --> 02:44:29.749 - they've had with Axon, but unfortunately, what was offered to prosecutors before that package is now 02:44:29.749 --> 02:44:33.278 - gone, so we're getting into a different evidence package. 02:44:33.474 --> 02:44:38.801 - Unfortunately, with the way the evidence works now, you can't just take the evidence, say it's photo 02:44:38.801 --> 02:44:44.127 - evidence, you can't just take the photo evidence off the phone. They're forced to capture the entire 02:44:44.127 --> 02:44:49.559 - cell phone, which a lot of these new iPhones are a terabyte. So this is adding up very quick. And I've 02:44:49.559 --> 02:44:54.833 - actually been speaking with other departments around the state trying to see what kind of solutions 02:44:54.833 --> 02:45:00.370 - they've come up with. And they're all kind of scrambled and doing the same thing we are trying to figure 02:45:00.370 --> 02:45:01.214 - out as they go. 02:45:01.378 --> 02:45:08.739 - On that part, I would like to ask Erica to come up and speak a little bit about the conversation she's 02:45:08.739 --> 02:45:15.956 - had on with Axon, what their situation was in the past and what their current offering is now. Yeah, 02:45:15.956 --> 02:45:23.317 - so body cameras were adopted by our local law enforcement agencies with only minimal consultation with 02:45:23.317 --> 02:45:27.390 - me. So they chose the companies that they wanted to use. 02:45:27.586 --> 02:45:35.294 - The good news about that is that the vast majority of the law enforcement agencies that we work with do use 02:45:35.490 --> 02:45:42.299 - the same product. So that's convenient because then we can kind of receive it in the same way. We had 02:45:42.299 --> 02:45:49.375 - in the past, early in the adoption by the sheriff's office, well originally we were downloading everybody 02:45:49.375 --> 02:45:56.183 - camera from the sheriff's office. They were sending us a download link. We were downloading it to our 02:45:56.183 --> 02:46:03.326 - network. It was taking up a ton of space and it was also taking hours of staff time to do these downloads. 02:46:03.458 --> 02:46:11.187 - If something happened and we lost network, we would also have to restart our download process. So it 02:46:11.187 --> 02:46:18.992 - was very frustrating. A few years ago, we were able to get a free program as an extension of what the 02:46:18.992 --> 02:46:27.180 - Sheriff's Office had. And through that, we were able to access the body camera videos through that program 02:46:27.180 --> 02:46:31.006 - without downloading. So it's a web-based program. 02:46:31.138 --> 02:46:37.402 - And we could just access everything that law enforcement had uploaded. We could access it for free. 02:46:37.402 --> 02:46:43.667 - The public defenders, we had helped them work with Greg to get a version of it that wasn't free. It 02:46:43.667 --> 02:46:49.931 - was a paid subscription so that instead of us having to download it for them to provide it to them, 02:46:49.931 --> 02:46:56.320 - because legally we have to provide it all to them, or for them to get download links from us and have 02:46:56.320 --> 02:46:59.390 - to download it and put it on our network, again, 02:46:59.682 --> 02:47:06.595 - Greg would have to store it, we got them access so that we could just share it through that program, 02:47:06.595 --> 02:47:13.919 - and they could access it in this web-based program as well. Well, you might well imagine our free contract 02:47:13.919 --> 02:47:20.969 - and his paid contract expired. We heard from Axon, and they said it's no longer going to function this 02:47:20.969 --> 02:47:24.734 - way for free. They want us to download everything that 02:47:24.898 --> 02:47:32.743 - So law enforcement's version, they are allowed to use it for all of their digital evidence. So surveillance 02:47:32.743 --> 02:47:40.008 - videos, cell phones, anything from a citizen that they get, they are allowed to upload it into Axon 02:47:40.008 --> 02:47:47.345 - at no additional cost. We can, right now, access that through our portal. But what they're saying is 02:47:47.345 --> 02:47:53.374 - we are out of compliance. We have to download everything that's not Axon generated 02:47:53.506 --> 02:48:02.245 - and store it somewhere else. And that would be the same for the public defenders with the access that 02:48:02.245 --> 02:48:10.984 - we have. So they are offering a product called Axon Justice. And this Axon Justice gives us unlimited 02:48:10.984 --> 02:48:19.638 - cloud storage. And we're allowed to have all of those non-Axon generated things. So it's convenient. 02:48:19.638 --> 02:48:21.694 - It saves a lot of time. 02:48:22.114 --> 02:48:29.110 - it saves network space as well. One thing that the new product does include that we didn't have before 02:48:29.110 --> 02:48:35.903 - is it will generate transcripts of the videos. Now, we have to check those transcripts for accuracy 02:48:35.903 --> 02:48:42.831 - if we're ever going to use them in a courtroom, but they can definitely help us save some staff time, 02:48:42.831 --> 02:48:49.828 - help us identify where critical interviews of suspects or victims or other things happen in those body 02:48:49.828 --> 02:48:51.390 - cameras so that we can 02:48:51.746 --> 02:48:58.183 - get to the chase a little bit quicker than we already can. My hope is that that feature plus some of 02:48:58.183 --> 02:49:04.875 - the video editing features will save us some staff time. For our person, our tech specialist that you've 02:49:04.875 --> 02:49:11.249 - just increased to 40 hours, maybe we can get him on some different projects if we can save a little 02:49:11.249 --> 02:49:15.774 - time with the Saxon justice. And of course, because I'm asking for it, 02:49:16.290 --> 02:49:23.599 - This is saving Greg the trouble of having to constantly be keeping up with server space and trying to 02:49:23.599 --> 02:49:31.051 - figure out how to share things from my office to Mr. Hunt's office. I want to make sure that Mr. Hunt's 02:49:31.051 --> 02:49:38.288 - office has the same access that we have so that there's no question about quality or whether we have 02:49:38.288 --> 02:49:45.310 - an advantage that they don't have in this particular area. So I recognize that this package isn't 02:49:45.442 --> 02:49:52.146 - cheap. If you look at the long-term cost, it is a 10-year agreement. Now, that being said, we do have 02:49:52.146 --> 02:49:59.244 - an out on that. If we can't budget, they will allow us out of the product. I have looked at local solutions 02:49:59.244 --> 02:50:06.145 - where we do onsite storage here based on the amount of data that the prosecutor and the public defenders 02:50:06.145 --> 02:50:12.126 - have. For about $45,000, I could do one instance for one department here. That only covers 02:50:12.386 --> 02:50:18.025 - the working copy. Then you've still got to make a backup copy. And so that's another 40. So when you 02:50:18.025 --> 02:50:23.831 - start looking at it that way, and the fact that that's not a long-term solution, once they outgrow that 02:50:23.831 --> 02:50:29.246 - storage, we have no scalability there. You're going to have to grow again. Whereas with the Axon 02:50:29.474 --> 02:50:37.002 - offering. That is unlimited storage. So that does take care of us into the next 10 years. They back 02:50:37.002 --> 02:50:44.680 - that up. The security is on them. None of it gets placed on the hands of the county. So when you look 02:50:44.680 --> 02:50:52.509 - at the long-term cost, the big picture of it, it is a cost savings to the county. Mr. Hunt, do you have 02:50:52.509 --> 02:50:55.294 - anything you would like to say, sir? 02:50:59.266 --> 02:51:07.552 - I would just say whatever they have or most of whatever they have, if we have a case, they have to give 02:51:07.552 --> 02:51:15.918 - to us. And this, if you use the same program, it certainly helps everybody. I've talked with other chief 02:51:15.918 --> 02:51:24.204 - public defenders and they're all kind of fighting this storage problem and how do you get it. And there 02:51:24.204 --> 02:51:27.550 - are new companies springing up everywhere 02:51:29.122 --> 02:51:39.686 - transcribe and translate and all kinds, but they're expensive. So this is a growing field, and I think 02:51:39.686 --> 02:51:49.942 - if we get in it together, it makes it much simpler for everyone. Yeah, one last thing I'll just say 02:51:49.942 --> 02:51:59.070 - about my conversations with Axon is that they anticipate a 12% price increase next year. 02:51:59.170 --> 02:52:06.081 - But if we start this year, we're guaranteed to have no more than a 4% increase each year for research 02:52:06.081 --> 02:52:13.194 - and development so that they can keep making things to charge us lots of money for. I think body cameras 02:52:13.194 --> 02:52:20.444 - are a really good thing in many ways. They provide good evidence. They provide accountability and training 02:52:20.444 --> 02:52:27.490 - opportunities for law enforcement officers. I don't think any of us, when we first started rolling them 02:52:27.490 --> 02:52:28.574 - out, understood 02:52:29.186 --> 02:52:37.115 - what kind of cost it was going to be and what kind of impact it was going to have on our human resources. 02:52:37.115 --> 02:52:44.670 - And it's huge. So I don't love feeding a big corporation to do what we do because we're doing it for 02:52:44.670 --> 02:52:52.524 - the public. But unfortunately, that's just where we're at with all of our law enforcement agencies using 02:52:52.524 --> 02:52:56.862 - the same Axon company. I do think it should be noted that 02:52:57.090 --> 02:53:02.477 - Axon, we are out of contract with Axon. They've extended the storage. They're letting it go under the 02:53:02.477 --> 02:53:07.917 - pretense that we're having this discussion now to figure out if we're moving forward. If we choose not 02:53:07.917 --> 02:53:13.305 - to fund this this year, we will have to get the prosecutor's evidence out of there. There was over 11 02:53:13.305 --> 02:53:18.797 - terabyte. So then we're going to have to make, and that was just theirs, and I haven't even gotten into 02:53:18.797 --> 02:53:24.343 - the public defenders yet. So we will have to come up with an immediate solution if we don't move forward 02:53:24.343 --> 02:53:25.822 - with this during this year. 02:53:28.226 --> 02:53:34.263 - Thank you. Councillor Iverson and then I'll go Councillor Henry. I have two questions. Number one, 02:53:34.263 --> 02:53:40.605 - you know, the sheriff's department is not here tonight sitting with us reviewing this. So is their body 02:53:40.605 --> 02:53:47.008 - cam footage taking up additional space? No, sir. They're on a completely separate contract on a separate 02:53:47.008 --> 02:53:53.349 - program. We've made a very substantial investment in acts on this year with renewed contracts and added 02:53:53.349 --> 02:53:57.374 - body cams to the tune of about a little over two million dollars. 02:53:57.474 --> 02:54:03.669 - worth of investment for the Sheriff's Department in the jail, but their storage array, they're on a 02:54:03.669 --> 02:54:10.173 - completely separate contract, and they're not affected by the PDs or the prosecutor's counsel. My second 02:54:10.173 --> 02:54:16.677 - question is, in the list of the software bundles, there's something called Community Link. What is that? 02:54:16.677 --> 02:54:17.854 - Do you know? I do. 02:54:17.986 --> 02:54:24.580 - If we have a citizen, a victim, a witness, somebody who says, hey, I recorded that on my cell phone, 02:54:24.580 --> 02:54:31.304 - for example, community link, you send them a link and they can upload whatever video or item that they 02:54:31.304 --> 02:54:37.963 - have to share with us. So it's extremely helpful tool. Law enforcement uses it all the time. With our 02:54:37.963 --> 02:54:44.753 - current free access, we do not have access to that. We have to find a different way to do it typically, 02:54:44.753 --> 02:54:47.038 - but this will allow us to do that. 02:54:47.330 --> 02:54:54.835 - process as well. Okay. Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the presentation. 02:54:54.835 --> 02:55:02.339 - This isn't really directed at this particular item tonight, but it is in thinking ahead to budget season 02:55:02.339 --> 02:55:09.558 - as we have to do with this season of year. We have been, I think, a frog in a pot that's been slowly 02:55:09.558 --> 02:55:16.062 - boiling when it comes to technology, right? The idea that every year we know there's costs 02:55:16.226 --> 02:55:22.012 - But understanding that how big of the county budget or slice of the pie is going to have to keep going 02:55:22.012 --> 02:55:27.853 - to funding this kind of stuff, you know, these subscription-based off-site storage of things. You know, 02:55:27.853 --> 02:55:33.471 - clearly there's a huge amount of that in the law enforcement space because of evidence and what you 02:55:33.471 --> 02:55:39.031 - need to maintain. But we keep seeing this, you know, and I mean, it's in everything we touch. And, 02:55:39.031 --> 02:55:43.806 - you know, what, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago would have just been, you know, 02:55:43.906 --> 02:55:49.578 - I mean, you would have bought giant computers and stuck them in a building. Like, this is becoming that 02:55:49.578 --> 02:55:55.250 - same utility that road repair is, that snow removal is, like, core function. I worry that more and more 02:55:55.250 --> 02:56:00.812 - of our pie or the budget is going to be eaten up by these kinds of costs that we can't control. Like, 02:56:00.812 --> 02:56:06.320 - you're bringing us another increase, another increase we can have. Instead of the technology getting 02:56:06.320 --> 02:56:11.774 - cheaper, you know, it seems to be getting subscription-based and more expensive for us in ways that 02:56:12.194 --> 02:56:17.937 - I'm just saying tonight that getting better projections, understanding how much more of our budget's 02:56:17.937 --> 02:56:23.737 - gonna be going to the stuff in the future is a critical challenge against things like, you know, COLA 02:56:23.737 --> 02:56:29.480 - and raises and step increases and everything else we have to contend with up here. It's just a huge, 02:56:29.480 --> 02:56:35.621 - it's becoming huge. I would like to say between the staff in my office and working with all the departments 02:56:35.621 --> 02:56:41.534 - when it comes to IT, we've worked diligently over the last four years to make deals, to cut excess out, 02:56:41.826 --> 02:56:47.893 - First year in, we cut over almost $200,000 out of our phone spending line. So we keep making these gains. 02:56:47.893 --> 02:56:53.673 - They keep getting made up elsewhere. But I and all the other departments are working very diligently 02:56:53.673 --> 02:56:59.053 - to find solutions that don't break the bank. But unfortunately, yes, IT costs are driving up. 02:56:59.053 --> 02:57:04.318 - It's on and out. It's a core function of government, right? Yeah. Anyway, that's my speech. 02:57:05.570 --> 02:57:15.430 - Yeah, I brought this to Greg when it came to my attention because I was hoping that he could come up 02:57:15.430 --> 02:57:25.584 - with a solution that would be as cost effective as possible. Councilor Wilks. Just so I'm understanding 02:57:25.584 --> 02:57:30.270 - math, are you ordering double what the quote is 02:57:32.578 --> 02:57:38.416 - No. So what there is in your packet is two quotes. There's one packet for the prosecutor, one packet 02:57:38.416 --> 02:57:44.371 - for the PDs. The quote totals are the same. So I'm asking for year one for both departments. So that's 02:57:44.371 --> 02:57:50.498 - where that number comes from. Got it. Thank you. Are there questions or comments on this item? All right. 02:57:50.498 --> 02:57:56.394 - Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your 02:57:56.394 --> 02:58:00.094 - hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. 02:58:03.010 --> 02:58:14.467 - Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor 02:58:14.467 --> 02:58:25.168 - Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Cross? Yes. You caught me. Yes. 02:58:25.168 --> 02:58:32.734 - Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. That was boring. Thank you all. 02:58:34.306 --> 02:58:42.230 - up is enough items, none, which are presentations and discussions, and we will start with the 2026 bond 02:58:42.230 --> 02:58:49.545 - projects. So yeah, that's me. Um, so I'm going to ask Miss Purdy to come up again. She's joined 02:58:49.545 --> 02:58:57.394 - by Commissioner Madeira to give us, um, the presentation that we always look forward to hearing before 02:58:57.394 --> 02:59:00.670 - our budget. Give us some food for thought. 02:59:02.370 --> 02:59:10.168 - Okay, now this is not the one that comes with the pretty pictures and all of that. This is just to give 02:59:10.168 --> 02:59:17.741 - you, this is the basic list of projects that have been submitted. Hopefully you had a chance to look 02:59:17.741 --> 02:59:25.390 - at this early and you can kind of play around with it to see how much you're wanting to actually bond 02:59:25.390 --> 02:59:31.838 - for. We did, I did provide it in a ranked order based on the commissioner's priority. 02:59:32.130 --> 02:59:40.213 - And I think that the conversation here would be for you to ask questions. And the representatives from 02:59:40.213 --> 02:59:48.140 - the different departments, I believe, are online so that they can answer questions if you have those 02:59:48.140 --> 02:59:56.144 - about their particular projects and or purchases that they're asking as part of the bond. And I think 02:59:56.144 --> 02:59:57.086 - that that's 02:59:57.282 --> 03:00:03.796 - Kind of in a nutshell, gives you a starting place. I think I also said in the email that I sent out 03:00:03.796 --> 03:00:10.440 - that there are two items that are carried over. One is the 440,000, which is interesting. It was just 03:00:10.440 --> 03:00:16.954 - referenced in the prior item you had before you. That's the Taser body cam in car camera situation. 03:00:16.954 --> 03:00:23.533 - That's actually a five-year contract that we have, and they're allowing us to pay for those products 03:00:23.533 --> 03:00:26.334 - over five years, as opposed to the upfront 03:00:26.818 --> 03:00:34.741 - I think it was like 2.1. And then the other is the SIREN project that the emergency management has. 03:00:34.741 --> 03:00:42.743 - So that's been something that we've been, you guys have been supporting over the years. So I guess I 03:00:42.743 --> 03:00:50.903 - will leave it at that. And I know that Richard and Kelly and I think Jamie's online and I suspect that 03:00:50.903 --> 03:00:55.102 - the sheriff has somebody online if he has questions. 03:00:56.866 --> 03:01:05.875 - and I'll open it up to council to see if anybody has questions. Councilor Wilks. First, thank you for 03:01:05.875 --> 03:01:14.795 - pulling this together and bringing it to us early. We appreciate that. Giving us a chance to kind of 03:01:14.795 --> 03:01:24.510 - check it out. And I'm gonna start with hopefully just like a little easy lob. Workhouse dome repair. Oh yeah. 03:01:25.474 --> 03:01:33.305 - First of all, the estimate that I think I found in the packet said, it looked like it totaled 180, but 03:01:33.305 --> 03:01:41.136 - the budget is asking, or the budget, the proposed little spreadsheet here says 200,000. I also noticed 03:01:41.136 --> 03:01:48.968 - that they said something along the lines of, don't worry, we'll just renegotiate costs if it gets more 03:01:48.968 --> 03:01:54.974 - expensive. And that, to me, seems kind of. Very concerning. Yeah, unfortunate. 03:01:55.490 --> 03:02:05.154 - What is it? What's going on with us? So that proposal was to help build some budget numbers. I mean, 03:02:05.154 --> 03:02:14.817 - I've since reached out to a group that we use for building envelope projects to help me manage that. 03:02:14.817 --> 03:02:24.386 - But what's your question? Well, A, how much do you think it's going to cost? Because there was some 03:02:24.386 --> 03:02:25.438 - difference 03:02:25.762 --> 03:02:34.764 - And you're telling me this isn't the actual quote. Well, the estimate came in at 180. I have learned 03:02:34.764 --> 03:02:43.765 - that I don't know the percentage number. I'm sure there's one out there, but we need to budget more. 03:02:43.765 --> 03:02:53.212 - And then there's also going to be the expense of the professional services that will need to be included. 03:02:53.212 --> 03:02:55.262 - I don't know that yet. 03:02:55.554 --> 03:03:06.458 - This is the best number I have right now. It's mostly cleaning the limestone, right? No. We have issues 03:03:06.458 --> 03:03:16.943 - with the copper dome. Some of the soldering joints have become disconnected. Leaking. It's leaking, 03:03:16.943 --> 03:03:24.702 - yeah. Yes. We've had lots of water. All right. That's good to hear about. 03:03:26.466 --> 03:03:35.744 - Was that what the caulking part was? Because the estimate was really just underneath the dome, right? 03:03:35.744 --> 03:03:44.839 - No. So you had the company, they actually did a drone assessment of the, they took a drone and took 03:03:44.839 --> 03:03:51.934 - it around the dome to see the damage and that's what's supposed to be in that 03:03:52.194 --> 03:04:01.940 - picture is highlighting the area, I think, of where there's problems. And then going back to just to, 03:04:01.940 --> 03:04:11.686 - these are just, these are always estimates. Nobody's gonna give us a hard cost at this point in time, 03:04:11.686 --> 03:04:20.190 - especially in this particular market. I found it very interesting. Okay. I think for me, 03:04:20.546 --> 03:04:28.853 - getting someone here to give me an idea of what it's going to cost because I see certain numbers and 03:04:28.853 --> 03:04:37.078 - then I immediately go, okay, that has to go out. It meets a certain threshold I've got to bring in. 03:04:37.078 --> 03:04:45.467 - It's different now. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Iverson. I've got a couple of questions. One, I'm going 03:04:45.467 --> 03:04:49.662 - to, this is in the sheriff's lines, the three jail 03:04:50.146 --> 03:04:58.977 - items, the showers, the cameras, the plumbing parts. That's $800,000 in a building that we don't have 03:04:58.977 --> 03:05:07.634 - open right now. What's the thought process? This is tough, because there's been an argument saying, 03:05:07.634 --> 03:05:16.725 - well, the building won't be around for that much longer. Maybe. Who knows? But at the same time, there's 03:05:16.725 --> 03:05:19.582 - people living and working there. 03:05:20.066 --> 03:05:27.852 - I believe, and I don't know if the sheriff or Phil or Kyle is online, but I will tell you the showers, 03:05:27.852 --> 03:05:35.637 - they are a nightmare at the moment for the sheriff and for maintenance in there. There's problems with 03:05:35.637 --> 03:05:43.272 - the sealants, and so they have issues with water getting behind them, adds to the mold issues within 03:05:43.272 --> 03:05:49.470 - that particular building. It is horrible to be asking, I think, to put funds into 03:05:49.602 --> 03:05:56.821 - a building that's dying. However, as you said, there's people who are still in there. They're still 03:05:56.821 --> 03:06:00.286 - trying to work. The cameras is to help staff be 03:06:00.834 --> 03:06:07.750 - the inmates and respond appropriately. I think they can do a much better job of explaining it than I 03:06:07.750 --> 03:06:14.735 - can. The plumbing parts and fixtures, honestly, I think if you wanted to eliminate that, I think that 03:06:14.735 --> 03:06:21.857 - we can handle it in our cumulative capital fund. If we're starting to get to nitty gritties, I do think 03:06:21.857 --> 03:06:28.705 - that that is something that we could manage. I'm not a plumber. I don't pretend to be one. Is there 03:06:28.705 --> 03:06:30.622 - a way to plumb this so that 03:06:30.850 --> 03:06:40.609 - the situation we're experiencing now doesn't happen again? Oh, this current situation with the? Yeah. 03:06:40.609 --> 03:06:50.847 - No. OK. The current situation was entirely intentional by inmates. And when somebody is purposely breaking 03:06:50.847 --> 03:07:00.702 - a system, it doesn't matter what kind of maintenance you have. This is just the result of bad actions. 03:07:01.058 --> 03:07:08.913 - bad actions and a bad design. This building, and I know Richard can talk about it, if you ever talk 03:07:08.913 --> 03:07:17.161 - to David, he will be talking about you, about how wonderful the new facilities are, because everything's 03:07:17.161 --> 03:07:25.016 - on the backside. They don't have to get into the areas with the people, and it's easily accessible, 03:07:25.016 --> 03:07:29.886 - and the new systems have, they have the ability to stop items 03:07:30.658 --> 03:07:38.871 - from going into the actual sewer line. And then there's a hook that staff can use to pull out the debris. 03:07:38.871 --> 03:07:46.696 - So it never becomes a problem anywhere else. What does, my understanding does happen is if that kind 03:07:46.696 --> 03:07:54.908 - of action is taken by the inmates, any kind of reverse flow is actually gonna be into the cell as opposed 03:07:54.908 --> 03:07:55.838 - to out into 03:08:01.058 --> 03:08:07.492 - And we saw some of those systems when we were touring different facilities. Yes. Yeah. OK. Well, 03:08:07.492 --> 03:08:14.126 - thank you. You've answered my questions. Other questions? Do you have another one? I've got more if 03:08:14.126 --> 03:08:20.825 - people don't want to ask them. The drones and cameras in the commissioner's budget, I didn't see the 03:08:20.825 --> 03:08:27.525 - quote for that. I could have missed it. But can you explain more about that, particularly given that 03:08:27.525 --> 03:08:30.974 - flock is such a contentious thing in the community? 03:08:31.362 --> 03:08:39.504 - What's going on here? Okay, I don't, there is no quotes for that particular cost. It was just, I actually 03:08:39.504 --> 03:08:47.338 - asked our director, our TSD director to give me a general idea because we didn't have time to get the 03:08:47.338 --> 03:08:55.326 - information and time for to get it out to you guys because we had met with some other people who talked 03:08:55.326 --> 03:08:58.782 - about this. But the purpose of the drones is 03:08:59.298 --> 03:09:09.361 - property maintenance, property security. I know that maintenance is anxious to also use them for assessing 03:09:09.361 --> 03:09:18.859 - our rooftops, the building envelopes at the top of our buildings. I think highway also, we'd like to 03:09:18.859 --> 03:09:25.630 - be able to use one. So these are something that will allow us to ensure 03:09:27.330 --> 03:09:34.635 - the safety and security of our buildings and our properties. Okay, wonderful. And, yeah, and whenever 03:09:34.635 --> 03:09:42.012 - you get those quotes, it would be interesting to see the breakdown between the stable cameras and then 03:09:42.012 --> 03:09:49.890 - the cameras that comply. Yeah. Yeah. I got a quick question. A couple of questions. One, I see the prosecutor 03:09:49.890 --> 03:09:56.766 - renovation ads in here. Is that because of all the issues that the prosecutor's office has had? 03:09:57.474 --> 03:10:06.902 - is because of their base looks like it hasn't been updated since the building was opened. And I know 03:10:06.902 --> 03:10:16.330 - that, so we thought we were moving forward on a new facility and all of that. Everything happens and 03:10:16.330 --> 03:10:24.638 - so we're here. And so a few years back, we talked about doing some renovations for them. 03:10:25.890 --> 03:10:34.720 - because of our stalemate we're kind of at. And it's like, I was over there meeting with them and it's 03:10:34.720 --> 03:10:43.464 - just like, you know, they're professionals and their space looks terrible. They're crammed and they, 03:10:43.464 --> 03:10:52.207 - you know, they really never complain. I mean, they do let us know about things and you know, and are 03:10:52.207 --> 03:10:53.246 - vocal about 03:10:53.442 --> 03:11:02.023 - things when they're not right, but they are extremely patient. And I do understand that, again, we're 03:11:02.023 --> 03:11:10.688 - talking about a facility that we don't know where we're going with it. It would be nice that if we had 03:11:10.688 --> 03:11:19.100 - new furniture and everything put into that place, that it would be something that could be moved to 03:11:19.100 --> 03:11:20.446 - a new facility. 03:11:21.154 --> 03:11:27.654 - new space. That's not going to be the case for carpeting and things of that nature. And then I want 03:11:27.654 --> 03:11:34.349 - to go back to the cameras for the jail. Obviously, we can't put those into a new facility because they 03:11:34.349 --> 03:11:40.720 - need to be in this one. But my understanding is that they could certainly be used as replacement, 03:11:40.720 --> 03:11:47.220 - you know, so if there's problems with one. So it's a cost, but at the same time, you've kind of got 03:11:47.220 --> 03:11:49.950 - a nice supply on hand for problems. Okay. 03:11:50.146 --> 03:11:57.172 - Can I say something about the prosecutor's office too? That's one of the few behind the scenes spaces 03:11:57.172 --> 03:12:04.061 - where victims go. And that represents the justice center. So we want a space where it's comfortable 03:12:04.061 --> 03:12:11.156 - for victims as well. And right now, that space is not comfortable for victims for various reasons. OK, 03:12:11.156 --> 03:12:14.462 - thank you. The other question, like I remember, 03:12:15.650 --> 03:12:23.635 - like last year during budget season, I know we have the ongoing issues with the building in relation 03:12:23.635 --> 03:12:32.173 - to like mold remediation and things like that. And so help me to remember, I know, I think it was something 03:12:32.173 --> 03:12:40.158 - I had brought up before, like the mother of all problems, which is the HVAC system. Is, did we talk, 03:12:40.158 --> 03:12:42.846 - is that in like QMCAB or is that, 03:12:43.298 --> 03:12:51.093 - In last year's bonds or is that something that we can put into? like this because I guess Because for 03:12:51.093 --> 03:12:58.812 - the time being And I know last year I'd said this like during our meeting that we had with staff and 03:12:58.812 --> 03:13:06.302 - whatnot in the building I think the biggest thing that I just remember and working and housing is 03:13:06.754 --> 03:13:13.573 - We had a really big issue with something. We had to gut everything out. And the remediation specialist 03:13:13.573 --> 03:13:20.393 - said, you can do all of that. You can fumigate. But if you're not taking care of the HVAC system, it's 03:13:20.393 --> 03:13:27.212 - just going to continue to be a problem. So I guess until the time being, because I think I've seen the 03:13:27.212 --> 03:13:33.833 - emails that have, before all of this has gone down, is there a plan potentially for an HVAC system? 03:13:33.833 --> 03:13:35.422 - And if not, how can we? 03:13:35.650 --> 03:13:45.296 - make that happen? Quick and dirty answer is there isn't a plan at the moment for a new HVAC system. 03:13:45.296 --> 03:13:55.231 - What we do want to do, and I guess what I need to, and Rich will be better explaining than myself, but 03:13:55.231 --> 03:14:01.790 - we have put in new controls, which was one of the largest problems. 03:14:01.986 --> 03:14:10.827 - We've also done work on the piping to wrap it. So because there was condensation that was occurring 03:14:10.827 --> 03:14:19.844 - and then that was causing, you know, a drip, you get mold. So there's been a lot of activity with the 03:14:19.844 --> 03:14:28.861 - current system and additions and modifications made to the current system to make it more comfortable 03:14:28.861 --> 03:14:30.718 - for people and to be 03:14:31.970 --> 03:14:40.712 - in not causing harm. So, okay, so we have vet come in every month and right now, the last time I spoke 03:14:40.712 --> 03:14:49.710 - with Sarah, it was been a couple of weeks ago, I think, because we also have brought the State Department 03:14:49.710 --> 03:14:58.367 - of Health in to do a test of the building so that we can have a completely outside opinion of the air 03:14:58.367 --> 03:15:00.574 - quality of that building. 03:15:01.282 --> 03:15:09.757 - I don't expect that this week, maybe next week, I think is what they had said, from IDOH. And then that's, 03:15:09.757 --> 03:15:17.835 - you know, they're, we're still finding things, right? But at the same time, the overall assessment of 03:15:17.835 --> 03:15:23.934 - the building is it's 95 to 99% better than it is outside. So there's been a, 03:15:24.098 --> 03:15:32.361 - significant improvement in the air quality in that building. Now going back to the concern, which is 03:15:32.361 --> 03:15:40.788 - legitimate, we are going to look at, this also kind of ties into you have any money to cover whatever, 03:15:40.788 --> 03:15:49.216 - we need to get a contract, we'd like to get a contract with RQAW, who is an outside architectural firm 03:15:49.216 --> 03:15:53.470 - in engineering, to look at the building and tell us 03:15:53.762 --> 03:16:01.320 - want you know a couple a million things so the things first come off my mind is you know do we need 03:16:01.320 --> 03:16:08.878 - at this point in time with the idea that we are going to be hopefully having another building do we 03:16:08.878 --> 03:16:16.587 - need a brand new system at this point if we do need a system can we put it in while everybody's still 03:16:16.587 --> 03:16:22.558 - in there and then if we can't how do you know how would it go in what and then 03:16:22.658 --> 03:16:34.598 - anticipated costs, right? The fact that this is a 24-7, 365 day a year building poses problems for that 03:16:34.598 --> 03:16:46.308 - kind of renovation, if you will. But the plan would be to bring the IDOH's response and assessment of 03:16:46.308 --> 03:16:51.934 - the building to you guys. Talk with Sarah again. 03:16:52.290 --> 03:17:00.173 - We're still continuing with on the control project, which I'm told is making significant differences 03:17:00.173 --> 03:17:08.056 - in the building. I just will say that people are so, they've lost all hope, I think. They don't know 03:17:08.056 --> 03:17:15.861 - how long they're gonna be in this building. Before they were willing to hang in there, I think, and 03:17:15.861 --> 03:17:21.246 - then now there is just this perception of we're stuck here and it's, 03:17:21.506 --> 03:17:28.140 - It's not a pleasant place. Did that help? It did. It did. And that's what, like, for that particular 03:17:28.140 --> 03:17:34.840 - reason is why I'm trying to figure out, like, if, you know, that's still an ongoing issue, how can we 03:17:34.840 --> 03:17:41.605 - take care of that while we are in transition of a lot of different things related to the future of the 03:17:41.605 --> 03:17:48.830 - Justice Center project? So, yes, Councillor Henry. I want to pick up on where you're going with this because, 03:17:51.010 --> 03:17:58.967 - Why RQAW, who's already done an assessment? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to a different firm that 03:17:58.967 --> 03:18:06.923 - has fresh eyes on that building than one that's done one in the past? Well, we thought of RQAW because 03:18:06.923 --> 03:18:14.880 - they did do an assessment on the jail, whether it was constitutional or not. But they're not involved. 03:18:14.880 --> 03:18:16.734 - They're not DLZ, right? 03:18:17.890 --> 03:18:25.530 - It could be considered as having a biased opinion on that particular building. Not saying that they 03:18:25.530 --> 03:18:33.246 - would, but the perception would certainly be there. So our QAW has no dog in the fight, if you will. 03:18:33.246 --> 03:18:41.191 - And so they are familiar with buildings and they're familiar with jails. And so it was our thought that 03:18:41.191 --> 03:18:46.462 - they could provide us with an engineer's aspect of the needs of that 03:18:46.658 --> 03:18:51.967 - HVAC system for that building. It kind of gets at using a vet to continue to assess as well. I mean, 03:18:51.967 --> 03:18:57.434 - I guess what I'm asking is, if we have the same firms making assessments of the building and what, it's 03:18:57.434 --> 03:19:02.796 - kind of like bringing IDOH in to do an independent assessment of air quality. I would almost want, or 03:19:02.796 --> 03:19:08.263 - I would hope to hear that we'd bring in some fresh eyes on the building that haven't been in that space 03:19:08.263 --> 03:19:11.838 - before, maybe have different ideas. I think Councilor Crossley just 03:19:12.002 --> 03:19:17.667 - in the picture, for example, how to maintain HVAC, you know, either wiping the outside or cleaning the 03:19:17.667 --> 03:19:23.168 - inside. I mean, there's very different views on how to go about that. I would just, it sounds to me 03:19:23.168 --> 03:19:28.668 - that, you know, when we, you know, this is the second summer at least of, you know, similar issues. 03:19:28.668 --> 03:19:34.554 - You know, we had the temperature spikes in the building. I mean, I don't, I have had different experiences 03:19:34.554 --> 03:19:40.439 - shared with me by employees in that building that have not indicated things are better, you know, concerns 03:19:40.439 --> 03:19:41.374 - about, you know, 03:19:41.858 --> 03:19:47.771 - everything from whether or not house plans are causing this problem still in that assessment. I guess 03:19:47.771 --> 03:19:53.801 - where I'm going is when you were out there seeking from the administration position a vendor to do work 03:19:53.801 --> 03:19:59.656 - in a space like that, are these being put out for RFPs that are competitively judged or are you just 03:19:59.656 --> 03:20:05.627 - sole sourcing these based on a vendor list you used? We're actually able to just choose because of the 03:20:05.627 --> 03:20:08.990 - kind of service that it is. You don't have to bid it out. 03:20:09.090 --> 03:20:15.898 - But we've not done anything yet as the administrator. I've not Requested anybody look at anything. We 03:20:15.898 --> 03:20:22.573 - don't have any kind of contract in place if you have another and Company that you would like for us 03:20:22.573 --> 03:20:29.449 - to look at please share that with us I wouldn't I wouldn't even offer that to say that I'd much rather 03:20:29.449 --> 03:20:33.854 - see what an RFP That there's no need for that why would that be I 03:20:34.722 --> 03:20:41.217 - Well, it's time consuming and it's not getting us anywhere where we need to be. And if we want to know 03:20:41.217 --> 03:20:47.081 - the feasibility and the justifiability of putting in a new HVAC system, we just need someone 03:20:47.081 --> 03:20:53.450 - who's professional. And we have that ability with architectural services. They do not have to be bid 03:20:53.450 --> 03:20:54.270 - at or RFP'd. 03:20:55.202 --> 03:21:04.001 - I think also there might be security concerns as well. There's three firms that do this kind of work 03:21:04.001 --> 03:21:13.062 - in Indiana, Elevatus, RQAW, and DLZ. And if DLZ is already on the county horizon, then that leaves two. 03:21:13.062 --> 03:21:20.990 - And so that is not a tremendous wealth of choices. So I think given that option, you know, 03:21:21.474 --> 03:21:30.806 - our choices are already limited. And I think that my understanding is based on conversations with the 03:21:30.806 --> 03:21:40.046 - sheriff. So I think that is someone else I'd like to have in the room if we are going to talk about, 03:21:40.046 --> 03:21:50.110 - you know, looking at other firms for this project. Thank you. My question is also about the sheriff category. 03:21:50.434 --> 03:22:00.154 - on your sheet, and it says a Pharaoh crime scene light. But when I looked that up, it's not a light. 03:22:00.154 --> 03:22:09.777 - I mean, it's a scanner. I can't speak to it. This is not, I can't speak to what the sheriff has put 03:22:09.777 --> 03:22:14.878 - on there. Okay. Is there anybody from the sheriff's? 03:22:24.994 --> 03:22:36.811 - Well, that would definitely outreach out, I guess, because the description when they look at just a 03:22:36.811 --> 03:22:43.902 - light, it was doing a lot more than just light, which is... 03:22:45.026 --> 03:22:52.396 - Probably expected for $71,000. This might be one of those crime scene scanners where you put it down 03:22:52.396 --> 03:22:59.839 - and it gives the 360. But I don't, when you say one of those, I've never heard of that. But yes, that 03:22:59.839 --> 03:23:07.428 - is the description I was reading. Yeah. They've been in existence for about, I think, seven to 10 years 03:23:07.428 --> 03:23:11.806 - by now. But yes, they're very handy. Cool. What do they do? 03:23:12.674 --> 03:23:19.441 - They scan a crime scene, and they establish the relative distances of all of the items on the crime 03:23:19.441 --> 03:23:26.276 - scene to everything else. And so in addition, so if you take a photograph of a crime scene, you have 03:23:26.276 --> 03:23:33.450 - no idea how far anything is from anything else. And so this basically gives you a 360 of the crime scene, 03:23:33.450 --> 03:23:40.894 - and you can take it into court and use it as evidence. And so it's pretty neat. But it is very sophisticated. 03:23:41.826 --> 03:23:51.301 - But yes, it is considerably more than a lake. They're also helpful for accident reconstruction. Yes. 03:23:51.301 --> 03:24:00.963 - Yes. OK. I'll go. Deckard and then I'll go. That's great. Thank you very much. I had just several like 03:24:00.963 --> 03:24:09.406 - comments here. Let me pull it back up. I lost number one. Just an overall comment is that 03:24:09.506 --> 03:24:16.890 - One thing I appreciate about the list is in all the bonds I've looked at and bond lists I've looked 03:24:16.890 --> 03:24:24.716 - at, I think this is the one that I have seen that has had the most investment, proposed investment around 03:24:24.716 --> 03:24:32.395 - two areas that we don't always see. Number one, the Justice Building. Number two, parks. And I'm always 03:24:32.395 --> 03:24:38.302 - happy to see Kelly Whitmer in any room. But it's good to see those two focuses. 03:24:38.402 --> 03:24:47.244 - And I think there's a lot of attention on one more than the other, but the other in a positive way. 03:24:47.244 --> 03:24:56.351 - One question I just have generally, the Graymark jail area, would this help prevent, I want to say ask 03:24:56.351 --> 03:25:05.369 - this for the public, would this help prevent what happened this last week? No. What more could we add 03:25:05.369 --> 03:25:06.430 - to do that? 03:25:09.570 --> 03:25:19.265 - My understanding is we can't, but we should get somebody, get a professional opinion outside of ours. 03:25:19.265 --> 03:25:29.435 - But I was advised that the design of this particular facility because the pipes and everything are between 03:25:29.435 --> 03:25:38.654 - ceilings and floors as opposed to going on the outside of a jail cell, we're not able to get the 03:25:39.138 --> 03:25:48.366 - grinders and treble hook in? I don't know if... Yeah. The current design won't allow for that. As far 03:25:48.366 --> 03:25:57.413 - as we've gotten right now is trying to use electronics to determine if we have an issue like a flow 03:25:57.413 --> 03:26:06.460 - switch of sort, hey, this is going the wrong way, sets out an alert, and then you can get the water 03:26:06.460 --> 03:26:07.998 - shut off faster. 03:26:08.130 --> 03:26:16.483 - and avoid it maybe spreading farther. But as far as installing anything into the waste lines to prevent 03:26:16.483 --> 03:26:24.595 - debris from collecting, that debris will gather somewhere. It will empty out into the cell. And that 03:26:24.595 --> 03:26:32.788 - cell is above court services, the judges' chambers, the courts. It's going to empty out in there. And 03:26:32.788 --> 03:26:35.358 - I don't know a way around that. 03:26:36.162 --> 03:26:43.567 - The wives tell or whatever tell I hear is that it was some cigarette wrappers that went into the wrong 03:26:43.567 --> 03:26:50.756 - place. I actually have a picture of it. But it was actually like a bread sack or a commissary's bag 03:26:50.756 --> 03:26:58.161 - that was full of e-cigarettes. So there's the lithium batteries. And I've been advised that no grinder 03:26:58.161 --> 03:27:05.566 - would actually grind up those, even if we had a grinder. But the new sales have a way to stop it, just 03:27:05.986 --> 03:27:14.322 - before it even happened to be ground. That was present. There was clothing, I believe. You got anything 03:27:14.322 --> 03:27:22.738 - else? No, I saw a bread sack full of e-cigarettes. That's what I saw. I don't know. I know we're talking 03:27:22.738 --> 03:27:29.150 - about the current jail, but it always makes me think about some of the tours we 03:27:29.378 --> 03:27:37.348 - we took at the new places and the fantastic things, my favorite part was actually walking behind the 03:27:37.348 --> 03:27:45.319 - pods and seeing all the current technology and just simple things to permit this from happening. And 03:27:45.319 --> 03:27:52.737 - if a cell did flood, there's now trough drains installed in the front and you can, it's just. 03:27:52.737 --> 03:27:56.446 - I get there. Well, the reason I ask is I just, 03:27:56.642 --> 03:28:03.421 - Like I was listening to the judge. I've listened to all the county employees that have given me all 03:28:03.421 --> 03:28:10.267 - sorts of takes on this and they're going through a lot as you know, everybody is. But the thing that 03:28:10.267 --> 03:28:17.588 - occurs to me is somebody with a bad and I'm planting something that I'm not creating here. This is probably 03:28:17.588 --> 03:28:23.486 - already somebody with a bad week ahead just obstructs justice for an entire county and 03:28:23.874 --> 03:28:30.205 - We just sat here and I've used this phrase in about seven meetings this week. We sat here as usual as 03:28:30.205 --> 03:28:36.473 - the pitiful giant. Oh, there's nothing we can do about this or whatever. A bag of e-cigs or whatever 03:28:36.473 --> 03:28:43.239 - that is, I don't smoke e-cigs, but whatever that looks like has to be seen at some point. I'm just wondering 03:28:43.239 --> 03:28:49.445 - if there's not a multiple way to get at it. But overall, when we're looking at both sheriff and the 03:28:49.445 --> 03:28:53.790 - jail and the prosecutor area, and I've had a lot of calls about that, 03:28:55.170 --> 03:29:01.551 - I sometimes wonder if the aggressiveness in the bond doesn't need to be even more. What I would say 03:29:01.551 --> 03:29:07.932 - is I'm not doing your job, you all are doing that out there with others, but if we need to be doing 03:29:07.932 --> 03:29:14.631 - more aggressive things in that building than not, and I think I even said this last year after Councilor 03:29:14.631 --> 03:29:17.758 - Crosley was done, and maybe even on HVAC things, 03:29:17.890 --> 03:29:25.408 - I don't know. I might put it there. I've gone in and watched the streams of water and the effort to 03:29:25.408 --> 03:29:33.227 - not have it, but anything that could help with that around that building. The other thing I just wanted 03:29:33.227 --> 03:29:40.895 - to say is, looking at the rest of this here, siren replacement, how many do you think that gets us to 03:29:40.895 --> 03:29:46.910 - replace? Do you know that by chance? I believe it's seven. Seven? Mm-hmm. Okay. 03:29:47.618 --> 03:29:53.887 - continues. I think we did seven last year, right? I think it's been seven each year since 25. Yeah, 03:29:53.887 --> 03:30:00.218 - that one always preys on my mind a little bit because that either works when it needs to or not. And 03:30:00.218 --> 03:30:06.549 - then we're all out there cleaning up afterwards. But people are living out there trying to figure it 03:30:06.549 --> 03:30:12.254 - out. So I'm gonna stop. I've said to enough. But if there's anything down the road that we 03:30:13.762 --> 03:30:20.329 - Need to be more aggressive on this. I think a Pharaoh crime scene lie is tremendous. I remember when 03:30:20.329 --> 03:30:26.962 - Sheriff Swain was in office, it was a garage he wanted that we're going to do some detective work in. 03:30:26.962 --> 03:30:33.464 - But we are having real hand to mouth kind of putting the bread down the throat kind of moments. And 03:30:33.464 --> 03:30:39.966 - if we need to be more aggressive in that area with some of this, I wouldn't I wouldn't be offended. 03:30:44.642 --> 03:30:52.441 - I'll go Councilor Iverson, and then back to Wilkes. I want to talk about fleet vehicles. And I was really 03:30:52.441 --> 03:31:00.166 - excited when I opened up that bid to see that the EVs were cheaper than the gas ones. Now, I have gotten 03:31:00.166 --> 03:31:07.670 - in trouble before for trying to push EVs too fast and too hard in this county. So I just want to ask, 03:31:07.670 --> 03:31:12.158 - the EVs are cheaper. Is that desirable in these departments? 03:31:13.122 --> 03:31:21.917 - Yes and no. I think some folks are a little more excited about them than others. OK. I mean, these are 03:31:21.917 --> 03:31:30.541 - great prices. They are. And I think that it's working with the departments to try to target specific 03:31:30.541 --> 03:31:39.164 - tasks where that vehicle makes sense. I understand that. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Great. Thanks for including 03:31:39.164 --> 03:31:41.726 - that. That made my day. Good. 03:31:43.266 --> 03:31:52.075 - I was going to change the subject a little bit. I was going to follow up on the EV. EV and then I'll 03:31:52.075 --> 03:32:01.233 - go back to Councilor Henry. I was thinking about the plug-in to charge them. Do you have enough of those 03:32:01.233 --> 03:32:10.042 - units to accommodate the new EV purchases? Yeah, we could. But as part of our solar expansion, we're 03:32:10.042 --> 03:32:12.222 - also installing chargers 03:32:12.482 --> 03:32:19.041 - at several locations, a couple locations. We were going to install them at several locations, but learned 03:32:19.041 --> 03:32:25.290 - otherwise that we can only put them in a couple. We're going to do some at the Youth Services Bureau 03:32:25.290 --> 03:32:31.726 - Showers building. They'll be able to charge them once they get them and then it'd be ready for the next 03:32:31.726 --> 03:32:38.223 - day. I mean, that's the key. Yes. Oh, yes. I mean, I imagine community corrections. You have the Johnson 03:32:38.223 --> 03:32:41.502 - hardware lower lot, maybe a pair of EV or, you know, 03:32:41.922 --> 03:32:49.106 - a pair of EV chargers or a single one that has dual charging capability. Two fleet vehicles park there 03:32:49.106 --> 03:32:56.151 - overnight, ready to go the next day. They're gonna jump in and do probably their around town things. 03:32:56.151 --> 03:33:03.125 - Nothing out of county, you know. I think they'll plug them back in every time they come back. Yeah. 03:33:03.125 --> 03:33:09.054 - Yeah, gotcha. Thank you. Councilor Henry? Thank you. Is Ms. Nibel still on? I think. 03:33:09.282 --> 03:33:18.494 - I saw her on there. Jamie had shared with me some additional detail about the sirens. Jamie, did you 03:33:18.494 --> 03:33:27.980 - want to share that with the group, or I'm happy to see if you're not on still. She's on. I see her hand 03:33:27.980 --> 03:33:31.902 - raised. So we can promote her so she could 03:33:40.354 --> 03:33:50.930 - Hello. So we can hear you. Great. Yeah, so we are actually working through phase 3 this week and we 03:33:50.930 --> 03:34:01.823 - should have all 7 finished this week and hopefully ready to go and screaming by our August 7th monthly 03:34:01.823 --> 03:34:09.438 - test. For phase 3. And so yeah, we'll be moving into phase 4. There are 03:34:10.274 --> 03:34:18.187 - Let me see, I got my list in front of me. Yeah, we have several on this list that are well. All of these 03:34:18.187 --> 03:34:25.874 - are currently working. There are some of them that are a little inconsistent, so we're trying to nail 03:34:25.874 --> 03:34:33.711 - down the inconsistencies. Been trying to work with the vendor to remedy those, but it's I I don't know. 03:34:33.711 --> 03:34:39.966 - I been here four years and trying to troubleshoot for four years and they are just 03:34:40.674 --> 03:34:49.123 - different animal. Every time they are inconsistent and don't sound I send the vendor and the next time 03:34:49.123 --> 03:34:57.982 - we spot check them and they do sound I can't explain it so we've just put them on the list for replacement. 03:35:03.906 --> 03:35:12.316 - I don't have actual quotes because I've been kind of working, trying to work through the vendor to get 03:35:12.316 --> 03:35:20.480 - the quotes in hand before I send those off, so. Thank you, Jamie. I just want to make sure the body 03:35:20.480 --> 03:35:28.645 - understood the context behind the grid there in terms of the quality and challenges we have keeping 03:35:28.645 --> 03:35:33.054 - those up. All right, Councilor Wilks, it's your turn. 03:35:35.426 --> 03:35:48.573 - list puts us at a $6 million bond. And there's been discussion around what, you know, are we changing 03:35:48.573 --> 03:36:02.494 - how we do bonding? And I guess I was looking for some discussion around what we thought we were aiming for. 03:36:07.074 --> 03:36:15.478 - So I did the math. We are forty three thousand nine hundred dollars away from the max. So we're we're 03:36:15.478 --> 03:36:24.295 - right up on it. Yeah. And so I think but you're asking more of a philosophical question about just because 03:36:24.295 --> 03:36:32.534 - we can, should we? He knows me. Do you have an answer? Never have. So I think Councilmember Deckard 03:36:32.534 --> 03:36:35.006 - got us part of the way there. 03:36:35.586 --> 03:36:44.641 - that when we are to use his term, bread to mouth, that maybe we should be using this as a tool to be 03:36:44.641 --> 03:36:53.966 - addressing those really high risk, high need situations instead of using it for just different projects 03:36:53.966 --> 03:36:59.166 - that are different departments. But then the question is, 03:36:59.682 --> 03:37:07.021 - I mean, how do you define those and who defines those? Because if you were to ask all, I mean, if you're 03:37:07.021 --> 03:37:14.080 - asked parks, these are all really important things, right? You were asked the sheriff, these are all 03:37:14.080 --> 03:37:21.348 - really important things. You asked the commissioners, these are all really important things. So I think 03:37:21.348 --> 03:37:29.246 - that's where I come down. Would you rank them the same way? That's a good question. That's a very good question. 03:37:29.346 --> 03:37:48.177 - And I hadn't thought about that. Is this a consensus ranking from the commissioners? Seems, you know, 03:37:48.177 --> 03:37:59.070 - it makes sense. Yeah, I guess I don't know how much, like, 03:38:02.882 --> 03:38:15.610 - hesitant to bond at our maximum capacity. That makes me very nervous. But I also know we've got a lot 03:38:15.610 --> 03:38:28.463 - of needs. So I guess I just wanted to see where other folks were landing on that. The question I would 03:38:28.463 --> 03:38:32.830 - also have for you guys is, are you 03:38:33.314 --> 03:38:42.061 - interested in all of the projects that are here. I know that there's been some concerns regarding the 03:38:42.061 --> 03:38:50.722 - elevator in a building that's... Dead. Yes. I also noticed the flow on the numbering. Correct. Yeah. 03:38:50.722 --> 03:38:59.468 - And I wondered about the bidding, if there were bidding on that or why the new TK was chosen, because 03:38:59.468 --> 03:39:03.070 - it's ranked fourth in elevator worldwide. 03:39:05.442 --> 03:39:16.166 - So there was a Tissenkripp elevator mentioned. I'm sorry, I'm not following. There's an elevator for 03:39:16.166 --> 03:39:27.103 - the Justice Building. Right. And somewhere I saw there was a Tissenkripp mentioned. Maybe the provider 03:39:27.103 --> 03:39:34.430 - of the elevator service? Yes. The elevator itself, right? I presume. 03:39:35.810 --> 03:39:45.334 - provided I mean, I got that from the sheriff's office. I think on that note, though, like in terms of 03:39:45.334 --> 03:39:55.231 - where I see the elevator, like ranked it as opposed to like the showers, the cameras, the plumbing parts, 03:39:55.231 --> 03:40:04.382 - like because it's obviously taken us some time and will take time for us to get out of there. Um, 03:40:04.834 --> 03:40:14.040 - I would think that we would put some, like, that would be a, I guess I'm surprised to see that that 03:40:14.040 --> 03:40:23.247 - is in the low end of priorities. And I do share the same concern as Councilor Wills says, you know, 03:40:23.247 --> 03:40:33.374 - maxing out going all jacked up. But I also understand that we have needs, but I also am looking to this going 03:40:34.914 --> 03:40:47.202 - If we have our really needs right now, what is on this list of priorities that could potentially. Go 03:40:47.202 --> 03:40:59.490 - in another pot or not be worked on right now. I guess that's that's my month. That I can. That would 03:40:59.490 --> 03:41:03.870 - be my thing. Not much, but I would. 03:41:04.258 --> 03:41:13.352 - I think that we could take the 60,000 out. You're not here. Oh, sorry. I think we could take out the 03:41:13.352 --> 03:41:22.896 - plumbing parts and fixtures. It's not a lot, but it's something and absorb that in our cumulative capital 03:41:22.896 --> 03:41:28.478 - fund. I saw Decker and then I'll go back to Iverson and then. 03:41:30.210 --> 03:41:37.153 - one thing with us being a seven member body and we're down one right now i almost wonder if you take 03:41:37.153 --> 03:41:44.095 - the the commissioner's priorities and you said how did they rank these and what does that do to cost 03:41:44.095 --> 03:41:51.451 - if you simply remove the elevator you get them down to a 3.5 uh bond now i don't know if that's accidental 03:41:51.451 --> 03:41:58.462 - or on purpose but they've got two answers here they've got a max bond and they've got the traditional 03:41:58.562 --> 03:42:06.061 - What does that mean for us? I think with the seven-member body and again down one, it might be incumbent 03:42:06.061 --> 03:42:13.417 - on us as a council. I think we've done this one other time on a different project or ARPA or who knows 03:42:13.417 --> 03:42:20.702 - what it was. But I almost think we need to rank these amongst ourselves and get to a consensus number 03:42:20.702 --> 03:42:26.558 - that sends the direction. I mean, a lot of us are talking about justice building. 03:42:26.722 --> 03:42:33.638 - we've not talked we talked about sirens but to kind of see where all all of these things fly and again 03:42:33.638 --> 03:42:40.352 - i don't want to let part we've not talked much about parks but that that is a nice investment there 03:42:40.352 --> 03:42:47.133 - in a area facility that gets a lot more attention is getting ready to get a whole lot more attention 03:42:47.133 --> 03:42:49.886 - more i almost think the council needs to 03:42:51.266 --> 03:42:57.583 - do a ranking on this just so that we come out and match where the commissioners are and from there we 03:42:57.583 --> 03:43:03.962 - could say consistently elevator makes it or we need to be negotiating around the elevator because it's 03:43:03.962 --> 03:43:10.588 - one thing is we I kind of reject the whole argument and I do this respectfully I reject the whole argument 03:43:10.588 --> 03:43:16.782 - you got a building that's not they're not going to be in much longer because I'm not convinced that 03:43:16.782 --> 03:43:18.206 - we're moving too quick 03:43:18.338 --> 03:43:24.869 - And no one could accuse us of doing that. I don't mean to laugh, but sometimes if you don't laugh, 03:43:24.869 --> 03:43:31.532 - you'll cry. The secondary thing is, whatever happens, we still own a building that has very peculiar 03:43:31.532 --> 03:43:38.195 - needs and an elevator issue. So it might be that we need to kind of ration this out between us. This 03:43:38.195 --> 03:43:45.451 - might be a vehicle device by which both bodies talk to each other on things that have also larger discussions 03:43:45.451 --> 03:43:48.222 - and maybe figure out where our priorities 03:43:48.450 --> 03:43:55.270 - are even with the bomb. Council Iverson and then Henry. I'm just gonna be really quick. I really like 03:43:55.270 --> 03:44:02.089 - the ranking and this is an answer to your question and it's pretty, but I think I would take away the 03:44:02.089 --> 03:44:08.842 - block ranking where most of parks are grouped together as like a single ranking. Most of the sheriff 03:44:08.842 --> 03:44:15.528 - is grouped together as a single ranking. And if I were to go through and do it myself, I would just 03:44:15.528 --> 03:44:17.534 - rank each line. I don't know. 03:44:19.106 --> 03:44:26.627 - personal preference. Yeah, I think that we can do that. I think I want to go back to something Councilor 03:44:26.627 --> 03:44:33.861 - Goldstein, Councilor Decker said just now. So this is what we do, right? We get to July and we start 03:44:33.861 --> 03:44:41.023 - talking about this. We get in the budget cycle in September and we haven't got a long enough runway 03:44:41.023 --> 03:44:42.814 - to really think through. 03:44:43.490 --> 03:44:48.900 - what the long-term piece of this is. One thing that was brought up by Councilor Hawk last year, I remember, 03:44:48.900 --> 03:44:54.009 - and I think Mr. Cockerill helped us understand it, is with the new bond capacity, right, that we went 03:44:54.009 --> 03:44:59.118 - from, you know, what I think Marty said once was a million dollar a year bonding to now the potential 03:44:59.118 --> 03:45:04.478 - of six million a year, which means over time that, frankly, the board commissioners could have $30 million 03:45:04.478 --> 03:45:09.086 - of stuff over a 10-year period that you're working through, is not a small amount of money. 03:45:09.186 --> 03:45:15.271 - I mean, you'll keep coming back 6 million, 6 million, 6 million. So that, I mean, when you think of 03:45:15.271 --> 03:45:21.416 - our whole budget and how much money is getting moved and bonds to that oversight, I think we haven't 03:45:21.416 --> 03:45:27.562 - sorted that out yet, right? Like, and so, you know, if we hit our max every year, I think, was there 03:45:27.562 --> 03:45:29.022 - not, Ms. Turner-Kanger, 03:45:29.922 --> 03:45:37.196 - I'm sorry. Sorry. Do you recall with the bonding from year to year that there's a cool off year or something 03:45:37.196 --> 03:45:43.936 - in there? I'm just, I'm having, you know, it's been a year. Yeah. No, I'd have to look up specifics, 03:45:43.936 --> 03:45:50.142 - but I know there's a cooling off period is what they're calling it with the new legislation. 03:45:50.274 --> 03:45:55.708 - And so we have to bond over five years to kind of have a workaround, is my understanding. Now, 03:45:55.708 --> 03:46:01.657 - I'm sure Ms. Turner-King could probably elaborate on that, but that's my recollection. So we could rack 03:46:01.657 --> 03:46:07.434 - up $30 million over five years, take a year off, and then have and still be working to spend down on 03:46:07.434 --> 03:46:13.268 - some of the budgets, right? Because we have residuals still from previous bond years that we're still 03:46:13.268 --> 03:46:18.302 - picking up. I mean, that could potentially happen if you guys choose to bond that high. 03:46:18.434 --> 03:46:23.465 - Councilor Wilson, your point earlier, like that's where my heartburn is of like just how much capacity 03:46:23.465 --> 03:46:28.691 - we take in and understanding that if I could get if Councilor Roberts here, she'd say, you know, that 2.9% 03:46:28.691 --> 03:46:33.965 - total for the whole county and what the city of Bloomington is doing right now and some of their activities 03:46:33.965 --> 03:46:38.850 - pre-budget consuming some of that percentage, you know, something to think about. Councilor Decker, 03:46:38.850 --> 03:46:43.880 - I like your idea of it may be an individual scoring. I have a, absent the criteria, I don't understand 03:46:43.880 --> 03:46:47.006 - how we got to one through nine. You own a building, we do have, 03:46:47.330 --> 03:46:53.129 - what we have. Our scoring might look different based on a shared criteria for what we're doing with 03:46:53.129 --> 03:46:59.102 - that space. I am personally concerned the more we talk about that building as a asset and if we're not 03:46:59.102 --> 03:47:05.017 - maintaining it and we want to put it up for sale someday it might become more and more difficult that 03:47:05.017 --> 03:47:09.598 - we haven't done the maintenance bones of it you know to whatever that might be 03:47:09.698 --> 03:47:15.532 - be used for in the future, including our own use, if it's repurposed. So my scoring might look different, 03:47:15.532 --> 03:47:21.037 - but that's because I might need the criteria, or maybe we can get to a point where we have a shared 03:47:21.037 --> 03:47:26.541 - vision for budgets. I hate to say performance or outcome-based budgeting. I know they've tried that 03:47:26.541 --> 03:47:32.045 - in the city. But we don't share that among electeds about things. What drives these discussions are 03:47:32.045 --> 03:47:37.549 - department heads that bring things to the board. The board brings it to us. But it's not an elected 03:47:37.549 --> 03:47:38.430 - position that's 03:47:38.786 --> 03:47:46.143 - guiding the community in the direction based on the public's interest at this point. But I'm up for 03:47:46.143 --> 03:47:53.648 - rescoring it. But thank you, Madam President. You're welcome. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Wilts. Thanks 03:47:53.648 --> 03:48:01.079 - for the discussion that I requested. Love it. But now I'm going to jump back into this stuff. I have 03:48:01.079 --> 03:48:07.774 - two items. First is a $70,000 plow for the airport. And I didn't see an estimate for that. 03:48:07.970 --> 03:48:15.452 - Can we get one from Carlos? Any info? Just nothing at this point in time from him. OK. OK. And then 03:48:15.452 --> 03:48:23.009 - just because Kelly's sitting here, could we ask her to talk about stuff? Because I feel so bad she's 03:48:23.009 --> 03:48:30.491 - been here all night. You can tell us whatever you want. It doesn't even have to be about this. That 03:48:30.491 --> 03:48:37.150 - was a joke. Just tell us a joke. That's awesome. What do you want to know about asphalt? 03:48:37.602 --> 03:48:49.875 - They don't have to turn it up so loud. Seriously, ours is asphalt. Yeah. We haven't had asphalt renovation 03:48:49.875 --> 03:49:01.690 - ever like in 40 years. And asphalt that we do have is paper thin. There's no base to it because it was 03:49:01.690 --> 03:49:05.246 - just kind of put down one day. 03:49:06.562 --> 03:49:13.837 - I literally don't remember how it happened. So even though all the large trucks that came for the project 03:49:13.837 --> 03:49:20.700 - really did a number on it, it probably would have occurred in the next few years anyway because our 03:49:20.700 --> 03:49:27.564 - traffic volume every spring and fall, especially in the summer, is tremendous. It is literally like 03:49:27.564 --> 03:49:32.574 - going to an IU football game and then trying to get out bumper to bumper 03:49:32.674 --> 03:49:40.320 - Every Saturday we're bumper to bumper trying to get out of this place and it makes no one happy, but 03:49:40.320 --> 03:49:48.042 - it really doesn't make them happy when their cars are hitting. I've told my staff to start collecting 03:49:48.042 --> 03:49:55.764 - the car parts, so we're doing that. And another thing that we didn't expect is that it takes three of 03:49:55.764 --> 03:50:00.382 - our staff every 10 days to go over it and try to correct it. 03:50:00.770 --> 03:50:10.631 - which means they're not doing what they need to do other places, because now basically we have a pothole 03:50:10.631 --> 03:50:20.117 - crew that I would rather have them doing other things. So it's asphalt. We either do it, we don't do 03:50:20.117 --> 03:50:28.382 - it, we do some of it, or we rip it up and go back to gravel. What's the GX electric JD? 03:50:30.786 --> 03:50:37.578 - I do know what that is. The reason why I've paused is that it's not the top of my list. It's an electric 03:50:37.578 --> 03:50:44.046 - John Deere Gator for the limestone greenway. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it, but there's a lot of 03:50:44.046 --> 03:50:51.032 - things that go with it. We don't know if we can charge it. We don't know if we have to get Cassidy Electric 03:50:51.032 --> 03:50:57.500 - out to our little garage that we have. We don't know then, okay, everything else we have is gas and 03:50:57.500 --> 03:51:00.734 - loud, because someone doesn't like the loud gate. 03:51:00.834 --> 03:51:08.474 - The gator's not that loud, it's the blower, it's the mower, it's everything else, but all that's gonna 03:51:08.474 --> 03:51:16.114 - be gas. And then we have to store those batteries. I'm not opposed to, I'm just saying, batteries blow 03:51:16.114 --> 03:51:24.051 - up. And now we're putting it in a little garage that probably gets over 150 degrees in the summer. Anywho, 03:51:24.051 --> 03:51:28.798 - not the top of my list, but I'm not opposed to electric things. 03:51:29.538 --> 03:51:37.396 - But it comes with a cost. Nothing's just the $18,000. Everything. First of all, congratulations on the 03:51:37.396 --> 03:51:45.178 - ribbon cutting at Karst. That was two weeks ago? It was. Or so? Or so. Or so. So congratulations. Our 03:51:45.178 --> 03:51:52.807 - very own Trent Deckard was there wearing a pink polo. That was nice. He was the best dressed soccer 03:51:52.807 --> 03:51:58.910 - player. Always is. So I was looking at this list, and I was thinking to myself, 03:51:59.394 --> 03:52:08.601 - What is missing from this list? And an Eastside Park is missing from this list. What investments can 03:52:08.601 --> 03:52:18.172 - we make in our brand new lovely Eastside Park? Right now we're fully funded and we're just fine. Perfect 03:52:18.172 --> 03:52:20.542 - answer. May always be so. 03:52:21.474 --> 03:52:29.707 - It's the cars firm park asphalt problem. We either do it or we don't do it. It's not rocket science 03:52:29.707 --> 03:52:38.270 - on this one. And I understand there's very, you know, you have to say, wow, this isn't, you know, siren 03:52:38.270 --> 03:52:46.174 - replacement. We understand priorities. Asphalt's not sexy, but it's something you need to have. 03:52:48.898 --> 03:52:58.633 - I was just out there. Personally, I was just out there recently picking up a grandson and experiencing 03:52:58.633 --> 03:53:07.518 - this asphalt you're talking about. I'm ready to say, yes, we need asphalt. I have two things. 03:53:08.866 --> 03:53:19.086 - I do see the value in investing in something that we've just invested a lot in and is going to be supporting 03:53:19.086 --> 03:53:28.650 - a lot of return in our community as much as I see investing in something that's falling apart. And so 03:53:28.650 --> 03:53:35.870 - I wouldn't downplay it quite as much as you are. And I'm wondering, is there 03:53:38.914 --> 03:53:46.400 - a sense of how much more expensive it would be if we did half this year, half next. I've been here a 03:53:46.400 --> 03:53:53.812 - long time, and nothing is cheaper. Well, you know, people ask me that all the time. How about if we 03:53:53.812 --> 03:54:01.373 - pay for this next year? I said, well, fine, give me $10,000 more. That's how it goes with everything, 03:54:01.373 --> 03:54:07.006 - every building, everything that Richard's doing. Every time you put it off, 03:54:08.098 --> 03:54:16.473 - It's going up. It has never, in my opinion, has ever gone down. So yeah, you can. I mean, that's fine 03:54:16.473 --> 03:54:24.684 - to budget that way. I mean, it is what it is. I love working with you on budgets. It's just like it 03:54:24.684 --> 03:54:31.006 - is. It's so fun. Yeah, it's important, but you know, it's not life or death. 03:54:33.218 --> 03:54:41.051 - But it also carries the hidden employee costs as well. Oh, the maintenance. Yeah, the employee costs. 03:54:41.051 --> 03:54:48.806 - The park board would have to come to decision, we're not going to do this. We're going to go gravel, 03:54:48.806 --> 03:54:56.562 - or we're going to have to do something. Because we are not fully staffed. Bless you. We're not fully 03:54:56.562 --> 03:55:02.782 - staffed for a variety of reasons. And we won't be fully staffed for a long time. 03:55:03.010 --> 03:55:13.817 - are now our crews this big. And I have to prioritize restrooms, playgrounds, potholes are not as important 03:55:13.817 --> 03:55:23.916 - as those items to make sure, but we would get to them when we get to them. Well, and everybody that 03:55:23.916 --> 03:55:28.158 - goes to the park experiences the asphalt. 03:55:29.250 --> 03:55:36.417 - Yes, we've been getting a lot of complaints. I mean, consistently and constantly. I mean, just it is. 03:55:36.417 --> 03:55:43.655 - Yeah. And I just tell them, you know, we don't have the money to properly fix it. I'll go to Councilor 03:55:43.655 --> 03:55:50.893 - Decker. And then because we still have two more items on our agenda to discuss, I think I want to come 03:55:50.893 --> 03:55:58.974 - up with a proposal for councils with this. So, Councilor Decker. I'll just be quick. I always appreciate how Kelly 03:55:59.138 --> 03:56:07.806 - brings things and much like Kate said the option to do it or not do it. But I will tell you this I learned 03:56:07.806 --> 03:56:15.908 - in early in my council career here not long ago that I made the mistake of snickering one time when 03:56:15.908 --> 03:56:24.414 - somebody was complaining about a condition on a soccer field at Karst and I had about 20 parents read me 03:56:24.866 --> 03:56:36.694 - the, well, they called me a few names and some weren't Trent or Deckard. At the stadium. And I misread 03:56:36.694 --> 03:56:48.178 - the usage on something that is highly trafficked. When you were joking, I'll say joking about going 03:56:48.178 --> 03:56:54.494 - back to gravel, that is not an option for those folks. 03:56:54.882 --> 03:57:01.890 - So as we do our whatever's coming out of President Crosley, we always got to be very cautious with this 03:57:01.890 --> 03:57:08.898 - part, which I think Kate always says is the great equalizer on kids getting access to things they might 03:57:08.898 --> 03:57:15.637 - not otherwise get access to. But by the way, those fields are beautiful. And I hope those kids know 03:57:15.637 --> 03:57:19.006 - what they're doing on them, because I sure don't. 03:57:19.330 --> 03:57:27.175 - It is a reminder you can have nice things in a really old place that does good things. Someday, maybe 03:57:27.175 --> 03:57:34.865 - one of our kids will be in the World Cup. Who knows? Okay. So, Council, because I think we've had a 03:57:34.865 --> 03:57:42.633 - rather robust conversation of a lot of different things on here, and some folks might think of other 03:57:42.633 --> 03:57:48.478 - things that could be on here, or we can change out the ranking and whatnot. 03:57:49.122 --> 03:57:59.398 - would you of let's kind of chew on this, but not obviously too long to kind of look at this. And then 03:57:59.398 --> 03:58:09.675 - maybe we could come back to the drum board and think of like our next meeting. I hate to keep pushing 03:58:09.675 --> 03:58:12.798 - things to next meeting because 03:58:13.890 --> 03:58:23.119 - That is also August 11th, and it already sounds like tonight we have a lot on the agenda, plus the Crossley 03:58:23.119 --> 03:58:31.834 - kid has a birthday on that. I'm just giving, I am volunteering my kids to the county government. Just 03:58:31.834 --> 03:58:40.379 - loving it. So that being said, what would we, we can kind of look at this and make our rankings and 03:58:40.379 --> 03:58:42.430 - potentially give it to, 03:58:43.074 --> 03:58:56.054 - like staff for a discussion later on in August. Would that work for everybody? How late can you do asphalt? 03:58:56.054 --> 03:59:06.270 - Well, because I think you have to have... For the following year? Right. Never mind. 03:59:08.674 --> 03:59:15.998 - just thinking again because it's getting a little late and we have the other two and plus you know it's 03:59:15.998 --> 03:59:22.406 - it's do we max out or you know do we reprioritize this list and take some things off maybe 03:59:22.406 --> 03:59:29.589 - we're commissioners work with commissioners to see if we could get some things in cum cap or you know 03:59:29.589 --> 03:59:36.702 - maybe wait on some things but I think that's something that we need to think about Michelle you know 03:59:36.994 --> 03:59:46.257 - They're talking about ranking. I think if everybody ranked, and then you would know where everyone stands 03:59:46.257 --> 03:59:55.083 - with regards to priorities, and then that would probably dictate what your amount is going to be. So 03:59:55.083 --> 04:00:03.909 - we can do that. And then maybe we can work together to figure out when we should get our information 04:00:03.909 --> 04:00:04.958 - to you all. 04:00:05.154 --> 04:00:12.216 - like council staff to kind of have it for discussion. Again, I think we need to look at what we have 04:00:12.216 --> 04:00:19.348 - on the docket for the August 11th. Well, we also have the non-binding reviews, which is the review of 04:00:19.348 --> 04:00:26.409 - the levies and the tax caps. You know, so you're going to have a lot of stuff going on that night as 04:00:26.409 --> 04:00:33.611 - well. But we've pushed things to both the August 11th as well as the 25th. I think either one is going 04:00:33.611 --> 04:00:34.590 - to be OK. OK. 04:00:34.914 --> 04:00:43.932 - OK, we'll double check that. OK, OK. So stay tuned. All right. Well, thank you all very much for a lovely 04:00:43.932 --> 04:00:52.184 - presentation and feel like the Avengers of county government. So thank you. Thank you very much. 04:00:52.184 --> 04:01:00.862 - All right. Next up, we remember we added a couple of items to our agenda. And so this is item nine B. 04:01:01.794 --> 04:01:10.145 - the discussion regarding the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, also known as LATCF. So, 04:01:10.145 --> 04:01:18.496 - Councilor Deckard, this is something that I'm going to look to you for, so take it away. Thank you. 04:01:18.496 --> 04:01:26.430 - I don't need to read a motion, right, to just open a discussion. So, Council, I wanted to talk 04:01:26.626 --> 04:01:33.730 - this evening, and I know it's late, but this is an important item that I wanted to begin the discussion 04:01:33.730 --> 04:01:40.766 - on. I want to start it. Councilor Wilts and I both. This is kind of coming from us. But I want to talk 04:01:40.766 --> 04:01:47.870 - about specifically how the county might be able to best plug in to the streets to stability initiative. 04:01:47.870 --> 04:01:53.950 - And we're joined this evening by Mary Morgan with heading home of South Central Indiana. 04:01:54.306 --> 04:02:01.238 - I serve on the leadership team of Streets to Stability. In fact, we'll have a meeting at 730 tomorrow 04:02:01.238 --> 04:02:08.102 - morning, right? Because we like to do early morning meetings. But the importance of that meeting and 04:02:08.102 --> 04:02:15.170 - probably why the time is there is that it does include heading home as part of it. It includes the city 04:02:15.170 --> 04:02:21.150 - at the table. It includes Monroe County. Commissioner Madera and I typically are there. 04:02:21.474 --> 04:02:29.983 - It also represents homeless service providers. We have IU Health there, the Chamber of Commerce and 04:02:29.983 --> 04:02:39.257 - other nonprofit and community partners engaging in a discussion about what we do for some of the individuals 04:02:39.257 --> 04:02:44.958 - in our community who find themselves in a difficult situation that 04:02:45.250 --> 04:02:52.827 - community has had over the years, but not to the extent that we've had or not to the extent that we've 04:02:52.827 --> 04:03:00.404 - been able to solve this in a comprehensive way that makes sense and not in a way that certainly speaks 04:03:00.404 --> 04:03:08.055 - to the capability of everybody kind of pulling together and working together. And so just briefly, I'll 04:03:08.055 --> 04:03:12.542 - say this initiative is built around a pretty simple premise. 04:03:12.802 --> 04:03:21.979 - Rather than managing the notion of encampments or zones where individuals find themselves on the street 04:03:21.979 --> 04:03:31.067 - but seeking and living, the community concentrates resources in areas at a time, whether that's a zone 04:03:31.067 --> 04:03:39.890 - or an encampment. And most importantly, rapidly connects people to housing and provides support for 04:03:39.890 --> 04:03:41.214 - them necessary 04:03:41.474 --> 04:03:47.969 - for them to remain house. And so the model that some of us have sat through, I'm trying to think, at 04:03:47.969 --> 04:03:54.528 - least three or four of us have sat through some variation of the discussion when Clutch, and if I get 04:03:54.528 --> 04:04:00.509 - any of this wrong, Mary Morgan, just waved me off. But Clutch, a consultant that's done this 04:04:00.509 --> 04:04:07.518 - very successfully, sat down with a lot of, again, elected leaders, a lot of community partners to talk about 04:04:07.778 --> 04:04:14.154 - how this might work or how it has worked over a two day period. It was a very gracious amount of time. 04:04:14.154 --> 04:04:20.901 - I was able to be there on the first day. I know some people were able to join for all of it, but essentially 04:04:20.901 --> 04:04:27.091 - the initiative that they're talking to us about focuses on one encampment or one geographic area at 04:04:27.091 --> 04:04:32.414 - a time, spending four to six weeks approximately engaging people living in that area. 04:04:32.642 --> 04:04:39.981 - providing up to 12 months of subsidized rent to eligible participants and housing support, and then 04:04:39.981 --> 04:04:47.835 - pairing something that is necessary for all that to happen, case management, behavioral health, employment 04:04:47.835 --> 04:04:55.321 - assistance, and other supportive services. And to do this, to do this, obviously it requires funding, 04:04:55.321 --> 04:04:56.862 - and obviously we are 04:04:57.986 --> 04:05:04.402 - strapped on funding whether we're looking at this budget that we're currently in or next year's but 04:05:04.402 --> 04:05:10.818 - as I have listened to this program listen to this idea as I've talked to counselor wilt and thought 04:05:10.818 --> 04:05:17.490 - about our options for what we might do as a county with something that is having some success out there 04:05:17.490 --> 04:05:22.302 - and I'll let Mary Morgan speak to all that because I don't I don't want to 04:05:22.914 --> 04:05:30.141 - feel that thunder. How we might do it to demonstrate the county's buy-in to this along with the other 04:05:30.141 --> 04:05:37.368 - entities in the community that are being asked, how we might do it is I am proposing, and I never get 04:05:37.368 --> 04:05:45.091 - the acronym right, is that we consider strongly using our LATCF funding. That's local assistance, community, 04:05:45.091 --> 04:05:49.342 - local assistance, tribal. Local area. Why don't you say it? 04:05:52.898 --> 04:06:01.959 - and tribal consistency. You had it. I had it. I had it so late at night. But you use those dollars, 04:06:01.959 --> 04:06:11.020 - which my understanding, talking to the auditors, we got to designate those by the end of 2027. Now, 04:06:11.020 --> 04:06:16.094 - we don't have a plethora there. We have about $162,000. 04:06:16.642 --> 04:06:22.923 - that would be a good way for the county, in my opinion, that would be a good way for the county to buy 04:06:22.923 --> 04:06:29.264 - into a program that is offering us something that I don't think that we're seeing. I'm going to be real 04:06:29.264 --> 04:06:35.362 - frank on that. And I don't know that we friends are coming up with our own solutions on our own too 04:06:35.362 --> 04:06:40.606 - well. I also know that we're not letting life, letting our situation remain as is, is 04:06:40.898 --> 04:06:48.592 - clearly not an option. We heard at the opening tonight that for some of our in-house members, this temporary 04:06:48.592 --> 04:06:55.792 - solution that they have, that they're pursuing is not in the long-term working for the community. And 04:06:55.792 --> 04:07:02.992 - so I would offer this as a thought and I'll let others jump in and we might wanna just hear from Mary 04:07:02.992 --> 04:07:10.686 - Morgan too, Madam President, but I wanted to open up this discussion. Sure. I would welcome you, Ms. Morgan, 04:07:10.882 --> 04:07:18.777 - come and speak to what you are getting called to do. It doesn't matter. Have a seat. Have a seat, yeah. 04:07:18.777 --> 04:07:26.900 - Good evening. Hello. Hi. Hello. Thank you, Council Member Deckert, for your introduction, and I appreciate 04:07:26.900 --> 04:07:34.568 - you all considering this request. I think you've all read in the media or received the press release 04:07:34.568 --> 04:07:39.806 - from us about streets to stability, which has Council Member Deckert 04:07:40.002 --> 04:07:47.577 - said is a program that's been deployed in other communities, including Indianapolis. This is an opportunity 04:07:47.577 --> 04:07:54.590 - that we have gained through our partnership with Community Solutions, which runs the Built for Zero 04:07:54.590 --> 04:08:01.744 - program that we've been partnering with for several years. Built for Zero and Community Solutions are 04:08:01.744 --> 04:08:08.828 - providing the consultants, clutch consulting, at no cost to us, and we've been working with them for 04:08:08.828 --> 04:08:09.950 - several months. 04:08:10.722 --> 04:08:19.463 - The program does include very targeted approaches to zones and or encampments in a community with intensive 04:08:19.463 --> 04:08:28.285 - work before people are housed to identify their barriers. 12 months of subsidy and intensive case management 04:08:28.285 --> 04:08:36.459 - during that 12 month period. So we put people on a path when month 13 comes, they will remain stably 04:08:36.459 --> 04:08:39.454 - housed even after the subsidies end. 04:08:39.778 --> 04:08:45.753 - We're leveraging the heading home resources to pull this off through the community foundation grant 04:08:45.753 --> 04:08:51.967 - that they received through the Lilly Endowment last year. That's allowed us to deploy six outreach case 04:08:51.967 --> 04:08:58.002 - managers that have already been working with people who are unsheltered. So these are people who are 04:08:58.002 --> 04:09:03.977 - not going to Wheeler Mission, not going to Friends Place, not going to any other shelters, but they 04:09:03.977 --> 04:09:08.638 - are sleeping in encampments, sleeping in their cars, sleeping on the streets. 04:09:09.154 --> 04:09:16.177 - We have those case managers that were prepared to deploy for this new initiative because those goals 04:09:16.177 --> 04:09:23.270 - aligned where both of them are targeted towards addressing unsheltered homelessness. We're also using 04:09:23.270 --> 04:09:30.503 - the resources through this Lilly Endowment and Community Foundation grant. We have a position that does 04:09:30.503 --> 04:09:38.430 - landlord engagement and has been working with landlords to try to bring them into the fold in partnering with us. 04:09:38.530 --> 04:09:44.550 - It's going to be a little bit challenging because there are constraints that are in place that I'm sure 04:09:44.550 --> 04:09:45.534 - you're aware of. 04:09:45.698 --> 04:09:52.064 - that many people who are in sheltered experience that prevent them from getting into housing easily. 04:09:52.064 --> 04:09:58.871 - So we feel that it's an incentive to have a guaranteed 12-month income at a time when there's some softness 04:09:58.871 --> 04:10:05.489 - in the rental market. We also have some funding that would provide some incentives, maybe an extra first 04:10:05.489 --> 04:10:11.792 - month's rent or deposit as incentives to house people that they might not otherwise house. And also 04:10:11.792 --> 04:10:15.006 - having those points of contact with a case manager 04:10:15.170 --> 04:10:23.483 - that's working on stabilization as well as our own heading home resources gives some confidence to landlords 04:10:23.483 --> 04:10:31.566 - that I think is going to be successful in bringing them to the table. So one of the things that Community 04:10:31.566 --> 04:10:38.430 - Solution has done for us is to provide a $350,000 grant to start this initiative and then 04:10:39.362 --> 04:10:47.642 - Additional funds that were matching funds So what we are hoping to find from our community partners 04:10:47.642 --> 04:10:56.087 - are some additional resources so that we can Not only just do this first phase which will house 10 to 04:10:56.087 --> 04:11:04.615 - 12 people and we'll start that in August but additionally the entirety of our unhoused residents here, 04:11:04.615 --> 04:11:07.678 - which will be multi-year venture and 04:11:07.970 --> 04:11:15.501 - We estimate 150 to 160 people are currently not living in shelter. So this is a big initiative. We're 04:11:15.501 --> 04:11:22.811 - taking a risk on it. We are really grateful to the partnership of the county, which has supported, 04:11:22.811 --> 04:11:30.342 - you know, through time and resources, efforts to address homelessness. It's a complicated problem, as 04:11:30.342 --> 04:11:37.726 - you know. And we're just going to try something different. And look forward to partnering with you. 04:11:37.890 --> 04:11:45.924 - answer any questions you might have. We're happy to come back and give a more detailed presentation 04:11:45.924 --> 04:11:53.957 - if you like. I'll take a point of privilege. Thank you and thank you for the work that you continue 04:11:53.957 --> 04:12:02.312 - to do. I know it's not an easy task. I'm curious to know what's the city of Bloomington like? Have they 04:12:02.312 --> 04:12:07.454 - been given the same presentation? Like what's their thoughts on 04:12:07.746 --> 04:12:15.322 - you know, this type of initiative as well. So the administration is supporting it. The mayor is part 04:12:15.322 --> 04:12:22.898 - of the leadership team that Councilmember Decker and Commissioner Madeira are on. We've been talking 04:12:22.898 --> 04:12:30.624 - to them about we've had the same conversations. They are also looking at some options for funding. And 04:12:30.624 --> 04:12:37.150 - I'm planning to go to the city council just to give a presentation at some point soon. 04:12:40.994 --> 04:12:47.858 - Yes, Councilor Iverson. I have some questions, but I want to start by thanking my colleagues, Councilmember 04:12:47.858 --> 04:12:54.341 - Deckard and Councilmember Wilts, for bringing this important topic up in an especially timely manner. 04:12:54.341 --> 04:13:00.952 - We heard just four days ago, five days ago, that the commissioners have started the process of eviction 04:13:00.952 --> 04:13:04.638 - on one of our encampments, and so I thank both of you for 04:13:04.738 --> 04:13:12.257 - for bringing this forward. I have two questions for you, first of all. Does this involve a contract 04:13:12.257 --> 04:13:20.078 - with the county, or is this certainly just something that you're looking for funding? We have no formal 04:13:20.078 --> 04:13:27.747 - arrangement at this point. If the county wants us to explore that, we'd be happy to, if you want some 04:13:27.747 --> 04:13:34.590 - kind of MOU or some other kind of agreement, happy to do that. At this point, we are just, 04:13:34.850 --> 04:13:42.306 - exploring funding opportunities because we can't do the initiative beyond the first phase if we don't 04:13:42.306 --> 04:13:49.689 - have any funding from community partners. And typically in other communities where this approach has 04:13:49.689 --> 04:13:57.218 - been used, the city and the county are the first in. They're not the only in, but the consultants have 04:13:57.218 --> 04:14:02.846 - never seen a community, the business community, for example, step up without 04:14:03.074 --> 04:14:10.831 - leadership from the government, the local government. Can I ask a second question? And maybe this is 04:14:10.831 --> 04:14:19.126 - getting into your presentation. So if I'm stealing the thunder. Steal away. All right. What is the timeline 04:14:19.126 --> 04:14:27.191 - here? When do you need funding by? When is phase one over? When do we get into phase two? All that jazz. 04:14:27.191 --> 04:14:32.798 - We are starting phase one in mid-August. That terrified look on my face. 04:14:33.058 --> 04:14:40.797 - is, yeah, we are gonna be starting in mid-August with, we're not calling it a pilot, but really it's 04:14:40.797 --> 04:14:48.612 - a way for us to get sea legs as we try to work through the process and just figure out what's working 04:14:48.612 --> 04:14:56.734 - here, what's not, what we need to adjust. It'll take about four to six weeks and at the end of that time, 04:14:56.930 --> 04:15:04.617 - we will have 10 to 12 people housed, and we will have them starting work with our stabilization case 04:15:04.617 --> 04:15:12.760 - manager. Beyond that, will depend on the resources that we can garner. Honestly, that's really the biggest 04:15:12.760 --> 04:15:20.370 - thing. Councilor Henry. Thank you, and thank you for coming in and sitting through all that meeting 04:15:20.370 --> 04:15:26.078 - to have this conversation. Thank you, Councilor Decker, for bringing it to 04:15:26.210 --> 04:15:35.784 - a formal setting in our discussion. You said the number, it was 160, is that the number I just heard? 04:15:35.784 --> 04:15:45.171 - We estimate 150 to 160 unsheltered. And then just doing math in terms of how the program works, the 04:15:45.171 --> 04:15:53.150 - first triage of 15? 10 to 12. 10 to 12. And the cost of that effort for that initial 04:15:53.602 --> 04:16:00.684 - 350. So just doing the math into 160 over years. If this takes off and works, there's a sustainment 04:16:00.684 --> 04:16:08.120 - activity, right? That's right. That's helpful for me to understand a little bit of it. I think the merit 04:16:08.120 --> 04:16:15.414 - is there. And I think for me, it's not really a question of your presentation or discussion. It's more 04:16:15.414 --> 04:16:17.822 - about where the money comes from. 04:16:18.018 --> 04:16:23.610 - So if LTCF is a one shot, you know, like if that's an opportunity to kickstart, but then we 04:16:23.610 --> 04:16:29.809 - have a sustainment model. I think of like the way we fund like Centerstone, for example, like 250,000 04:16:29.809 --> 04:16:35.887 - a year, they come to us every year in that budget line, how we get something sustainable. And that, 04:16:35.887 --> 04:16:42.025 - and so it's like, one way this goes is we kick it off and then we, that's from us, right? Another is 04:16:42.025 --> 04:16:46.462 - to say, if we're baking it into the general fund as a no different than, 04:16:46.658 --> 04:16:53.077 - contracting with a vendor to do that work on our behalf as a government, what sustainment looks like. 04:16:53.077 --> 04:16:59.434 - And so my mind goes right there. This is really in the weeds at this hour, but it's really what that 04:16:59.434 --> 04:17:05.979 - fund was meant for in the context of ARPA. And I know we didn't sit in that timeframe because it didn't 04:17:05.979 --> 04:17:12.650 - have a date on it that we had to use it by. So it's just me thinking out loud right now about short-term, 04:17:12.650 --> 04:17:13.342 - long-term. 04:17:14.370 --> 04:17:20.376 - So for me, I just need a little bit more info on the nature of the LACCF, how it sat for a few years, 04:17:20.376 --> 04:17:26.264 - and maybe this is more of a general fund conversation. I think ahead, that's all. This is just back 04:17:26.264 --> 04:17:32.152 - of a napkin thinking right now. So it has nothing to do with the merit of the program or its value, 04:17:32.152 --> 04:17:38.040 - it's mostly just how we move money around county government. Is a service we're delivering year in, 04:17:38.040 --> 04:17:42.750 - year out to get that 160 to zero, how we can be a good partner in the long term 04:17:45.890 --> 04:17:55.094 - Any other questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Wilks. I just want to say thank you for being here. 04:17:55.094 --> 04:18:04.666 - And I think this program and this conversation have been months and months in the making. So I'm really 04:18:04.666 --> 04:18:14.238 - excited to be talking about this even. And it's such an innovative approach, at least in our community. 04:18:14.946 --> 04:18:26.644 - that I wanted us to be able to have a public discussion around the program and giving it kind of that 04:18:26.644 --> 04:18:38.227 - boost that it needs at the beginning. And it's more than just the dollar amount. And because as Mary 04:18:38.227 --> 04:18:41.438 - pointed out, the government 04:18:41.730 --> 04:18:51.338 - support, the government show of support is critical here. And as we all know, we own property that has 04:18:51.338 --> 04:19:00.667 - a huge liability right now with the unsheltered homeless population. And the future of those people 04:19:00.667 --> 04:19:09.342 - is not just a concern for us broadly, it's a concern for us specifically. And I think that I 04:19:09.890 --> 04:19:19.126 - very much appreciate the long-term concern. And I've been thinking about that as well. And I've got 04:19:19.126 --> 04:19:28.639 - some ideas that are way too crazy even for me to be talking about out loud quite yet. But I don't want 04:19:28.639 --> 04:19:36.766 - to let the lack of that long-term impede our ability to show support in the short term. 04:19:39.714 --> 04:19:50.190 - I guess that's really my point. The auditor has her hand up because my next question is, what's next? 04:19:50.190 --> 04:20:01.282 - Sure. So I'm not sure if it's been discussed between council and commissioners or at all, but I'm wondering 04:20:01.282 --> 04:20:08.574 - if there's an appetite for obligating the opioid funding that is where 04:20:09.026 --> 04:20:16.369 - settlement agreement. So where the county is scheduled, the schedule has us receiving funding through 04:20:16.369 --> 04:20:23.784 - 2038. So that gives us some time and some funding to consider if there's an appetite for that. And the 04:20:23.784 --> 04:20:31.199 - uses are appropriate. Well, essentially right now, like in the long term, we can use the L.A. TCF. I'm 04:20:31.199 --> 04:20:37.534 - just going to keep doing it. So we could use that and then maybe think like in the long 04:20:37.922 --> 04:20:47.028 - grand scheme of things to think about other ways as well. Because also with this being said, we can 04:20:47.028 --> 04:20:56.226 - talk about this, but this is much like ARPA where we can have the conversations and now the pressure 04:20:56.226 --> 04:21:03.966 - is to be put on with commissioners to get on board with this type of project because 04:21:04.098 --> 04:21:13.224 - we can appropriate the funds, but ultimately the contract and everything lies within them. So that being 04:21:13.224 --> 04:21:22.176 - said, that just made me have another question. Are you going to be talking soon with the commissioners 04:21:22.176 --> 04:21:31.215 - about this great project initiative? Jodi is, Commissioner Madeira is on the leadership team and I have 04:21:31.215 --> 04:21:33.214 - had conversations with 04:21:33.474 --> 04:21:41.320 - Commissioner Thomas as well. I have not talked to Commissioner Jones and I'm I'm happy to give a presentation 04:21:41.320 --> 04:21:48.595 - to them at a future meeting as well. My sense is that they are supportive of this. I wouldn't want to 04:21:48.595 --> 04:21:55.870 - speak to. I don't. Definitely. I know we got folks on line. I'm not saying that they need to like go. 04:21:56.994 --> 04:22:05.517 - to your meeting and whatnot. But I'm just curious because we're having this discussion. And so this 04:22:05.517 --> 04:22:14.211 - is something like, one can't do one without the other. So it's almost like, how do we proceed? How do 04:22:14.211 --> 04:22:22.989 - we move forward with those things? Well, I will say that to the auditor's original question, Councilor 04:22:22.989 --> 04:22:26.910 - Decker and I did send an email this past week 04:22:27.490 --> 04:22:36.562 - just offering to work with the commissioners on this idea and indicated that we would be having this 04:22:36.562 --> 04:22:46.443 - discussion tonight in the hopes that we could do something together. I really do think this is an opportunity 04:22:46.443 --> 04:22:55.604 - for us to collaborate and be jointly in support of a really positive thing. But specifically, I mean, 04:22:55.604 --> 04:22:56.862 - we asked Mary 04:22:56.962 --> 04:23:08.870 - to come. So that's why she's here. And I think a next step certainly is for us to follow up on that 04:23:08.870 --> 04:23:21.374 - email and let them know how this discussion went and see what they would like to do in terms of the next 04:23:21.474 --> 04:23:29.427 - the next step for engaging with heading home on this. We felt there was a little bit of urgency given 04:23:29.427 --> 04:23:37.303 - the start of the program, the amount of time it takes for us to appropriate anything, and wanting to 04:23:37.303 --> 04:23:45.022 - see some continuity from that phase one, give them the ability to be thinking about phase two. So, 04:23:45.022 --> 04:23:50.558 - go ahead. I was just going to add, I appreciate it also. I've had many 04:23:50.722 --> 04:23:58.775 - good discussions with Commissioner Madera about it. She's on the leadership team and no one's thrown 04:23:58.775 --> 04:24:07.227 - anything down the hallway at me saying no on this. But I echo where Kate's at. I think we're in an urgent 04:24:07.227 --> 04:24:15.359 - place where communities are with expert guidance such as Mary Morgan and our friends at Clutch making 04:24:15.359 --> 04:24:20.542 - decisions to start charting pathways to try things that are just 04:24:20.930 --> 04:24:27.556 - they just have to work better than what we conventionally have done, which is sometimes in the counties 04:24:27.556 --> 04:24:34.182 - kind of set and say, I don't know, this is new to us. We've never done it. I think we have to go beyond 04:24:34.182 --> 04:24:40.616 - it. And this is extremely innovative in that way. And so I'm grateful to Mary Morgan being here late 04:24:40.616 --> 04:24:47.178 - and keeping us moving. Yes, Council Iverson. So this came out in the commissioners meeting on Thursday 04:24:47.178 --> 04:24:49.918 - that the clearing of the Thompson property 04:24:50.658 --> 04:24:59.201 - was kind of an issue because the commissioners are taking two weeks off. The next two meetings are canceled. 04:24:59.201 --> 04:25:07.195 - And so a conversation with the commissioners is going to have to wait for another couple of weeks, at 04:25:07.195 --> 04:25:15.268 - least to do it in a public meeting. And so in my mind, us talking about this is very much related with 04:25:15.268 --> 04:25:19.422 - Thompson property. Should it be? Am I linking those? 04:25:19.522 --> 04:25:28.321 - Because in my mind those folks need to go someplace and it seems like this is the this is a salute maybe 04:25:28.321 --> 04:25:36.784 - a partial solution for some of those people But but in my in my is that a bridge too far? I will say 04:25:36.784 --> 04:25:45.248 - that the clutch advises us not to identify publicly the places that we're going to Target or address 04:25:45.248 --> 04:25:49.438 - until after we've housed people there. It's their 04:25:50.498 --> 04:25:57.560 - there are a couple of concerns. One is just that people either will leave because they don't want to 04:25:57.560 --> 04:26:04.762 - engage with us or that they'll more people will come because they know that a particular area is going 04:26:04.762 --> 04:26:11.894 - to be have an offer of housing, which I would love to be able to do it all at once. And we just don't 04:26:11.894 --> 04:26:17.278 - have the capacity to do that. So the, and the other thing is just community, 04:26:18.562 --> 04:26:26.826 - There's well intentioned going to a site when we're trying to work with people and causing some challenges. 04:26:26.826 --> 04:26:34.554 - Yeah. So but to your point, there are a significant number of people at the power line, the Thompson 04:26:34.554 --> 04:26:42.358 - property. And one way or another, they will be in our community and very likely and sheltered. And so 04:26:42.358 --> 04:26:47.102 - we will be working with them at some point. So it's just not. 04:26:50.338 --> 04:26:57.472 - I'm not sure I'm answering your question, but you are. Our our our goal is to over time address all 04:26:57.472 --> 04:27:05.034 - of the unsheltered residents that we have. It's just that we're not making that public before we actually 04:27:05.034 --> 04:27:12.310 - do a site. I understand. Oh, Councilor Henry. I guess it's a counselor's point. The calendar isn't in 04:27:12.310 --> 04:27:19.230 - our favor for that urgency with the board commissioners with their current schedule, given their 04:27:21.634 --> 04:27:28.202 - understanding that there's some concerns about, I guess, privacy is the word I'll use about the nature 04:27:28.202 --> 04:27:35.025 - of the work. I would, for one, benefit from a more formal interpretation of what Clutch does. I appreciate 04:27:35.025 --> 04:27:41.529 - that my colleagues might be a little more steeped in it, having worked with you in these meetings, to 04:27:41.529 --> 04:27:48.734 - better understand that. Because clearly there's a nexus of a county urgency on one location or encampment versus 04:27:49.186 --> 04:27:56.777 - the success factors that this organization may have. Frankly, maybe looking at somewhere else. I don't 04:27:56.777 --> 04:28:04.369 - know that we can't say that because we just understood that there's some city here, I could definitely 04:28:04.369 --> 04:28:12.255 - benefit from. I'd be happy to. presentation if we have it. If I understand August 11, it's getting awfully 04:28:12.255 --> 04:28:18.814 - packed. You know, there's that urgency might be beneficial. I'm curious. I did not watch 04:28:19.170 --> 04:28:27.589 - the commissioners meeting. And I know that the next two meetings are canceled. They gone from town would 04:28:27.589 --> 04:28:35.608 - still be working with them. Perhaps. No, I know not formally. I was wondering if there was a reason 04:28:35.608 --> 04:28:38.334 - given at the meeting. That's all. 04:28:38.594 --> 04:28:45.317 - But from my understanding, they don't have quorum. And so for the next couple of weeks, they're just 04:28:45.317 --> 04:28:52.306 - going to be like playing dockets or that type of approval. But Commissioner Thomas is online. So I don't 04:28:52.306 --> 04:28:58.496 - know if she wanted to address that. We don't have to put people on the spot if she wants to. 04:28:58.496 --> 04:29:05.485 - That's great. But we can certainly reach back out and perhaps start the appropriation process and adjust 04:29:05.485 --> 04:29:08.414 - in case like we've done with things before. 04:29:08.962 --> 04:29:16.629 - just so it's advertised and so that we can move things, you know, at the speed of molest various my 04:29:16.629 --> 04:29:24.449 - mom said. Well, the only other thing that I would add and I see her hand raised, but I'll finish this 04:29:24.449 --> 04:29:32.193 - and then I'll go to Commissioner Thomas. Maybe it would be a good idea for the books with you to use 04:29:32.193 --> 04:29:37.406 - their public comment time. And like I know that there has been like 04:29:38.050 --> 04:29:44.960 - you know, emails, but I guess in order for us to really get this out to the public, to really express 04:29:44.960 --> 04:29:51.734 - the sense of urgency and, you know, to really see how we can get on board and everybody collaborate 04:29:51.734 --> 04:29:58.644 - and do something together. Maybe that would be a good, you know, thing to have. So that's just a food 04:29:58.644 --> 04:30:04.606 - for thought. And I saw Commissioner Thomas hands was raised or hand teams and just one. 04:30:04.834 --> 04:30:16.747 - I just raised one. Hello. So I think the discussion about our schedule is kind of a moot point because 04:30:16.747 --> 04:30:28.659 - you haven't advertised this either. So your next meeting is two days before our next meeting. So we're 04:30:28.659 --> 04:30:34.558 - not that far off. It's not a big deal. But I think 04:30:34.850 --> 04:30:43.655 - we need some real clarity on opioid money versus the remainder of the ARPA money. My understanding is 04:30:43.655 --> 04:30:52.806 - this pot of money has to be spent by December of 27. It's that little pot of money that gives us a little 04:30:52.806 --> 04:31:02.302 - extra time, if I remember that correctly. So I think that's the big question. And I think for me, my concerns 04:31:02.402 --> 04:31:10.155 - after talking to some folks in the community is what happens in year two for the folks who were helped 04:31:10.155 --> 04:31:17.909 - initially. And how does this program actually work? And I think that what I need to do is have a phone 04:31:17.909 --> 04:31:25.587 - conversation with Ms. Morgan. She's going to be on the phone a lot or teams or something to have some 04:31:25.587 --> 04:31:32.286 - of my questions addressed as well. And that can be done before we have our next meeting. 04:31:32.450 --> 04:31:40.480 - We need direction if we're going to put it on our agenda. What fund is this coming out of? What is this 04:31:40.480 --> 04:31:48.201 - going to look like? Thank you so much, everyone. This is my fourth meeting while on vacation today. 04:31:48.201 --> 04:31:56.000 - Thank you. Enjoy. Sorry. I guess to answer the question about, because we briefly touched about this 04:31:56.000 --> 04:32:00.478 - special type of funding at the joint meeting that we had, 04:32:00.834 --> 04:32:07.483 - And it was almost talked about that this is something that should possibly come out because ARPA, we 04:32:07.483 --> 04:32:14.329 - are literally about to go into month eight of the year, which is insane. And my understanding with ARPA 04:32:14.329 --> 04:32:21.043 - is we couldn't really, with the remainder of things, it's really helpful for us to finish out or give 04:32:21.043 --> 04:32:28.350 - money to some of those projects. We can't really start a new initiative. And technically, this would almost be 04:32:31.330 --> 04:32:38.844 - So just, if you don't mind me clarifying just a little bit. So this is separate from the, it is ARPA 04:32:38.844 --> 04:32:46.508 - funding, but it's LATCF. So it's separate from the other ARPA funding. So this doesn't have to go into 04:32:46.508 --> 04:32:54.022 - a plan. We simply have to spend it on appropriate governmental expenses, which this definitely falls 04:32:54.022 --> 04:32:56.254 - into that category. The other 04:32:56.994 --> 04:33:03.925 - piece of information I want to share is that we still have to report on this, and it's still federal 04:33:03.925 --> 04:33:11.336 - funding. So we need to, you know, proceed with caution and make sure we're, you know, keeping good records. 04:33:11.336 --> 04:33:18.198 - The reporting portal for this funding only goes to the end of twenty twenty seven, which is why our 04:33:18.198 --> 04:33:23.550 - experts have pushed for us to to obligate and expend by that point just to be 04:33:23.938 --> 04:33:32.105 - very cautious. So we think that would be best, even though we haven't seen a firm deadline. That is 04:33:32.105 --> 04:33:40.273 - what they're advising. So I'd like to stick with that if possible. So, yes, it would be great if we 04:33:40.273 --> 04:33:46.398 - could obligate and proceed with a plan for this. OK, OK. So it sounds like 04:33:47.650 --> 04:33:55.207 - Ms. Morgan, you and Commissioner Thomas will be getting on the phone talking here soon before things 04:33:55.207 --> 04:34:02.913 - get added to their agenda. And it sounds like from maybe explaining or listening to all of us, there's 04:34:02.913 --> 04:34:10.470 - definitely some interest there to work on this initiative. And then again, Major, thank you to being 04:34:10.470 --> 04:34:16.830 - here tonight and presenting that to us. And our colleagues here, Councilors Deckert, 04:34:17.026 --> 04:34:24.956 - Deckard and Wilt for bringing this to the attention because in the grand scheme of things, our federal 04:34:24.956 --> 04:34:33.118 - governments are not really helping with the Latin state isn't either with some of the things that they're 04:34:33.118 --> 04:34:41.202 - doing, but we have to help us help ourselves because who's going to save us? So yeah, so that's, I think 04:34:41.202 --> 04:34:43.358 - that's the, that's been my, 04:34:44.578 --> 04:34:52.122 - for the day is who's going to save us. So I think that's it. So I appreciate that. Any other things 04:34:52.122 --> 04:34:59.665 - that any updates, feel free to, you know, use our public comment or, you know, come chat with us at 04:34:59.665 --> 04:35:07.209 - our next few meetings that we have coming up. Right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. 04:35:07.209 --> 04:35:14.526 - Have a good night. All right. Moving on to the last agenda item is also something that we added. 04:35:14.978 --> 04:35:35.002 - Um, which was item nine C. Oh God. Okay. So I think this is just. Okay. So yes. So ding. Um, um, it 04:35:35.002 --> 04:35:44.414 - is sleepy time. Um, and so because we did, uh, 04:35:45.474 --> 04:35:54.415 - We did add item 9C for this. I know Ms. Turner-King has some things that she wants to talk to us about 04:35:54.415 --> 04:36:02.835 - about. So earlier today, I sent the council a memo on the special purpose tax. And in that memo, 04:36:02.835 --> 04:36:11.602 - it discusses, I want to draw your attention to specifically item three, which is a notice component. 04:36:11.602 --> 04:36:14.814 - In reviewing statute six, 3.63, 7.5, 04:36:15.170 --> 04:36:21.962 - It reads if a county adopting body makes any fiscal decision that has a financial impact to an underlying 04:36:21.962 --> 04:36:28.561 - local taxing unit The decision must be made and notice must be given to the affected local taxing unit 04:36:28.561 --> 04:36:35.225 - by August 1st of the year For the special purpose tax the underlying impacted Taxing unit is the county 04:36:35.225 --> 04:36:39.774 - so it does seem weird that the county would give the county notice but 04:36:39.906 --> 04:36:46.976 - As a precaution, I am going to recommend that council direct the auditor's office to send notice to 04:36:46.976 --> 04:36:54.188 - the board of commissioners that provides the council is considering changing the special purpose tax, 04:36:54.188 --> 04:37:01.400 - that the change includes potentially increasing the rate from the current rate of point zero three to 04:37:01.400 --> 04:37:08.894 - a rate not exceed point two five percent, which is the maximum allowable per statute, and that the change 04:37:09.122 --> 04:37:16.450 - that the change to potentially increase the rate would occur before October 31st. So this allows the 04:37:16.450 --> 04:37:23.778 - council to continue moving forward and evaluating that rate. And then if you do decide to adjust it, 04:37:23.778 --> 04:37:31.034 - we have the precautionary step of giving notice, because I would rather give notice and not need it 04:37:31.034 --> 04:37:36.766 - than find out we didn't do it and it be required. OK. So, yes, Council, I was. 04:37:36.930 --> 04:37:44.946 - Does that require a motion or simply consent of the council? The safest way is to do a motion to direct 04:37:44.946 --> 04:37:52.884 - the notice be sent prior to August 1st, okay council I move to direct the county auditor to notify the 04:37:52.884 --> 04:38:00.591 - Monroe County Commissioners that the County Council is reviewing the special-purpose tax lit as And 04:38:00.591 --> 04:38:06.526 - the language recommended by miss my attorney King that she just talked about 04:38:06.914 --> 04:38:14.915 - All right. We got a motion and a second to send notice to commissioners to talk about this. Is there 04:38:14.915 --> 04:38:22.916 - any further comments or questions on this item? Yes, Councilor Williams. I think notifying ourselves 04:38:22.916 --> 04:38:30.997 - is insane, and I really appreciate you. And for clarity, the notice is just sent by email. So this is 04:38:30.997 --> 04:38:36.542 - not a cost burdensome requirement. So we're going to email ourselves. 04:38:38.146 --> 04:38:46.488 - I just think it's crazy and I think it's perfectly lovely that you thought of it and I appreciate you. 04:38:46.488 --> 04:38:54.587 - Okay, any other questions or comments on this? All right, seeing none, I'll move to public comment. 04:38:54.587 --> 04:39:02.849 - If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise 04:39:02.849 --> 04:39:07.870 - your hand via Teams. And seeing none, we can do a voice vote. 04:39:08.226 --> 04:39:17.762 - So all those in favor of the motion that was presented, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, 04:39:17.762 --> 04:39:27.021 - same sign. Excuse me, I choked on. OK, motion. Sorry, motion carries. All right. And now we come to 04:39:27.021 --> 04:39:36.094 - the final conclusion of the night, which is county counselor liaison updates and comments. And I. 04:39:36.482 --> 04:39:43.811 - I'm going to ask that we keep it brief because it's been a long night. But actually it's been necessary 04:39:43.811 --> 04:39:51.070 - and like conversations have been like there have been lots of discussions that have been had that have 04:39:51.070 --> 04:39:58.118 - been really helpful. So I'm going to look to my left and just go ahead and down the soldiering line 04:39:58.118 --> 04:40:02.558 - of county councils. So council councilor Fidel you're up next. 04:40:04.098 --> 04:40:12.799 - So I don't have too much to report. I'll be real brief. So just a couple of DBI meetings, both with 04:40:12.799 --> 04:40:22.109 - the membership itself and the board in the past few weeks and then some pre budget meetings with different 04:40:22.109 --> 04:40:30.984 - liaison assignments. And that's wrapped up my life for a little while. I have no official anything to 04:40:30.984 --> 04:40:33.246 - report right now. Thanks. 04:40:33.634 --> 04:40:41.084 - I'll just be really quick, two quick things. I have the privilege of being our rep on the Monroe County 04:40:41.084 --> 04:40:48.319 - Women's Commission. The Women's Commission had a meeting, I believe it was a week and a half ago, or 04:40:48.319 --> 04:40:56.055 - maybe it was last week. And one of the things that came out of it, in addition to considering the potential 04:40:56.055 --> 04:41:02.430 - for recommending a health and all rubric for us policymakers to use, was some discussion 04:41:02.594 --> 04:41:08.887 - around a presentation that came from some SPIA students related to capturing community survey data on 04:41:08.887 --> 04:41:15.243 - where we're at and how people find themselves around health care barriers, all these great things. And 04:41:15.243 --> 04:41:21.042 - I'm hopeful that someone from either the Women's Commission or the students can come and make 04:41:21.042 --> 04:41:27.336 - that presentation to us. I think it'd be pretty beneficial. I think it would back up a lot of what we 04:41:27.336 --> 04:41:30.174 - all see out there that folks really struggle. 04:41:30.466 --> 04:41:36.919 - around health care and other needs. So I'm going to work on trying to get a version of that for us, 04:41:36.919 --> 04:41:43.759 - because I think it'd be incredibly informative. Second, we've had a theme with that and with this evening 04:41:43.759 --> 04:41:50.406 - about dignity of life, no matter where you're at in the community. And I think that's just the reality 04:41:50.406 --> 04:41:57.246 - where the county is in twenty twenty six. And I took a meeting with I know a counselor Henry did as well. 04:41:57.730 --> 04:42:04.891 - some community members that are extremely concerned about rental rights and just dignity around where 04:42:04.891 --> 04:42:11.982 - you live. Whether it be in the city or the county, folks still expect to have dignity of life around 04:42:11.982 --> 04:42:17.598 - their safety, their services and other things like that. And the county of 2026 04:42:17.730 --> 04:42:25.823 - I think can offer those things. And so I'm sure some of you others will be contacted as well, but it 04:42:25.823 --> 04:42:34.156 - was one of the most moving meetings I think I've ever taken. And when you get the request to hear about 04:42:34.156 --> 04:42:42.329 - some of the rental concerns that folks have and quality of life and living in this community, I would 04:42:42.329 --> 04:42:45.534 - urge you to take it serious. Thank you. 04:42:45.922 --> 04:42:53.431 - What I want to talk about tonight is the coming 2029 changes, which is going to move us from property 04:42:53.431 --> 04:43:00.866 - tax to income tax and the the idea that now the state wants us to have a must meeting and that we're 04:43:00.866 --> 04:43:08.596 - supposed to be setting rates for other taxing units. And I think what a lot of folks are really focusing 04:43:08.596 --> 04:43:10.878 - on, particularly in what we're 04:43:11.042 --> 04:43:19.061 - the presentation we received from AIC was about kind of the nuts and bolts about how it's gonna work 04:43:19.061 --> 04:43:27.000 - and kind of the steps that we need to take. But I've been having some meetings with some people and 04:43:27.000 --> 04:43:35.098 - I think really what's getting lost in a lot of that analysis is just how much this change is going to 04:43:35.098 --> 04:43:38.750 - hurt our libraries. Just how much this change 04:43:39.010 --> 04:43:49.011 - is going to hurt RBB and MCSC. MCSC. Just how much this change is going to hurt our township trustees. 04:43:49.011 --> 04:43:58.720 - And if we don't pay attention to what we're doing, this could have profound impacts on other taxing 04:43:58.720 --> 04:44:07.070 - units. And so I want to be really bright eyed about this as we're moving into August. 04:44:07.746 --> 04:44:17.513 - because a lot of responsibility has been put on county councils to make these decisions. And there is 04:44:17.513 --> 04:44:27.567 - a heavy weight that's been put upon us. I also want to say that the supposed benefits of this are really 04:44:27.567 --> 04:44:34.366 - not great. That what the state government is essentially telling us is 04:44:34.498 --> 04:44:42.957 - We need to make decisions that are going to hurt some of our key community assets. And in a response 04:44:42.957 --> 04:44:51.500 - that people are going to get a couple hundred dollars of tax breaks. I think we're really getting the 04:44:51.500 --> 04:45:00.043 - wool pulled over our eyes here, and I'm really worried about it because and I'm going to I'm going to 04:45:00.043 --> 04:45:01.886 - wrap up here, but the 04:45:01.986 --> 04:45:08.401 - The thing that's happening right now is that a war of choice across the seas means that our gas prices 04:45:08.401 --> 04:45:14.691 - are going up, that our grocery prices are going up. And now we're being told by the state that we're 04:45:14.691 --> 04:45:21.293 - going to be severely impacting a lot of our key community institutions at the same time that we're losing 04:45:21.293 --> 04:45:27.583 - a court, at the same time we're losing pretrial release, at the same time we're losing our specialty 04:45:27.583 --> 04:45:29.950 - courts, at the same time we're losing 04:45:30.050 --> 04:45:39.754 - dollars that goes towards rapid rehousing and the list goes on and on. We are losing a lot. We're not 04:45:39.754 --> 04:45:49.743 - very much gain. And I think people are going to start to realize that as we're getting closer and closer 04:45:49.743 --> 04:45:58.590 - to twenty twenty nine. Thank you for that. I remember during last year we were talking about 04:45:59.426 --> 04:46:05.389 - the great tax cut that was coming, I compared it to something like a Polar Pop a day, which is roughly 04:46:05.389 --> 04:46:11.468 - what it is. It's like 300 bucks, right? Just line them up on the desk, that's your visual. For the year. 04:46:11.468 --> 04:46:17.315 - For the year. And the trade-off in all public services on the other end of that ledger is difficult. 04:46:17.315 --> 04:46:23.220 - And so I wanted to maybe just not, I just want to say one thing, I guess, that's kind of connected to 04:46:23.220 --> 04:46:27.678 - a lot of things that happened here tonight, and it's been opined on, is that 04:46:27.970 --> 04:46:34.546 - My approach to all of this comes from a place of, are we getting the most out of our tax dollars and 04:46:34.546 --> 04:46:41.252 - coming into this building? And are we driving that conversation from being duly elected officials that 04:46:41.252 --> 04:46:47.828 - were put here to do that, or is it being driven by other forces? The irony of what you just said, or 04:46:47.828 --> 04:46:54.600 - what will hit this desk in a month, is whether or not, down to the department level, our own government 04:46:54.600 --> 04:46:57.790 - is understanding that these things are changing. 04:46:57.890 --> 04:47:02.939 - Because budgets come at us and it's pretty much, you know, here's the department, here's what it wants, 04:47:02.939 --> 04:47:07.794 - it wants what it had last year plus a certain percent, as if all this stuff isn't happening, right? 04:47:07.794 --> 04:47:12.648 - And I appreciate there's a survival there. They're looking at their staff, they're looking at COLA, 04:47:12.648 --> 04:47:17.552 - they're looking at all that. But to get to a place where, you know, are we funding the values of our 04:47:17.552 --> 04:47:22.503 - community? Are we prioritizing the things we've heard here tonight? And the role that we have in this 04:47:22.503 --> 04:47:27.358 - moment, are we able to work with what the state has done on our back? That stuff is what drives my, 04:47:28.450 --> 04:47:33.647 - I find sometimes very sharp views on this. I just come out in a profoundly different way than others, 04:47:33.647 --> 04:47:38.894 - and I appreciate that that's where I'm at. So the extent that sharp elbows are thrown, I apologize for 04:47:38.894 --> 04:47:44.142 - that, but it's coming from this absolute place that we have to use these dollars for the best possible 04:47:44.142 --> 04:47:49.236 - way we can. And that gets to, I will say that just second, that yeah, Councilor Decker and I had an 04:47:49.236 --> 04:47:54.331 - opportunity to meet with Hoosier Action, which is a group that does this advocacy work on behalf of 04:47:54.331 --> 04:47:56.318 - all sorts of communities in our state. 04:47:56.450 --> 04:48:02.095 - And I understand that Harold Times is gonna be reporting on this as well, but I tend to continue to 04:48:02.095 --> 04:48:07.796 - have that dialogue that we got to experience, Trent. It is a golden moment for the county to lean in 04:48:07.796 --> 04:48:13.553 - on protecting those renters in our county that have nowhere to go when the landlord has wronged them. 04:48:13.553 --> 04:48:19.310 - We don't have mechanisms for that. We have a page and a half of ordinance on the books in this county 04:48:19.310 --> 04:48:24.955 - that empowers the health department to make those determinations. And if they can't find mold, that 04:48:24.955 --> 04:48:26.366 - is the end of the rental 04:48:26.626 --> 04:48:32.901 - dispute and we all know that rental disputes are more than just mold damage right. I mean landlord tenant 04:48:32.901 --> 04:48:38.820 - relations building inspection all of it. We are we are grossly behind where the city of Bloomington 04:48:38.820 --> 04:48:44.976 - is on this to the detriment of hundreds of renters in our community. I'm at least encouraged that there 04:48:44.976 --> 04:48:50.896 - is a clearly a spirit of change coming and started in May. One of us gets deleted on the other side 04:48:50.896 --> 04:48:51.902 - of the building. 04:48:52.098 --> 04:48:58.016 - But I think both of us are in the direction of that. We must do some more and we need to do it with 04:48:58.016 --> 04:49:04.348 - the budget that has available and squeeze every nickel out of it to make some of these changes in people's 04:49:04.348 --> 04:49:10.444 - lives. And I look forward to joining anybody on that effort at this table. Thank you, Madam President. 04:49:10.444 --> 04:49:16.658 - You're welcome. And to that respect, I think I'm the only renter that is on county council and literally 04:49:16.658 --> 04:49:19.262 - must. Must treat us half city, half county. 04:49:19.458 --> 04:49:27.640 - and some of us they're taken care of with respect to hand and some of us they're not and I think that's 04:49:27.640 --> 04:49:35.664 - something that I think about every day when I drive to one half of my street and turn you know in the 04:49:35.664 --> 04:49:43.689 - other half and so I just I think about that and also with my like years of housing background some of 04:49:43.689 --> 04:49:46.206 - the things that you know tenant 04:49:46.370 --> 04:49:53.479 - landlord relations. Yeah, I think y'all brought up a good point. Who do you talk to when you're at odds 04:49:53.479 --> 04:49:59.358 - about something in your house and it's, you know, it's their word against the tenant. 04:49:59.522 --> 04:50:07.247 - And so I think we've seen in the community in which, you know, bodily harm has been done to folks as 04:50:07.247 --> 04:50:15.277 - a result of not having proper inspections like smoke sectors. So that's definitely something to consider 04:50:15.277 --> 04:50:23.155 - and to think about. And I welcome I haven't been contacted yet, but I welcome having that conversation 04:50:23.155 --> 04:50:28.126 - because I think it's worth having. On a lighter note, I will say 04:50:28.258 --> 04:50:36.533 - As we think about Tuesday, this is our last Tuesday before MCCSE kids go back into the world. So, and 04:50:36.533 --> 04:50:45.132 - I think RBB also goes as well too, but for me and mine, we go to our MCCSE. And so I'm just, I'm thinking 04:50:45.132 --> 04:50:53.569 - about folks having patience and adhering to safety guidelines because the yellow buses are coming back, 04:50:53.569 --> 04:50:57.950 - whether you like it or not. And also on another note, 04:50:58.498 --> 04:51:05.253 - We have a great tradition that has come back and it's coming back for the second year in a row. And 04:51:05.253 --> 04:51:12.144 - it is the taste of Bloomington that is coming. And for the second year in a row, we're gonna get some 04:51:12.144 --> 04:51:19.035 - nice weather. So be kind, be nice, take Ubers, walk, because I definitely have walked a lot and enjoy 04:51:19.035 --> 04:51:26.398 - the upcoming week and weekend. And with that being said, I thank you all for your time and we are adjourned.