Okay, all right, good evening, everybody. I will go ahead and call our meeting to order. Today is Tuesday,
July 28th, 2026, and the time is 5.01, and we are going to start the Monroe County Council meeting.
Literally here, all of us are here in the room, so yay, go team.
And we got a lot to cover on our agenda, so we will go ahead and get started. But first, before we do
all of that, all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of our Pledge of Allegiance.
Thank you. Next up is the item number three, which is the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody
wish to make any amendments to it? Yes, Councilor Iverson. Madam President, I have two amendments. First,
we have a request from the commissioner's office to table items 8J and 8K. I move that we table item
8J, a de-appropriation and cable franchise.
and item 8K, a fund to fund transfer to the August 11th council meeting. Second. Okay, we got a motion
and a second on that. Any discussion on that? Great. Yes, Councilor Iverson. Do we need to, do you want
me to do my others or? Well, we had a motion in a second, so we can vote on that. Okay.
run down the whole gamut of all the other changes. Okay, so all those in favor of tabling those items
from the Commissioner's office to the August 11th meeting, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
same sign. Okay, motion carries. All right. Yes, Councilor Iverson. My last change, Council, would be
to add item 9C, a brief discussion pertaining to notice related to the adjustment of the special purpose tax.
Second. We got a motion and a second. And then did I see somebody else? Yes. Councillor Decker. Madam
President, I move to amend the agenda to add item 90, a discussion regarding LATCF funding in consideration
of the streets to stability program. Second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to add the items
9C, the special purpose
tax change information and then to add items 9D to discuss the LATCF. Okay, so that's cool. All right,
any other changes to tonight's agenda? Any other discussions on this?
All right, and seeing none, all those in favor of amending the agenda as presented again, signify by
saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries.
Next up is item four, and this is to hear from our public. So these are for items that are not on tonight's
agenda. And so if you are here in the Net and Hill room, which there are a lot of people here and we'd
like to see that, you can go ahead and sign in with the sign in sheet. You'll have up to three minutes.
The monitors will let you know your three minute time frame.
and of course you'll need to state your name for the record. And then if you are virtually via Teams
and you would like to make public comment on tonight's, for items not on tonight's agenda, you can raise
your hand via Teams. So while we look via Teams first, we'll go ahead and here, and I know this space.
So just state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Ari Bennett, I'm Operations
Director with Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County.
This message is for the council, but also all Monroe County officials who may be present or listening
today. Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County and Osage Place neighborhood homeowners continue to experience
challenges with encampments in the Thompson property that is just north of Osage Place. We believe that
there may be a plan to help the people in the encampments find better housing options, and we would
appreciate hearing about the status of a plan.
We recognize that this is a difficult situation to navigate. We do not agree with the policy of the
state law that criminalizes homelessness. It is cruel and counterproductive. Yet we are sympathetic
to our homeowners, volunteers, and staff who feel fear and discomfort in certain interactions. I'm going
to share some common situations that our homeowners, our employees, and our volunteers experience just
to give that lived experience.
People who are going to our homeowners' front porches to use hose bibs to obtain water. People scouting
for food and water from construction site hospitality. Groups of dogs roaming the neighborhood, sometimes
exhibiting aggressive behaviors, including growling, barking, and running towards children.
property on Thompson Street or the Thompson property using Bernard Drive. Um and that is a stub street
that ends at the Thompson property. Habitat has not been able to stabilize the soil in this area, and
we've gotten notices of violation from the city of Bloomington utilities for erosion and runoff when
it rains. Car break ins
and tools, general concern and discomfort about safety, especially for children, general noise, including
frequent yelling and screaming coming from the encampment areas. Our neighbors are unsure whether there
are crimes being committed when that happens and whether they should be reporting them.
And we have had habitat partner families who have refused lot offers to move into Osage place because
of concern for safety of their families.
Many of these incidents are reported to law enforcement, either by the homeowners who are experiencing
them or sometimes when Habitat does directly, either by calling 911 or calling the city of Bloomington's
non-emergency line. Without a solution to find better housing situation, these incidents will continue.
We appreciate your attention and we would appreciate any information that you can share with us.
Thank you.
Good evening. I'm gonna start off by acknowledging that Julie Thomas is online and I would thank her
for that and also sort of by thanking her for responding to my email. But my comments tonight are about
my continued concern for the lack of a jail and the recent actions and some lack of love by the board
of commissioners. So first I wanna talk about a somewhat sensitive topic.
that being Commissioner Jones we don't know where you are I'll state for the record I live in district
one and on all of these jail votes I'm not being represented at all and thus I'm thankful that Julie
Thomas does you know respond to my emails but it's very concerning I recognize your health concern but
when you told Dave on
October 3rd that you'd attend at least three monthly meetings and you haven't done that. I just don't
know how that's right to your constituents when you don't show up to meetings and I sympathize with
your diagnosis. My grandfather has cancer for the third time and it's almost 80 but I just don't think
it's responsible when my tax dollars are continually going to you but you're not representing me most
of the time. I will credit the attendance
that you have there, but I just don't think it's fair to your constituents that I haven't been hardly
represented at all, but yet my tax dollars have gone to you. And secondly, I'll go on to some of my
continued comments from
about Commissioner Thomas, I did respond to email, but I just think if you have been in county government
since 2008, it's now 2026, that is the time of a legal adult, and if you haven't been able to solve
the problem, especially when we know that the ACLU has gotten more concerned about us after COVID, I
just think you should resign. You said on May 29th, after the council voted no a second time, you would
not speak public
publicly about it. You then privately make a design on June 3rd that you then later present to the city
council last week. I just don't understand how that's collaborative at all. And then the one time that
you say you host these public forums, but the one time you did was June 25th at the Rotary Club. That
was not a public event and that I was not at. And the only example you gave in your email was about
the fire district when if the jail is the, I would argue the most concerning issue.
in this last year, I don't know why you haven't had any public forums. Well, actually, I know the reason
you haven't had any public forums is we would show up in... I just don't think the general public wants
this. I mean, I'm happy to know that you're now considering the other sites because I don't think North
Park is it, but I'm just really concerned. I just think we need to move the power lines now.
At this point, I don't think we can't really do anything with the Thompson site because of that. So
I just think whether that starts with the commissioners or the council, we should start with that. Whether
we do housing or a jail or anything with the Thompson site because those power lines are super limiting.
Thank you. Can you please state your name for the record? Oh, Kayden Smith. Thank you. OK.
Thank you. Is there anybody that is online via Teams that would like to make public comment? You can
raise your hand. See anybody there? And Lynn, last call for anybody here for public comment? All right.
Seeing none, we appreciate those for public comment for tonight.
Next up is item five, which are department updates. And so these are for items that are not also on
the agenda. Each department will have up to 10 minutes to give your update to us and ask that you use
your time wisely. So is there anybody here that would like to make an update on items not on the agenda
or via Teams that
Good evening, Council colleagues. So I would like to come before you regarding our 144 letter. So as
required by law, the Auditor's Office has presented the 2027 form 144s, a budget estimate of proposed
salaries and wages to the Board of Commissioners. So our role in this process is to provide a recommendation
to the Monroe County Council for consideration prior to setting the salaries and budget for 2027.
We appreciate the council's commitment to ensure that all Monroe County employees are paid equitably
and adequately, reflecting the current local employment market and the local cost of living. We also
understand the fiscal pressures that county government faces. The state budget agency issued a growth
quotient, a six-year increase in non-farm income of 6%. While not all county employee wages are derived
from property tax revenue,
The GQ represented represents an increase in tax revenue for the county. We recommend a salary increase
of six percent from Monroe County employees. The consumer price index or CPI increased five percent
in the Midwest from May twenty twenty five to May twenty twenty six which demonstrates the impact of
inflation on employees paychecks. In some we recommend that the council provide an increase for all
employees except those who have statutorily mandated salaries of six percent.
We asked the council to ensure relevant salaries for employees who hold similar positions at the city
of Bloomington and Monroe County are equitable. And we recommend that the council continue to work towards
pay equity and ensure all full-time county employees earn a living wage. We're proud every day of Monroe
County employees and the work they do for our community. As our colleagues on the county council know,
ensuring adequate pay and keeping up with the cost of living will have an impact on our ability to retain
an excellent workforce. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions or comments for
Commissioner Madera on a presentation. Yes, Councilor Hawke. Yes. Have have you or your staff reviewed
our projected revenue for all funds, not just the frozen property tax levy funds, because that we have
employees throughout all the different funds. And so I think it's.
I hate to say irresponsible, but there it is. If you haven't studied the finances, then I think it's
disrespectful to the council to suggest 6%. I think last year that was the suggested 8%. And we're sitting
here knowing that when our financial advisor came to us and first of all said 2% and then during that
meeting, he got an update that made the 2% not even possible.
So I think we ought to have stronger reliance on the financial expert. And I just would like for the
county commissioners to also rely on a financial expert as we do. And I'm not expecting you to know,
but you pay people to know. So I just would hate for the people, the employees of this
the county to think, well, commissioners want to give us six or eight or whatever, and then we have
to say there's not enough money for that. And so I just would like for us to be better colleagues, better
working partners in all that we do for county government, including its employees. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Wilks.
I've been on this council for a number of years now and every year we receive the same letter with a
recommended cost of living increase for employees. And I remember when I first started, it seemed like
a more reasonable percentage and one more in line with what we could do. 3% was the norm being recommended
and it increased a lot.
And while I don't find it disrespectful, I know it's part of the process. I do feel obligated to point
out that we do have a lot of other things to take into consideration besides the factors that you listed.
And as I feel compelled to say every year, no one wants more to give a hearty raise to our employees
than we do. I think we
would all vote in favor of extraordinary raise because we know how hard things are out there,
so to speak. But I do want to acknowledge that Councilor Hawk is absolutely correct on the facts and
it's gonna be really difficult to even come close, I think, this year.
Councilor Henry and then Iverson. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Commissioner Madera, for reading
into our record, the letter we received. I echo the sentiments of my two colleagues on the left and
right here. That's literal, not been both, I guess, right? Anyway, it's interesting. I've been doing
a bit of a deep dive on these constitutional and statutory roles we hold.
You know, and I wonder about this letter if it's some sort of leftover from 100 years ago that when
the commissioners used to decide all of it on your side of the table and there was no such thing as
a council. You know, how we have a letter suggesting a salary increase but it's on us to go find it.
It's an interesting parlor game we're doing here. But where I want to take it in the 21st century anyway
is where I think Councilor Woltz was going with the idea of total compensation.
Look at things like the self-insurance in the county and the escalating costs and our inability really
to really ratchet that down the past few cycles. It's really incumbent on the commissioner's office
to understand the budget for the whole 12 months of what that insurance increase is. It is the total
compensation of our employees in the county. And so that's something we absolutely have to hold of as
our tax base changes. The MLGQ, yeah, for this year, it's interestingly generous, but we know that there's
a lot of changes coming in tax code.
One of which, of course, is what we do with the funds we currently have, like the edit, that we need
to put to work and fully expend to make sure we're able to offer that total compensation to our employees.
So I hope that when we get into budget time, you know, we are having a lot of communication about the
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
the total compensation of our employees.
Lastly, I'd add to that pile things like telework, which is a little disjointed. I understand that there
are some county employees that are able to do some work from home even on cycle with filing well right
now, which is interesting. But as we have a closed facility right now, just making sure that we have
options available to keep our employees working here, even if the compensation is not in the market
compared to other counties. But thank you for coming in on that.
We're clearly getting into budget season. It's on our minds. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Commissioner Mandira, for being here and reading the letter that we receive every year. I
wanted to remind the public that many of the topics that have been discussed in this departmental update
were discussed on the June 30th Long-Term Finance Committee meeting. That is recorded for perpetuity
and for you to go back and review.
That's where we went into detail on a lot of the topics that we discuss in budget seasons every single
year. And of course, Commissioner Madeira, this is not directed at you, but rather the public. I will
also remind folks that on September the 2nd, which is about a month away,
We are going to be starting our budgets. So the first budget hearing is about a month away. So if folks
want to take it to heed what my colleagues are saying, I would certainly encourage all of you to go
back and review that June 30th long-term finance committee meeting. Thank you. Anybody else with any
questions or comments for Commissioner Mendeer? Yes. I don't have a question. Thank you for being here,
Commissioner.
on reading the letter. My colleagues have expressed some strong thoughts on where this is in the process.
Here's one thing I don't want to get lost in kind of the shuffle of the budget is that for county employees
who watch these discussions exceedingly intently, this council is grateful for your service and your
work. And part of that is a record of pouring through this budget to figure out what
or adjustments, or in certain years in the past, we had to do retention bonuses and training, all sorts
of things that we've had to do over a number of years. Some of us have done this a number of years,
but that effort is to speak to county employees about where it matters, what they take home in the best
way that we can.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We're going to be able to do
And it's like we're walking into quicksand while dodging pies that are being thrown at each other. That,
too, is part of our discussion. And I think that that discussion has done best when everybody remains
at every table talking openly and accurately about all those things. And that's what I'm going to be
doing in the next few months alongside these colleagues, that colleague, and a few other colleagues
along the way. And I think that's the order of the day. But in that wash, I don't want to get
our problems, our mistakes, I don't want it to get lost that we are grateful to the folks that make
things happen. And we have to think about all the conditions in which they make it happen. Yes, Councilor
Feidl. So I come from the labor representation field, as many of you know, and I can't help but wonder
if we might want to think about doing a survey of our employees.
I mean, I know that when I represented folks earlier in my career, that you'd be surprised what it is.
They really wondered, and it wasn't always money. And so I don't know if that is something that's possible
to do for the workers here, but I would certainly like to explore that avenue. Yeah, I don't say much
what everybody is saying.
among, upon, rather, the most wonderful time of the year, and it's a lot to take into consideration.
While I have you, Commissioner Thomas, I do want to, okay, I just wanted to ask a question because I
like watching CATS TV and I like watching government, and I noticed last week that you and Commissioner
Thomas went to the city council to present Hopewell as a possible jail site.
I was a little bit surprised on that, but I guess out of curiosity, I just wanted to ask while you're
here, has anybody from city council, what feedback have y'all received from that presentation? I would
say that the feedback has been in some ways mixed. We've had one
city council member reach out with useful feedback and one reach out with primarily negative feedback.
And then the rest have been silent. Have you all talked with Mayor Kerry Thompson about your proposal?
Actually, the mayor has invited us to try to schedule a meeting and we are in the process of doing so.
OK, I'm just I was curious because I think I know I heard from some county or
from some colleagues in the city, and they were just as surprised as I was in watching that. So I just
wanted to ask while we add you. So I guess stay tuned. Okay. All right. Anything else for the good of
the order for Commissioner Thomas said anybody or sorry. Well, Commissioner Thomas is online,
but Commissioner Madeira. All right. We'll let you get to it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Last
call for any other department updates for items not on tonight's agenda.
Seeing none, we will proceed. We don't have anything for consent agenda items this evening, so we will
go into our conversations that we will have for the hiring freeze review. And up first is the clerk's
office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the clerk's
clerk's office request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1215-0062
election fund election board one part-time voter registration clerk position. Second. We got a motion
and a second and we are joined by the chief deputy clerk Tana Branham.
Good evening, Council. Thanks for having me. So I hope this is quick and easy. So this is a request
to fill a vacant part-time voter registration position. This was previously approved to be filled by
you earlier this year in April, I think it was. We posted the position. We accepted resumes. We did
interviews. We found a great candidate. We hired him. He worked for one day and then unfortunately had
a family health
emergency and he just felt that he wouldn't be able to fulfill the duties of the role. So he resigned
and the position is now vacant and we're now requesting to fill it once again. Thank you very much for
that. Any questions on this item? Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes, in a related incident, I think some of
us were informed that the voter registration office was closed
and many wondered, did they really think that because the justice building was closed that the showers
building people didn't have to go to work? And before I would suggest we spend one more penny, we find
out who gave them the permission to stay home. I'm not faulting the employees because I'm sure they
did what they were told, but who told them that? And yes, it's a budgetary question because we're being asked to
bill of the slide, plus money out of that election fund, and that's where these folks were getting paid
from, I would believe, from the election fund. So do you have an answer as to who gave them the order
to stay home? Yes, so that was Clerk Nicole Brown decided to close, and that was because we had a few
voter registration people who were going to be out on vacation anyway this week, and then I wouldn't
you know, so we so we just decided to go ahead and close with the justice building being closed on,
and we wouldn't have any employees who would be able to help potentially help out any issues that would
arise down in election central because they wouldn't be in. Well, certainly there were folks there that
could have made up whatever shortfall. But what that is simply a use of county taxpayers that just went
out the window and it's not acceptable.
And remember, that that showers building has a lot of county employees working there. And many of them
noticed, oh, we had this group who were taking a day off and getting paid. And so did they go back to
work today? There were one employee. One employee did go back today. I remember correctly. But the office
itself was not open. Just not acceptable.
I understand you didn't make that choice. If it had been you, I was going to be very unhappy with you.
It was a very poor choice and disrespectful of the people who paid the bills around here, and that's
the people of this county. Thank you, Councilor Hawke, for bringing that to our attention. Councilor Iverson.
I want to say that as one of your liaisons, I was disappointed to hear that this position, or the person
filling this position only lasted one day. And I think this position is vitally important, given the
fact that where the workforce is right now. So we approved this the last time, and I'm looking forward
to approve it again.
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, we were very disappointed. We were very excited to have
this candidate on board. He was highly qualified and it was just a very unfortunate, you know, so it
is what it is. Anybody else? Yes, Chancellor Decker. I have one question. So much of what this division
of your office does comes down to making sure that any voter when they go in, they're guaranteed the
administration of elections.
has a Democrat or Republican involved in that. Does filling this assist you all with doing that? Yes,
this would be a Republican position which, yeah, which we do need to fill in the office to ensure that
we have an equal balance. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? Councillor Feidl. So the fact that employees
were told to not work whenever
the money come from? Do they have to take their time off? Or how is this happening that they get paid?
I believe it will be an emergency closure. She. That that means go ahead for clarity. If the employees
had already scheduled vacation times, they will not receive emergency time. So how many employees are
we talking about that are being paid on the emergency? Let's see, it would be two full.
one full-time employee and one part-time employee. For how many days? For three days. Okay, Ms. Turner-King,
I'm gonna look to you and ask a question. I know we are all in here, so since it was brought up and
how is that possible that that is something like that could
happen, um, in which a building that's not even affected by what is happening in the low justice building,
um, be able to do something like that. Cause I mean, essentially we're saying that they've been affected
and that's not true.
I don't have an answer right off the top of my head, but I'm happy to research it and talk with the
board of commissioners to figure out how that happened. I know that the commissioners work with the
board of judges in these closures, and so I don't know how other elected officials play into
that calculation. Thank you. I think I saw Councilor Wilk's hand go up, and then I'll go to Councilor Decker.
asking the same thing. So I think if we could get more information, that'd be great. Okay. I'm glad
somebody else is thinking that too. Okay. Counselor Decker. My question would be this. I know that we
have all separate elected officials, which is the root of sometimes a lot of our headaches that we have,
right? But even with separate elected officials, I would be very curious, and maybe this is something
that legal could look at and maybe advise us on.
Can our commissioners not adopt an ordinance that says the hours of our buildings are open into the
public? I'll give you a wild scenario. I'll pick on the recorder's office because Amy Swain is the best
in the world, but you get a wild recorder elected, not named Amy Swain. We'll say that.
And they just say, January 1st, I took an oath and I'm never going to turn that lock and that key again
to open that door. Employees are not employees. Isn't there a requirement legally that a door open to
an office? And if not, can we make one? And I'm not asking you to answer all that, but surely to God,
there is a way to make sure that our services are open to the people beyond this kind of scenario here.
So that's probably more homework than that. I'm not sure I want a response, but I will look into it.
Council Henry, and then next. Thanks. I'm trying to find a way to tie the bends together here. So do
you know what your average voter registration has been looking like lately per day? Like how many people
are coming in to register?
I do not know. I mean, most of the people who are coming into the office are candidates and candidate
staff who are coming in for those kind of reasons, filing relief reasons. We don't have a lot of people
coming in to register in the office. We'll get voter registration forms delivered to us.
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
the answer, maybe Councilor Deckard, is looking at a COOP. It's a continuity of operations or COOP for
the county. Because you could go the other direction and say, we have another clerk facility that we
could have had people working at, at the showers building. Instead of closing both, you could have moved,
like whatever was not
courthouse related or not essential to those computers. That's not you as the chief deputy, but in a
way it is to dust off some of the county's continuity of operations plans that probably haven't been
looked at since I wrote them 20 years ago with contractors here. But it's some of it. I mean, how do
you keep things open if we have to close and do other services elsewhere? And I tie it back to, yeah,
I mean, if right now we're kind of in maintenance mode between elections, there's not like a line out
the door of voter
registration or people dropping forms. I mean, we obviously weren't offering that service for a few
days. I think that's probably where some of the heartburn is up here. But just thanks. Councillor Hogg.
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
if they get back from vacation and they took a part of their vacation day to be gone and another person
got paid, emergency pay, and they didn't have to take part of their vacation day. I mean, I'm just saying
there's situations where you have to look at the big picture, and it's just regrettable that this happened.
And I'm not faulting the employees because they do as instructed. All right. Any other questions or
comments on this item?
Seeing none, we will move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your
hand via Teams or make an appearance here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call
vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
Thank you very much council. All right next up is item B from courts. Council I move to open for discussion
and possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire
and fund 1000-0225 county general courts one full-time case management coordinator position. Second.
Hello. We are joined by a good old crew. Yes. I first want to start off by introducing our deputy court
administrator. This is Shani. She was the previous case management coordinator. So we're trying to fill
that position.
The courts are requesting to approve to fill the vacant case management coordinator's position. This
position performs critical administrative and case management functions that support court administration
and ensures the efficient operation of the courts. Primary responsibilities include analyzing, evaluating,
and reporting statistical court data to the Indiana Supreme Court, compiling and distributing daily
arrest lists and defendants and custody reports to appropriate parties, and ensuring compliance with
the state criminal statute and reporting requirements.
The position also coordinates court-ordered mental health evaluations by communicating with psychiatrists
and psychologists, scheduling appointments, monitoring the timely receipt of evaluation reports, and
distributing reports to the appropriate parties. In addition, this position prepares and maintains
documentation necessary for invoice processing and payment and performs other daily administrative duties
essential to effective operations of court administration.
I was going to look to Judge DeKoff here and see if you had anything to add to this as well. No.
As usual, Jamie has done a very succinct and thorough job of explaining it to you. So I'm here basically
if you have any questions that you can't answer. Thank you very much for that. All right. And look into
counsel to see if anybody has any questions on this item.
I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say that the liaisons met with these three wonderful people
last week and talked over this and a number of other issues around their budget and their staffing.
And they've done a really nice job laying everything out. I hope everyone's looked through the
I think it's a little bit of a case. Yes Council log. Yes and not just this position, but other positions
that are being requested this evening. Uh. We've seen this happen every
are coming before we get into budget hearings and ask to have slots filled when we've asked them to
hold back for a while. And it seems to me that if we're going to be fair to all departments, we don't
start filling these slots until we've gone through the budget session, then we decide which positions
are the most needed for whatever dollars we have to work with. Because if we indeed move forward with
some select
the other departments who are waiting. And so this is really when you're in a situation where we were
in. More than $5 million deficit for this year. And we were told to watch what we were
that we would at least wait until all the budgets are turned in, see what the total requests are, look
at the total revenue report from the auditor's office and see what money we have to work with. Because
otherwise, we will be moving forward with some departments and then tell everybody else, you know, cut.
So I think it's a matter of fairness to everyone to wait for budget.
I'm guessing that the budget isn't part of our packet, but I mentioned that we reviewed their preliminary
budget for next year as part of this meeting. And I'm not trying to play favorites, but I do feel like
it's relevant that that was a big part of the discussion and where they've been able to hold back on
some things and not feel averses
pushing some things forward because of a need. And I'm not gonna make your own case for you at all,
but I just wanted to point to the fact that they've been very communicative and provided information
specifically when they first submitted the request. And my response was, I think you need to make more,
provide more information so that council can think about this from a broader perspective.
at four positions that we will not be filling next year so and with that fiscal impact combined of those
four positions is two hundred and eighty one thousand fifty dollars and I'm to council will to this
point though I will also say like you all have been one of the very few departments that have been very
willing to like work and not feel things and want to actually one of the first ones that took a
full-time and switched it to part-time as well. So, I mean, to be fair, like, you all are doing that
with us in light of all the other things, and I wish other departments would take a note out of y'all's
book, but I think there has been a little bit of a give between y'all, and I really appreciate that,
and I appreciate the fact, you know, in the packet that I had a lot more in-depth,
I was looking forward for that, so I appreciate that. Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you. I would just
add, just because it came up, I appreciate the budget preview just there. I think that helps to,
you know, very rough order of magnitude balance numbers in my head as I'm looking at position X,
but 200,000 off to the side Y. So I just appreciate that preview of what's to come there and what will
look like a reduced budget on some of those account lines. So thank you.
All right. Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, you can come forward
to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may we please have a roll
call vote? Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hogg? No. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry?
Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes, majority 6-1.
Thank you. Next up is item C, also still with the court. Council, I move to open for discussion and
possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire,
in fund 1000-0225, County General Court's one full-time court bailiff position. Second. All right, we
got a motion and a second. And what would you all like to add to this item?
So we have a bailiff that's going to be retiring August 31st. So in anticipation for that, we're asking
that this position be granted to fill. And due to the retiring employee's payout obligation, the replacement
bailiff will not even be able to begin until October the 2nd. But we want to start getting feelers out
now. All right. Yes, Councillor Hoppe. Yes.
Of course, it continues to baffle me why this isn't under the Sheriff's Department, as I've said before.
But indeed, because this has to do with the safety of the courts, I'll be supporting this because we
have to provide safety to the courts.
somebody gets confused about why I say yes on some and no on others, there's the answer. Public safety
will come first for, not just for our employees, but of course for the employees, but for all those
who are attending in the court. You need a competent bailiff. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Decker.
I had just a quick question. Is the bailiff under the courts because you have to be able to command
them right quick? We do. Yes. Well, that speaks to that.
So, and then the other thing, how many bailiffs do you have roughly? We have seven. Thank you. Welcome.
Yes, Councilor Iverson. I want to take a point just real clear to commend you on the detail that Council
Member Wilts just brought up. I love a good org chart, and there's not only an org chart for this year,
but there's an organizational chart for next year included in our packet. And it looks like you paid
really close detail to not only the salary changes from year to year, which I really appreciate that
spreadsheet, but also lastly, the savings, which predominantly come from step increases. That's really
good to see too. So thank you for including all that detail that Council Member Wilts referenced.
Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item from Council, I'll move on to public comment.
If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the room. Now maybe please have
a roll call vote. This is on the bailiff. Yes. Thank you. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up item D. Council I'm
going to be combining items D and E into one motion. I move to open for discussion and possible approval
of the court's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0225
County General Courts
one full time floating court reporter position and simultaneously amend the 2026 salary ordinance to
add new account line 14176 floating court reporter and remove account line 14167 associate court reporter.
All right, we got a motion and a second. Go ahead. So we are requesting to have vacant
court reporter position filled and retitled the floating court reporter and although the court will
lose one court in twenty twenty seven the workload associated with that court will remain and will be
redistributed among this existing courts. As a result continued staffing support is necessary to maintain
efficient court operations and timely case processing. The floating court reporter will provide flexible
support across both criminal and our civil courts. Assisting were needed to ensure continuity of services
and adequate staff coverage. Duties will include monitoring and processing
processing odyssey, e-file daily queues to ensure timely case updates and workflow completion, processing
and issuing orders through the Indiana Court Technology Extra Net, known as INSIGHT, answering and directing
incoming phone calls, and providing assistance to court users, the public, and other stakeholders. Additional
responsibilities will include processing expungement cases, preparing and reviewing various reports,
and performing the daily duties traditionally signed to court reporters.
position will also provide courtroom and office support as operational needs require. This position
as a floating court reporter is necessary to maintain operational efficiency, support timely case processing,
and ensure adequate staffing coverage in both the courtroom and our court offices. Thank you for that
explanation. I'll go Councilor Iverson and then Hawk. I want to emphasize the second sentence you read.
Because I think that's really important. And you added more detail in the packet in your narrative.
And I just want to make sure that this number is correct, that the workload associated with the court
that's being lost is currently 2,393 cases. As of July 1st, yes, that was our pending caseload for a
court that we're going to lose. So the fact that Monroe County is losing a court, does that mean that
any of those cases are going to go away? No, they will not go away.
They will not follow that judge out of that justice building like little ducklings. They will be there.
All 2300, which is six months, which means we have six more months of filings in that court. And the
other thing that I want to emphasize is this, is that with that comes changing numbers, changing data,
doing input.
The Supreme Court requires a great deal of us in terms of that. So it is not just here is a court, here
is now another court, it involves a great amount of work. And so it is necessary that we have the ability
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.
our concern. And I will also say to you that losing that court is also new to the Supreme Court. This
is the first time that they are experiencing this as well, that we have got to absorb what is left of
what we are doing. So it's going to be a tremendous amount of work. The court administration has been
working alongside the Supreme Court as well as trial court technology to ensure a smooth transition
come January 1st.
Thank you for extrapolating. I think it's vitally important that that gets out to the public. Yes, so
much that questions that can be asked. But one, I will ask of the auditor. When we were being presented
the numbers from our financial advisors, I thought, and I'm not looking at it, but I was thinking
that he included in the revenue and expense items that we would have a savings of about a half a million
dollars. Is that right? About a half a million dollars because we would no longer have the additional,
what was that number? I'll have to look into that. I can't think of the number off the top of my head,
but I will get that for you.
I'm usually pretty good at numbers, but I don't have it memorized. I just thought that was quite a lot.
And it probably included benefits and so forth. And we were advised early on that if any position needed
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
the people who were hired would know it was a temporary position until the end of the year. Now I understand
this is gonna go through. You had six people go say yes. I just think people need to know why I'm gonna
say no. I do recall that our consultant did say we would have a cost savings from losing a court. I'm
wondering, do you have
numbers on that that you can share because I do so with our proposed budget even though we're going
to be asking for some increases in certain line items our overall cost saving is going to be two hundred
and four thousand nine hundred and twenty three dollars and I just want to point out since 2025 between
2025 26 and our proposed budget for 27 we will have reduced our budget by four hundred and sixty eight
thousand five hundred and fifty nine dollars
like me to repeat that. Can you say that slow? Both numbers you had were really important and I would
love to hear them. So with our proposed budget for 2027, including the positions we're asking for, increases
in certain line items, we will have still reduced our budget by $204,923.
25, 26, and our proposed budget for 27, we will have reduced our budget by $468,559. Welcome. Yes, Councilor
Iverson. And I do want to remind Council that that is in the packet in a spreadsheet, particularly as
it pertains to this item,
That's on page 30 of the packet that's available to the public. Those numbers you just read out. Just
to be fair, I do think it is worth following up on Councillor Hawke's question because I don't remember
the number, but my thought was that it was closer to a quarter million, not a half million, and this
is very close to that. That's my recollection as well, but we'll follow up and get those numbers.
Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, we'll move to public comment. You can raise
your hand via team so you can come forward to the microphone in the room. Seeing none, maybe please
have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
Cross? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
No. Motion passes majority six one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can I take one more minute? Yes,
I want to and I think this kind of goes to the discussion that happened previous to us. The is closed.
The courts are not. We have we are on
minimalistic what we are doing, but for me to shut the courts, for the judges to shut the courts requires
the special petition filed with the Indiana Supreme Court, who then has to grant us the permission to
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
afternoon when this took place, I have been around a long time. I have seen a lot of things. This was awful.
There was water just by the gallon full, just spreading everywhere. And it was toilet water. I was there.
They were there. There was others who were there. And we were trying our best. It was kind of like watching
a blah movie. And then Dave Gardner showed up and shut off the water. Had that not happened, he tells
us that it would have just continued down offices to offices.
Yesterday, there were these folks and other court reporters and other office staff and me and other
judges who were in there taking everything off of bookshelves, desks, et cetera, because they are ripping
out carpeting. They are ripping out baseboards. They are trying to put us back together. I tried to
negotiate for Wednesday. They convinced me Thursday. So they are telling us that we will be able to
have the courts
operational, we will still have people in jury rooms, court personnel in jury rooms, in the court conference
room, so that we can function and proceed. I was supposed to have a jury trial next week. I contacted
the attorneys and told them that cannot happen because I don't have space right now to put them. We
were concerned there was a health hazard, which was also addressed and is being addressed.
So we are not closed, because to close us requires the Indiana Supreme Court. But we are not
fully operational, because we cannot be. So the prosecutor is doing the probable causes from all this
time. I'm the duty judge this week, so I have released people from jail. We are still doing that so
that we can continue to function as best as we can.
but I do want to commend Jayma and Shannon and others in court services and there was other court personnel,
other court staff, other judges who we were there because the more quickly we could get our stuff done,
then they could start being there and they have been working on it and working diligently on it. We
will not be
They're working on court services first because that is the one where contact is first with the public.
But we fully anticipate that Thursday we will have the justice building open, but definitely we will
be. But I would like to also point out that when this happens, we now have to play catch up.
because we have got to now re-dock it, re-do, re-inform so that we can keep those timelines where they're
supposed to be. And by not shutting the courts, those timelines continue, which is important to the
people who have business with the courts. So I just wanted to point out that I know that it sounds like
when people say, well, you know, you're getting paid because you're shut down, you're not doing anything,
it's because we can't fully operate.
because of the hindrance, basically, of what this was. But I wanted to mention the court personnel and
people who, like you, want us to be, we don't like sitting idly by. This causes for us a lot more work
and a lot more headache, and we don't like it either.
I just wanted to bring that to your attention, because it's a process, and it's a process again, and
here we are still. But just so that you're aware. If I can, Judge DeKalb, thank you very much for explaining
that and bringing that to our attention and the public's attention as well. And I'm sorry that we're
having to go through this all over again. It wasn't your fault. Yeah.
I just wanted to make sure that you mentioned like courts are on and people are calling and asking questions,
and I've had people from the public ask questions and Mother job. We've gotten phone calls from people
thinking that we are dealing with that. For folks because I think I read in the Herald times like there's
a number that people could call. Is there a certain number if I am a person that has to be rescheduled and I'm
Who should they contact to get that information? Right now the extension that they've put out there
is the 349-2615, but we don't have anybody able to get to that phone right now because it is completely
blocked. And there's folks that are in there working and we've been asked to stay out. So. Yes, Councilor Hawk.
First of all, for you to know what my feelings on this, it's very small as compared to what you've been
through, but when the sewer backed up at my house, same kind of situation because it was all under the
concrete and they had to bust up the concrete and it was everywhere and everything had to be sanitized.
There was nothing you could save. So what you're going to save of paperwork, I don't see how it could
be. I'm just saying,
What a horrible situation. Now, I'm probably not going to be everybody's favorite person when I say
this, but this is going to happen again and again as long as the jail is above the courts or the offices.
Because we know this has happened in part before, maybe not this bad. But there are those who seem to
want to clog up the toilet stools on purpose. I mean, they get bored. They've got to have something
to do, I guess.
We don't know what goes downhill. And that came right down there. And it's a nasty, expensive situation.
It's not fair to the public, and it certainly is not fair to the people who live there. And like I said,
I didn't ask anybody if I could say this. I just said it, because it's not right. And it cannot, when
we get through with doing another jail, which we are going to do,
Do not put the courts or any offices below the jail. Anybody who understands water goes downhill, well,
you know what went with this water. It went right down their heads, and it's not right. Yes. I just
want to state that the motion and everything that was voted on had a salary ordinance amendment. And
because that has a salary ordinance amendment,
it has to require a second reading. So this will be back on the agenda for 8-11. Okay. Thank you. I
just can't. Just to avoid. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay.
And I think Judge DeKoff, you might be sticking around for . . . What I'm going to do now is my probation
chief and her deputy chief and
title is. They're going to sit up here and I'm going to sit right behind them because they're again
who have prepared all the paperwork for you but I'm also here to answer any questions or to be available.
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.
All right next up is item F from the probation department. Council I move to approve the probation
department's request and fund 9142-0000 community correction grant even to create a count line 17801
part-time.
Thank you. All right, we got a motion and a second, and we are joined by Ms Linda Brady and her wonderful
staff. Thank you very much. Good evening. And on my left is Becca Strickland. She's the community corrections
executive director and deputy chief probation officer. On my right, Anthony Williams, another deputy
chief probation officer. And they are our financial team, and they are just amazing. And I'm very grateful
for both of them. So this request is
I hope a quick one for you all. I came before you in March because we had probation officer assistants
who run our day reporting and drug testing program. We were down to two probation officer assistants
at that time. You gave me permission to hire up to four part timers up to 56 hours per week. By the
time we got them hired, the two probation officer assistants on staff
we were back to kind of being in the hole again. So because we didn't fill some of our Community Corrections
field officer positions throughout 2026, there's extra money that won't be spent. And this user lose
money will either use it or have to give it back to the state. And Anthony has figured out that about
$42,500 would go and spent in our Community Corrections grant, and we have received back has received
permission from the state.
the D O C to be able to use that to fund probation officer assistance. So this request not only would
save county general to the tune of $37,403, and that's an appropriation we already have for part time,
but also would
to reduce the money that we need from special purpose lit, public safety lit, and all department user
fee funds for part time staff. So it's basically a savings across every place we've got part time staff.
So the request is to create new community corrections grant line item for part time and permission from
you all to fill up to 56 hours per week for up to four probation officer assistance. This is just to
add the new account line, sorry.
Oh, oh, so we're separating the two. Okay, new account line. Any questions for Brady on this item? Yes,
Councilor Iverson. Just real quick, Mr. Thank you for getting all the documentation into the packet.
That email exchange was pretty fun to read. So thank you for that.
Yes, what other things could you do with this money? Could you perhaps put it into we know where we've
got the shortfall and that's in providing insurance for employees. Is there a way that we can use that
to help fill that gap between what is needed for the health insurance? Rather than because it looks
like what we're doing is
allowing for positions to be filled with this. And when that money is gone, it's not going to be there
the following year. There's this money that's left over. Well, I have to say that these positions are
important, that we cannot continue to run our day reporting program in our drug testing program with
only four probation officer assistants. Before the hiring freeze, we had 15
that we would still need staff to be paid some place, which it's budgeted right now in county general.
So. Yeah, we could go ahead and spend the 37,000. We would still need staff to be paid some place, which
it's budgeted right
dollars plus that's already budgeted in County General, plus the money in public safety elsewhere, if
the DOC would allow us to do that. But again, we still need the staff. Seeing no further questions or
comments on this item, we'll go ahead and take public comment. If there's public comment on this item,
you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room.
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? This is to add an account line. You can do a voice
vote. Okay. All those in favor of adding this account line signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
same sign. No. Okay. And motion carried 6-1. All right. Thank you. Next up is item G.
Council, I will be combining items G and H in one motion. I move to open for discussion and possible
approval of probation's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire four full-time
probation officer positions and fund 1,000-0226 county general probation and two full-time probation
officer positions and fund 2504-0000 court alcohol and drug user fees as outlined on the agenda. Second.
We got a motion and a second. What would you like to add to this? Okay. I'm Kim. I'm confused because
when are we going to talk about the probation officer assistance filling them? I didn't see that on
the agenda elsewhere because that was a request.
what I have is the probate yeah the probation that was just read in I don't have anything with regards to the
I believe it got missed. So while we're looking at that, while Steph is looking at that, why don't we
just go ahead and do this and then we can come back, circle back. Perfect.
Well, prior to the Monroe County hiring freeze, the probation department had 87 employees with 71 full
time and 16 part time. And as of today, we have 24 staff vacancies. That is a 28% vacancy rate overall
and a 20% vacancy rate for full time alone. And we have done a number of things to reassign duties and
increase workload
decreased workload where it's publicly safe to do so. And this is something we talked about with our
county council liaisons and also Liz was able to join us for that meeting as well. We talked a lot about,
should we go back before the county council as these vacancies have occurred and decided, no, we would
wait and just as you had asked us to and see, can we reorganize the department? Are there duties that
can be reorganized?
And we worked with our presiding judge, Judge Decoff, Judge Harvey, our juvenile judge, the Criminal
Division Board of Judges. And we reexamined duties across all divisions and all units across the department.
And we did make some operational changes to the department. But after months of trying to manage, we
have hit a wall. We cannot.
go any further with this many staff vacancies. We believe we've exhausted all of our possible ways to
reassign duties and we have to function. We're public safety officers and we have statutory duties.
We have grant duties that we have to fulfill in order to get our grant monies. So the current request
before you is to refill six of the eight probation officer vacancies. So still keeping two.
vacant. Four of the five PO vacancies that are paid out of County General, two that are paid out of
alcohol and drug program user fees. And then the savings, this would be a minimum return to County General
of $222,173. And that's assuming a few things. Do you want to say what you assumed with your
that we will have somebody start by that date. So that savings is going to increase along the way as
well. Right. And again, we know that from past experience, it takes a long time to fill all of these
positions. So we're going to have to do that. And we're going to have to make sure that we're able to
fill all of these positions. So we're going to have to make sure that we're able to fill all of
any probation officer position. We've just gone through several rounds of hiring for a receptionist
position and it's just one of those things when people are looking for a job they're looking for a job
but it takes a while to get through the process and sometimes people get another job in the middle of
the process or drop out or start ghosting Becca. Becca does the hiring and we
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
going to take time That's he went with he didn't want to over promise Anthony didn't want to over promise
but to say minimum the return to county general would be two hundred and twenty two thousand one hundred
seventy three dollars likely to be much more than that and also to let you know
We have already been advisors, at least two more probation officers who've let me know they're probably
going to leave in August. So that's, yeah. But this is what we're asking for right now. I did want to
point out a few things we're not asking for before we get into the ask. The juvenile probation officer
that's been vacant since January, we're not requesting to refill that position.
We have a problem-solving court program, our mental health court probation officer. She's very talented
and got hired away by Centerstone, and we're not requesting to refill her position. The other problem-solving
court probation officers have taken on the mental health duties with the mental health court.
We had a part-time, very experienced probation officer assigned to adult intake unit. She was a 20-year
probation officer. She did pre-sentence investigations and intake assessments. She left in January.
We're not asking to refill it now, nor for next year. And then here's the biggest, community corrections
field officers. So I've been before you before to say
community corrections field officers are very difficult to fill and keep filled. They don't require
a degree, and it's a position that we tend to lose people to law enforcement. That has happened many,
many times. So this past year, there are eight of those positions. Six of the eight have left the department.
We're down to two. And we have decided that we've reallocated some of their supervision duties to the
probation officers.
They're responsible for home detention electronic monitoring, the community corrections probation officers.
So they're doing the after hours calls when, like the cut and run, if somebody violates home detention
electronic monitoring, they're the ones getting the alerts instead of just the field officers. And so
we are going to, we plan to continue with two field officers for the rest of this year and also for
next year.
We were just reorganizing our duties, and that's been with the help of our judges to agree to manage
things in this way. So those are things we're not asking for. And that's a lot, losing six full-time
officer positions. Then the request is to refund four of the probation officers who are funded by county
general and two that are funded by court alcohol and drug services.
And if you have any specific questions, I know I gave you a packet with a lot of information. Just be
glad to answer any other questions. Thank you. I'm sure we have some questions, and I'll ask. And so
I know over the years, you were not like when I was your liaison with the late and great Cheryl Munson.
Like you would always tell us about the kind of merry-go-round circles of people leave, they come,
they go, they leave.
And in researching and looking at the packet for this evening, I guess, to me, and you have over 40
years of experience with this. Is this the worst that this has ever really been? Oh, absolutely. This
is a post-COVID world. Before COVID,
it would be rare that we'd ever have two probation officer vacancies at the same time. Now the community
corrections field officers, that's a whole nother matter because that has been a difficult position
to keep filled. But if we had two probation officer vacancies, that would be a lot. And ever since COVID,
we've gone, I think we had once three months, three weeks one time and three months one time that we
had a full staff, that's it. And so it is a new,
world we're living in. And so, yes. And if you go to any trainings that talk to you about the younger
generation that's in the workforce, they have different values than I'm a boomer. And so we boomers
tend to stay in our places of employment. I forget what these two are. They're much younger than me,
obviously. But they do have different values in the workforce. And they're not as likely to stay in a job for
forever, like basically I have, until retirement. So it is a different workforce that we're dealing
with, for sure. In the post-COVID world, we've never had vacancies like this, ever. So we're not alone.
I'm in contact with probation chiefs across the nation. I serve on the National Association of Probation
Executives. So there's probation chiefs from all over the country on this committee.
They're dealing with the same kind of things in every state. So we're we're not alone and we're not
special. So I appreciate that. My colleagues to see if anybody has any questions. Yes. Councilor Anderson.
I wanted to start this off by first regardless of what people think about this request. It is clear
that you bent over backwards trying to figure out a way to make this work. I think the
I've said it a lot of times before, I'm a sucker for a good organizational chart. And the organizational
chart that you've provided really outlines just how many vacancies you have and where you have looked
to strategically try and place this request. So first of all, thank you. It seems like you really do
understand some of the fiscal situation that we discussed earlier this evening that we just cannot fulfill
every request.
That being said, I'm in favor of this request. And the reason is that when we look around
for evidence-based programming. You folks have been doing it. Quite frankly, when we're looking for
folks to go into award-winning programs, these positions are going to be doing that work. I really am
you know, I've been your liaison a couple of different times now in my tenure. And, you know, the vacancies,
like President Crossley said, they just keep coming and coming. But I think it's important to keep these
positions. I think it's important to provide these services to the community. And so that's why I'm
in favor of this. Thank you.
We've basically been kind of talking bean counting so far about how much it costs and that sort of thing,
but you bring up the evidence-based practices. Not every probation department, certainly in the state
or even across the nation, works on evidence-based programs, which means recidivism reduction.
methods to reduce recidivism. And that's something we're very committed to. And our evidence-based practices
team, our continuous quality improvement team, we work really hard to do things with fidelity. And we
can't just say we're doing it. We're judged by the Department of Correction who gives us money. They
come and evaluate us
basically every three months now, they're making sure that we're moving towards becoming an evidence-based
organization that's requirement of the grant. And Becca is the one who's taking the meetings with the
Department of Correction, but they are, sometimes they come on site, sometimes they do these meetings
through Zoom, but they are watching us to make sure we are doing what we say we're doing. Yes, Councilor
Hawke. Yes.
something that I wasn't aware until fairly recently, that in some other counties, I was given to understand
most other counties, the supervisors, maybe I'm using the wrong title, they also carry cases and in
our county, we do not assign cases to those folks. Can you tell me if we decided to assign
cases and take some of the workload off of the other probation officers and sign those to the supervisors,
would that not help out that stress level of our probation officers who might be leaving because they
just can't take it anymore? That's a good question. And our supervisors have actually asked if they
can take on some caseload. And you're right. Some counties, the supervisors do. But every county is
organized differently in this state as you
Probably no. 92 counties do things 92 different ways. But some of the supervisors are ready to take
on some supervision of some cases for sure. And that's something we're looking into. And yeah, so it's
a good question. Thank you. I would like to see that.
happen before we start filling slots? Because how many supervisors do we have right now are not carrying
caseloads? Well, it isn't really as simple as that, Marty, because they have to supervise their staff,
which means they have to do annual evaluations, which is required by the probation rules. They have
to train new staff. They actually have to watch their staff do their appointments and give them feedback
and coach.
Becca, if you want to pipe up for anything else, OK. So supervising seems like a generic thing.
It's not. They're coaches. And they're coaching their staff. And we have so much turnover. If we didn't
have all this turnover, they wouldn't have to spend quite as much time coaching and trying to get the
people up to speed. But right now, we're just spinning. It's like kind of drowning.
That's not going to be the answer, though, to give probation supervisors caseload. At some point, I
had a caseload, and I'll tell you, I could not keep up with the casework and my supervisory duties.
It was very, very difficult. So if we're going to do that, Marty, it's going to have to be a decision
that's made by including our judges and all the supervisors, but it isn't going to be the answer to
how many POs we need. Okay, but my question was...
back to the question, how many supervisors do you have? Let's see, including them and myself, 12. Well?
Well, myself, so there's nine. Nine under us. So if there was nine, would they, let's say, if each took
three? I mean, if you split it up somewhat, I'm not saying that they could handle
the same amount that others could, because you still have to supervise. But just like in the auditor's
office, they've got people who are supervising, but they still have another job to be doing. And I know
that it's much different when we're talking about probation officers. I'm just trying to come up with
a way that you can provide the same services and share the workload.
Because I think that you've got probation officers who feel that they cannot carry much more. Well,
that's absolutely true. That's why I'm before you, because they don't feel like they can carry much
more, because we have eight PO vacancies at this point. So they're absolutely right. But how many cases
to give to a supervisor? How do you measure that workload? I mean, it's a decision that needs to be made.
with our board of judges. Before we move on, I think you all continuously over the time here have made
the case of what you all are trying to do. Try to believe that and try to ration out everything in this
possibility. Like you said, 92 counties, 92 different problems. So with that being said, any other further
questions or comments for council on this item?
Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your
hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Still seeing none, maybe have a roll
call vote. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? No.
Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes, majority 6-1. And Michelle, because there was some confusion about
some of their items, is that something that I guess now we'll have to address at the 11th? Yes. Okay.
Okay. Okay. So as far as hiring the probation officer assistance, I need to come back? Yes. On the 11th.
Okay. So we have the line item.
then we'll come back to ask for permission to hire. And that'll work out just fine, because the POAs,
or probation officer assistants, are usually IU students. And they'll be back, I guess, next month.
So coming right up. So thank you very much. And so then that was all of it. OK. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We'll see you next month. Next up is item eight, which is council business. And that starts
with the aviation department.
Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request in fund 4801-0000 aviation construction
to create new account lines that are outlined on the agenda and approve additional appropriations of
$1,000 in the supplies category, $1,000 in the services category, and $2,500 in the capital category
for a total appropriation of $4,500. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. And I see that
Mr. Labarty is online and he has his hand raised.
Um, you should be able to unmute and state your case. Yep. There we go. Hello, Mr. Larry. Go. Good evening.
Yeah. It wouldn't let me for a second. I think I had to be enabled, but here we are. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Good evening. The airport's requesting the creation of a dedicated Airbnb related receipt
and expenditure lines within fund 4801, our aviation construction fund, so that all Airbnb revenue and
expenses associated with the airport double wide can be tracked separately and consistently in the ledger.
The request of appropriation will allow current and future Airbnb related expenses to be paid from the
proper fund and account lines. This amount includes consideration of 2026 Airbnb related expenditures
that may need to be corrected into these lines
from the beginning of the year through the current. And so again, the aviation construction fund 4801
is separate from our levy fund. And it's funded by all, I'm sorry, I'm getting a really bad echo, but
it's funded by on airport generated revenue, which is part of what the Airbnb is part of. And historically
those revenues have been receded
Historically, they've been receded into the 1107 fund. So we're trying to separate all of that and kind
of help us do some better accounting at the airport. We've been working with the auditor to kind of
make this happen. She may wanna add something to this, but this is all we're trying to do. And none
of this touches any of our levy fund. Thank you very much for that and looking at council to see if
anybody has any questions or comments on this item.
Yeah, I apologize. I was out of the room at the beginning. So if this was already stated, I'm sorry.
I did have a question about what is the revenue generally for the Airbnb? I'm not I think annually we're
averaging around
$15,000 to $17,000 a year. Okay, so and revenue then will go into this new... Yes. These new lines.
Yeah, and then the expenses that we have to maintain the Airbnb will come out of that fund as well.
Okay, and you're going to go retroactive a little bit, I think, for 2026, you said? Yeah, for 2026,
yes. Is everybody else getting that echo?
Okay, just me, okay. But I do like your new goth look. Ah, yeah. You guys, you guys don't want to see
the shade, the pale, the color that's going on here. You don't want that. It's all good. Thank you.
Yes, Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, thank you for the, yeah, thick at night,
black and white view here. This has been different.
to say the least. This is part of, I think, the ongoing effort we've had to work with the Board of Aviation
to develop some different account lines to help manage that very unique operation we have out there.
We've talked about this with the disaster work and now, of course, this line too. I just want to ask
the auditor's table if this is all in line with where we were going in terms of helping to just get
clarity on the funded lines and how this revenue is moving through our county.
this is definitely in alignment with what we have discussed at a few different meetings we've held,
so we do have, you know, other steps to the plan where we're gonna maybe adjust some fund names and
how those funds are utilized on the line, but this is kind of step one moving toward that. Just a quick
note, and I know Michelle is going to be all over it, but we do not need to add the revenue line. That's
something that we kind of do behind the scenes, so.
that will occur separately. Carlos, thanks for the work on it and getting us this far and happy to support
it as the liaison for the aviation folks. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks to everybody at the county, especially
in the auditor's office has been helping us get, you know, walk down this road. All the team. All right.
Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, we'll move on. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see
your hand, Councilor Hall. Just for the public to understand,
When I say no to additional appropriations or something and maybe some other fund, this is like taking
the revenue out of one fund and putting it over in the other fund. It doesn't mean that the revenue
would be any different or the expenses would be any different. It's just that for accounting purposes,
it needs to be, this needs to have happened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay.
this is just for overall transparency. So we can easily see what this unique project at the airport
is bringing in, and then we can isolate that revenue and then use that revenue for the expenditures
related. So it's a really great thing we're doing to move forward transparently. No other hands that
are raised.
go back to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams
or come forward to the lectern here in the room. All right, and seeing none, can we please have a roll
call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilk? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is item B from the Youth Services Bureau.
to approve additional appropriations of $48,150.23 in the personnel category and $1,000 in the services
category for a total appropriation of $49,150.23. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And
we have Ms. Vanessa Schmidt. And we also, I think it looks like Ms. Sarah Jamison is online as well.
So TSD, we might need to promote Sarah as well, too. I think Sarah's just going to observe. Oh, OK.
So we should be OK. I appreciate it. All right. Please go ahead.
Okay, thank you, Council. Like mentioned, we are here just to request the appropriation of some additional
funds that we were able to earn during the first fiscal year of our grant. And then we are asking to
just appropriate the second fiscal year of that grant that has already been awarded. It's a two-year
grant. So the first small amount of money was awarded in the first year. We're just here to appropriate
that. And then we're asking that we appropriate the second year.
Thank you for that. Is there any questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Councilor Woltz.
I have a question generally about youth services. It's not about this exact issue, but I've been talking
with some folks lately and I'm curious, the children that you serve, typically my understanding is that
They come to you in a variety of ways, but it's mostly self-admit, and they are able to leave at any
time, and you work with them to figure out what's best and all that. My question is, how many of those
youth would be categorized as homeless or unhoused? Sure.
Well, it's a little hard to answer, because the federal definition of homelessness is a little bit different
than, you know, it varies state to state, even though there's a federal definition. So, children that
are placed by the Department of Child Services who aren't self-admitted or youth that could be court-ordered
could be considered
because there is no other place for them to be. However, the kids that are typically counted under the
federal rule are youth that are either at risk of runaway, homelessness, or throwaway, and are safe
place placements, who are the youth that are self-initiated and voluntarily come to the shelter. So,
while we are unlocked from the inside, because we are a low-barrier, unlocked shelter,
kids can walk out the door, that enacts an elopement procedure, in which we have to call law enforcement,
since running away in Indiana is a crime. So, we don't function like a drop-in shelter, like many other
states have, where kids can come and go, because unaccompanied minors, it's not legal in the state of
Indiana. So, if a youth unfortunately chooses to leave property after we have tried to verbally de-escalate
and get them to return, we do have to enact elopement procedures.
So we want to make sure that youth that come are willing to be here, willing to follow the rules, and
they sign a youth admission agreement as well. But that's done through a lot of conversation and mediation
between whoever's placing the child and the child themselves. I hope that answers your question.
So it does. Well, actually, it tells me a lot more than I even knew to ask.
So typically then, um, what percentage of your, of your youth are, um, falling under that federal definition.
So the court appointed, et cetera. Sure. I would say, um, without having the annual report right in
front of me in 2025, a majority of our placements actually fell under that rule.
So they were either safe place or parental placements, which are all voluntary placements. So they were
not DCS and not court-ordered youth. But I would argue that DCS placements are homeless children. Also,
it just doesn't fall under the federal rule. OK. OK, thank you. Yeah. All right, John. Yes, thank you for.
commenting that it could be a parental placement as well. We see many times, well, at least we did when
I was falling in so closely when I felt like I was camping out there. When you see parents who are just
having so much problems with some of their youth and they just no longer know what to do to keep them
safe and to keep the other people in the household safe,
then they can take them in and take them to our youth shelter. And as a reminder, many times when you
look at the number of placements at the shelter, Monroe County residents are not always the biggest
number that's there. But because we do the safe place grant, then we are required to do that as well.
But the other thing that I noticed on some of the correspondence was that the revenue in the past, just
for an FYI, their per diem amount that they get from the state, then that comes in and we were keeping
that separate at like a savings account for the YSB because we wanted
to do some construction work there. And we were able to save that back and pay cash for what we wanted
to do. But then after they did that, we were advised by the state that was like having two savings account,
which we're not allowed to do, can't have two rainy day funds. So that per diem amount that they receive now
revenue. And the amount that they have been bringing in under miscellaneous revenue is supposed to be
reduced this year because the state is changing some of their. And. Theory about how they want to use
the money. Am I using that correct? So I forget what the difference
They may even have more people, but it may be people that are not paying through the state. It may be
more parents dropping off or something. We just never know. Yeah, it's variable. The state with the
new DCS state director is looking towards more of a model of kinship and foster care, which is overall
a cheaper expense. They've also been
more restrictive about how long they will place in an emergency shelter. And they're requiring DCS staff
workers to do like cost analysis of what's the cheapest shelter. And so sometimes kids get moved from
shelter to shelter just based on how much it's going to cost the state. And so we have seen a
that we're not going to be able to. Um reduction in those premium funds. And so when we were, yes, speaking
about budget, we just wanted to be transparent with that as far as what we might be looking at for revenue
in 2027. Right and if they want to cut off time, they can be there for 30 days, but then they must leave
after 30 days. Is that correct?
They've actually changed. So they can stay 21 days. And by day 15, I have to determine if we're willing
to provide an extension. The extension is only supposed to get them to 60 days. But by putting the waiver
in, the state says they don't have to follow that. So we have had children placed for over 100 days
by the state of Indiana in our shelter. Thank you. Any other questions or comments?
on this item. That's a lot. All right. Seeing none, we will go to public comment. Please raise your
hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll
call vote? Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crossley?
Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes.
Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Right. Um, uh, counselor Decker didn't vote. It matters, but I was a guest
too. So the motion is unanimous. Seven zero. Sorry about that. Thank you. All right. Next up is item C.
council I move to approve the Youth Service Bureau's request and fund nine one zero three dash nine
six two eight project safe place to create new account lines are outlined on the agenda and approve
additional appropriations of three thousand dollars in the supplies category and six thousand eight
hundred eighty dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of nine thousand eight hundred
and eighty dollars second all right we got a motion and a second and what would you like to add to this item
Thank you, Council. Again, this is just to approve our two years of a Safe Place grant. We were awarded.
This grant will run from July of 26 to July of 28 and really helps to support our Safe Place program,
including outreach materials, the things that we take out and give to kids who are at county fairs or
at other events, promotional items during school presentations. This money helps to support those endeavors.
Thank you very much, and congratulations on that.
Thank you. Very important. Any questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public
comment. If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern
area in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard?
Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Motion
passes unanimous. Thank you, councillors. Thank you. All right. Next up is a series of items from the
sheriff's office.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the sheriff's officer request to approve
an in-house transfer of $69,000 and fund 1000-0005 County General Sheriff into the overtime account
lines that are outlined on the agenda within the personnel category as per resolution 2025-41A. Second.
All right we got a motion and a second welcome. Hello.
Our overtime lines are about to be overexpended. One of them, they're both about 75% we've already used,
and we just need to transfer more money in. We've had some high priority cases that have clearly used
a lot of time, overtime resources. And the one is CHIRP. It's just the in-house. We need to transfer
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.
Any questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Councilor Hawk. Yes, I understand that you
will be receiving the reimbursement from CHIRP, but could you not just transfer within the same category?
You don't have to come to us if it's in the same category. You can do it with a letter of transfer.
Is your overtime line not in there?
We are wanting to transfer from the vacant merit deputy position into the TURP one, and the next item
is actually the deappropriation and appropriation. I'm just saying, is your overtime not also in with
all your personnel in the same category? Yes. Well, then you don't have to, if you already have an overtime
line. Excuse me, Councilor Hawke. Thank you.
We have a resolution where a department has to come to the council to be able to move any funds into
the overtime lines. So that is part of this process that you guys approved back earlier at the beginning
of this year. So that's why she can't just move it on her own. She has to get council permission. Sometimes
we just make things harder for them and for us because
because she says she wants to do this, so she doesn't have to come back multiple times. But if we move
down a rather large sum into the overtime more than what the chirp is going to reimburse, then that's
something we've done, something we didn't intend to do. I mean, again, the overtime resolution was we
couldn't pick and choose which department to say, nope, you stay. Yes, you go do it.
So I think that's what that was about. Okay, and yes, Councilor Wilts. So I understand the resolution,
that part, but the second part, I think, of Councilor Hock's point makes sense in that we do want to
know that those funds will be reimbursed
And so I guess we've worked before on how to track the CHIRP money, and it's difficult to know because
it's reimbursable. I mean, I get all of that. What exactly is the anticipated reimbursement? Is there
a way to know? And what are we doing about this? Might be auditor or I don't know.
we're going to ask for the $13,500 from the second quarter. We put back in and then the third quarter
was on the find it. Once we received that reimbursement, that's going to be $11,268.75. I have no idea
what the fourth quarter will be by that time. 13 and 11 for six.
Ms. Turner-King, would you like to add anything for that? Yes. So in regards to overall CHIRP management,
as a reminder, this is a grant that is managed by BPD and that is shared by Bloomington Police Department,
the Sheriff's Office, IU, and Ellisville. We have been, we have in the past just talked with the grant
manager for Bloomington Police Department on how to better put in place a management system so that
Each person who's spending a piece of that pie has an idea of how much of that pie we're getting. Bloomington
Police Department has a new grant manager handling the chirp grant right now. And so I'm going to reach
out to that individual and ask to schedule a meeting because I really feel like we're going more towards
the need for a memorandum of understanding on how this grant is managed.
Any questions or comments? Council Hoppe? It seems to me we ought to have a line that just says overtime
with chirp, keep it separate. And know that it might, that line might be overspent, but the whole budget
won't be overspent. We overspend in quite a bit if I'm wrong, because boy, I hate being wrong.
on our reimbursement grants, we have to spend first before we get it. So correct. So this is a reimbursement
grant. If we have a line item in there, then when the money comes in, we can put it in there. So I mean,
I'm just trying to make sure we're not undoing what we tried to get done before. The other side was
killing us.
Ms. Gregory, would you like to, somebody? We've been working very closely with the sheriff's department
on this grant and the general ledger and grants managers and almost constant communication back and
forth, ensuring proper management and that the funds are separated as necessary. So this is, if I'm
remembering correctly, this is corrected into the
chair grant wants we receive funding to ensure that the separation and that we're not spending money
that we have not received, if that makes sense, just because this is handled and managed a little bit
differently. All right. Thank you very much for that. Any other questions or comments on this item?
Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the
lectern here in the room. May we please have a roll call vote?
Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
Feidl? Yes. Councilor Locke? I'll say yes and I look forward to getting a report back how much we really
got insured and what we're paying out in total for. Because this is clerical over time too. Councilor
Wilts? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Next up is item F. Oh, I'm sorry, item E. Council, I move to approve
the Sheriff's Office request and fund 8103-0000 Operation Pullover to approve an additional appropriation
of $13,500 in the personnel category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. What would you
like to add to this item?
this is just the housekeeping item where we're moving the funds from where we got reimbursed for the
chirp grant. Other questions or comments on this item? All right, we'll move to public comment. Raising
hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Maybe please have a roll call vote.
Yes, Councillor Crossley.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
All right, we got a motion in a second. What would you like to add to this item? Nothing new. All right,
yes, Councilor Williams. I just want to take this moment to ask before I forget, could you reach out
and set up a time to talk with us, Councilor Hock and myself about the budget? Absolutely. Because we
haven't done that yet. That would be great. Thank you. Any other questions?
on the side. Seeing none. Um, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via team. So come forward
to the lectern here in the room and still seeing them. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Counselor
Crossley. Yes. Counselor Iverson. Yes. Counselor Fidel. Yes. Counselor Hawk. Yes. Counselor Wilkes.
Yes. Counselor Henry. Yes. Counselor Decker. Yes.
Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Next up are some items from the prosecutor's office.
Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the prosecutor's office request to be
exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor one
to two part-time clerical positions.
All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined by the prosecutor and Ms. Beth Hanlon. Welcome.
Hi. Thank you. Good evening. We have typically carried at least a couple of part-time folks in our office,
usually for some sort of overflow tasks from the legal secretary. So a lot of it is data entry. Some
of it is filing.
But it tends to be the more mundane aspects of the legal secretary's job that the legal secretaries
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
used to it. Okay.
In this particular instance, we're having trouble getting our cases closed out in our case management
system timely. Right now, we have a legal secretary who serves as our receptionist, and one of her duties
is to close out files. Unfortunately, our system won't just draw down closed case data from Odyssey,
which is the program that the judges are using. So it has to be manually entered and compared with the
judicial orders.
And the reason it's important to do this is because we rely on it for criminal history information.
But so does every other prosecutor in the state of Indiana. So it feeds into the state prosecutor case
management system. So right now, we're currently about three months behind on our case closeouts. And
we'd like to get to a position where those are taking no more than a month.
We have a particular person in mind if we're permitted to hire who used to be a part-time person in
our office, decided he wanted to fully retire, but now he wants to come back. And that would be wonderful
because he already knows how to do the work that we're trying to get here.
But he also wants to work fewer hours than he did previously, so that's why we would like to be able
to hire a second part-time person, which again will be hopefully, if we're approved, somebody who is
retired who's been involved with the system, who has some institutional knowledge, won't take a lot
of training, but again can keep us from having to request overtime or use comp time for the secretaries
to get some of this work done timely.
that explanation. I'm looking to my colleagues to see if anybody has any questions on this item. Yes,
Councillor Hawke. Yes, and you tell me why you're not waiting and putting this in your budget request
for next year instead of getting ahead of all the other departments such as others. Nobody else has
been doing today too, so not just pointing my fingers at you, but we see this every year, but we have
Select departments who come and get ahead of all the other departments to get this included in their
budget now, then it's already in there, and that's what happens. And it's not fair to the other departments.
And so is there a specific reason why you cannot wait for budget session? Yes, because these cases are
getting behind now. If we wait until the next budget session, we're waiting another six months to fill
this need.
We also have had lines for these. This isn't an additional appropriation. For this particular request,
we're just asking to fill a vacancy. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none.
I know I wanted to go there, but before we go there, we need to go to public comment. If there's public
comment on this item, you can come forward to the room here or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing
none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Peidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk?
No. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckert? Yes.
Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes majority six one. Thank you. Next up is item H.
Council I move to approve the prosecutor office request and fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor
to amend the 2026 salary ordinance account line 13029 Forensic Analysis and Technology Specialist,
Pat B, not exempt from 35 hours to 40 hours with an effective date of August 9th. All right, we got
a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item?
Great, thank you. This is for a forensic analyst slash tech specialist. And this is someone in our office
who is becoming increasingly more invaluable. The person who's in that position has been with us for
about 20 years. And the duties have changed with the introduction to our case flow of body worn camera
videos, more and more surveillance video items, cell phone,
data and other kinds of digital evidence. I have now had him working over in the Ellisville Police Department
part-time as part of the Monroe County High Tech Crime Unit to process digital evidence. And as a result,
he has been able to get cases moving in our courts here in Monroe County because phones that were taking
seven months to process
to process or being processed in under 30 days because of his work. But we have a lot of work on his
plate, and he is always close to going overtime. We're not allowed to do overtime, so sometimes we're
giving him comp time.
But we really just have enough work for him. And his work is so valuable to moving our cases forward.
I can give you a couple of examples. He was recently able to crack into a phone in a murder case that
had been pending for nine months. And his first week in the lab, he was able to crack that open and
get into it.
We had a jury trial last week he edits the videos to be in compliance with the rules of evidence so
that we can present them to a jury without violating those rules and sometimes we have.
evidence rulings that happen on the fly in the moment, and he can very quickly do that work and make
sure that it doesn't violate constitutional or evidentiary rights. So he's very valuable. The workload
is increased. He is constantly working more than
than his 35 hours, and so it is my hope that we can give him a little more time to do this really important
work for our office. I will say another aspect of his job, you know, Greg Cron and his department are
great, tech services does a lot for us, but Rob keeps his
folks out of our office for silly stuff. He's always doing our tech support both in the criminal division
and in the child support division. He also sometimes gets loaned out to the judges for that purpose
and defense attorneys. He's really good at what he does. He's very efficient. It's my hope that you
will allow me to move him to 40 hours. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
or comments on this item. Yes, Councilor Woods. I just wanted to mention that, again, I've met with
these fine folks and looked at a lot of what they've talked about and what they've included in the packet.
And I think that this
particular move makes a lot of sense in trying to be more efficient with the folks that we have and
not having to add positions. So I think I'm usually a little bit more like
is everybody in the whole department at the same 35 or 40 and thinking around those things. So I just
want to kind of explain that I think this is a good strategy, especially given the way in which they've
explained the workload for this particular position. Also, an email exchange was mentioned earlier as
being entertaining. And I have to say, if you missed out on this one, it was pretty entertaining, too.
Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we will move to public comment. Raise your
hand via Teams or you can come forward to the room or come forward to the lectern here in the room.
And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Haas. Councillor
Wilts. Yes.
Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosby? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes
majority six to one. This will need to come back for a second reading. On August 11th, but before you
go, we got one more item, which is item I.
Council I move to approve the prosecutor's office request and fund one thousand dash zero zero zero
nine county general prosecutor to amend the twenty twenty six salary ordinance account line one three
zero three three criminal investigator and account line one three zero three four criminal investigator
Civ poll D not exempt from thirty five to forty hours with an effective date of August the ninth. Second.
What would you like to add to this item. All right. Thank you.
To give you a little insight into the investigators, we have two of them in the criminal division. And
those are the two positions I'm talking about. They have a very active role in our intake process, receiving
information from law enforcement, making sure that it's matched up with cases that are pending or cases
that are in review. They do make some charging recommendations to our chief deputy, who does the majority
of our charging and screening.
The biggest backlog problem that they have with their workload are warrant requests. We receive requests
from law enforcement for arrest warrants based on probable cause that crimes have been committed, and
those get put on the back burner because nobody's in jail yet while we focus on those people who are
arrested and who need charging decisions and probable cause determinations much quicker. And so as a
result, we sometimes can get as far as three or four months behind on our warrant requests, whereas
ideally we would like to have those reviewed,
a decision made within a week at the outside. So like I said, it's just partially the workload. We're
usually focused on the arrests and the things that are coming in right now and some of that stuff gets
put on the back burner. They are responsible for doing background checks, criminal background checks for
criminal cases as well, like for defendants, but also for witnesses and victims. We have to provide
that information to defense attorneys by statute and ethical obligations.
If we are able to increase their hours, we're hopeful to have a quicker turnaround on our arrest warrants,
but also hopeful that they can help us locate missing witnesses and victims a little bit faster. Sometimes
it can take some time. People change their phone number or move, and they don't let us know. And so
sometimes we have to have our investigators dig into that. They can respond to emails quicker. We send
monthly reports to law enforcement about what cases of theirs
we've declined and what we've taken and where they're at, and so they can get onto those a little bit
faster. They're usually about two weeks late now. I would just point out from a parity perspective,
Mr. Hunt is here in the room. The public defender investigators are at 40 hours, so just from
parity sake, I think it would be nice if we could pay our investigators at 40 hours and give them a
few more hours to get some of these important tasks done. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thank you for that. Any questions or comments on this item? Yes. I was surprised by the last thing that
you said. Do you have any idea how long it's not had parity?
I don't know. I know that their support staff, I believe all of them work 40 hours, whereas the majority
of my support staff works 35 hours. All right. No other further questions or comments on this item?
We will move to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand
via Teams. And seeing none, maybe a roll call vote.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
So items J and K as you can recall were tabled to what already seems like a packed August 11th meeting and so.
We will move on to item L from the Board of Commissioners. County Council, excuse me, I move to approve
the Board of Commissioners request and fund 1000-0068 County General Commissioners to create new account
lines 30071 Community Access Television and 32115 WFHB Weather Alert and simultaneously approve additional
appropriations of $167,718 in the services category.
second okay we got a motion and a second and I see we are joined by Commissioner Madeira and Miss Angie
Purdy welcome thank you um so the part that might be missing because we asked that you table the prior
items is that the cable franchise fund um presently there I believe has a cash balance of just over
three thousand dollars started off with a an appropriation of five hundred and something
And so it's not able to sustain the accounts that are within that fund. So what this is is a request
to put the lines that we are aware of. And I do believe we can reduce the community access TV line.
Let me confirm. I was just looking at it.
I request for the Community Access TV, we need to ensure as a balance of $80,859. So that instead of
the 160 that I had initially presented, we can reduce that amount
Did you catch that number? $80,859. I'm sorry, it was. Let's see here. So yes, $80,859.
Council, I wish to amend my motion that we would approve additional appropriations of $86,859. Second.
All right, we got a motion and a second to amend that to the amount as Councilor Iverson mentioned.
Is there any other further questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes. Council President,
is this about the amendment or the item at this point? The amendment, sorry. I have no questions about
the amendment.
All right seeing none all those in favor of amendment or approving the motion as amended signified by
saying aye aye all those opposed same sign okay motion carries so now we'll come back to the original
one and council Henry did you have a question yeah thank you madam president first I want to confirm
the actual balance of the cable franchise fund you said three thousand I'm looking at a ledger today
that says something differently can we get the actual number
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.
I ran mine through the end of the year. I did not run through the end of the year, so let me do that
quickly. I'm sorry, my computer restarted in an inopportune time, so give me a second.
because I have what's current today so I think that's what was shared earlier. You're correct on the
current balance today but departments often put in anticipated expenses ahead of time like if there's
like a reoccurring invoice for example something similar so if you go out to the end of the year so
December 31 of 26 the cash balance is looking like it will be 37
Well, $3,747.51. Cash on hand today is $84,861. That's correct. OK. So just some questions that I have
as we're trying to sort this out. We had originally appropriated in the cable franchise fund about $533,000
at the beginning of the year. Presuming there was revenue coming in, do we have an understanding of
the, like,
that dropped off, can you walk me through that? Shouldn't we be getting receipts for fees from? This
has been a conversation that we've had for a number of years now actually with the cable franchise because
our revenue has been decreasing steadily over time. It's anticipated that next year our gross revenue
will be about $254,000 in that particular fund. You were not on the council at that time. We've had
numerous conversations.
about putting some things in this fund and knowing we're going to be able to sustain it or support it.
So this is why we're here now. So we had a carryover last year of 294-ish thousand. And then,
so do we have, and right now it looks like the differential is like 310,000. So do we get any, that's
what I'm asking. Do we get any receipts from any franchise fees? Because we have carryover.
We clearly budgeted based on previous years. I'm just trying to figure out where the revenue is. Do
you have any revenue on this? That's what I guess I'm asking. Yes, we have revenue. So for instance,
the AT&T quarterly franchise, we have received $4,405.80 thus far. That is as of 728 of this year. Comcast,
we have received $68,087.40.
That was receded in February. Okay. I guess where I'm going with this is that, you know, as we budgeted
last year, it was, you know, we had a four-year trend of account lines there, and we've been budgeting
training and some of these things, and they're from year in, year out. It's July. It's the third quarter
of the year. We're seeing this now. I guess at what point did you start to anticipate that we'd be down
where we are. I'm just trying to understand the tracking of finances month to month. Certainly you would
have, I thought, or one would assume there would be projections of how bad is bad until we get to this
point where there's 3,000 left in the fund. When were you tracking this? When did this get to your attention?
It came to my attention just before, I actually sent an email, I believe, to Councilors, when it came
to my attention. So I don't know, a month ago?
So we got six years into the fiscal where we were running out of funds, and we're at this point now,
six months in. I guess I'm just trying to understand the forecasting and where the appropriations have
gone. I guess I would have liked to know a little earlier. Sorry that that didn't work out for you.
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
brought it to the council. Sorry that didn't work out for me.
You have a finance person in your office, right? Every department has a finance person. Do they run
this report monthly so we can understand that? No. I don't know that they actually run these particular
reports because of the number of claims that they have to process each week. And we're also a person
down in our office. So they're dealing with not only the claims that come in, but also responding to
the public.
Here's my heartburn. So we have a cash on hand and then I guess anticipated expenses. Of the anticipated
expenses, which is like $83,000 between now and where your number is, of those anticipated expenses,
how many of those must be paid or can be canceled in order to burn this fund a little more efficiently?
I believe that these are all obligated. I can't speak for the technical services training line, but
I can tell you that the
Cat's line is certainly obligated. The WIU line is obligated. So I don't choose to not pay. Okay. Fellow
Councillors, I guess we have sort of like half a thing here today. We're being asked to
De-obligate funds from the remainder of the cable franchise fees. There's no minimum fund balance on
that fund. We could burn it to zero. We don't have to hold any back in there. We have a point in time
of how much cash is on hand. And what we have is like seven months into the year where I don't know
what the burn rate is on your account lines. My concern is that we budgeted, there's a $300,000 gap
that we're looking at. Either that was revenue that we should have
talked about last year during budget season, or should have been informed about that wasn't coming in.
I just hate to do another budget cycle this year, where we have hundreds of thousands of dollars that
are kind of gapped, and we don't really, because we budgeted for this, we appropriated for
it. The appropriations were there, we went through the appropriation process. The appropriations matched
previous calendar years, 21, 22, 25, it's the same, I mean, there's a trend line there. But this is
a big move around, and I guess,
you know, maybe this is me just getting a little into the Excel sheets this evening, but, you know,
we're more than halfway through the year to have this kind of adjustment. This should have been maybe
better. Thank you, Madam President. And I guess to that point, Council Iverson and I are the liaisons
board and we will go over this in our meeting when we go over budgets. So, Madam President,
if I may just say, I don't believe it's a liaison issue. I mean, I think that
is maybe been. No, I know. I understand. But again, it's like we can go over that. And then, you know,
when it's coming down the pike for budget, that's something that we can, you know, talk about as well.
Any other? Yes, Councillor Woods. Why were the previous two items tabled?
answer that that's because we are trying to determine whether or not we have this is a statutorily defined
fund or if it's a home rule fund if it's a home rule fund then we can the commissioners can modify the
resolution to allow for those receipts to go directly into county general which would be the intention
if we can do that we have like a message out to find out and don't know yeah
I've been working with Miss Purdy and we discussed talking with the State Board of Accounts just to
ensure, obviously, we're always very cautious to ensure we're handling the revenue appropriately. So
I just want to confirm with the SBOA that the revenue, it does not need to be in its own separate fund, which
I'm not satisfied with their response yet, so we're going to ask a few more questions before we proceed.
But it appears that we can potentially dissolve this fund, which we could then move the balance then
of the remaining funds into the general fund, for example, just so they could budget then appropriately
from the general fund if that's what everybody chooses to do. So I'm simply investigating to give us options.
and then we can proceed from there once I have all the information to share. Do you have another one?
You go. That makes sense, thank you. And my other question then is, because we're looking at just L
right now, correct, okay. We're gonna do,
an additional appropriation in county general for a hundred and oh no 80 something we changed but do
you have money extra lying around in yeah no so this is coming out of general pocket
So just got it. Okay. Thank you. Did I see your hand raised? Yes. I remember distinctly when our council
attorneys, Michael Flory, uh, pulled up the documents for this fund to make it clear that it did not
have to have be cable related or
it could be for telephone or communication. It could be for anything that the council would choose.
To spend it on so. I don't know whether that helps in any way, but there was documentation on that.
Uh and so that's when we started putting other things in there just to try and make budgets work. But
everybody knows that the revenue would be coming down.
And just for us to know, this is just another thing where we had in past counted on revenue that it
will no longer sustain what we've been putting in there over the years. So that's just more money cutting
into what our growth should be of the new revenue coming in. I mean, it's just that's just the way it
is. You move over.
The revenue over in the general, but the expenses are going to be more than the revenue you're moving
over there. It's just like it's a whole brand new expense. That's the reason why I think a lot of this
stuff about spending money should have waited for budgets. 9.90%. At this point, we don't have a better
option right now. I mean, we can be upset about it.
all that, but really, we have to pay our bills and these are obligations. So, all right, just
so I understand, thank you. Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I would just, Councilor
Rosse, I'd follow up. I mean, we have cash on hand to pay the bills. I mean, you don't have $86,000
in bills coming in the next two weeks, do you? I don't think so. We've already paid the third quarter for
for Comcat or for cats. We do owe WFHP $6,000. So I don't know when they're going to send that particular
invoice. OK, so it's not like we can't pay the bills this month. I mean, at the end of the year, we
have to have this. The urgency, if there's a feeling of urgency, I don't share it. That's what I'm saying.
I'm sorry. I didn't imply urgency. It was more of despondency, if that's a word. I'm just late.
I mean, it is what it is, is sort of where I was. I wasn't saying it was having to happen tonight, but
it's housekeeping that, you know, we kind of have to figure out. Yes, Councilor Decker. Well, on the
counter that we have to be cautious about, when you don't, when bodies and we're seeing this a lot in
our country, particularly when you don't back up,
what you have either obligated historically or appropriated, whatever the lines are filled in with,
it starts sending messages that you're cutting those things. And when I look at these two particular
community values listed on here, those are a little bit more external than not in this community.
I mean, one of them we're literally broadcast out on as we speak.
and everyone in their sister and especially the Marty Hawks of the world and Jennifer Crossley's, they
anticipate that they'll go on and they'll see those. So I always get worried that any of our discussion
here turns into rumors out there that we're changing course on how we pay bills. Internally, I think
there's some discussion here that is exceedingly valid, but beyond it, to go to the point
Versing on either of those lines is a massive policy change that's not been in this community for at
least since my birth. Got to watch stuff like that. It's a very large conversation. Yeah, that's a big,
big, large thing. Maybe that we should have had over the years about cable, but no one will care because
they will still expect
those items to be on that budget. And the same for our counterparts across the way at Morton Street.
Council for that discussion. I'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item,
you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may
we please have a roll call vote.
So just so everyone is clear, account line 30071 was reduced to $86,859. No, it was $80,859. Okay. Correct.
Thank you. That's what I needed to know.
So then one eight fifty nine eighty thousand eight fifty nine six thousand four. OK. So yes. So then
that brings your new total to eighty six thousand eight fifty nine for this additional appropriation.
Yeah. Sometimes I get my math wrong. So I appreciate you double checking. Yeah. I just want to make
sure we were on the same page.
because that's not what I talked, so thank you for that. Okay, Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley.
Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hogg. Yes. Councilor Wilk. No. Councilor
Henry. No. Motion passes majority 6-1.
Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, next up is item M from TSD. Council, I move to approve the
technical service department's request and fund 1000-0106 County General TSD to create new account lines
3002A training travel
and 35003 reprographics and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $46,000 in the services
category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And we have our TSD director, Mr. Cohn here.
Good evening, everyone. This is carryover again from the cable franchise. These were items that weren't
previously in cable franchise that got moved in during the last budget. So I'm running in the same situation
as just described by Ms. Purdy.
We're not asking for any additional monies more than we'd already budgeted for and had that remaining
balance left. For the reaper graphics, those expenses cover our monthly black and white copier costs,
service agreements, and all that comes out of that reaper graphics line for the entire county. The training
and travel, we cover our GMS subscription with that, our MS-ISOT subscription with that. We do advanced training.
Since we've been changing infrastructure at the county and a lot of radically different than what we
had before there's some knowledge gaps So we've been using utilizing those funds to plug those knowledge
gaps so we don't have to keep leveraging professional services as a constant move so That also anytime
I go I'm typically the one in my office who has to travel to conference That does cover my travel expenses
for going to conferences as things It's very rare that I spend the evening at a conference. So that's been a
a one-time-a-year charge where I have to go up for a two-day conference for the state where I'm typically
a speaker, so. Thank you very much for that. Counselor? Yes. Do you plan when you're putting your budget
together to bring to us, and before we get turned around, do you plan on putting these expenses over
into QMCAP with your other expenses that you have there, or where do you plan to put these expenses
for the next budget year?
Well, it was my understanding that would continue to be in county general, but that's a conversation
I'd have to have with Ms. Purdy and get direction on that, how they want me to go with that. It was
my understanding county generals where these funds came from initially before I got moved to cable franchise.
That's why they were going back there. So. Well, since the man is not going to be coming in and future
the same, right? We need to figure out if I need to look for other locations. That's right. Yes. And
what you know,
you've been around long enough to know that we do all we can to try to protect County General so that
we can pay our employees. And so I'm suggesting you take a look to see if there's room there in the
QMCAP budget where you have a separate budget in QMCAP for that. Council Henry. Thank you. Thanks for
the presentation. So I want to start off by saying since we haven't
We haven't dealt with the current cable franchise fee, which was tabled, and we just now moved money
out or created account lines for the Community Access and WFHB. Those resources are in cable franchise,
right? Half of things. Maybe got checked. The auditor, is that reasonable? Okay. Right now, that money's
sitting in one fund. We haven't closed that fund out and moved it, right?
And we just took off the books, 80,000 that is not going to be covered in the general fund. So I'm not
positive of the question if you could repeat it, but we know that today's balance of the cable franchise
fund was 80-some thousand. But if you put that to the end of the year, then there were, I don't know,
I think 3,500 or something remaining, 3,700. And we just voted to approve account lines and the probes.
for things that were covered by cable franchise. So there's more in that account right now. I just want
to maybe clarify this. I'm looking at our budget from last cycle and on the training and travel line
and the reprographics lines, we had expenditures going back to 2021 in here. So when you say like it
wasn't, do you mean like last year you felt that we moved it in? I didn't take over.
I didn't come into this position until 22, so I only know from there going forward where things were
budgeted. That's fine, Greg. I just want to make sure, because we've been using that fund for some years
to do this work. I mean, at least back to 2021 on our expenditures in there for those two account lines.
So like that, it's not a recent thing. It's been like five years of that. You've expensed $354 in training
and travel up to this point.
Correct. Yes, that's correct. We have five months left. I mean, are you going to spend $11,000 in travel
between now and the end of the year? No. Where that's actually going is for certification courses that
we've already signed up for that we paid last year. They're not due again until this September. So that's
what our next payments do on that. That's $8,000 for certification courses coming up. This isn't really
a question for you, but we committed to those purchases while out of a fund that we knew was running hot.
I would go back to the board commissioners managing this account. Hey, I guess when you're ready to
put your phone down, we could probably ask a question again. So did we do we? Hey, I'm just gonna say
let's let's let's like, I don't know if she was paying attention to you calling her out. I will say
that less.
President, I apologize for the outburst, but it's been a hot evening with that particular table. It
really has. So let's take the temperature down. Let me ask it again. So we've committed to costs for
training, which is great. But when did we invoice those, or have those been paid out yet? Those haven't
been paid out. I won't be invoiced on those till September. And we did that knowing this account was
running hot anyway, that we were going ahead and spending down on an account line for training and travel while
Not sure about the revenue. I brought this to you guys as soon as I knew. The best I can do. All right.
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
that we just move stuff around. No there's not. Ma'am there is. We just please listen to your auditor.
Respectfully, we just approved by this one vote $80,000 on account the salad coming out of general fund.
It's not being expensed in the cable. So we can math it. Yes, we can. Please listen to your auditor.
Mr. Green. Yes, there is a payment scheduled to go out on August 6th in the amount of $80,859. So that's
in our claims process right now.
We're juggling on a few different sheets here tonight. I just want to make sure, again, in this particular
account that's just tricky for your office, we have funds that we're pulling from cable service or cable
fees, a cumulative cap, general fund. It's a unique office, how we fund you. And maybe the longer term
conversation is getting this all to one fund like the other, like a lot of our other
I mean, I know there's a long history of how we fund technology and account, but this is a lot to juggle.
My concern, going back to the training and travel line, is yeah, if we have anticipated appropriations,
we had an account that we thought we had resource for removing stuff around, a bit of a challenge. That's
all I got. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions on this? All right.
Seeing none, I'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or come
to the microphone here in the room. Sorry. I went off. Okay. And that being said, since says don't see
any, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Fiddle. Yes.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I'll give us a little more than that. $755,000, that would be excellent. Thank you. I guess you all
good upstairs? All right. Okay. And we're back. And for the record, we are down to six councilors because
Councillor Hawke has left the building. So that being said, we just got finished with item M, and we
will move into item N, still with TSD.
Council I move to approve the technical service department's request and fund 1170-0106 lit public safety
TSD to create account line 30072 telephone maintenance and simultaneously approve additional appropriations
of $50,000 in the services category and $75,135.26 in the capital category for a total appropriation
of $125,135.26.
All right, we got a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item? All right,
thank you. So this item is actually two parts. The telephone maintenance is part of what got moved into
cable franchise. That is your law enforcement phone systems, their cell phones, their cradle points
that give communications in the car. That's what that line pays for there. The second part of this,
we're running into an issue, acts on body cameras and acts on evidence.
is what our Sheriff's Department and our jail or prosecutor everybody uses. That's the gold standard
for these body cams, the evidence storage, the interrogation rooms. Axon has changed their product,
and I've brought Eric Oliphant with me and Michael Hunt to speak a little bit more on what the conversation
they've had with Axon, but unfortunately, what was offered to prosecutors before that package is now
gone, so we're getting into a different evidence package.
Unfortunately, with the way the evidence works now, you can't just take the evidence, say it's photo
evidence, you can't just take the photo evidence off the phone. They're forced to capture the entire
cell phone, which a lot of these new iPhones are a terabyte. So this is adding up very quick. And I've
actually been speaking with other departments around the state trying to see what kind of solutions
they've come up with. And they're all kind of scrambled and doing the same thing we are trying to figure
out as they go.
On that part, I would like to ask Erica to come up and speak a little bit about the conversation she's
had on with Axon, what their situation was in the past and what their current offering is now. Yeah,
so body cameras were adopted by our local law enforcement agencies with only minimal consultation with
me. So they chose the companies that they wanted to use.
The good news about that is that the vast majority of the law enforcement agencies that we work with do use
the same product. So that's convenient because then we can kind of receive it in the same way. We had
in the past, early in the adoption by the sheriff's office, well originally we were downloading everybody
camera from the sheriff's office. They were sending us a download link. We were downloading it to our
network. It was taking up a ton of space and it was also taking hours of staff time to do these downloads.
If something happened and we lost network, we would also have to restart our download process. So it
was very frustrating. A few years ago, we were able to get a free program as an extension of what the
Sheriff's Office had. And through that, we were able to access the body camera videos through that program
without downloading. So it's a web-based program.
And we could just access everything that law enforcement had uploaded. We could access it for free.
The public defenders, we had helped them work with Greg to get a version of it that wasn't free. It
was a paid subscription so that instead of us having to download it for them to provide it to them,
because legally we have to provide it all to them, or for them to get download links from us and have
to download it and put it on our network, again,
Greg would have to store it, we got them access so that we could just share it through that program,
and they could access it in this web-based program as well. Well, you might well imagine our free contract
and his paid contract expired. We heard from Axon, and they said it's no longer going to function this
way for free. They want us to download everything that
So law enforcement's version, they are allowed to use it for all of their digital evidence. So surveillance
videos, cell phones, anything from a citizen that they get, they are allowed to upload it into Axon
at no additional cost. We can, right now, access that through our portal. But what they're saying is
we are out of compliance. We have to download everything that's not Axon generated
and store it somewhere else. And that would be the same for the public defenders with the access that
we have. So they are offering a product called Axon Justice. And this Axon Justice gives us unlimited
cloud storage. And we're allowed to have all of those non-Axon generated things. So it's convenient.
It saves a lot of time.
it saves network space as well. One thing that the new product does include that we didn't have before
is it will generate transcripts of the videos. Now, we have to check those transcripts for accuracy
if we're ever going to use them in a courtroom, but they can definitely help us save some staff time,
help us identify where critical interviews of suspects or victims or other things happen in those body
cameras so that we can
get to the chase a little bit quicker than we already can. My hope is that that feature plus some of
the video editing features will save us some staff time. For our person, our tech specialist that you've
just increased to 40 hours, maybe we can get him on some different projects if we can save a little
time with the Saxon justice. And of course, because I'm asking for it,
This is saving Greg the trouble of having to constantly be keeping up with server space and trying to
figure out how to share things from my office to Mr. Hunt's office. I want to make sure that Mr. Hunt's
office has the same access that we have so that there's no question about quality or whether we have
an advantage that they don't have in this particular area. So I recognize that this package isn't
cheap. If you look at the long-term cost, it is a 10-year agreement. Now, that being said, we do have
an out on that. If we can't budget, they will allow us out of the product. I have looked at local solutions
where we do onsite storage here based on the amount of data that the prosecutor and the public defenders
have. For about $45,000, I could do one instance for one department here. That only covers
the working copy. Then you've still got to make a backup copy. And so that's another 40. So when you
start looking at it that way, and the fact that that's not a long-term solution, once they outgrow that
storage, we have no scalability there. You're going to have to grow again. Whereas with the Axon
offering. That is unlimited storage. So that does take care of us into the next 10 years. They back
that up. The security is on them. None of it gets placed on the hands of the county. So when you look
at the long-term cost, the big picture of it, it is a cost savings to the county. Mr. Hunt, do you have
anything you would like to say, sir?
I would just say whatever they have or most of whatever they have, if we have a case, they have to give
to us. And this, if you use the same program, it certainly helps everybody. I've talked with other chief
public defenders and they're all kind of fighting this storage problem and how do you get it. And there
are new companies springing up everywhere
transcribe and translate and all kinds, but they're expensive. So this is a growing field, and I think
if we get in it together, it makes it much simpler for everyone. Yeah, one last thing I'll just say
about my conversations with Axon is that they anticipate a 12% price increase next year.
But if we start this year, we're guaranteed to have no more than a 4% increase each year for research
and development so that they can keep making things to charge us lots of money for. I think body cameras
are a really good thing in many ways. They provide good evidence. They provide accountability and training
opportunities for law enforcement officers. I don't think any of us, when we first started rolling them
out, understood
what kind of cost it was going to be and what kind of impact it was going to have on our human resources.
And it's huge. So I don't love feeding a big corporation to do what we do because we're doing it for
the public. But unfortunately, that's just where we're at with all of our law enforcement agencies using
the same Axon company. I do think it should be noted that
Axon, we are out of contract with Axon. They've extended the storage. They're letting it go under the
pretense that we're having this discussion now to figure out if we're moving forward. If we choose not
to fund this this year, we will have to get the prosecutor's evidence out of there. There was over 11
terabyte. So then we're going to have to make, and that was just theirs, and I haven't even gotten into
the public defenders yet. So we will have to come up with an immediate solution if we don't move forward
with this during this year.
Thank you. Councillor Iverson and then I'll go Councillor Henry. I have two questions. Number one,
you know, the sheriff's department is not here tonight sitting with us reviewing this. So is their body
cam footage taking up additional space? No, sir. They're on a completely separate contract on a separate
program. We've made a very substantial investment in acts on this year with renewed contracts and added
body cams to the tune of about a little over two million dollars.
worth of investment for the Sheriff's Department in the jail, but their storage array, they're on a
completely separate contract, and they're not affected by the PDs or the prosecutor's counsel. My second
question is, in the list of the software bundles, there's something called Community Link. What is that?
Do you know? I do.
If we have a citizen, a victim, a witness, somebody who says, hey, I recorded that on my cell phone,
for example, community link, you send them a link and they can upload whatever video or item that they
have to share with us. So it's extremely helpful tool. Law enforcement uses it all the time. With our
current free access, we do not have access to that. We have to find a different way to do it typically,
but this will allow us to do that.
process as well. Okay. Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the presentation.
This isn't really directed at this particular item tonight, but it is in thinking ahead to budget season
as we have to do with this season of year. We have been, I think, a frog in a pot that's been slowly
boiling when it comes to technology, right? The idea that every year we know there's costs
But understanding that how big of the county budget or slice of the pie is going to have to keep going
to funding this kind of stuff, you know, these subscription-based off-site storage of things. You know,
clearly there's a huge amount of that in the law enforcement space because of evidence and what you
need to maintain. But we keep seeing this, you know, and I mean, it's in everything we touch. And,
you know, what, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago would have just been, you know,
I mean, you would have bought giant computers and stuck them in a building. Like, this is becoming that
same utility that road repair is, that snow removal is, like, core function. I worry that more and more
of our pie or the budget is going to be eaten up by these kinds of costs that we can't control. Like,
you're bringing us another increase, another increase we can have. Instead of the technology getting
cheaper, you know, it seems to be getting subscription-based and more expensive for us in ways that
I'm just saying tonight that getting better projections, understanding how much more of our budget's
gonna be going to the stuff in the future is a critical challenge against things like, you know, COLA
and raises and step increases and everything else we have to contend with up here. It's just a huge,
it's becoming huge. I would like to say between the staff in my office and working with all the departments
when it comes to IT, we've worked diligently over the last four years to make deals, to cut excess out,
First year in, we cut over almost $200,000 out of our phone spending line. So we keep making these gains.
They keep getting made up elsewhere. But I and all the other departments are working very diligently
to find solutions that don't break the bank. But unfortunately, yes, IT costs are driving up.
It's on and out. It's a core function of government, right? Yeah. Anyway, that's my speech.
Yeah, I brought this to Greg when it came to my attention because I was hoping that he could come up
with a solution that would be as cost effective as possible. Councilor Wilks. Just so I'm understanding
math, are you ordering double what the quote is
No. So what there is in your packet is two quotes. There's one packet for the prosecutor, one packet
for the PDs. The quote totals are the same. So I'm asking for year one for both departments. So that's
where that number comes from. Got it. Thank you. Are there questions or comments on this item? All right.
Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your
hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room.
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Cross? Yes. You caught me. Yes.
Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. That was boring. Thank you all.
up is enough items, none, which are presentations and discussions, and we will start with the 2026 bond
projects. So yeah, that's me. Um, so I'm going to ask Miss Purdy to come up again. She's joined
by Commissioner Madeira to give us, um, the presentation that we always look forward to hearing before
our budget. Give us some food for thought.
Okay, now this is not the one that comes with the pretty pictures and all of that. This is just to give
you, this is the basic list of projects that have been submitted. Hopefully you had a chance to look
at this early and you can kind of play around with it to see how much you're wanting to actually bond
for. We did, I did provide it in a ranked order based on the commissioner's priority.
And I think that the conversation here would be for you to ask questions. And the representatives from
the different departments, I believe, are online so that they can answer questions if you have those
about their particular projects and or purchases that they're asking as part of the bond. And I think
that that's
Kind of in a nutshell, gives you a starting place. I think I also said in the email that I sent out
that there are two items that are carried over. One is the 440,000, which is interesting. It was just
referenced in the prior item you had before you. That's the Taser body cam in car camera situation.
That's actually a five-year contract that we have, and they're allowing us to pay for those products
over five years, as opposed to the upfront
I think it was like 2.1. And then the other is the SIREN project that the emergency management has.
So that's been something that we've been, you guys have been supporting over the years. So I guess I
will leave it at that. And I know that Richard and Kelly and I think Jamie's online and I suspect that
the sheriff has somebody online if he has questions.
and I'll open it up to council to see if anybody has questions. Councilor Wilks. First, thank you for
pulling this together and bringing it to us early. We appreciate that. Giving us a chance to kind of
check it out. And I'm gonna start with hopefully just like a little easy lob. Workhouse dome repair. Oh yeah.
First of all, the estimate that I think I found in the packet said, it looked like it totaled 180, but
the budget is asking, or the budget, the proposed little spreadsheet here says 200,000. I also noticed
that they said something along the lines of, don't worry, we'll just renegotiate costs if it gets more
expensive. And that, to me, seems kind of. Very concerning. Yeah, unfortunate.
What is it? What's going on with us? So that proposal was to help build some budget numbers. I mean,
I've since reached out to a group that we use for building envelope projects to help me manage that.
But what's your question? Well, A, how much do you think it's going to cost? Because there was some
difference
And you're telling me this isn't the actual quote. Well, the estimate came in at 180. I have learned
that I don't know the percentage number. I'm sure there's one out there, but we need to budget more.
And then there's also going to be the expense of the professional services that will need to be included.
I don't know that yet.
This is the best number I have right now. It's mostly cleaning the limestone, right? No. We have issues
with the copper dome. Some of the soldering joints have become disconnected. Leaking. It's leaking,
yeah. Yes. We've had lots of water. All right. That's good to hear about.
Was that what the caulking part was? Because the estimate was really just underneath the dome, right?
No. So you had the company, they actually did a drone assessment of the, they took a drone and took
it around the dome to see the damage and that's what's supposed to be in that
picture is highlighting the area, I think, of where there's problems. And then going back to just to,
these are just, these are always estimates. Nobody's gonna give us a hard cost at this point in time,
especially in this particular market. I found it very interesting. Okay. I think for me,
getting someone here to give me an idea of what it's going to cost because I see certain numbers and
then I immediately go, okay, that has to go out. It meets a certain threshold I've got to bring in.
It's different now. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Iverson. I've got a couple of questions. One, I'm going
to, this is in the sheriff's lines, the three jail
items, the showers, the cameras, the plumbing parts. That's $800,000 in a building that we don't have
open right now. What's the thought process? This is tough, because there's been an argument saying,
well, the building won't be around for that much longer. Maybe. Who knows? But at the same time, there's
people living and working there.
I believe, and I don't know if the sheriff or Phil or Kyle is online, but I will tell you the showers,
they are a nightmare at the moment for the sheriff and for maintenance in there. There's problems with
the sealants, and so they have issues with water getting behind them, adds to the mold issues within
that particular building. It is horrible to be asking, I think, to put funds into
a building that's dying. However, as you said, there's people who are still in there. They're still
trying to work. The cameras is to help staff be
the inmates and respond appropriately. I think they can do a much better job of explaining it than I
can. The plumbing parts and fixtures, honestly, I think if you wanted to eliminate that, I think that
we can handle it in our cumulative capital fund. If we're starting to get to nitty gritties, I do think
that that is something that we could manage. I'm not a plumber. I don't pretend to be one. Is there
a way to plumb this so that
the situation we're experiencing now doesn't happen again? Oh, this current situation with the? Yeah.
No. OK. The current situation was entirely intentional by inmates. And when somebody is purposely breaking
a system, it doesn't matter what kind of maintenance you have. This is just the result of bad actions.
bad actions and a bad design. This building, and I know Richard can talk about it, if you ever talk
to David, he will be talking about you, about how wonderful the new facilities are, because everything's
on the backside. They don't have to get into the areas with the people, and it's easily accessible,
and the new systems have, they have the ability to stop items
from going into the actual sewer line. And then there's a hook that staff can use to pull out the debris.
So it never becomes a problem anywhere else. What does, my understanding does happen is if that kind
of action is taken by the inmates, any kind of reverse flow is actually gonna be into the cell as opposed
to out into
And we saw some of those systems when we were touring different facilities. Yes. Yeah. OK. Well,
thank you. You've answered my questions. Other questions? Do you have another one? I've got more if
people don't want to ask them. The drones and cameras in the commissioner's budget, I didn't see the
quote for that. I could have missed it. But can you explain more about that, particularly given that
flock is such a contentious thing in the community?
What's going on here? Okay, I don't, there is no quotes for that particular cost. It was just, I actually
asked our director, our TSD director to give me a general idea because we didn't have time to get the
information and time for to get it out to you guys because we had met with some other people who talked
about this. But the purpose of the drones is
property maintenance, property security. I know that maintenance is anxious to also use them for assessing
our rooftops, the building envelopes at the top of our buildings. I think highway also, we'd like to
be able to use one. So these are something that will allow us to ensure
the safety and security of our buildings and our properties. Okay, wonderful. And, yeah, and whenever
you get those quotes, it would be interesting to see the breakdown between the stable cameras and then
the cameras that comply. Yeah. Yeah. I got a quick question. A couple of questions. One, I see the prosecutor
renovation ads in here. Is that because of all the issues that the prosecutor's office has had?
is because of their base looks like it hasn't been updated since the building was opened. And I know
that, so we thought we were moving forward on a new facility and all of that. Everything happens and
so we're here. And so a few years back, we talked about doing some renovations for them.
because of our stalemate we're kind of at. And it's like, I was over there meeting with them and it's
just like, you know, they're professionals and their space looks terrible. They're crammed and they,
you know, they really never complain. I mean, they do let us know about things and you know, and are
vocal about
things when they're not right, but they are extremely patient. And I do understand that, again, we're
talking about a facility that we don't know where we're going with it. It would be nice that if we had
new furniture and everything put into that place, that it would be something that could be moved to
a new facility.
new space. That's not going to be the case for carpeting and things of that nature. And then I want
to go back to the cameras for the jail. Obviously, we can't put those into a new facility because they
need to be in this one. But my understanding is that they could certainly be used as replacement,
you know, so if there's problems with one. So it's a cost, but at the same time, you've kind of got
a nice supply on hand for problems. Okay.
Can I say something about the prosecutor's office too? That's one of the few behind the scenes spaces
where victims go. And that represents the justice center. So we want a space where it's comfortable
for victims as well. And right now, that space is not comfortable for victims for various reasons. OK,
thank you. The other question, like I remember,
like last year during budget season, I know we have the ongoing issues with the building in relation
to like mold remediation and things like that. And so help me to remember, I know, I think it was something
I had brought up before, like the mother of all problems, which is the HVAC system. Is, did we talk,
is that in like QMCAB or is that,
In last year's bonds or is that something that we can put into? like this because I guess Because for
the time being And I know last year I'd said this like during our meeting that we had with staff and
whatnot in the building I think the biggest thing that I just remember and working and housing is
We had a really big issue with something. We had to gut everything out. And the remediation specialist
said, you can do all of that. You can fumigate. But if you're not taking care of the HVAC system, it's
just going to continue to be a problem. So I guess until the time being, because I think I've seen the
emails that have, before all of this has gone down, is there a plan potentially for an HVAC system?
And if not, how can we?
make that happen? Quick and dirty answer is there isn't a plan at the moment for a new HVAC system.
What we do want to do, and I guess what I need to, and Rich will be better explaining than myself, but
we have put in new controls, which was one of the largest problems.
We've also done work on the piping to wrap it. So because there was condensation that was occurring
and then that was causing, you know, a drip, you get mold. So there's been a lot of activity with the
current system and additions and modifications made to the current system to make it more comfortable
for people and to be
in not causing harm. So, okay, so we have vet come in every month and right now, the last time I spoke
with Sarah, it was been a couple of weeks ago, I think, because we also have brought the State Department
of Health in to do a test of the building so that we can have a completely outside opinion of the air
quality of that building.
I don't expect that this week, maybe next week, I think is what they had said, from IDOH. And then that's,
you know, they're, we're still finding things, right? But at the same time, the overall assessment of
the building is it's 95 to 99% better than it is outside. So there's been a,
significant improvement in the air quality in that building. Now going back to the concern, which is
legitimate, we are going to look at, this also kind of ties into you have any money to cover whatever,
we need to get a contract, we'd like to get a contract with RQAW, who is an outside architectural firm
in engineering, to look at the building and tell us
want you know a couple a million things so the things first come off my mind is you know do we need
at this point in time with the idea that we are going to be hopefully having another building do we
need a brand new system at this point if we do need a system can we put it in while everybody's still
in there and then if we can't how do you know how would it go in what and then
anticipated costs, right? The fact that this is a 24-7, 365 day a year building poses problems for that
kind of renovation, if you will. But the plan would be to bring the IDOH's response and assessment of
the building to you guys. Talk with Sarah again.
We're still continuing with on the control project, which I'm told is making significant differences
in the building. I just will say that people are so, they've lost all hope, I think. They don't know
how long they're gonna be in this building. Before they were willing to hang in there, I think, and
then now there is just this perception of we're stuck here and it's,
It's not a pleasant place. Did that help? It did. It did. And that's what, like, for that particular
reason is why I'm trying to figure out, like, if, you know, that's still an ongoing issue, how can we
take care of that while we are in transition of a lot of different things related to the future of the
Justice Center project? So, yes, Councillor Henry. I want to pick up on where you're going with this because,
Why RQAW, who's already done an assessment? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to a different firm that
has fresh eyes on that building than one that's done one in the past? Well, we thought of RQAW because
they did do an assessment on the jail, whether it was constitutional or not. But they're not involved.
They're not DLZ, right?
It could be considered as having a biased opinion on that particular building. Not saying that they
would, but the perception would certainly be there. So our QAW has no dog in the fight, if you will.
And so they are familiar with buildings and they're familiar with jails. And so it was our thought that
they could provide us with an engineer's aspect of the needs of that
HVAC system for that building. It kind of gets at using a vet to continue to assess as well. I mean,
I guess what I'm asking is, if we have the same firms making assessments of the building and what, it's
kind of like bringing IDOH in to do an independent assessment of air quality. I would almost want, or
I would hope to hear that we'd bring in some fresh eyes on the building that haven't been in that space
before, maybe have different ideas. I think Councilor Crossley just
in the picture, for example, how to maintain HVAC, you know, either wiping the outside or cleaning the
inside. I mean, there's very different views on how to go about that. I would just, it sounds to me
that, you know, when we, you know, this is the second summer at least of, you know, similar issues.
You know, we had the temperature spikes in the building. I mean, I don't, I have had different experiences
shared with me by employees in that building that have not indicated things are better, you know, concerns
about, you know,
everything from whether or not house plans are causing this problem still in that assessment. I guess
where I'm going is when you were out there seeking from the administration position a vendor to do work
in a space like that, are these being put out for RFPs that are competitively judged or are you just
sole sourcing these based on a vendor list you used? We're actually able to just choose because of the
kind of service that it is. You don't have to bid it out.
But we've not done anything yet as the administrator. I've not Requested anybody look at anything. We
don't have any kind of contract in place if you have another and Company that you would like for us
to look at please share that with us I wouldn't I wouldn't even offer that to say that I'd much rather
see what an RFP That there's no need for that why would that be I
Well, it's time consuming and it's not getting us anywhere where we need to be. And if we want to know
the feasibility and the justifiability of putting in a new HVAC system, we just need someone
who's professional. And we have that ability with architectural services. They do not have to be bid
at or RFP'd.
I think also there might be security concerns as well. There's three firms that do this kind of work
in Indiana, Elevatus, RQAW, and DLZ. And if DLZ is already on the county horizon, then that leaves two.
And so that is not a tremendous wealth of choices. So I think given that option, you know,
our choices are already limited. And I think that my understanding is based on conversations with the
sheriff. So I think that is someone else I'd like to have in the room if we are going to talk about,
you know, looking at other firms for this project. Thank you. My question is also about the sheriff category.
on your sheet, and it says a Pharaoh crime scene light. But when I looked that up, it's not a light.
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
on there. Okay. Is there anybody from the sheriff's?
Well, that would definitely outreach out, I guess, because the description when they look at just a
light, it was doing a lot more than just light, which is...
Probably expected for $71,000. This might be one of those crime scene scanners where you put it down
and it gives the 360. But I don't, when you say one of those, I've never heard of that. But yes, that
is the description I was reading. Yeah. They've been in existence for about, I think, seven to 10 years
by now. But yes, they're very handy. Cool. What do they do?
They scan a crime scene, and they establish the relative distances of all of the items on the crime
scene to everything else. And so in addition, so if you take a photograph of a crime scene, you have
no idea how far anything is from anything else. And so this basically gives you a 360 of the crime scene,
and you can take it into court and use it as evidence. And so it's pretty neat. But it is very sophisticated.
But yes, it is considerably more than a lake. They're also helpful for accident reconstruction. Yes.
Yes. OK. I'll go. Deckard and then I'll go. That's great. Thank you very much. I had just several like
comments here. Let me pull it back up. I lost number one. Just an overall comment is that
One thing I appreciate about the list is in all the bonds I've looked at and bond lists I've looked
at, I think this is the one that I have seen that has had the most investment, proposed investment around
two areas that we don't always see. Number one, the Justice Building. Number two, parks. And I'm always
happy to see Kelly Whitmer in any room. But it's good to see those two focuses.
And I think there's a lot of attention on one more than the other, but the other in a positive way.
One question I just have generally, the Graymark jail area, would this help prevent, I want to say ask
this for the public, would this help prevent what happened this last week? No. What more could we add
to do that?
My understanding is we can't, but we should get somebody, get a professional opinion outside of ours.
But I was advised that the design of this particular facility because the pipes and everything are between
ceilings and floors as opposed to going on the outside of a jail cell, we're not able to get the
grinders and treble hook in? I don't know if... Yeah. The current design won't allow for that. As far
as we've gotten right now is trying to use electronics to determine if we have an issue like a flow
switch of sort, hey, this is going the wrong way, sets out an alert, and then you can get the water
shut off faster.
and avoid it maybe spreading farther. But as far as installing anything into the waste lines to prevent
debris from collecting, that debris will gather somewhere. It will empty out into the cell. And that
cell is above court services, the judges' chambers, the courts. It's going to empty out in there. And
I don't know a way around that.
The wives tell or whatever tell I hear is that it was some cigarette wrappers that went into the wrong
place. I actually have a picture of it. But it was actually like a bread sack or a commissary's bag
that was full of e-cigarettes. So there's the lithium batteries. And I've been advised that no grinder
would actually grind up those, even if we had a grinder. But the new sales have a way to stop it, just
before it even happened to be ground. That was present. There was clothing, I believe. You got anything
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
about the current jail, but it always makes me think about some of the tours we
we took at the new places and the fantastic things, my favorite part was actually walking behind the
pods and seeing all the current technology and just simple things to permit this from happening. And
if a cell did flood, there's now trough drains installed in the front and you can, it's just.
I get there. Well, the reason I ask is I just,
Like I was listening to the judge. I've listened to all the county employees that have given me all
sorts of takes on this and they're going through a lot as you know, everybody is. But the thing that
occurs to me is somebody with a bad and I'm planting something that I'm not creating here. This is probably
already somebody with a bad week ahead just obstructs justice for an entire county and
We just sat here and I've used this phrase in about seven meetings this week. We sat here as usual as
the pitiful giant. Oh, there's nothing we can do about this or whatever. A bag of e-cigs or whatever
that is, I don't smoke e-cigs, but whatever that looks like has to be seen at some point. I'm just wondering
if there's not a multiple way to get at it. But overall, when we're looking at both sheriff and the
jail and the prosecutor area, and I've had a lot of calls about that,
I sometimes wonder if the aggressiveness in the bond doesn't need to be even more. What I would say
is I'm not doing your job, you all are doing that out there with others, but if we need to be doing
more aggressive things in that building than not, and I think I even said this last year after Councilor
Crosley was done, and maybe even on HVAC things,
I don't know. I might put it there. I've gone in and watched the streams of water and the effort to
not have it, but anything that could help with that around that building. The other thing I just wanted
to say is, looking at the rest of this here, siren replacement, how many do you think that gets us to
replace? Do you know that by chance? I believe it's seven. Seven? Mm-hmm. Okay.
continues. I think we did seven last year, right? I think it's been seven each year since 25. Yeah,
that one always preys on my mind a little bit because that either works when it needs to or not. And
then we're all out there cleaning up afterwards. But people are living out there trying to figure it
out. So I'm gonna stop. I've said to enough. But if there's anything down the road that we
Need to be more aggressive on this. I think a Pharaoh crime scene lie is tremendous. I remember when
Sheriff Swain was in office, it was a garage he wanted that we're going to do some detective work in.
But we are having real hand to mouth kind of putting the bread down the throat kind of moments. And
if we need to be more aggressive in that area with some of this, I wouldn't I wouldn't be offended.
I'll go Councilor Iverson, and then back to Wilkes. I want to talk about fleet vehicles. And I was really
excited when I opened up that bid to see that the EVs were cheaper than the gas ones. Now, I have gotten
in trouble before for trying to push EVs too fast and too hard in this county. So I just want to ask,
the EVs are cheaper. Is that desirable in these departments?
Yes and no. I think some folks are a little more excited about them than others. OK. I mean, these are
great prices. They are. And I think that it's working with the departments to try to target specific
tasks where that vehicle makes sense. I understand that. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Great. Thanks for including
that. That made my day. Good.
I was going to change the subject a little bit. I was going to follow up on the EV. EV and then I'll
go back to Councilor Henry. I was thinking about the plug-in to charge them. Do you have enough of those
units to accommodate the new EV purchases? Yeah, we could. But as part of our solar expansion, we're
also installing chargers
at several locations, a couple locations. We were going to install them at several locations, but learned
otherwise that we can only put them in a couple. We're going to do some at the Youth Services Bureau
Showers building. They'll be able to charge them once they get them and then it'd be ready for the next
day. I mean, that's the key. Yes. Oh, yes. I mean, I imagine community corrections. You have the Johnson
hardware lower lot, maybe a pair of EV or, you know,
a pair of EV chargers or a single one that has dual charging capability. Two fleet vehicles park there
overnight, ready to go the next day. They're gonna jump in and do probably their around town things.
Nothing out of county, you know. I think they'll plug them back in every time they come back. Yeah.
Yeah, gotcha. Thank you. Councilor Henry? Thank you. Is Ms. Nibel still on? I think.
I saw her on there. Jamie had shared with me some additional detail about the sirens. Jamie, did you
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
raised. So we can promote her so she could
Hello. So we can hear you. Great. Yeah, so we are actually working through phase 3 this week and we
should have all 7 finished this week and hopefully ready to go and screaming by our August 7th monthly
test. For phase 3. And so yeah, we'll be moving into phase 4. There are
Let me see, I got my list in front of me. Yeah, we have several on this list that are well. All of these
are currently working. There are some of them that are a little inconsistent, so we're trying to nail
down the inconsistencies. Been trying to work with the vendor to remedy those, but it's I I don't know.
I been here four years and trying to troubleshoot for four years and they are just
different animal. Every time they are inconsistent and don't sound I send the vendor and the next time
we spot check them and they do sound I can't explain it so we've just put them on the list for replacement.
I don't have actual quotes because I've been kind of working, trying to work through the vendor to get
the quotes in hand before I send those off, so. Thank you, Jamie. I just want to make sure the body
understood the context behind the grid there in terms of the quality and challenges we have keeping
those up. All right, Councilor Wilks, it's your turn.
list puts us at a $6 million bond. And there's been discussion around what, you know, are we changing
how we do bonding? And I guess I was looking for some discussion around what we thought we were aiming for.
So I did the math. We are forty three thousand nine hundred dollars away from the max. So we're we're
right up on it. Yeah. And so I think but you're asking more of a philosophical question about just because
we can, should we? He knows me. Do you have an answer? Never have. So I think Councilmember Deckard
got us part of the way there.
that when we are to use his term, bread to mouth, that maybe we should be using this as a tool to be
addressing those really high risk, high need situations instead of using it for just different projects
that are different departments. But then the question is,
I mean, how do you define those and who defines those? Because if you were to ask all, I mean, if you're
asked parks, these are all really important things, right? You were asked the sheriff, these are all
really important things. You asked the commissioners, these are all really important things. So I think
that's where I come down. Would you rank them the same way? That's a good question. That's a very good question.
And I hadn't thought about that. Is this a consensus ranking from the commissioners? Seems, you know,
it makes sense. Yeah, I guess I don't know how much, like,
hesitant to bond at our maximum capacity. That makes me very nervous. But I also know we've got a lot
of needs. So I guess I just wanted to see where other folks were landing on that. The question I would
also have for you guys is, are you
interested in all of the projects that are here. I know that there's been some concerns regarding the
elevator in a building that's... Dead. Yes. I also noticed the flow on the numbering. Correct. Yeah.
And I wondered about the bidding, if there were bidding on that or why the new TK was chosen, because
it's ranked fourth in elevator worldwide.
So there was a Tissenkripp elevator mentioned. I'm sorry, I'm not following. There's an elevator for
the Justice Building. Right. And somewhere I saw there was a Tissenkripp mentioned. Maybe the provider
of the elevator service? Yes. The elevator itself, right? I presume.
provided I mean, I got that from the sheriff's office. I think on that note, though, like in terms of
where I see the elevator, like ranked it as opposed to like the showers, the cameras, the plumbing parts,
like because it's obviously taken us some time and will take time for us to get out of there. Um,
I would think that we would put some, like, that would be a, I guess I'm surprised to see that that
is in the low end of priorities. And I do share the same concern as Councilor Wills says, you know,
maxing out going all jacked up. But I also understand that we have needs, but I also am looking to this going
If we have our really needs right now, what is on this list of priorities that could potentially. Go
in another pot or not be worked on right now. I guess that's that's my month. That I can. That would
be my thing. Not much, but I would.
I think that we could take the 60,000 out. You're not here. Oh, sorry. I think we could take out the
plumbing parts and fixtures. It's not a lot, but it's something and absorb that in our cumulative capital
fund. I saw Decker and then I'll go back to Iverson and then.
one thing with us being a seven member body and we're down one right now i almost wonder if you take
the the commissioner's priorities and you said how did they rank these and what does that do to cost
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
or on purpose but they've got two answers here they've got a max bond and they've got the traditional
What does that mean for us? I think with the seven-member body and again down one, it might be incumbent
on us as a council. I think we've done this one other time on a different project or ARPA or who knows
what it was. But I almost think we need to rank these amongst ourselves and get to a consensus number
that sends the direction. I mean, a lot of us are talking about justice building.
we've not talked we talked about sirens but to kind of see where all all of these things fly and again
i don't want to let part we've not talked much about parks but that that is a nice investment there
in a area facility that gets a lot more attention is getting ready to get a whole lot more attention
more i almost think the council needs to
do a ranking on this just so that we come out and match where the commissioners are and from there we
could say consistently elevator makes it or we need to be negotiating around the elevator because it's
one thing is we I kind of reject the whole argument and I do this respectfully I reject the whole argument
you got a building that's not they're not going to be in much longer because I'm not convinced that
we're moving too quick
And no one could accuse us of doing that. I don't mean to laugh, but sometimes if you don't laugh,
you'll cry. The secondary thing is, whatever happens, we still own a building that has very peculiar
needs and an elevator issue. So it might be that we need to kind of ration this out between us. This
might be a vehicle device by which both bodies talk to each other on things that have also larger discussions
and maybe figure out where our priorities
are even with the bomb. Council Iverson and then Henry. I'm just gonna be really quick. I really like
the ranking and this is an answer to your question and it's pretty, but I think I would take away the
block ranking where most of parks are grouped together as like a single ranking. Most of the sheriff
is grouped together as a single ranking. And if I were to go through and do it myself, I would just
rank each line. I don't know.
personal preference. Yeah, I think that we can do that. I think I want to go back to something Councilor
Goldstein, Councilor Decker said just now. So this is what we do, right? We get to July and we start
talking about this. We get in the budget cycle in September and we haven't got a long enough runway
to really think through.
what the long-term piece of this is. One thing that was brought up by Councilor Hawk last year, I remember,
and I think Mr. Cockerill helped us understand it, is with the new bond capacity, right, that we went
from, you know, what I think Marty said once was a million dollar a year bonding to now the potential
of six million a year, which means over time that, frankly, the board commissioners could have $30 million
of stuff over a 10-year period that you're working through, is not a small amount of money.
I mean, you'll keep coming back 6 million, 6 million, 6 million. So that, I mean, when you think of
our whole budget and how much money is getting moved and bonds to that oversight, I think we haven't
sorted that out yet, right? Like, and so, you know, if we hit our max every year, I think, was there
not, Ms. Turner-Kanger,
I'm sorry. Sorry. Do you recall with the bonding from year to year that there's a cool off year or something
in there? I'm just, I'm having, you know, it's been a year. Yeah. No, I'd have to look up specifics,
but I know there's a cooling off period is what they're calling it with the new legislation.
And so we have to bond over five years to kind of have a workaround, is my understanding. Now,
I'm sure Ms. Turner-King could probably elaborate on that, but that's my recollection. So we could rack
up $30 million over five years, take a year off, and then have and still be working to spend down on
some of the budgets, right? Because we have residuals still from previous bond years that we're still
picking up. I mean, that could potentially happen if you guys choose to bond that high.
Councilor Wilson, your point earlier, like that's where my heartburn is of like just how much capacity
we take in and understanding that if I could get if Councilor Roberts here, she'd say, you know, that 2.9%
total for the whole county and what the city of Bloomington is doing right now and some of their activities
pre-budget consuming some of that percentage, you know, something to think about. Councilor Decker,
I like your idea of it may be an individual scoring. I have a, absent the criteria, I don't understand
how we got to one through nine. You own a building, we do have,
what we have. Our scoring might look different based on a shared criteria for what we're doing with
that space. I am personally concerned the more we talk about that building as a asset and if we're not
maintaining it and we want to put it up for sale someday it might become more and more difficult that
we haven't done the maintenance bones of it you know to whatever that might be
be used for in the future, including our own use, if it's repurposed. So my scoring might look different,
but that's because I might need the criteria, or maybe we can get to a point where we have a shared
vision for budgets. I hate to say performance or outcome-based budgeting. I know they've tried that
in the city. But we don't share that among electeds about things. What drives these discussions are
department heads that bring things to the board. The board brings it to us. But it's not an elected
position that's
guiding the community in the direction based on the public's interest at this point. But I'm up for
rescoring it. But thank you, Madam President. You're welcome. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Wilts. Thanks
for the discussion that I requested. Love it. But now I'm going to jump back into this stuff. I have
two items. First is a $70,000 plow for the airport. And I didn't see an estimate for that.
Can we get one from Carlos? Any info? Just nothing at this point in time from him. OK. OK. And then
just because Kelly's sitting here, could we ask her to talk about stuff? Because I feel so bad she's
been here all night. You can tell us whatever you want. It doesn't even have to be about this. That
was a joke. Just tell us a joke. That's awesome. What do you want to know about asphalt?
They don't have to turn it up so loud. Seriously, ours is asphalt. Yeah. We haven't had asphalt renovation
ever like in 40 years. And asphalt that we do have is paper thin. There's no base to it because it was
just kind of put down one day.
I literally don't remember how it happened. So even though all the large trucks that came for the project
really did a number on it, it probably would have occurred in the next few years anyway because our
traffic volume every spring and fall, especially in the summer, is tremendous. It is literally like
going to an IU football game and then trying to get out bumper to bumper
Every Saturday we're bumper to bumper trying to get out of this place and it makes no one happy, but
it really doesn't make them happy when their cars are hitting. I've told my staff to start collecting
the car parts, so we're doing that. And another thing that we didn't expect is that it takes three of
our staff every 10 days to go over it and try to correct it.
which means they're not doing what they need to do other places, because now basically we have a pothole
crew that I would rather have them doing other things. So it's asphalt. We either do it, we don't do
it, we do some of it, or we rip it up and go back to gravel. What's the GX electric JD?
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
John Deere Gator for the limestone greenway. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it, but there's a lot of
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
out to our little garage that we have. We don't know then, okay, everything else we have is gas and
loud, because someone doesn't like the loud gate.
The gator's not that loud, it's the blower, it's the mower, it's everything else, but all that's gonna
be gas. And then we have to store those batteries. I'm not opposed to, I'm just saying, batteries blow
up. And now we're putting it in a little garage that probably gets over 150 degrees in the summer. Anywho,
not the top of my list, but I'm not opposed to electric things.
But it comes with a cost. Nothing's just the $18,000. Everything. First of all, congratulations on the
ribbon cutting at Karst. That was two weeks ago? It was. Or so? Or so. Or so. So congratulations. Our
very own Trent Deckard was there wearing a pink polo. That was nice. He was the best dressed soccer
player. Always is. So I was looking at this list, and I was thinking to myself,
What is missing from this list? And an Eastside Park is missing from this list. What investments can
we make in our brand new lovely Eastside Park? Right now we're fully funded and we're just fine. Perfect
answer. May always be so.
It's the cars firm park asphalt problem. We either do it or we don't do it. It's not rocket science
on this one. And I understand there's very, you know, you have to say, wow, this isn't, you know, siren
replacement. We understand priorities. Asphalt's not sexy, but it's something you need to have.
I was just out there. Personally, I was just out there recently picking up a grandson and experiencing
this asphalt you're talking about. I'm ready to say, yes, we need asphalt. I have two things.
I do see the value in investing in something that we've just invested a lot in and is going to be supporting
a lot of return in our community as much as I see investing in something that's falling apart. And so
I wouldn't downplay it quite as much as you are. And I'm wondering, is there
a sense of how much more expensive it would be if we did half this year, half next. I've been here a
long time, and nothing is cheaper. Well, you know, people ask me that all the time. How about if we
pay for this next year? I said, well, fine, give me $10,000 more. That's how it goes with everything,
every building, everything that Richard's doing. Every time you put it off,
It's going up. It has never, in my opinion, has ever gone down. So yeah, you can. I mean, that's fine
to budget that way. I mean, it is what it is. I love working with you on budgets. It's just like it
is. It's so fun. Yeah, it's important, but you know, it's not life or death.
But it also carries the hidden employee costs as well. Oh, the maintenance. Yeah, the employee costs.
The park board would have to come to decision, we're not going to do this. We're going to go gravel,
or we're going to have to do something. Because we are not fully staffed. Bless you. We're not fully
staffed for a variety of reasons. And we won't be fully staffed for a long time.
are now our crews this big. And I have to prioritize restrooms, playgrounds, potholes are not as important
as those items to make sure, but we would get to them when we get to them. Well, and everybody that
goes to the park experiences the asphalt.
Yes, we've been getting a lot of complaints. I mean, consistently and constantly. I mean, just it is.
Yeah. And I just tell them, you know, we don't have the money to properly fix it. I'll go to Councilor
Decker. And then because we still have two more items on our agenda to discuss, I think I want to come
up with a proposal for councils with this. So, Councilor Decker. I'll just be quick. I always appreciate how Kelly
brings things and much like Kate said the option to do it or not do it. But I will tell you this I learned
in early in my council career here not long ago that I made the mistake of snickering one time when
somebody was complaining about a condition on a soccer field at Karst and I had about 20 parents read me
the, well, they called me a few names and some weren't Trent or Deckard. At the stadium. And I misread
the usage on something that is highly trafficked. When you were joking, I'll say joking about going
back to gravel, that is not an option for those folks.
So as we do our whatever's coming out of President Crosley, we always got to be very cautious with this
part, which I think Kate always says is the great equalizer on kids getting access to things they might
not otherwise get access to. But by the way, those fields are beautiful. And I hope those kids know
what they're doing on them, because I sure don't.
It is a reminder you can have nice things in a really old place that does good things. Someday, maybe
one of our kids will be in the World Cup. Who knows? Okay. So, Council, because I think we've had a
rather robust conversation of a lot of different things on here, and some folks might think of other
things that could be on here, or we can change out the ranking and whatnot.
would you of let's kind of chew on this, but not obviously too long to kind of look at this. And then
maybe we could come back to the drum board and think of like our next meeting. I hate to keep pushing
things to next meeting because
That is also August 11th, and it already sounds like tonight we have a lot on the agenda, plus the Crossley
kid has a birthday on that. I'm just giving, I am volunteering my kids to the county government. Just
loving it. So that being said, what would we, we can kind of look at this and make our rankings and
potentially give it to,
like staff for a discussion later on in August. Would that work for everybody? How late can you do asphalt?
Well, because I think you have to have... For the following year? Right. Never mind.
just thinking again because it's getting a little late and we have the other two and plus you know it's
it's do we max out or you know do we reprioritize this list and take some things off maybe
we're commissioners work with commissioners to see if we could get some things in cum cap or you know
maybe wait on some things but I think that's something that we need to think about Michelle you know
They're talking about ranking. I think if everybody ranked, and then you would know where everyone stands
with regards to priorities, and then that would probably dictate what your amount is going to be. So
we can do that. And then maybe we can work together to figure out when we should get our information
to you all.
like council staff to kind of have it for discussion. Again, I think we need to look at what we have
on the docket for the August 11th. Well, we also have the non-binding reviews, which is the review of
the levies and the tax caps. You know, so you're going to have a lot of stuff going on that night as
well. But we've pushed things to both the August 11th as well as the 25th. I think either one is going
to be OK. OK.
OK, we'll double check that. OK, OK. So stay tuned. All right. Well, thank you all very much for a lovely
presentation and feel like the Avengers of county government. So thank you. Thank you very much.
All right. Next up, we remember we added a couple of items to our agenda. And so this is item nine B.
the discussion regarding the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, also known as LATCF. So,
Councilor Deckard, this is something that I'm going to look to you for, so take it away. Thank you.
I don't need to read a motion, right, to just open a discussion. So, Council, I wanted to talk
this evening, and I know it's late, but this is an important item that I wanted to begin the discussion
on. I want to start it. Councilor Wilts and I both. This is kind of coming from us. But I want to talk
about specifically how the county might be able to best plug in to the streets to stability initiative.
And we're joined this evening by Mary Morgan with heading home of South Central Indiana.
I serve on the leadership team of Streets to Stability. In fact, we'll have a meeting at 730 tomorrow
morning, right? Because we like to do early morning meetings. But the importance of that meeting and
probably why the time is there is that it does include heading home as part of it. It includes the city
at the table. It includes Monroe County. Commissioner Madera and I typically are there.
It also represents homeless service providers. We have IU Health there, the Chamber of Commerce and
other nonprofit and community partners engaging in a discussion about what we do for some of the individuals
in our community who find themselves in a difficult situation that
community has had over the years, but not to the extent that we've had or not to the extent that we've
been able to solve this in a comprehensive way that makes sense and not in a way that certainly speaks
to the capability of everybody kind of pulling together and working together. And so just briefly, I'll
say this initiative is built around a pretty simple premise.
Rather than managing the notion of encampments or zones where individuals find themselves on the street
but seeking and living, the community concentrates resources in areas at a time, whether that's a zone
or an encampment. And most importantly, rapidly connects people to housing and provides support for
them necessary
for them to remain house. And so the model that some of us have sat through, I'm trying to think, at
least three or four of us have sat through some variation of the discussion when Clutch, and if I get
any of this wrong, Mary Morgan, just waved me off. But Clutch, a consultant that's done this
very successfully, sat down with a lot of, again, elected leaders, a lot of community partners to talk about
how this might work or how it has worked over a two day period. It was a very gracious amount of time.
I was able to be there on the first day. I know some people were able to join for all of it, but essentially
the initiative that they're talking to us about focuses on one encampment or one geographic area at
a time, spending four to six weeks approximately engaging people living in that area.
providing up to 12 months of subsidized rent to eligible participants and housing support, and then
pairing something that is necessary for all that to happen, case management, behavioral health, employment
assistance, and other supportive services. And to do this, to do this, obviously it requires funding,
and obviously we are
strapped on funding whether we're looking at this budget that we're currently in or next year's but
as I have listened to this program listen to this idea as I've talked to counselor wilt and thought
about our options for what we might do as a county with something that is having some success out there
and I'll let Mary Morgan speak to all that because I don't I don't want to
feel that thunder. How we might do it to demonstrate the county's buy-in to this along with the other
entities in the community that are being asked, how we might do it is I am proposing, and I never get
the acronym right, is that we consider strongly using our LATCF funding. That's local assistance, community,
local assistance, tribal. Local area. Why don't you say it?
and tribal consistency. You had it. I had it. I had it so late at night. But you use those dollars,
which my understanding, talking to the auditors, we got to designate those by the end of 2027. Now,
we don't have a plethora there. We have about $162,000.
that would be a good way for the county, in my opinion, that would be a good way for the county to buy
into a program that is offering us something that I don't think that we're seeing. I'm going to be real
frank on that. And I don't know that we friends are coming up with our own solutions on our own too
well. I also know that we're not letting life, letting our situation remain as is, is
clearly not an option. We heard at the opening tonight that for some of our in-house members, this temporary
solution that they have, that they're pursuing is not in the long-term working for the community. And
so I would offer this as a thought and I'll let others jump in and we might wanna just hear from Mary
Morgan too, Madam President, but I wanted to open up this discussion. Sure. I would welcome you, Ms. Morgan,
come and speak to what you are getting called to do. It doesn't matter. Have a seat. Have a seat, yeah.
Good evening. Hello. Hi. Hello. Thank you, Council Member Deckert, for your introduction, and I appreciate
you all considering this request. I think you've all read in the media or received the press release
from us about streets to stability, which has Council Member Deckert
said is a program that's been deployed in other communities, including Indianapolis. This is an opportunity
that we have gained through our partnership with Community Solutions, which runs the Built for Zero
program that we've been partnering with for several years. Built for Zero and Community Solutions are
providing the consultants, clutch consulting, at no cost to us, and we've been working with them for
several months.
The program does include very targeted approaches to zones and or encampments in a community with intensive
work before people are housed to identify their barriers. 12 months of subsidy and intensive case management
during that 12 month period. So we put people on a path when month 13 comes, they will remain stably
housed even after the subsidies end.
We're leveraging the heading home resources to pull this off through the community foundation grant
that they received through the Lilly Endowment last year. That's allowed us to deploy six outreach case
managers that have already been working with people who are unsheltered. So these are people who are
not going to Wheeler Mission, not going to Friends Place, not going to any other shelters, but they
are sleeping in encampments, sleeping in their cars, sleeping on the streets.
We have those case managers that were prepared to deploy for this new initiative because those goals
aligned where both of them are targeted towards addressing unsheltered homelessness. We're also using
the resources through this Lilly Endowment and Community Foundation grant. We have a position that does
landlord engagement and has been working with landlords to try to bring them into the fold in partnering with us.
It's going to be a little bit challenging because there are constraints that are in place that I'm sure
you're aware of.
that many people who are in sheltered experience that prevent them from getting into housing easily.
So we feel that it's an incentive to have a guaranteed 12-month income at a time when there's some softness
in the rental market. We also have some funding that would provide some incentives, maybe an extra first
month's rent or deposit as incentives to house people that they might not otherwise house. And also
having those points of contact with a case manager
that's working on stabilization as well as our own heading home resources gives some confidence to landlords
that I think is going to be successful in bringing them to the table. So one of the things that Community
Solution has done for us is to provide a $350,000 grant to start this initiative and then
Additional funds that were matching funds So what we are hoping to find from our community partners
are some additional resources so that we can Not only just do this first phase which will house 10 to
12 people and we'll start that in August but additionally the entirety of our unhoused residents here,
which will be multi-year venture and
We estimate 150 to 160 people are currently not living in shelter. So this is a big initiative. We're
taking a risk on it. We are really grateful to the partnership of the county, which has supported,
you know, through time and resources, efforts to address homelessness. It's a complicated problem, as
you know. And we're just going to try something different. And look forward to partnering with you.
answer any questions you might have. We're happy to come back and give a more detailed presentation
if you like. I'll take a point of privilege. Thank you and thank you for the work that you continue
to do. I know it's not an easy task. I'm curious to know what's the city of Bloomington like? Have they
been given the same presentation? Like what's their thoughts on
you know, this type of initiative as well. So the administration is supporting it. The mayor is part
of the leadership team that Councilmember Decker and Commissioner Madeira are on. We've been talking
to them about we've had the same conversations. They are also looking at some options for funding. And
I'm planning to go to the city council just to give a presentation at some point soon.
Yes, Councilor Iverson. I have some questions, but I want to start by thanking my colleagues, Councilmember
Deckard and Councilmember Wilts, for bringing this important topic up in an especially timely manner.
We heard just four days ago, five days ago, that the commissioners have started the process of eviction
on one of our encampments, and so I thank both of you for
for bringing this forward. I have two questions for you, first of all. Does this involve a contract
with the county, or is this certainly just something that you're looking for funding? We have no formal
arrangement at this point. If the county wants us to explore that, we'd be happy to, if you want some
kind of MOU or some other kind of agreement, happy to do that. At this point, we are just,
exploring funding opportunities because we can't do the initiative beyond the first phase if we don't
have any funding from community partners. And typically in other communities where this approach has
been used, the city and the county are the first in. They're not the only in, but the consultants have
never seen a community, the business community, for example, step up without
leadership from the government, the local government. Can I ask a second question? And maybe this is
getting into your presentation. So if I'm stealing the thunder. Steal away. All right. What is the timeline
here? When do you need funding by? When is phase one over? When do we get into phase two? All that jazz.
We are starting phase one in mid-August. That terrified look on my face.
is, yeah, we are gonna be starting in mid-August with, we're not calling it a pilot, but really it's
a way for us to get sea legs as we try to work through the process and just figure out what's working
here, what's not, what we need to adjust. It'll take about four to six weeks and at the end of that time,
we will have 10 to 12 people housed, and we will have them starting work with our stabilization case
manager. Beyond that, will depend on the resources that we can garner. Honestly, that's really the biggest
thing. Councilor Henry. Thank you, and thank you for coming in and sitting through all that meeting
to have this conversation. Thank you, Councilor Decker, for bringing it to
a formal setting in our discussion. You said the number, it was 160, is that the number I just heard?
We estimate 150 to 160 unsheltered. And then just doing math in terms of how the program works, the
first triage of 15? 10 to 12. 10 to 12. And the cost of that effort for that initial
350. So just doing the math into 160 over years. If this takes off and works, there's a sustainment
activity, right? That's right. That's helpful for me to understand a little bit of it. I think the merit
is there. And I think for me, it's not really a question of your presentation or discussion. It's more
about where the money comes from.
So if LTCF is a one shot, you know, like if that's an opportunity to kickstart, but then we
have a sustainment model. I think of like the way we fund like Centerstone, for example, like 250,000
a year, they come to us every year in that budget line, how we get something sustainable. And that,
and so it's like, one way this goes is we kick it off and then we, that's from us, right? Another is
to say, if we're baking it into the general fund as a no different than,
contracting with a vendor to do that work on our behalf as a government, what sustainment looks like.
And so my mind goes right there. This is really in the weeds at this hour, but it's really what that
fund was meant for in the context of ARPA. And I know we didn't sit in that timeframe because it didn't
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,
long-term.
So for me, I just need a little bit more info on the nature of the LACCF, how it sat for a few years,
and maybe this is more of a general fund conversation. I think ahead, that's all. This is just back
of a napkin thinking right now. So it has nothing to do with the merit of the program or its value,
it's mostly just how we move money around county government. Is a service we're delivering year in,
year out to get that 160 to zero, how we can be a good partner in the long term
Any other questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Wilks. I just want to say thank you for being here.
And I think this program and this conversation have been months and months in the making. So I'm really
excited to be talking about this even. And it's such an innovative approach, at least in our community.
that I wanted us to be able to have a public discussion around the program and giving it kind of that
boost that it needs at the beginning. And it's more than just the dollar amount. And because as Mary
pointed out, the government
support, the government show of support is critical here. And as we all know, we own property that has
a huge liability right now with the unsheltered homeless population. And the future of those people
is not just a concern for us broadly, it's a concern for us specifically. And I think that I
very much appreciate the long-term concern. And I've been thinking about that as well. And I've got
some ideas that are way too crazy even for me to be talking about out loud quite yet. But I don't want
to let the lack of that long-term impede our ability to show support in the short term.
I guess that's really my point. The auditor has her hand up because my next question is, what's next?
Sure. So I'm not sure if it's been discussed between council and commissioners or at all, but I'm wondering
if there's an appetite for obligating the opioid funding that is where
settlement agreement. So where the county is scheduled, the schedule has us receiving funding through
2038. So that gives us some time and some funding to consider if there's an appetite for that. And the
uses are appropriate. Well, essentially right now, like in the long term, we can use the L.A. TCF. I'm
just going to keep doing it. So we could use that and then maybe think like in the long
grand scheme of things to think about other ways as well. Because also with this being said, we can
talk about this, but this is much like ARPA where we can have the conversations and now the pressure
is to be put on with commissioners to get on board with this type of project because
we can appropriate the funds, but ultimately the contract and everything lies within them. So that being
said, that just made me have another question. Are you going to be talking soon with the commissioners
about this great project initiative? Jodi is, Commissioner Madeira is on the leadership team and I have
had conversations with
Commissioner Thomas as well. I have not talked to Commissioner Jones and I'm I'm happy to give a presentation
to them at a future meeting as well. My sense is that they are supportive of this. I wouldn't want to
speak to. I don't. Definitely. I know we got folks on line. I'm not saying that they need to like go.
to your meeting and whatnot. But I'm just curious because we're having this discussion. And so this
is something like, one can't do one without the other. So it's almost like, how do we proceed? How do
we move forward with those things? Well, I will say that to the auditor's original question, Councilor
Decker and I did send an email this past week
just offering to work with the commissioners on this idea and indicated that we would be having this
discussion tonight in the hopes that we could do something together. I really do think this is an opportunity
for us to collaborate and be jointly in support of a really positive thing. But specifically, I mean,
we asked Mary
to come. So that's why she's here. And I think a next step certainly is for us to follow up on that
email and let them know how this discussion went and see what they would like to do in terms of the next
the next step for engaging with heading home on this. We felt there was a little bit of urgency given
the start of the program, the amount of time it takes for us to appropriate anything, and wanting to
see some continuity from that phase one, give them the ability to be thinking about phase two. So,
go ahead. I was just going to add, I appreciate it also. I've had many
good discussions with Commissioner Madera about it. She's on the leadership team and no one's thrown
anything down the hallway at me saying no on this. But I echo where Kate's at. I think we're in an urgent
place where communities are with expert guidance such as Mary Morgan and our friends at Clutch making
decisions to start charting pathways to try things that are just
they just have to work better than what we conventionally have done, which is sometimes in the counties
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
it. And this is extremely innovative in that way. And so I'm grateful to Mary Morgan being here late
and keeping us moving. Yes, Council Iverson. So this came out in the commissioners meeting on Thursday
that the clearing of the Thompson property
was kind of an issue because the commissioners are taking two weeks off. The next two meetings are canceled.
And so a conversation with the commissioners is going to have to wait for another couple of weeks, at
least to do it in a public meeting. And so in my mind, us talking about this is very much related with
Thompson property. Should it be? Am I linking those?
Because in my mind those folks need to go someplace and it seems like this is the this is a salute maybe
a partial solution for some of those people But but in my in my is that a bridge too far? I will say
that the clutch advises us not to identify publicly the places that we're going to Target or address
until after we've housed people there. It's their
there are a couple of concerns. One is just that people either will leave because they don't want to
engage with us or that they'll more people will come because they know that a particular area is going
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
have the capacity to do that. So the, and the other thing is just community,
There's well intentioned going to a site when we're trying to work with people and causing some challenges.
Yeah. So but to your point, there are a significant number of people at the power line, the Thompson
property. And one way or another, they will be in our community and very likely and sheltered. And so
we will be working with them at some point. So it's just not.
I'm not sure I'm answering your question, but you are. Our our our goal is to over time address all
of the unsheltered residents that we have. It's just that we're not making that public before we actually
do a site. I understand. Oh, Councilor Henry. I guess it's a counselor's point. The calendar isn't in
our favor for that urgency with the board commissioners with their current schedule, given their
understanding that there's some concerns about, I guess, privacy is the word I'll use about the nature
of the work. I would, for one, benefit from a more formal interpretation of what Clutch does. I appreciate
that my colleagues might be a little more steeped in it, having worked with you in these meetings, to
better understand that. Because clearly there's a nexus of a county urgency on one location or encampment versus
the success factors that this organization may have. Frankly, maybe looking at somewhere else. I don't
know that we can't say that because we just understood that there's some city here, I could definitely
benefit from. I'd be happy to. presentation if we have it. If I understand August 11, it's getting awfully
packed. You know, there's that urgency might be beneficial. I'm curious. I did not watch
the commissioners meeting. And I know that the next two meetings are canceled. They gone from town would
still be working with them. Perhaps. No, I know not formally. I was wondering if there was a reason
given at the meeting. That's all.
But from my understanding, they don't have quorum. And so for the next couple of weeks, they're just
going to be like playing dockets or that type of approval. But Commissioner Thomas is online. So I don't
know if she wanted to address that. We don't have to put people on the spot if she wants to.
That's great. But we can certainly reach back out and perhaps start the appropriation process and adjust
in case like we've done with things before.
just so it's advertised and so that we can move things, you know, at the speed of molest various my
mom said. Well, the only other thing that I would add and I see her hand raised, but I'll finish this
and then I'll go to Commissioner Thomas. Maybe it would be a good idea for the books with you to use
their public comment time. And like I know that there has been like
you know, emails, but I guess in order for us to really get this out to the public, to really express
the sense of urgency and, you know, to really see how we can get on board and everybody collaborate
and do something together. Maybe that would be a good, you know, thing to have. So that's just a food
for thought. And I saw Commissioner Thomas hands was raised or hand teams and just one.
I just raised one. Hello. So I think the discussion about our schedule is kind of a moot point because
you haven't advertised this either. So your next meeting is two days before our next meeting. So we're
not that far off. It's not a big deal. But I think
we need some real clarity on opioid money versus the remainder of the ARPA money. My understanding is
this pot of money has to be spent by December of 27. It's that little pot of money that gives us a little
extra time, if I remember that correctly. So I think that's the big question. And I think for me, my concerns
after talking to some folks in the community is what happens in year two for the folks who were helped
initially. And how does this program actually work? And I think that what I need to do is have a phone
conversation with Ms. Morgan. She's going to be on the phone a lot or teams or something to have some
of my questions addressed as well. And that can be done before we have our next meeting.
We need direction if we're going to put it on our agenda. What fund is this coming out of? What is this
going to look like? Thank you so much, everyone. This is my fourth meeting while on vacation today.
Thank you. Enjoy. Sorry. I guess to answer the question about, because we briefly touched about this
special type of funding at the joint meeting that we had,
And it was almost talked about that this is something that should possibly come out because ARPA, we
are literally about to go into month eight of the year, which is insane. And my understanding with ARPA
is we couldn't really, with the remainder of things, it's really helpful for us to finish out or give
money to some of those projects. We can't really start a new initiative. And technically, this would almost be
So just, if you don't mind me clarifying just a little bit. So this is separate from the, it is ARPA
funding, but it's LATCF. So it's separate from the other ARPA funding. So this doesn't have to go into
a plan. We simply have to spend it on appropriate governmental expenses, which this definitely falls
into that category. The other
piece of information I want to share is that we still have to report on this, and it's still federal
funding. So we need to, you know, proceed with caution and make sure we're, you know, keeping good records.
The reporting portal for this funding only goes to the end of twenty twenty seven, which is why our
experts have pushed for us to to obligate and expend by that point just to be
very cautious. So we think that would be best, even though we haven't seen a firm deadline. That is
what they're advising. So I'd like to stick with that if possible. So, yes, it would be great if we
could obligate and proceed with a plan for this. OK, OK. So it sounds like
Ms. Morgan, you and Commissioner Thomas will be getting on the phone talking here soon before things
get added to their agenda. And it sounds like from maybe explaining or listening to all of us, there's
definitely some interest there to work on this initiative. And then again, Major, thank you to being
here tonight and presenting that to us. And our colleagues here, Councilors Deckert,
Deckard and Wilt for bringing this to the attention because in the grand scheme of things, our federal
governments are not really helping with the Latin state isn't either with some of the things that they're
doing, but we have to help us help ourselves because who's going to save us? So yeah, so that's, I think
that's the, that's been my,
for the day is who's going to save us. So I think that's it. So I appreciate that. Any other things
that any updates, feel free to, you know, use our public comment or, you know, come chat with us at
our next few meetings that we have coming up. Right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Have a good night. All right. Moving on to the last agenda item is also something that we added.
Um, which was item nine C. Oh God. Okay. So I think this is just. Okay. So yes. So ding. Um, um, it
is sleepy time. Um, and so because we did, uh,
We did add item 9C for this. I know Ms. Turner-King has some things that she wants to talk to us about
about. So earlier today, I sent the council a memo on the special purpose tax. And in that memo,
it discusses, I want to draw your attention to specifically item three, which is a notice component.
In reviewing statute six, 3.63, 7.5,
It reads if a county adopting body makes any fiscal decision that has a financial impact to an underlying
local taxing unit The decision must be made and notice must be given to the affected local taxing unit
by August 1st of the year For the special purpose tax the underlying impacted Taxing unit is the county
so it does seem weird that the county would give the county notice but
As a precaution, I am going to recommend that council direct the auditor's office to send notice to
the board of commissioners that provides the council is considering changing the special purpose tax,
that the change includes potentially increasing the rate from the current rate of point zero three to
a rate not exceed point two five percent, which is the maximum allowable per statute, and that the change
that the change to potentially increase the rate would occur before October 31st. So this allows the
council to continue moving forward and evaluating that rate. And then if you do decide to adjust it,
we have the precautionary step of giving notice, because I would rather give notice and not need it
than find out we didn't do it and it be required. OK. So, yes, Council, I was.
Does that require a motion or simply consent of the council? The safest way is to do a motion to direct
the notice be sent prior to August 1st, okay council I move to direct the county auditor to notify the
Monroe County Commissioners that the County Council is reviewing the special-purpose tax lit as And
the language recommended by miss my attorney King that she just talked about
All right. We got a motion and a second to send notice to commissioners to talk about this. Is there
any further comments or questions on this item? Yes, Councilor Williams. I think notifying ourselves
is insane, and I really appreciate you. And for clarity, the notice is just sent by email. So this is
not a cost burdensome requirement. So we're going to email ourselves.
I just think it's crazy and I think it's perfectly lovely that you thought of it and I appreciate you.
Okay, any other questions or comments on this? All right, seeing none, I'll move to public comment.
If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise
your hand via Teams. And seeing none, we can do a voice vote.
So all those in favor of the motion that was presented, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
same sign. Excuse me, I choked on. OK, motion. Sorry, motion carries. All right. And now we come to
the final conclusion of the night, which is county counselor liaison updates and comments. And I.
I'm going to ask that we keep it brief because it's been a long night. But actually it's been necessary
and like conversations have been like there have been lots of discussions that have been had that have
been really helpful. So I'm going to look to my left and just go ahead and down the soldiering line
of county councils. So council councilor Fidel you're up next.
So I don't have too much to report. I'll be real brief. So just a couple of DBI meetings, both with
the membership itself and the board in the past few weeks and then some pre budget meetings with different
liaison assignments. And that's wrapped up my life for a little while. I have no official anything to
report right now. Thanks.
I'll just be really quick, two quick things. I have the privilege of being our rep on the Monroe County
Women's Commission. The Women's Commission had a meeting, I believe it was a week and a half ago, or
maybe it was last week. And one of the things that came out of it, in addition to considering the potential
for recommending a health and all rubric for us policymakers to use, was some discussion
around a presentation that came from some SPIA students related to capturing community survey data on
where we're at and how people find themselves around health care barriers, all these great things. And
I'm hopeful that someone from either the Women's Commission or the students can come and make
that presentation to us. I think it'd be pretty beneficial. I think it would back up a lot of what we
all see out there that folks really struggle.
around health care and other needs. So I'm going to work on trying to get a version of that for us,
because I think it'd be incredibly informative. Second, we've had a theme with that and with this evening
about dignity of life, no matter where you're at in the community. And I think that's just the reality
where the county is in twenty twenty six. And I took a meeting with I know a counselor Henry did as well.
some community members that are extremely concerned about rental rights and just dignity around where
you live. Whether it be in the city or the county, folks still expect to have dignity of life around
their safety, their services and other things like that. And the county of 2026
I think can offer those things. And so I'm sure some of you others will be contacted as well, but it
was one of the most moving meetings I think I've ever taken. And when you get the request to hear about
some of the rental concerns that folks have and quality of life and living in this community, I would
urge you to take it serious. Thank you.
What I want to talk about tonight is the coming 2029 changes, which is going to move us from property
tax to income tax and the the idea that now the state wants us to have a must meeting and that we're
supposed to be setting rates for other taxing units. And I think what a lot of folks are really focusing
on, particularly in what we're
the presentation we received from AIC was about kind of the nuts and bolts about how it's gonna work
and kind of the steps that we need to take. But I've been having some meetings with some people and
I think really what's getting lost in a lot of that analysis is just how much this change is going to
hurt our libraries. Just how much this change
is going to hurt RBB and MCSC. MCSC. Just how much this change is going to hurt our township trustees.
And if we don't pay attention to what we're doing, this could have profound impacts on other taxing
units. And so I want to be really bright eyed about this as we're moving into August.
because a lot of responsibility has been put on county councils to make these decisions. And there is
a heavy weight that's been put upon us. I also want to say that the supposed benefits of this are really
not great. That what the state government is essentially telling us is
We need to make decisions that are going to hurt some of our key community assets. And in a response
that people are going to get a couple hundred dollars of tax breaks. I think we're really getting the
wool pulled over our eyes here, and I'm really worried about it because and I'm going to I'm going to
wrap up here, but the
The thing that's happening right now is that a war of choice across the seas means that our gas prices
are going up, that our grocery prices are going up. And now we're being told by the state that we're
going to be severely impacting a lot of our key community institutions at the same time that we're losing
a court, at the same time we're losing pretrial release, at the same time we're losing our specialty
courts, at the same time we're losing
dollars that goes towards rapid rehousing and the list goes on and on. We are losing a lot. We're not
very much gain. And I think people are going to start to realize that as we're getting closer and closer
to twenty twenty nine. Thank you for that. I remember during last year we were talking about
the great tax cut that was coming, I compared it to something like a Polar Pop a day, which is roughly
what it is. It's like 300 bucks, right? Just line them up on the desk, that's your visual. For the year.
For the year. And the trade-off in all public services on the other end of that ledger is difficult.
And so I wanted to maybe just not, I just want to say one thing, I guess, that's kind of connected to
a lot of things that happened here tonight, and it's been opined on, is that
My approach to all of this comes from a place of, are we getting the most out of our tax dollars and
coming into this building? And are we driving that conversation from being duly elected officials that
were put here to do that, or is it being driven by other forces? The irony of what you just said, or
what will hit this desk in a month, is whether or not, down to the department level, our own government
is understanding that these things are changing.
Because budgets come at us and it's pretty much, you know, here's the department, here's what it wants,
it wants what it had last year plus a certain percent, as if all this stuff isn't happening, right?
And I appreciate there's a survival there. They're looking at their staff, they're looking at COLA,
they're looking at all that. But to get to a place where, you know, are we funding the values of our
community? Are we prioritizing the things we've heard here tonight? And the role that we have in this
moment, are we able to work with what the state has done on our back? That stuff is what drives my,
I find sometimes very sharp views on this. I just come out in a profoundly different way than others,
and I appreciate that that's where I'm at. So the extent that sharp elbows are thrown, I apologize for
that, but it's coming from this absolute place that we have to use these dollars for the best possible
way we can. And that gets to, I will say that just second, that yeah, Councilor Decker and I had an
opportunity to meet with Hoosier Action, which is a group that does this advocacy work on behalf of
all sorts of communities in our state.
And I understand that Harold Times is gonna be reporting on this as well, but I tend to continue to
have that dialogue that we got to experience, Trent. It is a golden moment for the county to lean in
on protecting those renters in our county that have nowhere to go when the landlord has wronged them.
We don't have mechanisms for that. We have a page and a half of ordinance on the books in this county
that empowers the health department to make those determinations. And if they can't find mold, that
is the end of the rental
dispute and we all know that rental disputes are more than just mold damage right. I mean landlord tenant
relations building inspection all of it. We are we are grossly behind where the city of Bloomington
is on this to the detriment of hundreds of renters in our community. I'm at least encouraged that there
is a clearly a spirit of change coming and started in May. One of us gets deleted on the other side
of the building.
But I think both of us are in the direction of that. We must do some more and we need to do it with
the budget that has available and squeeze every nickel out of it to make some of these changes in people's
lives. And I look forward to joining anybody on that effort at this table. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. And to that respect, I think I'm the only renter that is on county council and literally
must. Must treat us half city, half county.
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
something that I think about every day when I drive to one half of my street and turn you know in the
other half and so I just I think about that and also with my like years of housing background some of
the things that you know tenant
landlord relations. Yeah, I think y'all brought up a good point. Who do you talk to when you're at odds
about something in your house and it's, you know, it's their word against the tenant.
And so I think we've seen in the community in which, you know, bodily harm has been done to folks as
a result of not having proper inspections like smoke sectors. So that's definitely something to consider
and to think about. And I welcome I haven't been contacted yet, but I welcome having that conversation
because I think it's worth having. On a lighter note, I will say
As we think about Tuesday, this is our last Tuesday before MCCSE kids go back into the world. So, and
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
about folks having patience and adhering to safety guidelines because the yellow buses are coming back,
whether you like it or not. And also on another note,
We have a great tradition that has come back and it's coming back for the second year in a row. And
it is the taste of Bloomington that is coming. And for the second year in a row, we're gonna get some
nice weather. So be kind, be nice, take Ubers, walk, because I definitely have walked a lot and enjoy
the upcoming week and weekend. And with that being said, I thank you all for your time and we are adjourned.