- Good evening, everybody. I apologize for the technical difficulties that we had. I'm calling this meeting
- to order. Today is Tuesday, August. No August 11th. Happy birthday, Kendall. Um, and the time is five
- o'clock. We have present in the Natu Hill rooms. Counselors Henry Iverson, Decker, Wilts and Fiddle.
- Um, I'm not seeing, um,
- Councilmember Hawk, but I do believe that she's joining us virtually, so everything we do will have
- a roll call vote this evening as well. So let us jump into it. Again, our apologies for the delay. All
- those able to stand, please stand for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance
- to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
- indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much for that. Next up is the adoption
- of agenda and it looks like we have some amendments to make for tonight's agenda.
- Madam President and council, I have three items. The first is the council. We have a request from the
- commissioner's office to pull item eight. I request for de appropriation and item eight J a request
- for a fund to fund transfer. I move to table indefinitely the commissioner's items eight. I and a J
- second. OK, we got a motion and a second to table those items for the commissioners indefinitely. Any.
- questions or comments from Council on that item? Okay, seeing none, we're gonna do this by voice vote
- since we don't have Councilor Hawk yet. So all those in favor of amending the agenda, pulling those
- items indefinitely, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries.
- Council, I further move to table item K, 8K, a resolution on target fund balances to our August 25th meeting.
- We got a motion and a second on that table. Any questions or comments from counsel on that item?
- Seeing none, all those in favor of a table in that item to our August 25th meeting, signify by saying
- aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. And lastly, counsel, I move item eight
- H, a joint item between the commissioners and aviation to
- item seven A. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second on that. I think there is some emergency
- that Mr. Liberty has to handle. So we want to bump that up and get him taken care of so he can handle
- that accordingly. Any comments on this item? Seeing none. All those in favor of moving that item up
- on the agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed saying sign. Okay. Motion carries.
- Thank you very much for that. Next up is our item number four, which is public comment. So if you are
- here in the Net You Hill room, you can come to the lectern here, state your name for the record, and
- you'll have up to three minutes. And these are for items that are not on tonight's agenda. So again,
- if you are a member of the public and wish to speak to
- you can do the same thing except you can just raise your hand via teams. So are there any takers for
- public comment tonight?
- My name is Gerhard Gomm. I reside in Bloomington on Carey, Maryland. 65,765. That is the number of people,
- as I googled it today, that are currently held in ICE detention. 65,765. Various independent agencies
- have verified that roughly 70% of those detainees have no criminal record. Every day in this country,
- injustices occur hour after hour after hour, state by state by state. The powers that be cause suffering
- for tens of thousands of people and their families.
- On August 28, at 8.50 p.m., there will be a vigil right outside this building on the southeast corner
- of the square. A peaceful, reverent vigil for the detainees in the Miami County, in the Miami Correctional
- Facility. I would like to extend an invitation to each one of you, the staff,
- the good folks in the audience and the good folks that are watching online. Is it appropriate for me
- to approach you? Absolutely.
- invited to attend. Perhaps you can take the flyer home to your other important work shared with your
- friends, family, and neighbors. So perhaps we can all do a part that this country will be a country
- where we are all better human beings, where we do not inflict needless suffering on innocent people.
- Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I like your shirt. All right.
- Um, is there anybody else here and then that you will room that would like to speak to items not on
- tonight's agenda. Call and then anybody virtually that would like to speak to items not on tonight's
- agenda. Okay, seeing none. We appreciate you, sir, for coming up and making that public comment and
- inviting us to
- on this event in a few weeks. Thank you. All right. Next up, we will move on to item five, which are
- department updates. And these are for items that are also not on tonight's agenda. I know there are
- a couple of people and right now it looks like we have Chris Hardesty that is here. So if you'd like
- to come up and each department head that would like to give
- an update for items not on the agenda you have up to 10 minutes. So take it away. Absolutely.
- you guys for having us and thank you for the ongoing support throughout many years. I just wanted to
- pop back in again this year and let you know how much we appreciate that. Life Designs DSI has been
- a part of this community for a long time and want to continue to do what we've been doing and it's the
- support you guys give us and allow us to do that so we just want to be here to say thank you.
- that we're going to be able to do that. Um kind of give you some updates. You've got some information
- in the packet there. We are looking at starting a day program here in town and having our folks something
- for them to do during the day. We've had folks since I got involved here in Bloomington six years ago
- that have been on wait lists to attend other programs and still can't get into those services. So it's
- finally time that we're going to do something about that, and we're going to start the services there
- in our building and have that available for them. And then
- I know we're in the community that are on waitlist and have been for four or five years are looking
- for those services. And so that's something we're going to be able to start providing to not only the
- folks we currently serve, but other folks in the
- community that need those services. We're really focusing on reaching young people and being targeted
- with technology and how we can utilize that. We have 11 other programs across the state that DSI operates,
- which gives us a lot of very talented folks. We have music directors and art directors and folks that
- are in our other programs, we'll be able to work with them through technology and bring that here to
- our folks. And so looking forward to that, it's very exciting. We're looking at some simulators and
- some training simulators and being able to do some things for vocational skills, possibly even partnering
- with local universities to work on certificates where our folks would be able to
- a certificate for employment somewhere, whether that be as a forklift operator or some sort of a skill
- that we can teach in a safe, controlled, virtual environment. So really some new, exciting things that
- we're trying to do and move forward with to serve not only the folks we're currently serving, but really
- wanting to expand that and serve lots of folks in the community. And again, it's your guys' support
- that allows us to do that. And we just want to say thank you. I forgot to introduce Eddie. He's our
- guy here in town that helps us run things and helps stay on top of things.
- last couple years bringing him along so that somebody else knows what's happening and knows what you
- guys do for us and just is here to as well say thank you. Appreciate you guys. I mean, on behalf of
- our clients and staff, we really appreciate the help that we get on the yearly basis. Yeah. So on behalf
- of our clients and staff, we really do appreciate the help that we get. It means wonders to our clients.
- I mean, especially when we instilled these programs and this new day program is going to be wonders
- for us. So thank you guys again. Do you guys have any questions for us?
- Let's see, does anybody have any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Woods. I've been recently looking
- at vocational training in that sphere around parks and recreation. So I would love to connect with you
- all some other time. Absolutely. Just to talk about ideas. That would be great to reach out to me and
- we'll get together for sure. So yeah, that'd be fantastic.
- We're trying to figure out how that fits, where that fits, exactly what that looks like. So any input
- for that would be very much appreciated. That's all I was saying. One of the reasons why I think funding
- from these public bodies is so important is we don't necessarily know what's going to happen at the
- state level. And so I'm going to ask a big question. And if you want to answer it later or are here,
- Feel free to but we've been reading a lot about some of the changes happening in Indiana Medicaid and
- you know I don't know is that having pretty profound impacts with your clientele or you know I don't
- know if you could talk a little bit about that or again if you want to delve into that later we can
- do that too.
- Yeah, without going into a lot of detail, yes, it absolutely is having an impact on our folks. There
- are major changes happening. We're still figuring out exactly what those all are and how that's going
- to affect us. But yeah, it's definitely kind of an uncertain time. So that's where, like you said, this
- type of funding that isn't relying on that is huge. Great. OK. And I apologize. That's kind of a non-answer,
- but I don't want to go into a lot of details. But yeah, it is definitely affecting things. Thank you.
- as always thank you for coming back it's wonderful to see familiar faces but also I want to compliment
- you on the certificate approach and that you're exploring that that in my other hat and higher education
- and out working with you know organizations that are where folks are choosing not to pursue higher education
- certificates are kind of a hot thing right now and I love the parody and notion that the
- folks are getting across the community period where they need it, what they need, et cetera. So thank
- you so much. Appreciate that. Yeah, we're just starting to delve into it, just starting to figure it
- out, but it's definitely a direction we're looking at. So. I wonder if you could, I did, I tried to
- fit in your report here, but it may not be obvious. What, what is it that we fund you to the tune of
- so that we and the public know that what that is?
- We do not know offhand what the percentage is. I can. I have that information in front of me. Actually,
- for, um, for DSI for 2027, um, it's actually the same as 26. It's, um, 474,238 dollars. Thank you so
- much. And auditor, this is in the commissioner's budget, right? Sorry. They have the mental health and
- developmental disabilities.
- And again, if anybody is wondering why, like you all come back every year during this time of the year
- to give us an update. I know I think it was Councilor Woods that had asked for this a couple of years
- back during our budget here. And so we can just know and have an update and just have a better understanding
- of where the funding is going and how we can be of service. So right before our budget season kicks
- off, this is something that
- you know, we look forward to. Is there anything that, well, my question would be, is there anything
- that is on the horizon that we should be concerned about with respect, maybe that's what you were also
- getting at too, but with respect to funding that you might possibly need where you're not getting?
- Things at a state level are definitely not getting any easier. Every day seems to bring a new challenge,
- and so having the support as it is is fantastic. And just hoping that it continues and hoping to continue
- this relationship and the support from you guys is extremely helpful. We appreciate that. Thank you
- so much. Any other further questions or comments for DSI? No? Well, we appreciate you coming.
- Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You guys have a great evening. We'll see you next year. If not before
- then. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there any other departments that would wish to make a departmental
- update? Looks like we have the survey here. There couldn't have been a more perfect storm with the
- technical issues and the fact I was planning on presenting where It has a lot of visuals. I could come
- back at another date, but I don't really think there is time So I'll try to be as concise as possible.
- I was pushing up to my ten minutes maximum already. So Well, here we go and I Think it'll be enjoyable.
- I think it'll be taking small sips from water hose and I'm hoping
- that it would be okay if I at least turn this one to the council since I'm going to. Oh, we got this
- one. Yeah. Okay. We can see it. All right. So this is actually just a slide I used for a presentation,
- but it goes into the history of the surveyors office and I'll get to the point kind of at the closing
- of this presentation of why I'm presenting today. This is how we used to
- manage our data. This is a database incense, which is like a print off with handwriting next to it.
- This is when I came to office in 2005. This is how you used to access the data. You come up to the health
- department, you pull out these physical copies, and then you would be able to get data that's relevant
- to section corner in the public land surveying system. These are
- I'm going to go back to the old monument records monument records of the public land surveying system,
- which is the framework of property rights. The first one was, I think in 83 no signature, no reference
- surveys, no theory of location. Then in 95 no. Surveys reference. No theories of location and then in
- 2013, no theory of location, but we did
- In 2006, I developed this entire web page to put our records online and upload individual records one
- at a time, making them accessible to the profession, which I think was really important for decision
- making. Now, this is kind of using GIS to streamline day-to-day operations. We stitched together
- a topographical map and then overlaid our section corner data information. Fun fact.
- The surveyors office provide this to Jason Aiken when he was an assisting plan director when the planning
- department was still in the courthouse and they promptly started using this information for planning
- purposes. So it's supposed to show that we've always been using technology, but GIS wasn't a household
- name back then. Aerials, the state did a flyover.
- shows how we streamline day-to-day operations and field work. We're able to use this to get out there
- and be more efficient with our time and more precise with finding where these locations exist. Fun photo.
- I'm going to skip through it, but that's us working out there with the best equipment available at the
- time for our budget. This is creating an access database to help streamline operations. Basically, I
- created a model which
- ran through an arc map and then over there on your right is what it produced. So we were really streamlining
- these tie sheet records. Collaboration between offices, Parks and Recs, VoterEdge, Health Department.
- Back then GIS wasn't really like a computer interface. It was what it produced. It was that physical
- map that you hung on the wall back then.
- Fast forward with over a decade of service to 2016. This is when I took the leadership role, and this
- was our current org chart. This is going to forecast some of what my conclusion will be, but the elected
- surveyor was set 75% of other elected officials. The professional surveyor was hired as chief deputy,
- but that salary was also set 75% of
- elected surveyors, which means we got a ridiculous deal for the first six months of their service.
- In 2017, the professional surveyor position was created in appropriately earning more than the elected
- surveyor. We finally started paying him for what expertise that they provide to the county. To gain
- support to help offset the financial impact, the professional surveyor position was split 75 coming
- out of county general and 25 out of the section corner fund.
- No, this is not just a leadership change. This is a shift in the standards upheld by the Office of the
- Monroe County Surveyor. Here's a product we're able to create this in house. This is a boundary perpetuation
- surveyor. We're understanding more of the totality of what's going on on the ground to set these monuments,
- preserve these monuments, maintain these monuments that again is the foundation of public rights or
- property rights across the county.
- Here's our tie sheets. I'm still always excited to show off the one on the far right with the three
- seals, a licensed surveyor, the elected surveyor, and the surveyor review board, which means once a
- month I have the opportunity to get five licensed surveyors to agree on one location. That's fun. Here's
- a quarter record index and a map depicting our progress.
- wanted to do that. This is like staying on top of new technology and methods. It's not going stagnant.
- It's making sure that we're implementing best practices and moving forward. And so we start to improve
- what this is called a field database, which allows us to create accessibility to this information or
- access issues like topology. I'm going to skip through this, but this is something I'm proud of because
- I built it out in house or where
- We need to see how the point doesn't align with the lines. All of those databases to your far left and
- some offices actually pay services to integrate topology have to move all at once. Here's a fun quick
- video. I try to trim it down real quick. So basically,
- All of those separate data sets, once expanded to show you all the multiple layers and fields in there,
- move simultaneously so we can improve that data, keep that geometry, and make sure that these boundaries
- are all overlaid. We create databases and develop workflows to streamline operations. We improved internal
- operations and expand accessibility of information.
- only if you were there for the eight hours of naming convention discussions to make sure that we had
- a fundamental way of naming these documents but expanding them as more information came in and make
- them available and accessible. Here's a fun video. I think this is really important. This kind of forecasts
- some of why I'm here. I am here all day.
- So we're searching by that one location. All of these surveys, almost about 7,000 in the database now,
- pinpoint that one location. We create reports where the profession can gain this information online.
- collaboration between offices and providing technical assistance and enhancing internal standards. This
- is something we deployed with planning. And one thing I'd like to point out is the red thing is no monument
- set at corners. Imagine if you guys had a survey done and the surveyor didn't set the monument at your
- corners. These were little things falling through the cracks over time. So we deployed this initiative
- with planning department and we still work with them today.
- more collaboration between offices providing technical assistance and generating cost savings. These
- are trail projects. One's kind of making its way to Ellisville and the other is still in the works.
- This is another showcase of it. What I like about the one on the left, that's the Limestone Greenway.
- The little house with the kind of light blue line going through it, that's the police substation. We
- literally showed up on the property, did surveying work,
- discussed what needed to be done with the property owners and negotiate this deal with assistance of
- legal and parks. The other is a township trustee trying to figure out some issues with the cemetery.
- Here's another example. This is legal in a property that went to the tax sale. We were able to go through
- this and eliminate that parcel because it didn't actually exist.
- Here are all the other professional organizations that we work with that we've collaborated with over
- the years, and also council has been generous enough to appropriate funds that allow not just my office,
- but a number of different county departments to work with these groups. All right, we're getting pretty
- close. 2019, 2020. The elected surveyors, still 75% of other elected officials. In 2019, the GIS coordinator
- was restructured
- and appropriately earning more than the elected surveyor. In 2020, the survey technician was created
- to gain the support and offset the financial impact. That position was split to 50% coming out of county
- general and 50% out of the second corner fund. Here is, in the same year the GIS coordinator was relocated,
- Monroe County launched its first internal public facing GIS web application featuring the survey utility.
- There is a video, basically you can get thousands of documents on here and you can make judgment calls
- and determinations in the field as a crews out there looking and trying to locate a monument that might
- have been buried that might actually be the corner of your property, but they can now get on here and
- find all this information to make that determination on the field instead of setting a new corner.
- We received a excellence in GIS because we're now using the technology more to its fullest, which means
- we are maximizing the investment that's already been made. 2021, we worked with elections and did the
- whole re-precincting and re-review and
- Actually, the coordinator at that time, he was the technical staff to the Represinking Committee. And
- after finalizing the Represinking Committee, we created maps that depict the changes and provided them
- to elections and attached them with the Indiana Election Commission Form 8, which is like the official
- process. Current, that's where we're at. So here kind of summarizes everything.
- In 2006, there was a WIS study. The WIS study report talks about total cost of phasing all elective
- officials to the external midpoint at this dollar amount 20 years ago, all elective officials. Here
- is the 2021. The study reported salary information for several Indiana counties. However, it failed
- to note whether the position were
- full-time, part-time, or had outside employment. These are very important considerations. We reached
- out to each county in the report and provided this during the 2021 budget hearing. In addition, the
- study had incorrect salary amounts for my position and also Bartholomew's. This is a fun fact. The average
- salary between the
- if you average them all out in this in that chart between the assessor auditor clerk recorder and treasurer
- compared to the average salary with quotations without with no outside employment so again I have these
- documentation so I had another column the difference was only 0.15 percent currently it's at 90 percent
- so still significantly
- not at equal pay. Here we go. I'll go real quick. 21, I came here, asked for equal pay, didn't get support
- at that meeting. Ultimately that year, council did adjust the salary at 90%. But then all the other
- positions got a significant raise. 2021, I did not come to ask for equal pay because I was having trouble
- with getting a licensed surveyor to the county. So I prioritized that.
- I did also didn't believe that I could get both requests and thought I was too ambitious. In 2023, I
- did come back. I did not get the support. I faded that one in. I have requested equal pay in 2026 and
- discussion with Jennifer Crosley in my liaison. We wanted to make sure we brought this to council, not
- during the budget hearings because we've been asked not to do that. And quickly, you know, I sit on
- multiple boards that are really in intergrate intergrined with the development of the county. I'm not
- going to verbatim made it a priority priority to have higher standards. Do the perpetuation work for
- per state mandate? Stay on top of technology. Continue to create databases. Also, the GIS division is
- within the surveyors office and we have created.
- public applications. And we also have been incorporating other data into a GIS, where we have provided
- that data to our constituents, colleagues, elected officials, and created valuable tools for policy
- decisions in general outreach. Here is current today, 83.1% of all the corners under my tenure
- our survey grade. Fun fact, the Indiana Geographic Information Officer has started the conversation
- again about getting section corner data for their GIS initiative. That office is in the Office of Technology.
- By receiving section corner data from Indiana counties, we can improve county boundary data sets and
- other governmental boundary units.
- political subdivisions, taxing districts, and also support NextGen 911. If you're not familiar with
- that, that is what first responders rely on. Since the restructuring of the GIS in 2019, we received
- four excellence awards, one special award, and a certified platinum certificate for our data harvest work.
- a fun photo of showing the resources. Again, this is not just a leadership change. It is a shift in
- the standards upheld by the Office of the Monroe County Surveyor. And I appreciate you giving me time
- and me being able to give you a recap of what the Surveyor's Office has done over the last 20 years.
- So thank you, and I will be back later at item F.
- Thank you. Does anybody have? Yeah, just Councilor Fido. So I would like to know if the things that
- you demonstrated here for us tonight are available online for the public to access through your website.
- The first part, sorry. So the things that you demonstrated to us, like maybe some of the charts or some
- of the graphics or some of
- is most of the information that you shared with us this evening available on the website. Oh yeah, almost
- every single thing except that dashboard. I'm working to deploy that where it showed the 83% but you
- can kind of get that without the indicator. So I would say majority of it. So the public has access.
- Yes, absolutely. And if anything that the public saw or anyone else wants to see, I can send you a copy
- and every single thing there has
- immense amount of information supporting it, so. Appreciate it, thanks. Yeah. Councilmember Henry. Yeah,
- thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Tron, for coming in.
- I wanted to say, as you had mentioned, I am your liaison for the council to your office, and I encourage
- you to bring this forward to us again to have a public hearing outside of the budget process. I think
- it's been a long road to have five years of need to make a salary adjustment for one of our departmental
- electeds to make that office whole, and I think it's worth looking into, regardless of our season of
- taxation. Tron puts in a full 40, which I think is important to say when we look at elected officials
- statewide where we can have, I think, if I remember, Councilor Deckard last week made a reference to
- Lake County. I think we were talking about offices where people get elected, maybe don't show up, Tron's
- not one of those people. One of the things I've learned about working with the liaison role here is,
- and we're going to hear this, I think, with other department heads that come to us, is these are revenue
- generating offices in our county. One thing I remember you told me about how you work with other county surveyors
- near us to figure out where Monroe County ends and maybe Morgan County begins because those offices
- are revenue for our county. When we think about property tax value, where's that parcel? Is it here
- or over on the border? Those are some very
- that you're out there measuring, but that's revenue that's generated for our county when we think about
- who gets to tax that parcel and whether or not it's ours and you find those. But did you want to talk
- a little bit about that? I just want to share that's my support of our consideration, but maybe just
- briefly talk about how you're literally finding parcels out there. Well, not exactly.
- Well, we're finding the boundaries. But one thing I think is really important, and I've actually said
- at our last affiliate meeting with other surveyors that aren't prioritizing the perpetuation effort,
- is the DLGF brought in the IGO to start looking at how they're going to calculate this potential new
- lit. And they're going to start using address points and things of that nature. And so our dealings,
- to your point,
- making sure we're accounting for annexations with the town or making sure that all these parcels are
- within those jurisdictions and all these GIS points are managed and we have confidence behind it so
- those dollars start going to it and then to your point there has been certain areas where what we have
- defined is not necessarily the actual
- legal acreage and so as we start to go down that path our parcel data will improve so like again that
- could shift with the way that the assessor uses that data. But it's it's really in my important or it's
- really important in my opinion that like where this continues to go it's supported regardless of
- you know, whoever the leadership is, but like again, you know, I was showing a few slides and I'm sorry,
- I'm derailing in just a little bit where those were previous employees because we've had some turnover,
- you know, and they have actually, I'm excited. I'll mention it later that of one of our part times taking
- a career path and has gotten a job. And I've had our already a couple of coordinators that have taken
- other career opportunities outside of the state. And we have to bring people back in to,
- continue to meet these standards. But to your point, this will really help improve all of that data
- that is utilized. If there's a parcel, for instance, we were looking at parcel IDs, property classifications,
- and we noticed a few weren't accurate, and we worked with multiple departments to correct that.
- It's kind of the flip. They were actually supposed to be in the city versus in the county. And we took
- the appropriate steps to identify that and took them to the appropriate parties to make sure. But if
- that is flipped, that's just important because if there's some properties that have that classification
- that's incorrect, then this is the data for us to find those anomalies. I thank you for that. Yeah,
- there's real science going on here. I appreciate you walking us through it. Thank you, Madam President.
- Thank you. Any other questions or comments?
- Thank you for bringing this to our attention and definitely making a case. I know you and I talked about
- that. So this is definitely something to think about before our most wonderful time of the year. Well,
- I'll be really excited to time how long my presentation went and see if I hit that 10 minutes initially
- at least. It went over, but that's OK. It's OK. We talked about it. You're good. We'll see you in a
- little bit.
- All right. Is there any other departments that are virtual or in person that would like to
- make a departmental update for items not on tonight's agenda? Okay. None. We will move on to item number
- six, which is the consent agenda items. Council, I move to approve the following consent agenda items
- for August the 11th.
- A, the Highway Department's request to fund 1169-0000 Local Road and Street for a category transfer
- of $20,000 from the supplies category to the capital category. B, the Aviation Department's request
- to fund 1107-0000 Aviation to create a count line for 0120 Tools and Equipment and simultaneously approve
- a category transfer of $95,000.
- from the services category to the capital category, and C, the council offices request and fund 1000-0061
- County General Counsel to create account line 30013 professional services. Second. We got a motion and
- a second. Are there any questions or comments on the consent agenda items presented? Seeing none.
- and we don't take public comment on consent agenda items. So all those in favor of approving the consent
- agenda items as presented, signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. OK, motion carries.
- Now we will move to our amended part of the agenda. Council, as a reminder, this was item eight H.
- council I move to approve the board of commissioners request and fund eleven eighty six dash zero zero
- zero zero rainy day for an appropriation of four hundred forty thousand four hundred and sixteen dollars
- and sixty two cents in the capital category. Second okay we got a motion and a second and Mr liberty
- are you still with us virtually. Yes TSD could you promote
- Carlos Laverty as well as Brent Thompson. Thank you. All right, you can go ahead with your items, Mr.
- Laverty. Can't hear you. We can't hear you.
- We still can't hear you. So we can see that he's talking. So the system is getting him. It's our problem.
- Does that make sense? His mic is unmuted, but we're not getting anything. Well, it's coming through
- Teams, because we can see the transcript.
- I just got a text that says they can hear him online. We can't hear him in here. I think it's the bottom
- of the screen maybe. There's an X next to the speaker.
- We can just read. Yeah. Or is Mr. Thompson able to speak on this as well? Nope. Nope. Can't hear you
- either. Okay. Technology at its finest. Ms. Gregory, are you able to speak to this because
- This seems to be a pretty easy going. Like this is something that we've been working on since the tornado
- happened back in February. And judging from reading the packet, it seems as though that this
- is a reimbursement from insurance to go back into the rainy day fund. Yes, I'm happy to help. And I
- think it is pretty simple if Mr. Loverty doesn't mind my assistance.
- Um, anyway, this yes, we've been working very closely with the aviation team. Um, we all work together
- on this rainy day policy where when we have emergency events, the rainy day fund can be tapped to bridge
- that gap between funding for a limited amount of time. And of course, um, you were very clearly made
- aware of just the deductible that would be coming out of rainy day permanently.
- So, this is just to appropriate the funds from a third reimbursement check received from insurance,
- I believe, related to this disaster, and so they can put it to good use. So, I'm happy to try to field
- any questions, but I think that's the gist of it. Thank you. And we are getting thumbs up. That's the
- good finger there. Okay.
- Any questions or comments from Council on this item? All right. If there is public comment on this item,
- you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or you can raise your hand and hopefully we can
- hear you via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Deckard? Yes.
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you, gentlemen, for showing your faces on screen. All right. Have a good night.
- All right. Next up, we are back into the regular schedule programming of the agenda, and we are going
- with several items for the higher-end freeze. Council, this is item 7A.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the Probation Department's request to
- be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire in Fund 9142-0000 immunity corrections grant
- for part-time probation officer assistant positions. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second. We
- are joined. Sorry.
- We can sit on some pillows. We are joined by Chief Probation Officer Linda Brady and Judge Decoff. Welcome.
- Thank you. Thank you. Two weeks ago, I came before the county council to set up line items in our community
- corrections grant to pay for part time probation officer assistance. And the council did create that
- line item for us to be able to pay them.
- Now I'm asking for permission to hire them. Tonight we would like to hire up to four part time probation
- officer assistance and just to remind you where I brought up two weeks ago is that the money that we're
- going to use to fund these positions would have otherwise had to be returned to the state to the Department of
- also result in savings to county general of $37,000 and into some other user fee funds in public safety
- lit public special purpose lit as well by using the grant instead of those other budgets. So we're requesting
- to be able to fill up to four part time probation officer assistance up to 56 hours a week to run our
- day reporting and drug testing program. And that's the request.
- very much. I can see a little better now that I boosted my seat. All right. Any questions or comments
- from Council on this item? Exploited well last time. So all right. Now 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. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you very, very much.
- We appreciate it. Next up is item B from the planning department. Council, I move to open for discussion
- and possible approval of the plan commission's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed
- to hire and fund 1,000 dash
- zero zero seven nine county general planning one full time office manager position. Okay we got a motion
- and a second and we are here joined by Miss Jelen the director from planning welcome. Hi thank you.
- So this is my
- third time here in the last several months. I promise everyone in our department is generally happy
- with our office. We have an eight-person department, and we've conducted three exit interviews in the
- past nine months, and every one of them mentions that the reason they're leaving is pay.
- So this is a request to fill our office manager position Our prior employee was there for 10 years,
- which was great and they're still staying with the county But as we see a vacancy in our office, we
- realize how helpful this position is fielding over 3,000 phone calls a year several walk-ins even just
- the first week with this being vacant we had five calls between 8 and 8 30 a.m. I
- with several meetings scheduled for 9 a.m. So it was quite distracting and we just would appreciate
- refilling this position. There has been some changes to this position and I think we
- you know, in the WIS study that was mentioned, it was categorized across the board. And I noted,
- you know, AI transcription of minutes has been helpful, being able to take online payments. But just
- since having taken a maternity leave recently and returning, and I appreciate the support in doing so,
- I just noticed how much
- extra outside effort there is to keep the office running. And so we would like to keep this position
- open at 40 hours. There's also been a state law change that happened starting January 1st. And so we
- are very busy taking in payments and processing permits separately from the building department, whereas
- that foot traffic used to start at the building department.
- And finally, we did increase our fees December 1st, 2025, and I reported earlier when we had a vacancy
- last month, but we've seen an increase by $24,169.20, just comparing the two fiscal half years.
- So we are requesting that this be refilled and the fiscal impact, as you'll see, does show a savings
- of ten thousand three hundred eighty dollars. And that's largely because of the base pay moving back
- to base pay. But also the longevity is no longer
- a requirement if they are hired after 2023. So with that, I'll answer any questions that you might have.
- And also I'll note with the several vacancies that we've had, we've met with our executive committee
- of the plan commission and I can come back at another time. Aside from the budget hearings, we do have
- a letter, a cover letter and a document for you on some ideas for how we can better retain our
- qualified staff, so any ideas on when you'd like me to come back, I'd also appreciate that as well.
- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments for Ms. Dellen on this item? I will go with
- Councilor Iverson and then I'll go to Councilmember Henry next. I'm going to pick up on the last point
- you made, that this is not the first time we've heard from departments where
- There are positions within a department that have analogous positions in other taxing units, and that
- creates a lot of competition. And so I think any ideas that you have about ways to help the county stay
- competitive is going to be incredibly helpful. We're very aware of this, and hopefully we'll be having
- conversations coming up. But it's something that we're wrestling with as well. Thank you, Madam President.
- Thank you for coming in.
- And I'll just reiterate the good comment that you made and what I said earlier about the surveyors offices.
- This is a revenue generating office in the county and as we've gone through that fee structure change,
- it's a giver to the coffers, I guess, in terms of how I think about this department doing its work.
- Also, and I think it's always worth sharing with my peers about
- The way that our plan commission meetings operate in that these are hearings, right? It's not like a
- person taking notes in the corner and kind of gesting the conversation. These are hearings that are
- treated at a very formal level to capture the exact words that are being said. These words can be used
- later in litigation in terms of the decisions that we're making as a plan commission or when we have
- a petitioner or the decisions of that department.
- That level of detail is important. The extra five hours go a long way to help that department function,
- and I would be supporting this effort. Thank you. Other questions or comments? I would say to answer
- your question of when could you come back, I think the next meeting that we have on the 25th for a department
- update, I think that would be an ideal time for you to do such as what the surveyor did. So I'm looking
- forward to having that discussion.
- All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other further questions or comments on this item,
- we will go to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern
- here in the room or raise your hand via teams. A public comment here. Just real briefly, Tron and right
- hand off Monroe County Surveyor, also planned commission member. Not only
- All the other administrative duties that were highlighted and you might highlight it. So if so, I'm
- going to expand on it is the fact these are hearings and to make sure that we have quorum to have these
- meetings is very important. And I know that's what the office manager has done. And this is moving along.
- people's business in a timely manner. So it's really important to have somebody that can wrangle everyone
- together to make sure that we can hit a quorum and we can move the community's business forward. Any
- other public comment on this item? Raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the room.
- Seeing none, I thought I saw Councilmember Decker's hand. I just had a quick question. Is there an issue?
- The meetings are a set time. Is there an issue getting appointed? Appointees to get to the meetings,
- the dates they've been for a long time. We so our Plan Commission has nine members and we need to have
- five in person. Sometimes people have conflicts and they want to join virtually, so then we're often
- trying to figure out if people can join virtually so that we still have the five people in person.
- It is a little bit of wrangling without turning in my. I got you. That's put anybody in trouble on the
- spot. Are people pretty quick and cooperative with responding on that? Yes, yes. And it gets lost in
- the emails. We do have five meetings a month. So I do give people a lot of grace for for receiving a
- lot of emails from us. So thank you for not throwing me under the bus, Jackie. And I am in state
- So seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, and we have already went to public comment,
- may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Next up is item C from the assessor's office. Council,
- I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the assessor's request to be exempt from the
- hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0008 County General Assessor, one full-time real
- estate reassessment specialist position. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. We are joined
- by the assessor, Ms. Judy Sharp. Welcome.
- Good evening. Good evening. Um, yes. Um, I had an unexpected, um, loss of the, uh, she's alive. Uh,
- that didn't sound good. Uh, one of my deputies who was there for over three years, who had all,
- you know, the level one, level two certification, it was really, you know, doing a great job. She had
- a personal issue where she had to leave and take care of a relative. So she's, um, she left me.
- And we hated to lose her, but I understand you have priorities. There's never a good time to lose people,
- but right now in my office with everything that's going on and the appeals that we're inundated with
- right now, this position would replace her. And just like all of my positions, I need somebody in there
- that can hit the ground running.
- learn the job, get the level 1 and level 2, you have to do that. And I wrote all this down,
- what we need. But this job is just, you just really can't, everybody in the office is cross trained.
- So if I say they are doing this, they could start doing this over here as soon as they learned a little
- bit more. That is the only way we can run the office. It is too small of an office not to have everybody
- up to speed in doing all of the jobs.
- That's what I would do with whoever came in. So I'm just respectfully asking you all if you can, I've
- never been here before for a hiring freeze, but maybe let us go ahead and hire because right now we're
- the skeleton crew. And the appeals right now is taking myself and my two appeal deputies out of the
- loop. We're doing two to three days a week.
- on appeals with the board. And tomorrow we go back in tomorrow and tomorrow's Wednesday, right? Wednesday
- and Thursday. It's just a lot right now. And so I need some people and I need somebody in there to learn
- and get it going fast. So that's all I'm asking. If you would please consider this, I'd appreciate it.
- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments from council on this item?
- at your case. All right. Now, if there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams or you can
- come forward to the podium here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor
- Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
- Yes. Councilor Feidl?
- Motion passes, unanimous. Thank you very, very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, next up is
- item D 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 1,000-0225 County General Court's
- three part-time law clerk positions.
- And we are joined again by Judge DeKoff and Ms. Chandler. Welcome. Hi, thank you. Hello. So the courts
- are asking to hire three part-time paid law clerks. We currently have no paid law clerks at this time
- and are solely relying on two unpaid law student interns. So we're asking for the three part-time paid
- law clerks to be hired for the fall semester to help the courts
- improve their capacity, conduct legal research, draft court documents and provide consistent support
- for the court's daily operations. And I would add that two of them have been have been here during the
- summer. So they have been working on on legal issues and projects that are going to continue into the
- fall. So it's it's it's just much more. It's better if we can just continue on with them.
- Thank you very much for that. Are there any questions or comments from council on the law clerks? No?
- Okay. If there's public comment, raise your hand via Teams or you can come to the microphone here in
- the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Fido. Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you. All right. Next up is item eight, which is the county council business.
- And we will start with item eight, which is the annual review. Because again, it's almost that wonderful
- time of the year.
- And so this fiscal body, which is all seven of us or six of us right now, must annually review the estimated
- property tax limits and estimated property tax caps, or also known as circuit breakers, that impact
- Monroe County non-binding entities. Do we have any questions from council related to the items we received?
- related to the items we received today. I haven't looked at them. Well, everything was in the packet.
- I just kind of solid everything down so that it was easier to read, hopefully. Yes, got it. And seeing
- none, I'm going to look to the auditor to give her.
- I reviewed everything Michelle has provided and agree everything looks accurate and on point so thank
- you. Thank you very much for that and seeing no other further questions or comments from council on
- our annual review if there are no other if there are no objections or
- I would like to direct the auditor, which is something that we are required to by state statute to notify
- the non-binding taxing units that the council has received, or I'm sorry, reviewed the 2027 estimated
- tax levy limits in the property tax caps with no changes at this time. All right, so seeing no objections,
- so ordered. All right, thank you very much for that, staff. And next up,
- We will go back to the courts. Y'all are getting y'all steps in today. Council, as a reminder, due to
- the lack of unanimous vote at the July 28th meeting, a second reading is required for this request.
- Council, I move to approve the court's request and fund 1000-0225 County General Courts to amend the
- 2026 salary ordinance to create a count line 14176, floating court reporter 35 hours,
- comment D, not exempt, and to remove account line 14167, associate court reporter. Second. All right,
- we got a motion and a second. Is there anything that you would like to add to this that we didn't discuss
- two weeks ago? No. OK. That's you. You are on it. OK. Any questions since the past couple of weeks that
- anybody would have? No. OK.
- Now we'll move on to public comment. Please raise your hand via Teams or come to the microphone here
- in the room for this item. And we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous.
- Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Next up is item C from the prosecutor's office. As a reminder,
- due to the lack of unanimous vote at the July 28th meeting, a second reading is required for this request.
- Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 1000-0009 County General Prosecutor at
- 67% and fund 1000-0009
- zero six six zero county general child support at thirty three percent to amend the twenty twenty six
- salary ordinance account line one three zero two nine forensic analyst and technology specialist pat
- be. Not exempt from thirty five hours to forty hours with an effective date of August the ninth. Okay
- we are joined here by our prosecutor and miss
- Thank you. We presented this two weeks ago. This is a person who does forensic analysis of pieces of
- evidence such as cell phones, laptops, fitness trackers, other kinds of digital items. But he also makes
- sure that we have items that we need to present in court in a form that doesn't violate the rules of
- evidence. And then he also keeps even our desktops and laptops all working smoothly.
- as an assistant tech services department. So if you have any further questions, I'm happy to answer
- them. I appreciate the support that was signaled two weeks ago, and I hope that you will go ahead and
- approve us again. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for the prosecutor on this item?
- No? Okay. We will move to public comment. You can come to the lectern here in the room or raise your
- hand via Teams.
- Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
- Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you. Still staying with the prosecutor's item or office is item D.
- As a reminder due to the lack of unanimous vote at our July 28th meeting a second reading is required
- for this request. Council I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 1000-0009 County General
- Prosecutor to amend the 2026 salary ordinance account line 13033 criminal investigator and account line 13034
- Criminal Investigator, Civ Poll D, not exempt from 35 hours to 40 hours with an effective date of August
- the 9th. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Anything you'd like to add to this item? Yep,
- just a reminder, these two folks are folks who help us get our warrant requests from law enforcement
- process. They do background checks on offenders. They also help us locate missing witnesses and victims.
- assist with transport to and from trial, those kinds of things. So again, I appreciate your support
- two weeks ago. If you have questions, happy to answer them, but I'm hopeful that you will go ahead and
- let us increase them to 40 hours. Thank you. All right. Any questions or comments from council on this
- item? Seeing none here, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward
- here in the room.
- have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. And Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right.
- Thank you very much and have a good night. All right. Next up is item E from the health department.
- council I move to approve the health department's request and fund eight one one two dash nine six two
- six STD strengthening prevention grant for additional appropriations of forty six thousand five hundred
- eighteen dollars in the personnel category and one thousand eight hundred dollars in the services category
- for a total appropriation of forty eight thousand three hundred and eighteen dollars second all right
- we got a motion in a second and we are joined by miss Lori Kelly virtually welcome
- We're still, uh-oh. I still think it's that bottom. Speaker's off. Oh, I see. Yeah, down here we see
- that Councilor Decker has been saying this. The microphone is muted down here. The speaker is muted
- because it looks like
- Ms. Kelly was speaking in the caption and is picking it up. We just can't hear it here in the room.
- It's the bottom right of the screen.
- So, okay, so I'm gonna try to pick this one up since I did my due diligence and read the packet.
- And Ms. Kelly or somebody. Ma'am, if you'll give me a second, I'll reboot the microphone system to see
- if that'll bring the Zoom back in. Okay. Standby, folks.
- Okay, we're back up. Laurie, can you hear us? And she's still talking and it's not picking up. What
- if we just... What if we just somehow made it come out of here and into there? She could have called
- on my phone and played on the speaker. Okay. It's also just a grant.
- Ms. Kelly, if you wanted to call my cell phone number, I apologize, this sounds strange. And maybe we'll
- try to put it through my speaker off of my phone. My cell phone number, the entire county goes
- to 812-360-2110. Oh, Elphaba's here.
- So what would you like to add to this? Thank you. This is just a standard grant amendment. So this funding
- supports our disease intervention specialists. This funding will last us about into the fall.
- and we are expecting an additional $110,000 to be arriving soon. That was initiated by the Indiana Department
- of Health July 1st. So this is just essentially helping to cover an additional gap as we work our way
- through the grant period. All right, thank you very much for that. Technology.
- Okay, any questions or comments on this item for Miss Kelly? This is really fun. Okay, seeing none,
- if there is public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand
- via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
- Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. And would
- Councilor Feinle like to vote on this? I would. I'm up to date with it. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Motion
- passes unanimous. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Councilor Deckard for
- helping us with that.
- All right, next up is item F. We're back with the surveyors. Council, I move to approve the surveyors
- request and fund 1202-0000 surveyors corner perpetuation for category transfer of $4,300 from the services
- category to the personnel category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Mr. Randolph, what
- would you like to add to this item? Just a couple things.
- I just wanted to backtrack just a little bit. When you're up here sometimes, I don't know, I still get
- nervous. So when people said it was cold in here after that, I was like, I'm overheating. But to Council
- Member Henry's point, I wouldn't consider our office a revenue generating, but more of a cost savings
- where we, it's kind of a flip there, but we don't have permits like when you mentioned that,
- to planning where they're actually generating revenue. But we do a lot and that kind of goes into this
- request. So I just wanted to kind of make that one bit of a clarification. I do think we have a lot
- of return on our investments and we generate a lot of cost savings for the county, other agencies and
- just property owners and people that live in this community as a whole.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um with that said, this is pretty simple. Um I need to do a transfer. I decided
- to do my first time ever out of category transfer instead of additional appropriation. This is a non
- reverting fund, so those dollars are going to go back. This is my. Effort to show you know, due diligence
- and my stewardship of taxpayers
- go back to the reserves. One reason I'm here is because I mentioned earlier we had a part-time person
- and they had graduated. They indicated they wanted to go back to school for one more year to get their
- masters, but after this last year they decided to take a career path so that opened up their schedule and
- Personally, I thought the best investment for the dollars was to utilize as much as time as I could
- get from them because they've been with the office for multiple years and there's no cross-training
- and they're actually just really proficient and great at what they did. And they even help cross-train
- the other part-time person in there. So this is all gonna go into that fund line. I will do an in-house
- transfer to offset
- to just the part timeline, but I just figured this would be cleaner and I could do that with the processes
- behind the scenes. This will get us through the remainder of the year and that's basically it. Thank
- you very much. Any questions or comments from Mr. Randolph? Yes, Councilor Woods. First of all,
- this is great. Thank you.
- I have no problem at all with the actual agenda item. Since you brought up that clarification, I want
- to say first, I appreciate that because that's exactly what I was kind of in my mind. I'm like, I don't
- think they actually collect anything. It's just you're getting things straight so that we don't lose
- money and perhaps are more accurate about how we're collecting money. Right. Maybe other things help
- other departments,
- Right to your it wasn't really a request but to your insinuation that we reconsider your salary I wanted
- to ask and it might be that I need information from staff but the salary ordinance that that I remember
- back when we set those salaries had a provision in it for
- the elected official to earn 100 percent of what everybody else all the other what others were doing
- if they were the licensed. No that's one and a half that's actually something that's I think more like
- hamstrung the office more or less. So if I was elected it'd be one and a half the salary
- So this was a discussion that Mr. McKim had in 2023 when I came back to request it. What does one and
- a half mean? One and a half. So it would be the full salary plus half if I was licensed, which I am
- not. I'm not going to get my license. One caveat to that is, you know, that bullet point that, you know,
- this is like, you know,
- of increasing the standards and service of the office. If you had a licensed surveyor come in and they
- didn't produce what we do currently with a professional surveyor, you know, would you want to pay him
- one and a half? I think the council has the discretionary measures to hold those offices accountable.
- And if a licensed surveyor came in and they had, you know, in the statute, they can run their private
- firm out of the surveyor's office as the elected surveyor.
- it was the trend that you saw, I think that would be your ability to adjust that accordingly when it's
- reflected of the duties in the service being provided. So that's the way I look at the argument. I understand
- the other side of that, that it's like, oh, hey, let's not get too crazy. Then it's going to be one
- and a half. Personally, I think the private sector, if you
- I think it's more of holding the office accountable and to these standards, and I saw Michelle want
- to raise her hand, so I'll defer to her. I just want to say, I believe there is a statute, and I would
- have to have Ms. Turner King confirm that. But if Ms. Turner King doesn't have a statute, I would have
- to have Ms. Turner King confirm that. But if Ms. Turner King doesn't have a statute,
- An elected official, if the surveyor is a licensed surveyor and they're elected into that position,
- they get the salary plus a half. Half of the salary? So whatever it is, yeah, so they get, so it's like,
- you know, how you get like time and a half, they would get, they get the salary and the half, you know,
- so they get more because they are licensed.
- as a surveyor. So that was my understanding. So that's why we never went to that full amount because
- if you did have a surveyor, then you would go to that full amount. I don't know what the basis of it,
- but I thought there was something with regards to a statute as how to pay for a surveyor if they were
- a licensed surveyor.
- a statute. And I'd be happy to bring that to you during the budget hearing, unless you want to put Molly
- Turner King on the search. But Michelle is accurate. There is a statute where if you're a licensed surveyor
- and you're the elected surveyor, you get the one and a half. And also within that,
- you're permitted to run your private firm out of the surveyor's office, which I think is just bizarre
- to me. But there are a lot of unlicensed surveyors that earn more than what I would be requesting as
- equal pay. So my whole presentation was to show the development and the heightened standards and making
- sure that we are being accountable
- by providing those standards moving forward. Any elected office holder could come in and change their
- office and their functions and, you know, it's up to the council to, you know, determine does that change
- their pay. So I feel like it could work either way. And that's been kind of my hope to kind of get other
- peoples to see it from both
- sides and both lenses and know that, you know, this would then put the council in a role where they
- would be wanting to see these standards upheld, you know, but they would want that with any office,
- in my opinion. Yeah, that's true. Thank you. I hope that was clear. It gets kind of convoluted. I'm sorry.
- As President Crossey has mentioned, we're heading into the most joyous time of the year, which is budget
- season. So thank you for helping us budget accurately by doing a category transfer and not an additional
- appropriation. We really appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm really keeping tight graphs on that corner fund.
- So thank you. Other questions or comments on this item?
- Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, raise your hand
- via Teams, or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have
- a roll call. That's where I'm at. Hold on. There we go.
- Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
- Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Next up also with the surveyor is item G.
- Council, I move to approve the Surveyor's request to amend the job description title of Field Assistant
- to Field Technician and simultaneously in Fund 1202-0000, Surveyor's Corner of Perpetuation, amend the
- 2026 Salary Ordinance Account Line 17062 from Field Assistant to Field Technician. Second. Okay, we
- got a motion and a second. What would you like to add to this item?
- Just I feel like the technician is more in line with the duties that they perform. I feel like the work
- that they're doing is very high level and this just will go to kind of their career path as they move
- outside of a part time into hopefully a full time career. Unless sometime I
- find myself in the reverse where I'm bringing in like a retiree person as a part-time role, not looking
- for a full-time career, but this is a more line. They do GIS work. They also help maintain the database,
- but they're also on the field working with the licensed surveyor. Depending on how the day goes, the
- surveyor might have them use the JVOD, which is collecting survey grade coordinates. I was going to
- And this, I guess the public won't be able to see it, but that's it. It's just more in line with it.
- And we got a field picture of their last day in the office email sent to us because unfortunately we'll
- be losing the person that is going to serve in that role. But it's a butterfly on top of the Javad.
- And so it's one of our favorite field photos out there. The best part is if we get this done and amended
- before we have to go through that
- I hate the word termination process. Before we go through that final procedure paperwork, they can say
- they served as the field technician versus the field assistant. They're not just handing them a hammer
- or this or that. So I've worked really hard to get away from the assistant naming convention within
- my department. Thank you very much for that.
- Any questions or comments from Mr. Randolph on this item? All right, seeing none, we will move to public
- comment. You can come forward to the microphone here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing
- none, maybe police have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes.
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- All right. Thank you so much. I'm going to go risk it in the rain and I hope everyone makes it home
- safe. Yes. Thank you. You too. All right. As a reminder for anybody watching publicly, we have already
- talked about item H moved that up earlier in the agenda and items I and J.
- and K are also tabled and K is also tabled to our August 25th. So we are winding down here and so we'll
- move on to item 9 which are discussions for the County Council and it is one that I know some of us
- have been talking about and learning about and it is our the
- convening of the must task force. So I am looking to Ms. Turner King and of course the auditor could
- chime in as the necessary if you choose or you know if you need to but take it away. So the must is
- a municipal unit strategy task force that was created by recent house enacted
- bill 1210 to evaluate local income tax structures and future funding priorities among local governments.
- A representative, if the council chose to form must, there would be a representative from the city,
- the county, Steinsville, and Ellitsville. And in essence, if it is formed, they would
- negotiate and establish through unanimous support a local income tax distribution agreement as it pertains
- to county local income tax. That would be submitted to DLGF. And then there is some question on the
- binding effect of that agreement that we're still working through, but that is in essence what must
- is overall. It's confusing because it is not
- required, although its name is must. It's not a must. It provides communities with an opportunity to
- coordinate long-term financing planning across local governments, evaluate how future lit decisions
- affect every governmental unit, access taxpayer impacts, and identify opportunities for taxpayer relief
- while maintaining essential local services. It balances local autonomy.
- It is really being encouraged by Association of Indiana Municipalities. And then each entity who participates
- in MUST if it's formed also has the right to have a financial advisor present. And so I do believe like
- Financial Solutions Group has reached out to the county offering their services if MUST is formed.
- Is there any specific must questions that I might ask? And you know it already. You might answer. I
- see a hand raising and flying my way. Councilor Wilts. Thank you. Although I did not have an opportunity
- to read all the emails that popped through this afternoon before coming, I did see that Kim forwarded
- on your behalf a link to a webinar. So I was listening to this webinar as I was driving here.
- And they emphasize, now I didn't get through the end, but they emphasize that it was non-binding. Okay.
- I thought maybe they reversed course by the end of the webinar and I haven't heard it, but
- it's a non-binding, it's an agreement. They emphasize that the process was actually the benefit in a
- lot of cases and that it was an opportunity for us to
- in preparation for the meeting become aware of all of the essential services that are supported throughout
- our county by all the different municipalities and other organizations that rely on local income tax
- because I'll be the first to admit I probably couldn't name all the services that are provided. So I think
- Given that and given what FSG has said, and by the way, the question was about that, it being non-binding,
- and she answered it by nodding, so I just kept going. But given that Mr. Garrett has said that he highly
- recommended it, I think it's something that we should most certainly do in the spirit of communication
- and collaboration. So I have a question about that.
- And so, you know, it's recommended to go with a financial group to provide services. Is that an extra
- cost that we would take on? FSG's proposal is an extra cost. I do think it's worth talking to them about
- it to see instead of executing a whole new contract, if we can just amend our current contract and to
- see if any of the services are already covered in the
- So we have the current contract. I'm curious if any of the must tasks that they've proposed is included
- in what we're already paying for. So I do think it's a conversation with Charlie and Greg of FSG about
- the contract. OK. And the other question that I had, and I feel like I've asked this before, when Jamie
- Bolser had gave her presentation and then I had listened to the first half of the AIM AIC
- conversation webinar that we got sent to us. If we had a taxing unit that does not opt in or does not
- want to participate, does this mean that anybody must no longer a thing because a taxing unit has decided
- not to be in the game with us?
- I don't know that I have an exact answer to that question, but there is a similar question in a slide
- provided by that Michelle recently shared with you. And the common question is, what if not everyone
- participates? What if we can't all agree on what to include in the report?
- what if we don't think the structure currently in statute for 2029 works for all our units? And the
- response in that email is, or that slideshow is, lack of unanimous support can speak to issues that
- the plan structure doesn't address. If consensus is not reached, discuss why and highlight the areas
- where agreement has been reached. So I think you would still submit something to DLGF and then you would
- just highlight what happened. Ms. Gregory.
- In addition to that, we know that there's still going to be a lot of legislative changes related to
- the new lit structure. So we have that to be continued as well. Because it sounds like I know Mr. Guirata
- said, SB1, the sequel is coming back. And word on the street is the elimination of property taxes altogether
- is something that could potentially come around next legislative session.
- Yes, they did mention that. And additionally, there's just some funding gaps with regard to townships,
- et cetera. And I know there's conversations happening about combinations. But we don't have all the
- information yet. And we don't know the changes coming forward. It's just interesting that we are thinking
- about doing this. And I understand that it's non-binding. And I'm curious about the whole idea of this
- must task force. But it's just interesting that it's
- It's not blinding. We also need to convene our first meeting if this is what we want to do by October
- 1st. My understanding is that I think there's a date in December that a report needs to be filed with
- the state from our findings. And there could also be a potential of them changing the lit structure
- yet again. So then we could be coming back for a sequel that we all might not be looking forward to.
- next year too. Yes, it's pretty much guaranteed that that's going to happen. But on the positive side,
- this is getting the conversation going. It's allowing us to understand and look at how the different
- taxing rates are going to affect different units, what belongs where. I do think it is a good thing
- to get the conversation started and to see what it looks like at this point, given the current law.
- Yeah, of course. And I'm not.
- I'm definitely, I'm very curious, sorry y'all. But this has been the must thing that's been on my brain
- because I know a similar fashion to our long-term finance committee meetings. The city council has their
- fiscal committee meetings and about a few weeks ago, their financial services group gave a presentation
- and I know a couple of us have had an opportunity to meet with some of the city council members because
- their concern is,
- that they want to have a fair share because ultimately this gives the county council a lot of power
- in their hands and we know that fire EMS definitely the library is affected by all of this. So it's
- you know having the conversation is definitely something that I'm not shying away from and I don't want
- to shy away from. I'm interested. It's just frustrating that there's this chance
- that all of this could be changed, and we're all trying to do this, and then the state could come around
- and go, but wait, there's more, and then re-change or re-calibrate everything that we are thinking that
- we're doing in good faith, you know? So that's frustrating. I'm not frustrated with anybody in the city,
- and I know I've met with Council Member Hopi Saasberg about this,
- She had reiterated that in our conversation that even though we're county councils, some of us also
- have city residents in this and she definitely made the case, so.
- I think I made all of you aware that there is a proprietary AIC Association of Indiana County's model
- for this new lit structure that county auditors received. So I have been playing with that. I looked
- at it with FSG in a small group of your financial team. And I'm excited to show all of you just to see
- can so we can all understand together the way it works and play with it. Thank you. I appreciate that.
- I see a council member vital and I think Decker.
- had his hand up, so I'll go first. So I'd be curious to know what other counties are doing, right?
- Do we know? Is there any way to figure out what other counties are doing in the must or with the must?
- Sorry, I keep pulling the microphone back and forth. I have a county auditor email thread group, and
- so I can share a little bit of that with you. We're very early into this at this point, so only
- When I at last I looked at it a couple weeks ago now only a few counties had already convened their
- must group or we're beginning to set meetings. So we all know that we're all moving toward that but
- it is just still very early on. I mean initially the guidance was to hold off as long as possible. Let's
- wait for all the data so we can make informed decisions.
- still don't have that information. So we're all just going to kind of proceed with what we have, I think,
- at this time. So it's your sense that most counties, if not all, will participate in a must?
- I think so. I think so, yeah. Well, I want to say something, because I think there are city folks that
- watch these conversations, particularly around this. And I think a lot of times government agencies
- when they're working across jurisdiction, don't send reassuring signals. So I'd like to do that now.
- For our city colleagues, we all, I think, majority will work wholeheartedly with you, with the town,
- and then all those other units. And I wanna make sure that as we do this, as we're moving forward, at
- least from my view, that we're thinking holistically, I hate that word, but we're thinking as big as possible
- about anything we might be screwing up or leaving out. I wouldn't want to get into this process and
- then say, yeah, don't forget, there's this one particular thing that you don't normally deal with, but
- because you're in this one particular situation, you might have overlooked that. So I think we've got
- to think pretty comprehensive. Now let me talk to you, having offered reassurance, let me echo some
- frustrations and just get this out there.
- I don't think anyone knows what's happening. And I think that includes the people that make the laws.
- And I'm saying that as respectful as possible. But they're kind of saying it themselves, that something
- is changing. And I have to be honest with you. I'm tired of hearing movies and sports metaphors from
- Indianapolis over things that are affecting lives. We have police departments that are trying to figure
- things out, ambulances that we're hearing in this storm right now that are trying to figure out life.
- We're going to create something that may be gone. And as someone pointed out to me this week several
- times, be careful. Don't spend too much because this may not be something that is existing in a year.
- And the state has done this numerous times. We're going to try this because we wrote this bill at 3 a.m.
- on Sine die.
- and the speaker gaveled us closed, and then we discovered that we let three horses out, and now we've
- renamed somehow Vandenberg County, Posey County. I mean, look, they make mistakes. There's not always
- expertise in the late hours. So I'm concerned about Monroe County, which is my jurisdiction, spending
- a bunch of money for consultants to assist us with a hypothetical case study that the boys and girls
- of the General Assembly may not have yet
- decided they want to figure out from the last time they had a party. Okay? And I would say that with
- respect, but here's where government actually happens. You know, the courts are a really good example.
- We heard, well, you're losing a court. I don't know if they consulted anyone on that. You're losing
- a court, so that means you'll save money. The state always says that.
- as they give you more unfunded mandates. But we know the action we took tonight is to help the court
- try to manage what it has to do, which are the people that live and work here and want to be safe. So
- I say all this because this is exceedingly impossible to keep doing. And yet again here, what do we
- have? We've got city, anxious about county. We need that about like a hole in the head. We've got town,
- anxious and they're of course off doing their own thing about reorganization why because yet again we're
- competing and we have folks like libraries and townships and other folks that are very anxious on what
- is now PAWS what may end up being more PAWS or a complete change or a musk task force or some other
- complete name we've not thought about and friends we can't govern like this we can't you cannot go
- day to day. And unlike our federal friends, we can't operate on a continuing resolution that we only
- pay attention to when our name's on a ballot once every six years. And unlike our state friends, we
- can't change the rules all the time. So this would be a good time to either give us certainty or just
- be straight with people that services costs. I have heard from many taxpayers overwhelming concern about
- their property taxes. Overwhelming. That said,
- friends, and I pay them too. I pay them on two different properties. As someone who's noted in the public,
- you can look it all up. Look Deckard and Trent, you'll find it. But when I look at our records on how
- values of homes have gone up in this area, I can see some of the problems that we've had dramatically
- between 2010 and now
- It's like steroids on the value of a home. Well, naturally, when you have a property tax system, that's
- going to chase that. For my state friends, the frustration that you hear out there are people that need
- relief all in life.
- we don't need more unfunded mandates where we're chasing, choking, studying and trying to figure it
- out. So I just, I hope somebody out there that is running for state legislature or thinking about running
- or whatever, I hope that they hear this because we can't live like this. And now we are yet again in
- a situation where we're going to have to write some checkout to an outside consultant to make sure that
- we keep the straight and narrow.
- So we can fulfill the bureaucracy of the moment and the need. That's where things could be cut, if you're
- asking my druthers. I'm sorry to go on so long. That's fine. I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilor
- Iverson, and then I'll go Henry. I'm going to pull two things out of the AIC email that we all received
- today. Number one, I agree with Councilor Deckard. I want to give some assurances to the community.
- We do have, if we agree to do this,
- There is a deadline by which we must have a must meeting. And can you talk about that? And under what
- circumstances are we beholden to that deadline? I believe the deadline is October 1st to form Musk.
- And then I'm trying to scroll through the stack
- shoot and slides that I have. So each county may prior to October 1st, convene a must with one representative
- from the council, the city and town fiscal officers. The committee may not include representatives from
- fire and emergency protection. And then I believe there's a deadline in December for submission of the
- report to DLGF. Oh, yeah. All right. So if we're moving forward
- It's going to be sometime by October 1st. Correct. And in the slides from Baker and Tilley provided
- by AIC, they list out several steps before convening the task force, which include understanding the
- legislative framework, identifying goals of each local unit, reviewing current lit distributions, gathering
- revenue projections, evaluating taxpayer impacts and opportunities for tax relief, identifying long-term
- service infrastructure and fiscal priorities across the county.
- assessing whether taxpayer liability aligns with the beneficiaries of local services and understanding
- local service delivery responsibility. So I mean, I think my recommendation to counsel at this point
- is what information or what do you want to see to and when to even have the do we form this conversation? Yes.
- I think it was last week, all the days are running together. But we had a very preliminary discussion
- with FSG, Michelle, and a few others. During that meeting, we talked with FSG about if they were going
- to assist us with this process, if you choose to tap them, then what do they need from us further? And
- so we also went through a very
- just very preliminary ideas just to kind of talk about what is needed and what we need to think about
- moving forward. So it was kind of a pre-meeting, if you will. But we're getting there. The process has
- begun, just to reassure you. The second point that I want to make is that participation in this is the
- phrase they used, is permissive, not mandatory. That being said,
- I want to make sure that if we decide to go down this road, we are sending invitations to all taxing
- units. I think it is absolutely important that the public hears what's happening to the school districts.
- It's absolutely important to hear what's happening to the library system. Absolutely important what's
- hearing to the township trustees. We cannot focus on city and county. I mean, it's important, right?
- We could really do serious damage here.
- But we also need to hear from all these other taxing units about what's happening. It's so important
- that if we convene this, that it's a community gathering, and it's not just one or two entities, in
- my humble opinion. Council Henry. Thank you, Madam President. And I appreciate everyone's comments.
- This is tricky to work through. I know it's also been a bit of a slow moving train, because we've known
- about this for a while.
- I reflect on two things about our approach to this, and it picks up on some of the threads here. It's
- no secret that I think before I was elected here, and I think several of us were elected here, that
- the frictions among the taxing units are not small in our community, and the older structure by which
- we divvied up our tax revenue through the certified shares program really created some
- tensions about who got what slice of the pie, and especially frictions between non-city county residents
- and city county residents. I think that's important to start to phrase. I think it's been phrased too
- long that it's county or city, and we do forget about, as you'd mentioned, those city residents that
- also are county residents. In some ways, this committee could be an opportunity to reset that dialogue
- among the taxing units as
- we are on shifting sands. And I'm hopeful we have enough new players in county government and city government
- and other governments that we can stop thinking of this as sort of a zero sum fight over tax revenue.
- And it is something that we have to contemplate even though we have our own budgets to balance and the
- like. So I don't fear the must in that respect. The non-binding part's important to me too. I do agree
- with Councilor Iverson that maybe our version of this extends dialogue to partners that are not
- Named is the quartet that should be in the room. So there's that piece. There's also two maybe policy
- pieces that caused me some heartburn about the recommendations that we've received from AIC and others
- about how we approach this. The first is an emphasis that says that all things being equal, fire and
- EMS tax should be considered
- Urgently or at the front end of this discussion and yet There's no call in the legislation to put the
- the the fire protection district at the table with us to talk about that, right? So Yeah, right. So
- that's interesting, right? Like that's the most important part, but but they're not welcome to sit in
- the quartet, right? That's kind of interesting And so I flagged that it goes as long as side libraries
- alongside schools about about you know how we have that dialogue and
- And then maybe I'll wrap up with a question, because I think we've touched on it in different ways.
- But I don't know this. But have we had formal communication from our other taxing units to us about
- must? I don't know if we've said that in the public meeting, that has the city of Bloomington reached
- out, has Steinsville reached out, has Eltsville reached out formally, or even to our knowledge, to even
- show that they would join the four. Without them, there isn't really a committee, right?
- But do we have anything formal from Steinsville or Ellesville? No, from Steinsville. I mean, I know
- we've had email communication from Steinsville showing an interest from their council, but not necessarily
- their taxing or their fiscal authority that would sit there, right? I mean, I'd open it up. Have we
- had correspondence or anything? Could that be the clerk? We had it from Richie Carter, but I don't know
- if the clerk treasurer has said anything. OK.
- I've not received any formal communication to my office. I just want, I mean, and I think that's an
- important question to ask and interesting, but there was no expectation of any communication from them.
- It's up to us to, so I just don't want it to sound like, well, nobody's called me, you know,
- that's all. That's not my, that wasn't my,
- attention there. If there's an urgency felt in the other taxing units, they really must get to the table
- and make their case. I was curious if we'd heard that. The puns you could do with the must task force.
- If we must, we shall, and we try. Informally, I know the mayor has reached out to have a conversation with me.
- Hopefully, I would assume it would be in support of trying to form this task force. Again, I know Councilor
- Iverson and myself had conversations with Council Member Stosberg about this. And they also talked about
- it at their meeting last week. So that was, and again, their July Fiscal Committee meeting, they talk
- about this because
- their financial, like I said before, their financial services group is trying to, had mentioned,
- you know, why this is a must for all. So, I did it. That reminds me of another point. Yep. And one that
- I think maybe Councilor Hawk would make if she were here, and I'm just gonna try to channel that for
- a minute, that to be mindful that while we're trying this, or having this discussion in good faith and
- maybe possibly pulling everyone together that, you know,
- there are taxing units that are proceeding with their budgets and looking at their own current tax rates
- as they can start to consume part of our two point, correct me, it's 2.9, right? What's the total for
- the county? That sounds, I don't have it in front of me, so I'll grab it. Right, so if you have taxing
- units starting to take little bites out of it here and there, by the time we get to the committee, we
- may find that some of that rate has already been obligated. Similarly to our predicament with financing,
- capital projects or large bonds, right? If we're committing the county to a third of all income tax,
- for example, for the potential justice center thing. It's something to point out. I mean, the bodies
- are still doing their work while we're thinking about the future as well. Right. Yeah. So the other
- thing that I hear is maybe there is an interest. However, it sounds like there needs to be
- another conversation with FSG to come back to the table because they
- must have a proposal for us to talk about this task force. And I would maybe echo Councilor Deckard's
- comment. I mean, we might, I can't work must into it. We may not need that level of expertise. We have
- a lot of sharp people in our county. I appreciate that there may be other counties that must rely on
- such a thing, but if ours takes a different format, it may not require that level of effort, but of
- course it's good to hear what they have to offer. Yeah, I would agree. I think, again, in what we have
- been talking about and what we will have come forth against us, or to us, I should say, for a budget
- season, it just would seem, I don't know, I got a little heartburn with trying to
- together something because it's like if this is a cost to us and this is something that we shall do
- then this is a cost that we would bear and not other taxing units like that's that's a I mean that's
- that's a legit concern it's like yeah I'm curious about that and I will note that we do have a pretty
- meeting scheduled with FSG already on August 26th at 2 p.m. And so I think we could talk to them more.
- They did send forth a proposal where it lists six items that they would be able to assist the county
- with. So I'm happy to distribute their proposal. And then if any council members have specific questions
- or concerns about what's contained in this proposal, we can easily discuss it with FSG on August 26th.
- just in the spirit of us not delaying and some thought about it. Is it possible for you to tell us those
- six things in a rough dollar amount?
- So we get that in our head. It's facilitate, facilitate and moderate must task force meetings to support
- productive collaboration and timely negotiations, provide guidance and analysis on local income tax
- distribution strategies, including modeling potential fiscal impacts, assist in drafting and reviewing
- local income tax distribution agreements, support Monroe County with documentation and submission processes to DLGF.
- offer ongoing advisory services to help the county monitor, update, and implement income tax agreements
- and assist with the development of the report to the state legislative. And then their fees would be
- based on an hourly rate. So for the CPA, MA, or MA principal, it's three to four hundred
- $300 to $400. For the financial analyst, it's $150 to $175. And for administration operations,
- $100 to $150. And then they have costs built in for mileage, copying, and mailing. Typically, with these
- agreements, we put a do not exceed amount. There is not a do not exceed amount currently included. But
- for example, with the county financial solutions group,
- that the county entered. Oh, it expires. When did we enter? The 20th of February of 2025. It has a do
- not exceed mount of I think it's 28,000. So we could cap what we're willing to spend on this, but that
- was just their preliminary proposal, and I will say the preliminary proposal for the financial advising
- agreement also did not have a cap amount, but we added one.
- those. I think there's some things in this proposal that between legal and the auditor's office I don't
- know that we would need much support from financial or from FSG particularly things like submission
- of documents to DLGF. DLGF has outlined a pretty
- specific process to do so. And I think between our two offices, we can figure that out and not have
- to pay $400 an hour to do it, unless you want to pay me $400 an hour. Nice try. My question to that
- would be, we already have them helping us with the LTF. LTF, just Alex's answer. And this is why I said
- I think this is a conversation with
- with FSG because there is some overlap in this proposal specific to must and our current contract. And
- so for example, like we already have them advising us on lit models. And so I'm not sure why that is
- not already covered in our current services. And so I think there is a conversation to be had with FSG
- saying, look, our current contract is still in effect. It says this, why is this different?
- That was my whole point is we can just we must turn this into you know, we could easily amend our current
- contract to cover additional must services. Okay. Well, excuse me, while recognizing what we're not
- having them do at the same time. Correct. I do think the model is that everyone each unit who if we
- form must each unit would have their own fiscal advisor there. So I do think they would attend the meetings.
- But like the city folks would have like- Baker and Tilley, for example. We would have FSG. Each person
- would have a financial advisor in the room. Gosh, it almost seems like it'd be easier to not do must
- and just have a may. We'll make up a different. We'll have a may instead of a must. We may have a meeting.
- I mean, to be honest, they've given us so many tools.
- There are definite things we'll need advice on. But saying that they will help prepare agreements on
- local income tax, we don't need to make agreements because it's non-binding. I don't even know. You
- either pass it or you don't. Right. And I'll point out, too, that I think it was shared this afternoon.
- There is templates for these things, in essence. Exactly.
- So it's not like you'd be creating an agreement from scratch. But I also, I mean, we've benefited a
- lot from FSG. I definitely am not trying to say that they have not been valuable. I've appreciated their
- advice and the work that they've done. I'm just not entirely convinced that we need to, not just we,
- you know, if council is paying,
- and the city's paying, and then, I mean. Ellensville, Steinsville. Does Steinsville, I mean, my goodness,
- when does it stop? It's like a convention of advisors. I don't know. That seems silly. Yes. So I'm looking
- at this from a little bit of a different perspective.
- really like that FSG is bringing their expertise, including they are well informed of what other units
- are doing. They work with other units around the state, and that is very helpful. So they might bring
- some ideas from outside the box that we may not have thought of in our community, for example.
- So I like that. Additionally, it's almost like an added control to kind of ensure that we are in compliance
- with the statute as it's forever changing. I mean, we have our legal team who is excellent, but I think
- kind of like we're so locked in and looking at it so closely that allows us to maybe overlook things
- from time to time. Not that we do that often, but just to make sure we have the most recent version.
- We're following best practice with everything, and it is really
- that's going to be big and new, and there's going to be a lot of changes year to year. I just want to
- make one additional I I appreciate all of that and getting us to it. I just believe that the reality
- that the state envisions for financial budgets doesn't match what we currently do.
- You know, there was a period about two to three weeks ago that I heard. So I'll say it. I think I think
- it's been in news stories. So someone can sue me if I'm wrong here. But the DLGF did not have any in-house
- attorneys whatsoever. And they went through a two to three week period or more where due to something,
- they didn't have an attorney. And I thought about that for a second. We are one county of 92.
- we have attorneys. When we need additional attorneys, we have discussions about it. We have to go out
- and get additional attorneys. But a state agency of that magnitude operating like that, I think probably
- they need to take a page from a little bit of what we do, but also vice versa. If we're heading into
- a world where we
- the cost and despair, which are truly out there. I hear it from people. If things are so bad, it may
- mean that we can't have things the way we have that we cannot keep lights on to the level that we do
- in this building. We cannot have subcommittees for committees, and you certainly can't staff it. It
- may mean things like that, and I throw that to the friends at the state too, because that you know it
- may mean that you can't have unfunded mandates.
- where you're trying to figure out something that is apparently going to switch in a year. And when we
- talk to our state associations, they say things like, now you want to hold off on that. And my heavens,
- be careful spending too much on any outside help. There's a lot of, I don't know. And when the rubber
- meets the road, we still have a justice building that's got all the things that it's got and a jail
- that has definitely all the things it's got.
- And I feel like we lose our focus on this because we're chasing every single priority of Indiana's economic
- policy that switches every two years on how we do it. I'll be quiet. I'm not helping. And I know we've
- got other things that we need to get to. So in terms of the next steps of basically putting the Avenger
- Group together,
- Thank you, Spider-Man. So when we are putting this task force together, what would be our next steps?
- Because I think council president gets to, that's a lot of power that I don't want. But what's the next
- steps? I think the next step that I would recommend is to have, I think everyone has,
- still questions that might be unanswered about must. And so we have this opportunity to sit down with
- FSG on the 26th of this month. I can forward you FSG's proposal. And then I think the next step would
- be, if you have questions, send them back to me. We can talk to FSG. And then we'll have a secondary
- conversation. And it would probably be if our meeting isn't until the 26th, the first meeting of September.
- have another must conversation. And if we're thinking that we want to convene must, I would recommend
- a resolution or some letter from council president that would go to other taxing units. OK, because
- it looks like I'm trying to check our our unfortunate and I almost want to reach out to F.S.G. to see
- if we can move up this August 26th meeting slightly because
- the council's next meeting is the 25th. So I would, I mean, if we can move it to like the 20th or the
- 21st, that would be great so that we could have it at this next council meeting in August. Yeah. Cause
- then we are running into budget season. Exactly. And therefore, so city is also doing their budget season
- too. And the timeframe, I mean, October would be here before you know it. I'm happy to email FSG to
- see if we can move it up just a few days. Okay. Okay.
- Maybe the next time we come back for, well, hopefully they can because then with our meeting being August
- 25th, we could talk about it, have a plan and go from there. Okay. Any other questions or comments on
- must? Well, thank you all very much for that conversation. I know it's, you know, everybody has all
- the thoughts
- about all the things there. So we were able to get it all out and go forth what you will or what you
- must. Oh, there it is. I know. Sorry, I had to do it. Staying in my lane. All right. So next up, we
- are at item B, which is discussing on our lit special purpose. And so there's been conversation about
- that. So I'm still looking to Ms. Turner King.
- to help with this conversation. It's something we've been talking about since last year in budget season,
- and as I keep reminding ourselves, it's almost that time. So I'm happy to go through the procedure and
- potential timelines if you want first, and then I think the auditor has a more number revenue specific
- presentation. Okay.
- I'm going to share my screen, maybe. And I know Judge Harvey is here in the audience as well. So I want
- to acknowledge Judge Harvey as well. So I don't know if you feel compelled to, if you don't have to,
- not putting you on the spot, but if you need to, feel free to come join the conversation as well.
- Okay so maybe just stay there and then you know we'll invite you up to one of the tables. All right.
- Thank you. So I put together this tax implementation procedure PowerPoint and so I'm going to go through
- it really quick. The tax adoption timeline if we adopt the
- an ordinance that amends the tax before August 31st, then the tax will go into effect October 1st. I
- think the timeline that we were aiming for is the September 1st adopting an ordinance sometime after
- September 1st, but before October 31st, which would make the effective date January 1st of 2027. So
- procedurally, what has to happen before the council can approve an ordinance adjusting the tax rate is that
- The council has to publish a proposed ordinance with a specific rate at least 10 days prior to the public
- hearing. This publication has to occur in the newspaper. There is some statutes like the additional
- appropriations statute or the budget statutes that allows for online publication, but lit publication
- here for public hearings is not one that can be published just online. Historically, we have a first
- reading and a public hearing the same night.
- And what we've done, for example, with the correctional taxes, we've had the first reading, we opened
- and closed the public hearing, and then we did not take a vote that night. We took the vote on the second
- reading. Nothing says you can't take a vote the first reading. It's just I would like to acknowledge
- that if you take a vote at the first reading, it has to pass unanimously or there has to be a second
- reading. Once the ordinance is passed, the council would direct the auditor to provide notice to the
- local taxing units within 15 days. What we did in the past was email
- ourselves because we are the underlying taxing unit. And then the auditor submits documentation to the
- Department of Revenue and DLGF, and that usually includes a copy of the public notice, the ordinance,
- and then the fact that we notified ourselves that we did it. So some important things that we
- important things to keep in mind, we must give 10 days notice. The proposed ordinance must state the
- specific rate. So we did this with correctional tax. If you remember when we passed the correctional
- tax the first time, we implemented a rate of .175 and the statute required it to be to the nearest hundredth.
- So then we had to re-advertise it for .17, but because we amended it, that started the entire process
- all over. So any change to the ordinance
- puts us back to square one. So considerations for timelines. And these are the same considerations we
- thought of when we did the correctional tax was, do you want the public hearing to be in the evening?
- Should the adoption hearing occur during the evening? Do you want the public hearing to occur on a separate
- night from budget meetings and or regular council meetings? And do you want to hear the court's special
- purpose budget prior to the consideration of the rate? As a reminder, just because it was
- we did not hear the tax rate on a budget meeting night. We reserved hearing the tax issue on a regular
- meeting night. And then we also held the public hearing during our regular meetings so that would be
- in the evening and maybe more accessible. So based on these questions in past precedent, I put together
- two potential timelines. And they're all crazy.
- The first timeline has the council identifying a potential rate and the August 25th meeting. That's
- just so we can prepare an ordinance and get it submitted to the H.T. So if you identify a rate at August
- 25th hearing, we could potentially submit it the very next day to the H.T. Now caveat that that submission
- timeline requires us to get everything to the H.T. by noon on Wednesday, which is a
- very tight schedule for the auditor's office to submit that. It's a pretty cumbersome portal. So I don't
- know if you want more time, but option one is we submit by noon on Wednesday, which would put publication
- on August 28th. Therefore we could have the first reading public hearing at the September 8th regular
- session of the council.
- with the second reading being at the 22nd September meeting. And then if you use this model or this
- option, if there's an amendment, it would still give us time so that even with an amendment, we could
- have a potential adoption hearing on October 6th. Now, I will caveat that October 6th is a budget night,
- but it's not a budget session. It's the budget public meeting or public hearing.
- So the first option has everything done potentially by October 6th. The second option basically starts
- out the same way. You identify a rate at the next meeting. It gives us a little bit extra time to advertise,
- but even by pushing the advertisement from Wednesday to Thursday, that pushes publication to a Monday.
- By publishing on August 31st, we wouldn't be able to have the first public reading at the September
- 8th meeting. We'd be hitting because it's not 10 days. So we would be having our first public reading
- on the 22nd and then our second possible adoption meeting or hearing on October 6th. Even with this
- model, if there's an amendment, then by October 13th, you would have a possible adoption of a rate even
- with amendment.
- I did not put a calendar option here but this is like in my head and it's option three. In my head this
- is really not the option that I would recommend because it puts us right up on the October 31st deadline.
- So if you wait completely after budget sessions and your goal is to have the public hearing
- on the tax rate is the same day as the public hearing for the budget hearing, you would identify a rate
- on September 22nd. It would be advertised on the 23rd, published on the 25th. Our first reading would
- be October 6th. Our second reading would be October 13th. If there is an amendment, and this is why
- I do not like this option, if there is an amendment, that means you would potentially be adopting the
- rate on October 27th, which is, in my opinion, really
- too close to that October 31st deadline. So that is the options and kind of timeline. So I was going
- to ask the auditor your I guess your opinion for like the date if we go into option one and we did everything
- on the you know we talked about a rate on the 25th.
- Do you think that would give your office enough time to turn around and get it advertised to the HT?
- If we have everything ready to go and we confirm with the HT that as long as they receive by noon, it
- will be published timely, I'm fine with that. We can make that happen.
- Um, it's just making sure we're prepared in advance and all we're doing is simply, you know, submitting
- first thing in the morning. Is there anything our office can do to work in tandem with you to ensure
- that that deadline gets met? Absolutely. I mean, Michelle and I have been working and Mr. King have
- been working closely on this already just because we are getting closer and closer to the timeline.
- So we've all been in communication.
- I my preference is the earliest timeline possible just to give as much buffer as humanly possible. Yeah,
- I would agree because October 30th or the option three is close because we have no idea what will happen
- with budget. And so like if we need more extra room for any other things and then you all have to upload
- those items into gateway. So that would be a concern with
- doing something late because then that puts more pressure on you all. The only caveat that I would mention
- with identifying a rate on August 25th is if you identify a rate at the next hearing, you haven't heard
- the YSB budget, which this primarily affects. You haven't heard a commissioner budget because they also
- have a line in that special purpose tax. So I think if you're going to my recommendation is if you're
- going to proceed with identifying a rate
- by August 25th that it might be ideal or beneficial to have a conversation or a meeting with judges
- and YSB to make sure we know what's in their budget and that we're adopting a rate that would suffice
- and meet their budgetary needs. I think that's doable and I know Councilor Wilts is the liaison for
- courts and whatnot and so I think
- Oh yeah, and Councilor Feidl as well. I know the judges have made it clear that they want to be a part
- of that conversation since that ultimately deals with what it is that you do. I don't want to discredit
- that. I think that could be the option, but I'll look to other colleagues to see what their
- option would be, it sounds like option one would be good, and then maybe in the meantime, folks could,
- because we should already be having those conversations regarding budget anyway. Some of you all have,
- and I know some people are scheduling those, so that seems like the better plan, but look into council
- to see what thoughts are, and I think I saw Councilor Wilk's hand up. No, I was gonna say that I know
- that the courts have already
- really worked through what they're planning to submit or have submitted I guess at this point. So I
- think we can reach out to the affected departments and just pull together something so we make an informed
- decision. I was just going to add I think it's important to say at this point that that was the deal
- we made when this was done.
- And we all went, trust us on this. And they were very kind and cautious and trusting, I think. And they
- nodded along. And now we're two years later from this. The timeline kind of has jogged back some memories
- from all that, some good and not all good. But I think it's incredibly important to both honor with
- the action and honor with the, do we have it right?
- kind of question, because that really assisted us at a time that we dramatically needed assistance.
- I just want to say that all the budgets are in and that we are proofing them and everything. So if you
- would like, we can print off what has been submitted at this point and share it with everyone. And then
- that way, everybody knows what's being asked for at this moment.
- That would be helpful. And I see that Judge Hervey has joined us. So if you would like to make some
- comments, and then I'll circle back to the auditor. I don't mean to interrupt or hijack. I just do want
- to just comment on that last one. A, you have my commitment to meet whenever you need to meet to make
- sure that this schedule stays on target. Correct that we've already looked at budgets. I've looked at
- YSB in the part that's the court.
- So that should be no problem. And I primarily just want to say thank you. I've just kind of been watching
- from a distance, kind of hoping and being able to tell YSB because they're very concerned. And I know
- that Vicki came to budgets last year saying, I'm really concerned about this lit and just to think
- you for your work on this thus far and putting it on the agenda tonight really to make sure that the
- timelines are hit. And that's really all I want to make sure that was on the record that I appreciate
- that and that you have my commitment to do, you know, make whatever information you need. We're here
- to meet with you. So that's all I thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Gregory, if this is a good time,
- I can take you through. I actually have like a
- the normal lit sandbox analysis prepared, as well as just a kind of running total as where we are currently
- with the lit special purpose fund, if that would be helpful. I'm going to go ahead and try to share
- my screen here. Let me adjust this just one second.
- I don't know if you can see that while I'm trying to make this larger and I don't see a way to do that.
- But this shows the cash balance as of yesterday. So that's under money in. Can you see that? Okay. Okay.
- So 2.9 million. Okay. That's our current balance.
- We have remaining on expended appropriations of about one point eight. So you can go over there and
- then see the running balance as we're just assuming we're going to expand that fully at this point.
- We still have an anticipated monthly lit revenue coming in, and that's September through the end of
- the year. They're identified. So that's added to the running balance as well. And then
- We're looking at, we just projected about a 5% increase in local income tax without adjusting the rate.
- I looked at the state budget agency has released the total lit amount. We still don't have like the
- per unit that the DLGF provides, but we can just looking at 26 to 27, it's about a 5.4% increase. So
- we're pretty much on target there.
- is fairly accurate. So, you know, assuming that amount, we will have about $3 million if the complete
- budget is expended. And then our assumption was a 5% budgetary increase, so about $4.7 million for the
- fund as a whole. However, looking at what is currently proposed, what has been entered in the current
- budget, the amount is almost $5.2 million. So we've
- gone above what we projected, that the ask is above. So I just want to make that clear. OK, now I'm
- going to get into, I need to share my screen differently one second.
- This is the recommendation received from FSG. They gave a little history on Let's Best for Purpose,
- just that it was reduced to have a zero impact on taxpayers. And we did that twice. Originally, I think
- it was 2023, then again in 2024. And so again,
- Councilor Deckard pointed out this was a promise. We were going to spend down the cash balance, which
- was extraordinarily high, to a more reasonable level. And we're there. We're definitely going to be
- in the red if we don't take some sort of action, either budget reduction or rate increase.
- So FSG's recommendation is to put this back at the original rate that we reduced from the first time.
- So they are recommending .0950 rate. And then I can take you to our lit sandbox here. Incorporated that
- rate into the proposed change. You see it highlighted in yellow there, which shows them the estimated
- total amount.
- And then the estimated taxpayer impact. So I just, you got this in email, too, this afternoon, which
- I know you haven't had time to digest, but it is in your email, so you can look at it later and forward
- any questions you may have. I'm happy to field those. So any questions now?
- So I don't think the FSG information is going to be surprising to a lot of people. We've talked about
- this in long-term finance at least three times. The analysis that you showed is a month old. We've been
- over this. We understand that the rate needs to go back to where it has.
- The updated lit sandbox is really helpful. So thank you for providing that. And particularly the columns
- on the right-hand side showing the impact to taxpayers, I think that's going to be on a lot of people's
- minds. So that'll be wonderful to look at. So. Yeah, the financial director in my office put this together.
- She's wonderful. And getting back to the options that were proposed to us,
- It seems like maybe option one is where we talk about that on the 25th and then auditors or auditor
- and her staff will get that going the next day. As long as it's not an undue burden. Yeah. I will collaborate
- with our bench team here and we'll have everything prepared and be ready to go if you approve. Okay.
- There is no objections. I'd like to say that we'd stick with option one and go from there. Okay,
- so order. All right, thank you all very much for that discussion and Judge Harvey for joining us as
- well. Next up, we are at the end of our agenda. So we have council liaison updates and comments. And
- this time I will start to my right with council member Henry.
- I was trying to count off how many times we said must, but not even Chance GPT could figure it out.
- It was probably dialects. I don't know. Just lost the transcript. I want to start on a heavier note
- and then hopefully a more joyful note. I would like to maybe
- address or raise to the public's awareness, but of course it's not a surprise to anybody working in
- the justice building that conditions continue to be poor there, long after the headlines leave about
- the pipe burst and some of the challenges that we've had there. I've heard from a number of staff that
- conditions are still not cleanly, and it is my understanding that IOSHA today paid an unscheduled visit
- to the court house or the justice center today to
- follow up on complaints and I just want the staff in that building to hear that we hear you on this
- council and in some ways our hands are tied officially in the sense that we cannot throw money at the
- problem unless people bring us appropriations to fix the things wrong in that building.
- However, we have the soft power and, of course, our voice is to raise on this to say that if you have
- a direct responsibility over that facility and it is not still cleaned up as of nearly two weeks later,
- I hope you bring your body armor to budget season, because I have a lot of questions asked as to why
- people in that building are still working in conditions that are unsanitary, if it is true that that's the case.
- This has to get addressed. I do feel a little hand tied here, but I hope to get over to the building
- this week. I certainly hope that things are cleaner than what I've been hearing about today, as reported
- to me by staff today. This is not a great situation. We have to do better, and I'm sure if
- If I'm getting frustrated, there's a reason for it. I know I'm not alone in that frustration. So I just
- want folks to hear me in that building today that have had challenges that someone in county government
- urges today. Now the joyous note. I am excited to hear that the front door, which is our new
- our community's new LGBTQIA plus welcome center, if you will, just down the street from us, is to have
- their grand opening just around the time of Pride Fest in the coming weeks here. Of course, they'll
- have done that before the next time we meet. Many of you, of course, remember, and I'm sure the council
- members that we were supporters of the front door through the 2025 Sophia Travis Community Service Grant
- to help raise revenue to get that space open. Melanie Davis and others have been at this for a very
- long time to have that space. And I will say too, I think it's,
- It's also joyful that it's in such close proximity to our ever developing convention center. So when
- people visit Monroe County and Bloomington, they know that our LGBTQIA plus members of the community
- are one of the tent stakes or one of the table stakes of our community. We're proud of being proud and
- as allies and in our community. So what a great weekend that's coming up in a few for our community
- as we welcome students back as well. Thank you, Madam President.
- Thank you very much I've been busy very busy and it seems that every day there are new things that are
- coming to the county and certainly challenges so I'll just tell you some of my activities first I did
- attend the IU economic development summit and it was awesome to be with various economic development
- officials talking about things going on in the community and around the state it was a privilege to
- go visit with our fair board
- alongside Councilor Feidl. I'll let her have all that, but I got to peep over her shoulder and kind
- of watch their work and appreciated that. It was also an honor to go out and support the Lake Monroe
- Water Conservation Fund, also with Councilor Feidl. We're in the same places. And then ongoing
- work assisting on the leadership team of the streets to stability program. I wanted to remind folks
- that due to the legal posting requirement, we had discussed an appropriation that could potentially
- be at this meeting due to the legal requirement for an appropriation. We'll have that on our agenda
- next meeting, but that program is
- I think it's important that we're all working in the community, and I'll leave that to Mary Morgan and
- her fine folks to discuss more. But again on the county's part, uh, being supportive and responding
- to that. I also want to mention something of, uh, of a different nature. But I think vitally important.
- We've all as members of Council. Alongside our
- neighborhood. And I've been through there several times myself. Obviously, there's been much discussion
- among different county officeholders about the encampment that is near that neighborhood and the concerns
- that the residents have. I've driven through the neighborhood on average about at least three times a day
- commissioners. Uh, since, uh, I began to hear about some of the issues that we're having. I wanted to
- talk about a little bit more towards action or recommendation that I passed along to their commissioners
- to our commissioners, and I was happy that, um. That I've received some some positive response, and
- I'll leave it to them to talk further about it. But I recommended to the
- services towards a security group to assist with the edge of that property with our property that we
- have and doing that in you know coordination and collaboration with the city which is going through
- the neighborhood this to me is a very common sense response to a property that we have a property that's
- been cleared but a property that I don't believe has been maintained
- after that clearing. And so as we keep working in all these different hats and functions and areas to
- treat people with dignity in our community, I think it's also important that we're responding to what
- we hear from folks in the community and that also they feel like they're heard. And also that we don't
- let any view that we're just getting into jurisdictional disputes persist.
- The other thing I'll say is earlier tonight, we were talking about an issue with our must task force
- and all that between the city and the county. I think an overwhelming thing that folks need to see here
- is that on a day to day basis, people all up and down the county and all up and down the city and all
- up and down the town and the townships do actually work quite well together. We do have friction moments
- for sure, but we can't let friction moments drowned out.
- the good that we can't do and the good that we sometimes get done. And so I think this is an area where
- as we knuckle through on things that we're dealing with in the community, we have to just stay at it.
- So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'll just, I just have a one thing related to talk about. I,
- um, was in our, uh,
- community corrections advisory board justice reinvestment advisory committee combo meeting last night.
- And it's a very interesting group of folks from all sorts of backgrounds and service areas. And one
- of the things that was brought to our attention was the Medicaid changes.
- when Councilor Iverson brought this up earlier, I was reminded that I wanted to just let folks know,
- if they don't already, about the changes happening in Medicaid more broadly, especially with respect
- to the work requirements that are being put in place, and that this is going to be devastating, I think, for a lot
- of people who will have a very hard time getting a job of any sort. And one of the things that we were
- talking about and that Linda Grove Paul encouraged us to do is to think about in all of our networks,
- the possible volunteer opportunities that could be
- grown maybe more so than are already there even to put those out there and let Centerstone know about
- them because they are actively looking for a repository of opportunities for folks who might not be
- able to volunteer or work every other place.
- there are some opportunities I think available for them to do work that could count toward keeping them
- in their benefits and able to receive the care that they need. So I just wanted to put that out there
- as you're going through your daily day kind of things. What organizations maybe have some opportunities
- for creatively helping out
- in this way. And that's it. Thank you. Councillor Feidl. Thank you. Yes, I was at the Bearer Association
- meeting with Councillor Deckard, and it was lovely to have another councillor there. I didn't tell him
- he was coming, so they were pleased to see him. And they have, you know, they probably have 30 people
- that are on their board out there. I'm always amazed how many there are and they have a good turnout
- every time. And they'll be doing the
- third year of the Christmas light display this year again, they'll be doing they had a robust fair,
- um, which seemed to go okay, I think, but there's always evaluation and continuous improvement on any
- of that. So I do appreciate I've been out there now for about a year and a half and I do appreciate
- their meetings. I'm telling you, they started seven and they ended eight.
- They are in and out. And so they run a tight ship there. And people seem to have a really good experience
- in saying what they need or want to say at those meetings, which is really good. I did also meet with
- a couple of my liaison, other assignments, human resources, as well as the BEDC executive meeting. I've
- been at a multitude of community events, including the Lake Monroe Water Fund with
- Councilor Deckard as well as he missed talking about the taste of Bloomington. We were a taste
- of Bloomington. He's the only other one I saw there for that. But I've been out and about and I keep
- hearing numerous comments and almost all of those events or meetings about the subcommittee work that
- we did for the jail location. And I haven't run across anyone yet. And I talked to everybody that I'm
- around who says,
- that they're unhappy with what we did. And so for me, that says something about how we went through
- the process with the committee and were able to come up with something that made sense for the factors
- that we had to deal with. And so I'm very pleased that we came to that recommendation and happy to talk
- about it to others in the community. I did receive, and I shared this with my fellow counselors who
- are still around
- the Sophia Travis Grant Committee. I was at a personal lunch yesterday with a friend. I just want to
- talk about this because it just warmed my heart. And that is that we awarded money. And I don't think
- I need to say which one it was. It doesn't matter. We awarded money to an organization. And at the lunch,
- a staff member that works there came to me and said, oh, I recognize you. You're on the Sophia Travis
- Grant Committee. And he says, well,
- you gave us money to do this project work and now we've got Lowe's involved and they're gonna be helping
- expand it. So it just felt really good that they were so appreciative and thankful that we did what
- we could do with the application that they sent in. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that was very helpful.
- when you have mentioned that too, is all I could think about for some reason, because she's also been
- on my mind, like my mom. But Saturday was Cheryl's birthday. And so I've thought about her so much over
- the past several days. I don't know why, but I've just thought about it. And I think of things like
- that. And maybe that's why.
- You know, I've been thinking of her and your story just kind of came up with that. So that's, you know,
- sometimes we always hear what we're doing wrong or what's going wrong. And sometimes it's just nice
- to come back full circle to hear, you know, something that's going right because we can get very cynical
- and stuck in our ways. But sometimes it's it's Sophia Travis grant committing projects and things like
- that, such as would, you know, Councillor Henry was saying earlier about the front door.
- that we literally are doing some really good work, despite sometimes we are running into some headbutton
- issues and whatnot. But I am very grateful and thankful for my colleagues here. Yeah, the only other
- thing that I would say is I do want to keep, because this is brought up a couple of times with members
- out in the public, I do want to keep that conversation
- I don't want it to be remissed of what the committee did in terms of the work of the subcommittee. So
- I'm trying to think of ways for us to bring that back to the forefront because we came together,
- we did it, and then we haven't. And so I'll take that. That's been on me for not scheduling that, but
- I do want to make sure that we are bringing that back to
- the forefront of so our community knows that we just didn't do all that work in vain. So thank you for
- that. And then also just shout out to all the people that helped with the taste of Bloomington. It was
- rainy and then it stopped and it was fine. And it was just really nice to see people dancing and Bloomington
- being weird as it normally is. And that's not a problem with that. I liked it.
- Students are coming back and there's still construction all around this lovely town. So please be careful
- and be mindful of all the things that are happening. I just told my daughter to watch cats. So I told
- her I would do this and because it seems like crossly kids birthdays are sacrificed.
- with County Council meeting. So happy 12th birthday to my little lady bug, Kendall. So without that
- being said, we are so close to budget hearing. So do with that with you must and we are adjourned. Thank you.