- Thank you so much for your patience and welcome to the County Council August 25th, 2026 meeting. I am
- calling this to order at 5 05 p.m. and present here in the Nattie Hill room. We have a quorum and all
- council members are present. So we got a full agenda and we will go ahead and get into it. But before
- we do all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.
- of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
- with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much for that. I understand there might be some amendments
- to tonight's agenda, so Councilor Iverson?
- Madam President, I have two items to amend tonight's agenda. The first is council. I would like to table
- item eight H resolution twenty twenty six. Twenty nine. The twenty twenty seven target fund balance
- resolution to the September eighth council meeting. Second, OK, we. Any discussion on the table and
- of that resolution? All right.
- Seeing none, all those in favor of tabling item H until our September 8th, 2026 council meeting signify
- by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right, motion carries. Next up. Furthermore, council
- in section nine, presentations and discussions, I would like to move item nine C, COLA discussion and
- nine E, council office 2027 budget to immediately follow item nine A. Second.
- motion and a second to move up some items on tonight's agenda any questions from Council on those items
- seeing none so all those in favor of amending the agenda to move those items up signify by saying aye
- aye all those opposed same sign okay
- motion carries. All right. Next up, we will move on to public comment. And so this is for public comment
- on items that are not on tonight's agenda. So if you are here present in the Nightingale Room wanting
- to make a comment, you will sign in here at the lecture. You will state your name for the record, and
- the TVs will display that you'll have up to three minutes. And then those that are participating virtually,
- you can raise your hand. Looks like we already have a hand raised. Again, you'll state your name for
- the record, and you'll also have
- up to three minutes. So I will go to our first person here in the NETU Hill Room. Please state your
- name for the record. You have up to three minutes. Good evening, Madam President, County Council. It's
- Christopher Img from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. The county has some difficult and
- very expensive decisions ahead. As we have public assets that need attention, employees that deserve
- safe places to work, obligations to people in county custody,
- and essential services that residents depend on. Meeting those responsibilities is going to require
- some investment. And when resources are limited, prioritization matters. We need public officials willing
- to ask hard questions, not just on new proposals, but on the things we've been doing for years. What
- problems are we solving? What resources does it actually require? What results are we getting? What
- is the long-term cost?
- And what opportunities are we giving up by spending the dollars here instead of elsewhere? And metrics
- are our friend. They give policymakers the ability to make those choices based on outcomes rather than
- anecdotes, assumptions, or simply by what we've always done. This isn't time to play it safe. County
- government faces significant decisions, and some longstanding assumptions may need to be challenged.
- Good stewardship doesn't always mean just spending less. Sometimes it means saying no.
- redirecting resources, and sometimes it means making a substantial investment now instead of failing
- to act that will cause taxpayers considerably more later. And from the Chamber's perspective, we also
- have to keep our eye on growth. We can make better choices about how we divide the pie, but over the
- long term, we need that pie to grow larger, through more jobs, more investment, more housing, and a
- stronger tax base. What matters is that those decisions are deliberate, measurable, and tied to the
- county's most important responsibilities. Thank you.
- Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I will go to team's land. So the person with the screen name of
- Jamie Ford, you should be able to unmute state your name for the record. You all have up to three minutes.
- Hi, my name is Jamie Ford and I'm a Monroe County resident. I just want to ask a rhetorical questions
- related to the substance use disorder.
- I'm sorry. You can go ahead. Nobody said anything. Oh, sorry. I thought I heard something. Sorry. So
- I just wanted to ask some rhetorical questions related to the Substance Use Disorder Awareness Commission
- and the upcoming Recovery Summit. And while these questions are rhetorical for the sake of the rules
- of the public comment, I do hope they will be answered at some point in the future.
- I'm curious to know about why there are no reports or memoranda for the past two years on the website
- for SUDAC. I did contact the legal department about inspecting and copying the memoranda that is required
- to be kept. The basis for that is found in Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-4.
- My question is, if it's not there, then who has it? And when will I be able to see them? I know Council
- Iverson, you're a member of SUDAC, so I'll ask you, I'd like to see the minutes of memoranda. And I
- can send you an email about that. Because if they're not available, I do believe this is an open-door
- violation.
- I'm also curious where the recordings are for the previous meetings. Indiana code 5-14-1.5-2.9C says
- that meetings must have live transmission and archived copies with links to meeting documents available.
- And I can't find any of the recordings anywhere, so I believe this is also an open door violation. If
- I'm wrong and all of this is available, I do apologize. However, I've really looked and I cannot find
- any of these.
- And if SUDAC, via the summit that I'm assuming our tax dollars are paying for, really wants concerned
- citizens involved, then why is it that the Monroe County Health Department is not releasing records
- related to its own program directly related to substance use here in Monroe County? Speaking about the
- syringe program,
- I should note that I requested almost identical records from IDOH, and I've received records related
- to the syringe program. So why is it that the county health department seems to be violating the Access
- to Public Records Act, especially when it's related to what SUDAC and the summit are for? So given the
- multiple potential violations of Indiana code, you know, the Open Door Law and Access to Public Records Act,
- The lack of overall transparency, I believe funding for the summit should be pulled and this commission
- should be ended. I understand y'all aren't the ones that put the commission into place, but y'all do
- control the funding. So I believe that should be pulled. And I just appreciate your consideration. And
- I look forward to more transparency from the government in the future. Thank you. All right. Sounds
- like Council Iverson Jamie will be sending you an email. I look forward to it. All right.
- Thank you very much. Last call for public comment. Again, you can come forward to the lectern here in
- the room or you can raise your hand via Teams. We will move on. So we'll thank you all for those that may
- public comment this evening. Next up is our department updates. These are also for items not on tonight's
- agenda. Each department that would like to make an update is limited to 10 minutes for your update.
- But it looks like first up we have the planning department. So Jackie Jellin was able to come on up
- to the table here and it looks like you joined by a guest.
- for having us. So good evening, Council. I'm joined here with the President of the Plan Commission and
- Executive Committee, Scott Ferris, and today we're hoping to share with you a memo that is part of the
- packet on page six.
- So we'd like to go through that a little bit with you and ask at the end just for some guidance on next
- steps and process So tonight, I'm also joined by all members of my staff plus one prior member of our
- staff So I appreciate their time as well for being here This is a really important topic for us as we've
- lost three people out of our eight-person department in nine months
- The number one reason for losing those key people have been for salary and two of those people left
- to the city of Bloomington to take a lateral position that
- paid $18,000 more. So on the screen here, we do have a four year review, a proposal where we have our
- existing salaries, our proposal for the council to consider that fits into the current grid and salary
- ordinance. And then on the far right hand side, also we have the city of Bloomington salaries for a
- direct lateral comparison, as you see.
- We do have some asterisks to this table. I just want to point those out. This does have a source link
- to the city of Bloomington salaries. These are all based on a three year midpoint. And of the staff
- in our office currently, only one person is not at the three year level. We also have somebody at the
- 14 year level, which is also an asterisk for our assistant director.
- So I'd like to hand it over to Scott as well to just add a little bit to this memo and as he was integral
- and signing it and also putting it together. Esteemed colleagues, Scott Ferris here. I am the president
- of the Monroe County Planning Commission. Been doing it for since January. I'm going to give more of
- a top level discussion on
- how we got to this particular memo. Bank Commission, as always, will take a look at the budget that's
- submitted. We read in detail the instructions that you provided, and we did consult with our council
- liaison person on that flatline budget with no COLA and no increases. And we understand that. I understand
- that process.
- We went to an executive committee meeting because we wanted to talk about something that we found that
- was pretty disturbing, which Jackie just talked about. And that, in fact, is that we lost three folks.
- And the reason why we lost those three folks was because of salary disparities. And the salary disparities
- are, which Jackie will talk about in more detail, if given time to do so, those disparities are pretty
- gross. I mean, 20%, 30% for like positions.
- That impacts, like most of you already know, the morale, the quality of life and retention, as well
- as keeping the doors of the business open for a planning department that is currently overworked and
- understaffed. That's reality. My experience and my background, for whatever it's worth, I've done this
- for 40 years.
- at various levels. I've run two plan divisions, two analysis divisions, two resource divisions. I've
- been inside government, outside government. I've been doing budgets. I've done pay raises. I've done
- step increases. I've done raise pools. I've done whatever. And I'm just telling you that the comments
- I'm providing are based upon that 40 years of experience.
- Jackie is going to bring up something here at the end, and I apologize for being repetitively redundant
- in our comments. I am available. I will sit down and talk to anybody about these labor categories, position
- descriptions, and provide what I believe is a compelling argument for increasing their salaries, and
- in some cases, bumping them up a notch, and in some cases, making Jackie here a director and getting
- paid at the director level.
- There's some other comments she'll go into. So at the executive committee meeting, what we did is we
- had Jackie come present to us this analysis of the disparity, the difference in the salaries between
- the city and the county. There is a spreadsheet out there that I believe some of you probably have a
- copy of that not only talks about the planning department, but it talks about across the board. For
- the old Bloomington crowd,
- People have been around Bloomington for decades. You'll know that the county salaries have been south
- of the Bloomington salaries for quite some time. And you're going to take and retain quality people.
- You're going to, in my opinion, you're going to have to pay for them. So we sat down and we actually
- discussed the folks that we lost and why we lost them. Outtake, outbriefs, et cetera, and what their
- primary concern was and primary concern was salaries.
- been very generous in fulfilling Jackie's requirements for filling funded vacant positions, and I think
- that those have all been satisfied now, correct? We're making the last decision this week, so yes. Yeah,
- I see. And that's great, and we thank you very much for that. The analysis that goes into coming up
- with a budget and salaries has got to be based on something. I did a little bit of analysis and looked
- at the WIS
- documentation and the sourcing that you've been using to determine the position descriptions, the salaries,
- et cetera. That data is five years old. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was 20, 21, something like
- that. That's a long time ago. My experience is the data is out of date, if it's that old. In my world,
- what we always did is we went to the HR department, and you can pretty easily do a search on position
- descriptions and labor categories and salary ranges, et cetera, across the spectrum, depending on whatever
- function you're talking about. I think it cost almost, I want, $100,000 to take and contract out or
- outsource that analysis. So I will leave it at that for right now. What I'd like for Jackie to do is,
- because we want to get it on the record,
- to reference page one here, go back to page one, that is the crux of what we're suggesting and we're
- requesting. And the discussion hopefully will take place with the personnel advisory committee. Hopefully
- that will take place. And like I said before, I'm available and Jackie's also available to sit down
- and go over the planning department's request as it relates to that committee and also the council here.
- Yes. So the reason we're here tonight is that PAC has not held a meeting since
- Well, this year, and I don't believe most of last year, I noted later on in the agenda, you're going
- to be considering a new position under item eight E. And if you're interested or if you're able to consider
- that new position for the twenty twenty seven budget, we are asking for one new position, which is a
- senior zoning inspector. The reason is because state code has now mandated that we review permits
- essentially within three days. And if we don't get to it within three days and we don't answer them
- within three business days, they can force us to issue a permit site unseen. So we are needing an additional
- person because our current zoning inspector deals with all enforcement and all permitting of residential
- in the county. And that position has become increasingly busy since January 1st. So I will I would like
- to request PAC
- open and consider this as well as if there's any other avenues for us to come back and do this any sooner.
- I know my staff is asking what's the soonest date in which I could see a potential increase. It's very
- expensive to live here. Our planners try to prioritize walkable communities. We practice what we preach
- and that is it's very expensive on the salaries that we're currently making. And some of us
- you know.
- living paycheck to paycheck, still have debt from our master's degrees. Six out of eight of us in the
- department have master's degrees. So we're just hoping for your consideration. As Scott mentioned, we'd
- like to continue to keep the doors open of communication. We're not sure on the process right now. So
- if you could help guide us, whether that's a PAC meeting that starts January 1st, or if you can talk
- to us a little bit about next steps, I think that would give our office some guidance. And they're looking
- for that for the next
- coming year. So happy to take any questions. I also have some information additional if you have questions
- about revenue we've taken in for to date, the cost of losing a plan or two, things like that. I've researched
- some of that in case you had questions. So we've actually looked at the budget and she realized in probably
- most cases here, just kind of like the city, correct me if I'm wrong, we're probably looking at a deficit
- budget for the county. Is that correct?
- going to be in the red at all in the county in this budget all said and done? We haven't had budget
- yet to talk about that so that's something that we can look at now but please go ahead. My point is
- there's a potential for a deficit budget being in the red meaning that you've taken you've taken in
- revenue but you have more expenses in the revenue. When Jackie put together the budget there were some
- some givebacks in that budget a certain amount of money.
- The Planning Department also has a revenue string. They bring, because of permits and other things,
- they do bring money into the county. We have those numbers. I don't think it's important to bring it
- up here now, but in a separate discussion, we can do that. We've also added up what we think the delta
- would be for the new hires and the salary increases and to do some sort of a balance sheet. We've done
- that analysis as well. We believe we've done our homework is what I'm telling you. All right. The takeaway,
- if you go to page two,
- It is, just as I've stated there, and I'll read it for the record, reclassify the assistant director
- in the three planner positions to a higher pay grade and create a new special occupation position for
- the director. My own personal opinion on that is that directors are equal, and they should be somewhat
- equal in pay. I realize that time and grade and all of that stuff will increase the salary over time,
- but as a general's planning position, I would argue that that would be the
- That would be the perspective. The second item is to create the new senior zoning inspector positions.
- That's what Jackie was talking about because of HB 1005. And they're reclassifying the current zoning
- inspector position because of the permitting that's required and the quick turnaround time. This is
- a new and wonderful requirement for the planning department. And not doing it is going to take and overload
- the current staff, which is already overloaded.
- Those are the two major, those two bullets there are the major takeaways and what we'd like for you
- to consider. And to get off the stage, like Jackie said, we are available in whatever body, for whatever
- time, to talk about these positions and provide you with what we believe are the compelling arguments.
- I realize that there are budget constraints in every environment that we're in, but we believe
- We need to do these sort of things to take care of our people. You have a very strong planning department.
- And I'm sure you're all aware of that. Jackie has done an excellent job of managing that particular
- director. She's got individuals who are well-trained, well-certified. Most have master's degrees. And
- from my particular perspective, we're not paying for those master's degrees.
- have to do a new hire because you've lost someone, that is six months, and that's probably a low estimate.
- My observation is that if I lost somebody for, if I brought a new person in because I lost somebody,
- it'd take me almost six months to a year to get them to the point where they could actually, were competent
- in the position. These folks, yes.
- Because of the the Plant Commission meetings when they bring a petition forward they've got to know
- that doggone ordinance which is very comprehensive and very complex backwards and forwards and they
- got to speak on behalf of the petitioner and They do and they do a very fine job They get a person up
- to that point up to speed where they can do that. It's not something you do in short order. It takes a while
- If you've got to take that new person and put them through six months of training, and this is reality,
- somebody else has got to double up to pick up that extra workload during that time frame. This does
- not make for an efficient organization, and competent, and qualified, and certified. That concludes
- our comments. Unless you have questions. I'll look to colleagues to see if they do. Anybody have any?
- That's a lot to take in right now, for sure. And as we are, again, in the process, much as what our
- surveyor did last about two weeks ago now, that we do have budgets. We do have a lot of things that
- are coming up right now. And I don't want to commit to anything right now. But I definitely hear you,
- and I see the work that you do. And yeah, competitive, that's a thing, right?
- I think that's something that we would have to discuss and have those things related to budget and because
- we did ask for a flat rate or, you know, flat across the board and so that we can get a better picture
- of what we have.
- we need to do that. So that we can figure out and have those discussions, whether it's a cola, um, longevity,
- all of those different things during the time that we are needed to have that, which is during budget
- season. So I definitely hear you and I'm not dismissing or, you know, doing anything of that and appreciate
- the. Um. The presentation that you all have given us. We just definitely need to take it all in as we
- Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for coming in and making presentation. As I said last week,
- and I'll reiterate today that I'm in support of this effort by the planned commission and the planned
- department to bring this to us. And not only in that council liaison role I serve in, but I am on that
- same executive committee of the four that had looked at this and Mr. Colonel Farris's work putting this
- together. I wanted to say that
- And this is a new comment that I wanted to bring this forward and echo it that I appreciate your comment
- about classification and compensation books. And when a book like that is put together that looks at
- a lag midpoint in the lead for a given position, that those do go stale. And if we're talking five years,
- that means pandemic times that we're talking about the last time we looked at a pay band, but a market
- you know, position would be for an assistant director of zoning, et cetera, right? So, and that may
- be, I think, also a part of our intention here to freeze hiring and visit this case by case and also
- not having PAC meet that it's like, not that I go to gyms because I don't, but I understand people atrophy
- when they don't go to the gym. But if we were atrophying our muscles on talking about these positions
- over the county, things like this happen.
- And what we're talking about here is a surgical approach to an instance in a department. I don't think
- the blanket approach of comparing to other departments makes sense. And you've made a good business
- case that I would support moving forward. I do think it's a good compromise between what the City of
- Bloomington, which apparently is our competitor in this space, is pooling versus what a market
- great to demand you've reached a compromise number that I hope WIS or PAC, if that is the process we
- continue to use, will justify all to say that all that predates me here. And now that I think about
- it, PAC has, I've been here two years, a year of PAC meeting and a year of not PAC meeting.
- So I've seen, you know, two different flavors of what this looks like, but the hiring freeze should
- have forced more of a prioritization of how we go about our work instead of maybe atrophying along.
- some causing some of these challenges, but I hope we'll consider. Yes, Councilor Wells. I just want
- to maybe. Offer a step forward and at the risk of. During strategy completely out the window, we do
- have a process in place for you to make a request to do this.
- I would encourage you to go ahead and proceed with that request to our office to make these changes.
- There are certain forms that you fill out to allow us to kind of compare apples to apples on in terms
- of fiscal impact. It's a horrible time for us to be doing that while we're jumping in just next week
- into budgets, but it's a great time for us to be really aware of the need. So I appreciate you being here.
- and nothing is likely to happen if you don't submit the requests formally. So that's my advice. I mean,
- PAC is not meeting. That's not the process we're using right now. But if you could contact our office
- and work with them, unless there's great objection by council leadership, that's what I would encourage
- you to do. Yes.
- I just want to add first, thanks for coming tonight and thanks for all the folks that showed up with
- you. That's not lost on me for this. I am sometimes a little different on my notions on PAC chair versus
- salary. And I think I come at this from time as PAC chair and just time listening to department heads
- and county employees over the years.
- and that really, yes, things are about a classification, but really classification for employees is
- about money. It's about financial compensation. And so I think the PAC process, there is a PAC process
- there naturally. I don't disagree with anything that Councilor Williams said, but for the financial
- end of it, which is really why when people go home, a job description doesn't pay mortgage. And particularly
- with home costs in this community,
- It really wouldn't pay mortgage. It's salary that does and salary falls to the mud ball that is our
- budget. And that ultimately is the process that we're in. I can look in that audience right there and
- see about five competing requests that throw into the mud ball. And what the good news is on that in
- the next month to two months,
- the council will take that mud ball and start figuring out how that hits what we need to do for our
- values. And my hope always on that is that all of our folks, including the folks who are really serving
- the public, that this gets as fair to them as is legally possible and financially sustainable. And I
- know that that is not reassuring to anyone to hear it, but we have been figuring out that mud ball
- for a long time through a pandemic where that classification study came and then also with some ad hoc
- things over the years that I'm sure didn't keep up with the private sector, but as a child of a county
- employee or a whole lot better than the grievances they heard back in the day. And so our goal is to
- do that better and better in that mud ball and hopefully get it close. This is an extraordinarily weird
- and difficult time given the
- laws that are handed down. As I look at your description, yet again, we've got legislation going after
- a cause, and I, you know, I always appreciate when it goes after a good cause, but also you have an
- unfunded mandate. And the unfunded mandates I see on our departments from the state, they stack so high
- that they could knock this courthouse over. We need the state to send some money.
- I mean, it's like literally we cannot get through this process, but ultimately there's a point in there.
- We have got to make this a community that is accessible to people, not just our employees, but all people.
- And I think there's a larger discussion there, but I appreciate everybody coming in here and sort this
- inarticulate mud ball out. Other questions or comments from council on the site?
- I would say you'll work with staff and go from there. Would you prefer the request to come in after
- all the budget hearings at this point? It's like sometime in October or now. I mean, let's just work
- with staff.
- work with staff and then we'll kind of go from there. But I won't say that I think that's the time to
- maybe talk about those things as we gear up for the 2017 budget. So I think ideally is just working
- with our staff and I'll guide you through the next steps. Thank you. All right. Thank you. We appreciate
- it. Thank you. All right. Is there another department update? I think I got a 4-H is here.
- Yes, hello. Good evening. I'm Kip Harmon. I'm one of the 4-H educators at Monroe County Purdue Extension.
- And we just wanted to kind of come give you a little update on a few things. I'm going to introduce
- these two young ladies to you in just a moment. I just wanted to touch base here with you a little bit.
- You may be aware that the 4-H community is grieving after the tragic loss of a volunteer. Last week,
- our thoughts and prayers, of course, were with that family and the greater 4-H family as we navigate
- this painful time. In the wake of that, our volunteers and youth are still pledging
- their heads to clearer thinking, their hearts to greater loyalty, their hands to larger service, and
- their health to better living. The 4-H Junior Leaders Club is already busy planning their first large
- service learning project during the Children's Farm Festival that's coming up at the end of next month.
- That's the largest field trip experience in this region of Indiana.
- Educators and volunteers already have some exciting plans for assisting schools and project based learning
- programs. We plan to spend to send more youth to out of state for each civic engagement and state trips
- than the other 91 counties combined this year. In fact, we have a great opportunity. We're planning
- on sending 13 youth just from Monroe County to Washington, D.C. through a grant that we've received.
- So we're really excited about that opportunity.
- But right now, I don't want to take any more time. I want to let them tell about some of their experiences.
- I'm going to turn things over now to Correll Patnode and Autumn Olmet, who would like to share a little
- bit with you about how the support of the county has impacted their 4-H experience. And just want to
- thank you for the county's continued support of 4-H. Hello. My name is Autumn Olmet. I'm a junior in
- high school, and I've been in 4-H for nine years.
- I think most people assume that 4-H is showing livestock at the county fair, but it is so much more
- than that. Some things I've been able to accomplish through 4-H is installing a little free library
- at Cars Farm Park here in Monroe County, being a page for Senator Yoder at the State House, and being
- awarded a leadership scholarship from the 4-H Foundation just a scratch of the surface. I attended the
- Ignite by 4-H Conference in Washington, D.C. this past March.
- and I'm going to share with you my experience. My brother and I were the only students from New York
- County to go, and we were able to attend thanks to a grant supporting our role as AI teen teachers through
- 4-H. There were 15 delegates in total from all over Indiana, and I was able to get to know the other
- people from Indiana, especially when we went on a night tour of the National Monuments.
- My brother and I were the only people not checking the score. Go Hoosiers. While I was there, I was
- able to meet kids from all over the US and territories, and that was really fun because I was able to
- ask them about how 4-H worked, where they were from. I met a lot of people and made a lot of memories.
- I had lots of new experiences, but one of the things I was looking forward to was flying in the airplane,
- because I had never done that before. I had been to
- DC before with my family. But this was my first time going to a big multi-day conference. When I say
- big, I mean it. There were 1,800 students attending. There are multiple tracks of the conference, from
- community engagement to agriculture. And within those tracks, there are all kinds of workshops, from
- learning how to be a dementia friend to cheese tasting. One of the things I learned about conferences
- is to sign up for workshops early.
- because if I had known there were cheese-tasting, I would have been there. There were so many opportunities
- for workshops, and most of them were led by other 4-H'ers like me. My favorite workshop I attended was
- one about wind energy, which I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did. I attended so many workshops
- that I enjoyed in the STEM track at McKnight. An honorable mention is a workshop I did about compost
- in a jar, where I actually took compost home with me in my suitcase.
- Many of the workshops were things I could take home and do with my club, which is inspiring to me as
- my club's president. I learned so many new things, and that experience is so valuable to me as I move
- on and explore career opportunities. Overall, my favorite memories from Inc. Night were the dance on
- the last night, the keynote speaker for the STEM track, and making new connections and friends. These
- were with me as one of my favorite 4-H experiences. I'm so grateful
- I was able to attend. I hope this coming year that people who go to the conference will have as much
- fun as I did. And I know these things will not be possible without the 4-H staff and volunteers who
- use their head, heart, hands, and health to help kids in Monroe County and across the United States.
- Thank you.
- I am Carole Patnode. I am a 10-year 4-H member in the Horse and Pony Club, as well as I was an active
- member and junior leaders in the Dog Club. I just want to thank everyone that has been involved in 4-H
- and has made all the amazing opportunities possible for 4-Hers like myself.
- I was on the agriculture track when I was in DC. We learned how to harvest crops and take care of livestock
- and animals. There was public speaking classes, and we got to trade pins for every state. So that was
- really fun to collect pins. And then, of course, the dance. That was so much fun. I met so many amazing new
- I met so many amazing new people from across the country, from Alaska to Florida and from California
- to Maine, and even different countries. Some of my best friends that I made were from New York and Indiana.
- We recently all got together at my graduation party in June. Since last year, we are now doing an annual
- get together in the summers to catch up with everyone.
- These are going to be my lifelong friends and I learned so much, so much not only in 4-H, but different,
- but about different cultures and states. This was the best experience ever and I hope every kid that
- goes and is able to go has a good experience as I did.
- 4-H is not just a great organization. It is my life and my family. I don't know what I would do without
- it. And it was such an honor to represent not only Indiana, but our great county. Thank you. Nice job.
- That was good.
- That was really good and congratulations on graduating and all the work that y'all have done and your
- public speaking classes paid off because you spoke to us, which can be intimidating, but I promise we're
- not that scary like we think we are. So it's okay. But thank you very much for that. Any questions on
- or comments from council related to this? Council Hawk. Can't let people leave. It's part of the forage
- plan without sharing.
- that it was a part of my growing up. It made those of us young people who lived in Ellesill a community
- together. And so many people think 4-H is you have to be out on a farm or you raise chickens or whatever.
- And we didn't. We lived right, you know, I'm a city girl, lived in town Ellesill. But we learned how
- to sew. We learned how to do, you know, make cookies, whatever. But what we really learned was how to share
- with other members of the club and be a part of the community. And it really is a life altering and
- event for all of us to help us to be better human beings. So thank you for sharing. I love everything
- you said and I like hearing you end it with our great county.
- Because we don't always get good news up here. Our jobs kind of don't always make us smile. But you
- not only made us smile, but all the folks watching out there got a good message they need to hear. So
- when we're in our hard stuff, we know that. As a father of a little four-age person going in that direction,
- your direction in wanting to do that, I appreciate the modeling that you're doing for that. My curious
- question for both of you is,
- And you don't have to answer if you don't want. What do you want to do in life? What do you want to
- do in life? I'm trying to figure that right now. I'm taking a gap year, I think. That's what I'm going
- to do, just trying to figure out. But I definitely want to come back as an adult leader to encourage
- our youth to get more involved in 4-H. Upon graduation in 2028, I helped to go to college for plant
- science and then
- eventually have a career in maybe public education or in the lab doing experience. But the reason I
- want to go into plant science is because of 4-H and the floriculture project that I did growing up.
- Are there any other departments that would like to make any department updates? Or you got to top that
- one? All right. Seeing none, we appreciate all of the department updates that gave us an update. So
- thank you very much. All right, next up is our consent agenda items.
- Council, I move to approve the following consent agenda items for Tuesday, August the 25th. The summary
- council minutes are presented for the May 12th and May 26th council meetings, the June 11th joint council
- and commissioners special work session, as well as the summary council minutes for June 23rd, June 30th,
- July 14th, and July 28th. Second. We got a motion and a second.
- Are there any questions or comments from Council related to the consent agenda items? Seeing none, we
- will move to approval. So all those in favor of approving the minutes as presented, signify by saying
- aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. Next up is item number seven, which is
- the higher end freeze reviews. Council, I move to open for discussion possible approval.
- Probation Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 9142-0000
- Community Corrections Grant 51% and fund 1122-0000 Community Corrections Fees 49%, one full-time legal
- secretary receptionist position. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second. We are joined by Becca. Hi, good evening. I'm not Linda Brady.
- I'm filling in for her. Becca Streit, Community Corrections Director and Deputy Chief Probation Officer.
- Linda came before you in February asking to refill this position. You granted it. It's taken us a long
- time to fill it. We hired somebody, she started, and then six days later decided it wasn't a good fit.
- And so we are asking if we can refill this.
- Receptionist at Community Corrections is only one of two full-time support staff. They are the first
- face when clients come into our office. Currently, or during this time, we've had probation officer
- assistants, field officers, office staff, even myself filling at the front desk answering phones and
- doing data entry. But again, this is the lone position in that building that does this kind of work.
- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Sorry to hear that
- that didn't work out. Hopefully. It's been tough. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So seeing no questions or comments
- from council, I'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment, you can move or make your comment
- at the election or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none.
- May we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feinstein? Yes. Councillor
- Hogg? Yes. Pardon? Yes. Councillor Will? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Packard? Yes.
- Yes, motion passes unanimous. OK, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Next up is from the coroner's
- office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval. The coroner's request to be exempt
- from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund one thousand dash zero zero zero seven county
- general coroner one part time deputy coroner position. Thank you. All right. We got a motion in a second.
- We are joined by. Oh, welcome. Good afternoon, counsel.
- afternoon. So I am requesting an ability to hire one additional part-time member for my staff, a paid
- part-time member.
- Currently I just have one that was approved back in a meeting from March. A line item was already created
- as well as additional fundings to support that hiring. All I'm asking for is just to hire a second part-time
- paid person that would still be paid out of that same account line so no additional funding would be
- needed. I was recently told that one of my current salary deputies is looking at going back to school
- and is interested in staying with the department but on a part-time basis as opposed to a salary basis.
- So this would allow that employee to step down and still be with the department. And it also gives me
- the opportunity to possibly look and hire someone to fill that salaried position while during her absence.
- Thank you very much for that. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Yes, Councilor Decker.
- I just had a quick question, not necessarily related to this, but just generally with your office, which
- everybody's always fascinated by your office, and for probably all the wrong reasons. But someone is always
- on duty in that office, right? If not you, somebody, right? That's correct. Yes, we staff 24, 7, 365
- days a year. There is someone always on call. We typically do 12 hour, 24 hour shifts, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- or 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. But there is always someone representing the coroner's office every day of the year.
- There are further questions or comments from the coroner.
- Thank you. Seeing none will move to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the
- room or raise your hand via teams. Being none. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor final.
- Yes. Councilor Hawk. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes.
- Next up is item C for the Board of Commissioners. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible
- approval the Commissioner's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund
- 1000-0161 County General County Buildings, one full-time maintenance position and simultaneously amend
- the 2026 salary ordinance to add a new account line 16003 maintenance, 40 hours LTCA non-exempt and
- remove account line 16003 maintenance assistant supervisor
- 40 hours LTCC position. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. We are joined by Mr. Kreider
- and Angie Purdy. Hello. Good evening, Council. Richard Kreider, Monroe County Building and Fleet here
- with Angie Purdy, Commissioner's Executive, our maintenance assistant supervisor, retired in February.
- We're here tonight to ask to reclassify that position to remove the supervisor portion and
- to ask to fill that position. This is with the county maintenance crew that provides maintenance services
- to the civil buildings, which include the historic courthouse, health building, showers building, youth
- services bureau, highway garage, emergency operations center, reserve operations building, and we're
- expanding out to additional maintenance services on commissioner owned parcels of land.
- We're currently operating with a maintenance supervisor, one day shift maintenance position and one
- evening shift maintenance position, and we could really use the help. All right. Thank you very much
- for that. I will look to council to see if anybody has any questions or comments. I'll go Councilman
- Hawk and then Councilman Henry next.
- Okay, my question is a budgetary question. Are you splitting up percentages of the salary? I noticed
- you said the Youth Services Bureau, so. We have not traditionally done that. We don't have one person
- particularly assigned to that facility. I guess it's something we could look at in the future, but it
- hasn't been.
- something we've done. Councilor Henry. Thank you. Thank you for the brief there. Walk me through the
- last civil structure that's maintained by this position, the parcels of land piece. Can you walk me
- through what the maintenance is on the commissioner? Most recent? Yeah, just to give an example of what
- that is. I understand cleaning the health building or whatever, maintaining the health building,
- What's that last one mean? Give us some examples of that labor. Mending fences, repairing broken signage,
- adding signage, painting trees. That's the most recent. I appreciate it. For the land parcels.
- Is there any intention for that staff to maintain like, I don't know, we went through an encampment.
- Is that staff engaged with that or would be long term or is that else other staff or other contracting?
- Oh, I think I think it will have to be long term from the county maintenance folks. That's a huge property.
- There's a lot to take care of. Parks Department was out lending a hand today with their brush cutting
- equipment.
- they were able to clear some areas to make that work possible, actually. But yeah, it's gonna have to
- be an ongoing process. Thank you, I appreciate it. I know you've got a relatively small department here.
- But often I like to see a little bit of a
- organizational chart. If you could just tell me, like, is there you said you're taking away the supervisory
- component of the position that retired. So is there a supervisor? There is there's a maintenance supervisor
- that that position was assistant supervisor when that position was created. The maintenance department
- looked a little different. We had a lot of road crew staff that that was supervised.
- that were assigned daily and things were just a little different then. So there is an existing supervisor
- and then three assuming this position is correct. They are kind of the same. Got it. So it's boop, boop.
- Thank you. Visual person here. Gotta picture it. Thank you. All right.
- Any other questions or comments from Council on this item? Seeing none, we will move on to public comment.
- Raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And maybe please have a roll
- call. Councilor Hawk. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor
- Crossley. Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. Next up,
- we will get into the County Council business. And this is the update to the fiscal body's annual review
- of the estimated property tax levy limits. So I am going to look to the auditor, Ms. Gregory,
- for that update. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- Okay, so Council last meeting reviewed, as required by statute, the estimated property tax levy limits
- and property tax caps. The Department of Local Government Finance
- publishes that information usually sometime in July. They publish before the end of July, at which time
- we downloaded and prepared that information to present to you. We were not notified of a correction,
- and so the county's information for our specific unit was correct, but unfortunately a lot of the other
- units were incorrect when you reviewed them. So we have since pulled the
- updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
- updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
- gave us that information and the other units as well. So I appreciate that. The questions are comments
- from Council on this item. Yes, Councilor Hawke. Right. I think this really calls our attention to the
- fact that when something is downloaded, we need to question it. We need to see, does this make sense?
- Is there something on here that just doesn't seem right? Because
- There could be mistakes made in any place, but the big mistake is just doing a copy and paste and nobody
- really looking at the bottom line. So while I know we don't like to believe that everything that is
- posted at the state level is perfect, they're just human beings like the rest of us. So we cannot assume
- everything is without questioning. That's what you have to do. You have to have a curious mind and you
- have to question.
- I always appreciate that nobody's perfect because I certainly am not. But I am a little worried in the
- sense that if the shoe were the other foot and we were wrong and DLGF caught that, there'd be no do
- over. In fact, we'd be down that road in some form. I don't want to talk about it, but right.
- You're 100% correct. So thankfully, we can correct this. It's easy. It's just a simple re-review. The
- units have already been notified, but they will be notified again that you've reviewed the information,
- the corrected version of the information. And so you will all see another email come out from my office
- tomorrow. If I can continue, what alarms me is we have a very
- strong auditor that persistent persistent going after information. I think about counties that don't
- have that or a rookie auditor or even whatever like that's that's a little alarming to me about that.
- And again, there's not a lot of recourse. I've been talking tonight in last meeting about unfunded mandates
- and all this.
- You know, this could turn into even more. Now we've got 65 eyes on it and we still can't get it. And
- unlike Councillor Hawke, not all of us can look at something and say, I think the state's wrong there,
- nor have time to cross-check every single algorithm in their Excel sheet. I think that the state's got
- to have some caution about that. These are lives.
- I think we need to ease up the law a little bit so that we have a little bit more local control here,
- and they could share some of that with us, but I'll stop there. Council votes. Could you. Summarize
- the difference between generally speaking between the previous and this current.
- Part of the original forms were correct, but it's like the bottom line of the levy was hugely inflated
- for some units, which I'm sure they loved. However, it's inaccurate and the taxpayers wouldn't love
- being taxed those amounts. Yeah. Can that up? It didn't.
- like I said, most of it was correct, but then there's like a bottom line totaling which was inaccurate.
- So you look and most things are right, but then there must have been just a formula error on the bottom
- line. So to give the DLGF a little grace, they're dealing with
- as many changes as we all are in the state right now. And I know they're severely understaffed. They're
- also feeling the budget cuts and constraints. And so I think everybody's just kind of, it's all hands
- on deck and they did correct it quickly. I think that just the notification part was missed. And I have
- it on the screen. This part right there that's kind of highlighted was correct. It was this line right there.
- where it was significantly different. So when we pointed it out, I believe I got a phone call from Councilor
- Hogg, where a township had notified them like something was off. That's what I wanted to say is kudos
- to the townships who immediately saw what is this and oh yeah,
- Wouldn't the taxpayers love it if they really raised the levy that high? Of course, they knew it had
- to be an error. The other thing is that Ryan Burke of the DLGF had requested that we, so that he could
- work through to see where the problem might be, if we would just let him know where it was.
- It may seem like, well, we don't have time to tell him that, but he's awfully good to help us out. And
- I think when he asks for us to help him figure out where the problem was in his department, we should
- respond. So that's my ask. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from?
- And seeing none, if there are no further objections, I would like to authorize the auditor to go ahead
- and notify the taxing units again of the correct amount. Thank you very much, counsel. Thank you.
- All right. So ordered. Yes, you need to say that. Next up is item B from the prosecutor's office. Counsel,
- I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 9159-9626
- high-tech crimes unit for an additional appropriation of $1,300.98 in the services category. All right.
- We got a motion and a second. We are joined here by Ms. Beth Hamlin. Welcome. Good evening, counsel. This is a
- small amount of additional grant funding that's coming from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council.
- It's unspent funds from the previous grant year that they're rolling and sharing with all 10 of the
- high-tech crime units across the state in the amount of $1,300.98. Okay. Rolling in the dough. All right.
- All right. Any questions or comments from counsel related to this item?
- want to make sure we get that 98 cents. Every penny. All right. I'm seeing no other questions or comments
- from Council. We'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams
- or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call, though.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilks? Yes. Motion passes
- unanimous. Thank you. All right. Next up is item C from the health department.
- Council, I move to approve the Health Department's request in Fund 8104-9627, public health emergency
- preparedness for additional appropriations, the amount of $17,333.19 in the supplies category, $6,249.81
- in the services category, and $1,417 in the capital category for a total appropriation of $25,000.
- All right, we got a motion and a second, and it looks like Ms. Lori Kelly is joined with us via Teams.
- Welcome. Good evening, Council. This is ongoing grant funding that the Health Department receives. This
- helps to support our preparedness division. So we have two full-time employees. This funding is going
- to help support supplies, education, travel, and services.
- Thank you. Any other, well, first, any questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none,
- we'll move to public comment and raise your hand via Teams or to the lectern here in the room. And seeing
- none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
- Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
- Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right,
- next up are a couple of items from the Public Defender's Office. Council, I move to open for discussion
- and possible approval the Public Defender's Office request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be
- allowed to hire and fund 1200-0000 Public Defender Supplemental 1 full-time paralegal position. Second.
- are joined by Mr. Michael Hunt and Heather Stufel. Welcome. Welcome. Good evening. Michael Hunt and
- Heather Stufel from the Public Defender's Office. If you want to talk about the first issue, it's requesting
- to hire someone, regardless of the hiring freeze. We have three investigators and three paralegal people
- as part of our support staff.
- Their jobs kind of intertwine. They both talk to people and do research in the law. The paralegal is
- obviously on the legal side. And then investigators go out and talk to people or investigate facts or
- look at crime scenes. And one of the things that affects us, you just talked about the high tech crime unit.
- That provides the prosecutors with more information and more expertise, and we need somebody to not
- only look at that, but to maybe hire experts on the other side or look at the legal ramifications of
- what this high-tech people have come up with. One of our paralegals has
- Um, been there with us, I think about 11 years and she recently had her third child and decided she
- would rather stay home and play with the baby than work in our office. And so we'd like to replace her
- and that's what we're asking for. Congratulations to her as well. All right. Any questions or comments
- from council on this item?
- Sometimes people talk to us about the training timeline to get into a role. Do you have any idea how
- long it takes to become certified as a paralegal? Well, that's part of the problem. In Indiana, there
- really is not an official designation as a paralegal. Now, you can go to maybe Ivy Tech and get a certificate
- that says you're a paralegal. So that's some indication. Other people we've had,
- to law school for a while and then decided they didn't want to do that. Others were investigators for
- some agency and then came to us and we trained them. It depends. They actually write a lot of our say
- appeals or that type of thing and then the attorney works with them and refines that. So that takes
- a while. I would say
- as the lady before mentioned, it probably takes a year to get very good at being a paralegal. And it
- kind of depends on what you're having them do. The other thing is we have right now, I think, 15 attorneys.
- And so although we don't actually assign paralegals to them,
- Each paralegal basically is working for five lawyers, and that's a lot for a paralegal to take questions
- or research from five different people and come up with answers or proposals and things. To help with
- that, we do have law students occasionally.
- either by semester, sometimes they work in the summer, sometimes over the semesters, but they require
- some hands on supervision too. And they maybe can listen to tapes or audio things and give reason to
- the attorneys. But it takes the paralegal, if you're going to write a brief or an appeal, it takes a
- paralegal with the attorney to do that.
- Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes, this is a comment. I heard you say, and it sounds sweet to say, she would
- like to be home with her baby. She's going to stay home, enjoy being with her baby. And while I applaud
- her for being able to do that, I think we should recognize that many young mothers decide that it's
- so costly to pay for childcare
- that if they don't have a parent or a family member that's going to provide that childcare, then that
- eats into so much money that they could make if they're out working. So I think we need to understand
- that these families are facing that kind of decision. And it shouldn't have to be up to the county council
- or you folks or whatever, but that's a family decision. And I know, because we had to make it.
- I was lucky. I had a mother that would take care of my babies. But not everybody has that. And so I
- just wanted to call that attention. If the lady is listening, I'm just saying, I hope you're enjoying
- that baby, because it's a perfect time and it can't be replaced. Oh, I would agree. I was trying to
- inject a little levity into it. No, this is her third.
- And I think her husband is in a position now where he gets insurance benefits and stuff. So that helps
- her. She was getting those from us. And so I have all the respect in the world for her for doing that.
- She came on and started actually as a receptionist. And then we moved her up as she went on and became
- an invaluable member on different appellate issues.
- Council Hawk? Yes, that is a very good point. And childcare here in Monroe County is very hard. I know
- the people that are pregnant that literally have to be on a waiting list for a whole year before they
- can figure out whether or not they can get childcare. So completely, yes, understand that. So thank
- you for calling that out. All right. Any other questions or comments from council on this item?
- Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment and you can raise your hand via
- Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call
- vote. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you. And next up is item E from the Public Defender's Office. Council, I request to open for discussion
- and possible approval of the Public Defender Office request and fund 1000-0271 County General Public
- Defender to add an additional public defender attorney position, 40 hours exempt from the 2027 budget
- year. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. What would you like to add?
- I'm just presenting this to kind of make you aware of the position we're in, and we're not actually
- asking for another position at this time. As most of you know, we are in the program run by the state,
- which reimburses the county 40% of expenses or most of the expenses for defending our clients.
- that program requires us to have what they call a case load. In other words, when they wrote the statute,
- they didn't want to give the county X amount of money and then have a public defender do 50 cases or
- 100 cases or whatever. So they came up with a grid, which admittedly is kind of old now, but it says
- that each attorney can only have so many cases and they
- they weight the cases. So if you have a murder case, maybe you can have three burglaries and they will
- be equal. Um, and they make us report that, uh, quarterly. So as long as we are under the required number,
- let's say, let's just say it's an arbitrary number of 50. If, as long as I'm at 49, we're okay.
- If I go to 50 or 51, then the people in Indianapolis on the commission flag that and tell us you need
- to do something about this. So we've had some, I would say, abnormalities. We had a person we hired,
- an attorney,
- and they were here about a month and then they left. They just didn't, as somebody said, it wasn't a
- good fit for them. That messes up our statistics. We have someone who assigns these cases and tries
- to equal out the proportion that each person gets. We had another person retire. We had another person
- for medical reasons that took FMLA. And that is just, to me, I don't want to say it's bad, but it creates
- problems just like someone, the paralegal, taking maternity leave because they get about three months
- off. And that, trying to coordinate all those statistics makes it very difficult. So when the
- The person that retired found out that the person we hired left in about a month. He agreed to come
- back, but he's just there kind of temporarily on his own volition. We're glad to have him, but I can't
- guarantee that he's going to be there for a year or two.
- Doing the statistics, we've noted that three or four maybe of our attorneys are approaching this line,
- which we've always been very close to, of having too many cases per quarter. If you're in that position
- for one quarter, that's one thing. If you're in there for two or three, then the commission notifies
- us and says, you need to do something about that, whether it means hire another attorney or something.
- And that's why we're telling you, in our charts, we're getting there. We have two or three that are
- now over. Now, since it's a rolling quarter, as you end the next quarter, the oldest quarter falls off.
- So that changes your criteria. The chart we handed out is a very simple thing. And I would say it doesn't
- show you all these statistics,
- We are basically a reactive agency, and that is to say, if the prosecutor, well, if the police arrest
- so many people, the prosecutor charges the judges, find probable cause and give us five cases, we're
- going to do those five cases. If they do all that with 30 cases,
- We're going to do those 30 cases. So we don't really control how many cases we get. They just come in.
- And as you can see from this chart, it's every category that we have. The felony, the misdemeanor, and
- the chins have gone up just for the last two years and part of this year. And that's what's causing
- part of our people to go over. Now, we're trying to correct that.
- moving some things around and stuff but I just want to make and I'm not asking for another attorney
- for this budget session but I just want to make you aware that I may come back I may have to come back
- and say January and say hey I need another attorney because we're over. What happens is if the commission
- decides we're over and not doing anything, I haven't asked for another attorney, I haven't done anything
- to correct it, then they send us a 90-day letter and say, if you don't get this fixed within 90 days,
- we're gonna cut off your funding. And right now, we're pulling in roughly a million dollars a year that
- goes to the county. So if you have any questions about that, I will try to answer them.
- Councilor Woods so when you say pulling in a million dollars you're talking about reimbursable it's
- not really like revenue that's over and above our expenses right we submit a number and they reimburse
- us not for every case yeah 40% and so the the 40% that we're getting back is averaging roughly a million
- dollars for the past couple years and I think we're on that
- level this year too. Has the commission that you referred to notified you of being over or a problem
- with the caseload distribution? No, as I understand it, we haven't gotten a letter. As I understand
- it, when we do the statistics, it shows if you're over a little bit, it shows up pink instead of gray
- or something. And if you're over more, it shows up red. Just to let us know
- the yes, you're over the limit of cases or this attorney is over the limit of cases you should have.
- If it's just one attorney, like I say, that's not a big deal you can, but right now we're three or four
- are over a little bit for the various reasons I mentioned. And then you mentioned the 90 day period.
- Does that, that gets kicked off though by,
- an action from the state to you, not just entering data? No, no, no. Yes, they have to send us like
- a demand letter or something saying, we've noticed you're not complying with the thing and do something
- about it. And do they notify you prior to that notice? Do they communicate to you about your caseload
- prior? Yes. Without the colors and just the data entry, I mean, formally.
- They will see those numbers every time I submit my reimbursement request. They check our caseloads,
- the statistics, the percentage of what each attorney is supposed to have. It coats red every time an
- attorney goes over for that quarter. If it's consistent, I will get a phone call or an email from the
- state asking what's going on.
- I mean, you know, we've. Consistently seen, um, three quarters. I've read, but they haven't reached
- out to you yet. You're just saying we're trying to be proactive. It's a million dollars a year.
- Yeah Yeah. Okay Um. Abvious way that you're suggesting to address
- You said you were also trying to address it by moving things around. Well, what else can you be doing?
- OK. We can. Well, right. That is returned from retirement. We're giving him just he's very experienced,
- so we're just giving him some big what are called big cases so he might not have.
- the full amount of cases, but we're using his experience. And I hesitate to dump a full load on him
- because he can say, I'm out the door tomorrow. I mean, he's really doing us a service by saying, I've
- retired once, but I'll come back and help you. And the other thing is, Chins has become a real problem.
- The state-funded,
- DCS, and gave them more people. And they're doing more hearings then. Termination cases, which have
- unbelievable amounts of information, and you're trying to take someone's child. So they become like
- a murder case without a jury. And it takes a lot of energy and effort to do that.
- I will say that. So we can try to do that. And like I say, they don't complain if somebody takes FMLA,
- somebody has some medical problem. Therefore, our statistics are skewed over. But they don't complain
- about that. They understand that someone has a medical problem. But then those cases keep going. So
- we have to kind of parse them out to other people.
- when that person comes back, then we try to, if they haven't progressed that far, we try to take those
- cases and put them back. If they progress to a certain state, we just let them go, which means the other
- people may start to be over. And so it's a constant battle of trying to, it's, the reason it's a battle
- is because we're so close to that line all the time. If I had five more attorneys, I wouldn't be talking
- here. I mean, we'd be okay. But,
- We always run real close to the line you're not to go over. Have all of these positions currently filled?
- Yes. Yes. Yeah. And is FMLA still a problem? No, that person is back right now. So what I see is one
- possible issue is that you've got a position that is underutilized
- because you're allowing that person to provide expertise you don't want to lose? Well, that's not totally
- true. When that person left, all those cases went to other people. So it hasn't been back that long
- that he's acquired a full caseload. So if you look at his statistics, he may be down, let's say,
- I don't know, 70%. And what you don't want to do is go over one.
- basically. So the cases, we're trying to filter more cases to him so that he goes up and that will hopefully
- let the other people go down some in total numbers. For example, it may look like he only has 18 cases,
- but instead of having 18 misdemeanors, he has 18 bigger juvenile felony cases.
- if that makes sense. Those are weighted heavier than the misdemeanors. You're not putting this into
- your 2027 budget? No. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we're just showing you that the cases are increasing that
- we have coming in. We haven't had, we haven't asked for a new attorney in probably eight years. And
- I think we're just, we're starting to feel that. Our numbers are starting to show that.
- The other thing I want to be able to show the commission is if they call us or say they're going to
- write a letter, I'm going to say, I'm already in the process of alerting the council, and we're working
- on it. I think they'll work with us. With the caseload keeping increasing, we can't do much about that.
- I have a quick question, and I know Councilor Huck has a question.
- I know you're being proactive and getting this out here now for the state to say, look, hey, even though
- we're getting close to the line, we're being very, excuse me, we're being very much proactive and having
- the conversation with the fiscal body and things like that. My question would be, because of that tight
- deadline and the 90 day, you know, I'm thinking of all the potential, how long does it normally take
- on average once a position has been
- okay by us to go higher, how long does that take you to fill it? Well, we used to have, if I'd advertise
- a position, we might have five applicants. We have a law school over here, and some of those people
- are interested. In the last, I would say, a couple of years, if I had a position, I had no applicants.
- And that's statewide.
- for whatever reason, and I think they've done some studies on it, and they've come up with some solutions.
- They're going to provide money. If you want to work and start as a lawyer and work in a small town,
- Ellisville or Spencer, they will provide certain funds to get you started as a sole practitioner. It's
- like a scholarship type of deal.
- They have some other programs. I don't think they've come up with it. One of the problems that they
- say, and I don't know that this is factual, but a lot of the people that go to IU or Notre Dame or something
- go out of state to practice. Valparaiso used to have a law school, and a lot of those people stayed
- in Indiana.
- So you would get people who wanted, grew up in Bloomington and wanted to practice in Bloomington. But
- it's been tough lately trying to find every agency I know, whether it's the prosecutor's office or the
- public defender's offices around the state, are looking for lawyers. They're all short of few. And look
- at the probation department. They're having trouble too.
- whatever reason, don't want to work in the criminal justice milieu, let's say. So there are always a
- few people around that might be interested, and I would hope that I could hire one if I got a position
- within a month, but that's not guaranteed. But if I could tell the commission, hey, we're over, and
- they say you need to hire someone, and I say, I'm looking.
- Give me some suggestion. They're not going to shut us down. I mean, they know we're working on it. Okay.
- Because that was my concern is, uh-oh, I hear like mayday, mayday, you know, with the 90 days. No, no,
- no. I don't think that's true. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilor Haug?
- Yes. Thank you for coming and sharing with us.
- and reminding us how the situation works in your office and how you have to meet certain guidelines.
- But indeed, the state will not come down and say, OK, if you don't do it right now, we're going to take
- all this money away. You have to have a process, and you have to have what you're doing right now is
- to say, if this should happen, then you've already explained how this works.
- And so we'd like to also remember that if they got up against it, you can contract out to reduce some
- of that caseload, not what you want to do, but if you had to do something just for a stopgap measure.
- So I thank you for coming forward and thank you for not asking for it right now. It helped us be able
- to try to get to that
- place where we can give everyone a little bit of a raise. We just don't know yet. I understand that.
- My people want raises too, so I understand that. Although, you know, the governor decided that,
- for example, myself, the prosecutor and the chief deputies didn't get a raise last year, we're not going
- to get a raise this year. So that's
- He's not going to give any raises this year. But not to higher level executives. There's a statute that
- says they look at. What? What the level is between. And I don't know who all qualifies, but higher level
- state executives compared to, say, judges. And if the judges are within a certain
- range of that, then the governor decides we're not going to give judges any raises, which is true for
- the last two years. The way it works then, the prosecutors don't get any raise and we don't get any
- raise because we're connected to what the judges make. So he did decide this year, and I have no idea
- why, maybe somebody, maybe some of the judges talked to him to give the judges
- And the chief prosecutors and chief public defenders then, I think $2,500 grant or something. He didn't
- give him a raise. It's not a raise, but it's a one-time payment, I think. That's in the works. Questions
- or comments?
- Yes, Councilor. I was just going to say I appreciate the explanation on this so that truly now we are
- working on it as we monitor and react and you're not doing it all on your own as we're thinking about
- it. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'm glad that we could talk about that. This definitely gives
- us a lot to chew on as we earlier with the other department like a lot of things.
- a lot of things to think about for 2027, knowing that you are up against something. Appreciate having
- that conversation. And last call for any other questions or comments? No? All right. Thank you. Thank
- you for letting us hire the paralegal. Thank you. All right. Is item F.
- Council, I move to approve the request of the Council Office to amend the reporting structure of the
- Health Administrator and the job description. Second. All right. Great. We got a motion and a second,
- and I'm looking at Ms. Schill to update us on this. Yes, and just as an FYI, in the packet, I accidentally
- typed that the Health Administrator reports to the Health Administrator. It's supposed to be the Health
- Officer, so I apologize for that.
- But as we were going through and we're working on org charts and just making sure that we've got job
- descriptions correct, we found that error. So it doesn't have to go back to WIS. It's following our
- org charts. So we just need to, I just need permission to amend the job description to the correct reporting
- structure, which is the health administrator reports to the health officer.
- All right, thank you. Any questions? Yes, Councillor Hawke. Right. I read that twice and I thought,
- I don't understand this. And now I know why I didn't understand it. OK, thanks. All right. Any questions
- or any other ones? Seeing none. You just eased a lot of people things, I guess, making sure like they
- read the packet correctly. Yay. OK.
- If we don't have any other further questions or comments, we'll go to public comment. You can raise
- your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. Seeing none, may we please have
- a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.
- Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up is item G. Council, I move to approve the
- Council Office request and fund 8953-0000 Local LATCF Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund for
- an additional appropriation of $162,378.82 in the services category pending Board of Commissioners approval. Second.
- We got a motion and a second. Yes. Um, so I believe it was at the, um, it was the last meeting of July.
- There was a discussion with regards to this, uh, fund and we were not able to get it on to the August
- 8th meeting. So this was, um, the amount of money that's been set aside for this. Um, and I can never
- remember. It's like,
- Yeah, local assistance, yeah, tribal, I think. So that's what this is for. I believe that Mary Morgan
- has reached out to the commissioners, I believe. So this is an appropriation that is pending the commissioner
- approval. So until they get a contract or something in place.
- And do we know? I don't know if Miss Morgan wants or knows or if anybody else. Do we know when this
- will hit their agenda or the commissioners agenda? So pending the contract, which we're still working
- on, could be as early as Thursday. Oh, this upcoming Thursday. Oh, OK. All right. Well, since you just
- had the microphone there, did you want to add anything else to any of this?
- I guess I wanted to talk a little bit about how we're going to look at success for this initiative,
- which I don't think I touched on the last time I was here. I think most obviously our goal is to reduce
- the number of unsheltered residents living in our community. So we estimate in Monroe County there's
- about 150 people who are living outside, whether that's in encampments on the street
- that you see walking downtown in their cars or other places unfit for human habitation. So we're looking
- to really try to get that as close to zero as we can in the next couple of years. In addition to that,
- to improve the quality of life for these individuals through intensive support services and case management
- as we work with them to really have a plan for a month
- 13 after the subsidies end for their rental. We also feel like a measure of success is going to be the
- impact, the local economic impact for costs, especially on the healthcare system and the criminal justice
- system, which is significant for people who are experiencing homelessness, and we think that's a broader
- community impact that's going to be positive and that we're going to
- try to figure out how to measure that, so it's a little trickier. We want to improve perception of our
- community's public spaces. As you know, there is a perception and, in many ways, a reality that we just
- are not doing a good job at keeping our public places safe for both people who are in-house but also
- the general public.
- And I also think that one benefit that I hope I'll see spill over into other areas is an improved
- cross-sector collaboration. This initiative brings together multiple entities that are really working
- not only in funding but in problem solving.
- to address this community problem. So it's not just on the backs of the county or the city or the service
- providers, but it's really all of us working together. And I would love to see that model applied to
- other tough issues as well. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Yes, Councilor Iverson. I mean, the
- timing of you being here is really
- Unfortunate or fortunate given the fact that this morning at 6 a.m. The county deployed forces to clear
- an encampment at one of our properties Reporting by the b-square says about 40 to 50 people were living
- there. Do we know where those people are this evening? I'm gonna try not to get emotional Yeah, clearly
- I'm emotional about this too. I it's been a really it's been a very rough day and
- It's been a rough day for, I know the people who had to leave that area. It's been a rough day for everyone
- at the county who had to make decisions related to that. It's been a really rough day for our staff
- and staff at other agencies who've been trying to address some of the trauma that the folks living there
- are experiencing. It was a situation that had to be addressed, but it is,
- There are no places for people to go that they will, let me say it this way. Our sheltering system is
- not sufficient for the needs of our community. There are extreme barriers to housing that people cannot
- overcome by themselves.
- And all of that really was evident in a very visible way at the Powerline Thompson encampment. And I
- don't have a good answer for you. We did have staff out there working to try to encourage people to
- go into shelter, to try to connect them with other services. But if people were not willing to go to
- shelter for a variety of reasons,
- Some had animals that they didn't want to leave. Some were couples that there's no sheltering available
- for couples without children. And it's just a really challenging situation that this new initiative
- is trying to prevent from happening in the future.
- Again, whether you see you being here today as a good thing or a bad thing, given the fact that what
- happened 6 a.m. this morning happened, I mean, we clearly need more resources. I'm in favor of this.
- I have my doubts, like you do, about what's going to happen in month 13, but we'll get there when we
- get there. But for the current commissioners and those who are about to join them,
- it is really clear that we need to have a much more robust plan. We cannot steal people's stuff, put
- it at the highway garage, and not have a way for them to get out there to get it. That it's unethical,
- it's un-moral. We cannot. There's just so many problems. Are we changing the date without giving people
- a time when we're gonna be there? These are residents in our community. This is wild that this happened
- this morning.
- So I thank you for being here and trying to answer the questions the best you can. I'm at loss of words.
- We need to do better. I understand that it was a really rough decision to make. And I don't think that
- there were, I don't see answers just as there aren't to any of these situations. So yeah, I do think
- we need to do better.
- Well, I think that one thing is abundantly clear. What we have done, we can't continue to keep doing
- it and expect different results. And I think today is just a reflection of kind of where the community
- is in trying to figure this out and the frustration of there is absolutely no easy answer between neighbor
- and between encampment, et cetera. That said,
- I am choosing to focus on this here that we have before us as a pilot effort to figure out, can we do
- something different than we've done? Can it follow this clutch method to give us an example? And then
- I guess the question to you, Mary Morgan, and thank you for being here after your day, is if this works well,
- theoretically, we'd have county partnered here, city partner here, private sector individuals that want
- to come here, other not for profits partner here, kind of following the model and it would expand up
- well beyond the appropriation we have. Am I saying this right? That's right. This appropriation will
- be significant in that it will unlock some matching funds we have from an organization called Community
- Solutions.
- but we are looking at a multi-year, multi-million dollar effort because we also are looking at the entire
- region. We're gonna be focused initially on Monroe County because it has the largest population, but
- we are also a regional organization and the region's homelessness impacts our services, so we'll be
- trying to roll this out more broadly.
- And is it? When would we know, like? First sex first. First zone, first area one. Is going decently
- enough, I guess. When when would if someone were saying when will we know should we be replicating on
- a much larger scale and begging people to get in on it with us? When what's your estimate on that?
- So we're two weeks into implementation, our pilot first phase. We estimate mid September will be finished
- with housing people there. And so we are intending to continue rolling out section by section as resources
- allow. So by mid September, we'll have a good handle on this first phase. Yes, Councilor Henry.
- Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Mary Morgan, for being here. I'm glad that we're back
- to this. I want to take a step back from the subject for a minute, which doesn't really involve you
- as much as I think it does how we go about our business up here and just reiterate some things. I want
- to also say first, I'm sorry that we haven't had a chance to talk, but also not necessarily sorry in
- that I think we have to do it in this space when we have a presentation or we're going to commit a six figure
- appropriation to something that it should be in this room where we have a formal presentation on it.
- I just maybe want to ask in case I missed it, have we ever had a formal presentation on the program
- to county council or in this room or at all? I know you've all shared your experiences on the committee,
- but I can't recall when we've talked about it. I may have missed it. I had some stuff happen when I
- was here two, three weeks ago.
- something like that. I didn't have a slide deck, but I did talk about and describe the initiative. Yeah.
- I want to just say a few things. So I'm going to reiterate my view from a few weeks back. I am concerned
- about sustainment of this activity. So we can seed it or pilot it if it takes off, which we all hope
- it will. There is a longer term commitment of this body or the county to
- funding that, I think, year in and year out, right? I mean, would the idea be that we would, I would
- presume you would ask for that about same appropriation every year as like a partner delivering government
- service? I think that's unclear. I think that we would come back to the county at some point, but we
- would be looking for other resources too, including the community foundation, including the private sector.
- Okay, but the pass through is to the community foundation, am I right? I just want to make sure I understand
- where the actual dollars go. Is that the intention that it goes to community foundation and comes to?
- So this will go to heading home. Community foundation does our back office, so their controller does
- our books. All right. So I think first step is thinking long term, if that's our investment. I've tried
- to think about this as sort of the way the county
- has contracted with Centerstone or Health Net to deliver a larger amount of money to address a community
- need and deliver that on behalf of government. I think that's where my brain is with it now after a
- few weeks of thinking about it. I will say, though, we've had, you know, when we went through our community
- service grant program, the Sophia Travis program,
- We had NGOs applying and filling out a multi-page presentation, a formal presentation for about 1% of
- what we're voting on tonight, right? They did a lot of work for $1,200 or $1,600 for this. And so it's
- with that in mind about if I were another NGO in the community even engaged in this space, I might be
- asking, well, you know, how to can I find my way to the 160-something thousand as a delivery, having that,
- that a little more transparent. So again, it's not about the value or the proposition, the mission,
- the importance of it. It's kind of the process question, which I know I tend to ask around here.
- But for me, anyway, I'm not going to stand in the way of something like this. Clearly, I think today
- shows that we are in a very gray, opaque space of trying to figure our way to a solution in the community.
- I've long maintained that these encampment clearing should not be a law enforcement centric activity,
- but should be housed in social services and emergency management and people that can manage that better,
- including your work. When we center it around law enforcement with those objectives, it changes things.
- I'm concerned about those unhoused today. They're going to have to find a way to the county garage to
- find their belongings, which is out my way, and the buses don't run that way.
- But again, I'm not gonna stand in the way of this, but I do want us as a council to think about is we're
- looking toward budget and if we're going to put a marker down on this being a program that we may be
- committing ourselves to a 10 year or 12 year multimillion dollar activity to get those 120 to 50, 150.
- The number of the current population. Yeah, 150. 10 times what we're looking at tonight. This gets piloted
- out, so I feel
- that should at least be voiced this evening. Thank you, Madam President. Could I just give a quick response?
- I think one of the differences between this initiative and something like the Sophia Travis grants is
- that we have
- participation and decision making by the entities that we're asking for funding from. So in our leadership
- team, we have two representatives from the county, a representative from the city, a representative
- from the chamber, the community foundation, IU Health, IU, the South Central Housing Network, the Bloomington
- Township Trustee, and a couple of other service providers. So I think that's really what I would say as a
- difference between the other funding opportunities there are is that this is a leadership driven
- collaborative initiative with decision making that lies collectively. The question for you, because
- I know we got an email from somebody from the business community.
- And I guess because I know the business community is deeply affected with our house and whatnot. Sometimes
- we talk a lot about the problems but are never coming to the table with solutions. And so my question
- to you would be, are there any business leaders and whatnot in the community that is willing to step
- in and fund and help and do what is needed to help with this initiative?
- So we have Eric Spoonmore, the Chamber CEO on our leadership team. He's convening a group of businesses
- next month that we'll be speaking to about this initiative. Tina Peterson from the Community Foundation
- is working with a couple of other, I guess I don't feel like I'm at liberty to talk about specifically,
- but a couple of other businesses that are looking to significantly invest in this, and I think
- from what we've learned from Clutch is that communities will step up with participation by the business
- community after the government shows that leadership. And that has to be multiple sources, that it's
- not going to work if it's just the county or just the city or just the business sector or nonprofits
- seeking grant funding. So I do, I am,
- optimistic about funding from the business community. I think there is skepticism. There's legitimate
- skepticism from many sectors, including the services sector. But that's the plan. I'm glad to hear,
- because I think other government entities are looking at who's going to do what first. And it's like,
- it doesn't matter. Somebody just needs to do.
- But also, at the same time, we need to make sure that we have that funding mechanism put in place. And
- I'm glad we have something like this pending. You know, this goes through with the commissioners, and
- I would really urge them. However, we do this tonight. I'm very much supportive of it, and we'll support
- it, but would urge our commissioners to do the same. So thank you. Did I say, oh, Councilor Hock, your
- hand was right.
- some things I have grave concern about. And one was when I heard, well, it's going to be a regional
- effort. Well, we all know what happens when the regions get together. They go, oh, let's send them to
- Monroe County. They've got all the services. And whatever we do, we add to the services. We do more
- and more and more. And we get more and more and more to serve. That, I think, is a real concern because
- there is a limit to what
- the local people can really come up with. There really is a limit. I know everybody thinks there's a
- money machine back there in the back, but if we set ourselves up for this, we have to recognize that
- people might expect the county to continue on next year and the year thereafter.
- And to do that, that means we're going to look at our employees who said they're not making enough money
- to survive and we're going to say, we're going to take it from you because we'll give it to the others.
- Or, yeah, I know, nobody has to agree with the word I say, but at least I live in the United States
- of America and I get to say it. I just think that we have to be cautious because
- There is a limit to how much money that can come up with that. The other thing I've asked for, or at
- least implied more than once, is a full accounting for all the millions that have gone into this. And
- what are we getting for the millions? We still have unhoused people. It seems like we could have built
- hotels by this time. So I have concern.
- Okay. Miss Morgan, I know you want to say something, but I'll step in and say that. And I'm glad we
- have all the freedom in this 250th year of this country that we can say the things that we say.
- But I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think I heard you say this, or this is also something that I
- heard with the clearing up today.
- The whole issue of our own house, there's so many different layers. And you just can't just say, hey,
- we have this room here for you. Let's go. And I think I just heard you say for multiple reasons. People
- had pets. People have couples that aren't allowed to go into shelters. There's also the mental health
- and substance use component to all of these things. There's many, many, many reasons why people decide
- not to choose that.
- But the thing is, we have to have those options there for people who want to be able to go and do that
- to say, yes, let's go ahead and do that. Emma? The vast majority of people, when there are housing options,
- they want housing. And a lot of the people that we're seeing that are chronically homeless or that are
- unsheltered,
- or have so many barriers that it's really impossible, especially in this housing market, to get housing.
- So I think that's the fact. Okay. Yeah. And I also think that we can walk, council, we can walk and
- chew gum at the same time. Absolutely. We have a system right here that our auditor had taught or told
- us well where when we were having conversations related to trying to see if we can fund this through
- art book because, you know,
- Almost at the end of the month, we've got to figure out ARPA, just a plug. But we have this funding
- mechanism right here, right now, that is available to us that we are able to use. Can't use it for any
- other thing else, but this is something like in terms of employee raises and things like that, since
- that was mentioned.
- this is something that we can do right now. And then of course, it would be up to us to figure out whether
- or not later on down the road for us to do that. So if this is something that we can look back and say,
- we had this funda mechanism, we were able to do this right now because there is the problem right now.
- We just heard that there are a lot of things that happened today that make people feel all in their
- feelings. And if there is a way for us to do this right now, man,
- I would hope that in the next year or two that we can look back and say that it was our initiatives
- and the funding that we gave for this that helped try to get those numbers down. That is it. So I don't
- want people to look at, oh, you know, hey, we have this
- funding mechanism here and we just heard other departments come in and state their case about whether
- or not, you know, they want to have, they're losing people with XYZ and, oh, you gave this money over
- here, but you didn't give it over here. Again, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. That's what
- budget season is all about and we can look at all of these different things because the folks elected
- us to do that. So that's all I'm going to say about that.
- Councilor Decker. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. That's OK. I just wanted to respond to Council Member
- Hawks comment about the regional issue. And I apologize that I wasn't clear about that. We're not asking
- for money from Monroe County to fund this initiative in other other counties. We intend to go to the
- leadership of other counties. And once we have proof of concept here, talk to them about the
- the needs of their communities and how they can help support this initiative, because I think that that
- is an important thing to remember, that other counties do have similar challenges and not as many services.
- And so hoping that we can get people to step up through the leadership that Monroe County shows. I will
- say this. I know that
- First of all, I wholeheartedly support this because, A, I've joined in on the leadership team to assist
- this. I believe collaborative approaches is the only way we're going to get through most of the problems
- that we have.
- I also believe that we're often all pitted against each other in multiple different ways. And this is
- an area where we need to pick one of two options, gripe about it, or do something about it. And I think
- this is doing something about it and trying to be better informed on how we do it. I think sometimes
- it looks like there's an option for a better solution than this out there. But I just don't see who's
- coming to help.
- this to me makes sense as a project to try something different in a collaborative way to get folks moving
- into a different solution. Because I think what we saw happen today, if you go six days forward, six
- days back, we're probably just talking about days of difference and the same action taken. When you
- talk to the neighbors out there,
- which I have. I've driven through there three to four times a day for two and a half, three weeks or
- so. That situation, not sustainable. When you talk to folks in the camp, the situation's not sustainable.
- How it was handled today, there are literally no good options for this. Literally no good options. And
- there's no cavalry coming. Now at the Chamber's event earlier, what was it, two weeks ago, the governor
- talked about regional
- behavioral health ideas. And so that's the first time I've heard that come from someone not named Matt
- Pierce. And I appreciate that it's someone with authority because that would be a, for some of this,
- that would be a Calvary assistance towards doing something different than what we've done.
- Right now, I feel like what happens is everybody just kind of looks and says, well, look at them. They've
- got all these problems. Nobody. I don't know how they do it, but I love the restaurants. What a great
- town, good sports team. The reality is our only solution is going to come from us.
- doing, trying things, holding feet to the fire on how could we have done it better, not just saying,
- oh, let's see if Mary Morgan can hit this three-pointer, but actually saying, Mary Morgan, how can we
- help you and that person and this partner to do it until we get better options that come? We also have
- to recognize that the housing buy-in here is at country club proportions.
- You can there's no level of income that is safely able to buy into what they want to buy into. And this
- is it's not getting not getting any better. I mean, our own planning department basically told us today
- that, you know, they administer a housing process for a county in which they struggle to afford to live
- in. That should be on the face for everybody that took an oath of office and everybody that cares about it.
- And so rather than do what we always do here, which is gripe, create Facebook groups and take pictures
- of people, let's do something and try to get some metric from it so that we can say a little bit more
- doing here might help us move forward in some way that's positive, because what we're doing now sucks
- and nobody likes it. And we can't stay here because there's literally no good options with that.
- Okay, Councillor Wilks. Thank you. Things in my head. Thank you for being here today. I did want to
- point out that another group of people in our business community who have made a lot of impact
- have been some of the landlords that you all have engaged with. And without them, this particular initiative
- would not work. So I just wanted to include them in that business community. Absolutely. Yeah. And in
- terms of looking at some of the outcomes, I would encourage anybody interested in getting more data
- as well as stories about what's going on with Heading Home and your initiatives to go to the website
- headinghomeindiana.org. They have a dashboard, a data dashboard there that does provide a lot of information.
- So I just threw that out there as well. There's been a lot of work.
- you house, another person comes into the community sometimes. So it can feel like we're not gaining
- as much traction. But in reality, with certain target populations, the veterans in particular, we've
- made a lot of progress. And I won't sit here and cite everything, because the issue at hand is this
- appropriation, which I think I very much support.
- Um, however, as a member of your board, I'm going to have to recuse myself from voting on the appropriation.
- So, um, I just want to say thank you to my colleagues are willing to support this. I think it is a fantastic
- investment in a hopeful initiative, and it puts us in front of some other community leaders who
- I hope will join us as we move forward with this program. I just want to say that I really appreciate
- what you're doing and what's been of the streets to home initiative. About a day and a half of that
- workshop you did and lightning and so inspiring to think that we could make effective change.
- eat the microphone. We'll take care of that. OK. So I really also want to say that I like the idea.
- I've thought for a very long time. I've been involved in social issues in this community for a very
- long time. And I've thought for a very long time that this should be a regional approach. And I like
- the idea. You're already talking about going to area counties or whatever regions you're talking about.
- But I've also thought about, and I echo Councilor Deckard's comment,
- It should be, I've thought for years that it should be a state funded issue. I mean, as some of you
- may or may not remember, we used to have county homes, right? We don't have those anymore. I have asked
- for oodles of years where all that money went, right? It went for something else. It didn't go for this.
- So now we have this issue and I'm heartened to see that we're making progress on it and I like the fact that
- We've saw numbers from Indianapolis, what they've done there with theirs. I mean, that's encouraging.
- 200, as I remember, right? That's nothing to sneeze at. So I'm hopeful that we can have numbers to report
- on some level at some time in the future, and I look forward to that. All right. I think we've all said
- something on there, so I appreciate that.
- without seeing any other further questions from Council on this item. We'll move on to public comment.
- If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams, or you can come to the podium here in
- the room. And seeing none, can we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
- I have to abstain. What did you say? I have to abstain from the vote? Abstain. Councillor Henry? Abstain.
- Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
- motion passes majority. Four. To Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Um. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.
- And so now we are on the amended portion where we are moving items up. So we are on items 9A, which
- we will look to the auditor for her presentation on Gateway, which we all love, insert sarcasm so much.
- Before we do, yes. Do you suppose we might be able to have a health break? Oh, sure. Well.
- Before we get into that, why don't we reconvene back at seven, let's come back at 725, and then we'll
- go into that. Yep. So, 725. All right, so let's go ahead and jump back in. Thank you, thank you. And
- we are starting back up again.
- And I'll note for the record that counselors Hawk and Decker have left the building. So that being said,
- we're going to go back to the auditor for her budget 2.0 gateway presentation. Thank you. Thank you,
- counsel. I'm not going to take too much time this evening, but I want to give you a brief budget update.
- And then just quickly take you, refresh you on budget 1.0, and then that will kind of help with showing
- you budget 2.0 with what I can anyway, with what's been populated. So just to begin.
- We have completed in my office the CNAF process. That deadline was August 1. We made the deadline with
- everything going on. There were some glitches and some issues. Some counties didn't make that, so we
- pushed through. We got there. We're in a good place. It has not yet been approved by the DLGF. Apparently
- there's one employee reproving approving these for the entire. State.
- is my understanding. So they're very busy. They're overwhelmed. There's a lot of changes everybody's
- working through. I have no doubt that it will be passed with flying colors. Usually we just have to
- answer some questions when they're kind of doing their audit and their formal review. So we're waiting
- for that to occur. But just an update on that step. Moving on from that, I've been working closely with
- your office and your team.
- And all the budgets have been entered in budget projection software, allow software. I know that council
- team has also entered our advertisement amounts.
- After conferring with leadership team, we determined we would give you max flexibility. So we went with
- a 40% increase in each category for each fund, just in case you move things around like we did last
- year. The only exception to that was for the edit fund, where we did $10 million per category, again,
- to give you maximum flexibility. So then I am going to go back to the certified net assessed value.
- As anticipated, we did have a decrease from 2026 to 2027. It was a reduction of about 21.8 million.
- Now, we know that with the SB1 changes, that's to be expected. And that's going to kind of continue
- through 2031 as the deductions continue to be phased in. So we can expect that to continue.
- Not as significant. It will decrease.
- still going to have some changes there. Okay. So then actually getting to where we are with the gateway
- budget process, my team and I have been working through populating the information in the new budget
- 2.0. It's beautiful compared to what we're used to working with with 1.0. However, there's never going
- to be a new process without glitches. For example, when we were
- Auditing additional appropriations in the new software, we found that some of the information that we
- added to Gateway and that was approved by the DLGF did not populate. In fact, it had disappeared completely
- from the State Gateway.
- They, it's a known issue, they're aware of it. So we just had to kind of have a work around. So we've
- since done that. So now I'm going to take you through here, if you bear with me.
- giving me what I want to share, Michelle. Can you help by chance?
- So this is the budget 1.0. So this is what we use for the 2026 budget. This should look familiar to
- you. So we can move around in here, enter the information as we see fit. That's the old version. Then
- going back to budget 2.0, the new version here. I have to log in multiple times. So completely different
- format. You have to go in order, which is actually helpful. It kind of helps you not miss a step.
- But there's a unit set up where we're adding like board and council members. There's unit questions
- that we answer annually just so they can kind of get a feel for what the county is thinking as far as,
- you know, anticipated additionals. If we're going to potentially have a new bond, that sort of thing.
- There's an option to like upload files. We can add new funds.
- auto-defaults to how they want us to use the net AV, their recommended percentages. And then we get
- into the actual budget form. So the current year financial worksheet is the most changed
- form that we've been working with. So what's nice is, like I mentioned, it auto-populates these additional
- appropriations. And once all the glitches are worked out, it's going to be a really nice tool that everything
- kind of flows through naturally from what we're already doing throughout the year when we enter these
- into the gateway system. So that is really nice. And again, if you need me to slow down or pause somewhere,
- if you have a question, please just stop me.
- This is where we're adding in the June 30th balances, for example. So just another piece of that. Again,
- you're going in order here and we're populating this information.
- We're at the point where we are, and that would be down here a little bit further. There's the debt
- worksheet, which is familiar to you. But we're at the point where we're ready to roll budgets. However,
- we were waiting. We should have that done later this week, but we were waiting for your conversation,
- which is next on the agenda, just to see if that would assist us so we don't have to enter as many things
- by hand manually, which is beneficial because it's kind of a control if we can just export and import.
- Yeah, I just wanted to kind of make you aware and familiar with this new system. You should all have
- access. I think I've given you all access so you can view it. If you don't, feel free to call me,
- pop in. I can help you. My team can help you. But we want you to be familiar and to be able to utilize.
- Thank you. Yeah, I have one more thing to show you. But I see, do you want me to answer a question first?
- It's up to the president. Go ahead.
- I'm going to stop sharing and then reshare one more thing.
- This is just a template. It's not been audited. It's not completely filled out yet. But this is the
- template that we are going to use to update you on where we are as far as the budget. So we have that
- simple calculation that we used a little bit last year. But then we want you to really concentrate on
- these levy funds.
- Okay, so this will give you some, it will give you the minimum fund balance, the internal minimum fund
- balance information that we want to utilize. And it will also give you the historical and current certified
- net assessed value and just kind of help you see the flow and where we anticipate ending up as far as
- positive, negative per fund. Where is this? Pardon?
- It's in my email right now. I haven't shared this because it's not yet fully vetted or populated or
- audited. But I just wanted to show you the format. So when you see it, you'll know what it is. So that's
- all I have for tonight, but a lot more to come next week. Okay. Thank you very much for that. And Councilor
- Iverson. Could you navigate back to Gateway for a second?
- please. Absolutely. One moment. I have to log in again. I think I'm already there, so we're okay. Okay.
- So once you get everything rolled up, where can council find the four B's for each of the funds? So
- that's very important, yes. Because the budget information hasn't been rolled yet, I
- I think it populated anyway last year's information, so let me take you down here. It's not letting
- me there yet because we haven't rolled the actual budget, and I'm sorry, it goes in order. But yes,
- it is at the, I'm gonna go back to the menu. So it is going to be down below under the budget advertisement steps.
- Okay. Okay. So we can have another mini session if council president and leadership is agreeable. So
- I can actually show you more once we have that information imported. Maybe we could do that. That first
- night about that sounds great. Thank you. The menu options. There's a lot and it's all new and it's
- kind of difficult to know like which one should I drill down into because four B's appear in a lot of them and
- Like you said, it's not a real deal. Yeah, I completely understand. And you all know how to get a hold
- of me. I'm happy to work on this one-on-one with you, or you can call me any time, and I'll just answer
- questions. So whatever works, just let me know. Any other questions or comments for the auditor on this
- item? I'm sure we look forward to seeing that.
- your spreadsheet as we update everything in real time as we go through nights, multiple nights of budget.
- Yay. All right, it's getting close. Okay, next up is item B, which is the discussion and possible approval
- of COLA. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of a 2027 COLA rate. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second, Michelle.
- We've talked about this before. Back in May, I brought to you what the CPI recommends that we have done
- historically has been the CPI from December of 2025. And so that percentage was 2.7.
- We did get a letter from FSG, who has reviewed our budget reports and all of our information. And with
- that large report that he gave us, said that we could handle a 2% COLA. So we're coming tonight, the
- auditor and myself, we would like to have a decision with regards to where are we going to move forward.
- Because if we move forward with no cola right at this moment, if you decide later on to give the cola,
- that is a lot of hand changes that we have to do. Because once it gets into Gateway after the advertising,
- we have to manually go in and do a lot of changes. So I just need some feedback on how you want us to
- proceed with regards to
- budgets and with regards to cola. If I may, um, financial solutions group provided a letter with their
- recommendation and it's in your packet. Did you, I'm sorry if you mentioned that. Thank you. I can flash
- that on the screen if you want to see it. And in the meantime, it looks like counselor. So you mentioned
- there would need to be a lot of changes if we didn't do it.
- what if we make changes who want to change that? Is that the same? We work for you and we will gladly
- entertain any changes that you make. It is labor intensive because it's line by line and then it has
- to be audited and reviewed, but that's why we're here and we will do that. Best practice,
- Ideally, if we're able to make a decision, that would be best overall for for everyone just to help
- with mistakes, et cetera. Regardless, the changes are the issue, no matter whether we set something
- now and change it or if we don't do anything and change it, right? Yeah, it's just the mass changes
- that are difficult, you know, when we're going line by line for 600 employees. Council Henry.
- President and thank you, Brie, as we're getting into this, too, and Kim. So I know we have a really
- rough draft of all funds in at this point for the budget for 27. And I don't want to give away too much
- here, but I'm just trying to look at where we are that before COLA, there's about a $15 million difference
- between what was adopted and what's been proposed. Is that the way I'm seeing this sum total? Yes.
- But some of it is with regards to their step increases in there. And even though the counselor letters
- asked for flat budgets, there were still some increases across all departments that made the increases
- to their budgets.
- That's what I was trying to show you on that spreadsheet that I sent last night. So, because I'm trying
- to try, trying to wrap my head around that increase plus COLA right now, right? That's kind of where
- I'm at. And that's maybe, and maybe we've said this before and I may have missed it, but do we have,
- if we understand those are the all budget numbers that are coming in, do we have a sense of what revenue
- is yet? And where that,
- If we do, I can actually forward that. I intended to do it before the meeting. But revenue has been
- entered into Gateway, has been audited, and it's good to go. All right. I guess I would just flag my
- ... I think with FSD's recommendations, I'm going to start there because they've spent more time with
- that at this point than we have or I have. But I am looking at that 15 million differential there across
- all things and thinking if that's the gap right now
- And then COLA, that's on my mind about how we're going to get there at this moment. And some of that
- gap is also the geo bond is in there. And we put it at the very. So, you know, that is a huge amount
- in there as well. And so we also have. Like I said, we put everything back into regular
- funds and so that's where some of the increases come instead of it looks like there's been additions
- but it's not when you offset it from edit you know so you would have to go in line by line and actually
- look at it you know but that is a good rough estimate of the differences with regards to
- what we're seeing that was adopted for 2026 and what is being requested. Thank you. Oh, um, and I did
- also send you, um, there were a few things that, um, I highlighted that has also that are in the budget,
- but the, but is also being, uh, in the geo bond.
- But that was, I think, maybe two or three items at most. Yeah, I know when we met with, like to go over
- another budget, there was something that was double budgeted that was in theirs, but potentially can
- move over to the GO bond. Right. I'm pretty certain that there's other departments that have double
- budgeted for things, too. So a little, but I mean, a little goes a long way. Right.
- Councilor Iverson. Just, you know, let's see. First of all, we heard a lot about competitiveness. The
- planning department is in here saying like folks are going over because city of Bloomington salaries
- are higher. Tying it to inflation is at two point seven. City of Bloomington did the same thing. City
- of Bloomington's proposed budget. They're having budget hearings continuing this week is is also at
- two point seven. FSG is a two and IU Bloomington came in at one point five percent.
- So it's all over the map. And I think for my dollar's worth, which I think is probably important because
- we're on the fiscal body, sticking with what FSG recommends, and particularly their language, was that
- they're pretty sure that we can do that.
- I don't know why I just paused. Sorry. I think that's probably a good starting point for us. But I do
- want to double back on some of the data entry stuff that you just mentioned. Is it a challenge to change
- it from 2.7 to 2.0? Is that laborious? Yes. It is. I just asked that. It really is. I mean, changes.
- All right. All right. Question asked, question answered. So. Yeah. Well, I was just going to. OK.
- This is the spreadsheet that I sent you guys. And so just looking at this one line here, this is what
- is currently in LAO. So criminal case manager is being budgeted at $45,318. If we roll that in without
- a COLA, we have annually
- change that number for each individual. So every salary. And then we have to go in and we have to figure
- the perf and the FICA that also goes along with that. And so once we have shifted everything into Gateway
- to be published, it's locked in in Gateway. So we have to manually go in and do that. We can't roll again.
- I'm going to do it one time. Am I correct? Bree on that? We have a meeting with our, um, Tina marketer
- Department of Local Government Finance DLGF representative on Thursday, and I want to clarify that in
- the new 2.0.
- So we asked FSG if our budget could sustain 2.0. So they aren't recommending it. They are saying, yes,
- we've looked and you can. Just to be really nitpicky about. That's a good clarification. Yeah, because
- the letter says we believe the county can support a 2% COLA. In addition,
- We budgeted into the ED lit, right? And is that and that's what he's talking about with the edit fund.
- Is that right? OK, so we put things in ED lit just to be able to afford them last year. I guess we need
- to look at those items to determine.
- appropriate to keep them there for another year. And that's a conversation with the commissioners because
- there's a plan attached to it. Right. I feel like it's a little hard to commit to a COLA of any sort
- without the opportunity to have that discussion. Well, and I'll be
- I know that I sent an email to the commissioners to talk to them about that because in addition to us
- potentially using edit again for various things, I know I think the highway department also is potentially
- wanting to do the same thing we did last year with by two minutes and community crossings and things
- like that again. And so there's other things that we could do too. And I know commissioners are
- obviously in support of giving the employees a cola, which is definitely something that I think we all
- wanna do. We just need to make sure that we can afford that. And so if there is a way that we can do
- that, such as what we did last year by moving those things over into edit and looking at what we need
- to do to try to retain our employees as much as possible by way of using edit.
- I think that would be helpful. So stay tuned. And I'm hopeful about our conversation. Yes. I just wanted
- to refresh you on one final thought. Originally, F S G had in our long term sustainability plan. They
- have that 2% cola built in. However,
- when there was conversation about not utilizing edit, that's where they removed that and they indicated
- it wouldn't be sustainable to have that in levy funds. Just with the given climate, the changes with
- SB1 and all the things, if we weren't gonna be able to utilizing all the funding available to the county.
- So I just wanna make sure you recall that.
- Moving forward, if possible, rather than do what we did last year with, if we can utilize edit, I would
- like to do a one lump sum kind of thing, and I have some ideas with regards to that, rather than each
- individual little item of supplies and this kind of thing. That's been a holy nightmare in regards to
- trying to keep track of that.
- and so that you guys can like look from one year to another, you know, kind of thing. So I know it was
- awesome at the time, you know, and this time, but when we finally got down to budgeting that in and
- moving all of that, it was a nightmare. So the things we learned year after year. So I think I have
- a better plan if that's, if we can use edit on how we can utilize it more effectively, I think. All right.
- Well, technically the motion was to open up discussion and have a possible or approval for that as well.
- So I'm looking to colleagues to see like to make a motion. I think it sounds like a lot of this hinges
- on what comes out of that edit plan. So I think this is a good discussion.
- We put it on next time. Tim, you visit or. Is that too late? Don't don't. We need to roll budgets by
- the end of the week. So regard, we're going to have the data entry, but we welcome raises.
- So thank you. We will do whatever is necessary. You got it. Here's the thing. Like we could say if FSD is
- you know, saying that we can do the 2.0 with use of edit, then we would hope to, you know, have that
- conversation where we would be able to get approved. I know, like, we're the fiscal body, but I understand
- the role of the commissioners as well, and I hope this could be the one thing that we all can agree
- upon and would help with our county government
- financing that this is something that we could do. And I know last year, you know, it was said like,
- which it almost felt like it was a little bit in jeopardy. But I want to say that I will remain hopeful
- about having the conversation because we will happen. So yeah, I mean, they got to get it in by the
- end of the week. And so if it doesn't happen, it's not like,
- we didn't try. Sorry, I keep moving this. I wasn't being flimsy when we welcome raises, but we will
- do whatever it takes to meet your needs. Of course. Yeah, it's a team effort. We've done it before where
- we waited until the last session to do a COLA. It does cause a mad rush to get everything in because
- we have to
- at the end of the sessions, we only have a certain amount of days to get all that information uploaded
- so that we can be timely in our public hearing. But we did it, we've done it, and we will continue to
- do it. So it's whatever you guys decide and how you wanna move forward. Yes, Councilor Henry.
- I would like to make a motion that we include the 2% COLA as part of the entry into Gateway with the
- understanding that the approval of that will be subject to the budget process and the inclusion of edit
- in our budget for this year. Second. Okay.
- We got a motion and a second. Is there any other further questions or comments from council on this
- item? No. Okay. I will move to the public on this item. If there's anybody watching via Teams, you can
- raise your hand or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room to make your comment on this item.
- Okay, because they always do. So, all right, maybe they're out enjoying the nice weather. Okay, so seeing
- no other further questions or comments on this item, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Crossley?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you.
- Are we doing them? Item C. We're doing item C right now. Okay, so next up is item C. Council, I move
- to open for discussion the 2027 County Council general fund and rainy day budgets. Second. All right,
- we got a motion and a second and I'm looking to Michelle. I'm blinded, sorry.
- So we're supposed to meet as a group and you review my budget. This is what I have submitted and I'm
- open for any whatever you have in mind. The budget is flat with regards to personnel except for the
- assistant council administrator who will meet her third
- year step come this October so she will be at that three years so that's why why you see that increase
- there. I left the kind of with regards the blue over here is what we put in the edit and I did that
- so that you would know that that's what was in the edit fund. So what I did was I just moved a hundred
- dollars up
- and into the office supplies. I had a lot of printing and copy supplies. I purchased a lot of paper.
- So I'm still really good with that. So I would rather just have that with the office supplies because
- we've spent a lot of the office supplies this year. Sometimes it ebbs and flows with that. The dues.
- I've paid a portion of those. There's another set that's coming up this fall. Contractual, this is for
- the FSG contract. And with regards to that, I would like to leave that at 30,000. And just so that you
- know, we have used WIS once this year.
- So we will be using some of that 30,000 that we had set aside for just FSG. So I'm going to have to
- do some shuffling and move some stuff around because if we get more invoices from FSG, which I'm assuming
- we will, I may be really close to that threshold of that 30,000. It is a budget year in the
- state legislature. I'm sure we're going to use it next year.
- That's what I'm assuming. And then depending on with regards to, you know, we just talked about planning
- and maybe what they're going to do. I know that when we sent, it was earlier this year, I want to say,
- it was maybe job descriptions to WIS with regards to the health department. Those three positions, that was over,
- $1,300 just to do those three. So depending on how many positions and how intense it could be, we may
- need to have a little bit more with regards to WIS, that kind of thing. The training and travel. I said
- it for the same amount that we've done. Lehu and I have not done a lot of
- I've been trying to utilize a lot more with regards to attending webinars and this kind of thing. I'm
- more than happy to cut that in half. Office expenses, that's where we pay for our color copies. That's
- a service that we get the black and white, but we also pay for the use of the color.
- That is significantly dropped because we've also changed our copier people. So we've changed, I think,
- from Mariko to Toshiba. And so that amount has changed. But it's fine. Sophia Travis, I left that flat
- at the 190.
- The other thing that we have is the BEDC. We've paid the dues for this year, which was 5,925. We budgeted
- the 15,000 last year, and that's what I budgeted for this year. The only other thing that I would like,
- which I have not budgeted in here, which it doesn't show up, but we did add
- professional services, and that is for the litigation. And so I have moved all of that. You don't see
- it on here, but I have done in-house transfers. So there is 30,000 that's currently in the 2026 budget.
- I just need to know how much you want for 2027.
- Thank you. This is lovely and a very clear presentation. Um, my first question is the little changes
- that you've made. Or other. Is that consistent with the flat budget?
- It's getting late. Sorry. I just took your word for what you said. No, no, no. No, this is good. So
- we're not doing something like by making little changes that we told them not to do. That's all I'm
- asking. We're good there? Yes. OK. All right. I didn't increase. I just shifted. Right. That's all.
- OK. I just wanted to make sure. OK, I'm going to say it. Yeah, go for it.
- past year, because I feel like we keep doing this year after year, that we always budget for BEDC. And
- then we haven't had that chance to get that. Our commissioners have not approved BEDC for this year.
- And correct me if I'm wrong, last year didn't get. So we, OK. Finish that.
- for everybody to hear. The story, just the past few years, what's? Do I like to hear it? Here it goes.
- Okay, so we have it budgeted and it's weird because we have it budgeted and then the commissioners have
- to give this approval. But for the past several years, it's not been approved.
- And I think this past year, if I'm not mistaken this year, I think I heard, by the way, from
- the commissioner's office that they were waiting for BEDC to give them some type of presentation. Do
- we know if that has happened? Not that I'm aware of, but hell. Councilor Feidl, are you the liaison
- for the BEDC?
- Have you checked with Clark to see whether... The interim director? Yes. No, I have not. To see whether
- or not... Okay. I can find him. I'm curious just to figure out what is the holdup again this year?
- Is it... Because I know they had some changing, and so it's more of, so if the commissioners have requested
- for this plan or this presentation, has he not given it to them, and if so, when?
- Because my other thought process is this is like a donation that we are also given to the BEDC, but
- we're paying our dues. So I think I kind of alluded to this last year and I think maybe some of us had
- a little bit of heartburn as well. I guess I'm just saying, like we keep hearing people come in and
- say, you know, people are trying to fight for their lives.
- To justify things and I say that if we are given if we are paying our dues with BEDC Is that shouldn't
- that be enough and let's figure out some other Way like Should or just be DC and and that's it I guess
- that's my bottom line of what I'm saying and
- Yes, Councilor Henry. Madam President, thank you for being diplomatic. I'll just be more direct and
- ask directly. So when did the board of commissioners or when do they usually consider that contribution
- from their side? Is that in January or is that? The auditor. It's whenever the contract comes before
- them is my understanding. Is that right? When does that usually happen?
- It's early in the year. I thought it was in the fall. There's a big difference between November and
- January. There is. My recollection is like the first quarter of the year, but I could be mistaken. I
- would just offer, Madam President, that that timing really matters a lot on whether or not that changes.
- About where to put that resource, we may have at Boone, or we may be still doing it. I'm not sure yet.
- But I knew when that was considered, the contract was up.
- We would know that answer, right? Yeah. Councillor Wilks. Looking at this spreadsheet, I guess we don't
- have what was expended thus far in 2026. Yes, we do. It is this amount right here, which is highlighted.
- We've paid the dues. Highlighted. Show me. I'm sorry. I was looking at my screen and you didn't highlight
- my screen. So I'm so it's right. It's yeah. Five thousand nine hundred twenty five. Yeah. Next to the
- green. That is the expended column as of June. OK. OK. I don't see any expended column that says. Or.
- We expended. The dues was the 5750 for that year and then we gave a $30,000 donation. OK, so it looks
- like we did that in 23 and 24 and then in 25 and so far in 26 we have not. Remember in 2024 we had to
- do that because we presented it the same way that we've done it every year and we
- didn't get it approved. So the way that we said, because it was like, how can this be done if this is
- in our budget and we can't, like, it's not approved, you know, that was an issue. But council then decided
- that we would give it as a donation, as a way for us to get around being denied again. North always
- remembers.
- Councillor Henry. Thank you. I have just maybe two comments. This is really great. I appreciate seeing
- this in advance. I'm trying to remember from last year where we are in the current scheme of things.
- So if we will have an opportunity to make adjustments to these lines during presentations. OK. And of
- course I'm going to always push for more in the Sophia Travis like I did last year. And I said I'll
- continue to do so long as people put up with me.
- You honestly have a chance to do that now, and then that way it's already in there. Given that we're
- missing some members, I think last year we also did that, and then we revisited it and revisited it.
- So I think I'll save it for that week. But then if we wanted to add an account line, is that something
- we should do now, or should we wait until the presentations? You can add an account line any time.
- If you add an account line in 2026, I would need to budget it in here with a dollar to hold it open.
- Do we have to do that tonight or can we do that during presentation? Do it any time. Well, I'm going
- to tee up something tonight for consideration in relationship to the professional services line.
- I was looking at Gateway, because it was fun to get back in there. Thank you, auditor, this evening
- as we were talking. And I would offer up to council, this may be an opportunity for us to reintroduce
- what was once, I wrote it down, the account line 100-011, which was the county council attorney line.
- And the logic behind that would be that if we find ourselves in the future where we would want to bring
- back that position, at least we've got it slotted with a dollar waiting for us for future use. Now,
- who knows what the attrition and retirements role will be in a year or two or what faces us with current
- litigation. But to maybe precede that line again and have it waiting for an opportunity if we should
- choose to execute to bring counsel back in full or part time I think would be prudent at this point.
- But I'm not going to.
- I'm kind of curious people's thoughts on that, to bring that line back. Oops. If we were to do something
- like that, what about the job description? What about all of the other process? I mean, I feel like
- the line creation is the easiest part of the process. That is the easiest part. So what else would go
- into doing that?
- that position was not updated when we went through that whole update back in 2021. I believe you would
- need to revisit the job description as well and you know, which means then yes. So start. I don't have
- all the answers tonight. I'm just looking at the budget. So I get that. But I feel like there's a lot
- that would go into it. So I just want to bring that out. Then I would also say, you know, we would,
- you know, you would need to, is this going to be a part-time position? Would this be a full-time position?
- What would they be actually, you know, which means what for the council? So are they going to be taking
- over everything with regards, you know,
- Not there yet, just getting the email. So I think that would be a... Thank you for that. I would just
- offer maybe one more thought. I was discussing with Councilor Iverson here that do we have a sense of
- when or how, by department, which departments are frequent flyers when we have the PAC process and tapping
- WIS as a resource? I can go back and look. Yeah, right off the top of my head.
- We've had lots of, from the health department, they've been one of them that has always been a frequent
- flyer with regards to updating their job descriptions. Let's see, we've had, I don't know if you would
- say it's a frequent flyer,
- But I mean, we've had the clerk's office had asked several times to want to come and update job descriptions.
- I don't think we should do anything with that until you get the new clerk in place. And that might be
- a reasonable offer with regards to there's going to be a change of an elected official. And she may
- want or him or her may want to revamp their entire operation.
- Let's see. We've had the highway has come several times, but they were just tweaking certain things.
- We've had... It doesn't have to really be all answered tonight. Yeah, I was going to say maybe the attorney
- ones. I only raise it to say, and I don't know, this is a thinking outside the box question about how
- what we're providing as a service to other offices.
- It's a cost center for us because we have to budget for it. It's sort of like a cookie jar that goes
- back and back and back but but the question is Since is that since there's costs there if it out how
- to manage that better and I don't have answers for that and other governments you'd have like a Service
- fee like a cost center fee. We're like like if you're gonna do this, it's
- every time you come back to us with it. But at the same time, I know you've delegated that role to a
- vendor to make those decisions for us. So it's tricky. I just am curious if we're seeing cost run-ups
- because there's going on there. And by no means do we have to answer this tonight because everybody's
- tired. So thank you for entertaining the question. Just quickly, I mean, it's obvious that in the year
- plus that we have not been having PAC,
- and therefore not been using lists. We've had a lot fewer expenses. Go figure. Kind of crazy. So,
- you know, cost savings there. Look at us go. But yeah, I mean, that's... It's a lot to think about.
- I think that the fact that departments come to us for additional appropriations when they need it and
- we tend to...
- trust a lot of the department heads to manage their money and request what they need it almost would
- start to just be circular money though if that makes sense if I may say counselor Hawk has always asked
- you know is the department paying for this
- You know, if they have their own fund, you know, for example, and I'm just using the health department
- because they have been one of them that we have done several times, but we've never charged them. But
- it's in county general. So, I mean, let's just say the department comes and they don't have any other
- fund than county general. I mean, yes, it's coming out of their fund, you know, out of their department
- fund, but it's not really coming out of a separate fund. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So different line. Yeah. But if, but, you know, with regards to the health department, yes, they do
- have their own fund, you know, that kind of thing. So, but I think that would need to be a further council
- decision. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. We just, you're just looking at it in. Yeah.
- You know, this is what I've got proposed. We can make changes, you know, when it comes time. The other
- the other budget that you guys are responsible for is rainy day. And I have scheduled a million dollars
- in each category of supplies, services and capital. So. And Sophia Travis is always through the MLG
- Yes. So for this year, it's the maximum levy growth quotient. And this year it's 6%. But I kept it flat.
- But if that's what you're looking at, I can get that number out to everyone. I like my acronyms.
- That's all. OK. Well, this has given us something to chew on.
- what Councilor Henry was saying that gives us some food for thought to take a look at some items. So
- stay tuned, because the most wonderful time of the year is almost here. All right, and sorry, I had
- a squirrel moment, because apparently we have Peter Parker that was, AKA Spider-Man, jumping from different
- rooftops behind us over here, which was,
- So, yeah, all right, sorry. That's my ADHD. Okay. That being said, we will move on to item D. Council,
- I'd like to open for discussion and identification of the special purpose local income tax rate. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second. And I think Ms. Turner-King is joining us virtually. She is
- doing a lot.
- And so Ms. Turner-King. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Take it away. Okay. So at the last council
- meeting, we discussed the need to adjust the special purpose rate and we decided or the council decided
- that at this meeting, we would look at the draft ordinance, which I've prepared. It's in the packet
- and asked Ms. Scheltz to display.
- And that then we could identify the rate tonight so that the ordinance can be published by or submitted
- to the HT for publication by this Friday so that we could stay on the timeline of adopting a rate in
- September. So I have the ordinance. Last time you guys had me read the ordinance in its entirety. Do
- you want me to do that now?
- I can't. I'll just, I'll just summarize it. Yeah. So, um, the first where the first couple where as
- his clauses just give you the history of what the special purpose tax rate is and has been. So,
- Most recently in August of 2023 it was reduced to 0.085 percent. The third whereas clause just acknowledges
- that we have a longstanding practice of providing exemplary exemplary juvenile care through view shelter.
- The fourth whereas clause is not a complete whereas clause. We'll have to fix that. Sorry. I think you
- can just take it out or. Wait hold on sorry. I'm gonna skip over that for now and we'll go back and
- fix it. I think you just take it out.
- And then the next whereas clause would say after the reduction, we realized that the continued rate
- would is not something that is, will be sustainable. Um, and then the last whereas clause is going to
- identify the rate. And right now in yellow, it is highlighted to, um, identify the rate at 0.095%. That's
- what it was, um, prior to 2023. And so I didn't know if that's what the council wanted it to be. Um,
- So I've highlighted it so that you could make changes if necessary. But then the now there before it
- ordained clauses just indicate that based on the current rate we can't sustain operating as we normally
- do. The second rate or the second clause says to accommodate this we're going to increase the juvenile
- service rate. And again it says 0.095 percent because that's
- where I just started to put it back where it was originally before 2023. It indicates if you change
- the tax rate to 0.095, what the new tax rate overall would be, which is also further broken down in
- a chart on page two. And the chart shows our current rates and then what the proposed increases would
- be. And the only one that changes is the special purpose.
- So that is the ordinance. And if council has any changes, I'm happy to make them. And then we can get
- the ordinance to the auditor's office so that they can submit it to the HT portal by noon tomorrow so
- that it will be published on Friday. And then you can have your first reading and public hearing on
- September 8th. Any questions? Yes, Council Iverson. Thank you, Madam President. At our last meeting,
- there is multiple representatives from Board of Judges here who of course have a vested interest in
- this and there was talk about having like kind of conversations that's all happened we can move forward
- with this with the Board of Judges I mean there is no changes to what we talked about last time. So
- Councillor Feidl and I met to review kind of
- make sure we understood what FSG had given us, as well as the requested budgets of all of the departments
- who have lines in the special purpose. We looked at both of those things and compared FSGs with the
- request to kind of verify that it's all still the same sort of thing.
- Liz communicated with each of those departments. Well, actually, I shouldn't say that because it was
- courts, probation, and Youth Services Bureau specifically, the primary users. She communicated with
- them via email, letting them know that according to what we see, the 0.095 rate would be an appropriate
- amount and sufficient to fund their budget requests.
- looking forward next year and the following year. So our recommendation would be to stay with the 0.095
- that we discussed. So satisfied. All right. Anybody else have any questions on this item? Yes. I just
- I would like to clarify when I can expect to receive this just so I can advertise first thing tomorrow
- in order to make sure it's done by noon. Because whatever we propose and vote on right now is. Like.
- Don't give it OK. If I can just clarify with Molly, I mean, I have the word version in front of me.
- I can do you want me to go ahead and remove
- Whereas, completely? Correct. OK. And then I'm not changing anything that's highlighted. It's staying
- as it is. OK. Yes. And then of that, and then I can move this. I will have it printed, and you guys
- can sign it tonight. OK. And that way she can have it before you leave. OK.
- Well, it's not a signed copy of the ordinance. It's a draft. And so you don't want to sign it because
- then you're passing it. Correct. So this is the draft that you need to. Yes. OK. Right. That's what
- I meant. OK. Yeah. So we just want to. OK. You're voting. Yes. But technically, we need a motion because
- originally it was just
- a discussion and a possible approval. So I'm looking to, yes, Councilor Iverson. Council, I move to
- adopt. What resolution number is this? Are they adopting or just approving Molly? I believe my suggestion
- or recommendation would be a motion to move forward with advertising proposed ordinance 2026
- 26 so that a public hearing on adopting a new special purpose rate can be held at a later date. On September
- the 8th. So moved. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. And so to clarify, that is the proposed
- rate of 0.095%. Okay. Any further discussion from council on that item?
- Okay, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this, raise your hand via Teams, or
- you can come to the podium. Weird to say, because there's nobody in here, but we do have a hand raised
- via Teams. So you should be able to unmute, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three
- minutes. Hello, my name is B. Grunehaefer. I'm a Monroe County resident. I just want to remind everyone that
- This fund was moved into the correctional lit originally so that you wouldn't have to raise taxes, this,
- you know, local income taxes. And it seems that utilizing some of the ED lit, that 0.69, you can't really
- move that ED lit, but you could move some of the correctional lit back into this fund
- and move some of the money that was allocated to the correctional lit from the ED lit into the correctional
- lit so that taxpayers wouldn't see an increase. Thank you. Thank you. Other comments or comments from
- the public related to this item?
- Please have a roll call vote. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes.
- Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. And we are winding down, but
- it's the most watched conversation that I've seen.
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um. More so, um, we are talking about must again talking about must. Um so I will
- ask for a legal update. And so Miss Turner King if you can provide us a brief update. On the
- must conversation because I know. Um a conversation that we were supposed to have got moved up.
- So there was a meeting with FSG and I think they answered a lot of questions that council had regarding
- must. I did send them questions from Councilor Hawk, but I have not received any response for those
- questions. I can try to pull up my meeting notes from that meeting, but in essence,
- In essence, the FSG is promoting the formation of WIS, I mean, MUST. And they have made a proposal for
- MUST services. They said that was negotiable. So I need to talk to Greg about that. But in essence,
- I think they described it as the opportunity to have a conversation
- with taxing units and they think that we should have that conversation, especially with the transition
- from property to a rate based system. And then they provided some other counties like Elkhart who has
- done, who's already formed MUST. And so they gave us information so we can do a comparison. But tonight
- I think I did prepare a draft resolution
- that would convene the must task force um the statute says that the the county council hereby convenes
- and i know that in the past we've thought it was the council president but out of abundance of precaution
- i prepared a resolution um because the the statute says formed by the county council and the draft notice
- that the aic prepared also says the county council so
- I prepared a resolution out of precaution. Okay, thank you. And since our conversation, I know we were
- looking to see if the folks from Ellisville are interested. And I did have a conversation with our clerk
- treasurer. And I think the general consensus that everybody is having is that because it is non-binding
- that people are interested in having the conversation because again, we have
- budget, everybody has budget seasons and adoptions and all that other stuff that we're all going through
- currently or about to go through. And October 1st, where we have to convene the meeting is right around
- the corner because September is literally next week. So before that gets away from us, I think,
- you know, considering that it is non binding, there is interest in the different taxing units to be a part
- of this conversation. So I just wanted to say that. All right. Councilor Iverson. Ms. Muller-Turner-King,
- can you scroll down to the now therefore be it resolved clauses? Actually, Michelle is controlling the
- screen, but she's scrolling down. Oh, sorry.
- This just says that we will do it, but no date has been set. Correct, because my idea or my thought
- process was that we would reach out to the taxing units to try to schedule a meeting when we knew everyone
- was available. So I modified the aim notice to say that to explain what must is and what the point of
- must is, and then to say that council office would reach out.
- Two, the taxing units for scheduling purposes, kind of like we do other meetings with like Fabtech to
- see what time works best for everyone. But I could also change it if you'd like to identify a time.
- I also didn't pick a time because I wasn't aware if council intended to make their appointment to MUST tonight.
- Yes, Councillor Iverson. The definition of the taxing units, particularly let's look at clause three,
- where the council directs the Monroe County auditor to provide notice to the taxing units.
- It is my desire, and I'm speaking just for myself, that this includes all Monroe County taxing units.
- I want everyone to be invited to this party.
- public meeting, too, right? I mean, yeah, yeah. All right. So the public's invited. I think that's great.
- Put that in there. Yeah. And maybe that's assumed. Well, if I may, I think the notice would go to the
- fiscal officers of each city and town, because that is what is statutorily required to be a part of
- a meeting. If you want it to go to additional people, I think you should I would recommend
- identifying who? That is that is what I want. In particular, the EMS fire, those folks are going to
- be hit pretty hard, hit hard. Our township trustee partners. I mean, I'm going to I'm going to I'm tired.
- I'm going to blank on on some and I don't mean in disrespect the schools, the library system.
- I mean, if there's other taxing units that I'm not remembering, then please include them. Yes, Councillor
- Hannon. So, I mean, with the word like all taxing units, but then qualifying that there's ones that
- must be on the committee, right, and there are ones that we should have in the room. I think we tried
- to I think last meeting I recall we were trying to maybe expand our circle to do it in Monroe County way.
- I don't want to give the impression that all taxing units get to be at the table because of the nature
- of the thing that we're at, the code, right, or the word. Statute. Statute, thank you. But I want them
- all there, too. So I pray, I mean, gosh, we're going to really do. Could we just say all taxing units
- that convene, just all. Is that the word all? Is it one representative from each?
- We're fine, yeah, but I just want to make sure that somewhere else in this document we're clear that,
- look, the committee are these four entities, but all taxing units are welcome to be in the room. I see
- the cursor is leaving 2A alone and editing clause three, and I think that gets to the point. Molly's
- got her hand up. Molly's going to tell us what to do.
- I think it's important to note that the statute says specifically the committee may not include
- representatives from the fire protection emergency medical services as defined and it link as cites
- the site I see code and it may not include non municipal civil taxing units as defined. And then there's
- a site. So I think
- it's fine to provide a courtesy notice of those tax to the taxing units to say the must has been formed
- and you're invited to the public meeting. But I do think you need to clarify if you do that, that they're
- not on they're not on the committee. Yeah, counselor. Are we planning to utilize
- FSG to assist with the facility. I think it was determined that that was what we wanted to do because
- I do believe the auditor had expressed since we are already using FSG and we're already they're familiar
- with us and they've talked to us before about this that it would be ideal to just go ahead. Now it sounds
- like also with those different taxing units like I know the city has really like
- you know, once this happens, should it all go through, that should we pass the resolution tonight, I
- should say, that people will bring their own financial services groups with them, but it would be because
- it's a county-companied thing that FSG would be doing. So, I recall Mr. Garretas saying that he
- already several times and had resources in the form of wording and things like that that he could share
- with us to use. And I might be stretching what he said to say that I think it would involve this invitation
- type, but that was the impression I got.
- So I'm wondering if we can agree this is going to happen and direct our council to work with Mr. Garitas
- to include our intentions. And if we need to pass the, is it a resolution? Resolution, then we do it
- next time?
- Or are you trying to get this meet? Well, that we can't meet between now and next. We have to meet by
- October 1st, October 1st. And I mean, there's no way we would be meeting. We have a meeting scheduled,
- a regular council meeting scheduled for September 8th. So. If this up at that meeting in terms of yay
- or nay, but kind of. Progress forward based on what Mr.
- us work out, I mean, to the extent that we can progress between now and then. Ms. Turner-King? The statute
- says you have to convene it by October 1st, not that you have to have a meeting by October 1st. So you
- could table this to the next council meeting and then pass it then, and then we could clarify the language
- a little bit more if you'd like to try to set up a meeting with the fiscal officers of each city and
- town thereafter.
- wait let me make sure from council what would prevent us from passing the resolution tonight work smithing
- that's all okay okay I just feel like there might be some language that I just feel like maybe we could
- get some language from FSG on
- how to be inclusive, but also stay within the code, the statute that's like, hey, only these folks.
- Anybody have any other comments to that? So essentially, like this is the draft and then we can see
- this work with Mr. Gerritas and then the eighth go forward.
- Yes, counselor fire. So I'm wondering what the disadvantage would be of waiting. That would be my. Well,
- I think the disadvantage of waiting is that that's two weeks that have gone by in which we. Don't have
- a meeting, don't have a meeting schedule or for us to kind of get like to kind of pull schedules together,
- if you will, because again,
- I think the other thing that I was thinking about is other taxing units. We have our budgets. We got
- three weeks of budgets plus regular sessions in between that. Then we have public hearings and then
- final adoptions. One person from this group is going to be taxed with, in addition to doing that, that's
- going to be an addition thing that they are going to do.
- And schedules I know are already tight for some folks but that would be my reason for or I would say
- the disadvantage for doing that. But as long as you know like again if we're saying that we don't have
- to have the meeting because I was under the impression that you had to have the meeting by October 1st.
- Ms. Turner-King, or Ms. Gregory, is it for certain that we, the language isn't strong to, are we not
- needing to have it done by October 1st? I think from hearing the presentations, that's what I've taken
- away every time.
- That's my recollection as well. I'll pull up my email and see if I can find anything. I mean, obviously
- I'm going to defer to legal because they're looking at the statute, but let me see what I can find from AIC.
- In reading the statute, it says each county may, prior to October 1st of 2026, convene a municipal unit
- strategic task force, with one representative from the county council in each city and town, fiscal
- officer in the county to negotiate and establish, through unanimous support, a local income tax distribution
- agreement. And then, skipping ahead in the statute, it says that
- the municipal strategic task force establishes a local income tax distribution agreement under subdivision
- one. The county should send the local income tax distribution agreement to the Department of Government
- Finance. The Department of Government Finance shall compile a report for of all local income tax distribution
- agreements and submit the report to the legislative by December 1st. So I think you have to convene
- it by October 1st and then you can discuss if you have an agreement so that you could submit it to December
- to DLGF so that they can submit it to the legislation by December 1st. Well, I guess to council colleagues,
- if the wording was that we need to make sure that we are trying to include people that really should
- be on there, I guess, couldn't we set down just the taxing units and then
- If we find out by way of FSG, like other people such as library, school corporations, those things could
- be there, we could always add that and amend the resolution at the eighth. And therefore, if we pass
- it tonight, that gives us at least a two week head start on getting our gears grinded. I just am a little concerned
- The more time that we aren't doing something, the more like schedules get real tight and crunchy. And
- so I'm just thinking like we could do this now. And then should we find something else out later that
- we can add? We can always amend it later. Ms. Greger, I think you had your hand up. Yes. Back to the
- October 1. I just found my email from October 11.
- I'm sorry, August 11th. Working in the future. From August 11th from Jamie Bolster with the AIC. This
- is just an excerpt from that email. It says, please also remember that convening a must is permissive,
- not mandatory. If a county elects to convene them, the tax
- the task force, the initial meeting must be convened prior to October 1, 2026. The statute does not
- prohibit the task force from holding subsequent meetings after October 1 to continue its discussions
- or work towards a unanimous agreement. DLGF has requested that counties must submit their completed
- must reports by November 2, 2026.
- to the legislators. This leads me to believe that we need to have that first meeting by October 1.
- I agree. And I just pulled that email up and I'm looking at it too. So I would agree. So I think if
- what we have displayed on the screen right now where we can say, you know, the tax in units, which
- The council directs the Murrell County auditor to provide notice to the taxing units, communicating
- action. So that clarifies who needs to be, but we can also send this out as a courtesy to those that
- want to hear the conversation, but we need to take care of what is required for us. Yep. Yep. Okay.
- So it is a public meeting, right? Yeah. So, I mean, they could come for sure. Exactly. Okay.
- Is there anything prohibiting public comment? Well, I think you can as much like all the other things
- that we've done, we could probably facilitate that. And then, of course, with the FSG, I'm sure they
- will, you know, work with us and how to do this. I know Hancock County had a meeting, I think, last
- Wednesday or Thursday. And it's actually I haven't had a chance to look at it because I've been ingrained
- in other things. But I kind of want to look at it and see what they do or have done.
- So I move to adopt resolution twenty twenty six dash thirty one. All right. We got a motion in a second.
- Any other further questions or comments on most?
- Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, I guess I'll say here in the room,
- if somebody wants to run into the room off the street, if you're watching, you can come to the lectern,
- or you can use your Spidey web and come on over, or you can raise your hand via Teams. Seeing that nobody
- wants to do any of that, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
- Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- All right, so it is official. And stay tuned. Okay. And at the next meeting, that's something that we
- could do. At the next meeting on the 8th, we can designate the one individual to do that. So there we go.
- you. If you must. So do you want me then to go ahead and start reaching out to the fiscal people to
- find a common date? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Um so we will move on to the final part of our agenda, which is
- Council liaison comments and updates.
- Councilor Feidl, you're up first. I just want to report on a few things. One of the highlights I think
- of the last couple of weeks I arranged for and offered others to come to the new VA building tour. We
- got to see that. Councilor Deckard and I ended up being available to do that, so we did that. It was
- a lovely tour.
- Lots of services right on site there, very well organized, really nice facility, easy to get to and
- out of, plenty of parking. Loved all the flowers and the little non-asphalt areas of parking lot. We
- got to see all kinds of butterflies. It was just lovely. So it was just a lovely building tour. So I
- was just happy to see the veteran services there in fine shape, it seems.
- I think there are other things that I've done, but it's just my routine, whether it's downtown Bloomington
- stuff. We had an applied research center speaker when I went to that recently. Those are just the things
- I think of my council a couple of weeks ago. Councilor O'Rourke.
- I've done a lot of things and I'm tired tonight. So I'm gonna spare you from updating. I did go to the
- PSLIT committee meeting where it was decided that the recommendation would be to raise it. So be looking
- for yet another increase in local income tax.
- community near you. Oh, okay. Um, I'll keep it really brief. Uh, private fest was awesome last week.
- Um, and the front door, which was funded by so few Travis grant committee has had their, um, openings.
- And so it was just really good to see the community coming out and
- and showing up and showing love. Students are back, so welcome back. And budget season is upon us. I
- had a really good budget session meeting over the past weekend, and we got some more that are coming
- up. And so I'm really curious to see everybody else's budgets and what we do for 2027.
- And so with that being said, we are adjourned. Thank you.