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 updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated updated
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.