WEBVTT 00:00:00.770 --> 00:00:07.739 - I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Good evening, everybody. Today is Tuesday, September 00:00:07.739 --> 00:00:14.513 - 8th. Hopefully everybody had a well rested Labor Day weekend. Thank the unions for having that day off. 00:00:14.513 --> 00:00:21.091 - So we will go ahead and get started. We have a quorum of council members here and we have Councilors 00:00:21.091 --> 00:00:28.190 - Henry, Iverson, Decker. Welcome back. Wilts and Feidl. And we don't have Councilor Hawk joining us just yet. 00:00:28.482 --> 00:00:36.500 - But again, we have quorum, so we will go ahead and get started. And all those that are able to stand, 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:44.753 - please stand for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United 00:00:44.753 --> 00:00:53.163 - States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty 00:00:53.163 --> 00:00:54.814 - and justice for all. 00:01:00.354 --> 00:01:11.465 - Thank you very much. We will go ahead and move on to the adoption of tonight's agenda. Um I am going 00:01:11.465 --> 00:01:22.576 - to ask. Um that we. Table item H. I know it's been table from the last meeting. Um but we're waiting 00:01:22.576 --> 00:01:29.726 - to hear back from official G to confirm some things. And so, um, 00:01:30.594 --> 00:01:34.326 - just to confirm, just to make sure, since we're all in budget season, we just want to make sure that 00:01:34.326 --> 00:01:38.206 - we are good to go. So I would like to table item eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:38.206 --> 00:01:42.086 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:42.086 --> 00:01:45.966 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:45.966 --> 00:01:49.846 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:49.846 --> 00:01:53.726 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:53.726 --> 00:01:57.606 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. 00:01:57.606 --> 00:02:00.414 - Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight 00:02:00.802 --> 00:02:08.011 - motion. Second. Okay. All right. We got a motion in a second. Any questions or comments on this item? 00:02:08.011 --> 00:02:15.219 - Or anybody else wishing to make other changes? All right. Seeing none. All those in favor of amending 00:02:15.219 --> 00:02:22.499 - tonight's agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right. Motion carries. 00:02:22.499 --> 00:02:29.566 - Thank you very much. Next up is item number four, which is public comment. One of the most favorite 00:02:29.922 --> 00:02:35.986 - things of our agenda. And so if you are here to make public comment, these are for, again, items not 00:02:35.986 --> 00:02:42.110 - on tonight's agenda. So you can come forward to the lectern here in the room, state your name for the 00:02:42.110 --> 00:02:48.174 - record. You'll have up to three minutes. Or you can raise your hand virtually. And again, state your 00:02:48.174 --> 00:02:54.238 - name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. And once your time is up, your time is up. 00:02:54.594 --> 00:03:03.817 - on right now, I will go on to teams. It looks like we have a hand raise green name, Jamie Ford. Again, 00:03:03.817 --> 00:03:13.220 - you should be able to unmute state your name for the record. You have up to three minutes. Good evening, 00:03:13.220 --> 00:03:22.264 - counsel. My apologies for not being there in person. Timing didn't work out for me. I'm just raising 00:03:22.264 --> 00:03:23.518 - awareness and 00:03:23.906 --> 00:03:30.781 - bringing up what I think is an important topic. I want to start by saying that I'm glad that Lee Jones 00:03:30.781 --> 00:03:37.790 - is doing better. She did appear at the commissioner's meeting this past Thursday. Seems like she's doing 00:03:37.790 --> 00:03:44.598 - well. That's great. I have nothing against her for taking the time that she needed to seek treatment. 00:03:44.598 --> 00:03:51.073 - However, I am critical of the commissioner's handling of her absence. If you look at the 4 June, 00:03:51.073 --> 00:03:53.342 - 18 June, 25 June, 2 July, 9 July, 00:03:53.538 --> 00:04:02.991 - 16 July minutes. Her name is not listed as being a member of the Board of Commissioners. Indiana code 5-14-1.5-4B2 00:04:02.991 --> 00:04:11.375 - states that the members of the governing body recorded as either present or absent for memoranda that 00:04:11.375 --> 00:04:19.842 - shall be kept. This is backed up with the handbook of Indiana's public access laws on page 10. The ODL 00:04:19.842 --> 00:04:23.294 - requires the following memoranda be kept. 00:04:23.522 --> 00:04:30.676 - date, time, and place of the meeting, and the members of the governing body reported these things either 00:04:30.676 --> 00:04:37.830 - present or absent. So I question, again, this is nothing personally against Lee Jones, but if the county 00:04:37.830 --> 00:04:44.031 - has removed her from the memorandum and the minutes, so I question whether she is actually 00:04:44.031 --> 00:04:47.710 - still a commissioner or not. By comparison, before... 00:04:47.970 --> 00:04:53.960 - former Council Cheryl Munson passed. She had missed, I believe, about two months worth of meetings, 00:04:53.960 --> 00:05:00.130 - yet she was listed on the minutes the whole time, just as that she was absent. She wasn't removed from 00:05:00.130 --> 00:05:06.360 - the council minutes until the 10 December 2024 minutes, which was the day that she passed. So obviously 00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:12.350 - she was removed because she was no longer serving as a Murrow County Councilor. So if Lee Jones was 00:05:12.350 --> 00:05:17.022 - removed, that would signal to me that she is no longer a County Commissioner. 00:05:17.570 --> 00:05:24.629 - Um, and the, the problem with the, if, then that's still a problem. Open door law specifically, and, 00:05:24.629 --> 00:05:31.617 - you know, pretty, pretty plainly states that you have to list, uh, all the members of the governing 00:05:31.617 --> 00:05:38.606 - body. So either Lee Jones is no longer commissioner or the, uh, commissioners and whoever keeps the 00:05:38.606 --> 00:05:46.014 - minutes is, uh, violating open door law. That's a problem. Both of those are a problem in my opinion. Um, 00:05:46.274 --> 00:05:52.231 - And the legal department is now wrapped up in this, too, because I submitted a records request specifically 00:05:52.231 --> 00:05:57.746 - citing Indiana code saying that they have to list her. That was back in July 30th, 2026. There have 00:05:57.746 --> 00:06:03.261 - been multiple meetings that the commissioners could have amended those minutes that is allowed, and 00:06:03.261 --> 00:06:08.832 - they have not. So I just want to raise awareness and maybe I know they're not meeting this week, but 00:06:08.832 --> 00:06:13.630 - hopefully they will be accountable and answer those questions and be transparent about 00:06:13.922 --> 00:06:21.812 - either why they're violating open door law or by admitting that commission or that Lee Jones, your time 00:06:21.812 --> 00:06:29.779 - is up. Thank you. And also, thank you. And state your name for the record. If you don't mind. I'm sorry. 00:06:29.779 --> 00:06:37.214 - My name is Jamie Ford. I'm a district one resident of Monroe County. OK, thank you very much. OK. 00:06:37.570 --> 00:06:46.892 - Are there any other hands raised via teams or anybody here that would like to make public comment? Seeing 00:06:46.892 --> 00:06:55.863 - none, we will move on. Next up are for our department updates, and those again are for items that are 00:06:55.863 --> 00:06:57.534 - not on the agenda. 00:06:58.178 --> 00:07:05.174 - Each department will have up to 10 minutes. Your timer will be listed on the screens here. And it looks 00:07:05.174 --> 00:07:12.304 - like we have one already on our list, which is from our Correctional Center. And it looks like Mr. Jordan 00:07:12.304 --> 00:07:19.838 - Miller and Jail Commander Kyle Gibbons will be presenting. And we are joined by Sheriff Marte as well. Welcome. 00:07:33.026 --> 00:07:41.400 - council members. I hope everyone is doing well. I'd like to give an update reference the position of 00:07:41.400 --> 00:07:48.945 - director for the transition team. I remember back in 23 all of us got together meeting the 00:07:48.945 --> 00:07:57.982 - council commissioners and myself and we talked about the funding portion of it and well agreed about APA and 00:07:58.434 --> 00:08:05.308 - And then also that once that funding lapse, then what do we do next? And we, uh, we agree that we needed 00:08:05.308 --> 00:08:11.854 - to come back to the table and try to find another form of funding. Well, we thought about this, um, 00:08:11.854 --> 00:08:18.793 - and I'm gonna pass the floor to, to, uh, Commander Gibbons here so he'll get into the weeds. But overall, 00:08:18.793 --> 00:08:21.150 - what we thought of was, um, having, 00:08:21.378 --> 00:08:29.189 - looking into the office itself and trying to find the funding for ourselves, but at the same time finding 00:08:29.189 --> 00:08:36.632 - savings, too. However, I want to thank Councilmember Cate Wolch and Marty Hawkins not here, but they 00:08:36.632 --> 00:08:39.358 - both met with Jail Commander Gibbons 00:08:39.458 --> 00:08:46.189 - and gave us some guidance on how to proceed. That was truly appreciated, because some of the things 00:08:46.189 --> 00:08:53.257 - were kind of new to us in a sense. So thank you. I really appreciate it. With that being said, I'm going 00:08:53.257 --> 00:09:00.123 - to pass the floor on to Joe Commander Kyle Gibbons. Good evening, everybody. I know we only got a few 00:09:00.123 --> 00:09:06.922 - minutes here already left, so I'll get straight to the meat and potatoes of it. What we're trying to 00:09:06.922 --> 00:09:09.278 - do is move to correction positions 00:09:10.114 --> 00:09:17.070 - into a contractual position with a savings of about $71,000. And I'll get into that. Two positions. 00:09:17.070 --> 00:09:24.513 - Well, if you remember, I'll just start here. If you remember, we went to the pony training. They suggested 00:09:24.513 --> 00:09:31.816 - nine pony team members, or transition members, I'm sorry. We said, I think we can do with eight. I think 00:09:31.816 --> 00:09:36.894 - then we all agreed to six. They've done extensive work up to this point. 00:09:37.698 --> 00:09:44.236 - with the transition director we currently have, we think that it's possible to do it with four. 00:09:44.236 --> 00:09:51.115 - And again, when we talked about this in 23, and it was Jeff McKim who originally brought up the ARPA 00:09:51.115 --> 00:09:58.199 - fund to fund this position through the end of this year, we all kind of agreed that we'd have to locate 00:09:58.199 --> 00:10:05.214 - another source to continue that post 26. And Councilmember Hawkins was really kind of the only one who 00:10:05.922 --> 00:10:12.484 - didn't love the idea of finding a temporary funding source and was looking for a more solid funding 00:10:12.484 --> 00:10:19.177 - source moving forward. So just let me get into the numbers here a little bit, because I think some of 00:10:19.177 --> 00:10:26.001 - this was lost in translation. I met with Council Member Wilts and Marty Hawk. And let me try to explain 00:10:26.001 --> 00:10:32.694 - this a little bit better. Two positions currently that we received of the six positions, two of those 00:10:32.694 --> 00:10:34.334 - positions worth $119,000 00:10:35.202 --> 00:10:45.138 - $434 on wages alone. Self-insurance with those two positions is just over $36,000. You add PERF, that 00:10:45.138 --> 00:10:55.172 - is almost $17,000. FICA is $9,000. And it is just a grand total of $181,607 for the two positions. The 00:10:55.172 --> 00:11:01.406 - transition director position itself is contracted for $110,000. 00:11:01.538 --> 00:11:09.585 - So if we took $110,000 from that $181,607 total, we'd have a savings of $71,607 for the county for every 00:11:09.585 --> 00:11:17.939 - year moving forward. Like the sheriff said, and we've grown accustomed to this, especially local governments 00:11:17.939 --> 00:11:24.990 - across the state are all kind of experiencing these budgetary issues. We knew that we would 00:11:25.378 --> 00:11:31.814 - We would have to find a way to fund this, and we knew it probably wasn't going to come out of thin air. 00:11:31.814 --> 00:11:38.250 - So we buckled down, and then we tried to find a source. But what I would say is this, and Councilmember 00:11:38.250 --> 00:11:44.562 - Wilson and I kind of talked about maybe some shortcomings from this issue. What we don't want to have 00:11:44.562 --> 00:11:50.750 - happen as the jail is falling down around us is to provide our ongoing litigation any concern about 00:11:51.298 --> 00:11:57.904 - us being second or not moving forward and us losing this position and ultimately ending the transition 00:11:57.904 --> 00:12:04.511 - team. These guys work every day into putting things together for the team and then moving forward into 00:12:04.511 --> 00:12:10.924 - the transition to new building. As you guys know from the training, it's not just once we step into 00:12:10.924 --> 00:12:17.338 - the building, we're good. We've got to have those guys into the transition of the new new facility. 00:12:17.338 --> 00:12:19.006 - So here's where we're at. 00:12:20.130 --> 00:12:28.383 - We came forward here, and it's not necessarily a request. It's an idea that we all kind of came up with. 00:12:28.383 --> 00:12:36.715 - And Council Member Hawke thought it would be better to put it in the contractual line. And it's something 00:12:36.715 --> 00:12:44.811 - we wanted to get in front of you before we sat down for budgets, because we obviously know that that's 00:12:44.811 --> 00:12:47.326 - a very painstaking process. OK. 00:12:47.714 --> 00:12:54.051 - Yeah. OK, OK. We're ready for questions. All right. Thank you very much. I'm going to go to Councillor 00:12:54.051 --> 00:13:00.326 - Iverson and then I think I saw Councillor Hawks fan first. Thanks. Thank you for bringing this to us. 00:13:00.326 --> 00:13:06.663 - I have two questions. One is on the numbers you read and one is on timing. The first question is, were 00:13:06.663 --> 00:13:12.816 - those figures that you read out emailed to us or can we are those available to us? Yeah, we can get 00:13:12.816 --> 00:13:15.646 - them to you. I provided them to our liaisons. 00:13:17.250 --> 00:13:24.590 - So yeah, they're in the budget for twenty twenty seven. So that's okay. That's why it's a departmental 00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:31.716 - update. It's not something we're considering fully right now. But since it required a little bit of 00:13:31.716 --> 00:13:38.914 - thought and it's a different approach, we recommended that they come let us know before their budget 00:13:38.914 --> 00:13:46.040 - session. That answers my second question as well. So how do you. So I believe that the decision was 00:13:46.040 --> 00:13:47.038 - to leave both 00:13:47.586 --> 00:13:56.644 - the existing position that you intend to reduce and the contract leave it all in there so that we can 00:13:56.644 --> 00:14:05.879 - decide what what to reduce. Is that did that happen? Remember when we talked about it and I was because 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:10.142 - the person from the jail Jordan said they don't 00:14:10.370 --> 00:14:17.056 - don't remember his title, had said, well, we don't want to end up not getting the contract and losing 00:14:17.056 --> 00:14:23.611 - the other two. And I thought the better way to do it is to put both in the budget. And then if then 00:14:23.611 --> 00:14:30.231 - we can decide which way to go. I think what Councilmember Wilts advice was to remove those positions 00:14:30.231 --> 00:14:37.310 - from the budget proposal, and then we would try to work that into a contractual line at the budget meeting. 00:14:40.066 --> 00:14:47.874 - That's not the way I remembered it. However, whatever it takes to make it work, what I would like to 00:14:47.874 --> 00:14:55.759 - remind you and other people on the council and the public at large, that in order to make this budget 00:14:55.759 --> 00:15:03.567 - work that is, I'm not talking about just your budget, but all of county general, all the ones in the 00:15:03.567 --> 00:15:06.814 - max levy, we might see a movement of more 00:15:06.914 --> 00:15:13.294 - of the expenses in the jail budget that's in general, we might have to move some of that down into the 00:15:13.294 --> 00:15:19.549 - jail. I don't know. I haven't talked with anybody else to say, hey, do you think we could do this or 00:15:19.549 --> 00:15:25.991 - not? But I'm looking at the numbers, and I know we've got to move some numbers around. The commissioner 00:15:25.991 --> 00:15:31.070 - said we can't use the added money, so where are we going to get the money to fund 00:15:31.490 --> 00:15:40.748 - I'm only saying that to you so that you won't be surprised if something like that should happen. As 00:15:40.748 --> 00:15:50.653 - a clarification, they didn't necessarily say that we can't use it. We're still waiting for final approval, 00:15:50.653 --> 00:16:00.004 - and that is supposed to be at our next meeting. So we will have that discussion at our next meeting. 00:16:00.004 --> 00:16:01.022 - But, yeah. 00:16:01.570 --> 00:16:07.434 - Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the presentation. I may be parroting 00:16:07.434 --> 00:16:13.356 - back what you just said, but I'm hearing it for the first time, so I want to process a little. So the 00:16:13.356 --> 00:16:19.742 - idea in creating a contractual line is we avoid the curve from the long-term expenses, and I understand that. 00:16:20.034 --> 00:16:25.990 - This is a project. Projects have a beginning, a middle, and an end in theory. We won't need a transition 00:16:25.990 --> 00:16:32.060 - director at some point in time, 10 years from now, five years from now. So this isn't a permanent employee 00:16:32.060 --> 00:16:37.790 - in the county. So I appreciate creating a contractual position here. I guess having said that, and I 00:16:37.790 --> 00:16:43.519 - think I caught it from the removal. So the intention is that the refunding this as a contractual out 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:46.526 - of the jail with the corrections lit, is that right? 00:16:46.850 --> 00:16:53.249 - It would be general fund. Right now it is a contract funded through ARPA. And then it would be contractual 00:16:53.249 --> 00:16:59.349 - through the corrections lit? Is that the intention? I'm looking at the liaisons because I'm trying to 00:16:59.349 --> 00:17:05.329 - figure out where you said the fund was coming from. He did not say. That far? Yeah, exactly. But my 00:17:05.329 --> 00:17:11.548 - thought and I think that the understanding was that it would come from the same place where the current 00:17:11.548 --> 00:17:14.718 - transition team positions. Which is corrections lit. 00:17:15.074 --> 00:17:22.669 - I think sorry. And just a follow up. We have, if it's already been advertised, a dollar amount for which 00:17:22.669 --> 00:17:30.265 - we cannot go above. And in that jail, at the time we were discussing it, it had not gone into the public 00:17:30.265 --> 00:17:37.643 - notice. I just wanted to make that clear. My only other follow up question would be, I recall when we 00:17:37.643 --> 00:17:41.694 - appointed the most recent incumbent into the transition 00:17:41.794 --> 00:17:47.156 - director position but I don't think I've seen them in this room for some time. Was there not supposed 00:17:47.156 --> 00:17:52.465 - to be some reportage back to us about progress like I don't know if it was on this in this forum but 00:17:52.465 --> 00:17:57.879 - like a report or kind of an annual or progress report about the transition. I don't recall seeing very 00:17:57.879 --> 00:17:59.614 - much but is that something that. 00:17:59.938 --> 00:18:05.537 - we could get, just to understand status updates from the director. You said yourself, they're all been 00:18:05.537 --> 00:18:11.191 - working hard. I think we need to hear a little more of it to probably would shore up a lot of confusion 00:18:11.191 --> 00:18:16.736 - that we get. Yeah, we can absolutely provide that moving forward. As you know, we kind of hit a stall 00:18:16.736 --> 00:18:22.390 - here. But just because we haven't got new information as it concerns like DLC and the building process, 00:18:22.390 --> 00:18:27.989 - it doesn't mean they haven't been working. And yeah, absolutely, we can provide that. Thank you, Madam 00:18:27.989 --> 00:18:29.566 - President. I got a question. 00:18:32.034 --> 00:18:41.219 - So these are current correct. So these are currently people that are in these positions, yes? And so 00:18:41.219 --> 00:18:50.405 - we eliminate. I'm just trying to make sure that I understand we're eliminating two people. Like. No, 00:18:50.405 --> 00:19:00.318 - so in I we were short on time, so I didn't want to get too far into this because we only had the 10 minutes, 00:19:00.674 --> 00:19:07.662 - Right now we've got two corrections officers in the merit process. It's looking pretty good for them 00:19:07.662 --> 00:19:14.580 - to be hired by the merit side, which would open two positions that we would just leave empty. Never 00:19:14.580 --> 00:19:21.637 - have we been here since since 23 and we had. For four months total. It completely staff roster, so we 00:19:21.637 --> 00:19:28.902 - would attrition those off. People come and go quite often. Actually, I think we've hired 65 people since 00:19:28.902 --> 00:19:30.078 - we've been here. 00:19:30.338 --> 00:19:37.201 - It's, as you know, it's a hard job and it takes a special person to work in there. So no, we're not 00:19:37.201 --> 00:19:44.132 - looking to terminate two people. We're looking to get two positions and just leave them open for the 00:19:44.132 --> 00:19:51.063 - end of the year to be removed. We wouldn't fill them. So nobody's gonna lose their job at Christmas, 00:19:51.063 --> 00:19:58.201 - I know that. Okay, because I think that was like my concern and I know before you have come in and made 00:19:58.201 --> 00:19:59.230 - comments about 00:19:59.490 --> 00:20:07.282 - like your staffing and how it would be great to have more. I just am concerned. Well, with this, like 00:20:07.282 --> 00:20:14.997 - this makes me feel like you kind of... Well, and these are transition team members. I think with the 00:20:14.997 --> 00:20:23.094 - people, the four people we have on it and this director, I think they could do the job of the six people. 00:20:23.094 --> 00:20:26.302 - These guys have been pretty squared away. 00:20:26.498 --> 00:20:32.185 - They're our best officers. So if you remember, you guys gave us six positions. We filled those with 00:20:32.185 --> 00:20:37.928 - our best officers, those transition positions, and that gave us essentially new officers to work the 00:20:37.928 --> 00:20:43.842 - floor. So our best officers have been on this transition team the whole time. And you might be thinking 00:20:43.842 --> 00:20:49.643 - about the last conversation we had was with the merit deputies. So that's separate. But that's one of 00:20:49.643 --> 00:20:55.614 - the reasons why we wanted to meet with our liaison so we could follow the path that we needed to follow. 00:20:55.778 --> 00:21:02.947 - because we want to look inward first before we came to you as a council. And I'll echo something that 00:21:02.947 --> 00:21:10.397 - Councilmember Henry said, and actually that was something I wrote in my notes, is that before we stalled, 00:21:10.397 --> 00:21:17.496 - it would be extremely helpful for us to have an update, like for department updates, for us to know. 00:21:17.496 --> 00:21:24.595 - Again, not going into specifics because of active things that are happening, but it would be helpful 00:21:24.595 --> 00:21:25.438 - beforehand. 00:21:28.290 --> 00:21:34.070 - Councilmember Decker. Madam President, I had the same question that you did. I'm just always sensitive 00:21:34.070 --> 00:21:39.906 - on that. I haven't been around here a minute or two that it's not. We weren't having two people go out. 00:21:39.906 --> 00:21:45.518 - And I appreciate that being clarified. We actually anticipated you guys asking us this question. So 00:21:45.518 --> 00:21:51.298 - we've had a document this entire time that we've been building. We can still have somebody come in and 00:21:51.298 --> 00:21:57.246 - talk to you guys. But at least we have information available if you would like that. And then we can have 00:21:57.346 --> 00:22:08.818 - the transition director come in and provide an update in person, too, if that's what you guys are asking. 00:22:08.818 --> 00:22:19.642 - Yes. OK, that is exactly what I'm asking. Anybody else? I appreciate that. Yes, I wanted to address 00:22:19.642 --> 00:22:27.326 - what Councilor Hawk was talking about about the advertising and stuff. 00:22:27.458 --> 00:22:40.036 - We advertised in the personnel as well as in the services, which would be the contractual, we advertised 00:22:40.036 --> 00:22:52.734 - 40% above what was requested. And so with that, the two positions are currently budgeted per the request. 00:22:52.898 --> 00:23:00.814 - there has not been a request for a contract line because that has not been before you to add. That's 00:23:00.814 --> 00:23:08.888 - just been a thing. So when if and when we get to that part during the budget sessions, you can add it. 00:23:08.888 --> 00:23:16.726 - And we do have enough in the advertising to buffer that amount. So we have taken care of being able 00:23:16.726 --> 00:23:22.526 - to allow that. Thank you for that explanation. That's Councilor Williams. 00:23:22.946 --> 00:23:31.230 - I don't think I have any questions because I've had the opportunity to speak with them and I do think 00:23:31.230 --> 00:23:39.595 - though that this is a good way to go about solving a couple of different issues, shall we say. I don't 00:23:39.595 --> 00:23:47.878 - want it to look as though, and I think this forum and this discussion helps this, but I don't want it 00:23:47.878 --> 00:23:52.670 - to look as though we are eliminating positions from a jail 00:23:52.898 --> 00:24:01.806 - that desperately needs all the support it can get. So as long as we are collectively understanding that 00:24:01.806 --> 00:24:10.542 - that is not the intent, and you're supporting, you're bringing this to us, I just wanted to make that 00:24:10.542 --> 00:24:17.566 - perfectly clear. We are not losing anybody from the jail. For that clarification. 00:24:18.530 --> 00:24:25.169 - All right. Any other questions or comments on this? Yes, Councilor. I just I appreciate the way Kate 00:24:25.169 --> 00:24:32.006 - just said that because we need a misperception on that about like we all need another hole in the head. 00:24:32.006 --> 00:24:38.646 - And with all the issues that we have, it must be clear that we don't have that problem, at least for 00:24:38.646 --> 00:24:45.022 - now. And I appreciate that. Just getting clearly out there for folks to really let that sink in. 00:24:48.802 --> 00:24:59.849 - Seeing none, we'll see y'all tomorrow. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other departmental 00:24:59.849 --> 00:25:03.742 - updates for items not on the agenda? 00:25:17.346 --> 00:25:20.766 - How are you? Good, how are you? Good, thank you. 00:25:20.898 --> 00:25:26.975 - I'm with Purdue Extension, as I'm sure you all know. And I am here, usually you are familiar with me 00:25:26.975 --> 00:25:33.113 - for my position as a County Extension Director and Health and Human Science Educator, but my role has 00:25:33.113 --> 00:25:39.251 - since shifted. So I'm still with Purdue, but my new role is the Regional Operations Leader, ROL. Just 00:25:39.251 --> 00:25:45.448 - a fancy way to say that I am a regional supervisor, because with Extension, we're moving to a regional 00:25:45.448 --> 00:25:50.864 - model currently. We're currently in the transformation model. And so with that, I kind of 00:25:50.864 --> 00:25:59.086 - to cover multiple counties, and with that also cover multiple budget hearings. So I will unfortunately 00:25:59.086 --> 00:26:07.228 - not be here to present on Thursday for extension in Monroe County, but my colleague Laura Dodds will. 00:26:07.228 --> 00:26:15.449 - She's online and she just wants to introduce herself to the council. Hey, let me see if TSD can... Oh, 00:26:15.449 --> 00:26:20.478 - she is promoting. Okay, so Laura, you should be able to unmute 00:26:21.186 --> 00:26:29.765 - and go for it. Hello nice to meet you guys all virtually. My name is as Adi said Laura Dodds and I am 00:26:29.765 --> 00:26:38.512 - over the central region and I look forward to seeing you guys all on Thursday. I've been with Extension 00:26:38.512 --> 00:26:46.334 - for about seven years now and so I have some experience. I'm based here in Marion County and 00:26:47.778 --> 00:26:55.799 - It's important to note that although I work for Purdue University, I went to IU Bloomington for my undergrad, 00:26:55.799 --> 00:27:03.383 - IU Minneapolis for my master's, and I'm currently an IU student for my PhD. So I just have to say that. 00:27:03.383 --> 00:27:10.967 - The P actually burns a hole in my body when I wear it. So I'll see you guys all on Thursday. Thank you. 00:27:10.967 --> 00:27:14.686 - And make sure when you present, you wear red, too. 00:27:15.010 --> 00:27:23.759 - I think she can wear red. Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Yes. Yes. 00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:33.470 - Can you tell me what this coalition of putting this together in a region? How does that benefit Monroe County? 00:27:34.114 --> 00:27:40.264 - So with the regional model, educators, it's now service based as a contract, and regional educators 00:27:40.264 --> 00:27:46.536 - will come from different counties to provide services to Monroe. So we'll still have an office in the 00:27:46.536 --> 00:27:53.055 - county. We'll still have an educator in the office, but we'll also have other educators coming to support 00:27:53.055 --> 00:27:59.512 - our Monroe County efforts. So it will benefit us because we'll have other resources coming in to support 00:27:59.512 --> 00:28:01.726 - Monroe County. Budget wise, this is 00:28:01.826 --> 00:28:13.017 - it. Is it the savings for Monroe County dollar wise? With their contract with Purdue. The budget. The 00:28:13.017 --> 00:28:24.098 - price will go up. I guess I'm not sure how much I should necessarily say. But are asked this year is 00:28:24.098 --> 00:28:29.694 - bigger than it was last year. Any other questions? 00:28:29.794 --> 00:28:39.623 - and thank you very much. And Laura, we look forward to seeing you on Thursday as well. All right. 00:28:39.623 --> 00:28:49.952 - Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there any other departmental updates for items not on the agenda? 00:28:49.952 --> 00:28:57.374 - Like to Um. All right. Seeing none. We will move on. Thank you to all the 00:28:57.634 --> 00:29:04.761 - Up is item number six, which is the pink. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see you for us and see you 00:29:04.761 --> 00:29:12.101 - over there. It's OK. I was going to make a comment before you open the public hearing in reviewing the 00:29:12.101 --> 00:29:19.441 - ordinance. One of the whereas clauses need to be fixed. And I'd like to fix that whereas clause before 00:29:19.441 --> 00:29:25.214 - you open the public hearing on the ordinance. I did confer with Mr. Schilling to 00:29:25.762 --> 00:29:31.816 - make sure that my thought process was correct. If we change the whereas clause, it's not part of the 00:29:31.816 --> 00:29:38.050 - effective ordinance. And so the whereas clause is just background. So if we correct the whereas clause, 00:29:38.050 --> 00:29:44.644 - I just want you to realize we don't have to re-advertise. It's not changing the actual body of the ordinance. 00:29:44.644 --> 00:29:46.622 - OK, so is this something that we 00:29:47.682 --> 00:29:53.891 - can do tonight or you want to table it until the 20th? I am prepared to do it tonight. I just wanted 00:29:53.891 --> 00:30:00.224 - to do it before we open the public hearing. Okay. It's a very easy fix. So we'll move on to the higher 00:30:00.224 --> 00:30:06.495 - end freeze reviews and then we'll back. Okay. Okay. So we'll, we'll do that council. All right. Cause 00:30:06.495 --> 00:30:12.766 - we got several of those to review. Okay. Next up we will go to the higher end freeze reviews and then 00:30:12.766 --> 00:30:15.102 - we'll pop back to the public hearing. 00:30:15.330 --> 00:30:23.724 - So item 7A from courts. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval. The court's request 00:30:23.724 --> 00:30:31.721 - to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0225 County General Courts, 00:30:31.721 --> 00:30:39.878 - one full-time associate court reporter position. Second. Okay, we are here with Ms. Chandler and Judge 00:30:39.878 --> 00:30:42.174 - Katherine Stafford. Welcome. 00:30:43.298 --> 00:30:48.367 - The courts are requesting to approve to fill an associate court reporter position that will be vacant 00:30:48.367 --> 00:30:49.758 - on or after September 18th. 00:30:49.826 --> 00:30:56.054 - This position is essential to the court's daily operations. The position records and preserves courtroom 00:30:56.054 --> 00:31:02.518 - proceedings, prepares and processes chronological case summaries and written orders, retrieves and maintains 00:31:02.518 --> 00:31:08.746 - electronic case files through various case management systems, processes court documents, mail, prepares 00:31:08.746 --> 00:31:14.855 - correspondence, communicates with the public, law enforcement, and other court personnel within Monroe 00:31:14.855 --> 00:31:19.422 - County and surrounding areas. Thank you very much for that. Any questions or 00:31:20.194 --> 00:31:29.316 - comments from the council on this item. Councilmember Hoppe. Yes, I think we've all been told by the 00:31:29.316 --> 00:31:38.438 - state and by others on our projected revenue that we were to receive approximately, I believe it was 00:31:38.438 --> 00:31:47.198 - like somewhere close to half a million dollars because of the reduction of the court. So is this 00:31:47.394 --> 00:31:53.060 - helping us to get that to that half million dollar reduction or is making it worse? So it's already 00:31:53.060 --> 00:31:58.952 - budgeted in. It's a position we've already had and we will be presenting our budgets on September 15th. 00:31:58.952 --> 00:32:04.787 - But so that you are aware, our budget will be decreasing for twenty twenty seven and the amount of one 00:32:04.787 --> 00:32:10.453 - hundred and forty seven thousand nine hundred and twelve dollars. But over the last three years, we 00:32:10.453 --> 00:32:16.062 - will have decreased our budget four hundred and eleven dollars five hundred and forty eight cents. 00:32:17.570 --> 00:32:24.829 - How much do you recall how much it was that that we were told we should? Was it FSC that gave us the 00:32:24.829 --> 00:32:32.160 - number or we got the number? Was it about a half million dollars? I'll ask that question. The auditor 00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:39.491 - or anybody else at the table? What was the amount? What was the dollar amount? You can certainly find 00:32:39.491 --> 00:32:46.750 - that for you, but it's going to take a few minutes. I remember there was an amount that was offered. 00:32:47.234 --> 00:32:54.541 - but then there was the practical discussion that then ensued where the courts were like, yes, on paper, 00:32:54.541 --> 00:33:01.636 - that may be what they think that it will be, but we still have as many cases, burdens, headaches and 00:33:01.636 --> 00:33:08.873 - other sorted gremlins that they will have to do that the consultants didn't see. And then I think that 00:33:08.873 --> 00:33:14.142 - number was a little more sobering, but you're saying 140 ish. So for this, 00:33:14.466 --> 00:33:20.814 - Yes, so it's $147,912 that we'll be saving from last year's budget. If I can also add, this is because 00:33:20.814 --> 00:33:27.224 - one of my court reporters is moving to another position within county government and I'm super thrilled 00:33:27.224 --> 00:33:31.230 - for her, but it will leave me without one of my court reporters. 00:33:31.330 --> 00:33:36.646 - As you all know, we're going to be doing the work of 10 judicial officers with nine. It's not that the 00:33:36.646 --> 00:33:42.013 - work is going to go down. We're still going to have the same number of cases. We're going to still have 00:33:42.013 --> 00:33:47.226 - the same number of litigants, the same number of court hearings. And in fact, I personally expect my 00:33:47.226 --> 00:33:52.748 - workload to go up between 20% and 33%. That's an extra workday a week. And I am already in court typically 00:33:52.748 --> 00:33:58.270 - five days a week. So I don't think that we're going to be able to start evening courts or Saturday courts. 00:33:58.466 --> 00:34:03.723 - with this hiring freeze. I'm guessing you all aren't going to fund that. And I'm not funded for that 00:34:03.723 --> 00:34:09.240 - from the state. As you all, of course, know, the judges are funded our payroll through the state largely. 00:34:09.240 --> 00:34:14.653 - But without having this court order replaced, everything will take longer in my office. And we're under 00:34:14.653 --> 00:34:19.962 - a statutory duty to hear emergency evictions within three business days, to hear provisional hearings 00:34:19.962 --> 00:34:25.167 - and a divorce within 20 days, to hear orders of protection cases within 30 days. And it's already a 00:34:25.167 --> 00:34:28.030 - struggle to get those hearings in and to do that work. 00:34:29.570 --> 00:34:38.651 - super proud of my staff and how hard they work, and hoping we can get this person replaced so we can 00:34:38.651 --> 00:34:48.093 - keep moving forward. Councilor Williams? Yeah, as a liaison to the courts, I had the pleasure of looking 00:34:48.093 --> 00:34:57.084 - over the budgets when they were being prepared, and they've done a lot of work to try to reduce the 00:34:57.084 --> 00:34:59.422 - expenses related to their 00:34:59.682 --> 00:35:13.106 - they're sometimes overwhelming workloads. And so I, you know, I support this. I also wanted to say happy 00:35:13.106 --> 00:35:25.890 - birthday. Thank you. Pleased to be here for my birthday. Questions or comments for. Yes, Councillor 00:35:25.890 --> 00:35:29.470 - Hawk. Yes. Is this position 00:35:29.602 --> 00:35:36.173 - already in your budget that you have prepared and sent out. Do you have any positions that are vacant 00:35:36.173 --> 00:35:42.808 - that you don't plan to fill? We do. We have a full-time position that is currently vacant in our court 00:35:42.808 --> 00:35:49.379 - administrative office that we have filled with the part-time personnel. We have taken those duties of 00:35:49.379 --> 00:35:53.566 - that individual and split it amongst our office. That's helpful. 00:36:00.258 --> 00:36:08.608 - moment okay thank you very much anybody else no okay so we will move on to public comment if you have 00:36:08.608 --> 00:36:17.040 - comment on this item so you can please come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand 00:36:17.040 --> 00:36:25.227 - via teams and seeing none may we please have a roll call vote counselor Iverson yes counselor Fidel 00:36:25.227 --> 00:36:26.782 - yes counselor Hawk 00:36:29.154 --> 00:36:41.428 - it. I have a person currently doing the work who is going to be going to another county department. 00:36:41.428 --> 00:36:54.071 - Thank you. I'll say yes, because everybody else is going to anyway, but let me tell you what. You just 00:36:54.071 --> 00:36:57.630 - wait and see. We're still in 00:36:57.986 --> 00:37:04.789 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank 00:37:04.789 --> 00:37:11.592 - you for your time, everyone. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Have a nice birthday. Next up is 00:37:11.592 --> 00:37:18.735 - item B from the clerk's office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the clerk's 00:37:18.735 --> 00:37:26.014 - request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0001 County General Clerk 00:37:26.210 --> 00:37:33.474 - one full-time small claims case manager position. Second. All right. We got a motion in a second. We're 00:37:33.474 --> 00:37:40.598 - joined by the clerk, Nicole Brown. Welcome. Madam chair, esteemed members of the council, speaking of 00:37:40.598 --> 00:37:48.281 - not wanting to eliminate a desperately needed position in support for that role, I am respectfully requesting 00:37:48.281 --> 00:37:52.542 - to fill a small claims deputy position that was unexpectedly 00:37:52.738 --> 00:38:00.601 - vacated. The person in that role, there are two people in small claims who process all small claims 00:38:00.601 --> 00:38:08.464 - cases, all evictions and all ordinance violations for the Monroe County courts. Judge Stafford very 00:38:08.464 --> 00:38:16.484 - generously outlined the number of cases that they face as circuit, the circuit court and every single 00:38:16.484 --> 00:38:22.302 - case that the courts here is touched by the Monroe County clerk's office. 00:38:22.402 --> 00:38:30.609 - If I only had one, then in the event of absences, emergencies, vacations, that would put an undue hardship. 00:38:30.609 --> 00:38:38.208 - We can cover temporarily a day off an illness, something like that, but long-term, it would pose an 00:38:38.208 --> 00:38:45.958 - undue hardship for the clerk's office, and I respectfully ask that you approve this, my being able to 00:38:45.958 --> 00:38:49.150 - fill this position. Thank you. Thank you. 00:38:49.442 --> 00:38:55.507 - All right. Any questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Council Henry. Thank you. 00:38:55.507 --> 00:39:01.954 - Thank you, Clerk, for coming in. I mean, you've had some turnover and you mentioned unexpectedly. Is 00:39:01.954 --> 00:39:08.466 - any of your recent turnover due to the working conditions in the current center? Some this I wouldn't 00:39:08.466 --> 00:39:14.977 - say that this particular one was due to that. But I mean, people are actively either actively looking 00:39:14.977 --> 00:39:16.318 - or quietly quitting. 00:39:17.186 --> 00:39:23.669 - Kind of sort of answer the second question I had, but how are folks doing right now? Would you be willing 00:39:23.669 --> 00:39:30.029 - to share what's going on? First, thank you for asking. Thank you for publicly asking. This is this time 00:39:30.029 --> 00:39:36.145 - has been very difficult on my staff. I have always said before you, I have the best staff this side 00:39:36.145 --> 00:39:39.998 - of heaven and I am smart enough to know it, but they're human. 00:39:40.642 --> 00:39:49.743 - And they're doing the best they can with the lowest wages, trying to do a good job for you and the citizens 00:39:49.743 --> 00:39:58.591 - and visitors of Monroe County. So I appreciate you asking. We do our level best every day. We appreciate 00:39:58.591 --> 00:40:04.574 - any updates that we get regarding the opportunity to improve the. The. 00:40:04.738 --> 00:40:11.745 - Conditions in the office. I heard something the other night as I was watching a council meeting Where 00:40:11.745 --> 00:40:18.889 - they talked about why the office hasn't been refurbished? I would like for you to know that for as long 00:40:18.889 --> 00:40:25.758 - as I have been clerk I have asked I've had to beg for new chairs before the furniture dates back to 00:40:26.242 --> 00:40:33.557 - Most of it dates back to the originality of the building. So if the building is crumbling, you can imagine 00:40:33.557 --> 00:40:40.462 - what's going on with the furniture and the carpet and the walls and this and that. And our bathrooms 00:40:40.462 --> 00:40:47.572 - are not ADA compliant. You may recall my sweet lady from Stone Belt who had a wheelchair. She was never 00:40:47.572 --> 00:40:53.246 - able to use the facilities in a way that would have accommodated her disabilities. 00:40:53.698 --> 00:41:00.615 - So roundabout way, thank you for asking. I'll certainly pass that along to my staff. For sharing. I 00:41:00.615 --> 00:41:04.350 - agree with your public comment making that, you know, 00:41:04.642 --> 00:41:09.474 - County employee doesn't lose First Amendment rights just because they work for the county. And thank 00:41:09.474 --> 00:41:14.402 - you for acknowledging that. Thank you for at least sharing their concerns because clearly they've been 00:41:14.402 --> 00:41:19.186 - told they can't buy our HR department. So I appreciate that. And that was very offensive. Yeah. And 00:41:19.186 --> 00:41:24.161 - but I also want to honor the fact that you've been a clerk in the state of Indiana for almost 10 years. 00:41:24.161 --> 00:41:29.185 - Yes, sir. Got to be the longest serving clerk in the state if I'm not mistaken. I don't know about that, 00:41:29.185 --> 00:41:30.046 - but pretty close. 00:41:30.466 --> 00:41:38.133 - Yeah, I mean, it's statutorily as close as you can get. But you would have the long memory for a decade 00:41:38.133 --> 00:41:45.727 - of that. So I appreciate you sharing. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. I've got a question while 00:41:45.727 --> 00:41:53.100 - we're on filling positions. We got an email from your staff about front desk. Filling this position 00:41:53.100 --> 00:41:58.334 - here, would that help alleviate some of the issues that you're having? 00:41:58.466 --> 00:42:05.456 - Not really, Madam Chair. The position that they are talking about, and they were kind enough to include 00:42:05.456 --> 00:42:12.379 - me on the email, is a position I did come to you last year for. The young lady graduated from college. 00:42:12.379 --> 00:42:19.168 - She got a job with Child Protective Services. She was the front desk person, but also did protective 00:42:19.168 --> 00:42:25.956 - orders. I came. I followed what your directives were. You did not see fit to approve the position at 00:42:25.956 --> 00:42:27.838 - that time. We can certainly 00:42:28.354 --> 00:42:35.361 - do our best to have them help a little bit with the front desk. But the front desk, we get everything, 00:42:35.361 --> 00:42:42.300 - everybody that walks in. So could they answer small claims questions before somebody files paperwork? 00:42:42.300 --> 00:42:49.239 - Absolutely. Evictions, ordinance violations, maybe some personal simple things like if somebody says, 00:42:49.239 --> 00:42:56.109 - I'm just filing into an existing case, they can file stamp and get it to the courts that it needs to 00:42:56.109 --> 00:42:57.470 - go. But in terms of 00:42:57.602 --> 00:43:05.394 - the role and what my staff was trying to tell you. No, I can't say that it would significantly eliminate 00:43:05.394 --> 00:43:13.409 - or reduce the workload for that. OK, thank you. Yeah. But it's the understanding like there's some somebody 00:43:13.409 --> 00:43:20.830 - that's out right now. Yes. One person is carrying the load for every small claims case. And I tried 00:43:20.830 --> 00:43:25.950 - to have them print out what we what has come through, but thousands. 00:43:26.242 --> 00:43:35.005 - and we're not done with the year. So the sooner we can get somebody in, get them trained and ready to 00:43:35.005 --> 00:43:43.939 - go, that is what would be helpful and reduce the stress on the other employees in my office. Thank you. 00:43:43.939 --> 00:43:53.217 - Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you for that explanation. Anybody else have any other questions or comments? 00:43:53.217 --> 00:43:54.334 - Seeing none. 00:43:55.458 --> 00:44:04.115 - We will move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the 00:44:04.115 --> 00:44:12.771 - lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call 00:44:12.771 --> 00:44:21.260 - vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Haas? Councilor Will? Councilor Henry? Councilor Deckard? Yes. 00:44:21.260 --> 00:44:24.958 - Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? 00:44:25.154 --> 00:44:32.215 - Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you so much. And I would never tell the council how to do its business. 00:44:32.215 --> 00:44:38.883 - But appearing before the council on your birthday, that's a big sacrifice. I couldn't do it. I'm just 00:44:38.883 --> 00:44:45.617 - going to tell you I couldn't do it. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good night. 00:44:45.617 --> 00:44:50.782 - All right. Next up is item number C from the health department. Item number C. 00:44:50.978 --> 00:44:57.848 - Item C from the health department. I wasn't going to point it out. Council, I move to open for discussion 00:44:57.848 --> 00:45:04.717 - and possible approval. The health department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed 00:45:04.717 --> 00:45:11.198 - to hire and fund one one five nine dash zero zero zero zero health fund one full time environmental 00:45:11.198 --> 00:45:17.549 - health specialist foods position. All right. We got a motion and a second and we're joined by Ms. 00:45:17.549 --> 00:45:18.910 - Lori Kelly. Welcome. 00:45:20.034 --> 00:45:27.422 - Good evening, Council. So we are requesting to fill this is a foods position. This is a full-time position 00:45:27.422 --> 00:45:34.672 - that's responsible for completing routine inspections, responding to complaints, licensing, plan reviews 00:45:34.672 --> 00:45:41.714 - for new retail food establishments, mobile units, and temporary food operations, and helps to conduct 00:45:41.714 --> 00:45:48.619 - preoperational inspections for new retail food establishments and mobiles. Currently, this position 00:45:48.619 --> 00:45:50.000 - has around over 200 00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:52.410 - We're going to be working with the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:45:52.410 --> 00:45:54.751 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:45:54.751 --> 00:45:57.115 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:45:57.115 --> 00:45:59.456 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:45:59.456 --> 00:46:01.820 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:46:01.820 --> 00:46:04.160 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:46:04.160 --> 00:46:06.524 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:46:06.524 --> 00:46:08.865 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:46:08.865 --> 00:46:11.229 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:46:11.229 --> 00:46:13.570 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:46:13.570 --> 00:46:15.933 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:46:15.933 --> 00:46:18.274 - of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department of Health and 00:46:18.274 --> 00:46:19.966 - the Department of Health and the Department of Health and the Department 00:46:20.258 --> 00:46:26.357 - How many people do you have working in food, restaurant, inspection, and this type of area? There's 00:46:26.357 --> 00:46:32.517 - three licensed inspectors for the Monroe County Health Department. So myself, Alyssa, and then Peter 00:46:32.517 --> 00:46:38.616 - as well. But we usually have that fourth. But I'm the environmental health services director, and I 00:46:38.616 --> 00:46:44.227 - chip in when I can. OK, cool. Thank you. What's your name? I didn't hear you say your name. 00:46:44.227 --> 00:46:46.910 - Michael Kazimka. Thank you. You're welcome. 00:46:47.682 --> 00:46:55.869 - I see your hand. Councilmember Henry. Peter's doing things. Thank you for that. How many mobile units 00:46:55.869 --> 00:47:03.977 - do you track in the county? Is there an uptick in that in recent years? And then the second question 00:47:03.977 --> 00:47:12.325 - is I appreciate the comment about statewide licensure because certainly there are trucks coming inbound 00:47:12.325 --> 00:47:15.134 - that aren't originating from here. 00:47:15.394 --> 00:47:20.684 - Take a minute and walk us through the complexity of that. It's not a brick and mortar place. So you're 00:47:20.684 --> 00:47:25.871 - checking out. So correct. These are mobile units. Um, there's more in the county than 2025. So we're 00:47:25.871 --> 00:47:31.109 - seeing an increase like every year. And then with the mobile food license, the statewide license come 00:47:31.109 --> 00:47:36.450 - in January 1st of next year, it's going to increase our inspections by like nine, around 93 inspections 00:47:36.450 --> 00:47:41.586 - per unit. So that because those originate here, like it could change here or how does that? I don't 00:47:41.586 --> 00:47:43.486 - understand. Like, like who owns the, 00:47:43.938 --> 00:47:49.066 - Which county has the problem, right? Where's the truck? Right now, if you have a license in Monroe County, 00:47:49.066 --> 00:47:54.146 - you're licensed in Monroe County, but next year in 2027, January, they could have their license somewhere 00:47:54.146 --> 00:47:59.227 - else. Their home county could be Brown County or Lawrence County, and they could be getting their license 00:47:59.227 --> 00:48:04.067 - there, but they might have their commissary here, so they might choose to stay in Bloomington to get 00:48:04.067 --> 00:48:07.518 - their mobile state license. Out of state? Could somebody bring a truck? 00:48:07.746 --> 00:48:14.141 - from Illinois? You can come from out of state, but you're going to have to get an Indiana state license 00:48:14.141 --> 00:48:20.352 - in order to operate. I'm not going to dwell on it. It sounds like it's a lot of work. I think that's 00:48:20.352 --> 00:48:26.809 - where we're at. So thank you for that. You're welcome. I want some member hug. Yes. And I haven't looked 00:48:26.809 --> 00:48:33.143 - at it in the last day or two, but the last time I saw the $1,159 request to budget looked like it said 00:48:33.143 --> 00:48:36.894 - we're going to have to take some money out of that max levy. 00:48:36.994 --> 00:48:48.377 - and shore up 11 59. Is that still the case? That is the case. However, we also need to look at reversions. 00:48:48.377 --> 00:48:59.122 - Um, I don't think that everything budgeted has been expended or that we're where we expect it to be. 00:48:59.122 --> 00:49:06.462 - So we need to consider all that when we review the budget this week. 00:49:07.778 --> 00:49:17.904 - But I think probably still in that cash for reversion, because perhaps the money has not been spent 00:49:17.904 --> 00:49:28.233 - out yet, was that half million dollars for that mobile unit. I think this is a difficult one, because 00:49:28.233 --> 00:49:35.422 - do we have a budget yet for the 1161? Is that the number of the state? 00:49:37.634 --> 00:49:46.595 - So first, I forget what the number is. Yes. It's 1161, it's 1161. OK, but do we have? Have we heard 00:49:46.595 --> 00:49:55.555 - that from the state yet? What the funding is going to be for that? It's about the same amount as it 00:49:55.555 --> 00:50:04.516 - is this year. It just depends on if any counter counties were too. Opt out. I but the question was, 00:50:04.516 --> 00:50:06.846 - do we have any? We don't. 00:50:07.074 --> 00:50:15.493 - in other words, it's not we can't budget on probably. So I just wonder is there any way we can. No. 00:50:15.493 --> 00:50:23.997 - Over there, since we know if 1159 is needs to be shored up with money, it's going to come out of the 00:50:23.997 --> 00:50:32.669 - max levy that and it's and it's not the only one that needs to be shored up. And we're already running 00:50:32.669 --> 00:50:36.542 - short in general, and we've got to move these 00:50:36.642 --> 00:50:47.642 - things someplace. So push that here and agree. On the other hand, it's the health department. You gotta 00:50:47.642 --> 00:50:58.748 - inspect. Just. Yes, count. Let's call you counselor Gregory. Hello auditor. Hello. Just a quick synopsis 00:50:58.748 --> 00:51:02.238 - of the 1159 fund as of today. So 00:51:02.594 --> 00:51:12.363 - The total appropriation was $1,463,649.79. So we have expended almost $347,000 just under out of that 00:51:12.363 --> 00:51:22.324 - total budget. That's what I'm talking about, reversions. Ms. Kelly would know best, but I can't imagine 00:51:22.324 --> 00:51:31.518 - they're going to go through the rest of that. We're going to have quite a bit left in the fund. 00:51:31.970 --> 00:51:41.787 - that we won't spend. Councilor Wilts. So that begs the question, why will there be reversions? Because 00:51:41.787 --> 00:51:51.509 - we can't really count on that as a strategy for budgeting, of course. Do you have some insight yet as 00:51:51.509 --> 00:51:54.750 - to why there would be reversions? 00:51:55.650 --> 00:52:02.172 - why we're not gonna be using everything that was budgeted for this year. So a large portion of that 00:52:02.172 --> 00:52:08.823 - was for, because we had already previously budgeted for the IU health contract. So that's a big chunk 00:52:08.823 --> 00:52:15.606 - of it there. Then we have one of the public health nurse positions that has sat vacant for a good chunk 00:52:15.606 --> 00:52:22.910 - of time. So supplies and services otherwise, but then we do have that money that's in the capital line as well. 00:52:27.618 --> 00:52:39.017 - So in the other fund, 1161. Is this one of the core services that is allowable in that one? Yes, but 00:52:39.017 --> 00:52:50.303 - this is the regulatory side, so we're only able to use a certain percentage of those funds for this 00:52:50.303 --> 00:52:52.222 - regulatory work. 00:52:52.482 --> 00:53:00.355 - it basically breaks it down and you can ask for a permission to be able to exceed that regulatory amount, 00:53:00.355 --> 00:53:08.006 - which the last time that I looked at it, we were gonna be hitting that type of scenario to have to ask 00:53:08.006 --> 00:53:15.730 - for approval because they really want the bulk of the money to be on those core public health services, 00:53:15.730 --> 00:53:21.598 - not the regulatory. And yet they put in place the regulation, but that's okay. 00:53:26.018 --> 00:53:41.263 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 00:53:41.263 --> 00:53:54.814 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 00:53:55.554 --> 00:54:03.981 - If I can maybe just add something else. So as we know, one of the challenges that we have been trying 00:54:03.981 --> 00:54:11.664 - to manage is the Indiana residency and lawful presence scenario. So this goes back to one of 00:54:11.664 --> 00:54:18.686 - the recommendations from the legal team because of how the restaurants work and just 00:54:19.234 --> 00:54:26.480 - this work in general of how challenging it was going to be able to obtain that identification and prove 00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:33.518 - that lawful presence, because where does that trail really kind of end? So is it everyone working in 00:54:33.518 --> 00:54:40.904 - the restaurant? Yes. Is it the owners who live out of state? And so this also comes back to that, because 00:54:40.904 --> 00:54:48.638 - that change has really just limited the way that we can use those funds and created an extra challenge for us. 00:54:48.898 --> 00:54:58.381 - just serving the people. For the explanation. Yes, you got one more. Yeah, it would be difficult for 00:54:58.381 --> 00:55:08.333 - me to. It's always difficult for me to support during budgets right now when we know we're already short, 00:55:08.333 --> 00:55:17.534 - but especially now that we haven't. We need. How much we're going to have to shore up at the 1159 00:55:18.210 --> 00:55:25.487 - we're going to get the money and to do this right now when we're, you know, when they can present the 00:55:25.487 --> 00:55:32.763 - budget and we can look at it at that time, we might have more information. But anyway, you folks move 00:55:32.763 --> 00:55:40.182 - forward, however you want. With that being said, we'll go to public comment. If there is public comment 00:55:40.182 --> 00:55:47.102 - on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. 00:55:47.586 --> 00:55:56.980 - one. May we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Wilk? No. Councilor Henry? No. 00:55:56.980 --> 00:56:06.191 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion 00:56:06.191 --> 00:56:15.312 - passes majority five to one. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is item. Sorry, six to one. I 00:56:15.312 --> 00:56:16.862 - can't add today. 00:56:17.890 --> 00:56:23.714 - Um, item D, prosecutor's office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval 00:56:23.714 --> 00:56:30.096 - the prosecutor's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0009 00:56:30.096 --> 00:56:36.663 - County General Prosecutor one full time misdemeanor attorney position. Second. All right. We got a motion 00:56:36.663 --> 00:56:41.310 - in a second. We're joined by the prosecutor and Ms. Hamlin. Welcome y'all. 00:56:41.634 --> 00:56:48.485 - Thank you. Good evening, counsel, and thank you for hearing my request to fill a misdemeanor deputy 00:56:48.485 --> 00:56:55.816 - position during the hiring freeze. My name is Erica Oliphant, prosecuting attorney, and I've got executive 00:56:55.816 --> 00:57:03.009 - director Beth Hamlin with me. By way of context, we have four criminal courts. Even when we lose a court 00:57:03.009 --> 00:57:06.846 - in 2027, we will continue to have four criminal courts. 00:57:07.106 --> 00:57:16.831 - And therefore we have four misdemeanor deputy prosecutors one for each of those courts and The caseloads 00:57:16.831 --> 00:57:26.185 - are fairly large. So this position handles all misdemeanors except for domestic violence and As well 00:57:26.185 --> 00:57:33.502 - as level six drug cases and level six operating while intoxicated cases so the 00:57:33.922 --> 00:57:41.555 - The request is to fill the CO9 Deputy Prosecutor Attorney position. It's a matter of public record at 00:57:41.555 --> 00:57:49.413 - this point that the incumbent has accepted a higher paying position as an attorney for the city council. 00:57:49.413 --> 00:57:57.047 - And so his last day in my office will be October 9th. I plan to cover the vacancy in his absence. And 00:57:57.047 --> 00:58:00.190 - I've already been working today to try to 00:58:00.514 --> 00:58:07.925 - resolve some older cases that are on the trial docket for October. The volume of the work is high, 00:58:07.925 --> 00:58:15.486 - as I said. The current caseload for this position is about 455 cases. That includes 355 misdemeanors 00:58:15.486 --> 00:58:23.646 - and 99 felonies, and then one miscellaneous matter, which is like a specialized driving privileges petition. 00:58:25.186 --> 00:58:32.398 - As I mentioned at my budget hearing last week, IPAC and WIS have assessed the need for deputy prosecutor 00:58:32.398 --> 00:58:39.404 - staffing across the state, and their determination was based on the volume of cases that are referred 00:58:39.404 --> 00:58:46.753 - to my office. When we are fully staffed, we still need about 3.71 additional attorneys. I'm not requesting 00:58:46.753 --> 00:58:50.462 - that, but I can't afford to have long-term vacancies. 00:58:50.658 --> 00:58:57.786 - Also, as I mentioned last week, most of my deputy prosecutors do work greater than their 40 hours per 00:58:57.786 --> 00:59:04.913 - week, and they carry a balance of comp time. Prosecutor's office is responsible for ensuring that the 00:59:04.913 --> 00:59:12.111 - protection of our constitutional and statutory rights are there for both defendants and victims, which 00:59:12.111 --> 00:59:16.094 - includes meeting deadlines, ensuring good procedure, and 00:59:16.418 --> 00:59:23.154 - have carrying the highest burden of proof there is under the law. And we can't do that if we don't have 00:59:23.154 --> 00:59:29.889 - a full team. So content of our work is very difficult. It comes with secondary trauma. We see the human 00:59:29.889 --> 00:59:36.560 - misery and suffering that's inherent in mental health and substance use issues, as well as some of the 00:59:36.560 --> 00:59:43.101 - worst things that people do to each other. And so I'm hopeful that you will allow me to go ahead and 00:59:43.101 --> 00:59:45.886 - fill this position when it becomes vacant. 00:59:46.242 --> 00:59:53.931 - You know, I'm willing, if it helps with our cause, to wait 60 days to fill the position, but I'd like 00:59:53.931 --> 01:00:01.922 - to go ahead and post it sooner than that. But this is just to let Ms. Hawk know this is actually included 01:00:01.922 --> 01:00:09.913 - in our budget for 2027, so not any kind of additional appropriation this year, and it's already accounted 01:00:09.913 --> 01:00:13.758 - for for next year. Thank you for that explanation. 01:00:14.018 --> 01:00:23.213 - Any council members that have any questions? Councilor Hawke. Yes. So the physician is leaving. What? 01:00:23.213 --> 01:00:31.687 - How many years has he been there? We believe about three. I think he is just shy of his three 01:00:31.687 --> 01:00:38.718 - year anniversary. OK, so I'm looking at the budget. If you hire a new person, 01:00:39.266 --> 01:00:46.720 - it's not going to be a great deal saving. Like if this was a 15 year employee, you would have a bigger 01:00:46.720 --> 01:00:53.958 - savings if you hire somebody brand new. You know, everybody else is going to say yes. And then when 01:00:53.958 --> 01:01:01.557 - we get ready to do the budgets and then we'll decide whether or not we can actually do what we're saying 01:01:01.557 --> 01:01:07.998 - yes to. So you might be wise in trying to hold off and filling that position until we've 01:01:08.322 --> 01:01:17.696 - determined we can do it. Thank you. Thank you. It's a lot. Do you have a trade sponsor? I don't. Thank 01:01:17.696 --> 01:01:27.253 - you for the offer. Yes, Councillor Williams. Thinking through that logic, I appreciate Councillor Hock's 01:01:27.253 --> 01:01:36.536 - caution on a lot of these issues because we have some things that we have to figure out in the coming 01:01:36.536 --> 01:01:38.174 - month and a half. 01:01:40.066 --> 01:01:49.574 - However, I know that this is a critical need and I support it. And I also think that posting this job 01:01:49.574 --> 01:01:59.641 - in 60 days puts it awfully darn right in the middle of not being able to do a whole lot around the holidays 01:01:59.641 --> 01:02:08.030 - and that kind of thing. So I'm going to support it and suggest posting it right away with 01:02:08.226 --> 01:02:16.799 - the caveat that it's budget season and everybody who's hired in is subject to budget. Yeah, I understand. 01:02:16.799 --> 01:02:25.128 - I appreciate it. I will say sometimes it takes me a couple of months after posting to find a qualified 01:02:25.128 --> 01:02:34.024 - candidate anyway. I mean, that may be true. So there's probably some wisdom in posting relatively immediately 01:02:34.024 --> 01:02:37.502 - with the idea that we'll make a start date 01:02:38.338 --> 01:02:48.958 - out a little ways, maybe. Any other questions or comments? Oh, I think as a comment, I think I support, 01:02:48.958 --> 01:02:59.170 - we heard y'all budget last week, and I support having this go through now because in 60 days, we're 01:02:59.170 --> 01:03:07.646 - into November. And that's a critical, as Councilor Wold said, a critical position. 01:03:08.098 --> 01:03:14.753 - that I think would need some time, like all of the positions that we have in the county. But it takes 01:03:14.753 --> 01:03:21.407 - some time to get somebody up and started and ready to go. And I just think that this right now is the 01:03:21.407 --> 01:03:27.932 - best way to go about doing that. Thank you. You're welcome. OK. That being said, if there is public 01:03:27.932 --> 01:03:34.782 - comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. 01:03:38.210 --> 01:03:47.220 - seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor 01:03:47.220 --> 01:03:55.967 - Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? 01:03:55.967 --> 01:04:04.889 - Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now, before we go back to or before 01:04:04.889 --> 01:04:08.126 - we move on, Ms. Turner King, are you 01:04:08.226 --> 01:04:15.751 - ready? Okay. All right. So we're going to jump back and then we're going to come back to our business 01:04:15.751 --> 01:04:23.202 - at hand. So this is item six with the public hearing regarding modifying local income tax rates. And 01:04:23.202 --> 01:04:30.800 - so council, the time is now 6 0 6 p.m. And I would like to now open the public hearing portion of this 01:04:30.800 --> 01:04:36.702 - meeting regarding ordinance 20 26 dash 26 modifying local income tax rates. Um, 01:04:37.858 --> 01:04:47.046 - And I will turn this over to Ms. Turner-King. And before we get to the public hearing part, I do want 01:04:47.046 --> 01:04:56.685 - to make our proposal correction. I'm going to put the ordinance up on the screen. So in the second whereas 01:04:56.685 --> 01:05:04.702 - clause, you will notice I highlight it three. I'm trying to make it bigger. Three items. 01:05:05.058 --> 01:05:12.725 - And so the clause reads, whereas since the adoption of the juvenile services lit special tax rate, the 01:05:12.725 --> 01:05:20.318 - rate has been adjusted by the Monroe County Council on three separate occasions, with the most recent 01:05:20.318 --> 01:05:28.358 - being on August 29th, 2023, by ordinance 2023-28, when the juvenile specials lit special rate was decreased 01:05:28.358 --> 01:05:31.038 - to 0.085%. It was adjusted in 2024. 01:05:31.138 --> 01:05:41.387 - What I think this should reflect is changing August 29th to October 8th of 2024, then the ordinance 01:05:41.387 --> 01:05:47.742 - number to 2024 43, and then the rate to 0.03. So it would go. 01:06:03.298 --> 01:06:12.875 - just changed it on the screen. That information would reflect the most recent change. Yes, Councilor 01:06:12.875 --> 01:06:22.358 - Everson. Council, I move to amend ordinance 2026-26 as it appears on the screen. Second. All right, 01:06:22.358 --> 01:06:32.030 - we got a motion and a second. Is there any questions or comments related to this change as presented? 01:06:33.250 --> 01:06:39.035 - Yes, Councillor Fido. So I'm just curious, was this just a mistake, how it got in there, or how did 01:06:39.035 --> 01:06:44.935 - it just happen? I think it was the language that was in the previous version of the ordinance. And if 01:06:44.935 --> 01:06:50.836 - you remember right when we were talking about it on the Tuesday that we adopted, we made some changes 01:06:50.836 --> 01:06:56.910 - and we deleted a whereas clause. And I think the whereas clause that was deleting it was probably adding 01:06:56.910 --> 01:07:00.670 - the information that I just added. All right, thanks. Thank you. 01:07:02.658 --> 01:07:18.242 - Any other questions or comments? Okay. All those in favor of approving the changes as presented signify 01:07:18.242 --> 01:07:29.630 - by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay. Motion carries. Next up. 01:07:30.338 --> 01:07:36.875 - Is there anything else that we need? OK, so this is the part where we open it up for public comment 01:07:36.875 --> 01:07:43.476 - of this hearing. And before we begin, we will set the ground rules. Those wishing. Sorry, I thought. 01:07:43.476 --> 01:07:50.471 - Oh, we made the correction, but we typically do the first reading where I do the read the whole ordinance. 01:07:50.471 --> 01:07:54.654 - We will. Do you need a display on the screen as I'm reading it? 01:08:20.962 --> 01:08:29.736 - This is ordinance 2026-26, an ordinance modifying local income tax rates, Monroe County. Whereas on 01:08:29.736 --> 01:08:38.510 - July 30, 2007, the Monroe County Council, pursuant to the authority of Indiana Code 6-3.5-6-33, now 01:08:38.510 --> 01:08:43.774 - recodified under Indiana Code 6-3.6-7-16, adopted ordinance 01:08:43.970 --> 01:08:51.026 - 2007-27 an ordinance for the operation and maintenance of facilities necessary to provide juvenile services 01:08:51.026 --> 01:08:57.756 - originally referred to as the juvenile co-it and here after here and after referred to As the juvenile 01:08:57.756 --> 01:09:04.290 - services lit special tax rate which established a tax rate of point four hundredths of a percent to 01:09:04.290 --> 01:09:08.798 - fund the operation and maintenance of the Binkley house facility and 01:09:08.930 --> 01:09:14.560 - Whereas since the adoption of the juvenile service lit special tax rate, the rate has been adjusted 01:09:14.560 --> 01:09:20.247 - by the Monroe County Council on three separate occasions, with the most recent being on October 8th, 01:09:20.247 --> 01:09:25.877 - 2024, by ordinance 2024-43, when the juvenile special service lit special tax rate was decreased to 01:09:25.877 --> 01:09:30.494 - three hundredths of a percent on the adjusted gross income of local taxpayers and 01:09:31.234 --> 01:09:36.344 - Whereas the Monroe County Council recognizes that the Monroe County judges have long had a history of 01:09:36.344 --> 01:09:41.404 - working closely with families and juveniles to solve problems in a proactive manner viewing juvenile 01:09:41.404 --> 01:09:46.413 - detention as a last resort and the Youth Shelter Bureau has established a track record of providing 01:09:46.413 --> 01:09:51.423 - exemplary juvenile care protection and guidance to juveniles when deemed necessary. And whereas the 01:09:51.423 --> 01:09:52.926 - reduction of the rate in 2020 01:09:53.154 --> 01:09:58.549 - Whereas after the reduction of the rate in 2023, the Monroe County Council has continued to monitor 01:09:58.549 --> 01:10:03.944 - the estimated expenses and estimated revenue within the funds that utilize said lit revenue and the 01:10:03.944 --> 01:10:08.638 - Monroe County Council finds that the current juvenile services lit special tax rate of 01:10:08.738 --> 01:10:14.037 - three hundreds of a percent on the adjusted gross income of local taxpayers will not provide adequate 01:10:14.037 --> 01:10:19.283 - and sufficient funding for the operation and maintenance of facilities necessary to provide juvenile 01:10:19.283 --> 01:10:24.582 - services in Monroe County and allow for the continuation of the exemplary care historically provided. 01:10:24.582 --> 01:10:29.984 - And whereas the Monroe County Council determines it is necessary and appropriate to adjust the juvenile 01:10:29.984 --> 01:10:35.179 - services lit special tax rate from the previously established amount of three hundreds of a percent 01:10:35.179 --> 01:10:36.062 - to a new rate of 01:10:37.506 --> 01:10:43.179 - Hold on, I got to redo this one. Ninety-five thousandths of a percent on the adjusted gross income of 01:10:43.179 --> 01:10:49.075 - local taxpayers in order to meet the Monroe County's fiscal needs of operating and maintaining facilities 01:10:49.075 --> 01:10:54.859 - necessary to provide juvenile services now therefore be ordained by the Monroe County Council of Monroe 01:10:54.859 --> 01:11:00.254 - County that a need now exists to modify the local income tax rates imposed in the following way. 01:11:00.962 --> 01:11:06.620 - One, the Monroe County Council finds and determines that the need for juvenile services is not sufficiently 01:11:06.620 --> 01:11:11.858 - funded within the county and that the already existing exemplary services cannot continue operating 01:11:11.858 --> 01:11:17.306 - without an increase in the juvenile services lit special tax rate. Two, to accommodate this, the Monroe 01:11:17.306 --> 01:11:23.330 - County Council proposed an increase of the juvenile services lit special tax authorized by Indiana Code 6-3.6-7-16 01:11:23.330 --> 01:11:27.678 - from the current rate of three hundredths percent of one percent, three hundredths 01:11:27.810 --> 01:11:35.922 - percent of 1 percent to a rate of 95,000 of 1 percent. The overall tax rate, including the proposed 01:11:35.922 --> 01:11:44.115 - changes, will increase to a rate of 2.205 percent. For the avoidance of doubt, no change is intended 01:11:44.115 --> 01:11:52.390 - or authorized by this ordinance to, one, the tax rate under Indiana Code 6-3.6-6-10 certified shares, 01:11:52.390 --> 01:11:56.446 - which is currently 9,480 ten thousandths percent. 01:11:56.546 --> 01:12:04.572 - Sorry, the public safety tax rate currently, which is currently 2,500 percent, the economic development 01:12:04.572 --> 01:12:12.520 - tax rate, which is currently 6,900 percent, the property tax rate under Indiana Code 6-3.6-5, property 01:12:12.520 --> 01:12:20.315 - tax relief rate, which is currently 500, 580, 18, 10, 10,000 percent, or the correctional facilities 01:12:20.315 --> 01:12:23.710 - tax rate, which is currently 1,700 percent. 01:12:24.674 --> 01:12:31.072 - As a result of the actions in this accordance ordinance, the local income tax will be allocated as following 01:12:31.072 --> 01:12:37.000 - beginning on January 1st of 2027. And then there's a chart displayed. I don't know if you want me to 01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:39.230 - read the chart. So there's the chart. 01:12:39.426 --> 01:12:44.859 - The Monroe County Council further finds the revenue generated by the juvenile services lit special tax 01:12:44.859 --> 01:12:50.397 - rate is necessary to continue to sufficiently fund the operation and maintenance of facilities necessary 01:12:50.397 --> 01:12:55.829 - to provide juvenile services in the county. The local tax income rates proposed above remain in effect 01:12:55.829 --> 01:13:01.420 - until they expire pursuant to the enabling statute of the Indiana Code or until the Monroe County Council 01:13:01.420 --> 01:13:02.686 - chooses to modify them. 01:13:03.138 --> 01:13:09.715 - further ordained that a public hearing will be held on the proposed local income tax rate modifications 01:13:09.715 --> 01:13:16.165 - on September 8th, 2026 at 5 p.m. Proper notice of the public hearing was provided pursuant to Indiana 01:13:16.165 --> 01:13:22.615 - code five dash three dash one duly adopted by the following vote of the members of said Monroe County 01:13:22.615 --> 01:13:29.192 - Council of Monroe County this and then we'd have to fill in the date. That is the ordinance. Thank you, 01:13:29.192 --> 01:13:30.014 - Sid. OK, now 01:13:30.306 --> 01:13:36.809 - We will open it up for public comment. If there's public comment for this item, if you are here in person, 01:13:36.809 --> 01:13:43.007 - you can come forward to the lectern here. Each person that makes public comment will state their name 01:13:43.007 --> 01:13:49.084 - for the record, and they'll have up to three minutes. And if you are virtual and would like to make 01:13:49.084 --> 01:13:55.162 - public comment during this hearing, you can also raise your hand via Teams, state your name for the 01:13:55.162 --> 01:13:59.294 - record, and you'll have up to three minutes. Do we have any takers? 01:14:00.066 --> 01:14:12.668 - in person. Okay, and do we have any takers virtually via Teams? Again, you can raise your hand. Okay, 01:14:12.668 --> 01:14:25.023 - seeing that we had no public commenters for this hearing, the time is now 6.16 PM, and I would like 01:14:25.023 --> 01:14:28.606 - to close the public hearing. 01:14:29.314 --> 01:14:38.115 - I'm getting to that point. I'm getting to that point. This is public comment. So as I was saying, it 01:14:38.115 --> 01:14:47.178 - is 6 16 p.m. and the time is now closed for public hearing for ordinance 2026-26 modifying local income 01:14:47.178 --> 01:14:56.676 - tax rates is now closed. Now we will loop it back to the council members to see if anybody has any questions 01:14:56.676 --> 01:14:58.942 - or comments on this item. 01:14:59.586 --> 01:15:07.929 - Councilor Hawke. I just want to say, as I've said many times in the past, that we need to recognize 01:15:07.929 --> 01:15:16.523 - what the legislation says we can use this money for, and it's for the operation and maintenance of the 01:15:16.523 --> 01:15:25.534 - facility, not for all the other things that we keep throwing in there. So I just I'm just saying if it says 01:15:25.730 --> 01:15:32.605 - The legislation says operation and maintenance of the facility. Is that correct, Molly Turner-Keene? 01:15:32.605 --> 01:15:39.480 - I can pull up the statute, but I believe that is correct. Can I ask a question? I mean, I'm going to 01:15:39.480 --> 01:15:46.355 - support this, but I just think we need to recognize every time we put more and more expenses in this 01:15:46.355 --> 01:15:53.502 - fund that is meant to operate and maintain a facility. Could you give me an example of what we've put in 01:15:53.666 --> 01:16:00.802 - to the fund that wouldn't support that? Right. And I fought myself for this because it was my idea to 01:16:00.802 --> 01:16:08.008 - try to save these probation officers in some fashion because we used to pay for it out of what we used 01:16:08.008 --> 01:16:15.214 - to call the old welfare fund. And we had four probation juvenile probation officers, and we were going 01:16:15.214 --> 01:16:22.910 - to lose that money and that ability. And so I thought, well, why can't we do this? Because in other counties, 01:16:23.042 --> 01:16:30.394 - in the facility, the probation officers worked in the facility and they were able to pay for it with 01:16:30.394 --> 01:16:37.673 - this money. But we went ahead and did that, but the probation officers, unless something's changed, 01:16:37.673 --> 01:16:45.170 - I do not believe that they are housed at the facility. And that's, I've just continued to say, I think 01:16:45.170 --> 01:16:52.158 - that we have stretched the use of these money. I'm not saying it's not a good use of the money, 01:16:52.482 --> 01:17:02.667 - is not quite what the legislation said. Anyway. In the meantime, Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam 01:17:02.667 --> 01:17:12.558 - President, and thank you, Councilor Hawke, for that. Can I ask how long ago that process started? Do 01:17:12.558 --> 01:17:21.470 - you recall when we started doing that? Right. It's been many years ago because I know what 01:17:22.338 --> 01:17:30.491 - I was not in favor of doing it in this fashion. I wanted to do a public safety tax because I knew we 01:17:30.491 --> 01:17:38.887 - needed it for the jail and whatever. And then we could pull in more money and we could use part of that 01:17:38.887 --> 01:17:47.040 - money to cover operating the juvenile facility and use part of it to do some of our needs for public 01:17:47.040 --> 01:17:52.126 - safety. That didn't pass. I couldn't get the support for that. 01:17:54.210 --> 01:18:02.280 - Yeah, it was before when we had when we first started doing this. I believe it's when we still had a 01:18:02.280 --> 01:18:10.669 - youth facility down on Kirkwood, and then we built this facility and named it in honor of Morris Binkley 01:18:10.669 --> 01:18:18.819 - because he a member of our county council for decades seemed. And he was instrumental in helping with 01:18:18.819 --> 01:18:22.654 - that. I just yeah, but what he did say was that 01:18:22.914 --> 01:18:30.179 - the dollars that we could never use it for detention unless we it was our facility, then we could do 01:18:30.179 --> 01:18:37.588 - the operation and maintenance of that detention facility. Well, I was strongly opposed at the time for 01:18:37.588 --> 01:18:44.350 - building a detention facility, but we went around and checked all of the detention facilities 01:18:45.506 --> 01:18:51.881 - many many of them and we finally found one I thought well if we could do like they're doing and that 01:18:51.881 --> 01:18:58.256 - was over in Bartholomew County where they had a youth shelter and they had a youth detention and the 01:18:58.256 --> 01:19:05.010 - juvenile probation officers were the intake officers and so if they went into the like uh into the shelter 01:19:05.010 --> 01:19:11.006 - and if they were a problem then they could move them over to the detention and if they as they 01:19:11.234 --> 01:19:16.872 - work their way out of coming into detention, they can go over into the shelter. Okay, was that more 01:19:16.872 --> 01:19:22.623 - than what you wanted to hear? No, it's good, because I only raise it to share a thought that occurred 01:19:22.623 --> 01:19:28.318 - to me when Councilor Woltz asked and we got back and forth. Sometimes we put these wheels in motion. 01:19:28.866 --> 01:19:34.108 - and we forget why. And then there's institutional memory that helps us. And then we'll get an answer 01:19:34.108 --> 01:19:39.351 - back from staff when we are curious that is, well, it's the way we've always done it, right? And yet 01:19:39.351 --> 01:19:44.126 - there's probably a moment sometimes to go back and do the tune up on the car to figure out. 01:19:44.226 --> 01:19:49.307 - If that original approach makes sense still, if there's conditions have changed, facilities have closed, 01:19:49.307 --> 01:19:54.339 - people aren't working in the building that we thought they were working in. All that is just stuff that 01:19:54.339 --> 01:19:59.275 - builds up over time that as we get under the hood of this, I appreciate the walkthrough, but it gives 01:19:59.275 --> 01:20:04.404 - me pause to think about other things we fund in government as we start making some real budget decisions. 01:20:04.404 --> 01:20:09.388 - If the answer is this is the way we've always done it, I think that's worth looking at as well. I hope 01:20:09.388 --> 01:20:11.614 - I've bought enough time at the table, thanks. 01:20:12.642 --> 01:20:19.859 - I will go to the auditor and then I'll talk to Ms Turner King. Yeah, so the typical process when questions 01:20:19.859 --> 01:20:26.941 - like these arise, like is this appropriate out of this fund or may we use this funding for this purpose? 01:20:26.941 --> 01:20:33.889 - I what I typically do is proactively reach out to the State Board of Accounts. They have staff on hand 01:20:33.889 --> 01:20:40.094 - to help interpret. Of course, in collaboration with our legal team, but help interpret like 01:20:40.194 --> 01:20:47.284 - the statute and what is appropriate if they'll take audit exception to a certain use. So my recollection 01:20:47.284 --> 01:20:54.036 - is that a couple years ago at this point, we reached out and did confirm that this was appropriate. 01:20:54.036 --> 01:21:00.991 - However, because so much time has passed, I would like to find that email or revisit this if there are 01:21:00.991 --> 01:21:07.810 - still questions. Okay? So in reviewing the statute, it says revenues raised from a tax imposed under 01:21:07.810 --> 01:21:08.958 - this section may 01:21:09.122 --> 01:21:17.747 - be used only to fund the operation and maintenance of a juvenile detention center and other facilities 01:21:17.747 --> 01:21:26.791 - to provide juvenile services. Other facilities. Other facilities. Are there any other questions or comments 01:21:26.791 --> 01:21:35.249 - from council on this item? Ms. Turner-King, can you advise us what our next steps are supposed to be 01:21:35.249 --> 01:21:36.254 - after this? 01:21:36.674 --> 01:21:42.050 - So at this point, you could do a roll call vote on the ordinance. The only caveat is that since this 01:21:42.050 --> 01:21:47.851 - is being, if you vote on it the same night of introduction, it would have to pass unanimously. Historically, 01:21:47.851 --> 01:21:53.174 - we do not usually do a roll call at the first reading. We have a second reading, and then we do the 01:21:53.174 --> 01:21:58.709 - roll call. And by the second reading, I don't mean that we have me read the entire thing again. We just 01:21:58.709 --> 01:22:04.670 - open the discussion, and then we vote. So I mean, it's kind of up to you if you want to do a roll call tonight. 01:22:04.770 --> 01:22:18.660 - or if you want to follow precedent, which is we have a second reading. I think we should do a roll call 01:22:18.660 --> 01:22:32.417 - vote. So can we please have one? Thank you. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor 01:22:32.417 --> 01:22:33.886 - Haug? Yes. 01:22:34.338 --> 01:22:43.478 - Yes, and remember we promised. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion 01:22:43.478 --> 01:22:52.705 - passes unanimous. Thank you very much. So now what? So procedurally what happens next is that the auditor 01:22:52.705 --> 01:23:01.932 - will provide notice to the taxing units that the ordinance passed and then it will be uploaded in Gateway 01:23:01.932 --> 01:23:03.934 - and submitted to DLGF. 01:23:04.066 --> 01:23:11.036 - Thank you very much for that. All right. Next up on the train is our council business, which is item 01:23:11.036 --> 01:23:18.282 - A, which is from our highway department. Council, I move to approve for discussion and possible approval 01:23:18.282 --> 01:23:25.253 - the highway department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 01:23:25.253 --> 01:23:27.806 - 1176-0000 motor vehicle highway 70%. 01:23:28.290 --> 01:23:34.868 - 1197 dash zero zero zero zero stormwater management at 15 percent and fund 1135 dash zero zero zero 01:23:34.868 --> 01:23:41.708 - zero cumulative bridge at 15 percent one full-time highway engineer position All right, we got a motion 01:23:41.708 --> 01:23:48.483 - in a second. We are joined by the highway director miss lisa ridge welcome What would you like to tell 01:23:48.483 --> 01:23:49.470 - us about this? 01:23:50.178 --> 01:23:56.981 - Good evening. I came to you in the past, I believe for the hype. It could have been during the hiring 01:23:56.981 --> 01:24:03.851 - freeze. I think it was last fall maybe. And it was approved for me to move forward due to our engineer 01:24:03.851 --> 01:24:10.521 - retiring in February. We did hire an engineer. He started on June 22nd and for personal reasons, it 01:24:10.521 --> 01:24:16.190 - did not work out for him. And we wish him nothing but the best because he was great. 01:24:17.090 --> 01:24:25.143 - So we're just back to see if we can post this position again. All right, thank you very much. Any questions 01:24:25.143 --> 01:24:32.599 - or comments from council on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public 01:24:32.599 --> 01:24:40.353 - comment, raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. None, maybe 01:24:40.353 --> 01:24:42.590 - please have a roll call vote. 01:24:49.730 --> 01:24:57.165 - Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor 01:24:57.165 --> 01:25:03.680 - Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. 01:25:03.680 --> 01:25:11.045 - Next up is item B. Council, I move to approve for discussion possible approval the Highway Department's 01:25:11.045 --> 01:25:18.622 - request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire in Fund 1176-0000 Motor Vehicle Highway 01:25:18.754 --> 01:25:25.829 - one full time administrative assistant position. Second motion in a second. What would you like to add 01:25:25.829 --> 01:25:32.836 - to this? So our financial manager that's been with the county for 30 plus years. Her last day will be 01:25:32.836 --> 01:25:39.980 - October 30th due to retirement. So. We've kind of known this for a little while, so we've been training 01:25:39.980 --> 01:25:46.918 - the administrative assistant. She has filled in when the financial manager is absent, so it would be 01:25:46.918 --> 01:25:47.742 - our goal to 01:25:47.874 --> 01:25:53.613 - promote to the financial manager position, which will open up the administrative assistant position. 01:25:53.613 --> 01:25:59.296 - So I would like to have a little bit of a transition period. Even at this point, it's probably just 01:25:59.296 --> 01:26:05.433 - going to be like a two week overlap. We do have the I think there's a line for like a transitional training 01:26:05.433 --> 01:26:11.229 - line. We do have that already in the budget because we anticipated this could happen in twenty twenty 01:26:11.229 --> 01:26:16.286 - six. Again, looking at the timeline, we'd probably wouldn't be having anybody start till 01:26:17.122 --> 01:26:24.913 - middle of October by the time you post it and get applications and do interviews and then two-week notices 01:26:24.913 --> 01:26:32.194 - and such. And it doesn't, it's all out at 1176, doesn't affect the county general fund at all. I'll 01:26:32.194 --> 01:26:39.766 - explain it to her. Yes, Councilor Deggert. I wanted to ask if I may, how long has the financial manager 01:26:39.766 --> 01:26:41.950 - been with us that's retiring? 01:26:43.042 --> 01:26:50.890 - 30 plus years i believe she was in the assessor's office and then went to the it department and then 01:26:50.890 --> 01:26:58.660 - came to highway i would say maybe 20 years ago but i think it's 30 plus in the county thanks to her 01:26:58.660 --> 01:27:06.974 - for good long service to this county yes counselor hawke yes she was there when the highway department was 01:27:07.266 --> 01:27:14.792 - They're in a little section right before you got the commissioner's office, and they were all just piled 01:27:14.792 --> 01:27:22.103 - in there, one on top of the other. And, you know, they were doing a great job then, and they're doing 01:27:22.103 --> 01:27:29.486 - a great job now, but their digs are a whole lot better than what they had. This one little office that 01:27:29.486 --> 01:27:36.510 - literally everybody was in the same office. It was, as you know, it was... Oh, yeah, I was there. 01:27:36.706 --> 01:27:44.496 - We were all there. I still remember the little box that sat up on top of the filing cabinet that had 01:27:44.496 --> 01:27:52.210 - all of the private roads in it. The three to five cards. So you go through there and see which ones 01:27:52.210 --> 01:28:00.540 - were that's how they did it. Three to five cards. That's changed. I do remember the little box. We probably 01:28:00.540 --> 01:28:03.934 - still have it. It's kind of like a history. 01:28:06.562 --> 01:28:18.731 - I have a question that is tangential to this and it has to do with the transition line that we approve 01:28:18.731 --> 01:28:30.900 - in people's budgets. I know that this has come up before and I just don't remember how we talked about 01:28:30.900 --> 01:28:35.390 - it or what if we came to an agreement 01:28:36.322 --> 01:28:47.199 - sounds like we did, about when and how that is used. Because I thought at one point there was the argument 01:28:47.199 --> 01:28:56.958 - that it was reserved for department heads. Am I just making that up? Does anyone else remember? 01:29:01.762 --> 01:29:09.743 - we created that line in the 2027 budget because Paul was retiring. So we thought we might have a transitional 01:29:09.743 --> 01:29:17.071 - time during that too. And. I, I, well, that's my understanding. It's just we can put funds into that 01:29:17.071 --> 01:29:24.690 - because you're paying two people. For the same job, but it's not in the salary ordinance, correct? Yeah. 01:29:24.690 --> 01:29:30.494 - OK, well, so that makes sense why we put we approved a budget with it in there, 01:29:33.090 --> 01:29:41.561 - But I do remember when we talked about it at first, the idea was it was... You talked about it with 01:29:41.561 --> 01:29:50.031 - regards to... It was made mention that why don't we just put this in everyone's budget? But then we 01:29:50.031 --> 01:29:58.502 - had the hiring freeze, and so there was a discussion with regards to, well, then when they come for 01:29:58.502 --> 01:30:02.398 - the hiring freeze to see if we're going to... 01:30:02.850 --> 01:30:09.355 - add that vacancy, then they will also, if they need it, they'll ask for the transitional training at 01:30:09.355 --> 01:30:16.053 - that time. Because not everybody needs a transitional training line. So. It just happened to, they were 01:30:16.053 --> 01:30:22.880 - planning for it for 2026. It's already there. So they don't have to add it. It's already in their budget. 01:30:22.880 --> 01:30:29.321 - And we wouldn't be asking for an additional because we'll be able to transfer from like the highway 01:30:29.321 --> 01:30:32.670 - engineer line since it hasn't been funded all year. 01:30:34.210 --> 01:30:42.165 - Okay. Thank you for entertaining my questions. I appreciate that. Yes, Councilmember Decker. Well, and 01:30:42.165 --> 01:30:50.429 - historically, we have been doing this now for about five to six years on these transitions. And it started 01:30:50.429 --> 01:30:58.152 - in one place and it seems to have been a successful way not to lose everything institutionally that 01:30:58.152 --> 01:31:02.014 - between two positions that are of big importance. 01:31:02.146 --> 01:31:11.609 - I've noticed that if the department is, if the person is, before we had the hiring freeze, if the person 01:31:11.609 --> 01:31:20.982 - was still in the office and someone was moving up, we didn't do a transitional training, they were just 01:31:20.982 --> 01:31:31.166 - on the job learning. But the more higher up positions is where we have been requiring the transitional training. 01:31:32.386 --> 01:31:39.711 - Sometimes it's been like a month, you know, like four weeks, depending on the position, and sometimes 01:31:39.711 --> 01:31:47.036 - it's like two weeks. But like I said, not every department has utilized it. It's just as needed. This 01:31:47.036 --> 01:31:54.791 - would be for the administrative assistant, someone coming in from outside, and that's? Yeah, it's basically 01:31:54.791 --> 01:32:01.470 - trying to have, if I calculated the time scheduled right, and everything worked out to plan, 01:32:01.570 --> 01:32:09.236 - I could have somebody in that position. The middle of October, the financial manager is done October 01:32:09.236 --> 01:32:17.053 - 30th. That would give a two week window for that current admin to get that person going for two weeks. 01:32:17.053 --> 01:32:24.643 - That would be it. If it doesn't work, it's not going to work and we're not going to have anybody to 01:32:24.643 --> 01:32:30.942 - crossover, but we'll get through it. So. Other questions or comments on this item? 01:32:32.194 --> 01:32:39.692 - Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can raise your 01:32:39.692 --> 01:32:47.263 - hand via Teams, or you can come here in the room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. 01:32:47.263 --> 01:32:54.981 - Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor 01:32:54.981 --> 01:33:00.862 - Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. 01:33:01.058 --> 01:33:08.238 - All right, next up, item C. Council, I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund 1197-0000 01:33:08.238 --> 01:33:15.486 - Storm Water Management, a category transfer of $30,450 from the services category to the supplies category. 01:33:15.486 --> 01:33:22.264 - Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. We came under budget in this Stip Road project, and 01:33:22.264 --> 01:33:29.310 - we've used more supplies, so we're just requesting to make that category transfer, not do an additional. 01:33:32.034 --> 01:33:39.685 - Any questions or comments for Ms. Ridge on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. Raise 01:33:39.685 --> 01:33:47.410 - your hand via Teams or come forward to the podium here in the room. And seeing none, may we please have 01:33:47.410 --> 01:33:55.060 - a roll call vote? Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor 01:33:55.060 --> 01:33:59.294 - Hock? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. 01:33:59.458 --> 01:34:07.313 - Councillor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up is item D. Council, I will be combining items 01:34:07.313 --> 01:34:15.244 - D and E into one motion. I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund 8176-0000 Eagleton 01:34:15.244 --> 01:34:21.726 - Bridge number 922, an additional appropriation of $10,000 in the services department 01:34:22.242 --> 01:34:28.910 - or category and simultaneously approve a fund to fund transfer of cash of ten thousand dollars from 01:34:28.910 --> 01:34:35.579 - fund eleven thirty five dash zero zero zero zero cumulative bridge to fund eight one seven six dash 01:34:35.579 --> 01:34:42.247 - zero zero zero zero eagles and bridge number nine two two. We got a motion and a second Mr. H. This 01:34:42.247 --> 01:34:47.582 - came about due to an inspection structural inspection that we didn't anticipate 01:34:47.682 --> 01:34:56.226 - and dot and voiced us for it. However, they covered 80% of that cost of the inspection. So we're just 01:34:56.226 --> 01:35:04.602 - asking to do our appropriate the local match and the cash cash transfer to to cover our local match 01:35:04.602 --> 01:35:12.811 - of the $10,000. Believe the cost was 50,000 so. Any questions for Miss Ridge on these items? Yes, 01:35:12.811 --> 01:35:17.502 - Miss Woods. This this is the bridge that there was some 01:35:18.210 --> 01:35:26.827 - confusion or discussion around who was in charge of it. At one point, right in my. We handle it, but 01:35:26.827 --> 01:35:35.615 - it was up so it did this bridge used to belong to IU. It was always known to belong to IU. OK, so just 01:35:35.615 --> 01:35:44.318 - they cannot. Yeah, they can't use federal funds. As we can for it to be funded 80% so in dot approach 01:35:44.318 --> 01:35:45.598 - Monroe County. 01:35:45.922 --> 01:35:52.859 - in dot paid for the design of this bridge out of their pocket. I just agreed to take over the management 01:35:52.859 --> 01:35:59.531 - of the project during construction, and then it will become a Monroe County bridge because we didn't 01:35:59.531 --> 01:36:06.335 - want to accept the bridge and the condition it was in because it needed replaced. Theoretically, we're 01:36:06.335 --> 01:36:11.422 - paying $10,000 for the bridge. We paid a little bit more than that. However, 01:36:12.034 --> 01:36:18.220 - back when the cars trail was being developed and it was going under construction we really didn't have 01:36:18.220 --> 01:36:24.525 - any. We had a very low amount that was allocated to the construction of that project I want to say maybe 01:36:24.525 --> 01:36:30.771 - a million dollars. In turn for me taking over this project they gave us an additional 2 million dollars 01:36:30.771 --> 01:36:37.136 - to build the cars trail at that time. So my match for this bridge was going to be about a million dollars 01:36:37.136 --> 01:36:38.878 - so I thought that was a good 01:36:39.426 --> 01:36:46.283 - we were at about a million, but then when it came to construction time in dot came back and they paid 01:36:46.283 --> 01:36:53.073 - most of the local match also. So actually Monroe County paid 163,000 instead of almost a million. So 01:36:53.073 --> 01:37:00.132 - and then this 10,000 and then there could be some other little things, but in dot has pretty well funded 01:37:00.132 --> 01:37:07.191 - this project. They just needed somebody to manage it through the federal aid process at the local level, 01:37:07.191 --> 01:37:09.342 - so. Well, that sounds like it's 01:37:09.602 --> 01:37:18.163 - A great deal. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public 01:37:18.163 --> 01:37:26.561 - comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing 01:37:26.561 --> 01:37:34.877 - none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor 01:37:34.877 --> 01:37:39.198 - Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? 01:37:39.682 --> 01:37:49.073 - Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, next up is item 01:37:49.073 --> 01:37:58.191 - F from the Planning Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the 01:37:58.191 --> 01:38:02.750 - Planning Department's request. In Fund 1000-0079, 01:38:02.882 --> 01:38:09.622 - County General Planning to forward to WIS a request to create and classify a new position of senior 01:38:09.622 --> 01:38:15.890 - zoning inspector. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. We are joined here by Ms. 01:38:15.890 --> 01:38:19.934 - Jackie Jelen, planning director. Welcome. Hi. Good evening. 01:38:21.570 --> 01:38:27.501 - Thank you, council members, for hearing our request tonight. I'm here joined tonight with our assistant 01:38:27.501 --> 01:38:33.374 - director, Tammy Beerman, and our planning commission president and executive committee president Scott 01:38:33.374 --> 01:38:34.686 - Ferris is also online. 01:38:34.786 --> 01:38:42.262 - Should you have any questions? I also want to take a moment to thank Kim Shell and her lovely staff. 01:38:42.262 --> 01:38:49.738 - They spent a long time with me last week amidst budget preparations to explain the process, so can't 01:38:49.738 --> 01:38:57.362 - thank him enough. And she reviewed all my filings. So thank you. I know it's a big packet. So I'm here 01:38:57.362 --> 01:39:03.358 - for first off asking for one new position, which is our senior zoning inspector. 01:39:03.618 --> 01:39:11.142 - If you see page 53 of the packet, it does show our current layout of our planning department. We are 01:39:11.142 --> 01:39:14.494 - an eight-person office, so we are requesting 01:39:14.562 --> 01:39:21.715 - one new position, which we have titled Senior Zoning Inspector. The pay grid request for this position 01:39:21.715 --> 01:39:28.798 - would be Pat D. And with the position description red line, you will see we've modeled that after our 01:39:28.798 --> 01:39:36.089 - current zoning inspector position. This position would handle more complex and long standing enforcement 01:39:36.089 --> 01:39:42.686 - cases, oversee and supervise the current zoning inspector and report directly to the director. 01:39:42.882 --> 01:39:51.507 - And I'd also like to just take a minute to state that I did a re-review of how many reviews this person 01:39:51.507 --> 01:39:59.883 - has done to date this year, and it's 721 reviews. Tammy and I have discussed how either of us, if we 01:39:59.883 --> 01:40:04.030 - lost this position, we would be spending, I mean, 01:40:04.994 --> 01:40:12.431 - I had 10 extra hours on my time sheet last week just because we have one person on vacation and two 01:40:12.431 --> 01:40:19.868 - vacancies. So I cannot imagine having this position lost. The state has required us to separate our 01:40:19.868 --> 01:40:27.454 - position or our permitting process from the building department. And it's really created a very undue 01:40:27.454 --> 01:40:32.958 - hardship on us. We're seeing a ton of walk-in traffic. It's just becoming 01:40:33.218 --> 01:40:40.008 - Untenable at this point and I understand it's an unfund unfunded mandate from the state But it's something 01:40:40.008 --> 01:40:46.543 - that we have to comply with or else people will They will get their permit without us doing our review 01:40:46.543 --> 01:40:52.254 - One of the reviews that they did just a couple of weeks ago. There was an unmapped review 01:40:52.450 --> 01:40:58.900 - floodplain that was not on beacon and with the 14-year tenure of our assistant director and the knowledge 01:40:58.900 --> 01:41:04.986 - of our current zoning inspector to tag the floodplain inspector, we prevented someone from locating 01:41:04.986 --> 01:41:11.193 - their home in the floodplain and we've worked with them and they're working with an engineer to model 01:41:11.193 --> 01:41:13.566 - their home and raise it up and get the 01:41:13.666 --> 01:41:21.044 - appropriate variances, but that's something that would have easily snuck through, and that's a very 01:41:21.044 --> 01:41:28.495 - costly expenditure for the public to locate in the floodplain without knowing it. So this is also in 01:41:28.495 --> 01:41:33.438 - the packet. We have the fiscal impact and the position description 01:41:33.666 --> 01:41:39.935 - I'm happy to take any questions on this, but this is something that we're pretty excited about. We've 01:41:39.935 --> 01:41:46.511 - been talking about adding a position for a while. I know some council members will ask us some enforcement 01:41:46.511 --> 01:41:52.657 - questions here and there, and we'd really like to get a better handle on having someone really be a 01:41:52.657 --> 01:41:59.049 - help to the person who's subject to enforcement to connect them with resources while also managing some 01:41:59.049 --> 01:42:00.094 - of that neighbor 01:42:00.450 --> 01:42:07.786 - inquiries about where we are at on those enforcements. We often deal with people that have very low 01:42:07.786 --> 01:42:15.341 - income and multiple problems at once. And so we've tried in the past to connect them with, say, Stride 01:42:15.341 --> 01:42:23.117 - or the IU Health Mobile to get them the resources to then hopefully deal with the externalities of what's 01:42:23.117 --> 01:42:25.758 - all going on in their life, such as 01:42:25.954 --> 01:42:33.155 - you know, vehicles parked on unimproved surfaces, we see people living in campers, we see a lot of trash. 01:42:33.155 --> 01:42:40.085 - So our current zoning inspector works across multiple departments and coordinates inspections, helps, 01:42:40.085 --> 01:42:43.006 - you know, highway waste reduction, health, 01:42:43.106 --> 01:42:49.682 - planning, we'll all go out on inspections, and I could just see if we had one more person, how we could 01:42:49.682 --> 01:42:56.448 - really increase our capacity to see those cases through, be more of a help to the legal department instead 01:42:56.448 --> 01:43:02.961 - of just saying, hey, you just need to file something for this case, really preparing that, having that 01:43:02.961 --> 01:43:09.474 - documentation to make it something that we can take and succeed at. So that's our request tonight, and 01:43:09.474 --> 01:43:12.446 - I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. 01:43:13.026 --> 01:43:20.675 - Thank you very much. Any council members, questions or comments? I will go to Iverson, and then I'll 01:43:20.675 --> 01:43:28.324 - go Henry. So because we don't have our internal review process for job descriptions, I want to start 01:43:28.324 --> 01:43:36.049 - at the red line job description that you created. And there's probably more red on this document than 01:43:36.049 --> 01:43:41.502 - black. That's a lot of changes you've made. So the first paragraph, you 01:43:41.666 --> 01:43:48.365 - have outlined that this person supervisor supervises and directs the zoning inspector. Who does that 01:43:48.365 --> 01:43:55.197 - work now? Currently, that's the director, so that's myself. And then the and then the second paragraph 01:43:55.197 --> 01:44:02.029 - says that they establish and effectuates the different procedures. Is that something that the director 01:44:02.029 --> 01:44:07.998 - does now? So we administer the county development ordinance, but yes, as director, I will 01:44:08.194 --> 01:44:15.165 - help the zoning inspector with a procedure based on a specific enforcement case to get to compliance, 01:44:15.165 --> 01:44:22.204 - which isn't always in the ordinance. It could be a contextual-based solution. I guess what I'm getting 01:44:22.204 --> 01:44:29.039 - at is this job description has a lot more supervisory capabilities, a lot more training, a lot more 01:44:29.039 --> 01:44:36.010 - hiring. So I think what I'm hearing from you and what the state's mandating without any funding seems 01:44:36.010 --> 01:44:36.830 - to be like, 01:44:37.122 --> 01:44:42.887 - that that is the direction you want to take this is this is a supervisory role that's directly underneath 01:44:42.887 --> 01:44:48.379 - the director. Correct. Okay. I think I think I'm going to stop asking questions and let other people 01:44:48.379 --> 01:44:53.872 - go and but then I can come back to some others. Councilmember Henry. I thank you Madam President and 01:44:53.872 --> 01:44:59.038 - I thank you Councillor Iverson for getting right into the position description. I think that's 01:44:59.138 --> 01:45:06.908 - One way to go at this tonight, we need to. Here's another one I want to go at. Did I hear you correctly? 01:45:06.908 --> 01:45:14.456 - You said to date you've had 721. The larger is a little number, right? Is it 721? 721 reviews. To the 01:45:14.456 --> 01:45:21.856 - 8th of September. So I was just doing some math on this to try to figure out what that workload is. 01:45:21.856 --> 01:45:25.630 - So that's 80 a month, 20 a week, about four a day. 01:45:26.306 --> 01:45:33.080 - Well, can you walk through how long it takes to just do one of these? It sounds like you are expediting, 01:45:33.080 --> 01:45:39.531 - because you have the mandate now of three days. But how long does it take from clean sheet of paper 01:45:39.531 --> 01:45:46.563 - to done on this? Can you walk us through that? Sure. So some people are simply replacing in-kind structures, 01:45:46.563 --> 01:45:49.918 - or they're doing a remodel. That can be as easy as. 01:45:50.082 --> 01:45:56.935 - a 20-minute review. Other people are multi-part requesting, I'm going to build a new house, a new pole 01:45:56.935 --> 01:46:03.588 - barn, and a basketball court. And so we're doing the review for each one of those three structures. 01:46:03.588 --> 01:46:10.374 - And if it entails variances coordinating with the stormwater team or highway department, it can take, 01:46:10.374 --> 01:46:17.293 - for our review to get done, it can take an hour to two hours. Now, I appreciate that, because it feels, 01:46:17.293 --> 01:46:19.422 - then, that the piecework of it, 01:46:19.970 --> 01:46:26.027 - every case in your hand and what that could be, yeah, there's variable, but it's not small. I want to 01:46:26.027 --> 01:46:31.965 - paint that picture for everybody that's listening, that when we're asking to create a new position, 01:46:31.965 --> 01:46:38.022 - like are we just to say true 35-hour position or 40-hour position, yeah. It sounds like just based on 01:46:38.022 --> 01:46:43.960 - what you've already done this year and how long it takes and how many inspections are going on on a 01:46:43.960 --> 01:46:48.414 - given day, week, month, workload seems to be there just on the math of it. 01:46:48.706 --> 01:46:54.033 - And it's iterative. If I may add, you know, if we send a comment to the highway department and wait 01:46:54.033 --> 01:46:59.467 - to hear back and then we send a comment to the applicant to say, hey, what you upload is construction 01:46:59.467 --> 01:47:04.848 - plans aren't isn't really making sense, which is 50 percent of the time. Sometimes people aren't you 01:47:04.848 --> 01:47:10.229 - know, they're putting it's going to be a 50 by 50 structure and then the construction plans show 100 01:47:10.229 --> 01:47:11.614 - by 100. And so we have to 01:47:11.746 --> 01:47:18.371 - connect the dots, put the pieces together, and they may say, oh, that was a draft. Now, thank you for 01:47:18.371 --> 01:47:24.995 - reminding me this is the revised version. So that takes time to first analyze what your questions are 01:47:24.995 --> 01:47:31.490 - and then get those answers back and come back to it. So it's iterative. The hour to two hours could 01:47:31.490 --> 01:47:38.179 - be over a week. I appreciate that. And maybe I'll just ask a fair follow up to say, since the adoption 01:47:38.179 --> 01:47:39.998 - of the CDO, have additional 01:47:40.514 --> 01:47:46.737 - burdens been kind of placed in that process or have you noticed it taking longer as a result of the 01:47:46.737 --> 01:47:53.519 - new ordinance or are there efficiencies there as well? I would say there's both efficiencies and regulations 01:47:53.519 --> 01:47:59.804 - so for instance we've added an impervious cover but we've put together really nice two-pagers so you 01:47:59.804 --> 01:48:06.337 - don't have to go to six different places of the ordinance to find that little information in a two-pager 01:48:06.337 --> 01:48:09.822 - so while we are measuring impervious cover by hand each 01:48:09.986 --> 01:48:18.155 - property, it's more clear cut of what the regulation is. Thank you. And of course, I'm on the executive 01:48:18.155 --> 01:48:26.482 - committee and the planning commission. I do support the addition of this position for sister, the council 01:48:26.482 --> 01:48:34.337 - knows. But thank you very much. Council member Hawk. Yes. And first of all, I really do support the 01:48:34.337 --> 01:48:38.814 - effort by the state to try to get things moving quicker. 01:48:39.586 --> 01:48:46.264 - I get that, because if you are trying to build a house, you want an answer. You don't want to wait for 01:48:46.264 --> 01:48:52.943 - six months. Well, I'm not saying they do, but I've heard that from many people. They're waiting months 01:48:52.943 --> 01:48:59.491 - and months. And so that's what we're trying to avoid. But in order to try to avoid that, then you've 01:48:59.491 --> 01:49:06.494 - got to have the staff to be able to respond to get back the answers quicker. And so this is to be expected. 01:49:06.786 --> 01:49:13.326 - But we should absolutely make sure that the public understands that this is really going to be in their 01:49:13.326 --> 01:49:19.615 - benefit from the way it's been explained to me. I hope I understand it right, that if they come for 01:49:19.615 --> 01:49:26.156 - the request, they've got everything filled out. If you don't get back with them within a certain length 01:49:26.156 --> 01:49:30.558 - of time, they've got the permission to move forward. Is that correct? 01:49:30.690 --> 01:49:37.121 - respond. It's a complete application within three business days. They can require us to give them a 01:49:37.121 --> 01:49:43.810 - permit. Yes. Right. And I'm glad they can move forward. But there's that occasion when if they've moved 01:49:43.810 --> 01:49:50.627 - forward, it's not really going to be in their best interest. It would be better if our staff was prepared 01:49:50.627 --> 01:49:56.286 - to be able to answer in time and keep things moving quicker, quicker, quicker. And that 01:49:56.546 --> 01:50:04.155 - it just takes more staff. It just does. And while I'm a big penny pincher, I'm a big supporter of new 01:50:04.155 --> 01:50:11.913 - construction, of supporting new people, new housing opportunities for the people of this county instead 01:50:11.913 --> 01:50:19.522 - of shoving them off to another county. And then we lose all of the benefits of having them as our new 01:50:19.522 --> 01:50:23.326 - neighbors. So that's my little speech for the day. 01:50:25.346 --> 01:50:33.337 - Yes, Councilmember Fiddle. So not that I would disagree with what's here, but I want to know how the 01:50:33.337 --> 01:50:41.486 - determination was made for the pat level D. Our senior zoning planner is a pat D right now. So we were 01:50:41.486 --> 01:50:50.110 - looking at a similar senior position that has a supervisory role, and we use that classification. Thank you. 01:50:54.274 --> 01:51:00.412 - No, I think he's gonna Okay councilmember Iverson you've been watching council for a long time You know 01:51:00.412 --> 01:51:06.433 - that when things come back from with it's not always hitting that job classification that departments 01:51:06.433 --> 01:51:12.571 - want What will you do in that situation? Will you still be able to hire someone? I? Think that we would 01:51:12.571 --> 01:51:18.532 - still be able to hire someone I don't know what the with conclusion would be but I will say that the 01:51:18.532 --> 01:51:22.782 - zoning inspector role does not require a master's degree like our other 01:51:22.850 --> 01:51:30.485 - roles in the department, so there is a little bit more leeway for applicants. But this role does include 01:51:30.485 --> 01:51:37.902 - some level of experience, two years experience, so we are hoping to attract somebody that already has 01:51:37.902 --> 01:51:42.846 - experience administering ordinances because there is quite a bit of 01:51:44.386 --> 01:51:51.411 - you know, knowledge that they need to have in terms of reading maps, interpreting when to know how to 01:51:51.411 --> 01:51:58.298 - escalate cases and how to take good notes in order to hand off to, say, a legal person or something 01:51:58.298 --> 01:52:05.461 - like that. So so the decreased education requirements would not would maybe help in the situation where 01:52:05.461 --> 01:52:12.349 - it would be a lower job classification. I still think we could attract somebody for a position with 01:52:12.349 --> 01:52:13.726 - Monroe County. Yes. 01:52:13.922 --> 01:52:22.174 - That was actually shocking when I read that there no masters was required because I just in my head 01:52:22.174 --> 01:52:30.591 - assume everyone in your office needs a master's. So six out of eight. Yes. Currently. Yes. All right. 01:52:30.591 --> 01:52:38.843 - How did you Kate. Yeah it was right. But now I have something. Yes. Counselor Wills. As you brought 01:52:38.843 --> 01:52:43.134 - up the educational requirements it does say that I. 01:52:43.266 --> 01:52:55.530 - diploma or GED. It does not say a bachelor's degree of any sort is preferred or anything like that. 01:52:55.530 --> 01:52:59.454 - In line with your expectations? 01:52:59.618 --> 01:53:06.394 - I could see bachelors being preferred as a good addition. One of the things that we've noticed with 01:53:06.394 --> 01:53:13.306 - this position being open a few times, it is a extremely stressful position. It has a high volume even 01:53:13.306 --> 01:53:20.286 - before the state mandate. Exit interviews of people saying this is more than one person can handle has 01:53:20.286 --> 01:53:26.046 - come through twice. But I will say that one of the nice things about high school and 01:53:26.370 --> 01:53:32.923 - experiences that we attract people that have basically construction experience or hands-on experience, 01:53:32.923 --> 01:53:39.668 - you know, knowing how to build things, measure things, and that's just something that's not always taught 01:53:39.668 --> 01:53:46.348 - well in the classroom. And so bringing that experience and really the customer service aspect of knowing 01:53:46.348 --> 01:53:48.766 - how to speak to people and get to the 01:53:48.994 --> 01:53:55.738 - of their project. Some people are really confused and they don't quite understand the building process, 01:53:55.738 --> 01:54:02.416 - and imagine that 721 times. We're really explaining from the ground zero up multiple times a day, just 01:54:02.416 --> 01:54:08.901 - this is how this process is, this is what we're looking for, this is why we're looking for that. So 01:54:08.901 --> 01:54:15.644 - as much as it is nice to have that educational background, I also think the other aspects of experience 01:54:15.644 --> 01:54:18.238 - and customer service are also critical. 01:54:18.434 --> 01:54:26.363 - I really appreciate that explanation. Thanks. Thank you very much for taking us through this. I want 01:54:26.363 --> 01:54:34.528 - to compliment your office because I have had a lot over the years of these really difficult constituent 01:54:34.528 --> 01:54:42.535 - issues where usually it's a neighbor noticing something that's just an abomination nearby and needing 01:54:42.535 --> 01:54:43.870 - something to do. 01:54:43.970 --> 01:54:51.441 - And your office is just immediately on that with status updates and assisting those constituents directly. 01:54:51.441 --> 01:54:59.121 - And that's absolutely huge. And if I read this right, this assists with that in the supervisor, supervisorial 01:54:59.121 --> 01:55:06.523 - capacity. Am I right on that? Correct. Our zoning inspector currently handles all residential enforcement 01:55:06.523 --> 01:55:13.854 - and all residential construction. So being able to escalate cases, split that up quite a bit would help. 01:55:14.082 --> 01:55:21.420 - with that role and making sure that we can increase our capacity for enforcement. Because while the 01:55:21.420 --> 01:55:28.757 - state mandate has occurred, it's really put a damper on our ability to start new enforcement cases, 01:55:28.757 --> 01:55:36.388 - get to complaints as quickly as we need to. And we've all tried to pick up the slack. But we don't like 01:55:36.388 --> 01:55:41.598 - operating on squeaky wheels, but that's almost where we are right now. 01:55:41.954 --> 01:55:47.851 - frustration generally on those cases always is you've got folks walking around the county who don't 01:55:47.851 --> 01:55:53.748 - really think about any of this until they reach a point where they need something to figure out for 01:55:53.748 --> 01:55:59.940 - themselves. Then you have others that have been through that process and they are bending over backwards 01:55:59.940 --> 01:56:05.837 - to make sure they're in compliance in doing it. Then you have that third set where they're creating 01:56:05.837 --> 01:56:10.142 - these abominations that just become complete disasters for neighborhoods 01:56:10.274 --> 01:56:16.536 - and or community areas and people struggle with it. I think the big thing that I would throw out and 01:56:16.536 --> 01:56:22.985 - this is more rhetorical question. I'm not asking you all to comment on this, but I'd love your thoughts 01:56:22.985 --> 01:56:29.371 - at some point on this is I know we have. You've got the barriers of the state coming in to say we want 01:56:29.371 --> 01:56:35.572 - these things done and turned around and I. I see where that comes from. I worry when the state does 01:56:35.572 --> 01:56:39.230 - things because well, that's every department we have here. 01:56:39.874 --> 01:56:46.408 - But also on the flip side to that, the thing I always think about, and I would throw this out to other 01:56:46.408 --> 01:56:52.943 - policymakers that are listening, is that I sometimes worry that between the barriers of what the state 01:56:52.943 --> 01:56:59.604 - throws out, the demands of the public, which is a public service that we all do in some form or fashion, 01:56:59.604 --> 01:57:05.948 - and then what policymakers hand down to you all, you have so many masters and so many things you're 01:57:05.948 --> 01:57:09.310 - doing that it would make someone sit on a separation 01:57:09.442 --> 01:57:15.833 - uh, exit interview. This seems like the work for two to three people. And I throw that out to more to 01:57:15.833 --> 01:57:22.349 - policymakers than you all is, um, we have to be really, really cognizant that what we're saying, asking 01:57:22.349 --> 01:57:28.865 - for is not only discernible to the public, but discernible to our staff and can make sense, not in this 01:57:28.865 --> 01:57:35.131 - jurisdiction, but in another. I sat down with a planner one time and I've never left a meeting with 01:57:35.131 --> 01:57:37.950 - my eyes more crossed and the planner equally 01:57:38.178 --> 01:57:44.729 - had their eyes crossed, too. And we both would have been better off just going to a bar and giving up 01:57:44.729 --> 01:57:51.281 - for the day, but neither of us drink. And I think that we've got to just all be really cognizant that 01:57:51.281 --> 01:57:57.960 - we're not taking good people and putting them into impossible situations with things that are just very 01:57:57.960 --> 01:58:03.998 - hard to do. And so I would love to talk to you about that sometime. I'm not asking you to get 01:58:04.130 --> 01:58:12.361 - a sideways with all of us now, but I think it's something to think about. One thing I often do that 01:58:12.361 --> 01:58:20.674 - I like about helping with enforcement is I tell the person, stop looking at the screen, look at each 01:58:20.674 --> 01:58:24.542 - other. What's the goal and what's the problem? 01:58:24.738 --> 01:58:34.141 - and let's work backwards. And then we consult the code as we go along, because sometimes you get so 01:58:34.141 --> 01:58:43.731 - caught up in 544 pages of code that you lose the sight of what your outcome should be. So. Well said. 01:58:43.731 --> 01:58:53.886 - Thank you so much. All right. Questions or any other additional questions or comments from council on this? 01:58:58.914 --> 01:59:11.024 - We will move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the 01:59:11.024 --> 01:59:23.017 - lectern here in the room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, maybe please have a roll 01:59:23.017 --> 01:59:28.190 - call vote. Councilor Hawk. Councilor Wilts. 01:59:28.546 --> 01:59:37.276 - Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor 01:59:37.276 --> 01:59:46.422 - Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. And so the next step for them, I'm sure you all will be in communication 01:59:46.422 --> 01:59:53.822 - as we. Yes. So what I'll do then is tomorrow I will forward this information on to WISC. 01:59:53.986 --> 02:00:00.609 - and ask them to review and classify this position and ask when it will be able to be completed. Excellent. 02:00:00.609 --> 02:00:07.047 - Okay. All right. Thank you. Next up is also another item from the planning department. Item G. Council, 02:00:07.047 --> 02:00:13.422 - I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the planning department's request to reclassify 02:00:13.422 --> 02:00:19.612 - five job description positions in the planning department. Second. All right. We got a motion and a 02:00:19.612 --> 02:00:23.326 - second. Ms. Jelen, what would you like to add to this item? 02:00:25.378 --> 02:00:33.160 - Thank you so much. So this is as we gave a department update a few weeks ago, an outcome of our executive 02:00:33.160 --> 02:00:41.089 - committee memo, which you can find on pages 56 and 57. And this is again due to the loss of three positions 02:00:41.089 --> 02:00:48.578 - in our eight person department within nine months. So I really have two requests tonight based on the 02:00:48.578 --> 02:00:50.046 - recommendation from 02:00:50.114 --> 02:00:58.045 - Kim show, which I really appreciate. I put together both a fiscal impact of comparing counties and then 02:00:58.045 --> 02:01:05.823 - also seven position descriptions to send to WIS. So in the packet, you'll see two county comparisons, 02:01:05.823 --> 02:01:13.677 - one on page fifty five, which is the I believe standard counties that we're using for comparison. This 02:01:13.677 --> 02:01:17.566 - was a county comparison that I believe the highway 02:01:17.794 --> 02:01:22.590 - director used for coming up with a highway engineer. 02:01:22.690 --> 02:01:29.887 - I'll note that a highway engineer is one position and I believe there's some funding through the state 02:01:29.887 --> 02:01:36.944 - to have a highway engineer. So these counties may have more likely had that position. In my findings 02:01:36.944 --> 02:01:43.931 - on these different counties, they either had few positions or no planning or no building department 02:01:43.931 --> 02:01:51.058 - at all. So you'll see that the differences shows that we're overpaying. So I would like to point your 02:01:51.058 --> 02:01:51.966 - attention to 02:01:52.098 --> 02:02:00.159 - page 58 of the packet, which I understand is not the list of standardized counties, but it does include 02:02:00.159 --> 02:02:08.066 - counties that have college towns in them and a more comparable cost of living. And on page 58 and the 02:02:08.066 --> 02:02:11.166 - right hand side, you'll see. Oh, sorry. 02:02:13.090 --> 02:02:19.740 - You'll see the average differences and so I'll just go through in red just what those came out to be 02:02:19.740 --> 02:02:26.390 - across the different counties of comparison so the director difference of pay between these counties 02:02:26.390 --> 02:02:31.262 - and Monroe County was fifteen thousand two hundred ninety two dollars and 02:02:31.426 --> 02:02:39.073 - and this is using the 2027 2% COLA as well. The assistant director is the only position that showed 02:02:39.073 --> 02:02:46.719 - that we were overpaying, but I want to note that our assistant director is at a 14-year rate, which 02:02:46.719 --> 02:02:54.366 - is wonderful that she stayed for 14 years and began as a planner making $35,000 a year. So the base 02:02:54.562 --> 02:03:02.862 - Pay comparison, if you were to look at that, shows underpay of $13,060. And then senior planner was 02:03:02.862 --> 02:03:04.190 - a difference of 02:03:04.354 --> 02:03:11.539 - twelve thousand two hundred sixty six dollars planner to forty seven hundred sixty five dollars and 02:03:11.539 --> 02:03:19.227 - zoning inspector. We are paying ninety nine hundred dollars less. So I'd like to request that you consider 02:03:19.227 --> 02:03:26.412 - page fifty eight as a fiscal comparison that's more comparable to Monroe County in both. I hear you 02:03:26.412 --> 02:03:33.310 - all prioritizing and acknowledging the importance of planning and also that these college towns 02:03:33.634 --> 02:03:41.081 - tend to have more similarities and differences in terms of Monroe County and those counties. So along 02:03:41.081 --> 02:03:48.529 - with requests to sending these red line position descriptions to WIS, I ask that you look at page 58. 02:03:48.529 --> 02:03:51.230 - And then I also want to just spend a 02:03:51.554 --> 02:03:58.004 - I think we've talked about the Indiana state code change with the permitting within three days, but 02:03:58.004 --> 02:04:04.455 - something else that's transpired since we last looked at these position description updates in 2021 02:04:04.455 --> 02:04:11.034 - was that the state requires us to accept bonds from developers for subdivisions in return for letting 02:04:11.034 --> 02:04:17.549 - them final plot. There's been amendments to that state code, and now we've taken it and run with it. 02:04:17.549 --> 02:04:19.742 - We used to have this administered 02:04:19.842 --> 02:04:26.179 - with this from the Highway Department, mainly tracking down those letters of credit, and we still work 02:04:26.179 --> 02:04:32.393 - closely with them, and we really appreciate their work. But what the Planning Department has done is 02:04:32.393 --> 02:04:39.038 - started to create reports and actual correspondence lines with those developers, with those bankers to say, 02:04:39.106 --> 02:04:45.396 - When are you getting this subdivision done? And this is what's left. We've looked at aerials. We've 02:04:45.396 --> 02:04:51.938 - looked at the construction plans. You have taken 12 years to finish out this last phase. We see there's 02:04:51.938 --> 02:04:55.838 - only one lot left. What is there to be done? How can we help? 02:04:55.938 --> 02:05:03.788 - We have also created a code that requires a 10 percent inflation adjustment along the way to keep them 02:05:03.788 --> 02:05:11.790 - motivated to finish out their projects, get it accepted into the inventory and not have homeowners stuck 02:05:11.790 --> 02:05:18.878 - with the cost of maintaining their roads, sidewalks and other features in their subdivision. 02:05:19.202 --> 02:05:25.400 - our team has been helping with that. And as well as, you know, just helping the public in general with 02:05:25.400 --> 02:05:31.478 - that process of the state code permitting, we've done a lot of plot plan drawings for the public. We 02:05:31.478 --> 02:05:37.676 - receive a quite high traffic from people now that used to start in the building department and now are 02:05:37.676 --> 02:05:43.754 - coming to the planning department. And so since these position descriptions were last updated around 02:05:43.754 --> 02:05:46.462 - twenty twenty one, we've seen quite a lot of 02:05:46.690 --> 02:05:53.172 - building pressure. So even though interest rates have changed, even though sewer policies have changed, 02:05:53.172 --> 02:05:59.405 - we're still seeing a lot of people wanting to build accessory dwelling units, pole barns, get their 02:05:59.405 --> 02:06:05.824 - estate in good condition before they pass away. These are all things that we deal with in terms of day 02:06:05.824 --> 02:06:10.686 - to day in our office. And so we're still seeing quite high traffic with that. 02:06:10.786 --> 02:06:18.813 - And then also we passed our county development ordinance in 2024. So leaving time, you know, and having 02:06:18.813 --> 02:06:26.531 - good trained staff that we can retain with higher salaries gives us more time to be able to do some 02:06:26.531 --> 02:06:29.310 - of these other projects to in-house 02:06:29.538 --> 02:06:36.456 - think about ordinance updates that make things more streamlined for the public or even in the future, 02:06:36.456 --> 02:06:43.577 - comprehensive planning that would otherwise cost the county more money to contract that out. But without 02:06:43.577 --> 02:06:50.427 - having the retention, without, you know, with having to train people every so often and it takes six 02:06:50.427 --> 02:06:57.413 - months to do that, you know, in one year, the time at that person's desk of six months, that's $18,000 02:06:57.413 --> 02:06:58.430 - of staff value 02:06:58.626 --> 02:07:06.925 - just sitting there and training that person and trying to get them, you know, able to operate by themselves. 02:07:06.925 --> 02:07:14.768 - So that's really what we're asking tonight is to ask that you consider the comparable counties on page 02:07:14.768 --> 02:07:22.458 - 58. And if you can consider those position description updates to with since we've taken on some new 02:07:22.458 --> 02:07:26.494 - responsibilities since we've last reviewed those so. 02:07:26.658 --> 02:07:32.729 - I appreciate your time, and I'm happy to go through any of those position description updates, what 02:07:32.729 --> 02:07:38.800 - the grid classification requests are, anything like that. It's all in the packet, but happy to walk 02:07:38.800 --> 02:07:44.932 - through that. Thank you very much. And the packet was very much extensive, so I really appreciate it 02:07:44.932 --> 02:07:51.064 - seeing the comparison counties, because I think those are definitely comparable to Monroe County. So 02:07:51.064 --> 02:07:55.678 - I appreciate that. And I saw hands raised, so I'll go Councilmember Decker. 02:07:55.842 --> 02:08:03.115 - I have a procedural question. Is this tonight, if we're working with this, is this for us to say we're 02:08:03.115 --> 02:08:10.175 - taking what the director's given us, passing that to WIS, waiting for WIS to come back with things, 02:08:10.175 --> 02:08:17.378 - or is this us bypassing that, or? That is correct. And correct me if I'm wrong, this is basically the 02:08:17.378 --> 02:08:24.862 - same thing that we just did in previous. With an exception of, that was a new position, but this is just, 02:08:25.378 --> 02:08:37.769 - information and send it in to waste. Yeah, what will happen is if you want to send it out, you can send 02:08:37.769 --> 02:08:49.684 - it out and those positions will then be reviewed by West. Um. I will say that per our salary grids, 02:08:49.684 --> 02:08:53.854 - the director is already at the top 02:08:54.818 --> 02:09:02.371 - So when they do come back and everything, that will probably be another meeting with regards to, do 02:09:02.371 --> 02:09:10.225 - you want to move forward with their request of how they would like to see them classified? But for now, 02:09:10.225 --> 02:09:18.382 - there are several things that need to be redone. That may be something that WIS will take in consideration. 02:09:18.382 --> 02:09:23.518 - So she has filled out all the appropriate paperwork and everything. 02:09:23.618 --> 02:09:34.795 - with regards to making that those requests available. So my understanding is we don't send a request 02:09:34.795 --> 02:09:45.861 - for a classification to with them the information about the job, which would be the red line in the 02:09:45.861 --> 02:09:53.054 - questionnaires. They're going to come back with a recommendation 02:09:54.402 --> 02:10:06.287 - for classifications? On the forms, and I'm going to try and find one real quick. On the form, it does, 02:10:06.287 --> 02:10:17.940 - because this is a reclass, on one of the forms, there is an option to say this is what we want right 02:10:17.940 --> 02:10:19.902 - here. Let's see. 02:10:25.346 --> 02:10:33.970 - department head can request any any classification because it you know they're thinking okay I'm doing 02:10:33.970 --> 02:10:42.342 - all of this and everything so this is what the current classification is the department can request 02:10:42.342 --> 02:10:50.715 - another classification now if it points out to that and the org chart and everything that that will 02:10:50.715 --> 02:10:53.310 - be taken into consideration so 02:10:53.954 --> 02:11:02.548 - but they can request it. It doesn't mean they'll get it, but they can request it. Yes, Councilmember 02:11:02.548 --> 02:11:11.397 - Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you again for, again, planners like to plan. So anytime you're 02:11:11.397 --> 02:11:13.950 - here before us making a case, 02:11:14.114 --> 02:11:19.985 - It's comprehensive. What's here, I would support completely going to WIS as is for their adjudication 02:11:19.985 --> 02:11:26.086 - coming back on it. And I would just say for the record, I sit on the Executive Committee for the Planning 02:11:26.086 --> 02:11:32.072 - Commission and that strange sensation you're all feeling is Commissioner Thomas and I agreeing on this. 02:11:32.072 --> 02:11:36.446 - As we should move forward together on how we reclassify this department and 02:11:36.674 --> 02:11:43.446 - are competitive to make sure, just as we talked about in the previous item, that we're providing the 02:11:43.446 --> 02:11:50.152 - most essential services to our community. So given that this is moving it forward for adjudication, 02:11:50.152 --> 02:11:57.393 - and we get it back, come what may, I'm in favor of moving this forward this evening. Councilmember Hawkins, 02:11:57.393 --> 02:12:01.886 - then I'll go to Everson. Yes. When this goes off to WIS, and there 02:12:02.050 --> 02:12:09.325 - if they're looking at what the other salaries are in the other counties, I want to strongly request 02:12:09.325 --> 02:12:16.601 - that they look at the benefits. You know, not every county matches the perf. I mean, many times our 02:12:16.601 --> 02:12:24.021 - county employees look at their salary amount and they don't recognize the fact that if they worked in 02:12:24.021 --> 02:12:31.806 - someplace else, they would be paying into that perf and the county covers all that. That's 3% right there. 02:12:32.066 --> 02:12:39.155 - And then in addition to which, when we looked at what it was going to cost for the health benefits, 02:12:39.155 --> 02:12:46.315 - the self-insurance, and all of the different benefits that is included, it's not just for insurance, 02:12:46.315 --> 02:12:52.766 - but all the other benefits they added together to come up with the total it's going to be. 02:12:52.962 --> 02:13:00.375 - We are so generous with our benefits. I don't know how long we can continue when I say we, the county, 02:13:00.375 --> 02:13:07.716 - because it's not us that's doing it. It's the county taxpayers paying for it. But that alone is huge. 02:13:07.716 --> 02:13:14.985 - With family leave time and so forth, and then we wonder why we've got all of the overtime that we're 02:13:14.985 --> 02:13:22.398 - paying in these departments when we've got people who are gone for a long, I'm not saying they should. 02:13:22.498 --> 02:13:30.632 - But I'm saying we have to recognize that that is also a part of our overtime expenses. Somebody has 02:13:30.632 --> 02:13:38.767 - to pick up that work when those people are gone. So I just want to make sure that that is looked at 02:13:38.767 --> 02:13:46.901 - because our benefit package and paying for the perv is a really large part of why people stay here. 02:13:46.901 --> 02:13:51.294 - I work for county government, but it's also a part of 02:13:51.522 --> 02:13:59.080 - what they consider to be or should consider to be part of their exchange for services. That's sort of 02:13:59.080 --> 02:14:06.563 - what I call, you know, you look at your paycheck, but it's really the exchange for services that the 02:14:06.563 --> 02:14:14.269 - people of this county are paying for. I don't know whether they're looking at that when they're looking 02:14:14.269 --> 02:14:19.678 - at the comparisons to the other counties, but I want them to look at it. 02:14:24.386 --> 02:14:30.470 - In looking at today's packet, the vast majority of this packet, over 150 pages, is the work you put 02:14:30.470 --> 02:14:36.432 - into redlining job descriptions, filling out the new questionnaires, providing a fiscal analysis, 02:14:36.432 --> 02:14:42.516 - et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think the time to bring back PAC is now. I think we're gonna get 02:14:42.516 --> 02:14:48.661 - more and more requests like this from departments. I think this packet is just too large for council 02:14:48.661 --> 02:14:52.190 - to take on by itself. I think this needs a dedicated time 02:14:52.322 --> 02:14:58.949 - for a smaller group to review and come up with next steps, because I don't think this is the last type 02:14:58.949 --> 02:15:05.383 - of request that we're going to get like this. I think this is the tip of the spear. And so I really 02:15:05.383 --> 02:15:12.009 - appreciate all the work you put into this. Also, particularly the hyperlinked sources, thank you. That 02:15:12.009 --> 02:15:18.572 - is really nice. And so I'm going to be supporting this. I do think WIS needs to look at this. I think 02:15:18.572 --> 02:15:22.046 - we need to re-evaluate some of what's happening here. 02:15:22.306 --> 02:15:29.913 - Boy, when I was reviewing the packet, I was just thinking, there's just no way that this council is 02:15:29.913 --> 02:15:37.596 - gonna go through this many red line job descriptions and pick them apart the way that PAC would. And 02:15:37.596 --> 02:15:45.204 - I think that that's really gonna be the work that we're gonna have to pick right back up next year. 02:15:45.204 --> 02:15:52.126 - So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Wilks. So in the spirit, I think, 02:15:52.546 --> 02:16:01.352 - You've made a case, a strong case for what you're asking for. And in the past that we had a process 02:16:01.352 --> 02:16:10.246 - for this, and I'm just, I guess, a little surprised and wondering what my colleagues think about the 02:16:10.246 --> 02:16:19.404 - fact that we've told all of county government they can't do this. We've told everyone we're in a hiring 02:16:19.404 --> 02:16:22.398 - freeze and we keep hiring people. 02:16:24.002 --> 02:16:35.491 - I understand the replacement is different than new hires, but new hire and then also bumping everybody 02:16:35.491 --> 02:16:47.092 - up and paying list to do so does seem to fly in the face of everything we've done around trying to rein 02:16:47.092 --> 02:16:52.446 - in these costs. And I would really like to hear 02:16:52.642 --> 02:17:06.421 - how everyone else is defying this or Henry and Hawk speak as a more recent member of this body and I 02:17:06.421 --> 02:17:11.742 - have two thoughts on that the first is 02:17:11.906 --> 02:17:17.543 - That was then this is now times change from a year ago and circumstances and conditions a year ago we 02:17:17.543 --> 02:17:23.235 - were facing what we thought would be a much larger deficit cliff and we're not necessarily facing that 02:17:23.235 --> 02:17:28.872 - in the way we're even moving right now. That doesn't mean a year from now we won't be in dire straits 02:17:28.872 --> 02:17:34.509 - when certain instruments and two years out certain lit changes but it's a moment in time. I can I can 02:17:34.509 --> 02:17:39.870 - appreciate the 12 months or nearly 12 months has passed since we had those discussions. Secondly 02:17:40.290 --> 02:17:46.020 - The whole concept of PAC was designed before I was seated here. And so I think I said this last week, 02:17:46.020 --> 02:17:51.638 - I've had a year of being in a PAC process and a year of not being in a PAC process. So the merit or 02:17:51.638 --> 02:17:57.312 - use of it or utility, where I appreciate Councilor Iverson's comment about where the work is done in 02:17:57.312 --> 02:18:02.987 - other counties, they don't have such a thing. They do the work from their seat. And so I maybe don't 02:18:02.987 --> 02:18:09.054 - have enough long tooth to know the difference, but I've managed to function under both of those conditions. 02:18:09.762 --> 02:18:18.626 - That was then this is now. That's my answer to that. So I'm fine with what we're doing. I'm somewhat 02:18:18.626 --> 02:18:27.578 - concerned that perhaps not everybody on the council is in agreement on whether or not we are supposed 02:18:27.578 --> 02:18:36.442 - to be cutting expenses. Don't seem to be in agreement on that. And when I looked at the numbers that 02:18:36.442 --> 02:18:37.758 - were sent out, 02:18:38.466 --> 02:18:44.725 - It looked to me like we were going to have to shore up some of the other max levy funds. That has to 02:18:44.725 --> 02:18:51.107 - come from someplace. And from what I could see, the request for county general was far exceeded county 02:18:51.107 --> 02:18:57.490 - general's revenue. Now, you know, you're in deficit. If you're spending more, then you're bringing in. 02:18:57.490 --> 02:19:03.872 - That means you're going into your cash reserves and spending that down. And you can only spend it down 02:19:03.872 --> 02:19:07.838 - until you wake up one day and you don't have any money to work. 02:19:08.162 --> 02:19:16.272 - at the beginning of the year because that December collection is supposed to get you through until next 02:19:16.272 --> 02:19:24.149 - June. I think we're making a lot of decisions here when we haven't really been through each of these 02:19:24.149 --> 02:19:32.103 - budgets and look at where we stand. And I truly am really amazed when I hear from others that we just 02:19:32.103 --> 02:19:36.158 - really don't have a problem. Well, I believe we do. 02:19:37.186 --> 02:19:44.132 - I don't say it's insurmountable, but I do think that we're going to have to be spending down the income 02:19:44.132 --> 02:19:50.945 - tax money that was supposed to be saved back for other things. And that's the only way we're going to 02:19:50.945 --> 02:19:57.557 - be able to do it. I've heard yet, unless somebody's heard, that the commissioners have said, well, 02:19:57.557 --> 02:20:02.366 - that's OK. You can do that. Because before, they said, no, we couldn't. 02:20:03.842 --> 02:20:10.610 - go so far with with that jail lit because I thought well maybe we could like move a lot of that jail 02:20:10.610 --> 02:20:17.377 - expenses over to jail it so are we really biting off more than we can chew right now or are we going 02:20:17.377 --> 02:20:24.480 - to just wait until we get to the end of this well and to that point as I mentioned before the next couple 02:20:24.480 --> 02:20:29.438 - of weeks we will be sitting down with the commissioners one to talk about 02:20:29.858 --> 02:20:41.243 - As a reminder folks the geo bonds and the edit use and so by that time frame we would be we would have 02:20:41.243 --> 02:20:51.522 - heard several other nights of Budget sessions, so that's that's what I'd want to say to that 02:20:51.522 --> 02:20:57.822 - Yes, Councilmember world I'm wondering if there would be 02:20:58.370 --> 02:21:07.533 - an appetite for council to table this decision until we've gone through the other budgets and we get 02:21:07.533 --> 02:21:16.696 - closer to the end where we have a better idea of where we're coming in, because I mean, I don't want 02:21:16.696 --> 02:21:27.038 - to just say no, because I do hear you and see what you've put forward, but I do have a lot of reservations around 02:21:29.794 --> 02:21:39.724 - making this kind of commitment long term, um, just given our, uh, our unsureness about what's happening 02:21:39.724 --> 02:21:49.558 - right now. Well, when's Boeing's budget adoption again on the calendar? What's the date? October 20th. 02:21:49.558 --> 02:21:54.046 - October 20th. What's the next council meeting? 02:22:06.338 --> 02:22:13.157 - October 27th. Point that would be the timeline. That one more time. I'm sorry to Councilor Wilson's 02:22:13.157 --> 02:22:19.977 - comment that that timeline of budget adoption in the next meeting to when to take something off the 02:22:19.977 --> 02:22:27.069 - table could work. That's all I was trying to get the dates down. Okay, we could decide it before budget 02:22:27.069 --> 02:22:34.025 - adoption. But after we've gotten because there's a solid little cushion there after we've made all of 02:22:34.025 --> 02:22:35.934 - our decisions deliberations 02:22:36.386 --> 02:22:43.580 - I think when I was looking at it earlier, there's a couple of weeks, and I think there's a meeting prior 02:22:43.580 --> 02:22:50.432 - to October 20th where we might have enough information to do it, but. You know, sir. That would be. 02:22:50.432 --> 02:22:57.284 - Auntie right and I also want to remind us we have budget night number seven, and so that's where we 02:22:57.284 --> 02:23:04.616 - will go through and look at everything. And so this could be on the front of our brains as we are thinking 02:23:04.616 --> 02:23:05.438 - about that. 02:23:05.762 --> 02:23:11.885 - Councilor Iverson has been patient so I'll go Councilor Iverson and then I'll come back to Councilmember 02:23:11.885 --> 02:23:18.065 - Decker. The reason I think that we should be setting this to whisk this evening is because from I haven't 02:23:18.065 --> 02:23:24.071 - gone through every single one of the red line job descriptions in depth but there are some substantive 02:23:24.071 --> 02:23:29.902 - changes to some of these job descriptions. That means that if there is a classification change that 02:23:29.902 --> 02:23:31.710 - would change the fiscal impact 02:23:31.970 --> 02:23:39.261 - of that job description. At this point, before sending it to WIS, we just don't know if that's going 02:23:39.261 --> 02:23:46.551 - to be the case or not. So sending it to WIS is an investment in getting more and better information. 02:23:46.551 --> 02:23:53.914 - Then we can make the decision on whether to move forward once we know the true fiscal impact of this. 02:23:53.914 --> 02:24:01.854 - I think that's the reason I think we should move forward this evening. I remember at the council always wants 02:24:02.338 --> 02:24:08.338 - these discussions coming here in the public so that you have that rather than what sometimes happens, 02:24:08.338 --> 02:24:14.220 - and I believe has happened in the past, where departments or department heads or their boards, they 02:24:14.220 --> 02:24:20.102 - don't approach this discussion because there's this ominous we're all going to die kind of rhetoric 02:24:20.102 --> 02:24:26.219 - that comes out about budgets every so often. I think we have to have this discussion about what's going 02:24:26.219 --> 02:24:31.454 - on in that department. I think you have to have it because there's changes to state law. 02:24:31.714 --> 02:24:38.583 - unfunded mandate or what, there's a whole lot of that going around and it is wiser to look at these 02:24:38.583 --> 02:24:45.452 - descriptions, know what needs to be done than not. Bearing your head in the sand and just saying, I 02:24:45.452 --> 02:24:52.458 - just don't know what's going on doesn't speak to the changes in state law and it doesn't speak to the 02:24:52.458 --> 02:24:59.395 - concerns for the services that this department offers for some of the greatest need that we have and 02:24:59.395 --> 02:25:01.662 - that's getting people into homes 02:25:01.954 --> 02:25:09.356 - as quickly and efficiently as possible as they can do. I believe because there is so much, there's so 02:25:09.356 --> 02:25:16.830 - many red lines that you do need WIS information sooner rather than later. We've seen those in the past 02:25:16.830 --> 02:25:24.304 - where something we thought was exceedingly simple and a department head thought was exceedingly simple 02:25:24.304 --> 02:25:31.198 - that WIS has taken us around in circles on that. I also will say this, we often have the issue 02:25:31.330 --> 02:25:38.504 - Fairness between departments come up. And every department in some, I'm not gonna, let me take that 02:25:38.504 --> 02:25:45.894 - back. A lot of departments in many different forms and fashions have different things that affect them 02:25:45.894 --> 02:25:53.140 - differently, even though we try to have this, everything's completely fair. Some departments show up 02:25:53.140 --> 02:25:59.166 - in the bond, the GO bond. I don't think your department's anywhere in that GO bond. 02:26:00.098 --> 02:26:06.632 - I bet it's not been for three or four years, five years, maybe ever, right? So this is a department 02:26:06.632 --> 02:26:13.558 - that's not showing up that way. That's a vehicle for a lot of other departments. There's some departments 02:26:13.558 --> 02:26:20.222 - that get grants. I don't think you get many grants, right? Yeah. So look, apples and oranges. And you 02:26:20.222 --> 02:26:26.952 - always hear it from the, oh, you're playing favorites on that one and you're doing that. Friends, I've 02:26:26.952 --> 02:26:29.566 - been here long enough, I've heard that. 02:26:30.146 --> 02:26:37.323 - I've done at every angle. I've also seen a lot of different counselors up here do it in a lot of different 02:26:37.323 --> 02:26:44.030 - ways. But ultimately, I think I'm a little less worried about that. I'd rather have the information 02:26:44.030 --> 02:26:50.738 - so that we can then figure out with the budget. It may be that there's a little bit of this or that 02:26:50.738 --> 02:26:57.982 - we can do, or it may be all of it, depending on our numbers. But I'd rather, to me, kind of where Peter is, 02:26:58.114 --> 02:27:06.829 - I'd rather get that information from WIS because I've seen that be so difficult in the past. So can 02:27:06.829 --> 02:27:15.544 - I ask a question to staff? When we, how long does WIS normally typically take? If they don't have a 02:27:15.544 --> 02:27:23.998 - whole lot on their plate, it typically takes approximately two weeks. Okay. So that's why I ask. 02:27:27.714 --> 02:27:34.784 - It could because we've already redlined we've already done the org chart we've already you know filled 02:27:34.784 --> 02:27:41.716 - out all the paperwork. So it's that's why I always ask. But I think the caveat to note there is with 02:27:41.716 --> 02:27:48.786 - does their work in order receive. So if they have a whole bunch of other counties asking for this then 02:27:48.786 --> 02:27:51.806 - we're just going to be getting in the line. 02:27:53.826 --> 02:28:03.301 - but I guess we won't know until we start. And what it sounds like is as we are going, it might be helpful 02:28:03.301 --> 02:28:12.329 - for us to have this information as we are going through, as we are going through the budget, instead 02:28:12.329 --> 02:28:19.390 - of possibly waiting later, we've gone through and yeah. I don't have a problem 02:28:20.674 --> 02:28:27.562 - You know, I worked with Jackie and her person, Mr. Ferris, you know, with these job descriptions. They 02:28:27.562 --> 02:28:34.784 - did the bulk of the work. I just guided them, this kind of thing. I would like, I mean, if more departments 02:28:34.784 --> 02:28:41.471 - are gonna do this, they went through, they talked to their liaison, they got permission to do this. 02:28:41.471 --> 02:28:48.025 - I think that's where the discussion has to be. The departments have to talk to their liaison and, 02:28:48.025 --> 02:28:49.630 - you know, go, you know, 02:28:50.530 --> 02:29:00.248 - I plead my case like the planning department has. So whether we have PAC or not, I don't know, but it 02:29:00.248 --> 02:29:09.965 - still comes down to the liaisons and their discussions with them on whether they move forward or not. 02:29:09.965 --> 02:29:20.350 - And I mean, we could also rescind the PAC pause if we needed to. So I mean, that is the thing. I will agree. 02:29:20.514 --> 02:29:27.983 - Maybe this is something, because whatever PAC does as a committee will come back to the larger council 02:29:27.983 --> 02:29:35.234 - for us to know what is happening, what's going on. Of course, we get it in the packet as well. I do 02:29:35.234 --> 02:29:42.558 - think that it is helpful for PAC to do something like this and bring this back to council, because I 02:29:42.558 --> 02:29:49.374 - do think that once word gets out that this is something that we're going to be doing, I think 02:29:49.698 --> 02:29:57.765 - I think that our meetings will. We'll have a lot of departments coming in and doing the same thing again. 02:29:57.765 --> 02:30:05.452 - I understand that that's what we do, and that's what we are in the seats for. But I also think that, 02:30:05.452 --> 02:30:13.215 - you know, having a committee do this and then send in that recommendation onto the larger council for 02:30:13.215 --> 02:30:18.238 - approval is also helpful is what I'm saying. But I hear Councilor 02:30:18.690 --> 02:30:27.707 - like I was there with you. And then, you know, Councilmember Decker had mentioned, you know, maybe we 02:30:27.707 --> 02:30:36.989 - need to start doing this right now and thinking about this. So again, I see both sides, very fine sides. 02:30:36.989 --> 02:30:45.918 - Sorry. So I see it. I see all of it because they have made their case and they've done the work. So. 02:30:47.298 --> 02:30:56.110 - any other questions or comments from council on this item? Many thanks to you and your staff and your 02:30:56.110 --> 02:31:04.921 - board and Mr. Ferris and anybody else that is a part of this online. We'll move on to public comment. 02:31:04.921 --> 02:31:13.733 - If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise 02:31:13.733 --> 02:31:16.670 - your hand via Teams. Seeing none, 02:31:17.026 --> 02:31:28.759 - maybe please have a roll call vote. And this is to move this on immediately to WIS. Correct. Okay. Councilor 02:31:28.759 --> 02:31:40.492 - Wilts? Yes. Which you can come back. Okay. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? 02:31:40.492 --> 02:31:45.982 - Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. 02:31:46.434 --> 02:31:57.483 - Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Wilts? No. Motion passes, majority five to two. Thank you very much. And 02:31:57.483 --> 02:32:08.318 - we will, as the world turns, we'll see what happens next. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. 02:32:11.106 --> 02:32:20.275 - next up is item number nine, um, which is because we table H. Um, so we are going to an update on the 02:32:20.275 --> 02:32:29.263 - convening of must. And so, um, there was a poll that Michelle did and, um, was conducted. And so it 02:32:29.263 --> 02:32:38.522 - looks like people from all that are a part of this, um, the must ask force group will meet or have its 02:32:38.522 --> 02:32:39.870 - first meeting. 02:32:40.226 --> 02:32:48.429 - on September 18th at one o'clock p.m. here in the Natt U Hill room. Of course, this meeting is open 02:32:48.429 --> 02:32:57.207 - to the public and we will need a council representative to do so. I would volunteer myself to the Tribune. 02:32:57.207 --> 02:33:05.493 - However, I am not. I have some things that are coming up over the next few weeks that will hinder my 02:33:05.493 --> 02:33:08.446 - participation both here and county. 02:33:08.866 --> 02:33:15.870 - are on County Council and this, and so I don't want to mess up the business and flow. So I'm looking 02:33:15.870 --> 02:33:22.875 - to council colleagues to see if anybody would like to raise their hand and say, yes, I will do that. 02:33:22.875 --> 02:33:29.810 - Councilor Iverson. Council, because we've had a series of long-term finance committee meetings that 02:33:29.810 --> 02:33:37.022 - have dealt with a lot of these issues, I think it's something that I would be willing to do. Thank you. 02:33:40.226 --> 02:33:48.529 - Council Member Hawke. Yes, I sent a very detailed list of questions that I thought needed to be answered 02:33:48.529 --> 02:33:56.517 - before we move forward with this meeting. If you've been following what state legislation says, what 02:33:56.517 --> 02:34:04.662 - Jamie Boesler has to say from AIC, was in conversation with her yet just today, you'll know that we've 02:34:04.662 --> 02:34:06.718 - not sent off to the other 02:34:07.106 --> 02:34:16.032 - units, the questions and answers that we're supposed to have so that we all are sitting on the same 02:34:16.032 --> 02:34:25.136 - page with the same financial information that we're all looking at the same numbers. Now, this is not 02:34:25.136 --> 02:34:32.990 - a secret. This is something that was sent out to everyone. Now I know everybody's busy. 02:34:33.826 --> 02:34:42.493 - But that list was extensive of the things that we should be getting, that we always should have from 02:34:42.493 --> 02:34:51.074 - the city, from Bloomington, from Ellitsville, and from Steinsville. It was a detailed list, whether 02:34:51.074 --> 02:34:59.741 - or not they had a TIF, what other interlocals that they had. One of the other, for instance, do they 02:34:59.741 --> 02:35:01.886 - have a debt that's tied? 02:35:02.050 --> 02:35:10.906 - to an income tax. Those are serious questions. And we should not send anybody, I don't care how many 02:35:10.906 --> 02:35:20.288 - meetings you've been to, we should not send anybody from this county council to go up against that without 02:35:20.288 --> 02:35:29.144 - that information. Ask for it, I have not received it. And I certainly am not saying I'm giving up my 02:35:29.144 --> 02:35:31.774 - name to go because right now, 02:35:32.258 --> 02:35:42.077 - I've got my counting hat on, and I'm in no way, until we look at all of those numbers, in a position 02:35:42.077 --> 02:35:52.090 - to say, I think we should give up part of our revenue to another taxing unit, nor do I think we should 02:35:52.090 --> 02:35:55.006 - not live in the city and send 02:35:55.202 --> 02:36:01.970 - a large majority of that money over to the city. That is taxation without representation. We've been 02:36:01.970 --> 02:36:06.526 - fighting that for years. Why are we so eager to jump back in there? 02:36:06.690 --> 02:36:12.792 - And further, I've been hearing from people, well, let's include the schools. Well, remember, we're not 02:36:12.792 --> 02:36:18.715 - a Cajet county. We're not a part of the former Cajet county. We are a Coet county. The former Cajet 02:36:18.715 --> 02:36:24.758 - counties, in order to get the use of an income tax, had to make a commitment that they were splitting 02:36:24.758 --> 02:36:27.838 - the money and sending money to the schools as well. 02:36:27.938 --> 02:36:36.773 - that agreement. And we never have sent the money off to the schools. If we send the money off to the 02:36:36.773 --> 02:36:45.870 - schools, it's going to have to come from the county operational dollars or the city operational dollars 02:36:45.870 --> 02:36:54.880 - if they should choose. And truly, it would never be in the best interest of Ellsville to vote in favor 02:36:54.880 --> 02:36:57.854 - of using a municipal rate because 02:36:57.986 --> 02:37:06.794 - it's going to be decided before the election, and they've got the merger sitting there. They're trying 02:37:06.794 --> 02:37:15.688 - to get the merger to go through. If the merger goes through, that income tax additional, the 1.2, would 02:37:15.688 --> 02:37:24.497 - 100% from Richland go to Ellisville? Why would they want to then split off part of it to the city? I'm 02:37:24.497 --> 02:37:25.694 - just saying I 02:37:26.306 --> 02:37:37.412 - I hope nobody from this council will go forward and do anything other than just listen. That's the whole 02:37:37.412 --> 02:37:48.200 - point, because it is literally nonbinding. We have to do this convene by the 1st of October, which is 02:37:48.200 --> 02:37:51.902 - about three and a half weeks away. 02:37:52.738 --> 02:38:01.988 - I think having a conversation with our fellow taxing unit compadres is helpful. When we have this meeting 02:38:01.988 --> 02:38:11.237 - on the 18th, we are not coming back and saying, all this is all set in stone. It is a conversation simply 02:38:11.237 --> 02:38:20.574 - that is happening. I am thankful that Mr. Iverson has decided to volunteer himself. He will give a report. 02:38:20.834 --> 02:38:28.670 - and will let us know. Obviously, these are public meetings, so, you know, we can watch. Can all attend 02:38:28.670 --> 02:38:36.733 - because that will cause a quorum of council. But it is literally just us having the conversation. Council 02:38:36.733 --> 02:38:44.417 - member Decker, were you going to say something? I was going to say this. I Mark Council member Hawke 02:38:44.417 --> 02:38:50.046 - Marty, you you're very incredulous over this discussion. I don't know how 02:38:50.594 --> 02:38:56.316 - Councilor Iverson would go to the meeting and not pass along your questions you're worried about. I 02:38:56.316 --> 02:39:02.153 - also will say this. One thing that the localities have got to do a better job, because I'll be in one 02:39:02.153 --> 02:39:07.990 - meeting and they'll criticize that I'm talking too much to one and not talking to another, is talk to 02:39:07.990 --> 02:39:13.998 - each other. We have got to talk because the state's goal, and I know that you disagree with this because 02:39:13.998 --> 02:39:20.350 - you always defend them and DLGF and all your friends, but the state goal is for us to keep choking each other. 02:39:20.834 --> 02:39:27.272 - They want us fighting. They want us wallowing in the mud and turning on each other because they don't 02:39:27.272 --> 02:39:33.648 - have to do what we do, which is deal with sheriffs and deputies and jail buildings. They can do wild 02:39:33.648 --> 02:39:40.086 - legislation and fun times and go barbecue with the lieutenant governor. But the reality is we have to 02:39:40.086 --> 02:39:46.398 - live here with each other. And I think that if we don't have that kind of discussion, we get things 02:39:46.498 --> 02:39:53.288 - like are exactly happening right now, and I was glad to hear you talk about the Elstville reorganization 02:39:53.288 --> 02:39:59.755 - for a change, that that has been brought up because that community feels like they don't get enough 02:39:59.755 --> 02:40:06.415 - interchange with the rest of us, right? So that same community is going to want to be in conversations 02:40:06.415 --> 02:40:12.882 - with us if this happens. Now, one thing is we don't know if that passes. We don't know if the state 02:40:12.882 --> 02:40:14.046 - changes its mind. 02:40:14.498 --> 02:40:21.036 - We don't know if the legislature adopts something more rigorous, less rigorous, gets rid of property 02:40:21.036 --> 02:40:27.832 - taxes, closes counties altogether, or maybe it's townships, or maybe it's cities, or maybe it's schools, 02:40:27.832 --> 02:40:34.499 - all these things. And I think I would like to see some of that incredulousness directed up towards the 02:40:34.499 --> 02:40:39.742 - state on some of the unfunded mandates that we have spent hours on here tonight. 02:40:40.578 --> 02:40:46.960 - on veteran services, which we're helping with a property tax credit that is owed to our veterans that 02:40:46.960 --> 02:40:53.404 - is tremendous. But we pick up the cost while they do the crazy legislation and go to the barbecue. And 02:40:53.404 --> 02:40:59.723 - I think that this not having dialogue is contrary to everything that everybody hates right now about 02:40:59.723 --> 02:41:06.043 - local government. Let's just keep fighting. Just keep fighting one against another. This is not that 02:41:06.043 --> 02:41:07.294 - big of a community. 02:41:07.458 --> 02:41:13.566 - And I will also say, I'm glad Councilor Iverson's willing to even go into the meeting because I don't 02:41:13.566 --> 02:41:19.794 - think you could pay me enough to run the meeting because I cannot follow what the heck that legislation 02:41:19.794 --> 02:41:25.962 - does. And I've watched three trade associations try to explain it. Their eyes get crossed and they get 02:41:25.962 --> 02:41:32.011 - turned around. And I just, folks, we can't govern like this. These are part-time local official jobs 02:41:32.011 --> 02:41:34.526 - with professional staff trying to keep up 02:41:34.626 --> 02:41:41.234 - on legislation that looks like it was written while someone was drunk and hiring an attorney who was 02:41:41.234 --> 02:41:47.777 - poor. And we just can't. We cannot. So I have no faith. I'll be honest. I have no faith in the DLGF 02:41:47.777 --> 02:41:54.320 - and their answers and their mistakes, which affect our budget and what they mean and intention. And 02:41:54.320 --> 02:42:01.059 - I would love to see some of our legislative politicians get a little bit fired up like I am right now, 02:42:01.059 --> 02:42:03.742 - because my God, this takes all our time. 02:42:04.322 --> 02:42:11.115 - All our time we're trying to figure out tonight how we can help that planning department both enforce 02:42:11.115 --> 02:42:18.041 - good neighborliness and grease the wheels to build more homes. We can't get that done even though every 02:42:18.041 --> 02:42:25.101 - one of us ran on it. We are so inhibited and so I'll stop but I want to see that incredulous go somewhere 02:42:25.101 --> 02:42:26.366 - else for a change. 02:42:36.258 --> 02:42:49.774 - that was. Is there can you confirm who has- or will be participating in months. All of them. Like the 02:42:49.774 --> 02:43:04.350 - town of Ellersville city of Wilmington Steinsville so all the people that might have concerns will be in this 02:43:04.706 --> 02:43:12.643 - So the town of Ellisville, the town of Steinsville, the city of Bloomington, and Monroe County. Again, 02:43:12.643 --> 02:43:20.657 - without talking specifically, and we got the email from Steinsville, but I've spoken to representatives 02:43:20.657 --> 02:43:28.593 - from the city. I've spoken to someone from the town of Ellisville, and everybody is interested because 02:43:28.593 --> 02:43:32.446 - nobody knows what comes next. Yeah, so it is a... 02:43:32.802 --> 02:43:40.430 - Just a conversation. Speaking of talking to people in a public setting, like people should normally 02:43:40.430 --> 02:43:48.210 - do as electeds. Oh, OK. It's that simple. OK. OK. Yes. And furthermore, this meeting is on the county 02:43:48.210 --> 02:43:56.143 - calendar. So if you cannot attend in person, there is a Teams link where you can hop on Teams and watch 02:43:56.143 --> 02:44:01.406 - the proceedings. So there's lots of ways to participate on the 18th. 02:44:04.130 --> 02:44:11.401 - So when I think about quorum, because I keep thinking about this, hypothetically speaking, if all of 02:44:11.401 --> 02:44:18.888 - us are interested, we probably might need to notice this meeting for a possible quorum of council. What 02:44:18.888 --> 02:44:26.447 - we typically do is on the notice for the body convening, so in this case it must, we would note a quorum 02:44:26.447 --> 02:44:34.078 - of council might be present. And so I was just speaking to Michelle, we can amend the notice to say such. 02:44:34.178 --> 02:44:42.298 - Okay. I've got plenty of time. Okay. Got it. That's was a concern because I know people might want to 02:44:42.298 --> 02:44:50.417 - watch it live. Um, and some others are obsessed with cats and we'll watch it, um, afterwards like me. 02:44:50.417 --> 02:44:58.457 - Yeah. Just as a reminder, it does take, uh, the four people that for each of it, let's all be there. 02:44:58.457 --> 02:45:03.870 - If one is missing, that that's counted as a no. Remember anonymous. 02:45:04.002 --> 02:45:12.700 - decision amongst everybody. One person that says no out of the four, then the whole thing is there's 02:45:12.700 --> 02:45:20.881 - no decision, right? I guess I read what you're saying. Would you like to address that? Because 02:45:20.881 --> 02:45:29.493 - my understanding is it doesn't matter because it's not binding, right? This is sorry. OK, it is non 02:45:29.493 --> 02:45:32.766 - binding and my understanding is less. 02:45:33.090 --> 02:45:40.025 - I read is that regardless of the outcome, even if it's not unanimous, they want our results. And I agree. 02:45:40.025 --> 02:45:46.567 - I think that what was suggested is if it's not unanimous, we would still file with a statement or a 02:45:46.567 --> 02:45:53.175 - report saying it wasn't unanimous and this is why. And of course you would just like minutes of this 02:45:53.175 --> 02:45:59.390 - meeting. If everybody doesn't say yes or something, you've got it in the minutes. You said no. 02:46:00.994 --> 02:46:07.837 - So it sounds like Councilor Emerson is going to do it, because he's great. Thank you so much. Appreciate 02:46:07.837 --> 02:46:14.615 - that. Your tone. That wasn't sarcasm. That was like, I mean, considering the conversation, I don't know 02:46:14.615 --> 02:46:21.198 - if I would really want to go in after all that either. I think Councilor Decker is right. It's going 02:46:21.198 --> 02:46:27.715 - to be a great conversation with some wonderful community partners. That's it. That's it. That's the 02:46:27.715 --> 02:46:30.974 - tweet. That's the post. That's the headline. Yes. 02:46:32.066 --> 02:46:44.363 - I think that going back to Councillor Hawke's original concern about the list of questions and information 02:46:44.363 --> 02:46:56.085 - that will be imperative to really have good discussion, I think. Is that her questions in the process 02:46:56.085 --> 02:47:00.222 - of being researched or answered, is 02:47:00.354 --> 02:47:07.413 - Have they been forwarded? I don't. I forwarded Councillor Hawke's questions to FSD, but I have not received 02:47:07.413 --> 02:47:14.080 - a response yet. I do not think they've been communicated with the taxing units. The tax. I don't know 02:47:14.080 --> 02:47:20.617 - what they were, but it sounded like from our example that the taxing units are the ones who need to 02:47:20.617 --> 02:47:27.218 - bring the answers either prior to or at the meeting. We can forward them to the taxing units and ask 02:47:27.218 --> 02:47:29.310 - them to bring that information. 02:47:29.506 --> 02:47:36.757 - to the first meeting. Yes. And then I want to wrap this up. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. Go ahead. I've 02:47:36.757 --> 02:47:44.007 - had multiple conversations with FSG on this topic. And at the time that I spoke, each time I spoke to 02:47:44.007 --> 02:47:51.471 - them, they had everything they needed at that point in time. So I will continue to touch base with them. 02:47:51.471 --> 02:47:58.366 - But my assumption has been when and if something is needed to help us have a full understanding, 02:47:58.754 --> 02:48:06.147 - they will request that of us or of the other units. A lot of this information is available online, like, 02:48:06.147 --> 02:48:13.398 - for example, on the city's website. And so I'm imagining a lot of this has already been gathered. Now, 02:48:13.398 --> 02:48:20.509 - as far as the council body having the information at hand, we can request that because a lot of it's 02:48:20.509 --> 02:48:27.691 - already been compiled and we've forwarded some of this information from the county to FSG so they can 02:48:27.691 --> 02:48:28.606 - review. Yes. 02:48:28.770 --> 02:48:35.430 - I want to give people who haven't had a chance to speak yet, and then I'll I'll circle back. But I really 02:48:35.430 --> 02:48:41.902 - want to wrap this up so that we can move on because we will be back in this room tomorrow and the next 02:48:41.902 --> 02:48:48.437 - couple of days. Thank you, counselor. So I just had a question and wanted to make sure that there would 02:48:48.437 --> 02:48:54.846 - be a packet for the meeting. I made a packet for the meeting. We typically have a packet, but I don't 02:48:54.846 --> 02:48:58.302 - know who would be preparing the packet. I think I just 02:48:58.626 --> 02:49:06.464 - she had done a proposal that they would facilitate the meeting. And I would note that we have not approved 02:49:06.464 --> 02:49:14.082 - an FSG must related contract yet. We won't have the opportunity to do so before the first must meeting. 02:49:14.082 --> 02:49:21.408 - But I think that we can, we have a current FSG contract. It does in that contract entail assistance 02:49:21.408 --> 02:49:26.462 - with lit issues, which this in essence is. So I think that we could, 02:49:26.658 --> 02:49:33.059 - talk to FSG about billing the first meeting under our current contract. And then we can work on amending 02:49:33.059 --> 02:49:39.155 - the current contract or getting a new one from our last meeting with FSG. I thought they were going 02:49:39.155 --> 02:49:45.678 - to send an amendment to the current contract, but we haven't received that yet. So there isn't a contract, 02:49:45.678 --> 02:49:52.078 - but I think we can work. We will find a workaround to getting a packet made by someone. Counselor Henry, 02:49:52.078 --> 02:49:55.614 - and then I'll circle back to Hawk and then we'll be done. 02:49:56.706 --> 02:50:03.261 - Thank you. I'll keep it brief. Yeah, thank you. I'll keep it brief. So I want to thank both Councilor 02:50:03.261 --> 02:50:09.945 - Iverson for stepping forward, but also Councilors Deckard and Hawks' viewpoints, because I kind of hear 02:50:09.945 --> 02:50:16.436 - them as two sides of the same coin. There's a lot to be frustrated about at the local level and also 02:50:16.436 --> 02:50:22.927 - towards the state. I've had a hard time with squaring a circle with this committee in the sense that 02:50:22.927 --> 02:50:26.654 - the state has mandated that we have a certain composition 02:50:27.458 --> 02:50:34.132 - the decision they make is non-binding, which I find to be rather heavy-handed, given that I think Councilor 02:50:34.132 --> 02:50:40.312 - Iverson made a good case for why we should hear other voices, especially on a non-binding decision, 02:50:40.312 --> 02:50:46.677 - but we have to follow state code. I do hope that whatever comes to this initial meeting encourages the 02:50:46.677 --> 02:50:53.352 - taxing units to keep talking. And long after there's a must committee, maybe we should have a more enduring 02:50:53.352 --> 02:50:56.318 - dialogue among all of our taxing units locally. 02:50:56.546 --> 02:51:02.670 - probably wouldn't be a bad thing to do. So again, dear Councilor Iverson, thanks for stepping up and 02:51:02.670 --> 02:51:08.975 - I'll forward my questions if I have them. Thank you. Thank you. And that's a good idea. Councilor Hock. 02:51:08.975 --> 02:51:15.038 - Okay. I just wanted to make sure everybody knows I didn't just make up these questions out of whole 02:51:15.038 --> 02:51:21.404 - cloth. It was a part of the information that was sent to us from Jamie Boesler of AIC. She came to speak 02:51:21.404 --> 02:51:25.406 - with us. Everybody knows that she knows what she's talking about. 02:51:26.082 --> 02:51:33.280 - And she had the list. And when I sent out that information by email, I was just throwing out some things 02:51:33.280 --> 02:51:40.409 - I remembered from the list. But it said that we should get this, everybody, we should have it prepared. 02:51:40.409 --> 02:51:47.401 - The other units should have it prepared so we're all working with the same information. I don't think 02:51:47.401 --> 02:51:54.462 - that's asking for a lot. But that is what I was suggesting. But whatever. We can go by the seat of our 02:51:54.462 --> 02:51:55.422 - pants or not. 02:52:03.170 --> 02:52:08.429 - I may respond, Councillor Hawke. I don't think anybody here is flying by the seat of their pants. We're 02:52:08.429 --> 02:52:13.485 - all working together, and this has come here kind of last minute, and putting information together. 02:52:13.485 --> 02:52:18.794 - And we've had many meetings on this topic, and we're working with a financial consultant. We've provided 02:52:18.794 --> 02:52:23.952 - information. We've all had that list from Jamie Bolser for a couple months now. It's been shared with 02:52:23.952 --> 02:52:28.958 - the council. It's been shared with our financial consultant. The city has a list. The other units. 02:52:29.122 --> 02:52:34.241 - I'm assuming have the same list that we've gotten from either municipality aim or the association of 02:52:34.241 --> 02:52:39.512 - Indiana counties. So I think we all have the information. It's compiling it together as we meet to come 02:52:39.512 --> 02:52:41.438 - together for this purpose. Thank you. 02:52:47.842 --> 02:52:54.566 - I did have a recommendation. I think to formalize Mr. Iverson's appointment to must, I would recommend 02:52:54.566 --> 02:53:01.226 - a vote. I was going to suggest a roll call vote, but I think since Council Member Henry is online, it 02:53:01.226 --> 02:53:07.820 - would have to be a roll call. All right. OK, so technically we need to make a motion. All right. So, 02:53:07.820 --> 02:53:13.630 - Council, I make a motion to appoint Council Member Peter Iverson to the must task force. 02:53:13.730 --> 02:53:26.798 - We got a motion and a second. Any other further final question or comment on this item? Seeing none. 02:53:26.798 --> 02:53:40.125 - Can we have a roll call vote, please? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Councilor Crossley? Yes. 02:53:40.125 --> 02:53:43.230 - Councilor Iverson? Yes. 02:53:43.426 --> 02:53:52.207 - Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Passes majority six to one. All right. Congratulations. 02:53:52.207 --> 02:54:00.821 - And for the record, Councilor Hawke is leaving. Next up is the most wonderful time. Let's take it back 02:54:00.821 --> 02:54:09.435 - to a happy place. Is our council member liaison updates and comments. And I'm going to start over here 02:54:09.435 --> 02:54:12.446 - to my right with Councilor Iverson. 02:54:12.610 --> 02:54:20.404 - This is the last time we met the Monroe County and its partners put on the 2026 Resiliency Committee 02:54:20.404 --> 02:54:28.275 - Commission, which is to talk about substance use disorder and mental health issues. We had set a goal 02:54:28.275 --> 02:54:36.145 - of 150 attendees and on the first day alone we had over 170 people joining us from all over the state 02:54:36.145 --> 02:54:40.158 - who came to Monroe County in the middle of the week 02:54:40.386 --> 02:54:46.774 - to come to a conference. This is exactly why this body voted to expand the convention center because 02:54:46.774 --> 02:54:53.226 - of conferences like this that bring in business in the middle of the week. So it was a great session. 02:54:53.226 --> 02:54:59.803 - We've already had conversations about holding it next year. And so I think that's just one more example 02:54:59.803 --> 02:55:06.192 - of how local government can be a voice for good in the community to raise up the voices of those who 02:55:06.192 --> 02:55:10.366 - traditionally do not have one. So that was fantastic. I will note 02:55:10.498 --> 02:55:17.500 - that of course the Indiana Hoosier football team won over the weekend in wonderful fashion. It's great 02:55:17.500 --> 02:55:24.773 - to see, I don't know if it's great to see, but it was really interesting to see how strong the quarterback 02:55:24.773 --> 02:55:31.979 - was with blood all over his helmet and all of his uniform. But I will point out there are other fantastic 02:55:31.979 --> 02:55:33.950 - teams playing right now too. 02:55:34.114 --> 02:55:41.157 - I just took my girls to a women's soccer game, which was really exciting and really fun. The volleyball 02:55:41.157 --> 02:55:48.064 - team is doing some really great things in the community. The men's soccer team keeps winning over and 02:55:48.064 --> 02:55:55.174 - over and over. What's your shout out? Oh, they beat Texas. Yeah. So there's wonderful things to be doing 02:55:55.174 --> 02:56:02.149 - here in town. And I think the Forestry Art Festival just continues to show that this is a great, great 02:56:02.149 --> 02:56:03.774 - place to live and work. 02:56:07.618 --> 02:56:18.197 - I was going to go online to see if Councilmember Henry, but he looks like he has also left. Councilmember 02:56:18.197 --> 02:56:28.677 - Decker. I'm gonna pass. Okay. Talked enough. You have been passionate. Good job. Councilmember Williams. 02:56:28.677 --> 02:56:34.366 - I am drawing a blank, so I'll pass too. Okay. All right. 02:56:35.202 --> 02:56:42.041 - So I wanted to say that I did go to the Kister State Historical Marker Ceremony that was at the airport 02:56:42.041 --> 02:56:48.222 - on August 28th. We were reminded that he was the first American serviceman to be awarded both 02:56:48.222 --> 02:56:54.995 - the Distinguished Service Cross and the Medal of Honor during World War II. And this is something that 02:56:54.995 --> 02:56:59.006 - I remembered but had forgotten. He operated a fur shop here. 02:56:59.618 --> 02:57:07.126 - and children's daycare. He passed away in 1986. So there's a state historical marker right outside in 02:57:07.126 --> 02:57:14.707 - front of the airport administration building there. You can see it. Just can't miss it. I attended the 02:57:14.707 --> 02:57:22.215 - fair board meeting on September 1st. It was time to elect the board, so they have 35 slots. 40 people 02:57:22.215 --> 02:57:29.502 - ran for those slots. And I thought that was a good sign. People were interested in the fair board. 02:57:29.666 --> 02:57:37.559 - And then leadership elections will be held next month. The fireworks will be this month, September 26th. 02:57:37.559 --> 02:57:45.152 - And beginning at 4 p.m., you can get in for $10 for that until the fireworks are over. They reported 02:57:45.152 --> 02:57:52.895 - they do have a lot of other things that go on out there, for instance, since their last meeting, which 02:57:52.895 --> 02:57:54.398 - was a month before. 02:57:55.010 --> 02:58:04.285 - They had 17 meetings, including 4-H, non-4-H, and Homemakers Clubs. And then the safe trick-or-treat 02:58:04.285 --> 02:58:13.744 - night is October 24th, next month. Then I went to the BEDC Executive Committee meeting on the 2nd. And 02:58:13.744 --> 02:58:23.020 - they're working on second interviews for their new executive director. They have two candidates that 02:58:23.020 --> 02:58:24.030 - they'll be 02:58:24.546 --> 02:58:33.565 - interviewing for soon and they hope to have their decision made by October to make that announcement 02:58:33.565 --> 02:58:42.673 - and then what they had one new person actually Sign up to be a candidate as well. So I think Have the 02:58:42.673 --> 02:58:51.692 - the third one the newest one then they'll have three candidates to choose from but it may just still 02:58:51.692 --> 02:58:54.014 - be They did meet with the 02:58:54.146 --> 02:59:01.517 - Israeli consulates when they were here somehow there's a relationship with Israel and Indiana And to 02:59:01.517 --> 02:59:08.888 - form a committee about that possible Initiative and then I also serve on the courage to change board 02:59:08.888 --> 02:59:16.259 - and they had purchased their third house in Bloomington this one in the Highland village and each of 02:59:16.259 --> 02:59:22.462 - those home homes house eight individuals for rehab so excited about that and they're 02:59:23.682 --> 02:59:32.956 - another one, so that would make four. I'm very happy about that. That's awesome. That's happy news that 02:59:32.956 --> 02:59:41.873 - we need to hear after everything. The only thing that I would say is major thanks to Mr. Askins and 02:59:41.873 --> 02:59:48.382 - for the B Square article regarding FLOC, or not FLOC, sorry, ICE patrols 02:59:48.866 --> 02:59:56.075 - That is something that we, if we wanna have energy for something, my God, we should have energy for 02:59:56.075 --> 03:00:03.645 - our modern day slave patrols that are coming in terrorizing communities. And so my heart go out to those 03:00:03.645 --> 03:00:11.070 - individuals who have been terrorized recently by coming and invading in our communities. So let's just 03:00:11.070 --> 03:00:17.342 - be real with that one. If we wanna have smoke for somebody, let's have smoke for that. 03:00:17.634 --> 03:00:25.314 - because those are our community members. And in addition to that, there are people that are being terrorized 03:00:25.314 --> 03:00:32.359 - by seeing this happening and living in fear. That is a thing. I was talking to my child earlier and 03:00:32.359 --> 03:00:39.546 - she had mentioned how kids aren't coming to school because they are afraid of going to school and not 03:00:39.546 --> 03:00:44.478 - being able to come back home to parents that will be there. So again, 03:00:44.610 --> 03:00:51.326 - If we want to have smoke and we want to have energy for sending somebody to a committee that is not 03:00:51.326 --> 03:00:58.647 - even non-bonding, if we can put our forces together to combat that type of stuff, man, we would be powerful. 03:00:58.647 --> 03:01:05.497 - But with that being said, I appreciate hearing Council and Vitals' breath of fresh air for Courage to 03:01:05.497 --> 03:01:08.318 - Change. So major congratulations to them. 03:01:08.674 --> 03:01:14.792 - We got work to do because tomorrow and Thursday is still our most wonderful time of the year. Get ready 03:01:14.792 --> 03:01:18.910 - so you don't have to stay ready. Good night, y'all. We are adjourned.