We'll go ahead and start our meeting. I will call this meeting to order. Our regular county council
business, yay. I feel like I slept in here so much recently. So we have a quorum and it looks like from
council members here in the room, we're a little tight here, but we got Councilor Spital, Wilts,
and Decker, and it appears that
Council Member Hawke is joining us. And then of course, we have Council Members David Henry and I don't
see Councilor Iverson. Okay. But nonetheless, all the party people are here, so we will go ahead and
get started. But before we get started, all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting
of the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance.
of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much for that. Good to see you, Councilor
Hawk. All right. Does anybody wish to amend tonight's agenda?
Let me get my microphone in my throat here. Okay. So per request from the prosecutor's office, I move
to table items 8B, high tech crimes and item 8C, VOCA grant, additional appropriation request to the
October 27th County Council meeting. Second.
All right, we got a motion and a resounded two seconds. Is there any other questions? Well, no questions.
I guess we'll see. Are there any questions or comments on this move? All right. And seeing none, may
we have a roll call vote since we have members attended virtually. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
Hogg? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right. Thank you. Are there any other changes to tonight's agenda that councilors might wish to
make tonight? All right. Seeing none, we will go ahead and move forward. Next up are for items that
are not on the agenda, which is the public comment portion.
So if you are attending with us in person, or if you are virtually via Teams, you can either raise your
hand, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. Or if you are here in person,
I feel like I'm talking to a blank room. If you're here in person, you can come to the lectern here.
Again, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. So I'll go to Teams first
to see if there is anybody that wish to make public comment.
raised via teams, or anybody coming to the podium here, we will go ahead and keep going. So the next
portion of our agenda is the department updates. And these are for departments to make updates for items
not on tonight's agenda. Each department will have up to 10 minutes. Is there any department here in
the NetU Hill Room or virtually that would like to make a department update?
And I'll look to the auditor's office with Miss Woodruff. Yes. Hello. Good evening, Council. Good evening.
I'm going to share my screen. On the screen and on the tables in front of you, you should see an updated
ARPA project listing. And the only changes you should see on this document are the expenditures
departments have made so those items that are in the green section are going to be open projects on
the screen you'll see that two of them in the unexpended column are blue we ran into a situation excuse
me sorry where the septic one of the septic programs they needed a little bit of additional funding and so
We plan to move via an in-house transfer.
approximately $1,500 from the ARPA program support line to the septic line just to be able to pay that
contractor what they need to be able to get the septic in the ground and fully functional. Previously
we had done these via appropriation and deappropriation. This time we're going to do it via an in-house
transfer and we're just telling you that we're going to do this for full transparency and just since
we're at the end of this program and we have some deadlines approaching we don't have the time to do
additional appropriations. All right. Thank you for that update. Does anybody have any questions or
comments? Yes. Council member Wilts. And just just to be clear, the deadline for. Spending is. There's
an October deadline, but there's a December deadline. Can you tell me the two? I guess or is there a
September and December or two deadlines, right? Well, there are actually three deadlines specific project.
The deadline for vendors to complete the projects. I'm so sorry. The deadline for vendors to complete
the projects and submit in voices is September 30th.
There is an October deadline for the department. So this will be the health department to then submit
all those invoices for payment to the auditor and commissioner. And then the December deadline that
we hit on is going to be the deadline for the county to fully expend. So the reason we set the other
deadlines a little bit sooner is to give us a little bit of time and wiggle room that if we need to
move some pennies around, we're not giving anything back. And how are you?
meaning the auditor's office feeling about how that's going to play out. I mean, it looks like you've
got anticipated dates for most of these. We've done our absolute best to touch in with all of these
programs and make sure that we're good. We can't promise that they will close on the dates that we think
they will, but we're doing everything within our power to try to help those deadlines. Thank you.
So I have a quick question. So considering September 30th is a week from tomorrow, are there any outstanding
vendors that have yet to submit? So the deadline for this program, the septic, we do have some vendors
that we have not received the invoices. I have talked to the health department. They believe that we
are on track for all the open projects. There is one project that we heard about today where
It looks like an invoice may have been missed in the past for payment and that was not accounted for
on the obligations. Right now I believe the health department is looking for ways to pay for that out
of their own funding and not out of ARPA funding. It's a very small amount of $475. So it may come to
where we might have to look at doing an in-house transfer, but right now we are not trying to do that.
We're trying to have the health department pay for that.
departments have until October 30th to do this. Is there anything or anybody, and you don't have to
out anybody just in case, but is there anything or any department that's kind of given you a little
concern that we might not meet the deadline? I've got some really detailed responses from some departments
and other departments are a little more vague. I'd be happy to
present that at the next meeting if that's something you want, but I don't think I'm prepared to go
in detail to every single project today. And that's totally fine. I'm just trying to look to us to figure
out if there's any way that we can help you all as liaisons to departments and whatnot to really kind
of light a fire to make sure, you know, because if there are members of the public that are benefiting
from these projects and they might be in jeopardy of not getting completed because people aren't doing
what they need to do.
that we definitely need to light a fire and get to move it. But now this is a great time for us to say,
we should probably have our joint meeting here soon with the commissioners to go over the ARPA. Would
you think that it would be? Or are we? So the last time we had
meetings regarding ARPA, I believe there was a consensus that any additional dollars would go to the...
That's right. ...CARST, yes. And unless we run into issues where we have too much, which I don't think
we're there right now, I don't think there'll be a need for a joint meeting. We're always happy to have
one, but I don't think we need one at this moment. Okay. Okay, cool. I'm totally spaced that I forgot
about that. Okay. Thank you so much. Councilor Hawke. Yes.
Could you repeat what you said about the health department? It's $475 or something like that, and they'll
take it out of their funds? Why would we want to do that? I mean, because we want ARPA to pay for it,
right? So what fund do they think they take it from? I believe they're investigating what funds can
pay for it.
What happened is we had an invoice that was dated for September of 2025 that was submitted to our office
today for payment that was not accounted for in the obligations. And the deadline for the vendor to
send that contractually to the county was September 1st of 2025. So they did miss that deadline. And
as far as our records and the vendor's records go, they don't see where it's been sent until this week
to the county.
So is this deadline a deadline that we set or something that is coming someplace else? Because I wanted
to come from ARPA money if we can. I mean, why? Is there any legal reason why we cannot take it from
the ARPA funds? As of right now, the invoice as it stands is not in compliance with the ARPA contract.
So we would have to update the ARPA contract with the vendor.
the contract with the health department and the commissioners, the ARPA plan, and then we would also
have to make that adjustment for the ARPA plan. I'm sorry, the appropriation. So when I talked to the
commissioner's administrator, it seemed like the desire was to have the health department fund that
out of their own dollars.
When you say their own dollars, it's the county dollars they're paying it out of. Anyway, you go at
it. So are you saying paying it for out of the 1159 fund or the 1161 fund or where? That would be up
to the Health Department. I mean, it's just like, oh well, it's $400,000. I can remember when that was
real money.
Now it won't even get my dog's teeth cleaned. There's nothing else to add to that. Okay, anybody else
have any other questions or comments on this item? All right. Thank you very much. Are there any other
department updates that would like to make an update? I think we got, yay, come on in. Well, come on in.
either sit or stand, whichever one you like. Good evening, counsel. How are you? Good evening. Great.
How are you doing? Good. I'm just here for a couple of things. First, I just wanted to thank you guys all
last time for welcoming kip and we all have kip and laura I have to be another part of my role is just
to go to other budget hearings and presenting and not all counties see the value of extension so it's
not an easy budget hearings but I always know that minor counties just you guys are very supportive
of us so again just want to thank you all for continuing support of extension just seeing the impact
the work that we do in our community it's really we're really really thankful for that
I have handouts I forgot to give Kip and Laura just talked a little bit about the transformation just
some more information if you all would like it just has more language on what transformation is and
what they're heading towards. I also wanted to clarify the additional educator role that they proposed
last week or so. So usually the
As Laura mentioned, a new educator role is like a general educator. And the priority right now is with
the transformation, they're moving, shuffling people around. And the priority is to have 4-H in every county.
program areas like health and agriculture. Those won't be in every county, but 4-H will. And so with
that, since we had two 4-H educators, part of the shuffling was one educator went to cover another county.
So we were down to really one educator. So with the additional educator, we're just going back to two
educators, what we were before. So I think you all were told that it would be three, but we're just
going back to two, because we lost one and we gained them back. So I apologize.
to communicate that well with Laura. I just wanted to let you all know that's what the new educator
role would be, just to provide clarity for council. We weren't trying to sneak anything past you guys,
but just to provide clarity. I think I just didn't communicate that well with her. So that's what the
new educator role would be. And I was watching the recording, but I think they ran out of time. So if
there are any questions that council had about extension, I'm happy to answer them now. I know that
the public hearings, I think on the 6th, I'm happy to come back and answer questions. But I also wanted to
opportunity to answer any questions. I think they ran out of time at the last budget hearing. But thank
you again for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you. And while we got you here, we do have any questions.
I think we could ask those of you. So does anybody have any questions at all? Councillor Hawke? Yes,
I had to ask about which department person would be covering the planning because in the past, it's
always been somebody
from one of the educators or somebody from your department. And I understand that because of lack of
personnel, that there was a decision to appoint someone in the community that was familiar with what
would be needed. And I have since been told who that person is. And it appears that people are
pretty satisfied. So do you know who makes that appointment? Do you folks find somebody and appoint
it or is that come back to the county? So by the state statute, the county extension board would elect
somebody to be in the place if the educator is not there. So the extension board, people who appointed
Joe to be our interim until
who important appointed Joe to be our interim in the meantime so it's not necessarily uh the county
or the educators with the county um the extension board makes that appointment and extension board makes
the appointment it does not necessarily have to be one of your staff it could just be anybody right
the board themselves i mean we help to facilitate the board we're there with them but the actual board
they're the ones who make that decision not up to us
and who appoints the board? We elect, or not elect, sorry, we find people who cover different program
areas, who are also representative of the community, and so we find people to make up our board.
Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Decker. The budget proposal we saw is helping
us to kind of maintain the status quo. Am I saying that right? Yes, correct.
Thank you. Seeing no other further questions. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. All right.
Thank you, Council. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. Are there any other updates from departments
that would like to make an update that are not on tonight's agenda? All right. See, oh, yeah, Council
Member Woods. I had a question. I know it was a department update.
I don't even see anymore. But were we supposed to vote on that, auditors? I don't think so. But you
can clarify. That's okay. You're just letting us know. Yep. Got it. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. It's an in-house
transfer and council doesn't vote on in-house transfers. Thank you. Thank you very much.
yes we do oh and are you saying it depends on whether it's transferring within a category or if it's
transferring from one category to the next we do vote on that right if it's a category transfer council
votes this is an in-house transfer she was just letting uh you know that they were going to be doing
this they're both in the threes they're both in the threes got it thank you yes i was just gonna say
i think the
massive good thing that comes out of the way the auditor's office has handled this is the very public
way that we talk about ARPA and every nuance which sometimes is I think hard for them hard for us but
it is out here in the public for when people want to go back and because ARPA is so rare it's out there
in the public for when people want to go back much like the pandemic that preceded it there's a lot
people can sort through digest for future counselors down
Thank you. Thank you. All right. So seeing no other further questions or comments or any other department
updates, we will proceed with our agenda. And this is the consent agenda items that are next up. I didn't
go far enough. Excuse me. Yeah, there you are.
I moved to approve the following consent agenda items for September 22nd. The Highway Department's request
in fund 1176-0000 motor vehicle highway for a category transfer of $10,000 from the services category
to supplies category. That was the first part. Here's the second part.
The Highway Department's request in Fund 1169-0000 Local Road and Street for a category transfer of
$125,000 from the supplies category to the services category and $10,000 from the services to the capital
category for a total category transfer of $135,000.
all right we got a motion and a second is there any further discussion from council on these items all
right being none um we will have a voice vote or no not voice vote um may we have a roll call vote councillor
crossley yes councillor iverson oh sorry councillor iverson is not present councillor fiddle yes councillor hogg yes
Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 6-0. All
right thank you very much and next up we will go to the hire and freeze reviews and first up is from
TSD. I'm ready. Yep go for it.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval the technical services department's request
to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0106 County General TSD to
part-time support technician positions. Second. All right. Thank you. We got a motion and a second.
We're here with Mr. Greg Cohn. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Good evening.
So as it states in my description, the part-time technician that you allowed me to fill earlier in the
year, that technician was promoted to the full-time position that was opened up. So we did retain that
individual. The second part-time position that's become vacant was held by a local student who has now
graduated, has moved on to pursue his career in life, and has left us with another vacancy. Particularly
with that second position,
That was largely meeting coverage that we utilize that person for. So again, we're having to have more
full time employee coverage for these meetings and some of the stuff that's going on at night because
we do flex instead of earning comp. We are short staffed. We are running a gap.
It'd be a lot worse if we were doing everything on comp. So we're doing the best we can to manage it.
But we are seeing the issues coming up with those two vacancies. Additionally, right now, while temporary,
I do have someone out on paternity leave. So that's another extension. So that's created another vacancy
that's created this vacuum. So that's why I'm requesting both positions, please. OK. All right. Thank
you very much. And it's good to hear we retained one. And best of luck to the student who left.
All right, any other questions or any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Decker. I had just a kind
of operational question about the help desk. I don't recall time I've ever called in random places I've
been in the world that I've not got a response. What are the hours 24 seven or is it?
24 7365 so we maintain our office from 8 a.m. actually 730 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and
then it goes on to an on-call rotation after normal operating hours so the way we do that we have four
full-time technicians who share that so one week out of every month a full-time tech is covering 24
7 on call during those hours that were closed so yes we do maintain constant coverage you have to remember
to we have the jail
the sheriff's deputies and the youth services bureau that are 24 seven facilities so we have to maintain
that we do get calls not so much from the shelter but the jail and patrol deputies that is a routine
that we get calls from them during that so they never seem surprised at the time or the question and
that's why i kind of ask that because it does seem to be you know a real evident wraparound services
and i would say to council if we think back to
things counties and localities pay for today that they did not back in the day, there was a time where
A, that department didn't exist and those hours would definitely not be staffed, but now counties have
to do that and it's different than our predecessors and you can't go away from that. You gotta do it
with everything everybody's doing and the tech involved. All right, that's all I got. Thank you very
much. I will go to Council Member Hock and then
Councilmember Henry next. Just in response to some of your statements there, of course, I knew you were
24-7 because if I ever need anything, you guys are there. But I hear that you spent a lot of time having
to do with because the jail was 24-7. And right away I'm thinking about, well, could we put like one
fourth of this position?
Yeah, I mean, you know, we're trying to figure out a way to make all the numbers work. I just wanted
to throw that out there. I'm not saying that's anything anybody would do. But if we ever get desperate,
those are the kinds of things we have to look for. Like one fourth of the expense or something of the
sort to and then we can put it in the jail lit and not in county general. Just thoughts for the moment.
Council Member Henry. Thank you. I appreciate that. Greg, to follow up on Councilor Deckard's comment
then, so the on-call, are they working virtually? I mean, so there's an opportunity for them to work
virtually or are they driving in? What does that look like after hours? For the after hours on-call,
we operate under two formats. If it's a call that, let's say it's a simple, I need to have my password
reset call.
we can still do that the interfaces we have that's about a 10 minute process so the tech is clocked
is credited 15 minutes if it's something that can't be fixed through that method through some of the
interfaces we have and the technician has to drive in which we do then that's a minimum two hour so
there is lots of times we get called out
seems to happen a lot with the jail when they go into a shift change. Your second shift starts at midnight.
There are plenty of times we get called out at midnight 1 a.m. and have to drive into the jail. So it's
a mix of that counselor. Okay now that's helpful. So it does sound like there's some virtual work and
you've got logs that show when someone's working virtually versus driving in and okay. Yes sir. Yeah
I appreciate that. Counselor Hawk I appreciate your comment too on
you know, what you're describing as basically cost centers, you know, where we could be looking at that
holistically in the years to come through PAC or WIS about, you know, if we have employees that are
drawing on multiple or supporting a multiple services, like there's ways to fund of FT through multiple
lines that might be interesting in the future. So I appreciate your suggestion there too. Thank you,
Madam President. Thank you. Anybody else have any other questions? All right.
Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, raise your hand via
team so you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. Seeing none, maybe please have a roll
call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 6-0.
Thank you very much. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Next up is from the health department.
Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval. The health department's request to be
exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 12 zero six dash zero zero zero zero local
health department trust account one maternal child health coordinator position.
second. We got a motion and a second. We're joined here by Dr. Sarah writer. Welcome. Good evening.
Good evening. So as you see in your packet, we have had our maternal child health coordinator poached
by the state. And so we are in a position of wanting to replace that individual. She has done
as you can see in your packet, a lot of good work over the time coordinating, running around the city
and county, handing out childcare seats when people were in accidents or in the middle of the day when
something happened and they had to have them replaced. So she did that. She also was working under the
grant, which is
part of our HFI grant to simply help reduce the amount of infant mortality, which is still very high
in the state. It's one of the highest states, unfortunately. Some of the efforts in HFI have helped
to reduce that, but we're nowhere near where we would want to be.
as a state, and our maternal child care coordinator was the person who would work with the pregnant
moms, then would work with them after they delivered, and also did some of the education. They also
did tobacco education. The rest of tobacco education was withdrawn from HFI funding, but it was kept
in this area because it is such a contributor to
at least infant morbidity, if not mortality. So at least we were able to continue to do tobacco education
at that level and extend it as much as we could. I'm certainly open to questions from the members. Thank
you very much. Anybody have any questions or comments? Yes.
right? I remember looking at the packet online and I was thinking some of these showed what the balances
were and what was available. Is that it's not here on what I'm looking at. I mean, I'm looking to the
Auditor's Office and would you tell me that this is sustainable for us to do this and there's revenue
for it? I mean, because I'm not seeing that here. Just a
I understand the question. You're asking if it's sustainable in the fund? I mean, this doesn't show
the balance or anything in the fund, but I know it's it. I think you sent it to us online. Some of it
was it didn't look like there was enough money for it, but this might not have been the one. I don't
have my laptop with me, so.
I can't look at it. Give me just a second. I'm pulling up the 4B information. While Ms. Woodruff is
looking at that, does anybody have any other questions? Yes, Council Member Wilts. This is a point of
curiosity and absolutely no pressure if you don't have this figure off the top of your head. But under
the trauma and injury prevention section in the narrative,
It said that in 2025, drowning was the fourth leading cause of injury resulting in accidental death
in Monroe County. What it is across the state is particularly, we see it in infants. When the state
looks at it all, children are certainly subject to drowning as one of the important deaths
that we see, but the highest rate is under age one. So certainly educating parents about how they handle
their children in the bath, making sure, obviously, that you don't take them to the swimming pool and
let them go, as well as trying to educate parents in terms of safe sleep. That's one of the
big, big programs that is important in this. So yes, in terms of education, those are some of the primary
objectives. Well, that was exactly, you answered what I needed to know because it goes on to talk about
accidental drowning water safety with respect to water safety kits, and it was about swimming. And I'm
thinking, gosh, I bet it's not just swimming in a swimming pool. It's not just swimming.
Thank you. Miss Woodruff. And I did do some research on this fund. It looks like there is currently
no revenue that's anticipated in this fund. This is the only line, the salary and the FICA perf. So
the fringe associated with the main salary. We do expect if that line were to be fully expended this
year, we would end the year at roughly 35,000 and then
it looks like the budget for next year is $35,000 and change. So if they fully expend this
year's appropriation and next year's, they should end the year, looks like about negative $500. Given
the gap that we're seeing right now, I wouldn't anticipate for them to spend this full year unless they
do in-house transfers. Council Member Hawke, does that
answer your question. It does makes it's the kind of thing that we need to know. And I appreciate you
letting us know. It looks like it's if you're going to be short about 500 or something. So if they don't
fill it immediately, even a week or so that would make up the difference, right? Correct. That's
Councilmember Decker.
This is a classic example of something where there's immense amounts of important details in the position
and what we're doing but there's a larger topic here that is red flashing lights and one that sometimes
I think council never fully can get to because we get hung up in the in the ledger but my question doctor is
with all, and I'm saying this as a parent, among parents, among constituents, how does this coordinator
really effectively, when they're doing their job well, how do they get to all these people in very difficult
situations that sometimes turn into these, how do they do this job to be among folks that are not here
in the Na'u Hill, or I know how, like when you're at the hospital, how you leave there with lots, but
how does this,
county employee get out there to do this well? I'll tell you first of all that she's not the only maternal
child health coordinator in the county. There's also one through IU Health. This individual was partnering
a lot with Tandem, so a lot of the clients she got were through that particular network. I was offering
multiple suggestions.
as to agencies, pantries, all of the places that I would reach out to in her position to try and reach
people who may be underserved. And I believe that really your question is, how do we reach those folks?
And I suggested obviously connecting with doulas in the community as well.
And I can only make those suggestions. I can't force anyone's hands. So yes, what I would hope is that
we find a better way to coordinate activities with the other eternal child health coordinator so that,
one, we're not duplicating services such as Milk Bank and that we're more able to expand our reach
and our effect in this community. And again, I don't have the crystal ball to tell you that that's what
will happen, but that's my dream. Well, I like dreams and I like thinking about this in very big terms
to get to lots of different places. And I know that we've talked in other meetings about, you know,
a mobile unit, not a mobile unit, all those things, but
This is a big county with a lot of geography that is often very separated out among busy people that
are just overwhelmed and penetrating that message out to those areas and into those homes and where
you can. Some people don't want that or they don't they got to figure it out. But I think this is a
larger discussion to help with that vision and dream. So thank you. The only thing I was going to add,
well, you kind of
answered a question that I had because and obviously with you know some moving parts that are missing
right now currently in the health department. I just wanted to know like in the future if you did have
a crystal ball like what that partnership would look like because one person doing all of this I would
think that maybe we could collaborate with other entities in the community to try to
to expand upon that. So I'm just kind of thinking of something that you said last week during budget.
But then you just said it. So nothing else needs to be said. All right. Any other questions?
Yes. Councilmember Woods. As just a reaction, I think, to you bringing up the suggestions about partnering,
which I think is foundational to really being effective.
I just spent the afternoon with the Monroe County Health Equity Coalition. They've changed their name.
And that's an organization that is still, I would say, in its infancy, finding its feet, figuring out
exactly how it can be helpful. But as they mature over, and I think after today, there's a process for
that put in place, they might be,
able to help make connections and make the case and reach underserved folks because that's part of their
mission is reaching underserved audiences around health issues and connecting them to services. I'm
just throwing that out there to keep them in your tote bag. One of the other things I had suggested
was that she reach out to the township offices because our township offices
know who is in need and so again I'm only one human and I can only make suggestions I can't force people
but I know that there are lots of ways that we can reach people in this county and I hope that that's
what we're going to be doing more of me too thanks very much
And seeing no other further questions or comments, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment,
you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. All right, and seeing
none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feil? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 6-0. Thank you very much. Next up is item C from the
Health Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the Health Department's
request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1161-9625 Local Public Health
Services HFI 1 Health Administrator position.
Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. What would you like to add to this item? Well, as you
are well aware, we have no health administrator per se at the time. We are now meeting as a team and
had our very first team meeting today. And we'll continue to meet, have invited our two liaisons to
meet with us and
haven't heard back from them quite yet. We need an administrator and I am reaching out to my managers
to try and begin to gather what qualities they would like to see in their next administrator. I know
I have needs and I know that there are different departments in this county that also have some very specific
that they would enjoy having in their next administrator for the health department. It's a big job,
and it may well take a team of people to do it together, but if we can find one magical person who can
handle all of the parts and keep them all juggling all of those balls up in the air at the same time,
I would be delighted to have that person to
with in moving this health department forward. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? Councilmember
Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Dr. Rayderband. I apologize to you in the room that I
have not been able to connect with you and the team to talk about this before this evening. I'm also
practicing some social distancing as I'm under the weather and I didn't want to, you know, go to a public
health meeting and
Yeah, be spreading the germs around. So I ask your indulgence there. I wanted to say, I appreciate the
way that you're going about this very deliberately to canvas the workforce about needs. It sounds like
you're having some conversations in the community about ways to rethink the position. And I want to
say I appreciate that. I guess my first question really then is if you are
working through sort of re-imagining what that role could be, would it make sense to come back to us
in like two weeks with a packet entry kind of like the maternal health entry that you provided in the
previous item to really show us kind of what it is we're putting out onto the market? And I say that
because it sounds like if we put the current job description out or position description out and you
are discovering things you want to change, I would hate to delay the hiring of somebody because
things are changing. Does that make sense? I'm not exactly sure I'm understanding you. There is a clearly
is a job description. I think that it's the job description that would go online for the and that it
would be in the hiring process that we would work our way through what qualities are they bringing to
the table that would make them
best fit for the personnel within the health department and to work with all of the other groups not
only in the community but within the county. So you don't see the the team approach changing anything
in the position description now because that's what I'm asking is like is it that much of a change?
Yeah I'm not sure that
I think that a good administrator would, and this is just my opinion with no background whatsoever in
administration, but that a good administrator works as a team. They are working with all of their managers.
They are working with other county directors and listening and sharing and hearing them accurately.
The team may well be an individual who has all of that capability and knows how to use a finance director
well, knows how to use the personnel that are already within the department, and has vision for how
can they both balance what the board wants and what are the best interests of this community. Does that
answer your question?
It gets there, and again, thank you for answering, and I'm sorry I can't be in the room. I know there's
delay and audible issues. I guess, yeah, and I think it's worth saying, you know, that the way that
we handed off this position last time was interesting in the community. It predated your time on the
board. You came on on 23. As I understand it from
former board members, you know, Penny Cottle had retired in June of 22, and Ms. Kelly came on in July
of 22, and there wasn't really, you know, a transition between them. You know, it was sort of one person
walked out of the office, the next person walked in. We have an opportunity here, I think, to
go into the market and put that position out into the world to see who, as you said, we find that special,
that magic person, I guess. So I'm concerned about the handoff, right? And this is an abrupt one, and
I know we're gonna, we have some issues around that, but that's fine. But I guess I raise that to say,
are you looking to market nationally for this, through like, NACCHO, or like, what is your plan for,
finding that person. I will certainly put it out through NASHO because they are community health and
but it will also go through IDOH so it may well be that there is someone within IDOH who would be willing
to take on Monroe County having done their work at IDOH. We'll put it to the public
at the School of Public Health will put it out anywhere and everywhere. And I think the one thing that
I heard in your statement was that, you know, that Penny ended and Lori started and there was a six
month, as I understand it, I wasn't here, but there was a six month overlap where indeed Penny was training
Lori to be the health administrator. So yes, you're right. This is abrupt and it won't be the first
abrupt change that IDOH has had to deal with. They've already come down last week and spent some time
with the team from our regional, our southern regional representative from IDOH. And she spent two hours with us.
answering many of our questions and is always available to us. We're very fortunate in that your new
head of human relations has been a health administrator and has also offered to meet with us and help
us in this process and has told us that
She's someone we can rely on for guidance. So we have a lot of guidance from both IDOH and locally.
And over time, as I have gone to meetings through IDOH, I've been able to meet a lot of other health
administrators and health officers who also have reached out and are willing to help and support us
in any way possible.
looks really big to me, but in the moment, it would be really helpful just to have the approval so that
we can post this and start to look at possible candidates for the role because yes, it's a big role
and they are big shoes to step into and I would like them to be gorgeous shoes and I'd like them to
be worn and that this person should be able to dance with everything that goes on around here.
Thank you for your answers. I appreciate it. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Yes, Council Member
Deckard. I just wanted to add on this. I do recall the overlap time period. I did not recall it was
six months, but I knew it was considerable because we've been in that model for some time. And if there
ever was a place where you would put that overlap, it certainly would be there if you're able. This
is obviously a situation that that's just not in the cards and that's just part of it.
I do want to say on the you know sometimes we look externally sometimes we look broadly and what do
I know but I will say this penny coddles name came up and I just want to say on this microphone something
I thought think of often when I see her name or find her in the community and she doesn't run shrieking
from another county official. I firmly believe we got to the other side of that pandemic because of
that woman's leadership.
And I think that her heart, she stood at that very podium right there many times, two tears over our
very constituents. I think that that held us together in a lot of situations. And I think it's a good
example of you're talking about dreams and visions and all that. And I think a health department can
do that. I think that's part of what you're maybe looking for out there and you'll know it when you
find it or you'll know when you're still looking.
I didn't want her name to get past this podium without saying that. And that said, I am going to vote
yes on this because we absolutely have to have this role and we have to have that department and your
board and everything else as healthy as we can get it for those moments that may come, God forbid, as
we did in 2020 and 2021, where literally everyone knew the name Penny Cottle and her voice on the radio.
They knew that more than they knew any of us.
and for good cause and good reason. Thank you very much. And it is reassuring that our HR directors
jack of all trades. So that would be helpful. And I do think that to some of the points that Councilmember
Henry had made, I think
because this person also will work with IDOH. You kind of said something that sparked my spidey senses
is that maybe, I don't know what the process looks like, but if there's a way that maybe a representative
could be involved, as you all are kind of going through and vetting and interviewing, maybe that will
give us some type of perspective, so to speak, that maybe we're not used to having here.
So that's just one thing that I was just thinking about is because, you know, they've been working in
tandem with you as well as we navigate this process. So I think that would be something that might be
helpful as well. All right. So seeing no other further questions or comments on this item, I will move
to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward
to the podium here in the room.
and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor
Henry. Abstain. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crosley. Yes. I say yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Motion passes.
five zero one abstain all right thank you thank you very much all right next up is item eight we will
move to council business from the clerk's office council i moved open for discussion and possible approval
the clerk's office request and fund one two one five dash zero zero six two election fund election board
to add new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional appropriations
of $25,050 in the personnel category, $25,500 in the supplies category, and $273,450 in the services
category for a total appropriation of $324,000.
We got a motion in a second. We are joined here by Ms. Kylie Farris and Mr. Tanner Branham. Welcome.
Good evening, council. Thank you for having us tonight.
We are here to request additional appropriations to fund the 2026 general election. In the spring of
this year, the clerk came before you to request funding for both the primary and the general election.
And in that meeting, the council chose to fund the primary and suggested that we would come back later
to request funding for the general election. And so we are here tonight to request that additional funding.
We are also requesting the creation of three new lines. These are to allow us to add appropriations
to three lines that we could not request additional appropriations for because they were in the edit
plan and could not be edited. So that is why we are requesting the creation of three new account lines
is to cover those expenses. Thank you very much.
All right, any questions or comments from council on this item? Council Member Woltz and Dr. Next.
Two things, if you wouldn't mind pointing out which lines were moved from the edit, do you happen to
know? Yes, so it was, yes, so in the edit, it was our three, sorry,
3006 contractual services, 30028 training and, oh, sorry, 2001 office supplies, 22002 machine precinct
supplies, 22003 precinct setup supplies. So those three lines were in the edit plan. And so we are requesting
the creation of three new ones, which will be 20001 office supplies, 22002 machine precinct, and 22003
increasing setup supplies. So basically recreating the three lines that were in the edit, recreating
them outside of the edit so that we can request additional appropriations in those lines. Thank you.
And I'll hold off. I'll let other people go. We'll come back. I'll go Council Member Decker and then
Henry next. I wanted to ask our election supervisor director
I get your title wrong every time, but I know who you are and I know you do it well. My question is
for you. You've been around the block a couple times. How busy is this one looking on your based on
your initial things you monitor? So right now one thing that we're noticing a large increase on is overseas.
So our FPCA is we've already sent out over 200 ballots to individuals who are overseas. In total on
Saturday we sent out 888 ballots. That is the online and email ballots that were delivered.
We're seeing a larger amount of applications come in for the general election than we did at this time
period in the 2024 election. We did not send out nearly this many overseas ballots this early on. So
right now we're looking at expecting for a high turnout. We are getting a mix of calls of some individuals
saying that they're definitely doing early voting and others who are saying they're avoiding early voting
and that they want to vote on Election Day instead.
Are the parties sending signals that they're going to send you the volunteers you need for Election
Day? So far for early voting, we're looking good. Election Day, the seats are still very empty. I always
want to ask about that because I've heard that from your predecessors and clerks and deputy clerks,
but essentially for our system of a two-party check to work,
from the polling place to early voting, what she needs is both parties sending people that will work
in that. It doesn't work that way without. They have to make do. And nobody wants to make do even though
they make do quite well. So I just wanted to ask that to kind of kick off on the activity. Thank you
very much. Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for coming in. I did have
a chance to review this budget with
in my liaison role with Kylie and Tanner. So I'm glad we're presenting. I will say there's probably
a cautionary tale for later when we talk about the edit to make sure that if we are agreeing to a plan
to use the fund for things like elections, that maybe if it gets this granular that we have the detail
here. Because this, I think in some ways got caught up in the difference of using these proceeds in
the edit for the election versus where we are
with asking for this correction. So I appreciate that with you bringing it in. Tanner or Kylie, do you
have a sense of, like with our approach of trying to manage the fund a little better to save up for
the presidential year, how close we are to, I guess your overall estimate for the year, if we did not
go down the path of breaking this in half, do you know, like, are we,
pretty much on target with what you had asked for initially before we broke this in half. Do you know
that? Yes, so right now we are looking on target as to what was originally
requested for the budget for 2026. One thing that we are seeing a difference in is going to be the ballots
because for the general election, we had to move to a custom size ballot due to the amount of races
on the ballot and public questions. So there will be a completely new ballot size that has never been
seen before. Ballots costed more than what we were expecting. So they went from the legal size to another
eight and a half by 17, which is
It's a learning curve for all of us right now. Yeah, I heard something about that too, about the public
question being awfully long. It's going to give the appearance of some white space on page two,
is that right? Yeah, so on the front page there did have to be some open spaces due to regulations on how the
each race shows up on the ballot so all of the instructions for straight party has to be with the straight
party choices so that created a very large gap on the front side left side column but then the back
most of your ballots are completely full front top to bottom yeah i know you i know you treated this
like uh puzzle pieces or you know yeah this this was worked so hard so i hope the public understands
that what may look like you know why is this you know so empty it's because
frankly, there's no other way to get it on there. I know you spent a lot of time with it. So I thank
you for your effort. That's it, Madam President. We ended up with a total of 109 different ballot styles
just for reference as well. Yeah. Yeah. Good work. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions
or comments? I'm going to circle back to Councilor Wilts. I know you said you have more. I don't want
to put you on the spot. Kind of following along
I have to admit I was distracted, so you might have covered this. And I apologize if you already did.
I know he asked about how this was comparing with the total. And I heard you talk about the out size.
Is this exactly the amount that you had carved out
in the spring? It's not exactly so there are a couple of spots that did increase but due to us not spending
as much in other lines it is evening evening out overall. Okay yeah I will just to clarify we did like
have like some getting closer as we approached the general we were able to kind of target specific things
that we identified that we needed so that's why it kind of fluctuated a little bit right because when
we're requesting back in February we didn't know exactly what we might end up needing come here in September.
one thing that I will say and why supply lines we are asking for as much as what we are our boxes for
our Franklin boots have been the same boxes since we bought the Franklin boots and they are deteriorating
we did just find out that we can buy covers for the Franklin boots that have just now been created and
that's something that we want to look at doing that's why we're requesting the money for it because
instead of spending approximately a hundred thousand per Franklin booth we're spending sixty dollars per cover
Thank you. Yeah. Councilmember Decker. This may be something that's a dumb question so feel free to
slap me if it is but does the Secretary of State have any HAVA dollars or those gone? We received HAVA
dollars I want to say 2024 and that's what we used for the print devices that we purchased to increase
the number of those but we have not had any opportunities of requesting any or applying for any of those.
But cycle to cycle, it's still a thing that's not run out. OK. And seeing no other further questions
or comments, I will take the point of privilege and say congratulations to Kylie on her 40 under 40
award. So you're very welcome. Congratulations. Well deserved. All right.
So seeing none, I will move to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via
Teams or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. And for the record, I want to note that
Council Member Hawke has left. So maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
which is Monday, and then October 6th is early voting. Got it. All right. Thank you very much for that.
Bye. All right. And as requested, we are moving past item B originally because that got tabled.
If I may, before we move past this item, I do think with the addition of that overtime line, we might
have to amend our overtime resolution. Okay.
So I mean, I can bring it back for amendment later, but the resolution which Michelle is pulling up
provides for $5,000. But I do believe in the spring there was an additional appropriation. So this would
be in addition to that. So I would just like to clarify in the overtime resolution those additional
appropriations, which we can do at the next meeting. I just wanted to make sure you're aware of it.
Okay. Will they need to come back? Are they needing to be here now or would they have to come back?
No. Okay. Okay. Okay. So it looks like you all can exit the historic NatU Hill Room. All right. If you
want to stick around, great. If not, go home. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for bringing that
to our attention, Ms. Turner-King. All right. Next up, we have items from the Youth Services Bureau.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval the Youth Services Bureau's request in fund
four one one one dash zero zero zero zero donation hyphen BTCC for an additional appropriation of three
thousand three hundred dollars in the services category second all right we got a motion and a second
and it looks like we have miss
Vanessa Schmidt that is joining us. And then also for the record, we have Council Member Iverson joining
us virtually as well. So Ms. Schmidt, you should be able to take it away. Thank you. Can you hear me,
Council? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, perfect. So yes, thank you. Like I mentioned, we are here just
to request approval of additional appropriations of donations made to BTCC.
that will help to support our 2026 MC3 event that we're trying to pull together through a variety of
resources. And I do just wanna acknowledge we received a total of $3,800 in sponsorships so far for
just this appropriation. And we are scheduled for the MC3 event to be held on November 16th.
These contributions include $800 from the IU School of Public Health, 1,000 from United Health,
500 from CareSource, 500 from the Southern Indiana Exchange Club, $250 from Ivy Tech, $250 from Farrington
Specialty Center, and $500 from the City of Wilmington. Thank you very much for that. I'm just glad
to see that this is continuing. Any other questions or comments from or anything from council on this item?
I was gonna say Council can do another plug as she passed out flyers for us. I happened to be in a meeting
with Melanie Veselich this afternoon. So she gave me the little papers to distribute. So just for the
public, the 2026 Monroe County Childhood Conditions Summit will be November 16th.
at the Bloomington Convention Center, 8 AM to 4.30 PM. It's a really amazing time. It's a good event.
Check it out. Thank you. I would definitely want to acknowledge Melanie's hard work in pulling this
together with limited funding this year. She has been able to make magic happen. We're very excited.
That's awesome. Thank you.
PSD, can you please promote Peter Iverson? Thank you. All right, so seeing no other further questions
or comments on this item, we will move to public comment. If there's public comment, raise your hand
via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll
call vote?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval the Youth Services Bureau's request in Fund
9103-9628 Project Safe Place for deappropriation of $950 in the services category. Second. All right
we got a motion and a second and what would you like to add to this item?
Thank you, Council. So this is a grant, a state grant provided to us by Indiana Youth Services Association.
It's a routine grant that we have received for decades. However, they had some funding cut after they
awarded these grants, and so they had to reach out, do an amendment. That was previously approved by
commissioners on August 20th of 2026, and so we are just requesting the appropriation of $950.
Thank you very much. Council, do you have any questions or comments on this item? All right. Thank you
very much. We will move on to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via
Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call
vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes
unanimous six zero. All right, thank you. Item F. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible
approval the Youth Services Bureau's request and fund 8120-9628
runaway and homeless to add new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional
appropriations of $164,018 in the personnel category.
$5,379 in the supplies category and $12,695 in the services category for a total appropriation of $182,092.
Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item?
Thank you. This one, we're excited about this. So this is a three-year federal grant that we received
from the Administration for Children and Families. It supports two positions at YSB, 80% of one and
100% of the other, along with our Youth Advisory Board, Safe Place Outreach, Crisis Intervention Services.
And we are awarded a three-year period. However, we have to reapply every year to receive that funding. And so
This was our continuation application that has been approved. We have been approved for the third year
of funding for a total of $182,092. Congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you. Any questions or comments
on this item from council? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, you
can raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room.
and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous
six zero. All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, Council. Have a great night. You too. All right. Next up are items that Ms. Turner-King will
be taking care of for us. Oh, we'll be presenting to us, I should say. But we'll start off with the
council office, item G. Council, I move to approve ordinance 2026-28, approving the recorder sworn affidavit
regarding use of the Recorder Perpetuation Fund for 2027 office expenses.
second. All right we got a motion and a second. So during the recorder's budget she mentioned that she
filed her annual statement that states that the recorder may pay office expenses out of the recorder's
perpetuation fund if there was enough funding in that fund. The statute requires the recorder to file
a sworn statement and it requires the council to
And so that's what this ordinance is. We do it annually. And so it's pretty much similar to the one
we did last year. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments from council on this item? It's what
we do. All right. Self-explanatory. All right. Well, seeing none, I've had a lot of questions about
the ordinance.
There is just so happens to be a comment from public on this item. You can raise your hand via Teams
or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, I'm trying to stall. I can
do the roll call. I know she's about to walk in. Maybe please have a roll call. So this is a roll call
to approve ordinance 26-2028 or dash 28. Councilor Feidl?
Yes. Counselor Wilts. Yes. Counselor Decker. Sorry. Counselor Decker. Yes. Counselor Crossley. Yes.
Counselor Henry. Yes. Counselor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Great. Thank you very much. Next up,
item H. Council, I move to open for discussion Financial Solutions Group FSG contract amendment. Second.
All right, we got a motion in a second, Ms. Turner-King. So at a previous council meeting, there was
a discussion on using FSG for must and whether that required the execution of a new contract or if we
could just do an amendment to our current contract. I spoke to Mr. Garitas and he was amenable to either
way. So I prepared a
contract amendment, which I can share my screen. So this contract amendment does a couple different
things. The first thing it does, so it acknowledges that we signed an agreement in February of 2025.
Sorry, I'm trying to make it bigger while talking that we
the agreement outlined to the services and that the previously established not exceed amount was $28,000.
So the addendum adds additional services related to must, which include facilitating and moderating
must meetings, providing guidance and analysts on local income tax distribution strategies, reviewing
local income tax distribution agreements, supporting if needed document submission to the DLGF,
services and assisting with the development of the report for submission to the state legislation. The
amendment adds those additional duties. It increases the shall not exceed amount to $34,000.
So it's a $6,000 extra expense. In talking to Mr. Garitas, he did not anticipate that we used the full
$6,000, but we could.
However, I will also add that I do believe Michelle is going to end up asking possibly for an additional
appropriation in our FSG line for services that they're rendering under our current contract without
the additional services. So increasing the shall not exceed amount to 34,000 potentially covers both
the must services and the services that Michelle is going to ask for. And then the last thing that
the amendment does is it extends the termination date from December 31st of 2026 to December 31st of
2027. I have not shared this with Mr. Garitas yet. I wanted to see what council's thoughts were on the
amendment before I sent it to him. One thing that this does is
In the must proposal that we received for SSG, the consulting rate was slightly higher than our current
contract. So this locks it in at the lower rate. And although I did not point that exact fact out to
Mr. Garitas, he did. He seemed OK with amending our current contract. OK, well, thank you. I already
saw Councilmember Iverson's hand up, so I'll go to him next.
Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to make two very quick points here. Number one is that I am
in favor of this because if you've read the article on the B Square Beacon covering Friday's must meeting
and you go down into the comments, you can see just how confusing Senate Bill 1 is and the whole must
process is. Having FSG there to walk people through
and provide their material was I think a great benefit and something that we certainly rely on and I
think is important to have. The second point that I'll make is after Friday's must meeting, it is fairly
certain that the October meeting, the next meeting will be the final meeting. So we should be able to
get through this must process with only two meetings. Thank you and thanks again for taking
over or doing a good job with facilitating that with Mr. Garitas. That was a good meeting and you kept
it under an hour and a half. So there you go. All right. That's right. All right. Any other questions
or comments on this item from council? OK, seeing none.
I will move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, raise your hand via Teams, or
you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. All right. And first up, we have somebody hand
raise via Teams. You'll state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. So screen
name Lee, if you can unmute, and you would be able to proceed. Hello. My name is Lee.
I'm a resident of Monroe County. I just wanted to comment about the special lit tax, which is not represented
in this must procedure and talk about taxes in general, because one of the things that I found lacking
is how the reduction in
property taxes is, you know, in comparison. So a bigger picture of the reduction that you're seeing
in property taxes with this increase or change in the way the local income tax is done. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there anybody else via Teams that would like to make a comment on this item?
May we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Wilkes. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard.
Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Motion passes unanimous
six zero. And procedurally I will now propose
these changes to Mr. Garitas and FSG. If they're amendable to such, then I will add the amendment to
the contract to a commissioner's agenda for approval. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Yes,
go ahead. You want to do anything else? Okay, so I'm going to based on our little mini conversation
here, I'm going to bring up the issue of Councilor Wilts was bringing up what we actually voted on here,
which in the
what I read to open for discussion. It didn't say anything about what we really talked about, right?
So it just said open for discussions, but we read, we listened to Molly present many things about the
amendments. And so maybe we do need to have a motion in a second to accept those amendments. Would that
be appropriate? What were we doing? I think for clarity,
we do the roll call, and it would be a motion to propose the changes to FSG. Somebody needs to make
a motion. Council Member Decker. Council, I move that we clarify our previous action by a resolution,
a motion with my motion that says we are adopting this amended contract proposal for FSG. And I amend
as outlined by Ms. Molly Turner King. I consent to the amendment. Second.
Okay, we got a motion in a second. Any other further questions or clarifications on this item? All right.
Seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous 6-0. All right. Tom is now 6-3. Do you know where your kids are? OK. Next up
is item I. And I actually, this is my fault. I forgot to motion or make a comment at the beginning of
the agenda approval to table this item. We're not ready for prom time just yet on this item.
And so I'm going to say our next regularly scheduled meeting is October 13th, correct? Okay, because
I know the six is the public hearing. So I counsel without any objections, I would like to table item
I, which is to approve the resolution 2629 to target fund balance resolution to our October 13th meeting.
All right.
We got a motion and a second. Is there any questions or comments from this item? I think by then we
should be ready for prom time for this one. All right. And seeing no other further questions or comments,
I apologize for the oversight on that. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you
very, very much. And next up is the discussion of GO bonds with our Board of Commissioners. Council,
I move to open a discussion of the 2027 general obligation bond. Second.
all right we got a motion and a second and we will have the county version of the 18 come on up and
present to us tell me what you want first the present the yeah okay yeah so
We'll start off with the 2026 and good evening, sorry. Good evening. It's all good. You're all good.
And we're joined by Commissioners Madeira and Commissioner Thomas, and of course, Ms. Angie Berge. Welcome.
Thank you. And Michelle is going to help me with the presentation to display on the screen. And it was
emailed to you earlier today.
the presentation of the 2026 general obligation bonds. And you go to the next one. And the commissioners
just want to continue the necessary capital improvements, repairs, replacement, and purchases that keep
Monroe County government functioning efficiently and effectively to the best of its capability. Just
some background information during the past 10 years, we have secured 12
Um, G O bonds totaling up 34 million, 567,000 to $525 and 50 cents. And at this point we have 3 million,
328,000, $152 and 60 cents that are remaining in projects that are, that are outstanding. And we can
talk about the older projects after this, if you like. Um,
The money that's remaining just kind of to give you a background is associated with projects that have
been delayed due to supply chain issues and utility issues, product build time complications, highway,
it turns out all of their things when they're built takes a considerably long length of time. And then
we have funds that have been appropriated for our IT needs and those are for ongoing and as problems
arise that we're able to
respond to those. So the next slide is just kind of showing you some pictures of some of the projects
that are planned for this particular bond. As you can see in the upper quadrant of the slide, those
are the what would be proposed as the new shower and flooring belts for our inmates and
This is a priority item. It was one, I think, that was not necessarily considered a priority when the
two groups looked at the projects. However, there's a water issue, a water penetration issue with our
current showers, which, as you all know, water and in buildings and in hot weather is never
a good combination. And then the other one is some examples of the highway.
items that they had requested. So Minero County government as a whole, with you guys assisting
the commissioners, are able to provide an improved security and building environment, but you're also
providing for our law enforcement and our community while taking care of our roadways, our
park accessibility, and our community in general through improved travel and leisure activities. And
in addition to the emergency notification system, so that's kind of a rundown of
most of the items that you're going to be looking at today. Next slide. So this next slide reflects
the projects as you saw on your initial presentation when we came a couple of months ago, I think it
was. And so this is primarily that presentation minus projects that were dropped off that were of a
lower category
lower classification between the two bodies as far as priority is concerned. And it does include three
additional projects that you were not aware of at that time. One of those is portal radios for the sheriff's
office, elevator repairs. There had been an elevator on the prior list, but we found that we could do
some repairs to the current
Elevator that is of a lesser value And hopefully keep it going And then the last one is highway I had
somehow left them off the prior Presentation and they want to do the pavement preservation They have
one five single axle salt spreaders That was the little one and then three of the tandem X three axle
salt spreader boxes So but this is not your final bond numbers. So the next slide
I also want to just kind of give you a highlight of those items that were removed from the
initial presentation so you know what we did take off. And one of those items is the jail plumbing parts
and fixtures. That was a high priority item, but we're able to do that out of the cumulative capital
development fund. And we also have the ability to reduce
some of the requests in this bond due to savings associated with prior year bonds. Emergency management
has a total of $39,349,346.22 that we're going to be able to apply to the cost of their siren project
for the 2026 bond. And the sheriff also has a total of 128,000 remaining in rugged laptops
and a body scanner in the 2025 general obligation bond that we can then move into the taser and body
cam and in-car camera line, which is also part of that 2025 general obligation bond. And as a result,
reduce that $440,000 that was requested for the 2026 GEO bond because it's a five-year payout on these items.
So we're able to reduce that amount because we have some of that additional money. Next slide. This
slide shows you the costs. So for emergency management, the siren replacement with the necessary electric
components was originally $345,100, but we can take off the 39,000 that we have in the other bonds.
And that brings that amount down to 305,000. The same thing with the sheriff when we moved the
the additional funds up into the same line, the taser body cam line that goes from $440,000 to $312,000.
So our next slide is just kind of highlighting some of the items that are proposed as part of this bond
park at park or county park access is a large component for parks. We have
We call non-law enforcement officer vehicles. Those are for community corrections and those are electric
vehicles. We also have a van that's proposed for Youth Services Bureau that's also electric. And then
the court has dome and dome is leaking. This is another water issue that is never a good thing. So that
became a priority. So we'll go on to the next.
This slide actually is reflecting the projects as presented and as finalized that we're presenting to
you. And it's also showing the reduced amount for the siren replacement project and also for the ongoing
Taser body cam in-car camera expenses. So this bond list, and if you want, I can go through all of them.
I'll highlight the names of what we're doing.
So siren replacement, car's form blacktop, the non-law enforcement vehicles, taser body cam, and in-car
cameras, portable radios, showers, cameras for the jail, prosecutor renovation, that's still in the
group, shelter nine parking, and splash pad parking, and fields nine through 12 dog parking, and those
all include ADA.
availability. Court has domed drones and cameras, elevator repairs, and the pavement preservation assault
boxes for highway. So the bond comes to, as proposed, a total of $3,894,853.78. And that's it for 2026
general obligation bond.
Thank you very much. I will look to council to see if anybody has any questions on this item as presented.
Yes. Council member Decker. Thanks for noting the addition on highway. I kind of wondered about that,
but my question was, and I didn't hear, but then again, I may have missed it on the airport snowplow.
Did that make any cut or it was removed? Okay.
$70,000. Yeah, it looks like it said 70 on our sheet. Yes, Councilmember Woods. Thanks. The first of
all, thanks for the presentation. I'm always, you know, every year I'm like, I need more stuff. And
this is good. I love it. Thank you. The the projects that were removed. Are they collectively not happening?
at this time, with the exception of the jail plumbing parts and fixtures, the other items at this point
are not being provided. Unless there's other departments could find some other money. They need to move
to something and a miracle golden purse of money somebody found. Grant money. Yeah, things coming. Some
miracle like that. Right. Right. Just wanted to make sure. But the jail plumbing was completed.
that project is being completed. Right. Yeah. We purchased those. Okay. Go for it. Keep going. Oh, yeah.
No, that's yeah. The jail was we've already started that because that was that became more of a necessary.
So in the past we have done three year
bonds, right? Oh, in the past, we've done one year bond. They were usually three million, but we did
one year. That's what I meant. Those are the. Oh, sorry. One year bond, three million dollars. Got it.
But this is a different. This is a six year. Yes. And this occurred as a result of the Senate Bill one
in which we have to have the cooling off period. And so this helps. This allows us to
avoid that cooling off period. So now your bond is amortized, amortized, amortized. Thank you. Over
six years as opposed to one year. And the auditor's office can show you the amortization schedule if
you need to see how that's played out.
I do know that when we looked into this in 25, when this first came to our attention, I believe it was
FSG or may have been bond counsel who came and spoke about this process versus our older process. And
it was noted that a lot of counties before Senate and World Act I came into play were using the longer bonds.
It was just something that Monroe County had not done previously. Councilmember Decker. I want to follow
that up. Since we're in new territory here, I have kind of a, well, I'll start with one question. Does
interest rate on the bond go up because it's over six years then? That's going to be on the,
depends on the, that's an auditor question because the bonds will be,
to be sold, right? So we have, it depends on what the rate is at this point in time, but then that is
divided up through six years. I mean, interest rates are high right now compared. So yes, we're getting
a higher than we used to. But we do have a good bond rating in the county. That is good. But the fact
that it's longer means we're taking longer to pay it back and that is more interest payment.
So this is a more expensive way to get money, for sure. But it's less expensive upfront. So it's like
buying a car. You can pay for it all at once, right? Or you pay for it over seven years. You're going
to pay more in interest overall, but your yearly payments cost to you are less. So it's a
It's a six of one, half a dozen of the other. I just started a new one. Okay. We'll go for it Mr. Decker.
And because we're in new territory and I'm looking for anyone that can answer this so please don't feel
the pressure on this. Does that mean in one year we would be back with a second request for a new six-year
bond or is we're just done? No we will probably be coming back and
until we can get due until the legislation allows us to do a one-year bond without the cooling off period
I would anticipate that we are going to be coming with a six-year bond each year as I indicated the
in-car body camera tasers and body cams that's a five-year obligation at $440,000 a year unless we can find
something in another bond that meets that criteria to offset the cost. This is just general commentary,
but I did not fully understand that in all the changes, and I should have. That's on me. But it just
seems like the state changes. This is another dimension that just I don't fully understand how this
makes sense other than communities have to bond.
to get everything done or my gosh, you'd never get anything done. But it just doesn't seem like this
is something that someone knew what they were doing when they did it or they meant for it to be this
way. And I would throw that out to counselors that in the shifting sands of the state figuring out what
happens here and doesn't happen here. I could see all this being something completely different in three
and a half months and two and a half years.
I'll stop talking. Yes, Councilor Frido. So I'm, you know, anybody that understands the totality of
SEA-1, I think is a miracle worker. So keeping that in mind, I wondered if there was a limit on the
bond amount as a result of SEA-1 that we have to stay under. There is a, there is a limit on, it's either,
I think $6 million is the maximum amount that per year. I'm sorry? $6 million for six years. Yes. So
then when you come back next year, would that amount get added to this amount? Okay, so it's its own
new $6 million. Right, right. Thank you. Yeah, and this request is three point. I got it. I just wanted
to know what the max was. Yeah, it's six. Thanks. Point five.
The, what is the shortest term of the bond that allows us to not have the cooling off period? I think
this is it. It's my understanding that that was how it was presented to us in 25, which is why we're
using the six year bond. Right, but you don't have to obviously bond for the full six and a half, so
we're obviously. Right, right. I thought it was possible. I thought there was a,
It was a little bit less. The statute references short-term debt issuances under five years, so this
would be the shortest term. If it's under five, then you have the cooling off period. The cooling off
period means if you do it that way, you can't do it every year. We would have to wait. My understanding, again,
Just my understanding is, so you would get a bond, say, for now in 26, it would be paid off in,
let's say, a year, because that's the one I know. So we do it in a year. We can't bond in 27. I think
we have to wait until 28 before we can bond again, because you cannot bond. So you have a year to pay
off, and then you have to wait a year.
So that's why it becomes a problem, because you're looking at basically two years without being able
to fund for these projects. And these projects keep us afloat. Oh, yeah. It's just. Sorry, that's the
legislature. I mean, I think I think
I mean, it doesn't make sense. And there's so much that doesn't. And this is just one segment of what
doesn't make sense. But it's that is exactly where I am with this. I mean, I am I am frustrated by rules
that are impacting our ability to manage and steward money responsibly because I do feel backed into a corner.
We depend on a certain amount of bonding, and I was really proud of the way we've managed that over
the years, frankly. We have not increased that amount since I've been on council. It has been very close
every year, and that keeps everything needed to sustain it at a flat level as well.
granted interest rates do change. But this throws in a whole other level of complication in financing
and expense. I mean, let's just call it it's more expensive. And it's a no. Again, I want to go back
to that rate is divided by six as opposed to one. And so this is a
you guys really should talk to the auditor about how that affects, because I think if we look at some
forms that we did, our debt maybe, because the 2025 was a six year bond, instead of having the three
million in that box, we only had like 300 and some thousand, because it's over three, over the six years.
So your rate is spread out.
over that time period. So in actuality, so what happens going back to the older bonds, I think it was
in 2016, we got two bonds to $2 million bonds. So that was total of 4 million in 2016. We did that at
that time because we had the showers purchase falling off. So there was a tax rate incurred by the
community through that but when we added the addition so that fell off and when we added on the additional
two million that kept the rate at the same level so actually right now the rate is less because it's
spread over six years clear as mud i see and then we'll do it again next year and it'll add those rates
will add and i don't know
but as they add, they're also falling off. So it's a, again, this is a, please talk to the auditor about
this. I understand. And I'm not trying to put you on the spot for stuff that we should probably be more
informed about. I think another good way to think about this as well is, you know, this is where Ms.
Prudy does such a great job and all our department heads do a great job is things are,
are acknowledged in advance that are needed these capital expenses and we do things over time and have
a plan just like highway plans which roads are going to get paved year after year and because if you
drop if you drop a bond over a year for example and you don't bond at all and then you start bonding
again the taxpayer
really feels a hit. It's a seesaw that they don't need. Instead, we are consistently addressing the
capital needs for the county residents, and I think that's what's made this a better way to move forward.
I guess to that point, I have a quick question. Departments come into you all asking questions.
I mean, how early like when do they start? Like I'm thinking now. You know this list of things that
didn't get on the list for 26. Do you already have people that are lining up for 27 asking? Can we get
on that list? Yeah, I am. We talked about projects all the time and we you know the first thing you
like. Can we manage this in cumulative capital development fund? Can we manage this a different way?
Can can you get a grant? Can this happen? I mean,
It's all those questions get asked, and then it's timing, right? It is, and things come up that can't
wait. Things come up that can wait. So it is just a constant kind of give and take of trying to figure
out how you're going to triage the situation at hand. And email of capital is definitely
an important part of our ability to respond to those things that were maybe not caught by a bond. People
were not aware of that this was coming up, that kind of situation. And so far, we've been good at being
able to balance that. I appreciate that. Thank you. And then things that don't make sense, that sounds
like a segment that we could
have Kat to help us with, because there's a whole lot that we could probably add to that. And I would
recommend talking with Mr. Cockerill. He truly, he really understands this. And I think that that might
help significantly. Thank you. Council Member Henry. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for the
comments. You know, I have no
I think we've kind of had this conversation before a year ago. Councilor Wilts, you were reminding me
of it as we were circling what seems to be the queasiness. And I guess for me, the queasiness is the
fact that if you add up year over year, regardless of
amortization schedules and interest, we are still asking for more bond money year end over year end
from historically. If you have a one-year bond at three million or the six-year at this number times
five, it is more bonded money that we're bonding. I think Councilor Hawkins brought that up too. It
is a long-term finance question. I guess what I would ask or maybe,
this time next year we're not saying the same things again about why is this weird, is that if there
are projections for capital projects, which it sounds like there are from departments, we need to factor
that into the long-term finance of the county to know when the bigger things are going to break and
if it is a 2029 or 2030 outlay based on the work that's being done by department heads with the board to know
what years are gonna be harder, right? And you may very well come back and say, look, it's always going
to be us asking for this max if we can, because there are that many projects. But we don't see all that.
What we get is the annual list. And it sounds like there's a way to project out a few years on what
we really think is coming. And that might be interesting to work on over the next year to really get
ahead of that. So it's less opaque, I guess, in this conversation.
an observation I have from this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else with any
questions or comments? So the next steps from here would be. Yeah, I do think that you guys might want
to drag this into the edit conversation also.
Um, but the next steps will be that we need to get this when I did not print out, there's a schedule,
um, in which it needs to be approved in a public meeting. Um, and then we kind of go from there, but
I can get that to you. I'm pretty sure that, um, we have that we've done our resolution, but it was
Charlie. Yeah, I think, I think Jeff has to get that.
So we'll get that to you for approval. But it's still, again, there's still an open question that we're
going to talk about relating to edit geobond and how things are being spent. So we're not done with
geobond conversation yet. I can get you the schedule as soon as probably tomorrow. I do think that we
have it based upon the commissioners approving last Thursday.
Okay, yeah. So the next steps, but there is an item that was. There are some items that the question
came up. Does it go to Geobahn? Does it go to edit right now? It's not in the Geobahn, and that's why
I don't want to really close the conversation yet. I kind of want to add in if we could be at it situation.
Yeah, that is a good question, because I know that I know where you might be going with this, because
I watched last week's meeting and there was a conversation about.
something that was currently edit that potentially could be over in Geobots. Ms. Turner-Keith, because
technically we don't want to close this. I guess we don't want to vote on something like this because
we could have something that is, what do we need to? I don't think you're voting on anything. This is
just a discussion. So I mean, you could close it and reopen it, depending on edit.
or we could just move to edit since it's just a discussion item. Got it. Okay. Because technically they're
waiting. What we do in edit also could go back up the chain for us to figure that out. Right. Got it.
Right. Got it. Right. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm late. And normally Mr Cockerill will bring an ordinance with, you know,
with an appropriation of ordinance and that kind of thing. And it has the project list in it and the
total amount of the bond. That's what I remember. OK, sorry. I got a really sharp shooting pain in my
ear right now. So OK, so if there I don't see any other further questions or comments on this item,
then we will go to the next topic at hand, which is the edit conversation. Council, I move to open the
discussion of the 2027 lit
economic development budget. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Can you show that worksheet
on your screen, please? So this was sent to you earlier today as well. So we do have an answer on bituminous,
which is that it cannot go in the geo bond. So that is
it's under community crossings match slash by two minutes. That is going to have to be at it. OK, so
that question has been answered by Bond Council. We didn't have that answer yet when we started this
conversation and when we talked about it on Thursday. So at the top of the at the top of the list, the
bottom of the list is exactly what we just talked about with the jail bond. So that's the same. And
then there's a total column.
total for each column for GeoBond and edit at the bottom of those bottom of those columns so we can
keep track of what we're putting in what fund. So the things that have been sort of hanging out there
as unresolved could go in any column but this is what we recommend is what's on the screen. So technical
services department personnel going to county general
technical services department self-insurance going to edit the county general self-insurance would go
to edit community crossings has to go to edit we now have that answer so with the boxes that are grayed
out they're off-limits and then we we also have software of 1.5 million in
capital development fund, and that could be moved to edit, but it could also be moved to GeoBond. So
that's the one piece that's still out there. I think they moved it to edit. I believe at your last meeting
they moved the software to edit. Right, but this is the recommendation that we have. So again, these
numbers can be moved, but then you can see at the bottom what the totals are and edit
with the way we recommend it, edit is already taking a $9.5 million hit, which is huge. It's less than
what is currently budgeted. Right. But we also have in this list something that we haven't really talked
about. And I know Councilor Iverson is aware of it, but we have a request from Beacon in order to get their new
building up and running and, um, Forest Gilmore is here to talk about that. Um, because I don't think
any of that's been introduced to you yet at all. And, um, so whenever you're ready, he can come up and
explain that. And for clarification, it cannot go in a bond. We've checked that. Yeah. So it has to
be, um, edit or nothing and we hope it's at it.
Well, Mr. Gilmore, if you want to go ahead and come up and make a quick presentation on this. Hello,
everyone. Thank you for having us.
I'm grateful to be joined by Amy Kendall, our executive director, and Laura, our treasurer today to
be with you. So glad they're here with us. And Melanie Veselich is our board president who may be somewhere
in the stratosphere with us today. I think many of you are familiar with Beacon Center and the goals
of Beacon Center in about 2021.
Beacon did a thorough assessment of its organization, of our organization, to determine where we needed
to go next and what was most holding us back. And we determined that facilities was the greatest obstacle
to continuing to do our work well. Through that, we came up with a needs assessment in terms of what
we felt was needed within the services that were missing. And we, over these years, have been developing
what we're calling Beacon Center. I think in short, just to be brief as possible, the core of what Beacon
Center does is it's a building that specifically will target services primarily for people experiencing
homelessness. And it does something that I think is very powerful and important.
whereas I think there's a lot of fear in our community about quantity of services for homelessness to
some degree that if you build more that more may come and such. We really focus on quality of service
in this and so while there is some expansion of shelter beds, for example,
The real focus was on what are the solutions that our community needs and how can we bring together
a center that really improves the quality of service for people struggling with homelessness so that
they get out of homelessness, not just sit in it and remain in it. And we're doing that through a threefold process.
emergency shelter, in our case, primarily targeting women because that's the huge gap in our community
at the moment. And that will and primarily the biggest innovation in that is we would have just we would
step away from bunk beds and step into just one level
beds and that is one of the greatest issues we're seeing right now with women in particular huge amount
of disability and challenge such that actually getting onto the second tier of a bunk bed is is difficult
and so we actually have empty beds that are on the second tier
that um cannot be accessed by by clients because we don't have enough clients that can climb those steps
to get to the top of bunk beds so just one minor thing dogs will be allowed and pets will be allowed
some couples beds to uh for people closely connected to to women um who come to the shelter um housing
will be huge and this is um uh the
So you may have heard that we're phasing the project. And so phase one will be dedicated to 20 apartments,
22 apartments, 20 for people with severe disabilities, and two for people struggling with for work exchange
apartments. So people will work on site in exchange for housing. So a nice kind of work employment program.
And then lastly, the day center will
to be able to pull together and be really the service hub of all of the work that's being done there.
So a lot of innovations in that space, a kitchen for training. So we can teach people how to cook and
train there. We will have offices for visiting agencies. So Centerstone will have offices on site that
are specifically for Centerstone.
the health net will have a clinic built for them. And even the Bloomington Police Department will have
an office for the DROs where they can work the downtown resource officers, interfaith chapel, classroom,
employment center, lots of innovative kind of improvements built into the day center just so we can
prove the quality. And one of the things is the center where we really built
in a way so that when people enter the center, we can get to them quickly and we can work and address
their problems quickly in a process called diversion. So that the hopes would be then we can help them
avoid entering homelessness at all or entering it for very briefly.
Right now, this whole project, we estimate, will cost about $21 million. It's a significant project.
It's about 45,000 square feet, a very large facility. We have obtained enough money at the moment.
Right now, we've raised a bit over $14.2 million, I believe, is our current
like in hand that we've raised, um, we have a good beat on another two and a half million. So we're
currently a $4 million gap approximately to, um, to complete the entire center. Phase one is fully funded.
We'll be doing it in two phases and we'll be starting groundbreaking on that probably in December. And,
um, and then we'll, uh, work towards phase two so that we can, when we fill that, that final gap, that
funding gap of four million so that we can finish
the rest phase one will be the housing phase two will be the overnight shelter in the day center so
we're here talking to you with the hopes that perhaps you might be willing to help us in part fill that
gap thank you yes council member decker thank you very much for us for being here it's always good to
see you and your team and i i had just a question for a comparison this day center versus
let's say the Shalom Center. What's the square footage of Shalom Center versus this? Well, the current
Shalom Center right now is including offices and the day center itself and our family housing program,
which are all housed in this one building, 7,200 square feet. That's an old used furniture store.
and anyone who spends any time in there realizes we've been incredibly impressive with the space use
and and it's a mess and very very tight and very challenged space right now for example Amy and I are
meeting in our library because our offices are under construction because of a roof leak so that's it's just
It's just part of the nature of the challenges. So we have no offices at the moment as an example of
some of the struggles we have in the building. So this goes from 7,200 to a total of 45,000.
Yes. Approximately. Approximately half of that will be the housing. So about 22,000 will be the apartments.
And this is the overnight shelter is about four
4,400, I believe, so that's about 11,000. So it's about a doubling of the overnight shelter and the
day center space, approximately. Yeah, and office space, yeah. Council Member Iverson. Thank you, Madam
President. Forrest, thank you for being here. And I do get confirmation that Melanie Vestalage is watching
on cats, so she's hearing everything we're saying here.
I had a couple of questions for you on this. First of all, this request for these funds, is this a recurring
request? Will this come back to us year after year? I believe the approach would be that we're requesting
one gift over two years.
So one of the options we have is to do one million now and just help them right now so they've lost
some funding and that's what we're trying to bridge the gap to and I know we provided ARPA funding in
the past and got them a long way toward where they're getting phase one done and we're so impressed
but they did lose some funding that they had thought was
So they need a million from us. We asked the city to also contribute as well. So we are going to encourage
our friends at the city council to do the same. But we could do it with edit and we could do 500,000
this year and commit to 500,000 next year or we can do 1 million this year.
and help them more immediately, which I think would be better. We agreed that we wanted to do this ask
in this way, but if you're uncomfortable with that, we could change it to 500,000 this year, 500,027.
Yes, Council Member Woods. I'll just say I support
this and the other work that you do, Mr. Gilmore. So I appreciate the commissioners putting this together
because housing is so fundamental. And it's, I mean, that's all I can say. I am curious. I know you
have friend's place.
is and is that going to stay open? I mean, I know we're talking long, long term at this point. Yeah,
friends place would be integrated into the building. So the emergency shelter would become friends place
in essence. Yeah. OK. And thoughts on the property that you currently have. Are there any ideas on what
you might do with that? The day center at 620 South Walnut is owned by us. And so
We haven't determined exactly what we plan to do with that. But right now that the potential income
from that is in our capital stack. So probably we'll sell it unless we raise a lot of money and then
we might preserve for some other use.
The shelter at 919 South Rogers Friends Place is owned by Perry Township trustee and and they're they're
determining what they plan to do with it when we move into the one center. Do you currently rent Friends
Place or is that just provided?
I think they actually pay us one dollar a year to use it. For a purpose. That's how it works. I was
just wondering if that would save you some money also if you didn't have to pay rent there. One dollar. Yeah.
I didn't mention this, but of that $21 million, $2 million of that is operational reserves. So it's
giving us a move-in fund for the first five years, approximately a $200,000 boost per year to allow
us to adapt to additional costs in the new building, because it will be bigger. We'll have more costs
related to maintenance and utilities and such.
And staffing, honestly, it's going to require more staffing to really do what we need to do there. So
without these funds from us and or the city, your timeline will be severely lagging, I'm guessing, right?
Yeah, our current issue about I mean, right now, phase two is completely off the table until we close
that gap, that funding gap.
And so the timeline could be very quick if we're able to raise that money quickly. And there might not
be a significant delay between phase one and phase two. Conceivably, we could even begin phase two while
phase one is going. But that will all depend on fundraising. Thank you. So I understand that you're
coming to us with that conversation. Have those conversations started with the city and is there
any hope that that will happen? As you're probably aware, there are some legal issues between us and
the city at the moment, which I'll say no more about, that prevent some forms of negotiation at this
point and conversation at this point.
The city and the mayor's office has expressed interest in supporting it, but we haven't worked out any
kind of detail at all at this point. The mayor has expressed, as well as the planning department, strong
interest in its completion and its success. So we are very grateful for that support, but we haven't
gotten to any kind of final financial possibilities.
However, there are other sources that we're also exploring that are not defined yet. They're not definitive,
but they are hopeful. To answer my next question, because my next question would be if that doesn't
come through, then what other sources of revenue would you be looking to get with that?
Yeah, the lotto is one that we've been considering. But that's a long shot. But no, on a more serious
level, that is a joke, unless it works out. But right now, we have a multi-layered approach, all of
which are very tentative.
We do intend to return to our donors and talk to them about perhaps adding a year to the five-year pledges
that we've gotten so far. Our top donors have, if they were to extend a year, would be $2 million. We
don't expect that we could acquire that full $2 million, but we think that $1 million from our donors
would be a reasonable
expansion possibility. We are looking and have had good conversations with local foundations about options
and this and and if that this were to come through those those things will could all if they all were
to come through they could get us pretty close if not all the way there.
Yes, thank you. I just wanted to conclude my statements by saying I'm on the board, obviously, I don't
get compensated for being on the board. But I do think that it bears to say that the environment that
this is being brought to us is really stark. Homelessness is being criminalized. And if you watch Friday's
must meeting, you know that the township trustees are up against a wall.
So I think anything we can do to strengthen the social safety net here in this community is worth doing.
So I'll be supporting this. Yeah. Thank you. So overall, yeah, I think it makes sense to do the, just
the one time support. To do that, you know, because,
and can't make things up. We have no idea what we will be able to do in the following years.
And that could, while we have the opportunity, until our friends up north of 65 here will change things,
we might as well do what we need to do while we are able to do it. That's just my thought. I will be
remiss if I hadn't, and I appreciate the work and I've volunteered in the past before.
while we're on the conversation and on the topic of that, I know that we had the other conversation
with I'm heading home and using that funding as well. The L. A. T. C. F. Funding as well, too. And so
while I'm thinking of this and definitely appreciate all the things that you all are doing to, I guess
I I'm not asking for added for this particular because it sounds we had forced
I would like to see that moved as well, if I'm making any sense here. Because we approved what we needed
to do here on our end, and I'm just saying, with that respect, while we're thinking about all the things
here, I would like to see how the LATCF funding could be pushed through on Commissioner's side. Yeah,
we are actually waiting on the contract.
So that's all we're waiting on. Okay. Nevermind. Yeah. Okay. That's it. It's just, okay. Cause I saw
some for another browser. I was like, I must accept that. No, no. It's okay. The gears are moving.
I got it. I just, they're outside of my purview. So, okay. Okay. Yeah. Cause I think it's the funniest
to go through community foundation. And so we need to set up a contract. Okay. Okay. That in route.
Okay. We are all on the same page. Okay. We're good. All right. Thank you. Council member Decker.
And I appreciate that very much. And I appreciate this proposal and request. And some of us,
some of us, you know, as individuals in this community have had this project kind of on our mind. And
I want to say, gosh, two, three years ago, I don't know whenever I sat down with you on second street
and your team and what a textbook interaction with that neighborhood to get this
to a point, and that's what I said in the meeting. I said, working with these neighbors, talking about
this, that's your headache ahead. I didn't know that the dollars would be difficult due to changes that
are happening out there. And that's kind of where I want to comment, if I can, Madam President, is that
we are dealing with the streets to stability program. We're dealing with the
this project. We've got these things floating before Bailiwick and you know earlier when Mr. Crone was
here we're talking about things counties are doing now that they used to not do. This is an area I think
that we're having to do a lot more because somebody's got to do something. It can't we can't just leave
not-for-profits and good intentions and a couple churches and a Hail Mary Pass and this is where I would
say to our federal and state friends there was a time when I think there was greater activity
on their parts to do this. But here's what I see now. Our federal and state friends watch us do something
or worse, they look at our community where they also like our football games. They also like our bars.
Occasionally they'll send a son or daughter down here. They look at us and instead they talk about us
like we're zoo animals. And we have a damn fine community. We have a lot we have to do and we can do
it. And this is what talking about this
with the area leader on all these issues is what a local government is doing because there's a gap.
So federal and state friends out there, I know you honestly, you don't give a whatever on what I'm saying
clearly, but there was a time when there was involvement. And I think if ever there was a time to get
into the game, it would be now and not do the zoo animal.
let's look and see what they're doing over in the Republic. Because this is what faith leaders, government
leaders, join with not-for-profit leaders to figure out the dignity of life and solutions. None of these
things are 100% guaranteed for this or that. But my God, try something, rather than drive past on your
way to that stadium and say, wonder why they live like this here. This is our call. And I think that we've
You know, I've been putting that out in every meeting I can. And I hope all of our friends out there
that are watching this, when they have our other branch leaders into their entities, are talking about
that. Because there was a time, for right or wrong, it wasn't always right. And it wasn't always handled
well. But at least they were present in those discussions. So I'll shut up before I ruin it. But I just
think that this can't get lost in the shuffle.
Anybody else? I'll bring it back to our edit conversation. Thank you, Mr. Gilmore, for that presentation.
We appreciate that, and I'll let you do. So bringing it back overall to the edit conversation, does
council members have any, as presented, we see here, does anybody have any hesitations, hiccups, concerns,
rainbows, skittles, anything?
I have a question that goes back to, but it goes back to the GEO bonds. So I'll hold it back for a minute.
I know they're related, but I'll hold that for a minute. Yeah, because it's not about the edit. Oh,
okay. All right. Anybody else have, oh, I see Councilor Iverson's hand up. Yes, sir.
I can't see the screen very well from where I'm sitting, but I just wanted to make sure that all the
changes that we made through our six nights of departmental budget hearings are reflected in this document.
Yes and no. Yeah. So what is proposed here is my understanding is that $1.5 million was removed from
the cumulative capital development fund because of a legitimate concern for the
sustainability of that particular fund. The proposal is because it's a capital fund, put the software
back in, but take the personnel out because, and this ties into our bond conversations, we can manage
the cumulative capital fund if it's just capital, because if there's something that has to happen and
we can't do it out of
we can't do personnel in a bond. So remove the personnel from cumulative capital. They can go into edit.
I think they should just go into county general. To me, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other when
we're talking this. And if you take the personnel out, then you also take the self-insurance out of
the CCD fund.
And that's noted on here. And those numbers, the personnel number and the self-insurance number reflects
the removal that you already have done of the GIS person and moved them into the surveyor's county general
budget. So I just wanted to kind of make my pitch to switch things back a little bit.
Yeah, so this is not what you talked about at your budget hearings in that sense. But so it is a proposal
that we're making, but it involves a discussion about community, I'm sorry, Community Capital Development
Fund, County General, Edit and Geobond all at the same time, but it makes sense to address all of them
at the same time because we had to figure out where those pieces go.
the software into the geo bond. However, I would not recommend that. I think that I really believe that
CCD can handle this 1.5 million for 27. This is the proposed budget for 27. And then especially if you
remove the personnel, that's going to give it some breathing room. And then after that, we can manage
from there
just the CCD and general obligation bonds. Right. Yeah, because I noticed the self-insurance was off
like exactly 18,038, which is an individual. So that was what I was looking at. Yes. Council member
Decker. Well, I remember the last whatever meeting we were in here, I think Thursday and the auditor's
office and the teeter totter balance they have to do on the levies.
I guess my thought is on all this, if we were to pass that over, they could analyze, because that's
a whole, and I'm not saying do it right now, because good heavens, that'd make me run screaming from
this room. But I think because we're, you know, and here's another example. With the state, we're playing
multiple checkers games here. These are important, but they're the law. And so they're there for a reason.
And I think that that kind of analysis we will need for all this, I would think. So I don't want to
put Ms. Woodruff on the spot, because I know when we change these things, you all have to go back in
and redo all the lines. Is this something? I know the auditor isn't here, but what would you say in
this regard? Just to back up for a little bit,
the software line is one line we would have to move salaries and fringe and all of that and so it would
take quite a bit of work for both the council office and our office not that we're not wanting to do
work it's just the more that we have to do especially with the troubles we've had with the new budget
process that is one layer to look at
Um, another layer, I tried to interpret what I saw on the grid that's in front of you and I do see based
on my calculations and they're very rough. It does look like we would still have a deficit budget in
the CCD fund if we went with this plan. Yes, that would be less than the 3 million, which is what you're
proposed. That's your internal, I think.
So that's the cash balance. So the cash balance would be less than the three million. And then the deficit
would also be just under 200,000 based on very, very rough numbers. That does concern us slightly. And
I'd be happy to speak with them because I've not had a chance to talk to them about this because I do
think that we can talk about it. I think the biggest problem really is the fact that it's multiple lines
when you talk in personnel versus one line that you can just kind of slip over.
I do think that. In the long run. Initial move of all those is better than. Than the one, but I do want
to be able to speak with three and with Carly because it didn't have that opportunity. OK, and I would
say another potential option here. If we're talking about a smallish deficit in CCD is to move maybe
500,000 of the software line into
I mean, it's not ideal, but if, you know, I'm just going to throw that out there. But the problem is,
is that instead of having them move all this stuff, if there's a way that the discussion can happen
sort of on a meta level and instead of having to actually move things in the software, in the law of software,
just to get a feel for what y'all want to do, what the auditor thinks are problems or benefits to any
of these items. But this is just our recommendation. And I don't know how we have this discussion next.
I mean, do you want us to come back in October at your October meeting and to talk about this again?
Or what are we going to do? Because GeoBond and Edit
to be done in the next month or so. The other thing I would say is we could actually reduce the software
line to one million, which is $500,000. And if we reach a point that we need to go back for an additional,
we can do that. So we can reduce it. And we've now offset the $200,000 deficit.
I don't think that we need the 1.5. That is just us based on what we anticipate needing. So this is
not a hard number in the sense that it's just what an anticipated costs for us. So things change. Sometimes
we can't get the things we wanted to get so we don't even buy it at all, right? So there's some flexibility
in that number of the 1.5.
I think I saw Councilmember Feidl's hand raise and then I'll go Feidl and then Wilts. So that kind of
brings up my question, which is, is there a software plan for that one and a half million? And you were
alluding to some of that. Maybe we don't need to do that right away, right? I mean, I would hate to
think about borrowing money by putting it in the GEO bond. Absolutely. That's why I would not recommend
this go into GEO bond. It can go, it meets the criteria, but I would not recommend that.
The software line that is being discussed pays for our allow, our Microsoft, all of the software programs
that are used across the county, GIS. Yeah, so I mean there's a lot. What is our current amount we spend
on software? Maybe that's the question. I think this year our budget is one million.
It had been reduced. I had requested 1.5 for 2026, reduced at that time to one. And I haven't looked
at it. Carly's going to kill you. Carly's going to tell you what it is. And so we have flexibility somewhat.
I mean, and with options, right? Absolutely.
So we have a million appropriated and we have expended $775,000 at this point. So based on that unless.
Now that we've had our comic relief. So we do have incoming bills that's going to eat the rest that
remaining budget up.
We do know we're going to exceed that next year. I'm currently already taking on more contracts to improve
security posture, especially with our email programs and stuff like that. So we are incurring more costs.
So we are going to go north of that million line. We already know that's going to happen. But that said,
we have some flexibility within the CCD fund, within the other categories, special projects.
When, for instance, we use that money, part of that money, to pay for the water heater fiasco at the
Johnson Hardware Building. So we have to, when we were talking about the GO bonds and the needs and
people having needs now and having needs later and those needs that we don't even know about, we keep
this amorphous ball in play.
And so I think that to reduce it to one million and return it into CCD and get the personnel out, and
we'll talk. Sorry. We'll meet the needs of all of it. I really do. But we will talk. You guys don't
have to do anything. And they can come and say they don't like Angie's idea.
Okay, so. Including what Greg was talking about, the upcoming. Yes. Okay. That's where I was talking
about, we have other lines, special project line that allows us to do things. And so if we have to.
And that's historically what we've done. We've always kind of budged right there and then worked around
that, did what we had to. Thank you for really explaining it.
It's clear as mud, right? That's why I keep asking the questions, trying to sort through that mud. Uh-huh.
OK. Because ideally, the thing that we are up against is the time clock of making sure we can have the
conversation. Because again, we have, what, three more meetings before our final adoption,
which is the 6th, and then we got the 13th, and then we had the 20th.
And ideally, I think in my mind, the goal was to have this presentation so we can kind of figure out
where we wanted to go with tonight, potentially, if that was something that you all were okay with,
because you all have to come up with the plan and approve that at your meeting. And then if things don't
go as planned, then it goes back to council for, you know, longer sessions where we
are having to figure out some, you know, talk about juggling everything like that's where we would have
to go. So I guess I do. I am very curious about reducing that software line to the million and figuring
out what would be our next steps. And so that would actually be kind of helpful. So if we can maybe
have that kind of conversation and then maybe
I would say the six, maybe we could have that. And then, um, do y'all have a meeting on the eighth?
What month are we in? Oh, we are already on total. We have a meeting on the eighth. Okay. Um,
not the 15th, but the eighth and the 22nd would be, and I think that we wouldn't need to figure out,
um, soon because, um, we can, we can definitely.
have the conversation. We can do it. I can share it with them. They can have it at their meeting. They
can share it with you guys, and then you can have it at your meeting. So we already passed the resolution
on the geobond with the $6.5 million because that was the max, so we do that just to be sure.
So we're actually good on that, because that's ready to go. The edit piece we just have to do before
the end of the year. So there's no urgency really on our end. I think it's a matter of your end because
we're talking about CCD and County General. That's where the urgency is. But then for the edit geo bond,
it's really, yeah, be great to get this done October, November. Does that make sense? Yes, it does.
I think the idea is in my mind and what I was going with, like I know
we just want to make sure like this is something that we were getting ahead like early on instead of
just doing this and then just kind of putting you all on the spot. And I think it's really been, I think
if we can do this next year again where we do both at the same time, it is really useful because otherwise
we're plate spinning and they don't talk to each other and we should be looking at this as a whole.
rather than separate parts. Honestly, to be quite honest, I do like how this flow of conversation has
had and it's like all equal parts of us trying to figure out how to make this work because obviously
at the end of the day what we had thought about was if we can move some over to ease up the general,
the common goal that all of us want to see
is to make sure we're taking care of our county employees and giving that COLA by any means necessary.
So I do appreciate this dialogue and this conversation and back and forth. It has eased my anxiety.
So I appreciate it. Did I see? Michelle, and then I'll circle back to Councilor Wilts. So I was just
thinking, if we want to have
correct numbers to read at the first reading of the for the public hearing. I would assume we would
want you would want to direct us to make those changes in allow as in as well as in gateway so that
we would have those numbers ready and prepared for you on the sixth. Because I cannot foresee us being
able to do
all of these changes live, especially if you're gonna go with moving personnel numbers. And so I think
you would need to make a decision tonight saying move forward with their recommendations, blah, blah,
blah, or we'll just wait kind of thing. And I don't know if Angie and them need to take a break and
talk about
that for this but personally with that many changes I would like to know now before the six and that's
actually what I'm getting at because that in my mind my walking into this meeting it was that any type
of directive or whatever we need to do needs to be given for your offices to ensure numbers and everything
are accurate for the six correct
have a spreadsheet that shows where everything on this list currently is so we know where to move it
from and to you have that ready can could we take like a 10 minute break have that quick conversation
and get those details ironed out before we could be possible I want to go to council worlds because
I know she had her hand raised first again I want to ask about
the bond which is so I just I'm you just want to get to the bond I just have some money to ask but so
they can do that I mean come back and I can then okay fine okay so what we will do council members online
is we will take a 10 minute recess rounded up to 13 and even eight so the time is 747 so we'll come
back promptly at 8
And we will finish it out and go from there. OK. All right. So we'll take a quick recess. Yeah.
Eight o'clock. All right. And scene. OK. This is fun. It's like a cliffhanger. OK. And we're back like
we never left. And so I'm going to look to the auditor's table for a discussion.
for folks that might have joined us after or trying to figure out what happened. We are looking at some
numbers and it was proposed that we could potentially reduce the edit amount from the 1.5 million to
the million. And that is where we were left at. So I'm looking to Ms. Woodruff to see what did we come up with.
the table on the screen in front of you should show in the left-hand columns where the budgets currently
stand. The right-hand columns show the suggested lines for that are being presented by the Commissioner's
Office. So that includes the fund, account, and location. We tried to color-code them so everything
fund 1138 on both sides is in blue, 1112
is yellow, so on and so forth. So hopefully that makes reading these numbers a little bit easier, but
everything is simply moving from the left-hand column to the right-hand column, and the only change
in value is going to be the reduction from 1.5 to 1 million when we move that from one fund to the other.
We're also creating that new line for Beacon. Okay. Sounds good. Okay.
make a motion to do as the auditors beautiful spreadsheet shows. I so move it. Okay. We got a motion
and a second to for these proposed changes. Are there any further discussion from Council on this?
I also have my one question. Again, I was just going to say I appreciate having this conversation and
us doing the edit conversation this way. And I know Commissioner Thomas and I just mentioned that maybe
this is something that we could do in the future when we do this. So this is actually it's been a good
conversation, I would say. So
We're coming back to the underlying motion. And Councilor Feidl second that. Seeing no other further
questions or comments, and we still got folks online. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor
Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Councilor Henry? Not online. Okay. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes five to
zero. Okay. Thank you very much. And so yeah, yes. So that's everything. And then so that I think this
makes our our budget season
a lot more easier. So we appreciate that. Thank you very much. Do you need us back here on the six for
this particularly? I mean, because the decision was we needed to make sure that we made whatever we
want to do, we needed to do it like now. And we just did it. And Councilor Wilts made that motion. It
was second and we just approved it. So awesome. So I think if we don't have any other further discussion or edit,
I'm gonna go back to the Geobond, because I know Councilor Wilts has been bouncing in her seat for it.
So take it away, Councilor Wilts. Thank you, first of all, for your patience with me. You're good. Looking
at the list of projects for the Geobond, I see three items that are related, I think, to the jail.
therefore would be eligible perhaps to be funded through the correctional lit. I'm looking at the showers,
floor coating, the cameras I believe are for the jail and the elevator repairs. And that totals $1 million.
And if we move that to correctional lit, I realized that that's not the ideal to be spending down
that lit when we want it eventually to support something. However, it will be cheaper overall because
we won't be borrowing the money. Our bond at a level that's much closer to what we've traditionally
annually bonded for. Why don't you, before you do that, and I'm coming from a position of
We need to build a facility. And this would be taking from a balance. But I also hear what you're saying,
but let's hear from the auditor as to how the rate actually affects the taxpayer. Because when you're
looking at the amount, you can't look at that amount.
because now it's spread over six years. So I would just suggest that before you make that kind of change,
and I think it's certainly worth looking at, you find out more as to how the one-year bond rate affects
the taxpayer versus a six-year bond rate.
That affects the taxpayer. Does that make sense? I think that the more information and the more understanding
I have about that, the better. So I don't disagree with you at all. I don't see a world in which it
isn't cheaper to not bond for something. So just on the face of it, that's just kind of my crude way
of looking at it.
And so I guess what we want to also think about is how much does it impact the overall repayment costs?
I'm assuming it would be whatever our percentage rate on $1 million is. But maybe my math is a bit too
basic. If you take a million dollars out of the bond, you are saving.
the interest you would have paid on borrowing that million dollars. Right. But that million dollar interest
is not leaving the county, it's coming in. We are receding that in.
I think maybe as a suggestion. Yeah, why don't you talk to the other. That's what I was just about to
suggest is that maybe so counselor Wilts and I are the liaisons for the auditor's office. And so maybe
that's something that we can take up with the auditor as well. And this isn't finalized tonight, but
it obviously like the I hear what you're saying.
But yeah, why don't we discuss with Ms. Gregory and then come back and talk about our findings. Does
that sound okay for everybody? Okay, okay, okay. So is there, since we have this open, are there any
other further discussions on Geobots?
I appreciate all the conversation and the dialogue for both of these items tonight. So we appreciate
it. Thank you. All right. Well, that's all folks. But before that is over, I do want to actually take
a point of privilege as the chair here. We did have a member of the public address us. This individual
has been here for the entire time and got here. We moved a little fast.
in the beginning and did not get a chance to make public comment. So I will open it up since we didn't
have any takers for items not on the agenda. So to you, sir, if you want to go ahead, you'll have up
to three minutes, state your name for the record. Again, this is for items not on the agenda. And I
will also offer this to anybody online if you
didn't get a chance and you joined after the fact and wanted to make comments on items not on tonight's
agenda, you can raise your hand via Teams. So I'll go first since you are here with us. Again, you can
sign and state your name for the record and then our timers here will show that you'll have up to three
minutes. Great, thank you for being flexible with me. Good evening, President Crosley and members of
the council. My name is Andrew Deslin. I live in Fishers.
I graduated from IU in 2009 and called Bloomington my home from 2005 to 2010, 2011. Driving here today
and just walking through campus was literal therapy. So it's a fantastic place and thank you all for
serving. I served as a senior policy advisor at the Indiana State Senate from 2011 to 2025. And I now
run 46 North Benefit Advisors.
where I help local governments control one of their biggest costs, which is employee health benefits.
But I'm here today to urge you to keep pressing the State House for a real fix to Senate Enrolled Act
1. The impacts are profound. In Hamilton County, where I live, local units are being pushed towards
referendums. School districts are seeing declining enrollment, something I never expected to see there.
And the deepest cuts from Senate Enrolled Act 1
aren't even projected to arrive until 2028. And so my concern is this, the 2027 budget session is already
shaping up to be one for the ages, to be honest. It's going to cover data centers, flock cameras, IURCs,
utility issues, your normal hot button social stuff. And SCA 270 from last year is going to force almost
300 townships to merge within the next two years.
So Senate Enrolled Act 1 can easily get lost in the mix, and I'm here to say, don't let it. Keep sounding
the alarm bells, keep them ringing, and they need to be loud. You have a wonderful senator and a great
representative, but they can't carry this alone. It's going to take a village, this council, your schools,
your cities and towns, and the residents who depend on local services, all speaking with one voice.
I can tell you from 14 years inside that building that the legislature does respond to pressure. Put
Monroe County's numbers on the record. Keep working with the Association of Counties and meet with your
delegation before the 2027 session while bills are still being drafted.
Consider me a resource. Um, I served under four governors, the three caucus leaders, two house speakers,
a pandemic. And, um, I know where the bodies are buried in that, in that building. So, so to speak,
but you, um, as I said, you have, you have a wonderful representative, wonderful Senator. And, um, in
the meantime, um, every dollar counts. Health benefits are often a county's second largest expense.
and there are real savings to be had without cutting what employees receive. So consider me a resource
and thank you for your time. I just wanted to make a few remarks tonight. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate
that. Thank you very much. That was a good way to end. Yes. Are there any other public commenters here
in the Na'i Hill Room or virtual who did not get a chance to do so?
seeing none. We appreciate you taking the time and driving down and seeing a nice campus on the first
day of fall. Yay. That's where we're at. All right. And it is the 22nd day of September, not the 21st,
like Earth, Wind and Fire said. Okay. That means that
We are moving on, gotta do it, to our council liaison updates and comments before we adjourn for the
evening. So I'll look to council member Irison as he shakes his head no, so we'll move on. So we will,
I'll start off with council member Decker and just going down. I'm gonna pass. Okay. Council member
Wilts. Same. Okay. Council member Vidal.
I always have something to say. Yes. So partly because I live in Richland Township and because I've
been going to all those meetings about the reorganization process, I contacted the League of Women Voters
and they are doing a public forum. It will be, and I want to announce that here tonight, the press release
went out about it today. So it'll be Wednesday, September 30th.
from 5.30 to 6.30 at Monroe County Public Library in Ellitsville. It'll be a town hall on the proposed
Ellitsville Richland Township Reorganization Initiative. It's put on and hosted by the League of Women
Voters Wilmington Monroe County. They will have an IU O'Neill School faculty member and an IU Maurer
School representative there as well. So the public is invited to pose questions
If you'll give me a minute, I'll come back to that what that address is. I didn't write that part down
because it came out later. But in the meantime, I'll try to fill the gap with or maybe I can just come
back. I have other things to say. I could either I need to look for something and look at my list both.
So if you want to just I'd say go ahead and wrap it up. I think that, yeah, hold on just a second right here.
So questions in advance can be sent to this email address, which is league, L-E-A-G-U-E, at lwv-bmc.org.
And I'll repeat that. It's league at lwv-bmc.org. And those would be questions in advance for this town
hall for the proposed reorganization plan.
So that's all for that. I've been doing numerous things in the community, whether it's a fall festival,
whether it's a 9-11 ceremony, whether it's a native plant sale, whether it's a Lake Monroe Day, many
of these with colleagues here sitting with me today, whether it's Amplify, which three of us here today
did that, or did that together, and the MUST. I was there for the MUST also.
Um, and I've enjoyed every bit of it. I just really think it's good for me to, um, have lots of input
or lots of information to make decisions. And I enjoy all of it. That's it. Thank you. Counselor Fiddle.
Um, the only other thing that I would say is I really appreciated the comment that we just got from
the public, um, member of the public because it kind of brought
back a conversation that we have with the Amplify group where we had city and county partners alike
and other entities as well. And we had a really good conversation, especially with the Monroe County
School Corporation, the superintendent, Dr. Winston and staff were there. And I think what really drove
home to me because they are also under SEA-1 constraints and they have also seen, you know, enrollment declines.
for various reasons, people moving out. The gap of those that have children that are here, these folks
are moving out. And our big base that we have are some of our retirees. So it gave me a lot of food
for thought.
But one thing that Dr. Winston said that really kind of stuck out is that we also have to make sure
and be mindful of the fact that they are also a big key component in our community as well. I know sometimes
we also think of IU Health, IU, Cook, some of the other pharmaceutical companies, as well as big time
employers. But if we don't have these teachers and the support staff in our school corporation,
to be here, then we don't have anything. And right now, we have to help ourselves in light of some of
the things that we are going through. So one of the conversations that we have to think about is we
have to make sure that we are trying, in addition to putting that pressure on our state lawmakers. And
I agree, and I think something that came up from that conversation was trying to organize a town hall
as such where the key players, the townships,
school corporations, everybody can come together and educate the public because there's so many things
that we see that are happening on a daily basis, such as what was mentioned earlier, that we kind of
forget about SEA-1. It's like squirrel. Like, let's throw this in the mix. Let's throw a gas tax suspension.
Let's throw all of these things. But the big shiny picture is kind of moving away from everything, and
we're not really
keeping that pressure. So I appreciate, you know, again, the public comments are just making sure that
we are doing our due diligence as electeds to make sure that we are helping out as much as possible
because yeah, listening to the Township trustees speak very passionately on Friday about how they will
continue to hurt and will hurt and who's going to absorb all of that. It is us. And so
We have to do what we need to do to make sure that we are really doing it because the state is forcing
us to do it. But we also need to apply that pressure back at them. So I appreciate that. The other light
thing that I will say, and then we can adjourn for the evening, is that I am wearing sorority colors,
pink and green. And so if you don't know, I'm a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated,
historically.
Black Sorority First was founded in 1908 at the Howard University, the other bison school. And so that
being said, one of our very own alumna, who is from, I think, in the Kelly School of Business,
Justice Kelly, actually won Miss USA. And she was a student here, graduated, her and her husband.
and she now resides in the state of Virginia. And she is Miss USA, and she is moving on to, I think,
Miss Universe. So I just wanted to end on a positive note. Congratulations to her for doing something
huge and major. That is a huge accomplishment. But again, apply that pressure when it's needed and necessary.
And without that, nothing else being said, we are adjourned. Thank you.