all right uh welcome every oops let's make sure okay we got the mics on great welcome everyone i want
to call tonight's meeting of the monroe county council to order tonight is another perfect night in
monroe county it is tuesday october the 27th and i want to note for the record
that we have Councilmembers David Henry, Councilmember Liz Fiddle, Councilmember Trent Deckard, and
Councilmember Iverson. We do have a quorum tonight and we are just sending all of our well wishes to
those of our colleagues that could not join us this evening. So that leads us to the second item on
the agenda. I would ask that you join us in the Pledge of Allegiance and stand as you are able. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. Thank you all so much.
That brings us to item number three on our agenda. And this is as good as time as any to remind everyone
that copies of what we are looking at are available on the county's website, IN.gov slash counties slash
Monroe. Council, does anyone wish to amend tonight's agenda? All right, seeing none, may we or we can
do a voice vote, can't we? All those in favor of adopting this evening's agenda, please say aye. All
those opposed?
The eyes have it unanimously. Excellent. That brings us to item number four on this evening's agenda,
which is public comment. This is public comment for items not on our lengthy agenda. So there will be
a time limit of three minutes per speaker. You'll see the timer on the screens. And do we have a bell
tonight? Hold on. Mr. MG, there's your bell. That's your 30 second reminder.
We already have someone coming up forward in the Natu Hill room. If you'd like to raise your hand on
teams, please do so. Please state your name for the record. Thank you, Council. This is Christopher
Emgy from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, a Monroe County resident. The chamber,
as you know, has 925-ish members. 80% of those are small business and nonprofits. And together, we're
all facing, as Monroe County, some tough decisions ahead.
a lot of that will land on the table that I'm looking at right now. The Justice Center, the
Health Department, how we handle growth. All of that has big financial weight. Last week, I was on this
podium talking to commissioners about the problems of the Health Department. Essential services have
been disrupted and residents deserve better. I want to thank council member David Henry for his comments
on department structure and protecting those frontline services.
He made the point worth repeating, supporting the people who deliver those services doesn't mean we
can't ask how the department is managed. That's an important question to ask. We know what that department
can do. It wasn't that long ago. We shouldn't lower our expectations. We should expect more. I also
want to take the time to thank Council Member Trent Deckard for what he said at Thursday's planned commission
hearing on the county development ordinance. What he did is brought back something we can all pretty
much understand. Families, schools, and the future of our community.
the city. Declining MCC SC enrollment isn't just a school issue. It's a matter of anyone who cares about
the county's long term finances. We have about 16,000 people commuting into Monroe County every day
to work. Just imagine if we could capture 5000 of those that could live and work here. What would that
mean? To the
CDO is more than just a planning document. Those are choices that shape where families live, whether
employers can find the workers, and how much growth adds to that county revenue. But approving housing
on paper isn't enough. We need some investment. Sewer access, infrastructure costs, development standards
decide where the homes actually get built, but those investments ultimately matter. As we take up tonight's
GoBond and other financial decisions, I hope you keep the big picture in mind.
The county has big obligations. New justice center changes and Indiana property tax that will add pressure
to future revenue. None of these decisions stand alone. I'm going to repeat that. None of these decisions
stand alone. What we spend today shapes what we can afford tomorrow. The chamber believes Monroe County
has the resources and the potential to meet those challenges.
It comes down to setting priorities, questioning assumptions, and following through. It's protecting
those essential services, making room for responsible growth and investment, respecting the taxpayers,
and ultimately delivering the results. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. M.G. and the Chamber
for your public comment. Are there any additional public comments here in the historic NatU Hill Room
or on Teams?
Seeing none, that brings us to item number five, departmental updates. This would be a time of 10 minutes
per department. I want to acknowledge the record that we did receive the third quarter commissary report
from the Correctional Center. Is there anyone here in the NatU Hill Room or on Teams that would like
to give a departmental update? All right. Seeing none, that moves us to item number six on this evening's
agenda, which is our consent agenda items.
Council, I move to approve following agenda items for October 27th. The summary council minutes as presented
for August 11th, 2026 council meeting and August 25th, 2026 council meeting. Second. We have a motion
and a second. Council, do we have any questions about these summary minutes? Hearing none, all those
in favor of adopting the consent agenda items, please say aye.
Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it unanimously. That brings us to item number seven on our agenda.
These are our hiring freeze reviews and we'll start with letter A. Council, I move to open for discussion
and possible approval of the building department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be
allowed to hire and fund 1000-0312 County General Building, one full-time commercial office manager.
second. All right. And to tell us what's going on here, we have Bobby LaRue, who is head of the department.
So the floor is yours, sir. Awesome. Good evening. The commercial office manager had actually wanted
to retire at the end of the year and was gracious enough to stay on until the end of January in hopes
that we can hire a replacement with
training opportunity. We rely very heavily on the front end of the office to do scheduling, properly
process permits, make sure all the documents are in order. They also schedule inspections, talk to folks
about what inspection entails, make sure that people are getting the service that they need from us.
really critical that they know how to do that efficiently and it keeps the inspectors in the department
also running efficiently with duties outside of the office. So that's the hope is that we can fill the
position sometime around December 14th so that everything falls in the 27 budget and that would allow
for end of
months, end of year finances, start of end of year reports, kind of it's the best time of the year to
learn everything at least once. So that's the hope and that's what I'm asking for. Absolutely. May we
all aspire to learn everything at least once. Yeah. All right. Council, any questions? All right. Hearing
none, I think, could we please have a roll call vote?
Thank you so much, Council. Is there any public comment on this important matter from the building
department? Seeing none, now may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you.
You're welcome. Now let's move on to letter number B.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the legal department's request to be
exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0277 County General Legal, one full
time administrative attorney. Second. And we have Mr. Jeff Cockrell here from our legal department.
Mr. Cockrell, what's going on? Our fearless leader, David Schilling is retiring at the end of the year.
We really need to have
a couple things. One is we need to have a department head, which would be the administrative attorney.
And we also would like to have the fourth attorney back in so we can continue to provide the services
that we do. So the request is to allow us to do that. All right. Thank you very much. Counsel, do you
have any questions for our legal department? Mr. Deckard. Just a quick one. When you say fourth attorney,
fill the head attorney, but also have that role of the attorney as the fourth
member of the team. I think what I'm thinking is it would make more sense to hire the it may make more
sense to hire the administrative attorney from who is currently working there, whether that's Justin
Molly or myself, leave it open to whether the fourth attorney. I think we do need a department head
under either circumstances to deal with claims, deal with budgets, deal with all that. But also that
fourth attorney to handle the
the legal work as well. And if that fourth attorney happens to be the administrative attorney,
so be it. But I think there's really two aspects to the request. And this would just open it up generally
with those, the permission to begin. Correct. Okay. Councilmember Henry. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.
So Mr. Cockrell, so is the intent to begin interviews prior to the end of Mr. Schilling's tenure?
I think that would be the intent is to get the to get the notices out. I think end of the year, beginning
of the year is one of the more difficult times to hire. And I think the last couple hires that we've
had have given, you know, up to a month of notice to their current employers so that we don't. And the
last two we hired were also internal hires to the county. So we really don't want to disrupt
other departments as well with this kind of move.
Well, I would just say publicly and maybe I don't know how much anyone on the dais here wants to opine
on this, but it strikes me that since the board of commissioners would be hiring the position in what
will basically amount to a lame duck session of the board of commissioners with one commissioner outgoing,
that the decision of the next administrative attorney would be made prior to January 1st, possibly.
I think it certainly could be, yes.
But I would also say that the election is next week. We should know who would be that third commissioner,
and we would certainly consult with them. We would also, I mean, I guess when we hired Ms. Turner-King,
the council was involved in that hiring, and if you guys wanna sit through some of the interviews as
well, that kind of final round, I don't think we're opposed to any of that, I think. I'm just trying
to gauge the challenges that I think
for votes in quorum have been on the board of commissioners lately, what that would look like. Maybe
it goes smoothly. Maybe it's just something that waits till January 1. Of course, I know I can see my
colleague chuckling because I'm talking about my colleague here about you will be in the driver's seat
at some point over there, or at least A seat. It just strikes me that this particular department, given
that who is doing the hiring decision here, unlike something a little downwind from a appointed department
head or some of the other hiring freeze challenges we have, strikes me as interesting.
Maybe it's just the timing. OK. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilmember Feidl. So I guess now that I
really think about this a little more, where it says plans to retire at the end of 2026, so is there
a chance that that won't happen? Well, I don't want to speak for Mr. Schilling. Exactly. But I also
think he put this together for this request. I think he's pretty solid in his decision. And if for some
reason he does not
that's a given right yes okay because I didn't see that spelled out very well we would not hire that
position if we didn't have a thank you.
And let me just add a brief comment that I know it's not the time to discuss Mr Schilling's tenure here
at the county, but it does start to give us a little pause for reflection that you're going to have
someone else from your department presenting your budget in the near future and potentially. And we
certainly are going to miss his presentation of your department's budgets once a year. Oh, he's been
an extremely valuable resource for the whole county. Absolutely.
I couldn't agree with you more. Is there any public comment on this timely hiring freeze request?
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes.
Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Henry, you passed. Yes. Okay. So the motion does not pass. I know
that I passed on my vote. I'm taking my vote now. So that's what I was going to. So yeah, I'll change
my vote to yes. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Motion passes unanimous four to zero. Thank you very much, Mr.
Cockrell. Thank you.
That concludes item number seven on our agenda, which are the hiring freeze requests. We are now going
to move into council business, which is number eight on our agenda. And we'll start with letter A. Council,
I move to approve the Jail Correctional Center's request and fund 1233-0000 lit correctional for an
additional appropriation of $140,000 in the services category. Second.
We have a motion and a second. We have Jordan Miller, our GL financial manager, and Kyle Gibbons, our
GL commander. Welcome, and tell us what we need to know. Good afternoon, Council. An additional appropriation
of $140,000 is requested for medical services due to expenditures consistently exceeding the monthly
budget allocation of $12,500. Given the variability of monthly overages, an estimated $20,000 was used
in consult
consultation with Kim shell. Thank you Kim Resulting in a projected need of approximately one hundred
thirty three thousand six hundred ninety six dollars and fifty four cents This amount was rounded up
to one hundred forty thousand dollars to ensure sufficient funding for the remainder of the fiscal year
Many events anything. All right council. Do you have any questions for our Correctional Center? Yes,
mr. Henry what was our
FY 27 budget for this account line. Just thinking ahead, if we're doing additional approves now, I mean,
have we budgeted sufficiently for next fiscal for this medical line? We've had to come back. We've had
to request additional appropriation for, I believe, almost every year during my capacity in this position.
I believe I mentioned during the budget session, as well as with our liaisons, that I don't really see that the
overages amount is a sufficient cost again that's twelve thousand five hundred dollars it's a total
of one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the year for twelve months of course and as you can see in
this request we've had overages you know as much as twenty eight thousand one hundred twenty five dollars
and sixteen cents in March
$26,464 and 83 cents in October. I mean, so it's really, it's really challenging to determine that amount,
but I certainly do not believe that $150,000 is a sufficient amount. Of course, we were. And Councilmember
Henry, one of the issues that we have in forecasting those expenses is you never know what's going to
come through the door in some of well, a majority of those costs over just that exceed the pool.
are things that we did not, you cannot account for. So that's kind of what he's trying to explain. I
appreciate that, because I think this is a case where I'd say maybe we've, we're gonna burn it out faster
than we've anticipated. Again, maybe Michelle, you can give us the numbers there, because I would imagine
we're gonna be seeing you very soon again in the next fiscal, but thank you. Yes, for 2026, the amount
of 1,675,277 was budgeted.
For 2027, it was $1,751,541. So they did increase the amount. I would like to add that that is specific
to the contract increase. That's not specific to the $150,000 for the pool cap overages, the cost pool
overages. So unfortunately, you will likely see us again in future years if we don't maybe reconsider
that amount. Future months, it sounds like the burn is faster than what
Okay, yes, it's just something I think about, I appreciate it. Are there any other council comments
or questions? Yes, Mr. Deckard. Will you do the contract here? Will you write? Yes, sir. In the discussions
on the, when we're dealing with the cost, I guess my question, I may be saying this wrong, so feel free
to get back to me later or now, just tell me you don't know what you're talking about.
Is there any way we can continue to work or bargain with them around what it's costing so that we get
the service, but maybe we're more accurately hitting the targets? Am I even saying that right? Yeah,
I see what you're trying to say. So part of any medical contract in any facility across the state, they've
taken the consideration surrounding services. So if the hospital is making X amount of dollars,
our nurses, our LPNs, they're going to make X amount of dollars.
obviously you guys understand being the fiscal body that you have to be competitive with other agencies,
really their income. So I will say this about three C's and President Blake Wiseman, he's been extremely
good about working with us. He has that the first contract we signed, he took a hit so that we could
move from ACH to three C's without costing the county a lot of money. He's worked with us on a lot of
things. And to be fair,
We we provide a lot more medical services than surrounding counties do. So our costs for that contract
are still competitive without other counties because he keeps that kind of low for us. So he is doing
everything he can for us. It sounds like we're we just like everybody else. We hit market forces that
are beyond our our old school kind of grid. OK, thank you. And even at this cost, our current contract
for this year,
is well below our former ACH contract of three years ago. Now, almost well, I guess, just almost three
years ago, still below what that would have been at that time. Councilmember Feidl? No, I'm sorry. Okay.
I will simply make a comment that if we zoom out, this is one more data point that healthcare continues
to be an increased percentage of the taxpayer's dollars.
It is something that is a reality that we need to be aware of. And this is not surprising at all that
you're here. So thank you for being mindful with the expenditures and keeping them as low as you can
be while still providing the exemplary service to folks that is part of our constitution. All right.
Is there any public comment on this health care topic? Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion
passes unanimous. Excellent. And I'll move on to letter B. Council, I move to open for discussion and
possible approval of the Jail Correctional Center's request and fund 1000-0380 County General Jail
for an in-house transfer of $50,000 into account line 17101 overtime from account line shift pay per
resolution 2025-41A. Second. All right, what do we need to know about overtime? We're requesting approval
to transfer funds from shift pay account to the overtime account to cover remaining 2026 payroll obligations.
I do want to add that to simplify the transfer process, funding will be drawn solely from shift pay
as I reflected. Initially, I had intentions of maybe pulling it from multiple accounts, but it just
felt easier to do it from just shift pay. As of the October 16th check date, 3,797 overtime hours have
been utilized. Overtime expenditures
Total $159,300.71, leaving an unexpended balance of $15,699.29, or approximately 8.97% of our budget.
Overtime is authorized to maintain adequate staffing and ensure operational and safety requirements
are met. An additional $50,000 is estimated to cover overtime costs for the remainder of 2026,
overtime averages approximately $8,000 per pay period may increase toward year end due to staffing needs,
leave, holidays, and other operational demands. This request is intended to provide sufficient funding
and avoid a subsequent transfer. And just for the record, corrections staff do not accrue compensatory
time. All qualifying additional hours are paid as overtime. All right, Council, do you have any questions
or comments about this overtime
Topic. Interesting. I guess I'll just make a comment. This is something again that is taking up a lot
of the taxpayer dollar as a percentage of budget is staffing.
We need to have folks doing the jobs that are is the public service that we do and and we need them
in there and at the same time as the fiscal body it is sometimes difficult to look at these overtime
dollar amounts and And be able to to vote on these but it is part of the job. So thank you for your
numerated Narrative, that's helpful. My pleasure Is there any public comment on this overtime topic? I
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Decker. Yes, Councillor Henry. Yes, Councillor
Iverson. Yes, Councillor Fiddle. Yes, motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. That
brings us to letter C. Will I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 19 or excuse me and
fund 91599626 high tech crimes unit grant.
for an additional appropriation of $1,300.98 in the services category. Second. We have a motion and
a second, and the one and only Beth Hamlin, executive assistant for the prosecutor's department. So
what do we need to know? Well, this is some additional funding that came from the state. Some of the
other units within the state did not spend all the dollars that they were appropriated.
from the state level, so they distributed that between the 10, or actually it might have been administrative
dollars that weren't spent. So we are getting $1,300.98 that we anticipate, we're allocating it or requesting
to appropriate it into the technical services line because we really need additional digital storage
for evidence. If you're wondering what's driving data centers.
on that happy note. Council, do you have any comments? Mr. Deckard. I want to get clarification on that.
We're not buying a data center. Everybody remain calm. There's just so much storage required for the
evidence. It's the only subject that's more unpopular than politicians or data centers themselves. I
should not have even touched that. But is that, I guess my question is,
are those causing costs to go up for the storage? What, data centers? Yeah. We don't have any. I don't
have any connection to data centers. This is for just individual. I don't know. They're called RAS or
RAID servers. All right. I was like, are we getting hit with a helicopter? It's just terabytes of storage.
But there is a lot of digital evidence anymore. Any other comments or questions from council?
I would just like it to be made known that if other counties are not going to use their dollars, we
are more than happy to put them to good use. Exactly. Yeah. Let this keep happening. Yes. Auditor's
office. Just so you guys know, we have already received this money, so it's sitting there ready to be
used. Thank you, Ms. Moe. All right. Is there any public comment on this data storage topic?
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes
unanimous. All right, that brings us to letter D. Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request
and fund 8121-9628 VOCA, B-O-C-A grant for an additional appropriation of $144,000
and $144,994.17 in the personnel category. Second. We have a motion and a second. What do we need to
know about this? This is a request to appropriate our newly awarded VOCA grant funding. This will cover
10-1 of 2026 through 9-30 of 2028. So it's a two-year grant in the amount of $144,944.
dollars and 17 cents. Excuse me, it was $994. Mine says $944. Oh, I have $994. OK. Let me look at your.
No, it says that it's a typo. In the grant agreement on page one. It says it on the appropriation page,
but in the summary.
Let's just make sure we got it right here. In the grant agreement on page one, it is $144,994.17. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. That's fine. This does require a match in the amount of $36,242.52. And
we meet that with the balance of the salaries for the victim assistance that are paid through this grant.
out of County General. All right, Council, is there, do you have any questions about the Victims of
Crime grant? Seeing none. Is there any public comment on this Victims of Crime Act grant? I see none,
so may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes.
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thanks,
everyone. All right, that brings us to letter E. Council, I move to approve the recorder's request and
fund 1189-0000, recorder's record perpetuation
for a category transfer of $2,000 from the supplies category to the services category. Second. We have
a motion and a second. And I do not see the department head on teams nor in the room. So council, I
would entertain a motion or Michelle, do you feel like you can present?
I think it's pretty self-explanatory. It's a category transfer in order. Her department has been attending
training, and she pays for her travel and training out of the perpetuation fund, out of her, and so
this is just to ensure that the remainder of the year ends in a positive balance. All right. Council,
do you have any questions on this first recorder's office item?
Seeing none, is there any public comment on this record records perpetuation item? Seeing none, may
we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, that brings us to letter F.
I move to approve the recorder's request in fund one two one seven dash zero zero zero zero County elected
officials training for an additional appropriation of four thousand dollars in the services fund second
Michelle This is for training for elected officials and their chief deputies this
We've, per her narrative, she's seen an intake or an uptake of county officials, elected officials attending.
And so this is just to make sure that the fund ends at a positive balance at the end of the year. Okay.
Council, do you have any questions or comments about training and travel line? Mr. Henry. Thank you,
Mr. President.
Recorder's not here, I do recall from our budget conversations. This is just one of those nice things
in the recorder's purview that she shares with the county so we can send our people, our elected officials,
to training. It's not a drain on the general fund, it's her space. It's great that Amy is able to make
that work for everybody. She goes back and watches the replay as all elected officials do. Thank you,
and we'll continue on with it. Thank you, Mr. President.
I just want to say we are certainly thankful for our relationship with the Association of Indiana Counties.
And we, as always, encourage staff to take advantage of those trainings and those networking opportunities.
Is there any public comment? Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 4-0. All right. Thank you, Michelle,
for carrying those two agenda items. No problem. Next, we are on letter G. Council, I move to open for
discussion and possible approval of the Health Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze
and be allowed to hire and fund 8111-9623
crisis coag workforce grant one full-time public health emergency preparedness coordinator. We have
a motion and a second and we are graced with presence of Linnea Emig and Eric Gause. Did I get the last
name correct? Amy. I'm so sorry. Just pretend it's spelled A-M-Y. I'm so sorry. That's the second time
I will be better. All right. Please tell us what is going on with this item.
So our preparedness coordinator accepted a position with a neighboring county. And so we would like
to post and fill that position. The public health emergency preparedness coordinator is responsible
for maintaining the department's emergency and continuity of operations plans and regularly testing
their capabilities, representing the health department at an emergency operations center during an incident.
providing preparedness education to the public, providing training for staff on the department's roles
in emergency response, participating in local and district coalitions for emergency preparedness, managing
our department's emergency inventory, and also ensuring that our grant deliverables, pardon me, ensuring
our grant deliverables and reporting are complete and up to date. Anything else to add?
All right. Council, are there any questions? I'm going to start with council member Deckard, then we'll
go to council Henry. I have less questions on this, but I just wanted to, I was looking at the press
release that came out yesterday. I think everybody in the county is looking at that. They probably should
be looking at this job as well, but just to confirm you all are back open all services available. Am
I right on that? Yep. Okay. I don't want to make sure we got that out there. Thank you very much. Mr. Henry.
Thank you, Mr. President, and I'm glad the doors are open. This is my very old job. But we didn't have
a director back then. This is a one and only. So every time this pops up, I get warm fuzzies because
I used to do this stuff. And boy, do we need it in the community. So I mean, this is an essential piece.
I'll just pick up a little bit on what Counselor Deckard was indicating here with being open for business,
but also in reading press coverage, thankful for the work that was done
meningitis case out south. And that's part of what this preparedness work is. When we have something
like this happen in the community, and that's the output of protecting our public, but also figuring
out what happened and learning through the after action report, the process improvement. It's the little
things that go a long way. I preach to the choir here. But of course, we're going to work to get this
filled. It's an essential position. And you don't know you need it until it happens.
it seems nowadays with outbreaks, they're happening with some frequency that this position's doing a
lot more work than when I used to be in the spot. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.
Madam, Mr. President. Ms. Amy, you would be the supervisor of this position, right? That's correct.
And then is the current assistant in that division, is that full? No. OK. So you really do need this
other position.
It would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Excellent. I have no further questions. All right. Is there
any public comment on this health department item? Seeing none, may please have a roll call vote. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right. Great. That leads us to letter H.
Council I move to approve the Health Department's request to fund 8153-9625 Harm Reduction Grant for
an additional appropriation of $27,167 in the personnel category. Second. All right, we have a motion
and a second. Ms. Amy, Mr. Gauss, what do we need to know here?
So the health department's requesting approval of additional appropriation for an amendment of the additional
funding for the HIV prevention grant for twenty seven thousand one sixty seven. These funds will continue
to support the personnel cost for harm reduction specialist position. This position provides HIV and
hepatitis C testing and referrals to care and treatment and partners with the Indiana Recovery Alliance through
The month of September for twenty twenty six. We have performed one hundred and four HIV tests and sixty
hepatitis C tests. Other services include the Knox alone training and distribution to community residents,
organizations and emergency responders, including local fire and police departments. And we have distributed
one thousand five hundred and seven of the Knox alone. That's it. Fantastic.
I have any questions about this harm reduction item? Yes, Mr. Henry. Only to say thank you for the data,
because I was going to ask what the numbers were lately. And I know that that briefing is often given
at the Board of Commissioners. We don't get the numbers in this room very often of what's behind the
ledger here and the work. So thank you for sharing the work of this position and the work of this part
of the Health Department.
I will just say one of the questions that I think all of us get all the time is, wait, what exactly
do you do? And based on what you're presenting here today and your work, a legitimate answer could be
is that we save lives. The availability of naloxone has increased so rapidly. And as we track deaths
due to substance use disorder, we've seen a stark decline. And one of the reasons has been
the availability of the lock zone. So the health department is playing a key role here. And I just,
from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for including Hep C. I mean, it's just
so important in this community. So all right, enough of my soapbox. Is there public comment here?
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you both for your work. That brings us to letter I. Council
I move to approve the planning department's request and fund 1000 dash 0079.
county general planning to approve the creation of a new position job description senior zoning inspector
and Simultaneously approve the amended job descriptions of the Plan Commission assistant director Plan
Commission director planner to senior planner and zoning inspector as recommended by our third party
administrator Wagnon Erwin Shealy second
We have a motion and a second, and we have a whole bunch of folks from our planning department. Ms.
John, would you introduce everyone that you brought with you today? Yes, thank you very much. So Jackie
Jellon, I'm the director of the planning department. I have with me Tammy Beerman, our assistant director,
Rachel Henry, our zoning inspector, and then also Scott Ferris, the president of the planning commission
and executive committee. Colonel, I would feel better if you
I'm gonna scoot it up a little bit. There's room at the table. All right, what do we need to know, Ms.
John? Okay, so the first item on the agenda as introduced.
We are in agreement and in alignment with approval of the job descriptions, as recommended also by WIS.
So we haven't taken a look at the position descriptions in some time, so I just wanted to state just
for the record, some of the things that were being removed from some of the job descriptions, just to
be clear for the public, it included removing administration of the subdivision control ordinance and
zoning ordinance, and then we added
administering the county development ordinance that's the same thing it's just that the name changed
so we just want to be clear that we didn't take away a huge job duty so it's a net we're seeing a net
increase in position duties in our office so just wanted to make the record clear on that and we feel
really good about just making sure that these are updated in due time and
I think everyone should be coming back with some edits over time because things do change. So I'm glad
that this is something that we can be aligned with and get this updated. The second part of the request
is we haven't. They haven't made a motion for the second part, so this is just for the job descriptions
part. You want me to talk about the senior zoning? Yeah, you can talk about just that position and the
job description.
Yes, okay. So the part of the first request, the senior zoning inspector, we're hoping that that would
be something that we could go ahead and approve as we recommended. We do think that it's important to
make the position a senior position and not just a duplicate zoning inspector position.
we would like to see that position description with a classification of Pat D though that might be part
of the next request. I do have a letter that our current zoning inspector has written about the role
of the zoning inspector position and its necessity for adding a senior zoning inspector position. If
it is appropriate, I'd like her to go ahead and read that into the record.
It's hard to argue against the idea that there needs to be another zoning inspector for the Monroe County
Planning Department. I know that you as county counselors hear about it from your constituents regularly.
I have been working tirelessly to process residential planning permits and tackle planning enforcement
cases for the entire unincorporated area of Monroe County plus Steinsville, but one person can only
do so much. With new state legislation, our review times for residential applications has been drastically cut
and permitting has taken priority. This year alone, I have processed over 500 pre-designs and over 350
ILP applications. This is on top of managing incoming property complaints, 40 plus ongoing enforcement
cases, closing out 19 old enforcement cases and opening 16 new cases. The need for an additional person
is critical just to maintain status quo without burnout.
What I am here to speak on today, though, is why I think a senior zoning inspector is needed as opposed
to just an additional zoning inspector. The reason we need a senior zoning inspector is for the outliers,
the difficult enforcement cases that combine in extenuating circumstances such as living in chaotic
drug use, mental health disorders, social inequalities, health and wellbeing concerns, and on and on.
Many of these cases have been dragging on for several years.
When a county resident is living day to day and is not having their basic needs met, a letter from the
planning department about cars in their yard or living in an RV isn't even registering as something
important. A senior zoning inspector would have the time to work with property owners to determine the
barriers they are experiencing that are keeping them from bringing their property into compliance. They
would have the knowledge and connections to
They would have the knowledge and connections in our community to connect residents to others that can
help them beyond what we can do for them. Other organizations that can offer real, meaningful change
for the problems they face. A senior zoning inspector could help coordinate more effectively between
county departments, lessening the impact of the deluge of multiple letters from multiple departments
with multiple action items and multiple deadlines.
These kinds of letters are ignored by by in cases like this. These kind of letters are ignored because
people just can't process them. We also need a senior zoning inspector for the complicated permitting
cases that county residents feel lost in building a home in Monroe County can be very easy or it can
require the combined efforts of five plus county departments. Multiple permits being issued and approvals
from multiple boards granting variances to county codes.
Most of the time it's somewhere in between, but county residents are faced with managing this process
mostly on their own. A senior zoning inspector could spend extra time on these complicated builds to
make sure the process moves along as efficiently as possible.
Having the time to coordinate between county departments to make sure critical information is being
shared and all codes are being met, and offering clear communication through additional processes like
variances to make sure applicants know what their next steps are and when they can be taken are small
things, but things that require extra time and extensive knowledge on the process to successfully accomplish.
Splitting the current responsibilities between two zoning inspectors would definitely alleviate the
pressure, but only enough to just come up for air. If we want to really be able to dig deep and spend
the necessary time and energy on the long-term complicated enforcement and permitting cases and actually
make a difference for our county residents, a senior zoning inspector position is key. Thank you. Ms.
John, do you have more?
I can't beat that. For the first request, I think that is a summary. We'd like to see the position
descriptions approved, and we would like a senior zoning inspector position at Pat D. All right. Let's
go to council for comments. Mr. Deckard. I appreciate that letter very much. That was one of the most
in-depth letters I've ever heard anyone from any department ever read into a microphone on a case like
this. And not saying that people
didn't do that in the past or couldn't have done in the past, but it helped me to see a lot of things
in the position and some of the, what I sometimes say with students, the flexing that you're doing between
multiple audiences, audiences out in the yard, audiences in here, audiences that don't care about either,
but really have a complaint. And I know that when I send something over to this department, it's generally
within an hour, hour and a half that I get
pretty complex response back on kind of things going in it. I'm probably added to the flexing that the
entire department has to do. And I'm sure that's not easy. I think my general just comment would be
is that I am extremely interested in anything that makes the jobs in that department easier to flex
to all these people and less corrosive around that flexing.
It is hard to face yards and questions and things that get. It's even harder to come in here, I think,
and read boards and commissions and various entities and their temperaments. And I think we all can
think about that, not with this department, just this department, but every department. What are we
doing to make life as manageable
as possible across that counter, whether that counters in a yard or otherwise. So I just, I wanted to
offer that comment. I was inspired by it, but I really appreciate that letter because it really gave
me a sense of some of the things that I think sometimes we get lost on when we're just seeing the place
where enforcement is needed. And I know that proactiveness of assisting people was something that is
a one off or a two off or a, I don't remember the last off,
I know that probably the drain on that as well. So I'll stop there. Thank you. Mr. Henry. Thank you,
Mr. President. Thank you for this. I mean, I know where we started off with getting this to WIS and
getting things evaluated and where we are now are kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is one of
those heart and head moments, right? I mean, I appreciate the letter. But there are some things that
I heard that I guess give me some pause when I think about how
we have asked or we see other positions in the county that take on added duties, right? But what WIS
is telling us in their assessment here is the compliance issues of state code, the qualifications to
do the zoning work, mentioning things like the American Institute of Certified Planners and the like,
that's one part of it, right? What was described here is in the neighborhood of social work, right?
There's this social work element
what you described as to what a more complex case would be. I think about how we've sat in this room
over the past year and heard, and this isn't you all, but other departments that bring us cross-training.
We'll hear a lot about cross-training and having the agility to do a lot of things in the job, except
they are sometimes outside of the job. If what you're saying is we experience situations where social
work, background, interest, technique, training is also part of zoning inspection,
I got to ask I mean is that maybe this probably is my ignorance I mean is there something in planning
education about this this aspect of having to work through social and economic issues when working on
planning issues because I only raise it to say I don't understand why that's a senior planning position
as opposed to.
having a social worker go with you all to a location to work through those things. I mean, I think about
our Sheriff's Department, when I've been on rides and they've been doing similar social work well visits
with shut-ins and rural spaces, that's above and beyond. Does this make sense? Because I'm concerned
that we might be trying to mush too much into this as opposed to maybe a different position that does
social work along with you. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm just trying to get some understanding of it.
I can speak to some of that. So two of our recent cases that we still have open as enforcement, Rachel
has gone out, talked with them on site, and has done a collaborative visit with Waste Reduction District
and the Health Department. And at the end of the day, we are hearing stories that unless Rachel, which
she does, reaches out to IU Health, mobile clinic, or Stride, those people don't have cell phones, they
don't have
driver's license vehicles. So she's emailing and saying, hey, can you literally go to this property
at this address and ask for this person? They want help, but they don't have a way to ask for it or
get to it. And so, yes, we could ask them in advance, hey, can you partner with us to come to every
site visit? But they're stretched thin too, so. Don't know until you're at the door what you're dealing
with. So it sounds like there's some triaging going on where you're not trying to solve all the problems.
That's what I'm hearing is I hope you're not trying to solve all the problems we have. But it sounds
like at some point you're triaging as, okay, a person that's been in the role can see that this is a
complex case. It's not trying to solve all of the issues through the planning department. It is trying
to connect and bring our community in on that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And yet what we have back from WIS
is that, Michelle, you might
Correct me if I'm wrong here. I mean, their assessment on this is that it's basically another zoning
position at a pat C and it's not, they did not come back identifying these nuances as what makes for
a senior zoning inspector. It would be another zoning inspector at a pat B, a pat B. The senior zoning
is that the department is requesting would be a pat C, I guess.
the WSIS recommendations. They said both. So in the comparisons we did against other jurisdictions,
City of Bloomington, are those planners at that level conducting that kind of triage as well?
Do we know that? Are there senior planners in other jurisdictions that are dealing with
That's what the role is in those other jurisdictions. If this person left us and applied to be a senior
planner in another jurisdiction, they know they're signing up for complexity. Does that make sense?
I'm trying to rank it to understand what this role is on the market. That was like five questions, sorry,
but that's how I do it. When we did the fiscal impact analysis to other counties, we only evaluated
it based on the
the jobs that we're asking for the regrid for. I did not evaluate it based on a senior zoning inspector.
I know that, for instance, the city has a similar kind of hierarchy, if you will, for their permitting
and enforcement, but I didn't evaluate it for each county because it wasn't a position yet created.
Thank you for that. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments?
I have two questions. I'm going to follow up on page 159 in today's packet, is the WISS's reaction to
including this heating zoning inspector. And I'm curious to know what your reaction is to their argument
that as impassioned as the letter that we heard is, and as much as that defines reality, why don't we
just have another inspector?
Why just have, I mean, that's with his argument. What's your response? Yeah, so I would say that one
of the things that is kind of problematic with having a duplicate zoning inspector is we're hoping,
as the senior zoning inspector position description is described, there would be a requirement that
they would have some experience, years experience administering ordinances. So you'd already have somebody that
maybe would be training the other person. But beyond that, if we just split the duties directly in half,
hey, you take half of the permits, you take half of the enforcement,
And this is just something true for every department that a director has to work out but let's say someone
does something slightly different than the way the other person does it they both come to the director
in that case and say hey this person I think is doing something this way I'd rather them do it this
way and so I would hope that there wouldn't be any kind of.
difference in how they administer and and do their job you know and and record-keeping that's a big
thing is like some people are really good at keeping digital records other people are not but we would
be kind of trying to prioritize consistency in that role can constantly having it be kind of hierarchy
allows it to be more informative of back and forth and also those harder cases so if
You know, one person gets a really hard case and the other person gets three easy permits. I don't want
there to be a disparity in like, hey, my job feels harder than their job, but we're exactly the same
pay because this week I had a lot of hard permits. It's just how the cookie's going to crumble. There's
gonna be some permits that are gonna be easy, some permits that are not. And the way the software's
set up for our permitting, it's round robin.
It can't take into account. Oh this one's in this area. So then it's going to go to this person So then
you have a lot of management on our side to say, okay I've assessed all these applications I think these
should go to this person and these should go to this person in your hand assigning those off to make
sure it's constantly fair so I do think it would work better to have a little bit of hierarchy there, but
That I know that was did give kind of two recommendations recommending it as a Pat C is different than
what it is currently Pat B. So I don't know if that gets into the third request, but it kind of felt
like they were alluding to a duplicate position, but maybe a higher pay and a salary issue. I wasn't
quite clear exactly on their overall recommendation, to be honest.
And it's challenging, I think, the way that things are structured now that because PAC isn't meeting,
there's no way for you to answer WIS's lengthy letters except here. So I really do want to give you
all an opportunity to to rebut what WIS is saying, because we're in this situation now where you have
to bring all of this straight to council and our packets are full of job descriptions. So I thank you for
for those arguments. My second question is that of timing. The legislature is going back into its biannual
budget session in January. This last session was not kind to your department or departments across the
state. Is there any hope that there's going to be changes or reversions to the ways that they dumped
a lot of work on you? I will say,
And maybe Bobby Leroux, he's still here as well. His department is feeling the similar timeline and
crunch on this. I don't think that they're receptive to our complaints on the timeline. If anything,
some of the house enrolled acts one thousand one that we just had a hearing on last week, there's a
direct question in there. How are you going to streamline parallel
permitting processes, shorten your timelines. Like they're just asking us, what can you do to make things
even faster and concurrent? So I think that they will only come at it to see that we do more concurrent
permitting and they will probably just try to make us move even quicker, to be honest. Lovely. Okay.
Yes, council member Pytel.
So I guess I'm wondering if staff or legal might have a better interpretation on what was recommended
here. I mean, I certainly don't have it. I haven't been working with these kinds of things all that
long. OK, so what happened was the department requested a new job of senior zoning inspector. Right.
So that was what was created. But after their review of what
The information that was submitted because the department has to fill out a questionnaires and all of
this They felt that they didn't really possibly need a senior Position what it looked like to on their
end with the information that they received Maybe all they needed was a zoning inspector. So that's
why there was the two posit You know their recommendation is
Yes, you asked for this senior position, but it looks like you could actually get by with just another
body of a zoning. So the request was made for a senior, so they classified that. But it's up to the
council if you want to move forward with the senior position that the department has requested, or do
you want to move forward with just adding another body for them of a zoning inspector? So that was their
recommendation.
So how would that play out in the department? Well, I would just say just realistically with the request
in front of you, the position description for zoning inspector was changed to adopt to senior zoning
inspector. So if there is no senior zoning inspector and there's two duplicate zoning inspectors, I
would ask that we would need to redo the job descriptions again to remove that language.
But how would that work in our department was a thing because yeah So if there was a duplicate zoning
inspector again, it would just be trying to be as fair as possible with splitting the duties I wouldn't
we've talked about this multiple times giving one person enforcement and giving one person Permits will
lead to that enforcement person getting absolutely burnt out and not having high morale So I would not do that
I would like to have some permitting because there you can actually say yes and you can have wins getting
people through the system. People say thank you constantly to us. Enforcement is more challenging for
sure and you're dealing with a lot of different people coming at you with different requests.
if there was a senior position again, it could be a little bit more where there's more difficult cases,
it would go to that senior person. And also, just the reality of it is there's always gonna be one person
that's been there longer, not to say that the person that's there longer automatically moves into the
senior zoning inspector position, but I don't want it to feel like the current zoning inspector is always
training the other zoning inspector.
having that hierarchy there in the department would maybe lead to better retention and maybe a little
bit more clear guidance on how to handle some of the cases. But certainly, if there were two duplicate
zoning inspectors, we do need another body and we have that, I think, approved as of the September 8th
meeting that, yes, we need a new person. And it's up to you all on whether that's a senior or not.
I'm sorry, I was going to ask you a question. Sure. You said you would have to send the job description
back. The zoning inspector, let's just say council moves forward with two positions. Are you saying
you would have to send that one back?
I mean, if we could just come to this body and amend the job description, the zoning inspector position
that they're approving tonight says reports to senior zoning inspector all over. Yes. And OK, so that
would be just a reporting structure. Correct. Yeah. I just want to make sure you weren't like sending
it back to WIS. I was just going to add that with my experience in the department, almost 14 years,
Jackie is a powerhouse. She does so much in the department in so many different realms and capacities
and to I would agree have that hierarchy of the senior zoning inspector for her to maybe more report
directly to just that one person rather than have another person to manage. I could see that being beneficial
for the county at large on so many different projects. So just adding that in there.
So do you have any other questions or comments for the planning team on these job descriptions? So maybe
one more thing. So do we know if Wes has had any experience in other counties evaluating similar positions?
Would other counties be under the same kind of structure that we are here? Maybe that's the question.
I mean, they have 16.
different counties, so that question was not posed, so I can't answer that. I hear you. Please, Mr.
Deckard. My experience with with sometimes that sometimes we're on the edge of things and change things
and do things in a way that we bark like a different type of dog altogether.
and then you get two to three years down the road and everybody's gonna be barking like that or more
people barking. I know that sounds like the strangest metaphor in the world but I've watched this a
few times. A good example is the election director. That has changed from a position where they were
at the kind of mercy of the clerk to now they're literally supposed to be directing that election and
probably most jurisdictions in this time and age
wouldn't have it any other way or we'll be moving quickly to it. And so I sometimes note that WIS will
show you the kind of average of what's out there, but sometimes the average gives you the average and
it doesn't give you maybe what you're looking to do. And so that's where I think in moments like this,
it becomes sort of like duly noted
and move forward. There was one other example where we had this with them. I can't remember. The election
one always stands out because that was my domain of professionally what I used to do. And it's just
when things change or sometimes state code, federal, whatever going on, certain things get out on the
edge a little bit more. And this might be one of those with the senior position.
And as a reminder, this is a recommendation from WIS. The department has presented what they wish to
see there structured as. So WIS gave you two options. So basically, you just need to decide. Are you
going to go with the senior position, or do you want to go with the other? I had a point of inquiry, please.
Motion is read by Councilor final is adopting what the department's asking for, right? Correct, which
was which is the senior zoning inspector at a Patsy. And all and all of the job description classifications
are at the WIS recommendation station. We have not got into the other part where we're at the
reclassification, but what you would be approving is what WIS is recommending. Here's the job descriptions.
Here's the classifications, which includes the senior zoning inspector. But as the department wants
it. Correct. Well, the job description, the job description. Later, we deal with the rest of that. Correct.
Okay. I will just my, my, I don't know, heartburn here is that your request is not happening in a vacuum.
that there are multiple department heads in this room and multiple department heads watching on the
screen right now. And that's a reality that this council must take into account. And I know you know
that. I know that you appreciate that and the complexity that we're dealing with. And so that's part
of my current, I guess, Harper is the best way to put it. All right.
Nothing more from council. Is there any public comment? Seeing no public comments, may we please have
April call vote. Councillor Henry.
So again, just to reiterate Councilor Deckard's question, there's two parts to this motion.
Is that correct? You are voting to approve the job descriptions with the WIS recommendations. But that
includes the new position of... That includes the new position of the senior zoning inspector. Yeah.
So we're a little late in getting an amendment before we took the motion.
I mean, we can, I can call it back as president and we can do... Would the president consider an amendment,
entertaining an amendment before we go to a full vote? I would. All right, Mr. President, I offer an
amendment. I'd like to amend the position of senior zoning inspector to zoning inspector and at the
category of Pat B, which would have the effect of offering two zoning inspector positions.
and instead of the hierarchical that we've discussed. Council, we have a motion. Is there a second?
Was that Pat D or Pat B? Pat B. Boy, thank you. Motion dies to lack of a second. That's where we are.
So I just want to reiterate and get clarification on what it is the department really wants here, right?
Because I think they've made their case. And so as I look down this list of things, and I don't know
if you have what we're looking at here on the from and to list. Do you have all of that? We're not there
yet. Oh. We're not there yet. We're just approving the job descriptions. OK. And what do they want there?
Do you want? They want the senior zoning inspector. All right. Thank you.
All right. So it's clear to me. Thank you. So council member Henry's amendment to take it from senior
zoning inspector justice zoning inspector failed for lack of a second. Are there any other council member
comments before we go to a roll call vote going once going twice? Michelle, may we please have a roll
call vote?
Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Motion
passes unanimous. All right, that brings us to item J. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible
approval of the Planning Department's request and fund
dash 0079 to amend the 2027 salary ordinance to add account line 14011, senior zoning inspector and
to simultaneously reclassify all the positions outlined on the agenda above the WISC recommendation.
Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Ms. Jelen, walk us through the fiscal side. Okay.
And thank you for your last vote.
I do appreciate that. So our other request is to amend the 2027 salary ordinance so this would be something
that is effective January one 2027 with the salary ordinance.
and it is to reclassify the positions to align fiscally with comparable counties and city positions.
So in the packet, we did include exhibits A and B, which were also visible at the September 8th meeting.
This is where we did our fiscal impact with other comparable counties and also a letter from our executive
committee noting the loss of two planners within our department due to a large
that we had a large salary gap between what the county is able to pay planners and what the city was
paying. So this magnitude of the fiscal impact showed that we are off by several thousands of dollars
for each. Position so the reasoning that we're asking to reclassify our positions is. One of six out
of eight current staff members are
In addition, we do have certifications, as Councilmember Henry noted, the American Planning Association,
AICP. One of the major things of this certification is that there's a code of ethics that we all must
follow and that any member of the public may actually turn anyone in, even for what's called the appearance
of conflict of interest. So that's something that keeps us very
straight and narrow in our jobs and we always have to consider that and it's one of the most important
things that we uphold because oftentimes we have so many different constituent questions or people that
we report to and sometimes we have to say things that people don't want to hear but it's the right answer
whether it's the code.
that we're upholding, or it's the fact of the matter of the property that we're dealing with. Sometimes
people just want to get told that it's yes, it's going to be easy, but oftentimes our department is
required to point out that no, it's not easy, there's floodplain, or no, it's not a developable lot
that you just purchased from somebody that told you it was. So that ethics component is extremely important.
we're also a revenue generating department. So as of October 21st, I recalculated our revenue to date
is $154,755. So we're going to be continuing to review our fees, including next week before the deadline.
And then we're not allowed to change it by state code for five years, but we want to make sure it's
competitive and just covering basic salary costs of
the cost of labor to do the work that we do. So we do permitting and we also do petition reviews for
people that can't receive permits right away. I'm touched based on the fiscal impact in exhibit B, but
also the disparities that we have right now. It's resulting in a loss of qualified staff and it makes
it hard to attract new talent. I do say that,
But also we are lucky to be fully staffed right now and we do appreciate your exemption from past hiring
freezes. We are just hopeful all the time that we're able to retain that staff as soon as we get them trained.
They're really marketable, especially with those certifications. So we just want to make sure that they
stay with the department. And one of the ways you can do that is compensate them fairly. If they're
able to leave so easily, it just tells us, it screams at us, honestly, that there are better opportunities
nearby. And it just makes it hard for us to not encourage them, be happy for them to get that salary
increase when it means they can finally move out of their parents' house
or that they can afford the car that they need to have to transport to work, or that honestly they can
pay off their student loans for having a master's degree as required. So with that, I think that the
WIS memo does state in there that there is a salary issue at play. They don't necessarily describe a
solution to that, but I'm hoping that this re-grid
is considered because I think that is a solution. But I do think that with the position updates with
the state code changes, more duties coming. We can't honestly ask our employees to keep doing more without
higher pay. I know the state can do that, but I really hope that the council doesn't also do that. But
understanding you have many
many different departments coming and asking you the same question, and I know this is a very difficult
decision, so I appreciate your time and your attention, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay,
shots fired. Council, do you have any comments or questions? Mr. Henry. Thank you, Mr. President,
and again, I'm this council's liaison to the Planning Commission. I'm on the Executive Committee. This
has been before us for a few months now on
in different rooms. I recall when we brought this here, I am in support of doing something here. What
was hindering for me was really WIS and how we lean on that group to keep us in our
classification spaces, right? And what we got back from my read of the letter is sort of half a thing,
which is yes, we acknowledge salary's a problem according to WIS, but then the classification piece
is what they don't want to disturb, and yet that puts us in a place where we have our classification
bands, and then what, right? So I guess for my clarity, and maybe because we haven't done this in this
space in a while, of course I know Councilor Iverson
You mentioned bringing back PAC and the tools we have to sort these things out before we get to this
room. If we were to do salary adjustments inside the current classification, like let's say we took
Wiss's letter and said, okay, fine, we hear you. Don't touch the classifications, but there's some salary
adjustment. What does that do to what we've set up as a class and comp system? And I really do lean
to the PAC president to maybe help me understand this a little bit. I know Michelle maybe wants to jump in.
One of the things that we've been talking about in long-term finance with FSG is to do a salary study.
Because we know that inflation doesn't just hit us at the grocery store, it doesn't just hit us at the
gas pump, but it also hits us when it's time to move out of mom and dad's basement or it's time to pay
off those student loans. So there is room to do a salary study. I would much prefer
And I'm opining, this is me talking as one individual, to do a salary study across the entire system,
the entire salary grid, than to do it one department at a time. And so I think that's needed. And clearly,
I think when Colonel Ferris was here last time, he made this point that we haven't updated the salary
grid in how many years? Five years. And there's been a lot that's been happening to the economy since
then. So yeah, I'm just trying to figure out
What moves make what moves make sense cleanest cut because in this case, and as I said when you presented
this a month ago, this is a department that well plans I mean they have produced a comprehensive brief
on on the condition and so it's not like this was a request for someone comes in just says I want more
money and we've been given.
you know, an incredible amount of information to work with. And now we have sort of, like I said, half
a thing back from WIS on this. So if, and I think I'm kind of sorry, I don't mean to have the dialogue
up here, but I need to understand it from this PAC perspective. You know, one option would be to just
go forth and change classification and just that fits our system and that moves everything up. It does
mean other departments will look at that and say, well, you know, it does mean we are doing piecemeal
one at a time. I don't particularly,
I'm not particularly warm and fuzzy about waiting any longer with this department to say, well, we're
going to do the whole salary study of the whole county, and then please come back to us in 18 months
or however long that might take to understand that. So I feel like there are exceptions to the rules.
I don't want to be boxed into that space. But where I'm at right now is it seems like the cleanest cut is
go forth with the classification change that brings the salary adjustment, rather than trying to fit
a salary adjustment inside the classification bands, or to start doing salary, like a salary study on
a fly here. But I offer that back. I don't know if you have comment on it, but I'm trying to find a
way to make it happen without blowing up the whole classification system of the county in the process.
Michelle? So what I want to share right at this moment is
Council has deviated from the classification system. Can you zoom in, please? OK. And what I want to
show you is we have some positions. These are highlighted in red that they came in at. I'm going to
shrink this down just a little bit. It's helping me, sorry. It definitely 100% just helps you.
So for example, we have
One, two, three, four, five. There's been five departments that we have deviated with regards to job
descriptions and what WIS recommended. So what you can see right now is the assessor's office, they
had job descriptions come back as Comet and council moving them to Pat. And they moved one, two, three positions
within their department up a classification. Within the auditor's office, oh no, four, one, two, three,
four, four positions. Within the auditor's office, you did that again for two positions. It was done
in the clerk's office with the election supervisor that Councilor Deckard mentioned earlier. And we
also did it with a health department. There was a position in the health department
where you went above what was asked. We have the Public Health Preparedness Director, I believe. I have
it as a Pat B. It was moved as a Pat D. And then, let's see, I believe it was the GIS coordinator. So
you have, over since,
Since 2021, you have deviated from that classification with certain departments. It's totally a fiscal
decision. If you want to move forward with that tonight, please note that we did not budget that way.
If you do move forward with that, the department would have to come back for additional appropriations
in the next budget year.
but that is totally, it's a fiscal thing. Mr. Cockrell. Yeah, and then I just, I guess I heard the question
a little differently and so I want to make sure I answer it the way I heard it. I heard it is if the,
where you want to put the compensation doesn't fall nicely within our very formulaic grid system with
the EXE-2s or things like that, we've never really within an EXE-2
change said, this EXC2 makes this amount after so many years as opposed to, we haven't played within
that EX. Typically what we do is, and I think the last example of Mr. Bateman's position in the GIS
is we would make those special occupations, right? That's kind of how we've resolved those issues without
really foiling the entire formulaic aspect of our salary system.
Great, thank you. And I do want to kind of pull this back. This has gotten a little academic, which
I think is important to have, because it's a fiscal issue. But I was wondering, Ms. Jelen, there's a
memo dated August the 19th where the Monroe County Planning Commission Executive Committee went through
and made some proposals on what council could do. And I think that might be a good place for us to start
if you could walk us through that proposed
grid that the planned commission executive committee came up with. And Michelle, do you have that available
to share on the screen? Is that basically part of the packet? I can pull up the page number. Sorry.
One second. Yeah, that's it right there. 124. 124 in the packet. And so before we start talking about
permutations and different roads, let's talk about what we're talking about.
Do you want me to share my screen? You can or I can, it doesn't matter. If you can share it so your
own team. Okay, I'll do it. To be specific about the existing salaries and then the proposed grid, I
will note that the existing salaries are based on the date of this letter, so they're 2026 salaries
without the 2027 COLA account
accounted for. So on page 124 of the packet, the first item is planning director, existing salary here, $101,863.
Next to that is a proposed grid which would change it from an EXEB to a special occupation and in parentheses
the number that we would suggest was $114,026 and that asterisk at the bottom is regarding a match for
the highway director salary which
the executive committee agreed was kind of a comparable match for the department. And then on the right
hand side is the city of Bloomington salaries that were posted. So their director position was $133,
$284. So it goes along each row. So then assistant planning director EXEA, and that would be switching to EXEB.
we did note that because of the current assistant directors years of service it will be 14 years actually
next month so we are grateful for that tenure but that's why that number looks a little bit larger than
maybe a typical base pay EXEB and then again that's still
In line with what the city of Bloomington is paying their assistant director and then senior planner
I noted in the packet it just for clarity. It is currently a pat D as in dog And we are looking to propose
that one up which would be ex e a so that would be going from seventy three thousand eight hundred sixty
six dollars to eighty six thousand dollars ninety two cents and a comparable position at the city of
$98,257 so we're still well under what the city is paying for that similar position and then we have
three planner twos and they're currently at Pat C which is $64,780. We'd be asking that that move up to Pat
$60, which is $75,172. And looking at what the city is able to offer, $82,081. And again, this is 2026
numbers, not factoring in 2027 numbers. And then zoning inspector, currently a Pat B at $63,856. Moving
that to Pat C, which would be $66,810. Across the line, that's still lower than the city's.
And then senior zoning inspector proposed new position, which was just approved as a pat see in line
with this proposed grid. We were seeing that as a pat D position similar to planner to level of pay.
So that would be $75,172 and
the city's current senior zoning compliance managers at $90,169. And then we were making no change to
the office manager position, but I put that in there as a note of, you know, it's still a difference
there. So I also I worked with Jackie with regards to where these amounts would be for the 2027. And
then what I have on the screen is the fiscal impact
of showing where you just approved every all of the descriptions. So the WISC current classification,
which includes that senior zoning, this is at the twenty twenty seven amounts. And so you can see the
XCB, the SO and then the hourly difference at the end there on the screen. So. Thank you, Michelle.
Council, do you have any questions? Yes, Councilmember Pytel. So in looking at what was in the packet
where you're comparing the city of Bloomington salaries, you had mentioned some of these would be at
the county level would be based on longevity or whatever the step system is. And so I wondered if any
of those in the city comparable positions included that distinction, do you know?
Yeah, so I have the source there for the city Bloomington salaries and I actually did not utilize like
the personnel level of salaries. I actually went in to their grid and only use the three year comparison.
So those are at the three year level. And I'll say for our whole office, everyone,
is almost at the three-year level, except for the two, well, even the one new hire was a transfer. So
I think we're almost all at the three-year level, to be honest. Thank you. I just wanted to know what
that part compares to. Thank you. That's a good clarification. I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Henry. And
just for clarity for the public and everybody. So as I look at the two grids that Michelle, you just
put up and you added some numbers there. So the Delta, the difference between current class and request
classes, that's the 85,000.
133. I mean, that's what we're really talking about, the difference among the... Yes. I just want to
air that. What we're talking about here is not, you know, hundreds of thousands, right? We're looking
at $85,000 Delta. For the whole year for all of those positions. That's what I'm asking to be very clear
about with that. Yes. This is for 2027. This is the...
This is the amount that it would cost to increase, which includes the FICA and the perf would be eight
five thousand one thirty three. But it would not include the two percent. Is that right? No, the two
percent is in there. OK, yes, because I'm using the twenty twenty seven salary grants. OK, great. Thanks
for clarifying. Well, we don't have any council member hands raised. I didn't want to cut you off. Did
you say everything that you needed to say, Ms. John?
I just wanted to say thank you to Kim Schell and Aubrey and others. They've been extremely helpful through
this process. So without PAC, I think Kim is doing great work, and I really appreciate her helping us
through. You see my concern is that a whole committee now rests on those shoulders. It is, yes. So that's
even more heartburn. I'm just full of heartburn tonight. Is there any other comments or questions from
council? I would just say it's four members here. It's basically PAC, but no one.
I do want to say something. We get lost sometimes in these numbers talking about inflation or and I
think I really appreciate Director Jelen bringing it back to people and the struggles that people have,
the real life struggles people have. And I don't want to lose the fact that this county is deeply grateful
to you for doing all the work that you do. We would not have the level of the quality of life
if it weren't for you. And I know that gets lost in whether or not we're gonna give you a raise or not.
So it's really important that that be said publicly. All right, council, nothing else on the fiscal
side? Mr. Deckert. I just have a point of information request. This might go to council on this. We
have not really talked about this much, but for our voting tonight, because we're down to the fat four up here,
The other three are gray. Fab four, is a majority vote three as or? I think with an ordinance, you have
to have a majority of the body. All right. I wanted to make sure of that because it's been a while since
we were down like at this level. So it's the four horsemen stick together or something comes back, right?
Or it comes back to your next meeting, right? Thank you. That's all. I'm not saying anything about this.
but we're well into the night. All right. Public comment time. If you have any public comment about
this impact of inflation on employee salaries, please come forward to the mic and raise your hand on
teams. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you, planning
department. Thank you for all the work you put into this. Thank you. All right. We are going to take
a 10 minutes break here, stretch our legs, and we'll be back at 6.51 PM. We are back from break.
Thank you all for joining us in this County Council. We're going to resume on our agenda, which you
can find on our websites with letter K. Council, I move to approve the court's request and fund 1000-0225
County General Courts for a category transfer of $131,036.69 from the personnel category to the services
category. Second.
We have a motion and a second with us as courts administrator, Jamie Chandler. What do we need to know?
So I just want to let everybody know that due to upcoming invoices that we're anticipating for our proper
council line, we've requested one hundred and thirty one thousand thirty six dollars and sixty nine
cents to be transferred there so we can cover those costs. All right. Council, do you have any questions
about this transfer? Seeing none, do we have any public comments on this transfer for the courts?
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? This category transfer, you can do a voice call. All
those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it unanimously. All right, let's
go on to letter L. Council, I move to approve the court's request in fund 1213-0000 GAL slash CASA grant
for an additional appropriation of $1,500 in the services category. Second.
We have a motion and a second. What do we need to know here, Ms. Chandler? This is just like when we
were here in June, CASA received another $1,500. It's a pass-through grant. So we just ask that that
be appropriated. And I believe the funds are already there. OK, great. The auditor said yes, the funds
are there. So council, do you have any questions about this? The council does not have any questions.
Is there any public comments here in the NatU Hill Room or on Teams?
All right, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, and the last court's item, M.
Council, I move to approve the court's request and fund 4018-0000.
the court interpreters grant for an additional appropriation of $23,000 in the services category. Second.
We have a motion and a second. What do we need to know here? The court supplied for an emergency grant
and we received an additional funding in the amount of $23,000. So we're just asking that that
be appropriated as it's a reimbursable grant. Do you have any questions or comments about this?
Congratulations. Are there any public comments or questions?
seeing none may we please have a roll call vote councilor fiddle yes councilor henry yes councilor decker
yes councilor iverson yes motion passes unanimous thank you you're welcome have a good night thank you
all right let's move on to item letter n
Council. I will be combining items in and zero, not zero, and O into one motion. Sorry. I move to approve
the Highway Department's request and fund 8168-0000.
twenty twenty two twenty through twenty twenty five bridge inspection grant for a de appropriation of
thirty one thousand five hundred five dollars and eight cents in the services category and simultaneously
approve a fund to fund transfer. Of cash of sixteen thousand five hundred and eighty five dollars and
sixteen cents from fund eight one six eight dash zero zero zero zero. Twenty twenty two through twenty
1135-0000, cumulative bridge. Second. We have a motion. We have a motion and a second with us, our highway
director, Lisa Ridge. What do we need to know here? Good evening. So I'm just trying to clean up some
grant work to be able to close these out. As you can see, that phase was 2022 to 2025. We've completed
that four-year cycle. So it's just bringing everything to a zero balance. All right. Thank you, counsel.
Any comments or questions on this housekeeping item? Seeing none, do we have any public comments on
this highway department item? All right, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right, that brings us to letter P. Council, I move to approve the Highway Department's request for
a fund-to-fund transfer of cash of $236,992.46 from Fund 1171-0000 County Major Branch to Fund 8169.
dash zero zero zero zero Fullerton Pike grant. Second. We have a motion and a second. Ms. Ridge, what
do we need to know here? Again, this is just trying to bring the grant to zero balance at this time.
In our recollection, when we were setting up these grants back in phase two, phase three, both of those
phases have a bridge over the 200 feet length of using county major bridge. So this is to carry over
the remainder of our county match.
All right, thank you very much. Council, do you have any comments or questions about this? All right,
seeing none, let's go to the public. Does the public have any comments or questions? Seeing none, may
we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, that brings us to letter Q.
council I move to approve the highway department's request for a fund to fund transfer of cash of two
thousand four hundred twenty one dollars and fifty four cents from fund one one six nine dash zero zero
zero zero local road and street to fund. Eight one seven three dash zero zero zero zero pedestrian crossing
improvement grant second we have a motion a second what we need to know here is rich. This is basically
the same thing I'm transferring I'm part of our match
from the Local Road and Street Fund into the pedestrian crossing improvement to get it out of a negative
balance. All right. Council, do you have any questions about pedestrian crossing? Seeing none, public.
Are there any comments here in the Natt U Hill room or on Teams about pedestrian crossing? Seeing none,
may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. And the final highway department is letter R. Council
I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund 8162-0000 sample road phase two grant for
a deappropriation of $67,885.85 in the services category. Second. All right we have a motion and a second.
Ms. Ridge what do we need to know?
and we are just de-appropriating this line due to that part of the project being complete. All right,
thank you very much. Council, do you have any comments or questions on this item? Seeing none, we'll
go to the public. If you have any comments or questions, please raise your hand to come forward in that
U Hill Room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry?
Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you, Ms. Ridge. Have
a good night. All right, that brings us to the aviation department and letter S. Council, I move to
approve the aviation department's request and fund 4801-0000 aviation construction to create account
line 40016
to 1926 aviation storm repair, and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $25,000 in
the capital category. Second. We have a motion and a second, and we're joined by the airport director,
Carlos Laverty, who's on Teams. His role is being changed online, and Mr. Laverty, you should be able
to unmute. Greetings.
Greetings, you're coming through loud and clear. What do we need to know about aviation construction?
Okay, the department's requesting an appropriation of $25,000 from the construction fund to support
the construction of a new building to replace two of our outbuildings that were demolished by the February
19th tornado. We expect insurance funds to support this construction. This $25,000 is to get the ball
rolling with engineering.
with with a we have a contractor who's ready to engineer this new building it'll be combining instead
of having two outbuildings it's going to be combining them into one newer building that will house all
of our our maintenance equipment sounds wonderful council do you have any comments about a maintenance
building all right we
Don't have any comments here, so let's go to the public. If you have any public comment, please raise
your hand on teams or come forward in the Natt U Hill room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call
vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion
passes unanimous. All right, that brings us to letter T. Council, I move to approve the aviation department's
request in fund 11.
zero seven dash zero zero zero zero aviation for a category transfer of twenty six thousand five hundred
dollars from the services category to the capital category second. All right we've got a motion and
a second Mr. Leverty tell us what's going on here. We're requesting the approval of the transfer of
twenty six thousand five hundred dollars with the airport's existing budget to purchase a forklift for
the maintenance shop.
Forklift will support maintenance operations in various ways. The airport has never owned a forklift.
We've always borrowed one from one of the FBOs on airport property. Their forklift has bitten the dust
and they don't intend to replace it themselves. And this will give us our own ability to unload deliveries
ourselves. Alright, does anybody have any questions about this uplifting item?
All right. No takers, Mr. Lavine. Let's go to the public. Any public comment? Please raise your hand
here in teams or come to the podium here in the NETU Hill Room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll
call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous.
All right, there's quite a few aviation items and we're on to letter U. Council, I move to approve the
aviation department's request to fund 4802, excuse me, request in fund 4802-0000 aviation buildings
to create line 30006 contractual services and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of
$150,000 in the services category.
second all right we've got a motion and a second mr. Laverde what do we know about contractual services
I believe we are pulling this item from the agenda are we not mr. Cockrell I believe when we discussed
it earlier that you had to ask the scene if this could be continued I didn't know if that got communicated
to the council staff or not okay should we move this to our next
meeting or to make the intent is to try to get this out of a different fund so they would have to be
re advertised either way. So I don't I think we can just pull it and just move on. All right. So I'd
like to withdraw my motion. All right. Sorry that didn't get that in time. No, it's okay. We are experts
in all things meetings. So we have withdrawn the motion and it's been consented. That means that we
are on to letter V.
and W. That's correct. Council, I would be combining items V and W into one motion. I move to approve
the aviation department's request of a fund to fund transfer of cash of $3,948 from fund 4820-0000.
2025 GEO bond capital projects to fund 8960-0000. AIP project
number 40 number 047 grant and simultaneously and fund 8 9 6 0 dash 0 0 0 0 create account lines as
outlined on the agenda with an additional appropriation of one hundred fifty seven thousand eight hundred
ninety five dollars in the services category second all right we have a motion and a second mr. Laverty
tell us about tower design
The Monroe County Airport has been awarded an FAA grant of $150,000 for the Reconstruct FAA Contract
Power Design Phase II project. This grant requires matching contributions from both state and local
sources. With the breakdown as follows, FAA provides $150,000. The state contributes $3,947, and the
local match is $3,948, which will come from the 2025 GO Bond.
All right, and we combined items V and W. So could you also tell us about the AIP project, the new lines
there? You're on mute, I think, Carlos. Sorry about that. I don't know how that happened when I'm holding
a piece of paper in my hand, but yes. Yeah, that was strange. My hand was nowhere near the, anyways,
Line 3006 contractual services, that will be the new account line with 150,000 from the FAA. The 381
will be the county match line, $3,947. And 3,300, sorry, 82 will be where the state match will go into
for a total of $157,895.
Great, thank you so much, Mr. Laverty. Council, do you have any questions about this? Mr. Deckard. I
just want to compliment the Mr. Laverty and our friends at the airport and the airport board for going
after a federal grant, bringing that home. These are dollars that would otherwise not be here. And as
you look at that match ratio, both us and the state are getting a really good deal on that.
So thank you for, and they don't just fly out for no reason.
No pun intended. Thank you very much for all that work to bring that in there and all the work at the
airport continuously. Thank you very much. I will say too. I can wait after this item, but I won't.
So this is for the design phase. The the notice of funding opportunity has opened up for the actual
construction phase, which would cost us about $3.4 million, which would
I think it's 95. I think it's 100% funded by the FAA. We submitted that application on Monday and I'm
working really hard right now on advocating to our federal elected representatives and I'm utilizing
some resources in the community to leverage their DC lobbying teams to help us with the Department of
Transportation to secure funding for the refurbishment of our 50 year old control tower.
very exciting. Mr. Cocker I believe you have something you want to say. I just and this is a very minor
technical thing the state match should end in the seven and the county match should end in the eight
dollars they just got flipped around but we are transferring out three thousand nine hundred forty eight
dollars is the county match so that should be reflected there. Thank you that's a very good catch the
state the state will not be the one
overpaying us, that we always have to give that extra little bit. All right. Do we need to make an amendment
for a minor Scrivener's error? I think the corrections in the minutes now are on the record, so I think
you're good. And the total is the same. Ms. Mote. We also don't need to re-advertise or anything because
we advertised with a cushion, so everything should be good.
for the state. Great point, experts all around. All right, council, do you have any questions about
this federal grant? Mr. Laverty, good luck on the next phase. We're pulling for you. All right, we're
looking to the public. If you have any public comments on this federal grant, please raise your hand
on teams or come forward here in the NatU Hill Room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes
unanimous. That brings us to letter X. I'm combining X and Y. Council, I'll be combining items X and
Y into one motion. I move to approve the aviation department's request for a fund to fund transfer of
cash of $14,131.98.
From fund 4801-0000 aviation construction to 8961-0000 AIG project number 048 grant and simultaneously
create new account lines as outlined on the agenda with an additional appropriation of $565,278.95 in
the services category.
We have a motion and a second. Mr. Loverty, can you tell us what's going on with this grant and the
new lines? Monroe County Airport has been awarded an FAA grant of $537,000. $537,015 for rehabilitate
Runway 624 pavement design phase one and reconstruct Runway 624 lighting design phase one project. This
grant requires matching contributions from both the state and local
With the breakdown as follows, FAA provides $537,015. The state contributes $14,131.97. And the local
match is $14,131.98. All right. And the lines? Yeah, and then the lines in AIG project number 0488961,
dash 000 line 3006 contractual services that's where the FAA funds would be deposited $537,015 line
381 contractual county match for $14,131.97 and 382 contractual state match for $14,131.98 and
Are those flipped as well? Yes, they are. Alright. Thank you, Mr. Library Council. Do you have any questions
on these correct numbers? Congratulations again on winning a grant and bring it home to Monroe County.
Yeah, this would. This is the design phase of the rehabilitation project of our smaller crosswind runway,
which hasn't had a rehab or reconstruct in over 40 years.
That's great. Any grants in the future for a terminal? We're working on it every single day. I'm pulling
for you, man. All right. Do we have any public comment? Please come forward in the NatU Hill room. Raise
your hand on Teams. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Deckard. Yes.
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Leverty. Thank you very much. All right. That brings us to letter Z. Council, I move
to open for discussion and possible approval of the sheriff's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze
and be allowed to hire fund 1000-0005
County General Sheriff, one full-time administrative coordinator. Second. We have a motion and a second.
And joining us again is Commander Gibbons with our financial manager, Jamie Janke. So what do we have
here before us? We have an opening in our front office, one of our administrative coordinator positions.
This person handles all of the civil process, along with as a backup for the body cameras and our false
alarms. So we really need to have this position filled.
While right now we are having the other staff members help with the tasks, it's still burdensome on
the office because we have a very small group of people. All right. Council, do you have any questions
about this administrative coordinator? Mr. Deckard. I only have one question. Why wouldn't we have heard
this when we did the hiring? We lump everything together. That way the department doesn't have to come
up like several times.
All right. I'm sorry for asking that. Thank you. You don't have to apologize. I'm sure other people
have that same question. All right. Mr. No. All right. Let's go to the public. If you have any questions
about this, please raise your hand on teams or come forward in the net. You Hill room. Seeing none,
may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Fiddle. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Decker.
Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes.
Motion passes unanimous. All right, that leads us to letter AA. Council, I move to open for discussion
and possible approval of the sheriff's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to
hire and fund 1000-0626 County General Animal Control to full-time animal management officers. Second.
All right, we've got a motion and a second. What's going on here? So we have
openings one of the animal control officers is actually becoming a merit deputy and starts on Monday
so that position needs to be filled and the other one is leaving us for another department and we only
have we have three positions so two of them are going to be vacant these are the positions that go out
into the county when there's calls about any of the animal related incidents all right council any questions
about this animal control issue
Seeing none. Let's go to the public. If you have any public comment, please come to the podium in the
now you hear a rumor. Raise your hand on teams Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor
Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Motion passes unanimous
All right, that leads us not to AB but to BB
Council I moved to approve the sheriff's request and fund 8 1, 4, 3 dash 0, 0, 0, 0, jag sheriff grant
to create a count line to 1, 1, 2, 4, safety supplies slash equipment and simultaneously appropriate
$3,093 in the supplies category. Second, we have a motion and a second. What do we need to know about
this Jag grant? Well, we were awarded a Jag grant for
$3,083. We bought a slow down speed sign. You'll see them, you know, along the side of the road. And
this is just, we got the grant, we've got the money, we've paid for everything. And this is just the
housekeeping for that. All right. Mr. Deckard. You'll have to answer it if you don't want to or to hand
it off. Sheriff, know any location where you might want to put this?
To my knowledge, I don't know. It's mobile, so we can move it wherever. Typically, that really comes
from the public. If there's numerous calls to come in about a certain area, we'll put it out there.
If there's complaints from high crime areas, we'll put just a presence out there like, hey, there's
law enforcement out here. We have our equipment out here.
So it just depends on how much volume of traffic we get. He and the sheriff and I had dealt with a mutual
constituent issue around some of that. So I'm glad to see him getting this. I've seen him before. Are
there some in place now of these signs, the slowdown speed trailer? Do you have any of those now?
We have another one, but I don't think that it's in place somewhere at the moment, but I'm not 100%
sure. Okay. All right, there you go. A good example of constituent services. All right, is there any
public comment on this item? Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Councilor Henry?
Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right let's move on to
CC. So I'll be combining CC and DD into one motion. I move to
Approve the sheriff's request and fund 8193-9627 MCI grant to create account lines as outlined on the
agenda. Approve an appropriation of $32,089.38 in the personnel category, $23,695 in the services category,
and $19,750 in the capital category for a total appropriation of
$75,534.38, and simultaneously approve a fund-to-fund transfer of cash of $15,106.88 from Fund 1000...
Let me make sure I got my zeros right, I'm sorry. 1000-0005 County General Sheriff to Fund 8193-0000,
M.C.I. Grant. Second. We have a motion and a second. What do we need to know about major crash investigation
teams? We were awarded a grant again this year. It's the same as last year. Just a little bit more money
in different lines, different categories. It's still a joint process. Our program with Ellitsville Police
Department. If there is a major crash, doesn't matter which jurisdiction, theirs or our jurisdiction,
they will respond.
and this is just a grant that helps fund that. It pays for the overtime and equipment and training.
Excellent. Council, any questions about this grant? This is wonderful. This is a real benefit to our
community. Yes, it is. Glad we got it again. All right. Is there any public comments on major crash
investigation teams? Seeing none. Yes, please, Ms. Mote. I just wanted to state that
the interlocal was approved by the commissioners, but the grant itself technically wasn't, but it's
going to be ratified at the 1029 commissioners meeting. Just so that's on. That is great clarification.
So, all right, let's go back to public comment. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry?
Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right,
that brings us to EE. Council, I move to approve the sheriff's request and fund 1000-0005 County General
Sheriff for a deappropriation of $26,375.63 in the personnel category. Second.
All right, we've got a motion and a second. What do we need to know? This just goes with the MCI grant.
Okay, great. It's pretty simple. It's a little shorter. Yeah. Right, is there public comment about this
depropriation? Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous. All right, that brings us to FF. Council, I move to approve the sheriff's request
and fund 8103-0000. Operation Pullover for an additional appropriation of $11,268.75 in the personnel
category. Second. All right, what do we need to know about Operation Pullover? This is just housekeeping
for the ChIRP grant. We got our check.
All right. Council any questions? Overtime, it's just so important. It is. And the state's paying for
it, so. Let's have more of that. All right. Is there any public comments? Seeing none, may we please
have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
for your patience, thank you for your service. That brings us to item GG on our agenda. Council, I move
to approve the board of commissioners request and fund 1138-0000 cumulative capital development for
a category transfer of $35,000 from the capital category to the services category.
Second. We have a motion and a second and we're joined online by Commissioner Administrator Angie Purdy.
Welcome. Ms. Purdy, you're on mute. We cannot hear you.
Ms. Purdy. All right, well, in, let's give it another couple seconds here, but we have multiple people
in this room that can present this item. Okay, I'm gonna mute it now. As soon as you stood up.
All right. Thank you. Welcome to the council meeting, Ms. Purdy. Thank you. I'm terribly sorry about
that. That's okay. Go ahead. As I say, this is just a request to do a category transfer to our service
maintenance and repair building ground line. At this point in time, we have $36,000 basically left in
that account. And this is just to hopefully,
avoid us having to come back for additional. All right, thank you, Ms. Purdy. Council, any questions?
Mr. Henry. Thank you, Mr. President. So what's going on in the account line that we need to move the
funds now? What maintenance is being done? As I stated, this is a,
Trying to avoid having a lack of funds for the remainder of the year. As I stated, we have only $36,000
basically left in this particular account. And so all I'm trying to do is ensure that we are able to
respond to expenses that are incurred to our buildings and our grounds.
And so I appreciate that, but are there anticipated uses right now? Like, is there a budget for what
the 35 or now 71,000 would do? I'm just kind of curious what we're buying. That's it. I can't answer
that particular question because we pay for things that may have already, that may have not been yet
submitted yet. And I just know that we need to be able to pay for the expenses incurred
for the upkeep of our buildings and grounds. All right, are there any other comments from council? Seeing
none, let's go to the public. Do you have any comments or questions about this category transfer?
Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes four to zero. All right that brings us to consideration
of the geo bond. Second reading for HH.
open for discussion and approval of Ordinance 2026-35, 2026 General Obligation Bond, and Ordinance 2026-36,
Appropriation Ordinance for the 2026 General Obligation Bond. Second. All right. We are joined by all
sorts of folks here. We have with us Commissioner, and we have, boy,
We have Commissioner Julie Thomas, we have Jeff Cockrell, and we have Angie Purdy. So who wants to lead
us off here? I'll go ahead and folks can jump in as they need to. So we came to this body several weeks
ago to discuss items on the geobond and at the time, even though it started off as
$6 million. We were at 4.1. And that's where we left things. And we kind of counted on that. And now
my understanding is that the bond amount has been reduced by $1 million. And a conversation should be had. OK.
Mr. Cockle, do you have anything to add, or Ms. Purdy, do you have anything to add? I would just add
that we had the public hearing for the additional appropriation at the last meeting. You do have two
ordinances. The ordinances in the packet are what were submitted, and they reflect a $6,500,000 amount.
I believe that that could be changed, and I think you guys had received documents that indicated the
$3.1 million. It would also be fairly easy to create documents that would be any number
between 0 and 6.5 million. But I think you guys requested at your last meeting to have that $3.1 million
figure. So you should have that document. So if that's what you choose to approve, you just amend this
document so that it reflects the $3.1 million or really whatever dollar amount you want to be there.
All right. Thank you for that flexibility. Ms. Purdy, do you have anything to add?
I don't. Thank you. All right. Let's go to council for their comments. Mr. Henry, maybe point of information.
So we took a vote on the 3.1 last week. What did that vote actually do that? If it didn't change the
doc, we didn't have the document at the time. So we voted for 3.1, but there was no change in right
specific, I guess, because I'm a little surprised to see it in the packet again, as if nothing happens.
I'm just trying to understand what in fact we, I did not have access.
to the amended geobond. So rather than not have anything in there, I just put what we had so that at
least the language was still in there with regards to and whatever projects were in there. So it's fair
to say to the public that the packet today, that copy of the bond is not actually the current draft,
right? Correct, yeah. All the information which I have
here in front of me for you to sign reflects the 3.1. And I apologize for misspeaking. Yeah,
that's fair. I just want to be clear what we have before us, right? Because if we're amending back or
whatever, that's something. So the will of council is reflected in what we would be signing. Yes, what
we would be signing. Thank you for that clarification. Excellent. Council, are there any other comments
or questions about the second reading of the Geobond?
Let me follow up and just say, with this reduction, I think there was some, in our conversation last,
some questioning about what exactly that does to the list of projects that will be included in the GEO
bond. And I hear Commissioner Thomas addressing that. And so do we have that PowerPoint available to
be shared on the screen?
This is, I think, the most recent draft of what projects would be included in the geobond. Right now,
your project list on the appendix is 4.1 million. Right. And we should have a conversation, not just,
oh, we're going to cut it. And I mean, if you want us to pick what to cut, we can do that.
And to that point, I would like to bring up that list of projects so that we can have that conversation.
Mr. President, if I may. So I think just to make sure we're all clear about what the directions were
back and forth, I do recall, I think when we had talked about this with Mr. Cockrell and Ms. Purdy at
the table, that one comment I'm paraphrasing was that if we set the number
you know, if we, if we set the number here, you'll all figure it out. I think that was the way that
maybe it was put by Ms. Purdy. So I guess I took that as word to say, here's the cap. I think I don't
want to speak for other members of the council that aren't here, but okay, fine. Here's the new number.
And then go forth and figure it out. I mean, that was basically the way it was presented at the table
when the two were here. Yeah. We became a good faith to have a conversation about projects and the geo bond.
and came to this council, had that discussion, came away at the 4.1 number, not the 6.5 million number,
but the 4.1 million number. And then if the council has just decided, well, we're cutting that a million,
OK. That would have been a better conversation to have back then. We would have appreciated it. And I get it.
I don't get it, but I get it. So I was not here for the meeting when the number was dropped and did
not anticipate that that would happen. I just felt like we should be working on this together. Sure.
And I think you've
probably watched the recording enough to know that there's a lot of concern on council about debt and
paying debt. And that's kind of that was where a lot of that conversation originated. And so in good
faith, I'd like to be able to show the list of projects on the screen. Do I need to do it? Okay.
I can find a copy and forward it to you if you don't have it. I think I have the most recent version.
If I don't, then that would be helpful. It looks like it's page 401 of the packet, if that's helpful
at all. That's even more helpful. And that's the most recent version. But that doesn't have numerical
amounts. It does not have the dollar. Right. It's just a list of projects. Right. List. Right.
there's some misunderstanding about geo bonds and how they work and how the debt works. I felt like
there wasn't a lot of clarity on that and so I can offer Mr. Cockrell as a point of information if you
need it. All right Mr. Deckard. I think the issue is we just we've got counselors that are concerned
about the amount three whether it's three point one four point one or six point
and then the rest went down to about three point one I think everybody here's. Dealt with bonds long
enough- and what we said last time we're trying to think through different options to get this done
because we're just sitting around. Staring at each other like the cast of heat all. And I think what
we said was there's probably two options here. Approve the list and the list in the amount that the-
had come to us in your good faith discussion and talked to us about, and we'd gone back and forth, or
I think either based on what Angie said or maybe it was based on what we said and then Angie reacted
to or somebody, or maybe Mr. Cocker, I don't know, maybe we made it up, but we could just give a number
and then you prioritize within the number because we were again staring at each other, not sure,
you know, do you cut this, that, or the other?
That's kind of how I remember this discussion. And I guess maybe my, I think what I was, and it wasn't
at the last meeting, but when we presented it for the first reading, I just think that whatever number
we want the GO bond to be should be reflected in the document, right? And it said 6.5. If we're not
interested in doing 6.5, it shouldn't say 6.5. It should be whatever number. This is exactly what you said.
that you guys come to the conclusion of, right? Yeah. All right, so before us, we have a list of items,
and let me enlarge it. Does that work? It does, but then it means you can't really see it. With numerical
amounts as well as council rankings. Mr. Henry.
So it's not quite accurate. The siren replacement should be at 305 753 78 because they had some leftover
funds from previous siren installations. OK, so the top item has a little lower 39,300.
the 4 40 that we're paying over five years for body cams and all that good stuff. That was reduced by
128,000. Because again, there was some leftover bond money from other projects that were going are going
to be applied. But that 4 40 is got to stay. Um I mean, if you if you want us to figure out
we're trying to figure out what projects to fund and which ones not to fund. Um you know, we can do
that. It's just that we had this great line of communication going and then suddenly we don't and I'm
trying to figure out how to address that. In the fairest way possible. For everyone. Mr Henry.
Thank you, Mr President. I
The accounting that we get on how to set these bonds up at least since I've been here a few two years
is interesting to me right clearly there's numbers behind numbers like clearly your office must know
the down to the nickel the cost of some of these projects because to have a thirty nine thousand dollar
variable on the first line tells me that.
What's that dealt to do, right? Because if we went forward right now with what's here, and you're saying,
oh, well, it was actually $40,000 cheaper, where does that end up? And what I know from looking at years
and years and years of bonds in the county is that those residuals pile up. So I think to the point
of fairness, to see the granularity of what you're bringing was one of, I think, Councilor Wolter's
questions. So I just want to start with that. What is the real number?
I mean, so what is behind each of these numbers? And how do we avoid carryover in the bonds each year
where there's residuals that pile up? And that's the question, really. That's the first question. And
so what Ms. Purdy has done is she has worked with departments who have bond money left over. And some
of the amounts are like $212 or whatever. It's small, small stuff.
and putting them into the next bond request. And so with that, we're caught up. Where that brings us
is about 3.8. And that means that we're 3.894. So with that, we're also covering the administrative
fees for the bond.
And that's what gets us to the 4.1. Maybe for the point of information, what is the administrative percentage
or the fee for the bond? I check, but typically I think we look at $100,000 at most. Is that a possible
line item we can add here to see? Because that's a hidden cost, right? That's $100,000 hidden cost.
That's not here for us to contemplate.
And so it'd be kind of interesting to know is a hidden fee if that's in the presentation. That's the
only one. That's fair, but that's still a number. And that's not flexible. We can't go and negotiate
that. It's not on a sliding scale. I wish we could. Is it a percentage of the... Is there a difference
between 3.1 and 6.5 or is it just 100,000 flat? It's the same for those two amounts.
right? But that administrative fee pays for the bond council and the financial advisor for these instances.
I mean, I guess it wouldn't be out of the question if we could get something in writing, documenting
those expenses going forward. Prior to now, right? That's all I have for now, Mr. President.
Council, do you have any other comments or questions about the list of items, the amount? So the document
we're looking at here, it even needs adjustment a little lower. Is that what you're saying, Commissioner?
Yes. So the total at the bottom right now reads $4 million.
And then some in this total without the administrative fee is three million eight ninety four eight
fifty three and seventy eight cents. So. This I don't know. Counselor Iverson's because you're sharing
just to show accurately for the public what we're doing. But my thought is that the bond is moving and
it's heading towards a lower amount. I don't know if someone else had a different suggestion on this.
I think the very thing that we came to last time is staring at every single one of those. I don't see
something that jumps out, smacks me in the face and say, remove that from the bond. We already did that.
I mean, we started with almost eight and brought it all the way down to 4.1 because we had heard that
from you all that you wanted. Did not want to do the 6.5 and we agreed. I mean, it makes sense. This
is doable, but these are all things that. Yeah, some things we can't remove so.
for example, the taser body cam in car camera, we cannot remove. We have a five-year contract. That
is a given. We really, you know, and then we can talk about all the other items on here. And, you know,
I could, you know, engage in a little horse trading today and ask you if we can get this down to
would that make the Council comfortable? And before we get an answer, I just want to thank Ms Purdy
for letting me know that I was displaying the wrong list on the screen. This is the last slide in the
slide deck. And this number comports with what you were saying. So let's just celebrate the fact that
we are on the right page literally. That's awesome. We're on the same page, which is even better.
So it's the small things. All right. So any reactions to what? Yes, Mr. Henry. Thank you, Michelle.
What was our vote when we changed? Sorry. What was our vote last week when we changed it to three point
one? I believe it was unanimous. But one moment. Some of the other concerns that were raised in that
meeting, which you were not in, Commissioner Thomas, were and I don't want to speak for Councilor Wells,
but I agree with a lot of what she said was
Just because we have the ceiling, we should consider getting back to our historical three-ish million
that we've done over the years. I think that's where her risk tolerance was. I think certainly I seconded
that motion. Another thought that comes to me here, too, is that
what could be done with reversions in the departments that come back to cover some of these things,
rather than assuming that the bond process is where we should go, rather than using in-house dollars
that we've already accumulated through things like, well again, what we've over budgeted that comes
back in reversions, or putting the edit to work because we've already collected that resource from the
community. Those are some of the other ideas that were raised as to why the risk tolerance for bonding
that we've been working on for a long time beyond a historical level seems to be at least on two of
our minds. Um. What is your viewpoint about using other resources in the county to achieve some of these
projects that are lower hanging fruit? January 1st. Yeah So my sense of it is when we talk about these
items, they are large capital expenses that.
and not find enough to do things. And that makes that a very difficult process. I mean, cash, you could
use cash. You could use, I hate to use edit because that's not what it's for. Or we just don't do them
and we don't have sirens or we don't have new trucks or something along those lines.
I think that's why this would have been a better discussion to have when those departments were here
with us to explain the projects to have those conversations. But I think, I don't know, Jeff, if you
could speak to what we do now with bonds in terms of the length of time versus what we used to do with
bonds. Well, we used to do a one-year bond, right? And I think everybody was aware that we do a one-year bond,
three to 3.1 million was kind of the last probably eight to 10 years. Before that it was two, there
was state law changes. And so that we used to do a one year bond that was for three, 3.1 million. Then
when Senator O'Loughlin came into place, they said, if you're gonna do a one year bond, then you're
gonna have to have essentially a two year cooling off period because you pay the bond off at the January
and then you have to have
a full year after that before you could issue a next one. And so we but those are only but if you go
longer than five years, you get a six year bond is what we did last year. What we're what we're contemplating
this year. A six year bond. I checked my property tax bill. There was a the information you can find
on those is amazing. There was a zero point zero zero zero point zero zero eight eight rate on my home.
for the county debt service. And this is the only debt that the county has that would be on the property
tax bill. So with that being over five years and six years, that's really a fifth of what the rate was
before. So the rate will still be down. It's going to build back up.
at the current rate of, I think we did 4.8 million last year. We'll do four this year, whatever,
or three. I think you're going to see the tipping point of absent increase in assessed values and all
those other things that play a factor in this. Probably year four or five, you will go above where we
were when we were issuing a one-year $3 million bond. I appreciate the recap again.
I think spent the better of two years, having this conversation about the six I mean this isn't new
information to counsel I think we understand the math of it the questions are a little different than
that one of the comments you made it which is interesting to me is one that we brought up last week,
which is I don't I think once we start talking about the objects or the items that.
I'm not trying to draw sympathy off of that saying we don't need sirens, we don't need trucks. I think
that must be set aside because what we're talking about is the debt, the credit card amount, right?
And focusing on the items doesn't appeal to me in the sense of changing my mind about what the number
was. The number is what we settled on last week as a body to say, are there other ways to find these
resources in the county? I also said, and I do believe this, that the more that we
burdened the bond with multi-year requirements to pay that service on things like sirens and law enforcement
equipment means that basically future elected officials must spend something that was decided by previous
people. I find that to be a problem in the nature of how we're bonding some of these projects. We should
be able to vote up or down on those each year and not be tied up with mandatory spending.
and to pay for this. So there's philosophy here, not just stuff, I think is important to say. And those
were some of the other conversations we had that you weren't here for. And I don't think my mind's changed
on any of that since my vote on this. I think the question is, where can you find in here ways to trim
these budgets if you know, and I know I'm rambling here, but let's just pick the prosecutor's renovation,
right? Do you know that's the half a million dollars down to the nickel that's going to be spent on
that building?
Like what do you, is that a budget that can be trimmed? No, because the issue is, is that we get ballpark
estimates and we've done furniture renovations for other departments in the past as well, of course.
And we know what those costs by square footage or the number of employees, the number of deaths. We
know what the cost is going to be. However, you can get a quote today. And by the time we actually do this,
That quote's not going to be accurate. So that's why the numbers are round numbers. That's how we've
always done it, because we've got an estimate on the courthouse dome that is dang near $200,000. Well,
that's what we're going to meet. Now, the problem is, if we can't go in and order anything, we can't
go in and put down payment down on a quote, because we don't know that
that this is the bond that we're going to do. So that's why the numbers are round. But typically, what
happens is item A, B, and C will go over. D, E, and F will go under. And you come out at about even.
Because if you look at this list, the only two things on here where we have money left over from a department
that can be applied is two departments out of all of these, the Sheriff and Emergency Management.
So that's not like every department on here has got money left over from a bond and can put it on us.
So highway typically will augment what the bid is or the quote is for the equipment or the trucks that
they're getting. And they will try to find another avenue to make that fit. So it does kind of happen
organically anyway because
Most of these are going to be too low, given inflation. But not all of them will be. But our hope is,
and Angie is so good at this, our hope is that when you come out at the end, you're pretty dead even.
And that's how it has to go, because this is such a long process. We don't get the bond money as soon
as we vote. We don't spend it when we create the list.
We have to wait for things to be ready. Three years ago, if you would have had the haircut anyway, right?
I'm sorry? Three years ago, the budget, the cap, it's not like ancient history that we used to operate
under a different understanding of what the bond was used for, right?
We found a way to fill the additional capacity. We've negotiated down a little bit. But I think that
was a comment we made last week, too, which is, if the law hadn't changed, what would this look like
in the county still? Where would you go do the additional $2 million or $1.8 million in projects if
that ceiling had not raised? I mean, there are more things on the list now, is my point, right? And
the only thing that's changed is the state code, not necessarily the manner by which the county's done
business in the past three years. Right, I can see that.
I also see inflation playing a big part in some of this. For example, vehicles are much more expensive
now than they were three years ago, essentially the same vehicle. So I could see that. And if it is
the council's wish to stick to 3.1, fine, but we're going to have to make some cuts.
looking at this list, there's no way I can get this list of items down to 3.1 by bargaining or finding
pennies in the couch cushions or whatever it is. I can't do it. I wish I could. Pennies might be more
valuable these days. They may be. That may be true. Mr. Decker? All right, Mr. Decker.
I appreciate all the discussion in the back and forth here, and I'm trying to think of how we get to
something that moves forward to have an affirmative vote this evening. It has to be four counselors
up here, and Commissioner Thomas has kind of stated her position. I looked at the list, and again, I
come to a struggle on figuring out what would come off. We have 500,000 on there on a prosecutor's
renovation. Every counselor up here has been talking about
that would be our justice facility generally in the need so we agree that wouldn't come off with sirens
has been talked about extensively- some of these others are less important. At first blush but when
you start to begin to explain them you get into the complexities of them and so here's I'd like to see
something move forward or we'll be here till five in the morning or we could just pass on this item
and I'll leave that to the
items alone, I get a number around 821,000, which ironically takes the 3.8. When you take the 3.8, you
start getting the 3.1 with those. And my argument is that this might be a time to think about something
I think we've used one other time in the past, and that was relying on our food and beverage tax dollars
and that process.
to think about parks from that light, given that they are an attraction, Karst, which is, I think, a
good portion of this, has had heavy eyeballs and investment already as a tourist location, and I wonder
if that doesn't get the items accomplished, this process moving, a bond to a lower level to start to
satisfy us towards maybe four votes up here,
and maybe use these dollars as they're intended. I'm gonna float that out there, and then the will of
the council is the will of the council, and the will of the commissioners on the food and beverage request
as well, but I wanted to float it out there. I will tell you that we have our plan on our agenda Thursday
to be presented Friday at the Food and Beverage Tax Advisory Commission.
And we're adding money in that plan. We'll see if it passes for to assist the CIB in getting a development
plan done for a hotel. And this is something the city should be doing. You know, they get 90% of the
money and they're not. And we'd hate to see that project linger unnecessarily
for a want of $300,000. So that is something we always talk about. This year has been the nature preservers
received food and beverage money. So that's always something we consider. I mean, if you all want to
just vote on, I feel like we're going to be all over the place if we start talking about individual
items. If you all just want to vote on an amount, we'll just figure it out. And that will be it.
which we can do. But I think the process would be better in the future if we had that financial discussion,
which I thought we had, but if that financial discussion had more meaning when we had it with the department
heads here who had the projects. Okay. Mr. Deckard. Just for the record, unless I have this wrong, Michelle,
you ran down numbers for me because I was just spitballing out there.
Food and beverage right now is at $2,673,148.63.
That's not a comment one way or the other on that three hundred thousand that you're talking about,
but I like to put that in the atmosphere because there's been a lot of discussion up here. I'm not always
party or privilege to it or support it, but there has been a lot of talk about using the dollars you
have available. When we dealt with the legislature, we say all the time the government's not a bank.
Although we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about reserves here. I feel like I run the Federal
Reserve of Monroe County, but that might be an option here, depending on where we go. And I throw that
out just so that these things get done. I mean, there's nothing on there that I look at and go, oh,
they're right there. That's the one Congress authorized that they shouldn't. There's no Lawrence Welk
Museum on their friends.
Not that that's a bad thing, but we wouldn't pay for it. Everything on there, including from highway
up, is something that somebody needs and in some cases may have been needed for some time. All right.
So we have two paths forward that were just articulated and the night is not getting any younger. One
pathway is Mr. Deckard's suggestion.
that involves the parks items. And one pathway was suggested by our commissioner, which is that we go
ahead and just do this and you'll find a way forward somehow. Mr. Cockrell. And I just want to be clear.
If you change the list in the ordinance, then it has to go back to the commissioners for approval because
they approved the original list. Those two lists, in my understanding, have to match.
commissioners. So if you approved it, um, just what the list the project list as is, then I think all
the approvals are done. If you change it, it will go back to the commissioners. Just so you guys are
aware when it if it comes back on a commissioner, and it's okay if the list is longer on the
The list creates what you can spend it on. It doesn't necessarily say you have to fund all these projects,
but these are the things that that money can be spent on. Right. Council, do you have any reactions
to Mr. Cockrell's statement? It does seem to me that if we're going to choose to do the most wise thing
right now, it would be to not change the list.
because then that would not restart the process. Mr. Henry. To my understanding, Mr. Cockle, then all
we're doing is affixing a number and whatever is in that list, those are eligible items up to 3.1 million.
Correct. Then that seems to be a clean cut, I would agree, Mr. Iverson. Commissioner Thomas, in the
spirit of collaboration, do you have anything else to offer? Okay.
and can I clarify something please councilmember so counselor Decker brought up the food and beverage
are we just not going to think about that or where are we out with that it is my understanding that
that will be something that will be taken up by the board of commissioners as that they are moving forward
on plans regarding the hotel and other items if council wishes to
You know, I think particularly councilmember Deckard wishes to move forward with his idea. I think the
the correct people are in the room We don't disappoint information on that. We don't vote on food and
beverage tax dollars. Am I right? The County Council has to appropriate. Yes appropriate it. Okay The
commission is from a request the commissioners
it's very similar to the edit. The commissioners create the plan, and then the council funds the plan.
The difference is that there is a required request for recommendation from the Food and Beverage Advisory
Commission. So that is not present in the edit conversations, but it's a plan, and then the council
has to appropriate the funds for that plan if they choose to do so. Okay. All right.
Council and commissioners, we have successfully sat in discomfort together. We have a motion and a second
on the table. We've heard a lot of conversation. I'm gonna go to the public and see if the public- Can
we just restate the motion for everybody at this point? Yeah, and it's the same motion you read, so
would you mind doing that? I'll read it again. So let me get the right number or right letters. Here we go.
I move to open for discussion and approval of Ordinance 2026-35, 2026 General Obligation Bond and Ordinance
2026-36, Appropriation Ordinance for the 2026 General Obligation Bond. All right, so that's the motion
and the second that's on the table. Again, we're gonna go to the public now. If you would like to weigh
in on the procedures and processes by which this council
is adopting the second reading of the general obligation bond. Please raise your hand on teams or come
forward in the NatU Hill Room. Seeing none, I want to go back to council because I have a sense that
there's more to say. Councilmember Feidl. Well, I liked everything to be absolutely clear. So here I
am. Please go. So is it 3.1?
3.8. Is it 6.5? What is the number we're talking about? Michelle, can you help clarify? Yes. At the
20th meeting, there was a motion made for the bond amount not to exceed 3.1. Thank you for verifying
that. And that's what this says that we've got. Okay. Yes. Now I think- To be crystal clear, a vote
yes is a vote for 3.1. Yes. Councilmember Decker?
I would like to add an amendment to this, since it is at 3.1, that the sense of the council is that
food and beverage tax dollars should be explored for eligible and remaining items on the list that couldn't
be funded beyond 3.1. We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? I'll second that. We have a
motion and a second. Council, any conversation?
on the proposed amendments to the bond. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I was not on council when council
had begun to use the food and beverage tax for things outside of its intent under code, which I always
read to be for the convention center. So I appreciate Commissioner Thomas's comment that the next iteration,
what goes to Fabtac will be in support of CIB to figure out convention center centric activities around
the hotel. I appreciate that.
that ought to be maybe a city endeavor, but we also have a chunk of that project. And so as a citizen
observing the use of that funding over the years, I've noticed that caused consternation with our friends
in Ellitsville about the use of the tax dollars, the food and beverage tax, about what they could possibly
use it for. No doubt that one of the planks of their merger might be to have the autonomy to control
that revenue in the future. And
And it's I believe, and it's just my belief that that put us on a slippery slope of the use of that
particular resource. So I am not fond of using that resource outside of the purpose for the county,
which is the convention center and its activity. I know that many of you were here and made that decision
years ago, but it's not one that I share from that era. And alas, I just don't think it's a good use
of that resource for this purpose.
Thank you, Mr. Henry. Mr. Deckard, was the language of your motion that we could or that we should look
at? The nature of the motion or the amendment was that for any since it's the bonds, it's a 3.1. Anything
beyond that that is doesn't make the 3.1 list.
but from the commissioners, they would explore food and beverage tax dollars. Okay, excellent. Thank
you for that clarification. Mr. Cockrell. I just want to make it clear from the record that that amendment
is not an amendment to the document itself. It's just an amendment to what you're approving. So as a
part of clarification or information, Mr. President, so Councilor Decker, it's just the intention to
express a sentiment of council. Is that a sense of the council? Yes. All right.
and another point of information. Would an abstention cause that to fail? Yes. You have to have four.
You have to have four. All right. That's fair. Okay. All right. We have a motion to express the will
of council by council member Deckard. Let's go to the public. Any public comment on this? Seeing none,
may we please have a roll call vote?
on Mr. Deckard's amendment to express the will of council. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion on the amendment passes unanimous. All right,
we're back at the underlying two ordinances. We've heard public comment. I'll go back to council for
one last round.
Mr. Decker, I just would say one more thing. I appreciate everyone who has worked on this list, the
strangeness of the bonding process, et cetera. This doesn't always seem to make sense. But when you
look at the projects that have been pitched to us, you understand why why these things are very unique
in that sense. All right. Thank you, Mr. Deckard, Mr. Henry.
Thank you, I'll be brief. I do appreciate the idea of starting earlier at the front end to explore the
bond process, to Commissioner Thomas's point. I think it probably starts a little earlier than even
that, which is understanding that the council may have a number in mind before we begin soliciting projects
from departments. Because what happens then is as we've solicited projects, and then they're brought
to us, it feels like a negative action of council. It may make more sense for us earlier to start
suggesting what our tolerance is before the call for proposals goes out. I don't know when that process
starts. Chances are it's already started for this year. But to understand that just because it's on
the wish list doesn't mean it gets the whole way through at this point. Council's attitude, in my view,
has started to change on this a bit to be a little more understanding and proactive about the proposals
that are being generated in the county. So I don't want to set people's expectations up year after year
that they're not going to get the wish list.
Thank you, Mr. President. All right. If there are no other comments from council, Michelle, could we
have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you for your work on this, Mr. Cockrell. Commissioner Thomas,
thank you for your work on this and thank you for coming tonight to talk with us.
That moves us on to item number II. Council, I move to approve the Council's offices request and fund
1000-0061 County General Council for an additional appropriation of $60,000 in services category. Second.
All right, we have a motion and a second. Michelle is our council administrator.
What's going on here? The amount that I'm requesting is for professional services and that's due to
the ACLU lawsuit. We've already expended and actually overexpended our current appropriation. So this
I'm hoping and I'm going to cross my fingers that this will take us to the end of the year, but I'm
not going to hold my breath.
And just for the record, crossing fingers and holding breath are not sound fiscal practices, but sometimes
we do it anyway. All right.
Council members, yes, Mr. Deckard. Thank you very much. I'm going to make a comment here. I was going
to reserve this for a council comment, but I think this is the time to jump in because this is for services
and many of those services are because we have a giant lawsuit happening. And I get worried because
some days it seems like there's not a giant lawsuit happening. And anyone following the news this week
has seen that the Indiana ACLU and Mr. Falk apparently have something in common with us.
in that they have a workplace that doesn't always agree eye to eye on a whole lot of things. There's
been a lot of news on that, right? I guess my takeaway from that is I think that this might be a renewed
time for the council, the commissioners, perhaps even sheriff and other key stakeholders to really renew
conversations around the committee work that
led off with commissioner council member finals committee that got done in, gosh, was it July? In July,
renewing around that conversation to figure out what we're gonna figure out on all the questions that
still remain towards our jail. That discussion is not graced this bench in some time. And I'm not saying
work on it really quick because the other side's having issues.
I'm saying work on it really quick because that's how good public policy gets dealt with. And regardless
of what happens, this is the time, I think, to kind of renew those conversations. I guess a judge could
tell you otherwise and block you, but isn't that the point of the suit to begin with?
maybe receiving that report officially, maybe hearing some comments from that group, renewing discussion
of the bodies that were involved in that, it might not be a bad way to spend an afternoon. At the very
least, we would have elected officials in a room talking to each other, trying to move a problem forward
potentially, and God forbid they actually do it for once.
just some thoughts on this. I'll be voting yes on this. And I suspect we'll be voting yes on many more
of these because we're in a big lawsuit that sometimes we act like it's not happening. And I don't think
that's healthy either. All right. Council, do you have any other additional comments on this professional
services appropriation? All right. Hearing none, let's go to the public. Do you have any comments on
our lawyer fees. Seeing none, Michelle, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, that
brings us up to item JJ. Council, I move to approve resolution 2026-29, the 2027 target fund balance
resolution.
second. All right. We've got a motion and a second. Uh, Miss Molly Turner King is not here, but Mr Jeff
Cockrell is Mr Cockrell. Can you walk us through this resolution? I think I can. The resolution is very
similar to ones that you guys have approved in the past. It basically looks at a subset of the funds
and say this is our target fund balance, which really means we don't want it to go below this amount
for each of these funds, starting with the geo or with the
general fund and my computer. Starting with the general fund aviation fund, just the lit special purpose,
which is the juvenile court or what was formerly known as the juvenile code. MVH motor vehicle highway
health public safety lit rainy day reassessment. The edit the lit edit self insurance chemo capital
development election.
I don't think any of these have really changed since last year. I think they're all the same amounts.
I think this is just kind of establishing that, yes, we've looked at these this year and we are still
comfortable that these amounts are our comfort level and where we wanna be. This is done for a couple
of different reasons. One is to have the process where we talk about, hey, are these numbers adequate
or not adequate? And two, to demonstrate to the world
particularly when we go out for bonding and things like that, that we're looking at these things, we
wanna make sure we're solve it, we wanna make sure that all things are going well. So that's... And
clearly the financial advisors has played a key role in coming up with these numbers. So that's what
this is, this is just, and it's essentially a repeat of last year, because we did relook at the numbers
and we're still comfortable with those numbers, which is it,
that surprising to me, given where we're at in the state of the world, and we don't know what's gonna
happen with the state next year, and all these kind of upheaval in what's going on, so I would not expect
it to have gone down, and I also not necessarily would have expected it to come up, because we also,
current legislation says in a couple years, the council gains a little bit more control over income
tax and those kind of things.
and keeping it where it is did not surprise me at all. Thank you for that thorough explanation, Mr.
Cockrell. Council, do you have any questions about this? I do have a question. We received an email
at 1.20 today from Ms. Molly Turner King saying that an updated version was being emailed and that was
different than the one in the packet.
read the email into the record, but is there a more concise summarization? I guess I would summarize
it as this. The actual target amounts didn't change, right? What we're looking at didn't change. Some
of the language about process and procedures and those got removed because it was not critical for the
document itself. So this reflects
the conclusions and it makes some notes of some auditor's office policies, but it really just kind of
condenses what it is into a statement. Really, it's just, I think removing some of our wording, but
the auditor's office has, we're more conservative and so like our internal policy
watches these closer and has different values, but it doesn't affect this policy. It's just
more conservative. All right. Thank you for that. Council, do you have any other questions about this?
I will just conclude by saying
This came directly out of the long term finance committee and the work that I think was Jeff McKim probably
started to I think this came around during his tenure. And this is a clear indication of how we're trying
to implement best practices.
in county government. And I think this is such an important document because if we didn't have this,
we'd be in a whole different world. And so, Mr. Cockrell, I really appreciate your analysis here that
not only is it something that helps us when it comes to budgeting, but it's also very important when
it comes to maintaining our excellent credit rating. All right, let's go to the public. Is there any
comments on
the target cash balance resolution or the target fund balance resolution. Seeing none, may we please
have a roll call vote? Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor
Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, that takes us to
one of our final options, which is options, items, which is KK. Council, I move to approve the council
office's request to amend the 2027 salary ordinance special occupation hourly rates. Second. All right,
we have a motion and a second. And again, we're going to look to Council Administrator Kim Schell to
talk about what's going on with this special occupation salary grid.
Yes, I put together the salary ordinance for adoption for the council. In it, I add the salary grids.
When I created the salary grids, I captured the 2026 portion of the special occupations rather than
the 2027 that included the 2%.
And so I want to amend that section and also even though I tried to amend this I. Still screwed up on
the airport directors amount and the airport directors amount that I have listing it going to is 6505
and it should actually be 6765. Excellent.
Given the fact that we have 815 employees and we had a long budget session, if this is the only mistake
that comes to us, we're not paying you enough. All right, counsel, do you have any comments? No.
Get in line. Yeah, I was going to say, can we talk about that? All right, counsel, are there any other
comments or questions on this?
All right, seeing none, let's go to the public. Do you have any public comment on this? All right, can
we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
Councilor Will? Fiddle. Fiddle. Yes. Councilor Fiddle? Motion passes unanimous.
all right council that concludes item number eight on tonight's agenda which was lengthy uh it brings
us to item number nine does anybody wish to make a lengthy presentation or have a lengthy discussion
all right seeing none that leads us number 10 council liaison updates and comments i see the color-coded
legal pad is already out council member fidel lead us off um
I just wanted to highlight a few things. Generally, in the past two weeks, I went to seven different
meetings on behalf of the council with liaison assignments and other things. And I attended five different
events. And some of those events, I think, are important to talk about. The Harrodsburg Fall Festival
occurred the weekend of the 17th of October. It was their second annual event. They even had a donut.
eating contest, which this little, I don't know, probably 10 or 12 year old young man won. He ate three
in two minutes. But it was just, and then they had a chili tasting benefit that was going to benefit
the Grace Center down there. And so there were nine chilies you could get a little small container of.
people in the community had brought dessert so we can all have dessert to go along with them as well.
And so I don't know how much they raised, but it was just a lovely event. Got to meet some charming
folks down there that lived down there and we had good discussions. So I really enjoyed that. So I also,
and others did here too, attended the Hozier Action People's Forum recently. And we all signed a pledge
that basically said,
we were going to do our best, basically. I thought there were six or eight things listed there, and
it reminded me of we were just going to do our best to do the right thing all the time. And I really
was impressed with that. We all signed it. And then Saturday, some of us were there. We went to the,
well, yeah, some of us were there. We went to the NAACP Freedom Banquet, where a wonderful guest, or
not guest, but
What do you call it? The keynote speaker was terrific. It was Denzel Ross from IU Health. He told a
very personal story about his situation and his family. And it really touched my heart. I know about
the health care field. But then also other things. We had the downtown Bloomington meeting recently.
And the most recent meeting, there was a huge turnout because the whole topic of the college and Walnut
one way to two way was fresh in everybody's mind. And people who hadn't come for, geez, I don't know
how long, the whole time I've been going, and it's been long since I came on council, showed up to talk
about that. It's a passionate issue. But as I understand it, that will not be happening. And that was
just a study. We were reminded, ultimately. So that's good news, I think, for the public and the community.
And I wanted to thank the auditor's office, specifically Charlotte and Carly, for sitting down with
me before we did our final budget adoption meeting. You were just instrumental in making me feel comfortable
in making that vote to adopt it. So I wanted to thank you publicly for that. Got to meet the BEDC board,
new CEO and president, Susan Boyce Reed.
I think she'll do wonderful. I haven't had a follow up meeting, but I intend to do that with her. Got
to attend the new Convention Center site with others. They have a 2000 attendees space. I didn't realize
it was going to be quite that big, but 2000 people is quite a quite a large number than what they can
do now. I think their numbers now they can do maybe five or 600, so that'll be really special when that
gets into high gear. And then.
I was there for Peter for the must meeting. I don't know what I did, but just sit and look good in the
audience, but I was there. You vastly increased the intellectual power in the room. That must have happened,
yes. But I did enjoy being there and see that group come together and really take a statement and present
a position on where they were at with it all. I thought it was very healthy for the communities they
represent and for the public in general.
last night I went to a heading home celebration kind of where they were talking about things they've
been a part of and so our own veterans officer here in the county he's been instrumental in working
with them to reduce a 70% reduction from veterans homelessness so from
27 persons to eight now. So that's a huge, huge reduction. I was so happy to hear that. And 11 other
agency partners reported successes as well, but including thanking the landlords working with them.
I mean, that was a big thing. So that's kind of where I've been putting my time and efforts. Thank you,
Council Member Pytel. Council Member Deckard. My list is not near substantial, but I was happy to join
Councilor Pytel.
and others at a lot of these events, including the People's Forum. It was an honor to take that pledge.
It was an even bigger honor to hear individuals tell their story for the better part of an hour plus
to talk about their lives and realities as renters, as folks seeking affordability in homes and healthcare
in our community. And it was,
It's supportive of what we hear all the time but you never run out of time to hear it. Also, I joined
counselors Henry counselors vital at the NAACP dinner that was exceptional congratulations to Jim Sims
and all our friends over there for.
wonderful night centered around we the people and just before the council meeting, had I known our agenda
was this long, I would have stayed at this last location. cd fi friendly under john's odys leadership,
it was a good community gathering over at the mill and it was a lot of people present.
talking about community investment in a lot of different organizations trying to do good things. There's
always good people doing good things around these parts. And that's all I've got. All right. Councilmember
Henry. Thank you, Mr. President. You know, I always wonder how to use this time because sometimes I
feel like I've got like cleanup duty, you know, try to keep it light. And then there's the serious work
of liaison work. Maybe maybe it's just my
I was dealt this year with some of these liaison assignments. I will say on the plus side, I appreciate
council support of the Board of Aviation and the work Carlos is doing. He had alerted us to the eight-year
bump in the salary there that we were able to move into the proceedings tonight at the last minute.
Again, the Board of Aviation has their own sort of schedule for these things. Thank you for supporting that.
I will say to add to Councilor Feidl's observation about the Convention Center, we both had a chance
to tour, do the Hardhat Tour. And I encourage everybody up here to go do the Hardhat Tour. We should
all do it again together to see the progress over there. The second piece of that work is also the movement
of the Bloomington Visitors Center. Visit Bloomington into the first floor of the garage there across
the street. And that's also, that's part of the package, right? To move everything into the core. And
so we also toured that,
the work being done there, which has been supported by the county, and that marries up what will be
a welcome front door into the community. That was great to see the work there as a member of the Convention
and Visitor Center Commission through that liaison appointment. I will say to Council on a more serious
note that I have taken some initiative to start calling each of the members of the Board of Health to
figure out
what they'd like to do next in terms of how we're moving forward in our health department.
We heard tonight, of course, from our staff and our frontline staff that are still doing the hard work
in this community of delivering public health, despite what's going on above them. And I look forward
to making sure the current Board of Health is empowered to do their work and hands off from
Maybe meddling from this room as they try to figure out the next steps. I think it's vitally important
that we entrust that we trust the five folks that we have their MDs and our ends to help sort us through.
And I think in my view, we should be in very much of a support mode until we can get
things stable there. There's a lot of work ahead of us, you know, in that space. And so I've had some
good conversations with board members so far. I will continue to call down on that list to get some
insight as to where they want to take the strategy for our health department moving forward in the community.
I would also be remiss if I did not bring up the conditions in our courthouse. We've had employees concerned
about maintenance work going on that has created some fumes in the building. I understand that there
was a lot of concerns about long-term exposure to VOCs in the building, which has only been resolved
in the past few days.
And it probably highlights again the necessity that we have a good hazmat plan in place to address things.
The issues that we are facing with IOSHA right now are a little dated because it seems like there are
additional issues that are continuing to go on in that building where we need to, in the spirit
of transparency, communicate with our workforce before we start doing work as opposed to communicating
after the fact when the complaints come in. We can do better there. And those staff in that building
that I've heard
from. Please keep telling us what's going on it's really the only way we can raise these issues and
public space to make sure that we're providing not only good salary good benefits but a safe workplace
for you as well. On a fun note, then, because that was a lot of stuff.
For those of us that are owned by black cats it is national black cat day I'm going to go home and see
mine and a minute or two here but happy I was the best Halloween the best Halloween prop you have in
a house is an actual live black cat and we've been.
owned by our cat for a few years now, so thank you Mr. President. It's a great way to end on a holiday
weekend. All right, I'm gonna mention four things here and then we'll get going with our evening. The
first thing I want to mention is the number four. Both the IU football team and the IU men's soccer
team are now ranked number four in the nation. Folks, when we talk about
quality of life and about distinctive differences that we have here living in Monroe County. Part of
that is that, man, we've got some real talent here. And it's really exciting to see us go into the big
house in Michigan and break that, what was it, 50, 60 years? I don't know, whatever. Number two. And
I'm really proud of the budget that we passed. We did that one week ago.
And in the B Square Bulletin, the way that it was talked about is that it was done without much fanfare.
I love that phrase because that means that we did our job and we did it well. That means we had lots
of conversations. That means that we had lots and lots of folks coming to us and telling us what they
needed and they wanted. And I really like that we were able to pass a $147,020,534 budget
without much fanfare. That's pretty great. The next thing I'll note is that we did convene must. This
will not be the last time that we convene must is my gut. We passed a statement that essentially said
we have too much uncertainty to be able to do anything. We're not going to adopt a rate for lit. So
we are going to closely watch what happens in the legislature this spring.
there's a lot of nervous people out there about the change in FY29 going from property tax to local
income tax. That includes your libraries, your schools, your firefighters, your city of Bloomington,
your town of Ellisville, Steinsville, and of course, Monroe County. So we'll hopefully watch. The last
thing I will note is it is time to vote, folks. If you've not already voted, I think Councilmember Feidl
is wearing her vote button.
It is time to vote. Vote early. Here in Monroe County is made really easy. And you can also, if you
don't know what your ballot's gonna look like, go to vote411. It's a great resource, nonpartisan resource.
So. So let's just remind people when the hours are for voting yet. So. Please do. Through Friday, it'll
be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. And Saturday will be 9 to 4. And then Monday will be
I forget what time till noon. It's either 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. to noon. It's only till noon. I remember
that. All right. And you can find all that information online at 411 or the county election board. And
Councilmember Deckard, of course, this is a very, very busy time for our election workers. So whether
you are part-time, full-time or anywhere in between, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
for ensuring free and fair elections here in Monroe County. All right, with that, we are adjourned.
We will see you next on November the 10th. Happy Halloween, everybody.