County Council - Regular Meeting

At least.

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. We got to stop reading the agenda. Any changes from anybody? I have a uh Christy McCann from She's working with the commissioners on their HR issues, job descriptions, and all that stuff. So, and Teresa, and we're going to go ahead and move them up because they're they're both pressed for time. So, whenever you're ready.

Okay, awesome.

Get this little cord on. I was doing that one. Yeah, better. It takes it a while sometimes.

It is fine. Um, so first let me introduce myself. I know Darren did a little bit Christy McCann. I am working with commissioners on um re reviewing the policy handbook which I have. It's going to be evolved into a manual and making a separate employee handbook also that's much easier to read and um cleaning up some policies, adding some policies, updating things. Um but through discussions um also with job descriptions and other things. One of the things that was brought up was processes and flow and how things are currently um being handled for human resource needs for the county. And so through that discussion, we kind of um talked about maybe there needs to be some looking into what possibly um could help better the county. Before I really kind of dive in too deep, I want to first explain one thing is yeah, I am a consultant with the commissioners and such, but when it comes to looking at the human resource management systems, I'm not connected to any of these companies. I am not a stakeholder in any of this. Um, but I have a lot of background in implementation of HR systems. Um, because I have well over two decades in doing so. Um, so that's why I'm kind of speaking of this and it's it's not any I guess you could say I don't have any skin in the game in a way um in one way. Um, so currently why this is really needed is things are primarily done paper. They are done through Excel sheets and and just there isn't good flow. There isn't good accuracy and checks and balances. Um, so time collection can easily be inconsistent. payroll requires a lot of due diligence on your payroll persons.

Um, and I'm sure others could speak, if Kim was here, she could very much speak to that too. Um, so records, um, retrieval is obviously going to be much slower because you have to find the papers. Um, supervisors, they really are not getting a live results for information about their employees. So, they have to dig through things and find it. Um, sorry, one. So what would an HRMS change ultimately is going to change the future day workflow for everybody. So when an employee clocks in, when an employee needs to request a a leave or a form or benefit change, it then goes to the supervisor for approvals and exceptions and then it flows to the HR in a digital file. Um so the record can be um categorized and processed properly which then can flow to payroll for anything that would affect payroll and it can be validated and the earnings and trackings of times and vacations and everything is all tied into one system and ultimately it per it creates a audit trail that makes things such more much more streamlined. um it's going to really improve and I'm going to kind of show um some of what the conservative I'd say figures could be as to how much time is currently being spent. Um so a very conservative rough guesstimate is how much time I guesstimate about 1100 hours in a year that is being spent just on all the additional paper the number crunching that's additional work for just HR and payroll which could be around $40,000 just in that process. um supervisor's time I'd say a pretty low count of 780

just on all the extra uh processing that they had to do through the manual process of papers and Excel sheets and um then you've got the paper and the printing and the storage and everything. Long story short, it's roughly it's not a line item on your budget, but this is what it's roughly costing. um close to very conservative I'd say close to $85,000 and none of these tools are going to cost that much. Um so continuing to break this down a little bit better, paper processes, they do increase liability. Um, and just some of the examples up there of where this can happen, your wage and hour, um, tracking records, your IRS employment taxes, validation of the I9's, EOC and public, um, employee employer records. Um but ultimately you know there are things that are really missing in your process that could really improve on the flow for the employees. It improves the happiness and time I think also because your employees can be more self-s serve self-direct and being able to do this. But bottom line um an HRMS is not going to eliminate the legal the legal obligations. I mean it's not a foolproof thing. Um we're all human. But it's really going to make it a lot easier if things come up and you can properly document things. You can show reports. You can offer better defense because you have it all in one system. So the day-to-day benefit is yes, it's going to benefit your HR and your payroll people a great deal because they're not going to be constantly doing manual entry. That um payroll corrections and the auditing trail for payroll is going to be I'm

sure a lot faster than what is currently happening. Um, and it just is going to have more accuracy to it. You're going to be able to search things easier. Things are going to be cleaner for onboarding employees because these systems tie all of that in together. Supervisors can route things, move things to HR, give responses to employees in a faster time, see what leave balances are before they approve time off. um employees are able to really have things at their fingertips. They don't have to search as much. The forms are there. They already know what their time is. They don't have to go and ask anybody. It's all right in front of them. Um onboarding can be very quick. You can have it set up for different departments even how they want to onboard. They can hit one thing and it sends everything to the person right ahead of time. You're not having to print and give people stacks of paper. Um, leadership is going to give you guys better reporting and auditing abilities. Um, what what does it cost? I know that is always a big factor. Now, I have not personally contacted any of these companies because first step is communicating. So, commissioners talked with them. This discussion's happened. I'm bringing it to you guys so you guys can think about this process. Hey, this might be something that' be beneficial. And then it's just really knowing what the county needs. Um, and then contacting people. So these numbers here are basic market costs. They are not direct quotes of any kind. But so some of these, yeah, you see the numbers, they can cost quite a bit, but as I showed in a previous figure, all of them are less than what you're pretty much spending currently every year. Um, so

Christie, you mean uh when you say spending, you mean the kind of time value of actually spending that money, it's just their time value of Yeah. It's not a line item where this would be a line item 100%. Yeah.

So roughly those like 1,800 hours I said earlier plus the cost of paper and stuff, that was about $85,000. That was I'm sure a very low number. Um, so thank you. That's a good question. So the recommendation really at this point is to bring this to you guys to consider just allowing for the process to get more information. That's all I'm asking. It's not committing to anything. It is one I validate truly what all these different departments need. Ask supervisors, ask department heads, ask payroll, ask ask HR what do they really need in a system? Then once I have all of that, go to about three or more vendors and ask them, "Here is what this county needs. What can you provide? How much will it cost?" And start gathering that information. Um, and then just really seeing if any of them are a good fit. Again, no commitments of any kind. It's just gathering information and seeing what it would cost, seeing how much it would take for implementation. I have done implementations for organizations that went from paper to digital. It's I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say it's not painfree. It's painful. Um that's a lot of work because you're going from paper to digital. Um it it's time consuming, but it will greatly benefit you in the long run. And then fourth is coming back to the council with a recommendation after knowing what everybody needs, what these organizations can offer and give a solid quote because I will have talked with them directly. So really what I'm I'm not I'm not asking for a commitment to buy anything. I'm only my goal is to basically find a best option fit for

Brown County for your HR needs and your payroll to streamline things to make it much more efficient for your employees, your supervisors, your leadership, and your HR. Um, and I think in the long run, this is going to make things smoother for your employees. Um, I'm sure there will I'm not I would never guarantee there won't be hiccups. There won't be some people that'll be upset with change. Change is hard. But I think in the long run, this is actually going to decrease possible liabilities and it's going to speed up a lot of processes for many many people. Yeah. Do you do you have any uh opportunity for experiences from other counties?

Do I have I contacted other Can we get some other counties who've used it to see what their practical experience is? Yes, absolutely. and especially with some of the companies. Um, I'd like to hear what some of them utilize. I And I've listed the most popular ones. UKG is probably the most popular one. They've bought out a lot of other HRMS companies. They're very large. Um, and as such, and then there's one that are very specific to public sector, which I added on here, but they're very expensive and they're much larger public sectors utilize them a little more. Yeah. Are you a private consultant? And if what's in it for you? What's in this for you? Why are you here?

I am I am only here because I'm working with the commissioners on other HR. Are you hired by the commissioners as as a consultant? Yes. Okay. Yes. So this is I'm I'm not tied to any of these companies. Okay. Or or anything. I don't have any stake in any of these. So, she's been hired by the commissioners to redo uh job descriptions, the policy manual, uh um underlying HR issues within within the county related to employees

kind of counter to not counter to but in addition to working with what we have have worked with WIS on and are going to work with WIS in the future. All of this ties together. She's doing one part of it and then Okay. And then, you know, the other So, she's recently been hired as a consultant. Yeah. How long ago did you go? Two months. Three months ago. About three months. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm part of the pack and we have been discussing this type of thing for months.

And so, it's it's been in discussion a lot with the personal advisory committee. um but just now has brought forth to us, you know, the this process, this part of it, uh as to something that we can look into that that possibly could help uh streamline things. And and I want to add that when I used to do a lot of what she's talking about and just you know the time sheets the vacation time the personal any of the personal time off sick time all that that is huge amount of time depending on the number of employees you have. Yeah I with these systems too that's the reason I'm asking that.

Yes I can't imagine being in payroll and having to look at 180. So that's how many we have roughly and it's you know this this has come up as some of the discussions like we've been having with Ed on internal controls um this goes to you know efficiency of the county internal controls the way we operate and this is a part of it that's come up through our working with the going over our our employee policy and handbook and and things that she's found that have been needing attention in the county for

time and attention decades and uh yeah this this this is this is an integral part of it. This kind of goes to part of your concern Jim with the efficiency and payroll and what our employees are doing and how they're spending their time. We paying WIS cuz didn't we pay last year WIS to do the job descriptions? No 24. Well, then why do I have a whole file folder on my desktop? It work that has all brand new job descriptions. They did M24, Jim. No, they didn't. They did them in 25. We implemented M25.

We paid out what $100,000 in W. They didn't do that. So, let me just ask. I mean, so are you dealing with job descriptions? Is that I'm reviewing some of them that are problematic and so we have two consultants. We get this person here plus we get WS is what we're doing. We send out the questionnaires for the employees to fill out for the job descriptions. I guess I'm unclear about why she's working on job descriptions, too. Yeah. But but um I'm I and I might have misstate I misstated. Totally misstated because now they're off on a totally different

but anyway correct me early when I do that but but what I am familiar with is her HR parts of it. That's that's what I've never in our policy. All right well let's clear that up. My focus is most

we misunderstood something about job descriptions. Can you clear that up now? My main focus is on the policy manual and the handbook that I'm working on currently. There are a few hand there are a few job descriptions that we are cleaning up because there were some inaccuracies um that Truce and I are working on those. But majority of my work is for the manual and the and the handbook. And then also as an advisory person. So when there is issues or concerns that is part of my scope as well is the advisory component and in the future some training components.

So it's okay. So are you do you operate off of billable hours? Are you billable hours? I am what's what's your contract your compens explain your compensation and what the cost if you would please. Yeah. So for the policy manual, the policy review and the creation of the new handbook that is project base fee. So I determine the hours. I set a fixed amount and I send a quote to them all the steps including all the changes even training of all the changes. What is your contract statement? So did we sign a fixed amount and what is the commissioners did sign?

What is the dollar amount? How much? So I I have an hourly rate of 180 and then I have a projectbased rate based on the project. What's the total your estimated project cost for the manual itself? The creation of that is around it is around 8400. I want to I don't have it right in front of me but I think it's around 8,400. Okay. So for your f your primary focus is to work on the employee policy handbook. Mhm. And the total cost for that is estimated to be $8,400 at $180 an hour.

No, $8,400. That's a projectbased fee for that particular item that I'm No, $8,400. $8,400. Okay. So, I'm getting confused. So, bear with me. $8,400 for you to go in and review the and make recommendation recommended changes on the employee policy handbook and deliver and deliver it and do it. So I'm rewriting it and anything above and beyond that or outside the scope of that there's $18 fee. No, that is a project base just for that. Now when I come and do advisory work like the meetings when I'm working on job description or there's FMLA or whatever that

and that's what I just that's what I just said. You have a project of $8,400. Anything outside the scope of that project is $180 billable hour. I'm sorry if you were saying about the manual outside that scope. No. No. You're correct. Yes. Okay. That's okay. Yeah. Could you go back to the savings slide and then the cost of the new software slide just to

So this is the savings slide. So the cost, this is a very rough conservative guess of the number of hours put into a dollar for payroll and HR and then for the supervisors hours and cost estimate and then an estimate of probably what you spend paper printing storage and everything. This is probably much lower than what the actual is. Um, I didn't have pervy to those figures, what people get paid and how many hours. We didn't do a time study or anything like that. So, this is why I'm saying it's a conservative guesstimation of how many hours are probably spent. Um, which if you add that together is almost $85,000. Now, based on market value for these systems, that's how I came up with those numbers. Um, so you can't see the numbers very well. They're kind of way down here, but this green line right here, that's showing pretty much what you're spending on that almost 85,000 that four of these aren't even hitting the green line. Now, NEO gov, yes, they're very expensive. Um, they are the public sector one I was referring to. But back to your other question of what does it cost? These are market

just real quick. I mean again we're not I mean I guess we are paying employees to do that work but right but it's a fixed cost and so the spending kind of I just want the council to be clear it's but what we will be spending is actually what you're showing us that's a new spend it will be the line item and and it will stop the it will stop the um vacation overspend. It will stop the because this is a time and attendance issue that we know we have because of the paper. This is what Julie's done with the research. Her company's actually up there. I think it's the last blue one there.

Um they don't actually provide everything that we would need for Lao to to perform. So that one had a few holes in it. But um just let me let me finish. Um so so we had the the current spend um and then I guess that doesn't include the time. So if we're spending if you go back to this um because this it's not like these programs require zero time to to implement. Oh implementation has a cost

but also you still have to make payroll. You still have to review the numbers. So I are you are you saying the 84,000 so have you done that comparison like because it's not a zero time to do the payroll right what would our cost be to do the payroll under these new programs to have much better figures of how much currently that this is this is at the very preliminary stage

but I think it would be more accurate to say there is a spend to still do payroll and enter the time review that No, this would this would upload into it, Scott. This would right now she is manually entering a lot of this. This would eliminate that. So, this is only the manual labor part that will be I don't think you're saying this will be completely eliminated. Is that correct? They they still need to audit the payroll. They But it's going to be through a report. the time systems and everything is all in the system where currently she manually has to go through on Excel sheet. That's a lot of time. Yeah.

I think what you're saying is it's more efficient. It's not that it's zero cost under the new system. It's just going to be more efficient and we don't know what that savings of time will be. It sounds like it's really kind of hard.

So, is that efficiency also enable the amount of employees needed to do this? So, where's our savings at? If we're not reducing if we're not reducing any employees, any positions, and we're increasing the cost to get the same job done under the the the premise of it's more efficient, where is the efficiency savings for us to do this to justify the amount of money that we're going to spend? One thing is your payroll person is not going to be spending all their time doing payroll that which they do a lot. I'm sure again I don't have hard numbers of how much time that she currently is but you need to say something.

Yeah, I do. I want to say something. It's we're going on 6:00. I think we're above and beyond the whole purpose of you coming here this evening. I believe is what's going on here for a moment. So I think you tell me is that you already have an agreement with the commissioners, right, for 8,400 bucks to work on the employee handbook, correct?

Okay. What we're talking about here is to you're floating the idea. Actually, this isn't really our decision. It's the commissioners. Hopefully the commissioners have enough money in the budget to where you don't have to come back to us for an additional appropriation to cover your $1880 an hour billable hour. But basically the what I take is is you're saying, "Hey, here's this system. Julie Reeves has kind of instant has initiated this because we have issues with issues with issues with tracking time for employees of when they come to work, when they leave, so on and so forth. So this system would certainly hopefully address that issue. Okay? So all you're doing here this evening is saying, "Hey, look, this is what we're doing. This is information only. We really don't have a decision in this tonight. Correct. Am I correct?

It's more or less informing and getting your blessing. Okay. So, well, I mean, you guys got to do what you got to do. We don't really have any say on it. So, we just we didn't want to come to you and say, "Hey, when we're doing this, I appreciate that because what I really don't want you to do is to roll in here in October and go, hey, we're going to do this and you guys need to come up with another 110 grand." And I got to tell you, as an employee who has had this time in attendance come back and and and screw with my budget personally, I mean, if we would have had a solid time in attendance, then what happened to me wouldn't have happened.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I get the time in attendance because that's that was a couple years ago $10,000. So what what it's like to so thank you very much for coming in and it you know do what you guys got to do. Well I appreciate you asking commissioners don't come ask us for anything for the right stuff. Is that the loud base bolt on that you it goes it it can go with LA. It works with I thought it wasn't compatible. Excuse me. I thought it wasn't compatible. I thought it

No, this stuff is compatible with LA. Thank you. Question Teresa, are you implying that we have inefficiencies in the system when we may overpay people? So we may actually have some hard money saved there. Okay. and it's maybe time we moved into the current century and get out of the and and and it also is um well some of the systems I can't speak on all of them but it's um when you log into work and when you leave work and that type of thing as well correct

clock time system yeah thank you very much thank Okay, I only have 15 minutes, so can I go? Yeah, my turn. Okay. Um Okay. So, uh we did the um additional appropriation request for the um server um environment. We did a um notice in the paper, which I think do they have that? I gave you the information in the thing. So, just are we you need questions or is this approved? Do I say please?

What's the 12,400? Um, it's 11,510.

I see 124 on here. 124 was appropriated for it. And what they don't use, they're not. It's just it's Let's just give them what you need. Yeah. Because I already have uh 6,000 in my uh budget. So, I only needed 11,510. Uh I'm prepared to make a motion. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay. Is this all we're doing? Is this just a transfer or is this an additional appropriation? No, it's going to have to come out of the cash. No, this is an additional because this is it's an additional appropriation coming out of the general fund. Yes. Yes.

Okay. So, we should have an ordinance to be able to pass this. Okay. So, the Mr. President, if you would read the ordinance and then we can take a vote on the ordinance and get this. Okay. Yes.

A summary. This is this is what um Eric from it talked to us about at our work session meeting where they have the Broadcom uh VMware that was originally costing us 51 $5,128.32. This year it has been bumped to $17,51040, a 241% increase. And they pretty much got us by the shorthairs because we'd have to completely change

an ordinance from Susan Beaver. Um this is it also contains uh let me an additional appropriation which is really a train for what we what we did okay this you have two there right uh council bill number four which is unknown okay thank you for

okay what we have is council bill number four uh we talked about this this is to cover we when we um paid the outstanding invoices for WIS uh it was 30 can get okay first of all the W the WIS the 22 grand for the commissioners is a transfer right and all we're doing is transferring money out of our line item which we had 130 grand in there I made the motion at the last meeting during Okay we're doing that's a transfer yes all All right. So, we do not need an ordinance just to do a transfer. That would you know if you want you do depending on what it's coming out of and going into. Well, that's what

Okay. So, but let me explain. Well, time out. Okay. I do not have a copy. Do you have the actual ordinance that we need to make a motion and vote on this evening? Yes. Yes. I will read that and then I did not get a copy of that ordinance and I'm not quite sure why I go. I brought it up several times and it falls on deaf ears. Now, if all we're voting on this evening is that $22,000 transfer out of our budget into the commissioner's budget to cover the WIS and give them an extra 10 grand going forward is basically what we're doing. All right. And then the secondly, all we're doing is covering the IT increase in IT cost. Yes, that's correct.

Which that is an additional appropriation whereas the commissioners thinks not. Is that basically what that ordinance says? Yes. And that is that's all that's in that ordinance. Go ahead. Could I just on Jim's back? I mean I I do think and this has been somewhat of confusion point for I think the whole council really is we we get these ordinances but there's only one copy and even as vice president sitting beside with usually was Gary. It was all I was always trying to read what it what we were about to do because you know and I think we each probably it was emailed out. I don't think I did either, but I think and typically we don't. And so, but I think we need to change that policy to J. But we can just see it and at least

I look I look and I'm not, you know, I don't mean to be I don't mean to be appear to be adversarial, but this is a boundary for me. I'm not going to tolerate it. I'm tired of this. Okay? Uh I know for now there is, for example, I got ready to leave my office at 4:30 to drive over here for this appointment. Okay? And I think it was probably a quarter after 4 and lo and behold from Susan Bers I get an ordinance on the stipens issue. Okay. At 4:15 the meeting's at 5:30. So I've not had this is a five-page document. I've had no time whatsoever to go through read it and try to comprehend it what's in it. So we've got this I don't think this is on the agenda tonight. It is not.

That's good. Okay. Yeah. because we can maybe do this special session in May if we want to pass it, you know, at that special session. But, Mr. President, I would strongly I'm just going to say this going forward if I don't, you know, I ought to have these ordinances at least seven business days prior to the meeting. I don't think that's unreasonable, right? No, I mean, it's not new information. It's just it's what we talked about in a I was I printed mine off at home. I want I didn't get a copy of it. I printed mine.

I didn't get what you had there. I don't have that. Okay. The only thing I got is what Susan Beaver shipped out this afternoon at 4:15 on this stipen issue. I haven't seen that yet this afternoon. Right. And so what I'm asking is is that you know any ordinance or any resolution for that matter the board the council board ought to receive that at least seven business days prior to the meeting when it's going to be discussed and voted on. I don't see how that is unreasonable. No.

I mean Okay. I mean because because to me ethically we're getting in an issue of asking me to pass something that I've not read and how can I pass something I've not read and I don't even know what's in it. Well that we're we're not even Yeah. Okay. Good. All right. Yeah. This one you as long as I can trust that all the thing that's in it is the 22k and the money for the operating system for it. Then okay. We t we talked about that one to death. So, so I'll make a motion that we pass that ordinance and second there. Well, I still want to read it. Read it. Get it done. Move on.

That's my copy that I printed out. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Council bill number four, ordinance number 2026-04-20-0000, an ordinance for the reduction of appropriation from the general fund budget for the county for county of Brown, Indiana. Now be it orained by the Council of Brown County, Indiana, section 1, that the expenses for the county government and its institutions for the year ending December 31st, 2026, the following sums of money are hereby ordered reduced from the appropriation as originally set out from the year 2026. All subject to the laws of the state of Indiana governing the Senate. Section two that for set fiscal period of 2026 there is hereby reduced from the general fund budget of ground county Indiana the following the county council budget fund 1.3330.0061 financial services in the amount of $22,000. Section three, this ordinance shall be in effect in full force from from and after its passages, all as law provided, adopted by the county council this day, 2026. What this does, this is a reduction of our financial consultants line in the county council of $22,000. So, we're taking $22,000 out of our county council financial consultants budget, putting it back in to the uh general fund, and then uh council bill five, the appropriation then is appropriating that back to the commissioners.

Yeah. So, just so Yeah. So, what I learned right here is Julie Reeves. I was thinking that we could go from the 3,300 line item out of council and just whip it over into the commissioners. But you can't. You got to pull the line item money out of ours, pop it back into the general fund, and then do an additional appropriation out of the general fund. Got it. Now, I understand what we got. Thank you. You're writing a check back. I didn't get a check to got it.

Okay. Uh, council bill number five, additional appropriation ordinance 20 2026-04-20-00001. Whereas it has been determined that there is now necessary to appropriate more monetary than was appropriated in the annual budget. Now therefore, section 1B resolved by the county council of Brown County, Indiana, for the expenses of the taxing unit for the following additional sums of money are hereby appropriated out of the funds named and for the purposes specified subject to the laws governing the same.

Uh if you're looking for a motion on that, I'd like to motion the 115 number, not the 124. So Peter, if you want to do that motion

um we can we can adjust uh general fund uh 1,000 from 30,000 other services and charges advertised amount of 22,000 that is the additional appropriation to the commissioners. uh total general fund 1,000 uh appropriation of 22,000. That is the total. Yeah, you see that on there. That's all that's all three which consists of commissioners 1.35,000.0068 professional services of $22,000. And then additionally from the QMCAP development fund 1138 uh three 30,000 other services and charges advertised for 12400 12,400 uh that is the total from the cumat development fund which consists of IT uh 1138 31440.000000 000000 IT virtual solution proposed 1,400 adopted by council on this day of 2026 and then for the additional appropriation this is the first of se first of second first of two readings correct

I don't think if you all agree I don't believe We have to have a second read. You got a first and a second. Let's just take a vote. Okay,

I'm I'm going to pop in here real fast. Right. You have a motion and a second on council bill number four, which is your reduction of appropriation, but you do not have a vote on that yet. It's an ordinance. It requires two votes. So, and then we'll move to council bill number five, your additional appropriation, which is again an ordinance. It does require two votes, but there's statutory language that does not require us to be unanimous on the additional appropriation to have two votes at the same meeting. Okay. Okay. But for council bill number four, we do have to be unanimous. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion and a sec.

Go ahead. Who made Who made the motion? Scott. Scott seconded for the reduction of 22,000 council bill number four. Um, any other comments? All in favor? Roll call. Roll call vote. We'll do a voice and then roll call. All in favor? I. All opposed. Roll. Darren. Yes, Judy. Yes, Scott. Yes, Gary. Yes, Patrick. Yes, Joel. Is he on the line now? Okay. Jim Kemp, yes.

Okay. Yeah. Motion to looking now for a motion to suspend the rules requiring a second read. I'll motion to suspend the rules so far. Second reading. Second. All in favor? I opposed. All right. We have our second reading of ordinance number 2026-04-20-0000. Council bill number four, an ordinance for the reduction of appropriations from the general fund budget to the county of Brown, Indiana. Looking for a motion.

A motion for bill five or second. Second read. That's the second vote for it. Go ahead. Yeah. A motion to it. Approve it. Second. All right. We have a motion second. Any comments? Anybody? All in favor? All opposed? Roll call. Jarren. Yes, Judy. Yes, Scott. Yes, Gary. Hi, Patrick. Yes, Joel's not here. Jim, yes.

Okay. Our $22,000 has now gone back into the general fund to be appropriated to the commissioners. Okay. add a reading on addition uh council bill number five which is the additional appropriation of $22,000 from other services charges to commissioner professional services $22,000 and from cap development fund 1138 30,000 other services and charges 12,400 to IT virtual solutions for 12,400

Darren we already passed the 22 grant Yeah. Oh, this is just No, we reduced our budget by We council gave the check back to the bank. Now we're voting for the bank to give the check. Okay. We put the money back in the general fund is the correct language, right? Okay. And then now we're giving it to the commissioners to the commissioners and the Did Scott say 115, not 124? Yep. That's his motion. Or go ahead. You want a motion that I can motion? Yeah, go ahead. All right. I'm going to motion that we approve what's this ordinance number five. Bill number five. Bill number five.

Bill number five. That we u u fund $22,000 to the commissioners and that we fund the IT department which is actually in the commissioner's budget. Uh $11,500 for the operating system. Second. All right. I believe she said $11,510. Okay. Oh god. Would you amend your motion? $11,510. Second and 13.

All right, we have a motion for the second. All in favor? And assuming we're with the with disregarding the 13. Okay. All in favor? I. All opposed. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, yes. Gary, yes. Patrick, yes. Jim, yes. All right, we are looking for I'm done. A motion to suspend the rules for the second reading. Motion to suspend the rules for second reading. Okay, we have a motion second. All in favor? Did you read for this one? Yeah. Even though it was

okay was an appropriation and everybody agreed they didn't. Okay. All vote or any vote. Now looking for a she has to do a roll call. No suspension. Now looking for a motion to approve the second reading of additional appropriation ordinance 2026 0420 001 um an additional appropriation of 22 and 11,510. Looking for that motion.

Okay, I'll make the motion. I thought we just did that. It's a second second reading or second second reading. Second bill. Second. Second. I'll motion that we approve the 22K and $1,510. Second. Anyone? Second. All right. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Real Darren? Yes. Judy? Yes. Scott? Yes. Gary? Yes. Patrick? Yes. Jim? Yes. That was easy. was and wasn't

um we Let me go back to the What's up? Do you repeat your pet? Yeah, I know. We have to I skipped over the minutes. Oh, uh we have the minutes from March 16th, 2020 2016 a regular our regular session. Has everybody had a chance to read the minutes? And I'm looking for a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Second. All second. Motion to second. All in favor? I.

All opposed. All right. We have a POA appointment um from John Aaron Paris. That's me. Yep. I guess I'm not normally at this meeting according to other people, but I just thought I'd be here in case you have any questions and also to say thank you for all that you do for our behalf. Yeah. As an as an appointment to a board, we we like to meet people and talk to them and and just a brief summary and and an introduction. Yeah. So,

so my brief introduction is in your letter there. I'm I'm Aaron Paris's I go by Aaron, which is my middle name. and uh I'm the owner of Sweetwater Realy uh in Brown County and Quarter in Sweetwater Lakes. Um my family has been coming to Brown County as uh owners of property in Brown County since I was 12. So it's been a few decades now since that time has occurred. I've owned Sweet Water Realy for over 12 years and uh love the area that we live and want to do my part to give back. Can you tell me what Peter stands for? That's a really good question. Board of Appeals is the last part. Um, but I don't know. I think it's the parent teacher association.

Property tax assessment appeals. Yes, there you go. Tax assessment. I've known I've known Aaron for years. I'll testify to his character. Yeah, that What about yours? Maybe I shouldn't do that. Uhhuh. Yeah. All good. All good. I appreciate that. Just you. I know. We get rolled on sometimes. Spoiling spoiling. All right. Well, I'll make a motion that we appoint this individual to Peter Bullet, Property Tax Board of Appeals, Tax Assessment Board of Appeals. Yeah. Motion. Second. All in favor? Opposed? Call it. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, yes. Gary, yes.

Patrick, yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations.

Um, what's your name again? Do we have any update on the salary limits? We do not. Okay. Other than I'm going to have to change it again since I have someone leaving. Well, then there may be some changes based on the job description amendments. So, once they're done. Yeah. Are those going to be for this year? Are they going to be going forward for next year? I will have to ask about that. Okay. I was assuming that would be for next year coming forward. Yeah. I don't I'm not positive on that.

Okay. And most of just to clarify that most of that is is um state and federal uh compliance with regulations. Correct, Tim? Because there were a couple couple things that were concerning. I'm not really sure which job descriptions we're working on. Yeah, it wasn't much. It was it was it was tweaking. There was some language that that needed to be clear clarified for federal and state regulations. That's that's all that's all that was.

So, I kind of I guess misspoke. I apologize for that. Um, our budget timeline there. I handed you all a piece of paper that came out from Sandy at the beginning of the meeting and it was something she finalized before this meeting had this. Yeah. I presume this is being handed out to the department heads.

It will go out with the budgets. Is it the budget guidance? Yes. Yeah. Anybody there? Everybody get a chance to look that over? Yeah. Do you need to look at? No. And and Julie, this is from you. And and uh and the dates in July may have may change be depending on how quickly I can get all that I get all the budgets in. They're supposed to be in by July the 1st. That doesn't necessarily mean they will be.

So you're talking about the review dates as the 14th, 13th, the 16th may be pushed back. So this right now is a tenative schedule for me. I would like for those days to be the days, but I cannot. It'll be based on whether they get their budgets to me on time. Okay. Has everybody had the chance to look at their schedules for the 14th, 15th, 16th? If the past is any indication of the future, the 14th and 15th and 16th of July is basically unrealistic. Can be well if the past is any indication of the future. True. It would be unrealistic.

Those dates are unreal. Usually we do it in August. Right. And the other the other thing I'm going to just go on the record is I don't know it's you know doesn't need to use that. There's what's called the assumption close. Okay. And it appears someone has taken the liberty to put in a 3% cola from this document that it's been sent out to all the departments. Yep. So, you know, I'm going to take that as what we're doing is using the assumption close council. Then everybody's going to assume that they're going to get 3% cost of living because it was in this document and that's how they're going to interpret that, right? We have discussed it.

No, we don't have a clue. Not a clue. So yeah, plus we still have to take in. It just it says we are wishing for that. It doesn't assumption everyone under the assumption that they're going to be% cut. Well, I to me, you know, you'all can do you're the board. You do what you want. I have a problem with it. Well, that's why we're discussing it. Plus, we still need to discuss our um uh WIS um matrix and how we're going to bring all that up. We haven't done that yet, right?

Because we know if we just continue to do that, we're going to come together. So, we have got to sit down with whis and we've got to discuss this as soon as possible in my opinion. Gary, when do you intend sending this out? soon I presume. Yes. Okay. You might just put a generic and say cost will be determined. We're just going to we'll take the whole thing out of it. Okay. I'll just have two points instead of that one. Yeah. Is being council because probably what we're going to have is not we're definitely not going to have a 3% across the board increase because as we have discussed there are some there are some jobs That's right. that are compensated currently above the line exactly of what

I'm gonna say those those jobs will not be getting a 3% increase because any increase for for some jobs are to catch up to that to bring everybody in line with the fees system. Okay, Darren.

Yeah, Mr. at a previous special session meeting, you know, I sat in that meeting and we discussed the salary ordinance at that meeting, Scott, if you'll remember that. And during that meeting, I walked out of the meeting. I walked out of the meeting having an understanding of the rationale about how we arrived at a total dollar amount. But I did not walk out of that meeting understanding specifically what job positions in what departments and how many positions that equal that total dollar amount that I was given. Um, and not only did I not know that, but I didn't know, okay, here, you know, I have all the documentation on the 2025 labor cost, but I did not know the distinction between what that position was in 2025, how much that increase was for 2026. What I do know is because you gave me the number, it's like 300 grand or something, and I don't have it in front of me. So, I knew the total dollar amount. And you know my concern with this because when I brought up the issue with the the job descriptions with this consultant person is that WIS had to go through every position and job description because I have job description in my on my desktop in a file folder for all the employees because WIS had to go through the job descriptions. to be able to determine what the factor evaluation u classification was going to be

because they couldn't do that classification with fees until they understood that job description. Now, if some of those job descriptions are wrong and they're overclassified, therefore that employee is getting more money, then clearly we got to get that cleaned up. And I think that's you know one of the issues but the big issue is going to be if you know to get to that 15% midpoint which is what FE was what is what fees or not fees but what you know Mike Irwin and Sheila had recommended. I personally have no idea of how much that's going to cost total. Is it 800,000? Is it a million bucks a year in digital labor costs? I don't know. And furthermore, do I not only know that, but I don't know what fund, you know, clearly if it's highway department, then it's coming out of the highway department funding, right? But most of our departments are coming out of that general fund. And so we don't have the headroom and they're to take a big giant hit. Uh we just don't have it. So, you know, the challenge with this going forward is real simple is how the heck do you pay for it?

So, what would you like for me to put in here? because there is going to be questions on on what what on the salaries to be determined okay I guess we don't know we have got to look at it well I want to add too with you know that was their they said 50 but as a number of times we said we don't know if we can afford that no which I don't think we can and that's why we have to we know that we're and that's why we did the one third how much it was we know that we're going to have to take baby steps over a period of time

correct right initially And the challenge with that is gets into this of a you know getting getting very very you know accurate numbers on what I you know everybody wants to language this is a budget but to me it's a forecast and so we're having to forecast into the future of what our revenues are going to be and what the expenses are going to be and the challenge with forecast is if you get it if you get it wrong you can get yourself in trouble And so for us to be able to address this factor valuation system, we've got to have some solid accurate forecast of revenue sources, you know, and then we're going to have to look at it and say, you know, what is it for 27, 28, 29, 30, right? And then but then the challenge is is then you know we've got which I you know right now I don't know what employees we've already bumped their income for 26 right because they've got to be kind of taken out and set off to the side if you will and then who's left and then the other issue is is that what happens if we have specific departments which you know I know bring it up but we've got departments that in order to be competitive competitive. We may, you know, I don't know where those wages are in relation to that 50% number that WIS has given us. It could be possible that we could have departments that actually need more than what that 50% external number is. I don't know.

And they so told us they would work with us on that. We just have to get together and work to figure out where we can afford to do what we can afford. And this is why I don't you know I don't mean to be a thorn in everybody's side and show show up as adversarial or trying to be a you know just a real pots. Oh gee that's good to hear. Yeah but it it in my mind it's a complicated story math story problem. It is not an easy math story problem to solve at all. No, not at all. It's a lot of work.

On this point, uh at our next meeting, we are going to hear from Rei. We're going to kind of start the budget discussion process and like really dig in, right? Like we I mean I think it's time, you know. Yeah. We need to get started with as well at the right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's

Yeah. And I you know personally I'm just trying to advocate that you know to me the big hairy audacious goal the be hag is this labor cost issue and this factor evaluation system you know and you know the rest we can do our three-day you know interview everybody but this is the big one and it's and so anyway it's it's concerns me that's all. Anything else from any anybody?

Okay. So, what we're looking at then our work our special session our next work session every day. Special session. No, it's a work session. It's not special. I I I think Susan Bevers is on the line. There's a technical term. There's a functional term. and Sus we're going to use language. Let's make sure we're using the right language. Our morning council meeting Susan Neighbors we have a special session the first Thursday of every month at 9 to 12 and then we have our regular session which is the third Monday of every month at 5:30 on May 7th. Rey will be here in the morning during our special session. Whatever you call it. Yes.

Okay. Can we just call that special confusing? It is confusing. I need it. good on the 14th, 15th, 16th as long as as it's in the evening. But if we get closer, I may free up during the day. Yeah, Scott, I don't think if we lift the past is any indication of the future. This requires Julie to try to get all those form ones in. And she's not going to get them in on all time and then how's in the world is she going to be able to take that and then she's got to get all that information to Rei, right? Yeah. And I don't I think it's completely unrealistic and it probably ought to be in August. It's really to give yourself enough headroom in there to get it done. I I think that it's just it's pushing be a weekend project.

Yeah. But let's not do that. There's no reason because furthermore, the budget needs it has to be passed in the third Monday in October, right? That's when the budget's got to be passed. Put it as a target and shoot for it and see if we get there. probably should. Let's target August now and just be done with it because that should give you enough time in August, should it not? Well, Jim, let's do How about this? Historic Historically, when we when we when we held the budget here, it was in August. It was in August. So, August is not out of the Well, it's okay. So, they got us in July. We do the three-day, you know, I like to call it dog and pony show.

I was going to say in August. All right. So then we go through that process. Then that gives us September, right? And then it gives us kind of the month of October because we've got to pass the budget in that, you know, this the regular meeting in October because it has to be approved for no by November 1st because you have to submit the form 4 in November 1st. What's what about this idea? um go earlier. You know, we have by July 1, we'll have those form one budgets in our hands. That's your assumption as a council. Let's assume that. Well, no, no, no. The auditor gets in July. Well, but I mean, she's our record keeper.

And your assumption is is that the departments will get them into it. That's not true. Can you can you all check your calendars for the 11th, 12th, and 13th of August? Looks so just continuing that thought. I mean, if we're if we have the budgets in our hands, I mean, why couldn't we I mean, for example, like I don't know if we want to start with the big ones like Brad and Highway and go through changes at these July meetings. We kind of we make up some ground. We just wait 30 days. We're kind of losing time. So, I mean, there could be a chance for us to take maybe it's the small departments like parks and wreck and, you know, recorders office and we we haven't come force with the form ones. We say, "Hey, have you had any changes at all? And if so, what are they?"

And we kind of burn through them. We kind of get moving. I'm trying to get ahead of this because every year I've been doing these so these people will know what's in their budget when they walk out of this room. Well, I I don't know that that's realist. You guys have had for two years everybody's complained because they don't know what's in their budget because nobody's contacted them to let them know what's been gone, what's not gone. Wait a second. We You're saying we have in the past approved a budget same day?

No, we have gone through on the budget hearings. We have gone through with the department head sitting right here and saying we need this. This is this is the budget number we need to get to based on the form ones. This is the budget that has been submitted. We need to trim down the submitted budget to fit in with the numbers that we have. So, what we've done is we've we've established that target. we've gone over with the department heads what would cut and as we get closer to that number one of one of the good things about it is I will send you the form ones when I get them in you guys will all have the so you'll be able to actually go through

yeah Scott we do because we need to give Julie some headroom to get her all the stuff that she has to do trying to cram this in in July is way it's just it's just it's unrealistic okay and furthermore let Let me say this. Um, you know, and I'm pulling from memory. Uh, well, matter of fact, I won't bring it up because just it's just not a thing to bring up. No, but but okay. But furthermore, you all should have copies of the 2020 six form ones. Julie, didn't you give all the 2026 form ones to every council member?

Okay. So, you know what I'm going to do personally? You all can do what you want. I'm going to go back through every department's form one of 2026 and then when you send me the 2027 form one I'm going to look at the comparison between those because matter of fact I have the 2025 form ones. All right. And furthermore, what I'm going to look at this year and do a little different than what I did last year is that, you know, uh, some of these line items, I want to understand how we arrived at that number. So, for example, I know for a fact there's a line item in the commissioner's budget for $600,000 for insurance. You know, my question is, how did we arrive at $600,000? I'd like to have a detailed breakdown of every policy and what the policy dates are and the annual premium for those policy to know specifically how you arrived at that number because $600,000 is a lot of money.

All right. On that point, okay, Scott,

on that point, um, when department heads submit their budgets, I think, and maybe this goes in your letter, and this is really good, by the way. I like what you did. Um, I would suggest we add all supporting documentation for new expenses be included in their submission kind of as an attachment. Okay. So, to Jim's point, here's what's going to happen. If we don't get that, we're going to sit on those for 30 days. We're going to get to that five minute meeting with the department head and guess what? We're not going to have the information still. We're going have to wait another two weeks and then we are once again going to be late and we're going to be pushing Julie's office to the brink as we have I'm not even going to try to get started on this. Um we've got to start getting ahead of this council. We cannot sit on this for 30 days and do nothing.

Jim and I could come up with these comparisons 24 25 26 like I mean it's not for like three departments. I mean, let's just chip away at at least something in 30 days. Let's not wait on the whole thing. Let's take pick a few strategically that we think we can manage. Hey, we got a couple issues in the corner's office, couple things at parks, a couple things here, and let's kind of start chipping away at those, especially the items we think we're going to have questions on. And it gives department heads time to talk to us about it. We can kind of hear from them. We can ask for some changes. and then in August for those maybe those problematic ones, we may have better data and actually be able to kind of follow through with that timeline. I I just don't like waiting forever. I I don't think we should.

All right, I got a I got a prop. Oh, go ahead. Quick question. Are we going to have the notebooks that has the last year's budget so much spent three years prior? Okay, we're we're going to have the the last three years, the last year's budget, the last year's actual or 202 actual today four 2024 budgeted and actual Wait a minute. Is what's is Rey doing anything? Did we fire Ry? Are they not involved or what are they doing? No, they're involved. Okay. Last year, you know, they gave us thisction and

you guys all got copies of those. We had several version of these, right? Which is what we need to be going off of. So, is Rey going to be doing this? Julie man, are you going to be sending the form ones to Rey? Uh, I can. You hadn't planned on it? I had not planned on it. No. Okay. But I will. Okay. Well, you guys do do whatever you want. Well, the question on that is if you do that and they do that, are we paying for a redundant thing when you could just do that and then send them your number? You're not doing that. Is Ed going to be involved? I don't do that kind of a Is Ed going to be involved in that process? Do we know yet? Ed? Ed, would you I do not know that. Okay. Well, because he's somewhat of a greedy light at this point.

I I don't think he's going to be in this process to be honest with you. Okay. And typically we don't tell department heads because we don't know what percentage or any uh raise that they're going to get. Again, we have to have those discussions. Yeah. With with but typically we don't tell them when we do our interviews which it's all it's all it's out of it. So I know but I'm just saying typically that's not what we do. Okay. How's this for a suggestion? Scott will be zero the the last the last week of July.

What? The last week of July, 28th, 29th, and the 30th. Julie, will that give you enough time to uh work through the form ones and get numbers together? If they if they get them to me on time, it will. If they don't, it won't.

Okay. And to your point, Scott, what we'll do is we'll start with the we'll start with the smaller departments. You know, the the the recorders, an easy department because they funded with their perpetuation fund. We'll do the smaller departments, work our way up to the biggest departments. What we generally do is the highway, the commissioners on the last day. Um, so we do the shoot for the 28th, 29th, and 30th of July. that what that does is sets up our budget hearing before our August 6th special work session on our first Do you want me to send the form ones to Riy so they can create the book? Absolutely. Yes.

Question. Yes. Okay. I'm good. Do we have Do we have a council council consensus on that? Is everybody good? If you add If you add requiring the departments to include supporting data for any changes, then I'm good with it. Okay. Yes.

And what that does is if there is an issue with those three days, that puts us really close to our first Thursday work session in August where we can bring department heads in for further questioning if anybody wants to because that is a daytime meeting. Now, for the time for the 28th, 29th, and 30th, I think they should be daytime meetings. I can't because guarantee I'll be available during the day on those days. Well, that's why I wanted to do it before later in August because July, this is still summer. Yeah. Yeah. Is that going to be It's probably be an issue for me if we start. Yeah.

Family issues or I mean I guess I'm the only one that like works on this. I mean, I mean that sounds, you know. Yeah. Somebody's got a You have a set schedule during the day. I can be flexible, but not for this kind. I can't take like all afternoon. So, but usually we do these in the evenings anyway. No, we have, but it works out better cuz they're Yeah, cuz everybody's No.

I mean, is it a hard no on a daytime? And it's a it's it's it's possible that I could be there, but not likely. Um, so if you have this much if you have this much time. Okay. Okay. All right. I What's What are the dates again? July what? 28th, 29th, and 30th. All right. 28th, 29th, and 30th. Gary, do it. Can you be here during the day? Yes. All right. You won't be out on the lake water skiing? Probably. Judy, will you be able to be here for the day? Yep. Darren, will you be able to be here for the day? Yes. Yes.

Joel, Jim, Joel, I'm assuming you will be able to. All right. So, let's do them during the day. Would you say what are the days? 28th, 20th, and 29th, and 30th. Okay. And Scott, you show up when you can. Yeah. Just note my objection to that in the minutes if you would. Yeah. Well, you can object, but you got seven people and you're one out of seven. So, you know, I'm sorry. Yeah. We can't, you know, try to bend everything to accommodate. I appreciate you go to work. It is what it is. Somebody's got a living. Well, I do too, but I'm giving Scott, if you made the decision to be a council member, and if you're if you're if you're objection, okay, so noted. So noted. So, all right. So,

I'll make a motion that we that we adopt those dates and for the time of meeting. Okay. Second. All right. And we got a second. And then and then and then Julie. Yes. Okay. Um, I tell you what, if the departments can't submit their, you know, the department heads have to submit their form ones every year on July 1. And if they can't get it in by July 1st, fine. We'll just adopt what you did in 2026. Absolutely. Period. If you can't get them in, that's your problem. All right. Sorry. That's a boundary. Don't cross it. Get them in. There's no reason whatsoever why these people can't get their form one. submitted to the downer's office on or before July 1.

You going to put that in bold at the bottom of this letter? Yes. I'm serious. I'm serious. Yes. And if they don't submit it, then we're free to make any adjustments that we Well, we have that discretion regardless. Yeah. Okay. 28th, 29th, and 30th. Now, Scott, good question for you on time. At the bottom of the bold, put the thing. Just one more thing. And don't even think about cola if you don't get it. Is your work schedule more morning heavy or morning after?

Uh it's it's it it's all day but you know to do three days all day during the day. That's the problem. It's like that's like taking a half more than half a week off for me. So it's right it's just a lot. I've got the same thing, you know, being self-employed. I'm giving up three days of of work too. So and usually we do it in the evenings. So I you know uh evening evenings if we drag on that's that's an issue. It becomes later the the later in the day we go the more frustrated we seem to get. But if we do guys midnight,

if we if we do anything past the time of 4 o'lock, don't we have to pay the people that come in? Do we have to pay the people that come in overtime or comp time or flex department? No, department head department head. So they get they're like department brings in an employee in the department. You have to pay the employee. So we end up costing the county money and labor cost. It depends on whether they're over 40 hours in there exam and that whole thing is usually Yeah. Okay. The next question. Do we want to start the Do we as part of that? Do we want to start these at 10:00? Do we want to start them at noon? Do we want to start in the afternoon?

You're going to do them in the morning. You're going to start them at 9. We can start them at 10:00. 9:00 9:00. Start at 9. 9 to noon. Do we want to do we want to shoot 9 to noon? You get 26 departments. How you going to get your 26? We get anything done at night. Generally when we've done it at night, it's been four to five hours for each one and then three. So that's 9 to set up 9 to 9 to 2, 9 to 3. 9 to 4. 9 to 4. Okay. 9 to4. 3 days. 9 to 4. We're not going to go till three days. There's some days we're not Some days we're not going to go to four. written out by president timely.

Not me. I believe I don't see that. I don't either, unfortunately. Okay, we got a a motion and a second. Okay, Jim, as part of your motion, you want to amend it to include from 9 to 4. Yeah, 94 sounds good. Okay. 9 to4 28 29 9:30 motion second. All in favor? I opposed. Nay. Roll call. Yes. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, no. Sorry, Gary. Yes. Patrick, yes. Jim, yeah. Thank you.

Okay, we have Brad has shown up. I when I you are on the agenda because I put you on there in case you were here to discuss what you were because I noticed after I initially put you on the agenda, then I noticed it was for next month. Mhm. But I didn't know if you were going to be here to introduce what you were what you wanted. We said sooner if possible, but nobody told me. Well, that's I didn't tell you. I didn't tell you because here to have you talk about it. So, am I up? Yes.

Okay. First of all, Brad Sheriff, excuse me for my parents, but I was helping my bonus son move into his apartment, so I'm a little dirty, sweaty, and whatever. But, um, couple of things I needed to talk to you about. We are, our tasers are like way past their time frame. Uh, Axon wants an astronomical amount of money to do a contract, a 5-year contract. We found another company that does refurbished TA tasers that we can buy the Taser 7s. Uh, of course, Axon's trying to push their brand new Taser 10. They don't even want to sell you. You cannot just go buy them. You have to do a contract now with them. So, uh, this company, we can buy refurbished ones. Uh, they're taser 7s, which is what we wanted anyway. Um, I'm just requesting to be able to use commissary money for that cuz it's it's probably going to be in the price tag 12 to 14,000 by the time we get the the tasers, the cartridges, some extra batteries, and Jim,

why do we need tasers when you got handguns? Well, occasionally we have to use less lethal. So, I'm very familiar with commissary money as you know. It's it's governed by the law. It's his commissary money. He's the sheriff. He knows what's needed. I don't even see where this is an issue. The money can be used for that purpose as well as the vehicle too. It can be used for that purpose. It's just the fact that uh state board of accounts wants us to have the approval of the council on certain things like that. Absolutely right. That's why I I don't see why we wouldn't approve that. I don't see why we would have to dicker about that for two days or three days. You have enough money to buy. Absolutely. I'll make a motion to prove Brad.

Okay. That's the first one. The second one was Hold on. Hold on. How what do you want a motion for? Like just to approve the funds. I I think it's use a commissary money. Use commissary funds to buy the tasers. It's going to be a minimum of 12,000 maybe to 14 or 15,000. But our guys need them and we I I got to put some in jail and I'll outfit the road guys with everything. So the approval just of whatever it costs is good enough. Julie, before that he's got a couple other points to talk about. I just want to make sure we get the amount you need if you need an amount.

Right. So, the other thing is is um I feel Jim under the best because we talked about uh I you guys approved for 50,000 for the corner's vehicle. Well, I have a vehicle. Um I don't know. I mean, I'm okay with if you guys buy the corner a new vehicle, that's fine. Good for them. Actually, we did not approve that. Where do we start that from? Because of what you're about to talk about.

Okay. So, I'm down a vehicle for sure right now. I could use two. I'm got 10 on them for sale right now, but a couple couple of them like the ones that come from the county highway and ones that went to the courthouse that we we're getting back and selling. We're not going to get much out of them. Uh the total vehicle, we've had to put some of the money in that. So, I can swap out and get a jail vehicle and I can use my misdemeanor funds for whatever left to purchase a a nice jail vehicle and give the one that we're using right now, my jail commander is using right now to the corner's office to be outitted for a vehicle if that's But before I can give them that vehicle, I need to get one purchased. So, that's where I'm at with that. Um,

and that was your point that we don't need to we don't need to buy a brand new vehicle for the coroner. Sheriff's department needs the brand new vehicle. Yes. And then we once we get all these other vehicles sold um and get that money and then the money left from the one total vehicle um I'm going to try to and then if I have to use some out of commissary I'm going to piece the parts together and another to buy another road patrol vehicle if that's okay with you guys to get that so where where we are caught up to where we need to be on our vehicles and we are getting the lot cleaned out. It's in your budget. Did you com otherwise? Huh? You can't approve the vehicle yet? No, we'll need to do an additional programation.

I have to put it in the paper. And we'll have to put it in the paper. But what I can what we can do is give them kind of a referral. Yeah. Give you a sent out. Then I'll have to order the vehicle and it takes a minute. I sent an email out to you and all the commissioners and all the council members. You all received that email I sent out, did you not? Okay. because I put in the estimated MSRP for both the Ford Explorer and then what is it? The Dodge uh Durango. Durango. Yeah, the Durango, right? Okay. Which I think that that also makes it So, thank you for that. If we can get that once I know that I can I get to go ahead to order the vehicle, that's all I need because it will take us probably at least a month or so to get it in.

Yeah. And that'll give us time to do the additional preparation to have do the ordinance and all that stuff. Yeah. Approximately 55 grand. Is that what you're going to need? Yeah, because it's not going to be outfitted with all the other stuff that I put on a road vehicle. So, how much does that cost? A road vehicle cost me 62,000 to be fully outfitted. Okay. But all the electronics that go in it now is that that's our radios that we already have. So, the lights, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so but then I did go online today and pulled up a 2017 Ford Explorer because that Ford Explorer that you're going to give to the corner office is a four-door, right? Yes. It doesn't have the third seat in the back. No. Okay. 7 ft. Yeah.

If you put the seats down, it's 7 ft. So, we're good as long as this. That's right. Why don't you come back the third seat? I want to take the seat. Yeah, we can. I mean that that we can modify that again that I think it was a brilliant idea. I just don't want the suit to be corner mad at me. Blame me like pulled the blanket out from my own under his feet. So it's fault. It's my fault.

Anyway, there's another thing I just want to bring to your attention. Um I had another officer resign today. Um so I'm going to be down come July I will be down four. Um, this was a situation that I Well, let's just say it was needed. Um, and it was a Here's here's your options. That's fine. So, you're good. Um, so, so Brad, you're down Well, you're down four, but you added three.

I've got So, I will have I will I'm down today. I went down three, but I've got a jailer that I'm hiring. I have two people waiting to to fill the jail spots. Um, so I will have to start a new hiring process, which we just posted online today to finish in the end of June, my merit board meeting to finish that one. We're going to cycle um applications till May 30th. Um, then do our testing and and everything and have that done and ready to go to the merit board by June 24th, which then Dame's I think his last day here is 1st of Julyish. July 9th is when he starts in Johnson County. So, I don't know what his end date is, but hoping to have somebody then lined up and ready to go, but that will put me unless unless I luck out and get a a transfer from somewhere else, that will put me having four to go to the academy. Um, I got one leaving next Monday or May the 4th to the academy and I will have two going in August for sure. And then just depends on where we are. Uh most likely you'll probably be seeing me in uniform and stuff on the weekends because we're we're that short. So

how long is the academy now? Uh 16 weeks. Wow. And my my FTO program is 3 months. So you're basically 7 months where they're not they're not out on the road by themselves. Is that 16 consecutive weeks? Yes. Do you happen to know how much the tasers are going to be? months 12 to 14. So, so Susan, are you still on the line? Yeah, they can't just I'm still here. I got a question about the commissary because I know

probably got the same question. I know there's a lot of um there are very strict state board of accounts rules for how we utilize those funds and I I think Brad and the council would really appreciate you just laser focusing on that making sure we get that right. Is there anything we need to know about an approval for commissary funds that we should do tonight? I mean, are we are we are we able to approve that tonight or do we need we need advertising for the tasers? For the tasers.

Yeah, for the tasers. I do think that you can go ahead and approve that tonight. Um the commissary is just very controlled and and it actually um it's it's controlled by the ordinance that you passed in Brown County. So, but typically commissary is used for training uh for equipment for both jail officers and merit officers, uniforms for those things um as well as vehicles. All of those things are typical commissary expenses in addition to running the commissary itself. Um so that none of that is out of line in any way and the tasers um can go ahead and be approved tonight. the vehicle is a little more involved because obviously you have to take that as well to the commissioners.

And then uh so it sounds like you actually have reviewed our Brown County ordinance. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. I believe I have. I think I have it in my file maybe from 24. Um so I that is going off of memory. I'm going to admit that that's just going off of memory right now. Are you comfortable with that with advising us to move forward with that or do you want a minute to review that? Yeah. No, none of again none of that is outside the scope of what commissary is typically used. There should not be an issue or a red flag that comes up with state board of accounts on these expenditures. Great.

Okay. So, we're we're we are able to go ahead and make a motion to approve up to $14,000 of commissary money for I go 15 just to be safe. Okay. Up to $15,000 in commissary money for the for the purp purchase of new refurbished tasers. I already made a motion. Okay. Motion has been made. I'm just I'm checking for legal second it legal purposes that we are are able to do that and and get Brad going on that call. Okay. We have a motion a second to approve.

Now the the motion was you want to amend your motion for up to $15,000. Okay. I'll amend my motion Brad $35 million. If I had to add my commissary out to fix everything. up to $15,000 on taser lasers. Okay. Out of the commentary. Okay. Second. You say that? Yes. Okay. We have a motion to second. All in favor? All opposed. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, yes. Gary, yes. Patrick, yes. And Jim, yes. I got a followup question. Jim, if you want to volunteer to be a prom.

Oh, yeah. That's right. We never did get that done, did we? Do you know how to have a heart attack? I want to be a fundraiser. And then and then Susan, what we're going to need for our next we do this at our next regular meeting or our next regular meeting. because that was when you had requested a regular

I can I can make some calls and get you an exact number and we can look to see what we've got like our other vehicles should be sold by then so I can have a better idea of what where where we need to be on the other vehicle and then I can I can have you some prices lined out. Okay. And then hold on, Jim. And then get those get those numbers to Julie and Susan if we could be ready to get that ordinance for our regular May council meeting to get Brad approved for the purchase of his new vehicle. Okay. I have administrative question. Commissioners legally own all the uh vehicles. Yes. Correct.

Yes. Okay. So, it's actually the money needs to be allocated in the commissioner's budget. Correct. Correct. Yes. Because the commissioners will actually cut the check and pay for the vehicle. Yes. So, what we really need is we need to we're giving you a verbal, right? But the commissioners need to draft a they commissioners need to uh Well, we need an ordinance. Susan, you there? I'm still here. Susan, are you there?

Okay. Yeah. So, Wouldn't you what, Susan? Wouldn't you draft an ordinance for the council that we appropriate the money this additional preparation into the commissioner's budget so that they can then pay pay for the police car from Salem? Yeah, I think it depends on where the sheriff wants to pay for this from, right? So, there's there is money that's going to drop back into a fund based upon the sale of these vehicles. And I I think what he was saying, he got some insurance from a total vehicle. So, wherever that money drops, that has to be appropriated from that same spot. And then he's going to

The money's going to drop. Is the money going to drop into a fund? It's going to drop in the fund, but then there has to be a line item to cover that vehicle, right? So, lots of times, um, it may drop into general miscellaneous as the income line that that where that goes. Um, so then we have to appropriate something out of general fund. And then I think what the sheriff was saying is is that he would pay the remainder out of commissary. Um, and I thought the jail vehicle, correct me if I'm wrong, he was thinking about the county misdemeanor fund. Did I hear that correctly? Yes.

Yeah. So, there's another there's an additional appropriation out of county misdemean. So there's potentially an an additional appropriation out of the general fund and out of the county misdemean fund with the sheriff supplementing out a commissary for the remainder of some purchase for the road vehicle, I think. Okay. So basically Brad, Julie, somebody in the office, they need to tell you Susan what we're going to do and then you need to draft an ordinance. Correct. Yes. Yep. Absolutely. So I think between the weeds tonight if the money goes back into the general fund and the miscellaneous.

Yeah. Well, that's for you guys to handle it. I mean I don't Yeah, that's for you guys to figure you guys can figure that out. Right. Great. And then as far as the timing, Brad, how soon do you need the the money to pay for the right to check for the vehicle? I mean, the sooner I can order them, the better. I just need to know that. I mean, you can go pay for them until they come in. We go get them. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. This last one, what they did is they get I I e sign everything. I go down there when I pick up the vehicle. They give me all the paperwork and I I get that to the office and they cut the check and then I get the the what the certificate of title back. So then we can then plate it and get

Okay. So, you should be able to coordinate that with Julie Commissioner's office and with uh with Susan. And then once Susan's getting the ordinance passed, she coordinates with Darren and they get the ordinance before. We pass the thing and it's done and you get your money and pay for it, right? Okay. And you said some of the money you're going to be using is uh insurance from a total vehicle. Yes. Okay. Yeah. We're we're slowly getting back where we need to be on our vehicles. just need to be honored people. Um, anything else? Nope.

Yeah. Uh, on budget, so fast forward to July and your budget submission. Um, you know, we're you just you just talked about how we lose officers on the streets for 7 months when they go to get their certification. Yes. We're paying them full-time. That officer is not in the county. We are really spending a lot of money to train folks if they're not certified. And so as I look at the counties adjacent to us and their hiring notices, what I'm noticing is they I'll just say that they're out competing us not just in pay.

And this is where I want Susan, I got a question for you here and probably for our HR folks. Um, what I'm seeing our adjacent counties do to out compete us is they are including kind of some creative really not that creative but we're not being that creative. They're including things like the ability to transfer vacation time rather than coming in as if they have zero experience and go to like they got to wait a year to get vacation. They're allowing these officers, these high demand officers to bring their vacation over in terms of how many vacation weeks they get per year, not their residual stuff that they get paid out for, but so you know, you got an experienced officer, they can bring over that time commitment and and and benefit and then they're doing other a lot of other things. Okay. And so Susan, I guess my question to you is, you know, is there a way for us for a high demand position like officers? I mean, obviously there's a way because every other county that's around us is doing this. Uh the question is, how can we do this? And do you have any advice for Brad so he can bring something like this to our budget? It's almost not even a budget impact question, but Susan, do you have any advice on this? Because we we need to kind of start competing. I think

you talk about lateral transfers. It's it's kind of lateral transfer, but you can bring your benefits with you in your experience transfer, correct? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. That would be I've decided by him. No, no, it's not a salary question. It's it's a benefit question and what they salary question as well. That too. Okay. Okay. So,% if they're competing on that. So, but that's the question, Susan. And I don't know if Jackson's doing that as well, but any thoughts on that so we can start to compete because that's, you know, if we could compete, as an example, we get one officer out of those three that actually is certified, we to secure seven additional months of public safety officer on our streets

and save the tens of thousands of dollars in training. So it's very important. Uh Susan, go ahead.

Yeah. So that is absolutely an HR question, right? And so that's the purview of the commissioners. If they want to try to um make that as an offer and work with the sheriff to do that, that is up to them. I think in order to do that, right? So if you if you do a lateral transfer and you bring in somebody who has 15 years of experience who already has five weeks of vacation at wherever whatever department they are at, right? That is a bit of a fiscal hit to you as well, right? Because now you're allowing somebody to take 5 weeks of vacation right away. And so, um, so it, I mean, it is a little bit of a fiscal hit. You have to do a little bit of a study to determine what's the fiscal impact to the sheriff's budget if he does allow that. Um, and there's also the question of do we bring in a a 15-year person and allow them to go into the 15-year salary or 15 years of longevity here, right? I mean, that's that's where you

officers don't have longevity. Okay. Yeah. And we don't have a matrix. So that's that's another part of the problem. Question. What what is to see determine savings? What does it cost to send someone to the academy? And and when you're giving me this number, does that also include their wage during that time for they're charging $5,000 right now to go? I think it's 5,000 what they're charging to the academy right now. Okay. Plus wages. Okay. And wages. wages include retirement, health care, taxes, the whole nine, right? Yeah. I mean, it's four months wages.

Brad, at one time, and I've slept since then, I think you said maybe to bring a new person in, send them through the academy, everything that you would need done was aboutund equipment, everything's like $160,000

for a year, for the first year. Yeah. Excuse me. We're we're we're puking money by what we're doing. I mean, it it's not it's not a joke. I'm not trying to We are literally losing money year after year after year and we're losing people to other counties and they are making money because they are taking our trained officers and you know at the breakfast for you guys over there. Yeah. I I'm I'm upset. I'm I'm tired of this game and this is something that I want to fix. And I've talked to Jim about it and one of the things that I'm proposing for right now to try to I mean 500,000 would fix my issue right now in one one fail swoop. However, you'd have to keep up with that. I'm I know that the council probably cannot do that. So, what I'm trying to ask for is and I'm talking I'm having issues in dispatch. I'm having issues in jail keeping people I'm down to dispatchers right now. I just hired one but it takes a long time to train a dispatcher. But in part of the problem just for edification and part of that problem that these other counties that can afford to pay have the same issues as you're having but they can afford to do it. We cannot.

Right. And they're the the problem too is like the the surrounding counties they you know I I talk to the sheriffs there all the time and they're they're a much larger county than us that has they they are losing people as well here and there but the impact on them is not the impact that it is on us. When when you have a total of a 16-man department and you go down four in one year that percentage you're down 25%.

Yes. That percentage hurts a lot. You go down four in Bartham County where they have 40ome officers, that's that's a different scenario and it's affecting our public safety and it's affecting what we can do for this community and it it truly is. And then it also it keeps putting us down like none of my road officers now none of them have 10 years on. See that's why I was for me and I got seven years and less and most of them I think six of them now have three years or less. See for me I part of the inkeepers tax I know it's not a popular thing. I I don't see why it couldn't be used for this but but others disagree with that but I think it should be. That's just

one of the things that I think could start me on the right track and I just wanted to kind of throw this out. I don't know the full numbers, but I would like to see a $5,000 across the board for everyone in my office with a guarantee of 5% the next 3 years. And I think that that would help stop this bleed. And if we could get it down to where I'm only losing one every two years on the road, that that would that would start to fix our problem. You guys can mull that over. Look at the numbers. I just wanted to throw that out there. I know that that's the benefits on top of that that cost a little more, but you realize that probably I'm sure you realize that's probably not realistic, but I get

I think it is if if we could get money from other what that that amount Yeah. will pay two folds in 5 years. That amount will will save us the a lot of heartache and headache. And here's the thing, too. retention eliminates a lot of the problems that we have. And so the more the younger my department is out there serving the public, the more apt I am to have lawsuits, to have other issues. It's just we're not doing we just don't have the experience, right?

And I can't I can't I'm having young officers train young officers, right? And so I don't have experience out there training people and it it's I mean it's becoming it's becoming a serious issue and I don't see why that's not realistic. Well the the fact the county doesn't have the money that's the problem. We got to come up with some and we're just going to keep losing money because because the way we're doing it we're just we're losing more and more every year. But that's why I'm for getting behind using the inkeepers tax for some of that. But there again, that's there there's a fight there that we're not going to win. We can't do that to stabilize.

Well, according to what I understand from the lawyer here, um Susan, that we couldn't do that, could we not, Susan? So, I think that broadly speaking, you have to use it for tourism related things. And if that means very broadly using some of it to pay for maybe it's special special events that that have to happen for law enforcement. I don't think you can absorb the salary of law enforcement by the inkeepers tax if that makes sense. Um there are some things Go ahead. Go ahead.

Go ahead. I just don't think there's a hard number on that to use year after year after year either that could cause serious issues down the road. There are some issues, some things in parks and fairgrounds that may be diverted into another inkeepers tax budget that may free up money towards you. But again, that's not going to be a hardline number every year, year after year, right? And that that could really bite the county in the you know what and and if it doesn't

keep I know you probably weren't prepared to speak about that. I didn't want to bring up open a can of worms but I did kind of want to peek into the can of worms because we've got to get this ball rolling. You've been coming to us I don't know my whole career a long time trying to help resolve this. I do think it's there's no silver bullet here. It is not just pay. I think it's the the the the transferring of time. I think it's the transferring of experience and kind of benefits. Man pay. Yes. I think we got to do money. Set a matrix as well.

Yeah. Matrix. We can't bring every officer in the same whether they have zero experience or 20 years. You know, we've got to do several things and we need to start competing. If you're going to say one thing there's we need to do. We've got to start competing on the same level. One of the things that I know that when we did the raise from the prosecutor's office, they took away. Um, you know, my officers right now are the only ones that don't get longevity in the county and me included in that. So, that's something you could throw back in, throw in some of the raises. I don't know. Start start put on this, too.

Yeah, Jim and I are going to talk. We're we're talking. But the thing of it is is like I I think that that the and I'm not trying to be mean, Patrick, but that well we that's just I know, you know, I mean to just write things off like like that and say we can't do that. That's that's what we've been told all along and that's why we're where we are because we haven't sat down and truly figured out. Well, we understand the budgeting process, but Jim had some input on this if people listen what he found out about just what I was talking about. If I can get him to talk, which I can't believe he won't. Are you sure you wanna do that? Speaking of can of worms. Good lord. Say it.

Bring it on. Oh boy. How How much time does he have?

Yeah, I'll be as brief as I possibly can. First of all, we got a half a million dollar problem. We've got to find $500,000 approximately for the law enforcement center. is, you know, and I'm not so certain that that will be a cure all. Um, number two, and I'm going to stay on record on this, is, you know, and I can back this up, so everything I'm saying is not anecdotal. It is not subjective. It is not superficial. I actually have the fact to support it. We don't have a revenue problem in this county. What we have is an expense problem. And the reality is this is that we as a council, sorry, but we're going to have to determine what we prioritize. And we either prioritize the law enforcement or we don't. Right? And you know, my concern with law enforcement as a community member and a taxpayer is I do not, you know, I have a real issue with having 17 road deputies that maybe might have a combined experience of lord knows how many years. The other issue we've got is I don't know how many of the 17, which would the 17 deputies that we have that actually reside in the county. And for me, what's important is if we're going to have law enforcement officers that are here to serve and protect, I'd really like for those people to live in the county, be able to afford to live in the county, be a part of the community. Um, you know, now we know we've got the turnover. We've got, you know, brand new people out there that are coming out of these school. You just said you're going to have four out of the 17 that are going to have to go through that 16week training. Well, this is resented pushing for dash cams. So, we need dash cams in those cars uh to protect the county because if I was a law enforcement officer and being, you know, 25 years old, I'm an adrenaline junkie and I would love to drive fast and there

wouldn't be anything better than get a 911 call and I get to throw the lights on and mash the pedal to the floor and be like, "Oh boy, am I going to have fun." So, we probably ought to have dash cams in those cars just to protect the county from a liability standpoint. With regards to the inkeepers tax, that's a completely separate issue. I spent first of all, let me say this. I had a conversation with the state board of accounts. And the state board of accounts, they do not have a written policy on what I'm going to refer to as prohibited transactions. Okay? They don't have there's nothing from the state board of counsel that says that you cannot do this, you cannot do this, you cannot do this. Number one. Number two, you get into the state statute and I had a 90minute phone call with Eric Cook. Okay. On the statute and the problem with the statute is the general assembly per Eric Cook, you know, every of the 92 counties, everyone wants to have their own autonomy. And so they draft that legislation in a very generic broad way and it's very very poorly written uh because it's basically one sentence that basically says something to the effect to you know support you know tourism and economic development. It's about it. So now Patrick, you get into the question of how do you define tourism? You know, what's important to tourism? And so we all can sit here and you can make a very easy argument that public safety and being able to have ambulance services, being able to have sheriff deputies who were trained to go to the state park. Um, the challenge with the inkeepers tax though, and this is the reason I brought up several months ago about, and I don't think anything's happened, about the the

CDC board writing up governing documents and getting very crystal clear of how we as a county choose to define that legislation in the context of Brown County. Now, if we were to do that and define, you know, create a governing document and be very crystal clear with the language of how we define that state statute. Um, then the reality is is, you know, we can pretty much do what we want to knowing that what's probably going to happen is the state board of accounts is going to push back. Well, that's fine. state board accounts. You all can push back, but we're going to push back on you because they do not have any documented written language that speaks specifically to prohibitive transactions. So, when we say that we're going to use inkeepers tax to fund public safety, okay, show me the document from the state board of accounts that states that that's a prohibited transaction. They don't have it. And no one in the of the 92 counties, I don't know that there's any counties that have really challenged that. And my, you know, after 40 months, my perception is we walk around here and we let these agencies, these Indiana government agencies pretty much do what they want and then we just say, "Well, we can't do it. We can't do it." And then we let them kind of push, you know, let them dictate what we can and cannot do. Whereas what we ought to be doing is pushing back on them and saying enough is enough, right? and and I'm with you because they put in there quality of life. Okay. Well, how do you have quality of life if you don't have public safety? And that's across the board with fire department, EMS, and police.

Correct. But they say, "Oh, no, that's not quality of life we're talking about." Right. So, it sounds like a subjective interpretation by other people that are making it just for personal, right? and and and we and so it it's there's you know that that's a battle and you know and an issue is whether or not we as a county and specifically county council has the political will because this comes down to doing some things sometimes it's not that much fun right

and you better have the political will to stand up and say enough is enough and I'm going to push back and if you don't have that political will then you're never going to be able to influence any positive change going forwards fair I'm Okay, I've got a uh Judy has to leave here by 7:30. Um we council Thank you very much, Brad. I was going to continue um do we want to continue with Judy leaving or do we have other stuff that we need to know? Anybody have anything else? I think you're done. Most of

Thank you. Second. I'll say it. All in favor.