County Council - workshop

Well.

I'll call this meeting to order.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I have no way to bring up the agenda, so I'm going to go by memory. Did you like me to go print one? Sure, if you want to. Or a couple. Let's see. Minutes are always on the agenda, but we'll do that at the regular meeting. I guess we'll start with Perlita, Brown County Clerk.

Good morning, John. Good morning.

Thank you.

to ask for an additional $50,000 of our legal funds because our lawsuit brought against the election board by Richard Stanley and the current Commissioner Tim Clark is still sitting at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals with no ruling on it. We have exhausted all the funds that were allocated for 2026 already because of this ongoing legal battle and all the extras that came during the primary election. We are currently $10,906.23 over budget. So I'm hoping that the additional $50,000 will cover it. If it doesn't, I'll see you again in about three months.

What do you see coming up beyond the $10,000 that we're over on?

Well, since it's still sitting at the Court of Appeals in Chicago and they haven't made a ruling, I have no idea.

Okay. Do you know what it's cost so far this year?

Over $53,000.

That we wouldn't have had to pay if that suit were those?

Correct.

Okay.

We allocated 42 grand specifically for this ongoing vindictive lawsuit by the city county commissioner. All right, so now she's 11 grand in the red, so that puts us at 53,000. So if you take 11 grand from 50, wouldn't that be 39?

Well, 53 minus the 11 would be the 42,000. So if you take 53,000 and you add 39, right, how much would that be? No, we allocated $42,000.

Or more than $100,000. Not yet. $53,000.

I already had some funds in my budget from 2012.

What was that? $7,000, something like that?

Something like that. And you allocated the additional $40,000.

So that's $49,000. So I'm assuming the $7,000 that was originally on an annual basis, you've got to have some money for legal issues, right? So that was the $7,000. Then we allocated an additional 42 above and beyond that. Well, that puts it at 49 grand, right? So now you're 11 grand in the whole. So that's 49 and 11, right? So 49 and 10 would be 59, right? So it's 60 grand. So we've spent 60 grand a year to date on this thing. And so we can allocate, I mean, we're going to have to allocate the additional 50, right? But here's the issue that I'm having a real difficult time with. All right, this is by a sitting county commissioner. And keep in mind, this all started, if I'm pulling through, my memory's correct, that a sitting county commissioner, Tim Clark, and Rich Stanley, who's an IP attorney, filed a complaint so they could proactively seek the removal of Mark Bowman from the chair position of the Brown County Republican Party. That hearing was in Brownstown by the, I believe it's called District 9, which is a collection of chair people that sit on several counties. They heard the case. They ruled and they kicked Tim Clark and Rich Stanley out of the Republican Party for a period of five years. Then they appealed. They appealed at the Indiana GOP and the Indiana GOP upheld the decision then. So then, I believe what occurred after that, then the election board upheld the Indiana GOP's ruling that Rich Stanley was to be no part of the Republican Party for a period of five years. That's when they then filed suit against the Indiana election board. Is that not correct?

No.

What did I miss?

I don't know, but you did it pretty good.

Eight months prior to... even filing for the primary election, your candidacy for this year. This all started almost a year ago. Rich Stanley had sent an email to the election board demanding that we hold a special meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to uphold the Indiana and ninth district GOP's ruling against he and Tim Clark and Mark Williams who was the chairman of my board at that time responded and said no we will not hold any special meeting we will not hold any special vote because it was hypothetical right if they wish to run be a candidate, they would follow the process and procedures set forth by the state and the federal government, and rulings would be made at that time. But prematurely, we were not going to hold a special meeting or take a vote. Rich Stanley then sent a reply to the election board stating that, in short, if we didn't hold this special meeting and take this special vote, we would force him to file a lawsuit in the federal courts seeking justice. At that point, we stopped responding with him. We didn't respond anymore. He threatened lawsuits, so we shut down communication. Two weeks later, he filed his lawsuit in the federal courts of Southern Indiana. Southern Indiana dismissed it, and he wasn't happy about it, neither of them, he nor Tim. And then they filed an appeal in the Seventh Circuit Court out of Chicago. And that's where we're at now. And it's still sitting on some magistrate or judge's desk in Chicago, and they have not made a ruling on it.

Yeah, and so at the very core of this potential $100,000 bill that the county taxpayers are facing, you certainly could use that money someplace else.

It's all based on retaliation.

Right, yeah, because Tim Clark had a personal vendetta against Mark Bowman, and he basically leveraged... Rip Stanley, because Rip Stanley is an IP attorney, which means that they didn't have any legal expenses to take this. It blew up in their face, and instead they got booted out of the Republican Party for five years, right? And it's vindictive behavior. It is vindictive behavior by a setting county commissioner, okay? And it's costing the county, you know, a lot of money. And in addition to that, don't forget the Barnes and Thornburgs. billable hours that he's racked up with regards to his vindictive behavior over the Brown County Music Center. So I'm having a real problem with this. And to be quite honest with you, I would like to see the county council have a special council meeting Okay, it's 6 o'clock at night, a public meeting, and I'd like for, you know, if anybody costs us $1,500, whoever your current legal representation is, is to come before the county and let's walk through this step by step by step so that we can have a better understanding of what, you know, where we're headed with this whole thing. So I don't have a problem with allocating, you know, the $50,000. You know, it's a bill that's going to have to be paid. But at the core of that, who's racking up the bill is Tim Clark. He's the one that's driving this based off of vindictive behavior. And that's how the whole thing originated. And I have a real problem with it. So there you go. I voiced my opinion. Have a nice day.

Anybody else?

Anything from anybody else?

I don't think it would be much good other than go with the flow of what the...

But at the core, where I'm having a difficult time, is that the Brown County taxpayers need to be aware of what's going on. Okay? Now you made it clear. I didn't understand what you were talking about. The taxpayers need to be aware of what's going on, okay?

Because it's their dollars we're spending.

Because it's their money that we're being forced to have to spend. And furthermore, the reason I'm calling for a special meeting is let's have the facts laid out on paper and have her crystal clear of how we got to where we are right now to avoid any sort of, I don't know what word to use, but let's clear it up and make sure we've got a clear understanding

But I would be aware of doing that without especially the input of an attorney. Well, let me finish. With the input of our legal counsel to do that, because that could be looked at as possibly the counsel being vindictive or a defamation of character. I would be...

If you would reach out to your legal representation and then if they think it's a good idea and would be willing to do it, great. If they don't think it's a good idea and wouldn't be willing to do it, that's okay too.

So even though we're a county, and if we win, couldn't we actually file for reimbursements for our attorneys?

We could, however, most judges frown up on reimbursement when it's county government that is involved. They usually do not.

But it's not the county money we're spending. It's the taxpayer money we're spending. Yeah, but as a county entity.

George, judges typically do not reimburse you for your attorney fees when you are a government entity.

Even though Mr. Stanley has asked for, if they win, they have asked for us to cover their legal fees.

So this is coming out of the general fund. What's the line item number?

36100.0062. All right, just give me the line, Adam.

30 what? And do it in two digits.

What?

36100. 36100? Yeah. Okay.

I want to make a motion that we appropriate... Well, I want to wait until our regular meeting to actually... I wanted her to present today.

Why can't we just do it today and get it done instead of procrastinating? Well, it's got to be...

Has it been advertised?

It's not been advertised. So I was going to have her present today in our work session. Let me check on that because I've got my stuff with me. And then that way we can get it actually drawn up.

Let's get it done at the regular meeting and not let it slip through the cracks.

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you all. Have a wonderful day.

Thanks, you two. I don't hear council bill 7 the stipend policy anybody having Thoughts or updates are waiting on you read that the last day. Yeah, and we had a couple changes Was that

We're not doing stipends anymore.

Yeah.

Except there's some exceptions.

Yeah. That is a great way to summarize.

We're not doing stipends anymore, everybody. Yeah.

There was just some wording that we didn't have changed.

That's what we're voting on.

We're not voting on it yet. We'll do it at a regular meeting.

I haven't gotten the changes on it yet. We should have that by our regular meeting.

Can you email that out when you get the changes so I can read it and know what's in it?

So I got an issue here with I want to know what you guys want me to do with this, okay shares putting longevity back on their budgets I

Council took the longevity away when when they came in and asked for. To go with prosecutors pay at the percentage. I have the salary ordinance from then, and I also have the minutes from then. Okay. Basically stating that the longevity for those individuals would not.

I have something here today that I've got 10 handouts, and this is a major drill down into the FES system.

Okay? Yeah.

And I answer.

Yeah, no. Is that what you and Judy discussed? Correct.

Judy came to my office, we reviewed this, spent about three hours together, and I don't know where she's at.

But anyway... She's not feeling well this morning.

Okay. Anyway, this issue, as far as I'm concerned, this is my position on it, you guys do whatever you want, with regards to the 2027 budget, okay? The county, correct me if I'm wrong, please.

I will.

Okay. We have a three-person committee specifically for accurately classifying job descriptions according to the FES system. which that is critical to the FES system, correct? Okay. We also, I believe, agreed that we are going to sign an agreement with WIS, and we are going to leverage WIS to leave an outsource to a disinterested, objective, rational, third party to be able to make the decision. job descriptions based on the six categories and 19 subcategories correct so anytime any request comes from a department in the context of compensation that goes to the committee the committee can rule on it and then if they want to rule then they forward it to WIS correct Okay, that process, we need to write that up and that needs to be in writing so that we've got it documented so that all the departments understand this is the process.

I actually agree with that.

In addition to that process, we also, I believe, made a decision that any changes with regards to job description classification And then that gives the committee the second quarter to review those requests, work with WIS, and then make a decision based off WIS's recommendation. Fair? Is everybody on the same page so far?

So far.

As far as I'm concerned, looking at the 27 budget, I don't really care what any department had or anything that they put on the 401s in the context of compensation because it is the responsibility of the Brown County Council to determine compensation for each and every employee in the county. It is not left to the discretion of the elected official for that department to tell the council, this is what we want you to pay our people. That's not how this works. Especially now that we've got the FU factory evaluation system in place, correct?

Okay, so this issue with you, that is, this is our decision. This is the council's decision on compensation.

That's why I'm asking.

I know, I know, and that's where I'm at with this. So Brad,

Hey, appreciate you doing what you're doing, but... Well, it was my understanding that everyone was told that they go back to what they got in the salary ordinance in 2026 until we get our budgets aligned and figure out what we're going to do then.

Is that not correct? No, that's correct, but it's also the way the budget process works is department heads can request... I know how it works. And so, you know, it sounds to me like you're bringing up an issue that Brad is requesting our consideration of. To your point, it's the council's decision. I don't know if it's a request. He's bringing up a request. It's a request. It's a budget request. What I like about it, just on the surface, This is the first time I've thought a lot about it yet, but is that we do have a problem with longevity in the sheriff's office. So, you know, I think we need to hear him out. And, hey, if you think this is Brad and Sheriff, you're going to improve our longevity with this. We need to hear him out. You know, he's the one in the weeds on it. And we can say no. They chose to give that up. Whatever, you know.

When they went with the percentage of the prosecutor, they chose that.

No, no, I get that. I get that. Yeah. That was, what, three years ago? discuss it, but it also needs to be carved out and it also has to be fit in the context of the FES system.

The whole purpose of the FES system was to take away all of this.

And I've got it, and I don't know what's next on the agenda, but this would be a good transitional point. I'm interested to see that. I've got a lot of time and energy wrapped up in this.

You've got so much energy, you want to come to our office and work?

No, because I've got other things to do. Are you guys good? Mr. No, yeah.

The President Well, one other thing. Just before that, we got the PAC Committee, the Personal Advisory Committee. We had discussions this past week or Monday about they're looking to legal for the interpretation that ultimately has been bounced around as to who does the job descriptions. Okay. We thought we did it, then we thought the commissioners did it, and then we came back to, apparently from Lori, that we do it.

When I hit timeout.

Okay, except they got one big department, they do a lot of it.

My takeaway from Lori is it's actually the, whether it's the elected official or the department, or whether it's the highway superintendent, whomever the leader is over the department, it is their responsibility to draft the individual job descriptions. It's not the commissioner's and it's not the council. Well, it is the commissioner's for the department. It's the approval.

under their commissioners, which is where the confusion came from because, well, the commissioners are supposed to do approval. They're supposed to approve the ones for the highway department.

Right, highway department, EMA director.

Yeah, there's a few departments under the commissioners that they approve, but it's the department head, the recorder, the treasurer, they approve or they write the job descriptions for their employees in their department. and we ultimately approve them.

So rather than us sit here and, again, go over and over and over a subject matter, right, in a very, you know, subjective way, you know, I would highly recommend, you know, I'm assuming we're going to pass and approve the relationship with Wagner, Irwin, and Shealy, okay, that what we do is ask Lori to draft up a document that speaks specifically to job descriptions.

The process.

Yeah, the process. Whose responsibility it is to write the job and what that process is. Because to me, if I look back over this last three and a half years, We had, and I've got it. Can I hand this stuff out now? Yeah, yeah.

Just on that note. It's on the documentation right now. Just on that note, I'm just saying there was discussion. Tim is looking for legal interpretation as to who actually approves the job descriptions. I told him, fine, just get it in writing. We've got to get it through Lori and whoever else is going to be involved with this to say, okay, we want it in writing. It's locked in. Boom, it's set.

Yeah, I want it in writing. And that needs to be disseminated to every department. So everybody's on the same page, the whole thing. So we go, here's how we do it, blah, blah, blah, clear it up and be done. Because to me, for me, what's really, really, really, really, really important is this old... 35 pay grade thing that we had with the stipends and this convoluted thing.

That's gone. It doesn't matter anymore.

I understand, but I'm getting back to what the why. I want to address the why did we get to where we are right now. Okay? Everyone, and I don't blame I do not believe, if I was a county employee or a department head or whatever, I would do the very same thing. I'd be beating you guys up, asking for every dime I could squeeze out of you, okay? I would. Yeah. Okay, and you guys would get sick of hearing me. And I wouldn't care about anybody else. Well, you always are. I'm just kidding. Thank you. I'm just kidding, yeah. You're all tied into it, though.

But at the core of this is the compensation...

has to be, it's imperative. If we want to improve the culture, if we want to reduce the turnover, if we want to keep people for a long time so they can actually file for their pension and be here long enough to get their pension, then we gotta clear up this compensation.

And it has to be extremely objective very rational, right? And the compensation is based off of this 50% external regression to the mean calculation. Whereas before, it was extremely subjective. And I can say that because you all asked me twice to come up with a recommendation.

for the commissioner's administrative assistant, and you asked me to do it for the payroll person, whatever her name and title is, okay? You gave it to her.

And what I personally discovered, trying to figure it out, is it's extremely subjective. And I'm like, well, this isn't good. So I'm like, we'll get a pay grade 14, sounds good. Whereas now, as long as WIS, you know, this 50% external midpoint number, you know, what counties are you pulling from, okay? And then, of course, the calculation or using regression to mean to calculate that 50% midpoint.

That is the benchmark that we have to use because that's an external benchmark. That's not me coming up and going, my gosh, they ought to make $36 an hour.

That's the thing on the table right now with WIS, right? Yes.

Okay.

So do we want to move to that WIS thing? Yeah, let's do the WIS thing, and then can I introduce this on the record after we do the WIS thing?

Can I say one more thing? I have one more question. I have two individuals on the salary ordinance. It was my understanding that we were not to drop anyone's pay when we did all this. Two of the individuals on this pay on the, I have discovered two of the individuals on the new salary ordinance's pay dropped. I want to correct that and put, I mean, I'll do an amendment for it.

I'm okay with where you're headed. My concern is the approach. Okay, because can you hold that thought Is it a reclassification issue? Can we reclassify these? No. So it's just a clerical error? Yes.

Well, no, it's not. They followed what they did was our form ones have them as one thing, which they were paid that last year, the year before that. So they have it. And then with the classification, the classification is less than what they were actually making, the classification we used. So they dropped it to that classification. And it was my understanding, as well as everyone else's, that if you were making over that classification, you stated what you were making. and not dropped your pay.

Hold that thought. Do not lose that thought.

So we don't lose it. Let's make sure we don't lose it. She's bringing up an issue, and she's got the floor. Let's just make sure we address it. So where do we put that issue? Is that a budget review issue?

No, this is a this year issue. So I need to do an amendment to the salary ordinance to correct this and get their pay back where it was.

I just heard Susan pipe in, is that right? Yes. Okay, maybe Susan can get us on the path, because this is an issue. No, Scott, let me jump in here.

I've got this here, and you guys don't have this.

This issue's not going away. This issue's not going away. This is about this issue.

We can come back to this. Scott, you cannot, what child classification do you know?

Off the top of my head, no. I would have to go to Susan to get it.

Yeah, I can go get it.

It's the maintenance individuals.

In the commissioner's office? Uh-huh. They were making 43 and were dropped to 41.

Yeah, one dropped by $1,700, the other dropped by $2,000. Hold on, let me just summarize. What happened is when we implemented the FES system, we said nobody is going to go down from where they are.

I get that.

These two individuals fell through that and actually dropped, one by $1,700 and one by $2,000.

What you cannot do is you, well, you could do whatever you want, I guess, but you cannot do that. But the minute you start going down this rabbit hole, you screw up the entire FES system.

No, this is just a good, no, hold on, let me finish.

Hold on, let me finish.

This is a correction to something that happened that we said was not going to happen.

You can't take, if I've got 15 employees, you know, and we'll just pick them up, that is an LTCB, all right? And the pay grade based on a 2026 salary ordinance for an LTCB is 2357. And if I have two employees that they were making more than that before we flip them to an LTCB, and then we arbitrarily go in and take these two employees and bump their pay to 25.57 an hour, you just, the whole thing begins to lose its integrity. You've got two employees over here with an LTCB making $25 an hour, and you've got the other 15 employees over here making $23 an hour. Hold on. Julie, if they didn't fall through the rabbit hole, what would have happened? Let's, if you guys will.

I can answer this right away.

You can't answer because you don't have the data in front of you.

I can answer because I have the data of what happened. Give it to me in writing. Julie and I talked about...

Boys, boys.

I just asked a question.

I'm not going to have arguments over it.

I'm trying to tell you what happened, Jim. I don't need it on three pieces of paper in front of me to tell you what happened. Will you listen? Okay. Speak. We're not arbitrarily taking two people up. We're... They got knocked down from where we said nobody was going to get knocked down. I get it. We are correcting and bringing them back up to the point where we said nobody would be knocked down from.

Time out.

That's simple.

I don't need three pages to... Time out. Time out.

I'm going to get my paperwork. I'll be back.

Thank you.

Thank you. So that way Jim can see it.

I get what... I understand what you're saying. And it needs to be resolved.

Yes.

I get that. I'm not disagreeing with you on that point. Where my disagreement comes in is that as soon as we can get to this...

I'm ready to get to that.

I want this to come after that. If we can get... There are six classifications and 19 subcategories. Right, right. The hourly wage based off of these 19 job classifications should hold true for every employee who is assigned a specific job classification.

Yes.

Fair? Correct. Okay. Currently, it's not.

No, because we're still adjusting.

So what this addresses, this addresses is that how much is it going to cost us by fund because keep in mind the general fund on labor costs based off this the general fund there's two-thirds of the labor cost as a county come out of the general fund so the question is is in order for us to get the old employees on these 19 job classifications so regardless of what job classification that employee is they are all making the same hourly rate.

Right, for the same classification.

For the same classification, right.

So to do that... Why don't you go ahead and pass those out? Because we're ready to discuss that. Well, we're discussing it now. Well, let's get back in here and get to it back in here.

Yeah, and so what this addresses is what I did is I've gone in and I said, because I've got it all here, everything. All right.

I mean, they need to hear this.

How much is it going to cost us for 20? Don't give that to Jim yet. We're going to set that aside for a minute. We'll get to that point. We're not giving anything to anybody.

This could potentially address this. to make a decision on the WIS agreement?

Yeah, did everybody get a chance to look it over? Send it out. It's basically one page.

Yeah, I read it. Okay.

Yeah, anybody have an issue with it?

No, I don't. Okay.

Can you... Summarize it? Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Are we going to pass it? Can we pass it today? Okay. Are we going to put that off until the regular meeting?

I think we'll do that in our regular meeting. I'd like to do all the official paperwork. That's fair. Voting at our regular meetings. So can I make a comment? Oh, great.

Are you sure you want to step into this, Kevin? I'm requesting permission to be recognized. Wow. There you go. There you go. So the agreement that you're talking about is a memorandum of understanding or all that. So you realize there's a contract review that has to be completed with that, right? Other conditions.

Yeah. Okay. Just so you know, I mean, this is what we're.

Okay, that's fine. And I'm not saying, again, we're not the ultimate authority for the officers of the county.

I don't know if I forwarded it to you or not. Okay. If not, I'll forward it to you. I'll go back.

I'm not hiding on email. If it's there, I'll take a look at it. Okay. I just haven't.

I'll forward it to you again later in the day just to make sure you got it.

Just to make sure we've got our ducks in a row. Okay. And they understand, so that process is in itself. If we come back and the commissioners say, hey, this, this, this, this, this. As long as it's compliant with law, but there's areas in there that we have concerns about, you guys are still authorized to go forward.

Yeah, Susan, I think you're on. Can you, I mean... I think what Kevin's saying is commissioners can review it and make recommendations, and they send it to their county attorney for legal compliance. Yes. And if there's a legal compliance issue, we need to change it. If there's a recommendation, we can consider that. Is that accurate, Susan?

Yep.

So let's clear up, though, Kevin. Kevin, come on back up now. You're being re-recognized. Let's make sure we get that process right, because I think what you're raising is how does it get to you, and if the council votes on it, Julie, is that something you give to the commissioners?

So the initial process is you're supposed to receive it and stamp it and then hand it to the executive. Okay.

Perfect. So it'll get to you through Julie, and so we're complete there. Does that work for you? Yeah. Okay.

Just for clarification, the commissioners don't have the statutory authority to override a decision that we want to make. All you're saying is we want the opportunity to review the contract to make sure the contract is written.

The only area where we have authority to dismiss that is if it's not within the law. State law. Well, that's fair. It violates the law somehow.

And that's what they're reviewing. They're just a second set of eyes on it.

And the second set of part of that is, again, for us and the commissioner's office, what we've been finding in the contracts that we have been reviewing is We're exposing ourselves to risk because we don't have clearly defined points and all that. That's fine. That's a good policy.

Did you talk about scheduling and shooter?

Scheduling? No, I'm not going to address that because it's not on your agenda. All right. I need you guys to stay on track.

I'm in favor of us getting that agreement. Has that ever happened? Okay. Hopefully everyone else's as well. All right.

So we're done with that. I'll forward that to the commissioners.

There's one for you. Scott, there. Darren, there's Gary's copy.

All right, so first of all, there's two, there's two,

The skinny document, okay? Page one, Kimmy?

The factor evaluation system.

The factor evaluation system, I got it. All right. What's a skinny document? You know, it's the only, it's the only one. Three pages. We've got three pages. And a staple. And a staple, yeah, you just want to pay. It's the skinny document and the big document, okay? And they go in order. All right. You ready?

Yes. Skinny document in hand. Jim, proceed.

All right. Everybody ready? Yes. This is real important. Enough time to understand it. This is extremely important. Give me a call. Yeah. All right. First of all, you'll notice... Just don't repeat yourself. Please. Okay. You can see the LTC, COMAC... computer, office, technician, professional, administrative, technological, civilian poll, merit poll. So those are the six primary categories. And then you can look down through there and you can see then the 19 subcategories of job classifications. And then to the right, and then you It keeps it very objective, depending on how the job description's written. And you see the external low, external midpoint, external high. What I wanted to see is I wanted to do a comparison of, so LTCA in 2026 salary ordinance was $20. How does that compare to the 25 pay grades? Well, that is a, and I tried to find a 2025 pay grade that closely represented the 2026 salary ordinance. Because I want to understand, how did we get to these hourly numbers based on these 19 job classifications? Does that make sense?

Just a clarification. The FES system is a... is an evaluation system based on the actual job category itself. Just to be clear, when we're comparing to the old pay grade system, it's an outdated, arbitrary system. So that...

There was no... Well, the old system... there was no way to go in and evaluate the job description and score it.

So it was basically arbitrarily assigning a pay grade to it. Just so we're clear, that's the comparison we're making.

Because the old system was extremely subjective. We don't need to go back to the old system, do we? What I did give you is I gave you the old 2025 so that if you want on your own to say, hey, Kemp, how'd you come up with this? There it is. You have it. So if you want to take it and for your own identification, go through and understand it, you can do that. Rather than me just sticking the pay grades in here, you let me go on, well, is this accurate, Kemp, or would you come up with these numbers? Well, all right.

And so what's interesting is you go through the 2025 pay grades. We got an SH, we got a 17, a 19, a 22, a 9, 10 LEC, SH, SH, 21, 27, 15, 22, SH, 11, LEC, 14, 23, 26, 27, 28, okay? So this is just the basis for where we are hourly by the 19 job classifications based off of the salary ordinance for 2026. That's all this is. Okay, done.

And that amount column on the right is the 25 pay grade? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that you can go through and go, okay, yeah. So, like, for example, LPCB, they're now, you know, the old system, they're making a little bit more than a pay grade 17. Okay? So, for example, Julie, let's just do this right now. And you got the two, because the two people that, the maintenance people in the commissioner's office, right? And they are classified as...

I just had it.

LTC-A. LTC-A? Mm-hmm. Yeah, they are maintenance LTC-A, yeah. Yeah, so see, the LTC-A was assigned a $20 an hour rate for 26, and what was their rate in 2020? What were they being paid in 2025?

dollars and two cents no that's an average of yes if you go to his paperwork yeah and go back to the 2025 yeah look up sh yeah what you're going to see is i thought the column on the right was that amount yes now if you go to the you should had a dollar amount our rate is not at that go to the alley see so it would have been a pay grade eight at twenty dollars an hour So that base pay would be $41,634.84.25. So that's $20.50. Well, I see that, Julia.

I'm showing on the pay grade thing that I got for 2025. It shows that pay grade 8 was $17.83, and this SH is $20.02. Oh, I'm sorry. It wasn't SH. Yeah, $20.02. Which is what I said earlier, 20.02. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we assigned it at 20 bucks. What the hell is SH? I don't think it's SH.

I think it's 8H. Yeah.

Like highway. 8 highway. Yeah. I didn't know what an 8H was.

Well, maintenance guys aren't highway, are they? No. No, we're not.

No, I think it was a typo. SH doesn't mean anything. It's 8H.

I think it's 8H. Yeah, that's what it means.

8H.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So the two highway guys in 2025, how much were they making? per hour and this one here was five five the two highway guys i mean the maintenance guys in the commissioner's homes they were right in 25. whoa go ahead let's finish what we're doing whoa what what so the in 2025 the two maintenance guys were making the pay grades were on 25 they're gonna say no they had a they each have a 15 they had a 1500 stipend

each of them they had a their longevity and then that's what got missed and they had their um pay grade their pay grade pay so you add all this together uh i would have to actually go get

No, because we talked about this.

The reduction doesn't match the stipend.

It does not.

Because that was my first question, too. So we missed their stipend. No, because the stipend amount and their difference are different.

Yeah, because you get their base salary, the stipend, plus the longevity.

The base salary actually, I think, decreased, if I remember.

Maintenance technicians. Base, that's one thing.

Yeah, 41.6. But the stipend should have rolled into their pay. They have 43,504,89 for 25.

Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. We're getting back to the maintenance issue.

Which is fine. Which is fine.

My concern for the situation we find ourselves in.

that we find ourselves in is trying to keep the integrity of the factory valuation system in play. So what pay grade for 2025 were these? These were LTCAs, right? Okay, and what was the pay grade assigned to them in 2025?

Well, actually their pay was 43,504.89.

Hang on a minute, we need to back in. 43... 504... 504.89. 504.89. Does that 43,504.89 include the longevity and include the stipend?

That was their total compensation.

So that would include the stipend and the longevity? Yes.

So now we need to back into that of how we arrived at the $43,504.99.

So $1,500 stipend. So what is the pay grade? Going back to my original question.

Well, you take $1,500 out of that and then...

So you got $1,500 off of that.

$43,509, is that what you said?

Yeah, I would imagine it was... $504.

43,504.89 minus $1,500. That brings it down to 42,004.

Then their longevity, and Todd's got major longevity.

The longevity is the $100 a year thing.

Yeah, he's got like $2,000 in longevity.

Okay, but that's one person. So we'll do $2,000 longevity.

Chris is right behind him.

$2,000. So now it's down to $40,004.89 divided by the 2080. That puts them at $19.23. Sounds low, actually. That's what his hourly rate was. Back in the day. So the new LTCA is actually higher. Higher than the hourly rate for 2025. However, the issue is the longevity, not the longevity, well, the longevity and the stipend issue.

Okay, so let's move on. We can't fix it until we go through this. I do not want to make a rash decision.

All right, now let's go to page one.

Is that other page one?

Yeah. This is page one. This right here.

Yeah. Is everybody there? I'm here. All right. Same format as before, except the difference is I've used the external midpoint as the index to offer, right? And what I did is I took the 2199 on LTCA Because I have to adjust that, my understanding from Lori Shealy, or Sheila, or whatever her name is. Shealy. Shealy. Okay, Lori, is that that 2199, that external midpoint number, is a 2025 number. So it was based off, when they did the regression of the mean calculations, it was based on current compensation of all these counties combined based on 2025 compensation. Well, if that's true, then wouldn't you want to adjust that number up for 3% for 2026 and for 3% for 2027? You can use whatever cost.

Sometimes it's two, sometimes it's four.

You have to make a decision, Scott.

So you made a decision. It's a reference point.

He's not making a decision.

He's giving an example.

I'm asking Jim. Boys, I pick three as an average.

As an average, okay. You can go to the Department of Labor and look at the story. It could be higher, it could be lower. Every year. It's a reference. So I just used 3%. Gotcha. And what I did is I took the expense And so in 2026, it's now $22.65 an hour. And if you step it up for 2027, it's $23.33 per hour. Okay? And I did that all the way through for every 19 classifications so that you can clearly see what, and because what I'm going to use going forward is the 2027 number. been adjusted for cost of living adjustments at 3% per year for a budget process.

Because we're solving for 27, correct? You went back to 25 to do the 3%?

Because the external midpoint that WIS gave us was based off 25.

Based on 25 salary review in the region. Correct. Right. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Because see, what I'm trying to...

So you're trying to catch it up to today.

Well, you have to make it more... Yeah, you can't... For us to use the 2025 external midpoint... and try to implement this FES system, you're behind, you can't do it, you can do it that way, but you're behind. I mean, the only other way to do that, Jim.

Yeah, that was part of the discussion that Lori brought up.

Yeah, the only other way to do that, Jim, was to look at actual cost of living In those nine counties. Scott, I had to do this. You're not going to do that. Because that would be an actual. Because sometimes those counties are not increasing at 3%. Some are zero.

I get all that.

I get it. It may actually look different if it's actual.

But, you know, I think you've done enough work here. We'll give you 3%. If you want to take it further, you do. I got it in Excel. So if you want to change it to 1% or 2% or whatever.

in COLA? We didn't. We didn't. We didn't do it.

Perfect example.

We did not do it. We did not. And that's like Laurie was saying, we're behind because we didn't.

Well, are we behind if other counties didn't do it that we're comparing to?

Let's go to page two. Yeah, it depends. Let's go to page two. All right.

Not necessarily.

The next step that I had to do, all right, is I had to go in and I had to break the labor cost down per classification per fund. Because our labor costs don't come out of one fund. We fund it several different ways. So what I used is you've got the general fund, $1,000. You've got $1,138, $1,159, $1,176. Julie, I used $1,176 as a catch-all for highway because we know the $1,176 is specifically highway. Now there's other people who are paid out of different things in there.

Correct. But that's... That's the major one.

That's the major one, right. 1222 is dispatch. So dispatch gets paid out of that 911 thing. Alright. And then what I had to do is I had to go through and all of this is in here. So I've got it all documented. Jim, where are you? Page 2. Okay. So I had to go through by fund... And I had to calculate how many employees of the 113, because there's 113 employees listed here. All right, not all. So now I broke it down by fund per employee. And then the main takeaway on this page is see where it says 2026 salary ordinance. And it shows the hourly rate. as a percentage of the 2027 adjusted rated for inflation. You with me?

I am.

See where, for example, Executive A and B, Executive A is at 70.4%. Executive B is 73.3%. But if you go back up at the top and look at LPCB, LPCC, LPCD, they're all over 90%. In my professional opinion, in order for this factory evaluation system to have integrity, Every one of these 19 job classifications should be an equal percentage. Thank you very much. They should be.

That's what we're working. Those are the next couple of year steps.

Well, now I'm getting ready to move into that.

Okay.

So now go to page three. Hey, Jim, hold on one second.

So the lowest would be... be what the LTC and D 92.5 and the percent of the 2027 is based on that 3% assumption you made on cost of living every year since 2005 which last year we didn't give the cost of living and other counties may have or may haven't. I don't know.

His actual percentages may be a little bit different but what he's doing is showing the disparity between the different classifications.

Keep in mind, for example, the issue, at the core of the issue, you know, with gas, you know, with this Middle East thing, right? And now all of a sudden, you know, you've got people on these pay grades having to buy gas at $4 a gallon when they were paying $2.89. That hurts. Because that means they have less money to buy groceries, right? Okay. Oh, I know.

I felt it.

Right. And so the challenge with this is that what happens, let's, God forbid, that the Middle East thing isn't resolved and we as a nation experience extraordinarily high inflation because our energy costs have gone through the ceiling. Well, the challenge with that is you've got people's fixed pays that if inflation is 5% and we give them a 3% pay raise, Yeah, thanks. Their paycheck goes down every year because the cost of living is going up.

That's what's been happening.

I know. That's what we're trying to solve for. You've got to be able to live. If you can't live, then I'm going to go work someplace else.

You've got your percentages there. That's helpful as a barometer for us. Go to page 3. Page 3.

Everyone on those 19 job classifications, Darren, are you paying attention?

No, I'm paying attention.

Okay. On page three, I want everyone at 90% in those job classifications across the board. So it's very fair and has integrity. How much does that cost and can we afford it? Which is the issue. And that's what I'm trying to solve for. So if you look down at the very bottom, you're going to see target at 90% of 2027. Labor cost increased by fund. It's going to cost $217,089 out of the general fund. Out of $1138,000, $14,685,000. Not a problem. We can absorb that. Based on the current allocation. $1,159,000, which is your health department, $29,763,000.

Jim, based on current $26,000 budget spread out of each fund?

This is taking... Every employee, that it's all these pay grades, right? Because I've got the previous page shows how many employees, right? Okay. Because there's 115 on page one. It's taking it. There's 113 employees that this affects. Okay? 113.

Now, there are 48, and I've got it in the back pages if you'll let me walk through it.

Okay. Who I didn't include. I've got it all listed. That's fine. So I've got

Probation, other funds. I've got a list.

It's all in here. You guys can take it. Jim, my question is about just the target at the bottom. Labor costs increased by fund, broken down by fund. You're using what my assumption is, I'm clarifying with you, is like 217, as an example, out of 1,000. You've taken the current spread of all these employees out of all each of these funds and said if we kept them in the same funding source here is what that increase would generate so you're using kind of what we're already doing no no you're not okay so what i'm doing is this is this is the dollar amount to get these to the ninety percent people everybody no i understand that yeah let me understand that okay yeah

example there are 75 employees okay that are classified that have the 19 job classifications all right 75 all right of that of those employees all right what i'm saying is is i based off the 2026 salary ordinance based on the 2025 50% external midpoint, because I just set up 3%, 3%, in order to get everyone at 90% for 2027, it's going to cost $217,000 out of the general fund. And that's my question.

I understand all the other stuff you're getting to. The question is the 217 out of the general. Correct. you took, I mean, that's what I'm trying to get to, is I'm just assuming our current budget, you had to use where those people were being paid out of, 1,000 fund, for example. I'm assuming that's how you got to 2,700.

Yeah, this number one cost us. No, no.

More, if we used our current funding allocation. If we implement this. Implementing this. If you implement this. I'm talking about revenues and where the money's coming from out of the funds and how we allocate it. Because we can change what people are paid out of. I get it. You're using the way we currently do it. Correct. Okay, that's what I was asking.

I see what you're saying. That's what I was asking.

If you want to play the monopoly game. Yeah, we can move things around. Yeah, you've heard it. But right now, this is where they're coming out of. Correct.

Currently, the fund assigned to the department, assigned to that position, I use that. Those funds are paying for those people.

Probably we'll have to change the source of those funds if we're going to implement it because it's going to get held tight. That needs to be cleaned up.

Now, to that point real quick, I talked to Jerry from Reedy yesterday. They will have...

projections for us at at our for our budget hearings right we're going to have numbers and as a disclosure we're going to have projected revenues as well i know and in addition i emailed this to him as well because where my head's at and i've said this before in the past all right the job the salary ordinance needs to be finished before we do the budget we can't We can do whatever we want to. But then we'll have to change the salary ordinance. I'm going to correct you.

Because the salary ordinance can be done after you decide what's going to happen with the budgets.

We have to decide.

Not before we pass the budget. It can be done. after you get done with those meetings and you'll have your decisions made. So the salary ordinance can be done at the same time.

Just can't pass it in the budget until it's all done.

But we need to go through the budget. We don't have to pass the budget to pass the salary ordinance. We can pass the salary ordinance and then pass the budget. But we need to go through the budget process to figure out the numbers.

Where my head's at on the Form 1. You guys can disagree. Feel free. It is the council's. responsibility for labor costs. Period. So I don't really care what the, I'm indifferent into what the Form 1s come in with when they have under the professional category, which is all labor costs goes in. That labor cost, really, I'm going to take a hard look And I'm going to look at the total amount of the 401s by department, and I'm going to take the labor cost out of the equation. So, for example, I know for a fact the departments in this building, for the most part, the budgets are all labor costs.

For the most part.

You get over to the sheriff's department. You got automobiles, you got all this other stuff, okay? The justice system is the most expensive. Combined is the most expensive, biggest expense we've got as a county. So Jim, you've helped us get to a place.

Their labor costs are still up there.

You got us to the place where you've calculated how much we're going to need to get to that 90%. 90%. Including cost of living, estimates. Right. And by category. By fund. By fund and category position. Right.

And then if you go to page, because here's where it takes you. Now go to page 3. Now go to page That's shockingly lower than I was expecting. Is that right? Well, that doesn't include benefits. Yeah, no FICA. That doesn't include the fully burdened costs. It does. Keep in mind, it doesn't include the $300,000 increase in our ambulance.

Well, no. I'm talking about just relating to salaries. There is retirement. There's taxes that include any of that.

It just includes the pay for the people.

This is hourly wage. We'll get it fully burnt. All you've got to do is hit it by 20%.

We haven't looked at that before in the past when we did the cost of living raise. This is actually awesome.

I think it's great.

I'm not saying we're all the same. We can bump that, but it's going to be a lot. I'm trying to figure out how I want to approach this.

It's actually a great, to me, a great...

If we make the comparison of these numbers, what we do, it took us 285, is that what it was? 285? Something like that. Adjustment to get where we were. That wasn't fully burdened either. So to compare apples to apples, we need to look at this as not burdened compared to that not burdened. So we need to compare the same cost.

So now go to page four. What happened? Just go down to the bottom. Keep in mind, what I'm trying to solve for, here's what I'm trying to solve for. How in the world do we get everybody at 100% of external midpoint? How do we get, if I can snap my fingers today, if I can find the money, I would be all in. I want every employee in Brown County government to be at 100%. inflation at 3%. That's the goal.

That's the goal.

That's the goal we set out. How do we get there?

And because it's just fair compensation. Yeah. It's just fair compensation.

I want to reduce the turnover. I want the culture to improve. I don't want the backbiting going on with you make more money than I do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to solve that. I think it will go a long way to hell.

Once we set the FES system in place and it's like, that's what it is, it will go a long way to eliminating all of the crap.

It cannot happen in-house. It's got to go out of house. It has to go out of house.

It cannot do that in-house. So now if we did the jump and we wanted to take it to 95%, right? This year, for 2027, bottom right, $621,000 is what it would cost. Plus benefits. $621,000. And then flip to page 5. $300,000 every 5%. The total would be $930,000. $9 million. And keep in mind, you've got 48 employees that are being left out. Yeah. That's right.

Well, that's what we, when we first looked at it, when WIS came back, our original was 800 and some thousand to get us up to the external midpoint two years ago. Yeah.

So what I would like to see, what I would like to see really work on, okay, because I've had conversations with Ed on this, because of what he's been doing buying receipts, right? My concern for 27 is whatever really comes up with on the forecast for the receipts in these different funds, I want to make sure those receipt numbers are accurate. Don't come up with some goofball. I don't, I had a difficult time with, well, go ahead and batch it, we've always got more and No, we should know pretty close of how much money we're going to be able to collect.

We need to justify that cost.

That number needs to be accurate. That receipt number, the revenue number per fund needs to be as accurate as we can. We need to do our due diligence on it and stop this mindset of just saying, well, you know, we'll be all right. We got more money. We don't know. Because to me, how can we operate financially If we don't know how much money we're supposed to get every year, then how can we stay on top of it and make sure we're getting every dime that we deserve? I mean, the employees do it. I do it, right? And so we as a council need to say, wait a minute, we're supposed to have $11.5 million coming into the general fund. Where is it? Julie, how much money have we receded in year to date? How much? We've only receded in six million, and it's the end of June? Okay, well, we're a little ahead of target, okay? That'd be good, right? And we need to be staying on top of the revenue to make sure we're getting every dime that's due to us. Fair? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then what we've got to do, Jerry Hickman, is Jerry Hickman, here's the revenue, here's our receipts, here's our disbursements.

My goal for the county, as you all know, is to get the county to where our disbursements don't exceed 90% of our revenues.

That would be a perfect world. We don't live in a perfect world, but that's a goal. That's my goal. Got to have a goal.

And so what I want Jerry to solve for is could we go 90% in 27, 95% in 28, and by 29, we're at 100%? After adjusted for inflation. So no adjusted for inflation. people up and we're adjusting that external midpoint at the same time checking with WIS to make sure the external midpoint number that we're using after we adjusted for inflation is correct.

It's correct. You with me? Because you, I mean, it's possible that it would continue to go up as well.

It could, yeah, well, law enforcement. Well, if it's accurate, it would include what those counties are doing in cost of living. Correct.

The only thing I don't see, what I don't know, and they would like me because they won't like my questions, I want to see the data that went into doing the regression, the mean calculation on the 50% external midpoint and who were the counties.

I saw the counties and I saw the cities and they're big cities in some cases and big counties and I don't like that comparison because it drives our costs up, which is not, I understand what they're trying to do, but There were some counties in there that were not very comparable.

All right. So now what I want you to do is go to the next page, and this is all my disclosure. This is all the disclosure information. Page six. Okay. So if you'll see page one, two, and three, these are all of the positions. It's ones. All right. Page one. Page one. I got one, two, and three. This is the disclosure information so that you know where I got the data. All right. And I list all of the positions by the department, the position titles, and then what fund. And then I did an employee count. So there's 113 employees. You with me? So, for example, the one thing that's kind of cool, I kind of thought was kind of neat after I got done with it. Because what's kind of fun is when you do this and then you look at it and you're like, oh, wow, man. So like, for example, I looked at Executive A when I saw that the Executive A people, A and B people, were underwater quite a bit as a comparison to everybody else. Then I flipped over here to this page and said, okay, who in the heck is on Executive A and B? So I find Executive A and I go, oh, it's the director for the plan commission, director for Parks and Rec, district manager for solar and water, veterans office, healthcare, emergency management director, IT department superintendent, and dispatch. Those people are underwater by quite a bit. So if we implement this, they're going to see their paychecks go up quite a bit from where they are.

They get some pretty substantial interest. Yeah, when I looked at that same thing on the pay, I'm looking at the pay of our department heads, executives, and Surprisingly, some of the administrative professionals are making maybe even more than our department heads it looked like. Could be. If we were above the external midpoint. You're going to need to study. It was like very, it was just like, gosh, that's unusual. All right.

And then, Julie, lastly, if you go to the very last page, all right, obviously the poor, the poor, low-paid, abused, take advantage of council members. All seven of us are left out. The last page shows you a list of all of the 48 employees' positions. So I left those out. Those 48. And why did I do it? I did it because a lot of those, not a lot, but a percentage of them are the special occupations. which those typically are pretty high paid stuff, right? And then you get the goofy 40, 80% of Pat B, okay? You got 50% of Comot C, 64% of Pat B. I'm not quite sure why we got it that way, but I left it out. The elected positions.

Part-time positions.

You know, these are everybody that's left out. So, and the reason, you know, so I left those out to make it simple for me because it really complicated it.

Some are state paid.

Some are the pay is not coming from us. Community corrections. Those people are all paid. They don't cost us. So let them out.

There are some positions on here that will need to be included. Probation. Probation is based on what the state says we pay them.

Keep in mind, whatever you do on this back page then bumps that number up at that 90%, right?

Yeah. So, yeah, so it... Well, Jim, in 30 minutes you summarized what sounds like about 80 hours of work, so that's impressive. It's very impressive.

Thank you for being concise and timely.

This is helpful. So moving into the budgets. Good job. Moving into the budget session, I mean, I think you're... I mean, if we aim for 90%, this is a long-term, several-step process.

This was a combination of what you and Judy were working on, correct? Correct.

So we do give thanks to Cheryl McEvoy. Yes. All three of you. She helped.

She helped. Yeah, so if we get there, Jim, the 90%, if that's our target in this coming budget discussion, $323,000, $324,000.

And just for you when you want to come back and talk about FICA per blah blah blah, right? There's a hut and just is the last this there's 113 employees and that this affects, there are 48 that have been excluded, right? So at 113 and 48, Julie, that tells me that we've got a payroll of 161 employees. We're not at 180, we're basically 160. On any given day, depending on who quits and who gets hired.

Exactly.

Okay. So if I take 113 employees divided by 161, right, that's 70% of the employees. So if we can true it up first for that 70% where they're all at 90%, we still have to resolve the two guys. And my biggest concern with the approach, that needs to be made whole again. So I don't have any problem with how do we make them whole.

And that's a total of $3,700. Yeah.

How do we make them whole, okay?

And I'll have everything ready for the meeting.

What I don't want to see us do is you don't take their classification and mess with that number.

No. No.

It's not going to do that. It doesn't do that. It's still got to be within. It won't mess with their classification.

If they're paid $20 to $25 an hour for what they do, they're underpaid.

Because I do have a question. Does everybody, you got the FES, but everybody still gets their $100 a year thing? Yeah, the only thing we took away was the stipend thing.

Yeah. And longevity is something we're going to have to address.

Well, going forward, the stipends have been, they're supposed to be put into the pay for the people.

And I'll just say this as a disclosure, you know, until we actually, which I think it would be smart, it's more research, maybe Ed could do it, Sorry, Ed. But I would be interesting to go through every department and be able to go, it'd be a big job, but to look at what is the turnover ratio. Because you've got the turnover ratio issue, and the only other concern I have is that I think we ought to look at having a policy to prevent, Julie hires an employee. She brings that person in. That person comes over here and starts having lunch with another person over another department. They realize, well, I can go from here, and I can go over here, step up in the job classification, and make more money. And so we've got- That's work. Well, to me, we ought to have a written policy in place that first of all, how long does the employee need to be with the county in order to even exercise that privilege, number one? And number two, should the hiring department head have to sign off on that transfer?

I don't see any problem with it as long as you've got somebody going from a comat to a pat, if that kind of shift is happening. They need to have the qualifications, the education, the training, and the degree, whatever's required for that PAT position.

Right, but what concerns me, though, is that for me to be a department head, and I'm over here really trying to recruit all the time, trying to constantly looking for good people to bring in, And so I find a good person and bring them in and everybody's kind of robbing, you know, they're over here stealing all my people. And so I'm over here constantly having to recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit, and everybody else doesn't recruit. Because every department had, you know, if you're not recruiting on a daily basis, a monthly basis, you ought to have some sort of recruiting plan in place because you know you're going to have turnover. You should not just sit here and not have anything in place to try to find new people because you're going to have turnover. I mean, it's just the way it is.

We interviewed two fairly decent people yesterday.

Yeah, yeah. See, now we get in, now you've got to bring them in, you've got to train them. Well, gee golly whiz.

I know.

That's expensive because it's lost productivity. And that is a cost that's lost a lot of money, labor cost, and lost productivity because we've got too many people rolling through the system.

Jim, I agree with that. Because before I retired, I would have to have a bank of people and my supervisors at their headquarters would require... so a lot of people will be dropped out but you're constantly looking for people right and so you have a reserve and sometimes it would still happen say you had six person people for one position they they've all found another job by then right because faster and I agree with signing something or like say you've got to work here at least a year before you can right move within the organization we have that same policy I actually do like that you work here within a year it's an internal request to transfer I mean Cummings isn't going to allow their people to do that they don't do that

If you got 150 employees and you got 20 new engineers and then you had everybody robbing Peter, stealing all your engineers, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That may make somebody hang on longer because they'll say, oh, you know, I got three more months and I can move over to this position. You just never know. But if you're just hiring, like you say, helter skelter when there's an opening, Oh, it is. It's always at the worst time.

Always. Like tax bills are coming. It's always a crisis. Or budgets. Budgets. Exactly. It's always at the worst time.

And people are going to want to stay. I mean, if you're in the bank, some people want to stay. If they really want that job, they're going to put some effort into staying. Right.

And furthermore, I'm speaking from personal experience, the challenge with turnover, if I've got a high turnover in my department, then I'm managing from weakness. Because I'm literally trying to find... Oh, you can breathe, you can walk, you can chew gum. Okay, I'll give you a job. Because I just need some... Jim, I think where you're... Do you live in a van down by the river, or where do you live?

Your question about turnover, I think what you're meaning is, it relates to the fair compensation. Oh, it ties directly to this. And when we can't fairly compensate people, we end up not only just turnover a lot, but we get people that may not be as... We don't get the cream of the crop. No.

I don't say that as a derogatory towards the existing...

Which you need to, yeah.

You can blow them all, but... I just got this out there, but I had an application that the best thing he had going for him was he knew how to use a knife. And he put that on his application.

It's public meeting. Let's not talk personnel yet.

So I think we hit job reclassification. Or wait. We hit some Form 1s. I'm looking at our next budget discussion agenda item. Form 1s and job reclassification requests. Do you want to hit one of those? Or did we hit those? Isn't that a committee issue?

Yeah. We want to... You may need a break before we get into further discussion.

Thanks for listening, guys.

Let's eliminate all cigarette breaks this year.

No, that's not going to happen. I don't smoke for myself. I smoke for you guys. Let's give them six minutes.

Did you quit? He's doing what, hundreds? Yeah. All right.

Do a ten-minute recess. All right.

Put a timer on, guys. Now did you guys pick up the cover Eric says we need to keep in the loop because we didn't give him information on last Thursday's cancer cancellation the people on the Democrat didn't know nothing's going on there. What are we gonna do to cover that?

When you change a meeting from now on, we need to go into the schedule on there to find out who's in this room first so we know when we should be on the schedule and when we shouldn't.

I got a simple, why don't we hold each other accountable?

Well, then nobody's accountable.

Well, let's not do that. Speak up. Hold each other accountable.

Somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be assigned. What are we, socialists? Pay attention.

Yeah, I mean I as You know between president of council and auditor we dropped the ball Yeah, we just need well if if we are gonna move a meeting again We just take a look at it and make sure we're not if you space.

I know what you send out an email go ahead Hey, Bozo, you spaced it get it solved. That's it. I mean, that's what we gotta do. I

Yep. We've got to hold each other accountable. Okay, so while we're on that topic, let's list the next meetings that we have changed. So did we get July 9th on? I'm sorry. Today is July 9th. Today is July 9th. Did we get the next meeting? Let's go to our next meeting. Nothing else has changed. Okay, so our next meeting is, let's just hit it while we're here.

When you get up and put it on your phone and go, the day is July 9th, it is.

When is our next meeting? Let's just make sure everyone...

It's the third Monday of every month.

Not always.

There's been exceptions. Not on a regular meeting. For holidays. For all.

January and February, we move it to January 20th.

So it's only the third Monday.

Okay, so put the 17th down as when you're going to be sending the published version of the... adopt trying to adopt the budget so we're going to go ahead with our stuff we have certain dates that we have to do things August the meeting in August on the Monday will be our major meeting will be when we are going to do the published version of the budgets In September at that meeting where we normally would do it, some of us will be at the AIC conference. Because it's during our meeting. Yeah, that was interesting. So we can either reschedule or try to reschedule the September meeting.

Is that the one in Fort Wayne? Fort Wayne.

Who's going to AIC in Fort Wayne? I don't know that I will. It sounded like the venue sounded really pretty good. I was impressed.

All right, Julie, I got my calendar up right here. Let's just take... So then October will be our... Let's slow down. Let's slow down.

Our next regular meeting is...

I'll write the notes. Okay. Okay, next Monday I'll put it in an email and it'll send it out to everybody. So I'll play secretary. Can you make it a calendar invite? No, I ain't doing that. No.

We already have a meeting this day.

So right now, I believe it is the 28th, 29th, and 30th of July is our three-day dog and pony show.

That is correct. Yes. Correct.

What time did we set for that? Nine to four.

Nine to four? Yes. Or did we go eight to four? No, three days, nine to four. No, I thought you said nine to four.

It's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 28th, 29th, and 30th is the dog and pony show. Yes. That's my meeting. You're going to go three total days?

Zero, nine to four. Yes, suck it up. Because at the end of those three days, we're going to have the budget finalized.

So let's talk about the schedule for that today. We've got three days. Also, that's something else I wanted to talk about while you were here.

I'm going to have the spreadsheet in front of me. It's going to be projected on the screen. We're going to go through, all of us are going to see those numbers change. That's going to be on the spreadsheet, so there's no paperwork where we make a note on paper and then give it to Julie and have Julie change it. It's going to be changed in front of us in real time.

I have my own spreadsheet. Julie, you mentioned August. Yeah, our main meeting in August will be when we do the publish. Is that the 17th? Yeah.

And then we've got that first Thursday. So August the 17th is when we have to publish.

That's when we're going to publish, yes.

Publish the...

Budgets. Proposed budget. Proposed budget, yes. Because it's a proposal.

Go back to that first Thursday in August. That's our work session.

Yeah, it's not going to be the actual adopted.

Yeah, because the adopted isn't until October. Correct. Well, and that budget, it's just the... high level line by line for each taxing levy, right? It's just the, it's like, it's not our actual detailed budget.

In October it is. In October it is. But in August. October is our adopted budget. We're talking about August. August is our published.

Published budget. Yes. Which is not. Correct. Because there's the Form 1, Form 2, Form 3, Form 4. Form 4 is the approved budget. That is correct. That has to be uploaded to the DLGF by November 1st.

That is correct. Correct.

Okay. And remind me, Form 2, what is that?

That's just something I fill out.

You don't have to be worried about your Form 2. No. And what about Form 3?

You don't.

So that's your gig.

You're just Form 4.

We have Form 1, Form 2. Okay, so before we continue this conversation... Form 1s are the... We have the issue that Gary Hewitt brought up. I supported, Judy Swift supported, and you supported with the Form 1s in an Excel format. Did you see the emails?

I saw some of them. I haven't had a chance to actually read them yet.

Because we, I was here, Jerry Hickman was sitting next to me, and we as a council body have the authority.

to submit the Form 1s in an Excel format.

And that decision was made at a council meeting.

Yes, it was.

That's right. And we can go back and watch the YouTube video.

We decided that that was going to happen.

It's time to come out with those changes.

Julie even went through and broke it down by departments and sent the Excel. Section of that pertains to that department.

If you could fill out a PDF, you could fill out the Excel.

And what we still got were paper form ones that were scanned as a PDF sent to Reedy that now Reedy, if they're going to do that, they're going to spend the labor cost to type that in. And as I said, they're on hold. I did not authorize them to do that at this point.

So Julie.

Go ahead. Thank you. as far as that goes I agree I like I think it would be great but we need to give the offices a little bit more time because that was thrown at them and they're not if they like I had several people call call me and say hey I can't get this to upload I can't do this I can't won't do this I won't do that I'm just gonna send you the paper At that point, you're almost to the point where they have to have it to me, get it to me. That's all I'm worried about.

But they can still take after the deadline and put it into a digital.

And I'm not going to be a hard ass on it this year because, like I said, we implemented it this year. I would say that's too bad. Suck it up. Next year, we've got, this is the first year for implementing it. There's some glitches. There were glitches. We're going to fix the glitch for next year.

We need to fix the glitches so that when you pass them out next year, it's easy. It goes smooth. But another thing, you can't just copy and paste these things on in because there are errors that you have to correct. Okay, question. Which is what I am. I'm doing that, I'm correcting the errors.

On the Form 1s?

Yes. Yeah, but it's better than Excel. A $50,000 error. For what? For math. They didn't do the math right.

Okay, so if it's on a PDF or paper, you've got to put that number in and then you've got to add it all up again. If it's on Excel, you put the number in and it's there. Do they all have Excel? Everybody should have Excel.

Actually, the Form 1s I send out, we send out our Excel format.

I don't understand. It looks just like a PDF. Put the number in.

It's a format. It's an Excel format.

Can we clear up the schedule first and stick on topic? Just get the dates we want to go down. Because this is where all the confusion comes, where we don't get to meet them. We're coming back to the dates. Jim, this is why we always, it's a fuster. I'm going to watch what I say here. Yeah, be careful. You see I always use the word ass if you can't do that on TV. Can we just list the dates and the times of the meetings so we all know?

August the 17th is a normal meeting that the published will be on. August 17th.

Okay, so August 17th we have a meeting, regular meeting. Regular meeting. Then I heard 28th, 29th, 30th. That's the actual meetings for budgets.

For budgets, okay. From 9 to 4, which we will do a schedule on which offices will come in

I mean, they're going to have to be until they're over.

But they're going to be scheduled to where? Yeah, we're going to break them down now.

Thank you all for the acquiescence. I appreciate that.

Okay, so then.

Okay, then write down on no, write this down. Okay. First Thursday. We know that, but there's been acceptance to that rule.

Second, twice.

What I want to get to now is do you want to change the September meeting because of the AIC conference?

When is the conference?

It's Monday through Wednesday, and it's conflicting with our... It is a conflict with the meeting.

What day do you want to change? The special session meeting.

And we've got to schedule a special session that he wants to have.

Okay.

You want to do a special session...

Well, what's your conference dates?

21st, 22nd, 23rd. Thank you. Is that? Yes. Okay.

Oh, so that comes with a regular meeting. Yes. That's what I mean.

I didn't know if you wanted to reschedule your regular meeting.

Just move to the 28th. The 28th of September? But don't tell anybody. Yeah, don't tell anybody.