County Council - public_hearing

I'm going to see what happens. Budget hearing three-day session 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. All right, a couple of things. Three-day budget hearing. Jim, Art, I'm going to have to remind you at the end of the day we do not adjourn, so your motion will be to recess. Okay. Because if we adjourn, we'll have to advertise to start the meetings again. Motion to recess. I'll just call recess.

So I went ahead and hanged it out you'll probably see the big packet and then there's two different summaries this big one sorry I had to staple it there was so much I couldn't put it in one of the little binder clips but this is the budget book that you guys are used to seeing so within that there's some historical information but then there's there's two different uh columns to really focus on the 2027 department requests column so we took that from the excel template that julie sent us That's the form 1 from the department heads, exactly what they requested. And then the far right... And that spreadsheet he's talking about is the one that's up on the screen? Yes, correct. Yep. And then the far right, what we ended up doing there also was we took the 26 salary ordinance amounts. So the supplies and services and capital, all that moved over to that column exactly the way that Hormones were turned in and then we were just comparing department head requests to the 26 salary ordinance amounts We did add $100 of longevity to that. I will point out there are a couple in there that are a little bit different I know Julie has

That's because there will be elected officials will be changing.

Correct. Julie, she let me know that some of those were changing, but just to keep it consistent, I mean, we just took it directly from the salary ordinance amount. So for example, like her department, I know there's going to be, you know, some turnover there. So those might be a little bit higher on that far right column.

Your treasurer, myself, or the auditor's office? The other places will be changing.

Would you say that far right column one more time? This is the 27 budget requests from the Formula Ones with the exception of? Salary. Which is what you're talking about.

These things are something that you can do. With this big package, right? Yeah, the big package.

Far right column.

The only difference between the two columns, that far right column, we took exactly the 2026 salary ordinance amounts. And Julie had sent us the most recent copy of that, and then we added $100 of longevity to it.

So the far right column is 27 form 1 with the salary Salaries only.

And then we added $100 to longevity.

So if the salary request was at 27, was... The same as 26. I think we double did that because I think I added that as well.

are you talking about the hundred dollars of longevity well we should be i would think that will be the same uh because reagan was looking at the salary ordinance amount and for 26 and then just added 100 to that um but there will be as julie pointed out like her department there's some turnover um Or, you know, the treasurer, where that might be a little bit higher, that far right column might be a little bit higher than what it ends up being, because we took it exactly off the salary ordinance, but if there's going to be a new position or a new employee, that's going to be a little bit less.

And I changed it to the actual person.

So in other words, if we're trying to look at what salary increases were asked for above the 26 budget, They're taken out on that line. That would be the way to compare 27 requests with that far right, which show us the differences in salary requests.

Yes.

Because the guidance we put out on this when we asked for the 401s was leave your salaries the same as they were in 26. We're going to use that hybrid schedule that Jim and Judy came up with as some percentage of external midpoint.

And I feel like for the most part they did. Because what was interesting to see, I handed out two different summaries. based off of each one of those columns so one of them um top left based on department head requests so that's literally what they turned in um and then the other one is based off the 2026 salary ordinance plus longevity increase the hundred dollars increase and what was interesting and i think it's because of those positions that are less and then i know health health was lot less in their request that they turned in versus what we looked at the salary ordinance and I think also general fund is it the probation department did they get paid from two different areas not all just from so like so but what was interesting to see is the budget was actually a little bit higher on the far right column where we were looking at the 26 salary ordinance amounts versus what they turned in and I think it was because of of some of those employees that the turnover from the reason they're higher is because it changed during the middle of the year so yeah But there's a summary for both of those two columns. If we just want to look at, I mean, it's the same concept for both other than what we just discussed with salaries. But this is all of your guys' funds that we have in the financial plan. Now some of them do not currently have budgets in them, but we went ahead and put them in here just because you track them when you're playing. So like rainy day, for example, there's no budget requested in there, but we have it listed on here. Riverboats, another one, the opioid funds. But this has the total budget, so it pulls the budgets from this big budget book. It just shows the increase or decrease over 26 budget. We have projected revenues in there. We have projected unused appropriations, which, historically, you guys don't spend your entire budget. But for general fund, we actually took that out, and we're assuming that you spend 100% of it, even though, historically, the three-year average has been around 6% that you haven't spent, which, I mean, 6% would be 600 grand if you didn't end up spending that. But we're being conservative, assuming 100% is spent. And then we have in the purple, the projected surplus slash deficit. So are you projected to have more revenues next year than your projected spending? If it's red, that means no. You're projected to spend down cash. So right now, Based off of projected revenues, the budgets that are in there, and spending 100% of your budget, the projected deficit for the general fund is a little over $523,000. And then we have the projected ending cash balance for 2027. based on that down for general fund you know four point little over four point two million dollars and then we do the same concept throughout there some of the stuff for all the other funds that I'd point out the lit economic development and I'm gonna pair this one up with your forty seven hundred from the county employee health fund You can see that the economic development fund has a surplus of $792,000, but then there's a deficit in the county employee health fund towards the bottom there of roughly $782,000. So the county health There's no budget turned in we just have right now. We just put a three percent increase I'm not sure what you guys are gonna try to get to if that's totally six percent or excuse me probably ten to twelve Okay, so We can make adjustments for that but what was turned in for lit economic development the top that top one there for the transfer of that health fund was only i think 405 000 and in this year 2026 it's uh like 1.1 million that's transferred over there so which we just left the budget request the way they were. We didn't change any of that. But if you are going to want to fully fund the county health employee fund of that negative $782,000, you're going to have to transfer. You're going to have to increase that $405,000 health amount that you guys typically transfer from Lit AD. It'll have to match up pretty close to what it was in 26. Does that make sense? Or did I lose everybody?

I'm still trying, yeah, I'm following you. I'm still trying to find the lit, the funding. Let me paraphrase it. Yeah, the second one, sorry. Economic development. Economic development, thank you.

Yeah. We funded it at $2.7 million last year, and the economic development fund, if my memory serves me correct, I can look it up. Can we still fund it? If I want to look it up, I've got it right here. Because I've gotten to November 17, 2025 budget book that you guys, which was the actual budget that we passed last fall. But we funded $2.7 billion.

And then, you know, we got a bunch of wheelback from the Commissioner's office because of that.

And I don't believe, I believe we've transferred

all the funds out of that no we have not we have only been doing it like quarterly which you know in my professional opinion is a huge mistake on thursday when the commissioners come in they've got they just redid the uh they just did the uh redid the health insurance with apex they've got some numbers to bring in on thursday yeah i finished i've got a copy of those numbers with me okay

Okay, so I have all the documented because for 2027 in the all the form ones, there's a million 625 that's funded for group medical million one in the general fund 405 and 1112 20 grand 1138 1170 100 grand out of the health department 1159 100 grand There's a total of 192,000 coming out of the highway department, which is 112 out of 1176, 1135, 20 grand, 1169, 60 grand. So for a total for 2027, currently based on form ones, It's $1,917,000.

Thank you for adding that up. I saw those split out. Yeah, I got it all broken down. I got everything broken down.

I went through all the form wants.

And then, in addition to that, I'll add, based on conversation without mentioning any names, I had a two-hour conversation with Apex.

Based off their projected 2026 cost, or excuse me, that the now this number i'm about ready to give you which is two million three hundred and eighty eight thousand three hundred and twenty dollars so if you just round it up say 2.4 million that includes the clinic cost of 154 000 and hsa cost of 106 000. so currently based off the number that apex gave me which is the 2027 midpoint number um then you know we are if you take a million nine from 2.4 keep the 2027 funded at $1.9 million, then it's going to be extremely important that we wash out this economic development fund. We put that entire $2.7 million into that $4,700 fund in 2026. Okay? Because that will hopefully shore up the surplus. Because keep in mind, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, that it only takes one or two And you know cover employees to cause all sorts of havoc and could wipe out any surplus that we might have Because the other thing I want to remind you of every one of you is that in 2017 based off the Gateway the 4700 account finished that year with 34 631 2018 34 983 2019 we finished this is cash reserve balances at the end of each of these years in the 4700 fund based off the AFR that was submitted to Gateway through Gateway so 2019 we dropped down to 973 dollars then in 2020 we had five grand and then in 2021 we got hit with some large claims and we were negative $606,294. Then in 2022 we carried that negative carryover balance forward and we were again $586,000 in the hole. In 23, we finished the year with $11,000, or 12 grand in a surplus. But in 24, we finished the year in negative of $510,000. And I want to remind you that these negative cash reserve balances in that 4700 fund is one of the major contributing factors to the decrease in the standard and poorest credit rating for the county. fund our group medical and build the cash reserves to protect ourselves in the event we get one or two people that we end up with outrageous claims. We got lucky last year and I think we're moving along pretty good for this year. I did have a conversation with Apex because one of my questions is that what we ought to be looking at is if you look at the total enrollment for the group health How many employees on the group health, what's the age bracket? If we've got a bunch of 20-somethings, 30-somethings, 40-somethings, then I would assume, my assumption is, is that would go a long way to reduce those claims, because as we all know, the older we get as we walk through life, you get in your 40 to 60 bracket, or over 60, we end up with larger health claims.

We'll cover this more when we get to that. Right now, we've got .

This is a separate subject. I know, but we have limited time with Jerry. I'm talking to Jerry and Julie. This is a separate issue in and of itself that the council has full responsibility.

I understand that, but we have limited time with Jerry today.

Yeah, but let's do come back to it. We'll come back to that and talk much more in depth. you put together. I did, Jim, just to summarize what I think I heard you say, and then we get back to Jerry. I think you said for 26, let's go ahead and transfer the full 27 over to protect our operating reserves in that fund, and then for 27, hit the Apex recommended 2.4.

If we can afford it.

Let's come back to that and appreciate that. Thank you, Jim.

Yeah, you'll just have to keep tracking as far as, you know, this year. I know last year was a good year in the health fund.

We have 1.5 million. We're only half through.

Jerry, just to clarify, the far right column, 2020, I'm sorry, the revenue projections for 27 which I think is in the middle yeah the most important slide there the far right is 2027 end of year I think I'm adding end of year projected cash balance after the proposed budget is paid for which correct that's true that puts our general fund operating reserve at 42 percent roughly if I'm reading that right 40 yes that which is

very large operating reserve which in yeah, yeah in currently in 26 the Projected you know surplus is it's pretty good at this point. It's It's right around an increase of give or take I mean their projections but 450,000 the big reason for that and I'm glad you brought this up the projected revenues one of the big differences in those revenue amounts versus what's currently projected in 2026 is the lit supplemental which is you know, that excess amount that, if your guys' reserve is good, that the state sends out, that was $493,000 just in the general fund. For 26.

That isn't present?

Correct. It's not in 27. You guys, I mean, looking at your plan, you got it this year, you got it three years prior, but it's not a guarantee, so we don't put that in there. So that's a big difference.

If we look at anticipate another $400,000 this year, we're $174,000 over on what we're looking at, correct? Say that again? We have our 27 projected surplus deficit of $574,000 up there at the top. $523,000. Oh, you're looking at different sheets.

Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. $574,000, gotcha. Yeah, there's two sheets.

But right, I want to plan on it.

Yeah, I wouldn't look at it like that, though. I mean, you kind of want to eliminate any of those one-time revenues that aren't going to occur over and over because you don't want to get yourself into an operating deficit. You don't want to obviously, oh, let's do these raises or hire these more employees that are operating expenses that aren't going to go anywhere and base your budget off of revenues that may be one-time and aren't guaranteed. So even though you guys have been receiving that over the last know four or five years I wouldn't recommend ever you know building into your revenues and basing your budget on that I agree but yeah that's a good point and a big contributing factor is projected increase this year of cash a couple other things to point out the they're still some what we call fund flexibility. There's some capital items in the general fund that you could potentially, you know, shift to other areas that are more so for capital like CCB. There's roughly, I think 200, I have it right here, right around $282,000 of capital that's currently in the general fund. So if you wanted to move some of that, like CCD right now is projected at a surplus of, or Q capital development, sorry. It's projected at roughly $144,000 surplus. So you could move some of that general capital into your CCD fund. Riverboat is another one. There's nothing in there currently. I think I've heard you guys mention maybe using that for grant opportunities and things like that, but that's another one where there's not a budget in there. There's a surplus of $88,000 that can be used for any lawful purpose.

Jerry, if you could maybe pause for a second. You're reviewing capital expenses that are embedded in other parts throughout our budget request fund by fund and how we can transfer those capital requests and maybe what is typically more of a capital request funded type of budget such as QM cap yes is riverboat typically a QM cap type of thing your experience as far as cap it can be used for anything so we it can it can be like literally anything so we have we have some that use it for that and some that they may

It could even be operations that they Move over there, but it's it's kind of a catch like any lawful purpose so you can use it for For anything and you said 282 in capital requests.

Did you say in the general that was in the general? Okay, gotcha. So yeah that would bring that deficit. Yeah, I'll be further which with the 42% operating balance at the end of the year in the general fund I mean, that's almost too healthy. There's a lot of room. I won't say too healthy, but you don't want to get too much higher than that or it becomes excessive.

Yeah, and I know that you guys have mentioned wanting to, once you get general fund, where you want it to increase. Rainy day you want to do rainy day transfers you want to you want to make sure that the 4,700 you know health fund is where it needs to be But there are some other areas that you can see here that have that are in red that Need attention also so based off of like lip lip public safety the 1170 fund hence the deficit of 214,000 it would have been probably balanced, but the ambulance contract, that went up to like eight. Yeah, so that went up. substantially so right now based off of that I mean in that deficit of two hundred and roughly fifteen thousand and then remaining cash of only 256 and based off of what's in there and if that budget you know continues it's not sustainable so you may have to you know move some stuff around out of the public safety in the other areas but there's there should be enough fun flexibility and being able to move some stuff around that we should be able to take care of a lot of this stuff.

Jerry, how long time does Jerry have with us this morning? An hour? The public safety piece, the ambulance contract overage, just as a heads up for the council, that's the kind of funding We're going to hear from the CBC, I think it's tomorrow, about some parks and rec requests that may be able to be funded through the innkeeper's tax rather than the general fund. And so that $214,000 shortage in the public safety fund due to the ambulance contract could be kind of a number we strive to overcome with some innkeeper's funding to replace those funds and stabilize that fund.

Jerry, just to recapture what you just said, make sure I understood it. You know, I'm looking at last year and the fund projection, revenue projection for the general fund was $10,032,701. This year you got it at $10,084,332. And the disclosure that you made was the, you know, the... LIT, what's the name of that?

The surplus. The LIT supplemental?

LIT supplemental. could potentially receive an additional $400,000 to $500,000. Was it in 26 or 27?

This year.

So we could receive an additional $400,000 to $500,000 this year.

We already did in 26. It's new.

It's new information.

So when you're comparing it.

I just want to feed this back to make sure I understand what you said, which is what I'm trying to accomplish here. Yeah, so we may receive some lit supplemental in 27. couldn't bump that revenue number up. And then secondarily, what you're referring to is that when I look at the all 26 form ones that are funded out of the general fund, there's $315,754 that were capital outlays. So what you were talking about is taking some of those requests and those four ones, capital outlays, and trying to fund that through a different funding source because of that 315 grand, Parks and Rec requested $161,504 for a total of $378,448 for 2027. So the issue is that the innkeeper's tax may be able to use, because they put that on their Form 1, to offset, I believe, some of those capital outlays, correct? Yeah, the council encouraged me to talk to them, encouraged them to kind of do that.

So I understand everything correctly. Thank you.

Yeah. So, I mean, just kind of looking through some of the other ones, I know it's listed as Brown County 911 grant. I'm not sure if it's really.

I didn't understand what that one was.

I think that's. I don't think it's a grant, but I think that's just what was in the software system. But that's one where there's been an ongoing deficit in it with... cash also being an issue as far as negative cash so that one definitely has to be what's the fund number one two two two that was part of the grant stuff that we had that was looking at correct 1222 9-1-1 9-1-1 grant that was on that list wasn't it

Yeah, maybe it's being allocated from the wrong source Yeah, so you gotta spend it you spend it down and then get reimbursed for it or still getting that negative

Just historically in the last

in twenty three twenty four twenty five it's receipts are roughly three hundred grand each year um but the expenditures have been you know three hundred seventy six thousand four hundred twenty three thousand four hundred thirty six thousand so just historically what's been receded I mean it just keeps going down um so I didn't know if it is a grant is it only

you know 75% funded and you guys have to fund the other 25% and then just over the years Jerry you familiar with E911 fund is that the same fund let me do some checking on that Jerry okay well regardless if we're getting that if we are you are seeing that 300k reimbursement per year we're probably overspending that each year And we may have previously had a little bit of a surplus there, and we've carried over that expense at an elevated rate and may need to adjust that one to accommodate for that, to balance that one, basically.

Yeah, that's just one that, yeah, I would, Julie, if you can check in on that one. Because if things keep trending like they have the last few years, it's just going to continue to dig a bigger hole. so that's something else that if you do need to shift some of those expenditures elsewhere something that to consider moving forward also some of the other deficit we talked about the 4700 health bond and then the school resource officer great sorry before you jump over so for the 9-1-1 grant 1222 our overage is

Well, let's look at revenue versus what should we try to, how do we balance that? What's the amount we're looking to balance?

Well, on an ongoing, this is just based off of like historical information, on an ongoing basis, it looks like it would be this, the 27, the purple column, the 158,000, but you'll want to, I guess roughly at the end of 26, based off the way it's trending, we're projecting a negative cash balance of almost 230,000, so we'll have to clean that up too by the end of the year. But as far as the ongoing budget goes, the 158,

Okay, so we need to try and that over that at least by 158, right?

Yeah, or yeah or shift it like expenditures elsewhere, right?

Yeah Unless Julie find something else out Do you have any recommendations of where we would ship that from currently the 158

I mean, some areas that you could shift it to. Obviously, it depends on what everybody's thoughts are. I mean, general fund can be used for anything. Let economic development fund, it could be spent there. But imagine let public safety because it is public safety related in a way. Riverboat, those are some of the main ones. Gotcha. and then there's a couple the last two are a couple grants so that that's more so just like cleaning up the neck we'll have to clean up those okay and then school resource officer there's I think historically there was one in there requested now there's two now it may not be a deficit of the 60,000 I didn't know, Julie, if you know off the top of your head.

He's requesting a second one. He's talking to school about it because they basically it is grant funded. And they reimburse us. So it's going to have to be really up to the school whether they're going to be willing to reimburse us for two.

Well, I think it's partially reimbursed. Which it was in 2025

the revenues uh entirely paid for the 25 expenditures now some of the prior years it it did not which is why there's you know a negative cash balance in that fund um but you this negative 60 000 on this sheet in the purple column That very well might not be negative if they're going to fully fund two of them. That's why it's negative, so just keep that in mind.

So it's negative because of the second one?

Yeah, correct. We only show revenues for the one, but I guess if they're agreeing to pay the other one, then we would adjust the revenues and it would be paid for. But that's another one that we might need to check into on the negative cash balance. Well, that would be the...

As the sheriff said it was a request and I had no business changing any of the requests that they've said That's fine.

So on the cat negative cash balance in the school resource officer fund though assuming we do get a hundred percent reimbursement There shouldn't be a negative balance there shouldn't be if it's supposed to be if that's the agreement that it was like hundred percent now Why it's not I I'm not sure but So it's not we gotta figure that part out. If it's 100% and we shouldn't be negative, we'll sort that out with Brad.

And I'm sorry, looks like I skipped over.

I skipped over the Cume Bridge.

that on that one that one is very very hard to project out the expenditures because historically the unused appropriations what the budget what hasn't been spent has been extremely high over the years so the budget will be you know way up here but then expenditures are much less historically 57% of the budget has been not spent. We knocked that down to 40% to be a little bit more conservative. But at any given year, if we don't have a capital plan in place where it's like, okay, we are definitely spending these items and have it mapped out, it's hard for us to project those capital funds where there's large budgets, but then historically it's not been spent. So we kind of look at historical three year average and we bumped down to try to be a little bit more conservative and show a little bit more spending. So there is a little bit of deficit there. I'm not sure exactly on those line items that they have in there how much they plan on spending on each one. But that Cambridge is the one where it's a little bit more difficult to iron out what's going to actually be said.

And that's all going to be included in the commissioner's budget on Thursday, so they'll present numbers on that.

And then also if there's any where it's like, okay, you know, 80-20 match, we're getting reimbursed and... Knowing that information too so that we can put it in the financial plan any kind of reimbursements Outside of because it gets property taxes, but another one can be reimbursements through any of those Injury, I'm noticing the 2020

The two orange columns to the far right, I don't believe we had those last year. I like these projected unused appropriation percentages you're doing here. You're trying to help us identify funds that are being underspent historically, and therefore those are probably more likely for us to easily cut. Am I reading that right? You're looking at the three-year historic on the budget, the

columns so these two what I'm talking about yeah yeah can you help us navigate that I think that's what you're trying to do yeah I mean so as far as we discussed the general fund earlier but looking at it since it's at the top historically you know with three your last three years so 23 24 and 25 you've underspent your budget by 6% so you've only spent you know 94% of your budget So but in our projections here, we're actually showing a hundred percent. So yeah, you historically most funds You don't typically spend 100% of it You may in some capital funds as long as you spend, you know everything that you planned on spending But yes, I mean that's just showing if number the three-year historical average if that number is higher it just means that your budget is a lot higher than what you actually spend which I know like some some you know county cities they they want to go ahead and budget what obviously anything that you know possible and then they might underspend it and then i mean they could have you know five to ten percent every single year say in their general fund historically and usually in the financial plan throughout the year after the budget's set we'll see how it's trending and we'll show you projections based off of that but usually when we're going into the creating the budget for the upcoming year we're much more conservative and assuming you know 100 spent Just what we're doing in the general but some of these other ones where the unused appropriations are substantially higher we back off those and I know I just had to point out Cambridge because Without knowing the exact game plan on some of those bridges and you know for next year It's hard for us to know exactly what's going to be spent because if you spend if they would spend 100% of their budget I mean, they're going to spend down roughly $600,000. But historically, they haven't done that. That one's a hard one to project without knowing the exact game plan there. And then there's some other ones, like another one that has high end use typically has been MVH restricted, which is the portion that has to pretty much be used on roads and paving. That one's been, historically, not much has been spent out of there, so it's growing cash as well.

Is that the one where you can only spend, well, it's split off because it's 50%, you can only have it 50%. Really, they were trying to control the other side of it, which was on the administrative income. But you'd think we would be spending 100% of anything related to paving each year. So if we're not, we're... Yeah, if you just... Well, like last year...

mean in 2025 it receded in roughly 1.1 million and only 125 000 was was spent and i'm trying to catch up i see mvh 1176 but it doesn't oh they're above it look 73. yeah okay

restricted MVH restricted so yeah we and I think this year too well at least through the first quarter if I recall it it's not there's not much coming out now we did have a superintendent changeover so we're and we're that's 331 it's a March 31st number so we're still pretty early pre pre paving season we've had some other things paved since then

But yeah, I mean, if there's certain, you know, things that, paving-wise, I mean, that fund continues to grow, so I mean, you guys could definitely get some roads down there.

Well, and there's, you know... certain funds are intended to be cumulative and that's why they have cumulative bridge cumulative capital those are intended in a lot of cases or at least historically have been kind of cumulative over time you grow those to big amounts and then you spend it on a million dollar bridge a couple million dollar bridge or whatever but then mvh restricted is not intended typically to be a cumulative capital fund it's meant to be an operational boom you're slapping pavement on the ground

Yeah, I mean, yeah I'm not as concerned as far as building up the cash there because you're not operating out of it But obviously if you spend it then that's less that you can pay But if you're I mean, that's all can be used for so I would use it if you if you have roads that Need to be paved for sure. We do.

Yeah 100% Restricted also has them has the match Yeah, you can use that for that Well, we have a line specifically for that. That's in the MVH restrictive, correct?

Was it restricted? I thought it went down this year too, I was going to ask. What was that similar line? It was one of the two. Probably be restricted because it's paving, pure paving. Yeah, it should be. It went down like 330 this year or 230.

375 went down to 265.

265, yeah. Probably because our matches went down, but yeah.

And there's a million contract paving. Yeah. Yeah, I would definitely, if there's, you know, Rhodes Elite work and stuff, I'd definitely, you know, spend that.

Ask their plans.

And then on the MVH side, not restricted, just Puerto Rico Highway Fund, that is for, and that's the one really we probably need to be more, well, going to be careful because it's already pre-split for us. We can spend all of it, but it's all in.

You pay for employees out of that and operate out of that. So that one, I pay more attention to the cash reserves in there, especially because it's more of an operating fund and you're paying employees. So yeah, that one, definitely pay attention to the cash and the reserve balance there. The restricted one, I mean, if you have projects and stuff, definitely. take advantage of that with the understanding that you do want you know some back to continue for your match for CCMG but yeah the the regular MVH one the 1176 you definitely want to pay attention to the cash there which right now I mean it's pretty good where do we want that operating reserve amount to be on that one hundred percent seems pretty high two million this cash mean it could be I don't know we have all kinds of different clients at different percentages and I mean some of them are starting at 30% they always like oh you know 50% now just because you have a hundred percent in there unless you have more Capital items or more paving that pops up. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily just try to spend it down just because you have you know, two million dollar or 100% reserve in there, but I mean 50% Always a good number to look at You're getting MBH distributions and will like that stuff monthly. So cash flow really isn't much of issue but compared to you know some of the property tax funds that might come in every six months I mean you're having revenues coming in monthly so cash flow won't become too much of an issue you know even a 50% but yeah a lot of these funds you know they do have some some good starting cash in it and then bottom line you know if you look at the total budget for the entire county

the bottom left corner that's 25 million total budget requests right mm-hmm and then you look at the far right bottom corner which is what cash you project the county has on hand at the end of next year after all those budget that budget is spent the 25 million dollar budget in 27 is spent the remaining cash balance is 20 million That's pretty healthy. Pretty healthy, yeah.

It just, then you just have to start paying attention to where they're at and what you can spend. Because, you know, 4.2 millions in, you know, convention visitors and tourism, like, okay, how restricted is that? So you kind of get into those areas. But, I mean, overall, it's definitely, you know, trending in the right direction over the last few years. Now it's just a matter of keeping that trend going. And then I do want to point out, because I saw this, this green column, the budget increase slash decrease from 2026, the very bottom number, that's a little misleading because 2.8 million is from the County Employee Health Fund, and that's only because they're Technically wasn't a budget in 26 and we put almost 2.8 in 27 so that inflates that that number So actually like total wise This column here Either one. So we're showing the increase in the 27 budget over 26. The total at the bottom is a little misleading, saying the budget's increased over 2.3 million, because if you look at the county employee health fund, the 4700 fund, it's showing almost 2.8 in there. And the reason it's showing that is because Technically, you guys don't adopt a budget for it, so there isn't zero budget in 26, but we put a budget in 27 just to show. So that's a little misleading, but not like a big deal, but if you're looking through this later and see that.

Ten minutes left.

Yeah, there's some options as far as moving some stuff around, which, I mean, obviously once you get through, you know, making sure everything's in there the way you guys want it, then we can shift some stuff around. Obviously give recommendations and see what you guys want, but there is some flexibility moving capital around and things like that that we can always do later after the budget hearings.

The other thing, kind of big picture I see, between the two spreadsheets, bottom right corner, in the purple column actually, projected surplus deficit on the... Well

Yeah that is the difference that yes ends up being what was requested from department heads versus the 26 salary ordinance plus longevity but the interesting thing is that what department heads requested in there actually was a little bit less than whenever we went through the 26 salary ordinance and I think that's because as Julie pointed out she Any like her not being like that turnover and any of the departments and then it being less and then I think probate probation Department and the general fund Reagan pulled exactly was on the salary ordinance but I think they get paid from a different area also and then health was another one where based off the salary ordinance so I don't know they might get paid from different areas and he just pulled it straight there so I think that's the main difference but yeah the interesting thing was that the requests from on the form ones were actually a little bit less than than the 26 salary ordinance. And I think it's because of what Julie mentioned.

So benefits, you know, as I look through the budget, that's a common challenge. You've got all these different departments, all these different employees, and every one of them obviously draws full benefits or, you know, benefits of health and, you know, taxes and all that stuff on employment. And so spreading those benefit expenses, you know, ideally, consuming department would be great. But it's also challenging for Julie, because you got then you got like 47. And so I'm looking through our budget. And as usually, it's typical that, you know, it's not entirely reflective of the fluctuations in the employees in those departments. And so we do have benefits spread kind of throughout some departments, others not and What they're contributing out of those funds to their employees. Benefits, you know, it doesn't have to be that way. It's all essentially tax money But any advice for us as we go through there? I know I think previously last year you Maybe Reagan at some point suggested gosh, sometimes it's just easier to compile that in one number It can't be one number, but like you help us as we go through this So there's no perfect answer so for example like how you guys allocate from different funds

to help contribute to the Health 4700 Fund? Like how you take from different areas? Is that what you're mentioning?

Well, can I intervene here for a moment? Because I took the time to go through all the Form 1s that were submitted. And what I looked at is I looked at health insurance, HSA, FICA taxes, PERF, the Sheriff's Defined Benefit, wellness, unemployment, and AUL life. Now, what I was solving for, one, is I wanted to understand the total dollar amount sitting in the form once. That amount is $3,638,331.98. Of that $3.6 million in the commissioner's budget, $2,156,340 is coming out of the general fund. 405 grand is coming out of the 1112 fund, 20 grand out of 1138, 1170, 100 grand. So basically of the 3.6 million in the commissioner's budget, there's two, almost 2.7 million of that 3.6. The health department, they kick in a little bit of help at 194 grand, of which as we all know, that's the 1159 and a little bit comes out of the 1160. From there, the rest of it is there's 360 grand coming out of the highway department, which is 1176, 1135, and 1169. And then the sheriff's department kicks in 402, 469, of which that's coming out of the general fund. So if you look at just the general fund, of that 3.6 million, 2.56 is funded out of the general fund. of the total and that's all in employee benefits because the pension benefit for example we're spending a little over a million a year just on pension benefits so that's perfect in the sheriff's defined benefit plan i i mean if it's you know commissioners versus you know sheriff or any departments that are all within the general fund it

it doesn't really matter because it's coming out of the general fund eat and then if you look at the general fund versus the health fund and i'm not saying this is the case this is just an example if you feel like health isn't contributing as much as what they should and they need to increase it well then you're just going to have to turn around and shift property taxes from general fund over to health fund to help pay for it so then it's like what's the point now some of them that you may look at to in a little bit more detail could be some that you can't do that that don't fall in the max levy so like mvh if it like since it's you know funded through mvh distributions will tax or tax and you want it to be fund what it should like maybe you could look at that one a little bit more um some of these other ones as far as funding it it doesn't really change that much as far as if if you would increase if you're like oh sheriff's department needs to fund more well it's still coming out of the general fund so well jim on your point you know the other thing i wanted to kind of solve for on that is are we estimating the right amount

based on our employee requests and salaries. And that's where it gets fuzzy sometimes when we have a number that doesn't change in the past five years, yet the employment changes dramatically. Are we funding it accurately? It gets complicated because it's split between so many places.

Well, to me, from my perspective, it's really not all that complicated. The key question is that we are spending $3.6 million on employee benefits, so the first question is why? And does that number, are we doing, is it appropriate? The second issue, and this is more of a disclosure statement on my end, A year ago, a little over a year ago, first of all, in 24, 25, we approved 50 grand for Wagner, Irwin, and Shealy to come in and look at implementation of the factory evaluation system, number one. Number two, last fall, late last fall, we passed an ordinance implementing the factory evaluation system. And so based on my knowledge of the factory evaluation system, the primary issue with the factory evaluation system is making sure that of the 150 positions within the county, that each job description is accurately classified. Step one. Because it's the job position that has to be classified first. And then secondly, the council's full responsibility is to establish a compensation schedule within that factor evaluation system. So for example, there are six categories, 19 subcategories that we have to make a decision of what those hourly wages are going to be. Once we make the decision what those hourly wages are going to be, and we have to make a decision on what the compensation is going to be for special occupations, because you have 19 classifications plus the special occupations, then there is no absolutely, in my mind, no reason to engage in any conversation with any department head about compensation, because the compensation is based specifically off of the factor evaluation schedule. which is why we said no if we don't adhere to that okay and what we do is find ourselves in negotiations with department heads okay over compensation and we take a job classification and we go out here and say well yeah I know we have ten other people on this job classification and they're at $22 an hour but we're gonna carve out these three people and pay them $25 an hour We might as well just take the whole thing, get rid of it, and we'll make subjective, biased decisions based on individual employees.

Which is not what we want to do. That's what we were trying to move away from.

to make it very neutral, very fair-minded. And so the issue is we have to take, Jerry, a hard look at this factory evaluation system because I produced a document and I submitted all of you here a few weeks ago, that 14-page document, and we have got to make a decision as a council because my understanding is the councils 100% responsibility on all county compensation. So what we've got to look at is we've got to look and say how much can we afford to try to get those 19 classifications all at the same percentage and we have to factor in COLA.

So that's my disclosure. I understand and when we do we got to make sure the benefits accurately reflect that pay. and that's where it is. They all have to be accommodated.

Because if you look at the big picture, top down, it is labor cost and it is this 3.6 million in employee benefits. And the other thing I will, just listening to Jerry, and especially when the highway department gets in here, and the commissioners for that matter, but we really ought to be looking when it comes to the highway department, because Jerry, When I look at the highway department, I look at the highway department as its own separate business because it has its own funding sources, if you will, right? Whereas the rest of the county's coming out primarily, most of it's coming out of the general fund. So to me, what we've got to look at on the highway department is we really need to go to 1231 of 2030 and look at these capital projects several several several weeks ago they're trying to play catch-up because there's a lot of work that hasn't been known over the last several years and we've got bridges in disrepair we've got some they've got some major issues they've got to address so we've got a look to see okay the next you know starting in 27 ending in 2030 that four-year period how do we cash flow some of these these department having to deal with.

Yeah, if we if we can get that information, and like we will definitely input it in. I mean, the finance plan already goes out five plus years. So any of that stuff will help us planning wise. And then also in each budget year knowing exactly okay, this is what you know, you might not spend it, but this is what we plan on spending. And there's no guessing on the unused appropriations and things like that.

Scott, I don't know if, you know, they've cut the community crossings grant, and I don't know how much that's going to affect, because I think historically we've used that for paving, specifically for paving.

They're transferring it to a different grant. It's an offsetting grant. I can't remember the name. What's the name of it, Jerry, the new road funding program they have?

There's...

It's based on county miles.

They're shifting from community crossings to... Are you talking about the direct lane? Pilot based? Yeah, pilot based program.

They've got now whatever you get in that program deducts from what you get in community crossings. I actually have a sheet for all that down there somewhere. Alright, um... We're running into the sheriff's office. Sorry. One question for everybody. Jerry and I talked about Bergeron. He needed to be here for what portion of the hearings? Cutting loose now and then go through the next three days? Because you're not available Thursday morning.

I can be until like right around noon. Okay.

I don't know that there's any need to rack up a bunch of billable hours.

I don't know if there's any reason to be here for any or anything like that.

Any changes, if you're updating that, then that'll go well with our, we'll be able to make changes easily if you guys do it on that.

I'd be more than happy to pay you guys, what, eight, nine dollars an hour if somebody in your office wants to watch the YouTube videos.

I guess my only question, sorry, I know I'm over, it'll be quick. This factory evaluation system, do you guys need us to run any different scenarios or do we just hold tight?

What we're solving for, if I look at your numbers, you get $523,000 in sheets in just the general fund right and then you got 574 and the other one and you know as well as I 76 percent of the labor cost to come out of the general fund so and that's the reason I put in that what you've got and broken I broke it down it not I think it it's a three percent three you know you increase the the the factor evaluation number on all the 19 job classifications 3% for 26 and then 3% for 27 and I think the target that we ought to use is that 90% If you look at the numbers at the bottom, I think it's it's 200 and some thousand dollars Just for the general fund and then I map out the rest of the funds to the hits. Okay Yeah, so, you know, I think what we could use is once we go through this process and we've got a better understanding of where we are really the question is to take the 19 job classifications, to increase it for colon, so 3% for 26, 3% for 27, and then to have all these 19 job classifications at 90% of the external midpoint is going to cost $323,675. And then I broke it down by fund. So the biggest issue, the other funds, 1138, 1159, 1176, 1222, those numbers aren't that high. We ought to be able to cash flow it. The big one is going to be the 217 for the general fund. So I think if you all could look at that, and that's to me, we need to solve for that. make certain that we can you know make the changes vote and make the changes to the FES system on these 19 classifications you know and then clearly we've got to take a look at the special occupations as well so the short answer is we'll do that after we get through our budget process

So Morgan Young is going to be our new Tammy, our new matron.

She's going to go grab her laptop real quick. Tammy, I'd like you all to just give Tammy thanks for all the years. First and foremost, 37 years is a long time with the county. Between the prosecutor's office and the sheriff's department, I think she served us well.

Thank you very much. What are we starting with?

Do you guys have what you need? I wonder if they need budget books. Do you want to at least pass one budget book in so we're looking at the same numbers? Do you have one? Maybe we just leave that up there so all the people. I have one. Yeah. And then you guys can, if we have questions on that, we'll be able to see what we're talking about. You're page one in this. We may put one of those up there too. Do you want to start? Yes. And then if we reference that, you guys may need to cross that. Thank you, Derek.

Appreciate that. Thank you, guys.

Yes, we got several different budgets, so I didn't know which one you wanted to start with.

I mean, we have... Is that Sheriff? Jail? Sheriff.

Sheriff?

I have all five of your... Yeah, they're all right there.

Okay.

Because I cannot see that screen.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Is that just the same what we've spent so far and everything?

I think that's what it is, what we've spent so far and went through.

This is projected? Yeah.

Eric, we unfortunately made you go mobile on the TV. We can't, we can't see that one. Well, I mean, are we displaying what we're even talking about on the high-source spreadsheet? Yeah, I can't read that if you're wanting us to see it. I mean, I can kind of read it, but...

There's a little slider in the lower right. You can increase the size of it.

I just don't resume any information out of it.

So, Brad, do you want to... Where do you want to start? General on the sheriff's side? And then what document do you want to use? Do you have something you want to work through there?

Well, we just have, like, our budget lines. What we turned in. We don't have what we're turning in for our budget we don't have what we've spent so far this year like what's in this book

Which is what's in the book. What's in the book I gave you has the 527 request, and then last year is the year before, but that's not going to happen.

I can see that.

Yeah, so the only the only change obviously we didn't get the Governor didn't give any state raises out this year. So the officers are not getting any raises under what we've had Brian and I did a lot of talking about this and we did want to add back in longevity for the officers i know that was taken out in 2022 and brian and scott sullen worked real hard on that that was one of the things what we're asking for for next year with with the the short time uh people that we have that's not been here we're asking for 5900 be added in on the longevity and bring that back so we can start using that to be a factor to try to help retain people. We've had a lot of turnover this year. We've replaced five officers. That's due to a couple leaving for different departments. One, we cut loose in the FTO program that just wasn't simply going to make it. And two, basically burnout, mental health issue type things. That being said, we're asking for that to be added back in even next year. Figured done the math on it, it would only be another $1,200 increase next year because six of the employees that would be on that that aren't on it right now won't even have their year in so for next year's budget.

So the state usually gives you controls your salary, right? You know what the percentage of increase that is compared to what we're usually getting here, maybe 3%?

It's been zero for the last two years.

Two years, but before that, what's the...

It averages somewhere around 3. It's been up to 6.2 and been down to like 2.4 since 22. The first year it was around... three percent and then there was a jump to like seven two and then there was it was back down to like two seven or something like that so if you average all of that i think it's around three three point seven five or something like that what their logic is on it if there is any uh it's supposed to be for um cost of living increases but the reason the state hasn't done it over the last two years specifically this year is just their total freeze on everything so I don't know if they'll do it next year but I think that's the reasoning I don't know what the reasoning was I didn't really research it for the previous year but this year it was a total freeze across the board for all state and like DCS employee ever.

Nobody was what we heard this year. The only state races are given is like a longevity type situation. They're given a like a bonus for people that have had 15 years plus and people that are like five years plus. There's a couple of different things. I think that's the only thing the state's doing and that's not across the board for employees. That's certain. So like the troopers are getting something, but it's like a one time longevity bonus.

So are the state troopers on the same ratio as you are? Oh God, no. No, no, what I'm saying is if they're freezing years, are they frozen?

Yes, yes.

Okay, so if you get an increase, do they get the same percentage?

We get the increase when the prosecutor and the circuit court judge gets an increase. That has nothing to do with the state troopers.

So theirs is on a separate program? Yes.

Yeah, they're on a completely different matrix altogether. It's not as easy as you think with the matrix, though. Because they've had to redo their matrix a bunch of times, which is, if you go back to 2022 when we did this, the reason we did this is because agencies have to keep redoing their matrix, meaning they have to change evaluation number so matrixes are made up of you know a starting salary a three-year bump a five-year bump a 10-year bump 15 20 or whatever you have to adjust those numbers every single time you want to do a matrix and over the last I don't know six years the state police has had to redo that three times and it's because the salaries are increasing It's not just here, it's everywhere, it's nationally. Nobody wants to be a police officer anymore. The logic behind asking for the longevity back, in 2022, Scott Sutherland and I came to you guys and we wanted to raise the baseline up to a certain level so that we could retain and attract people. Because at that time, When we would have an opening, we would only get two, maybe three applications. And I'm just telling you that's not a good situation when you're hiring law enforcement officers. Brad and I talked about this with Tammy about asking for the longevity is because this most recent application process we did, where we've actually hired two and potentially hire another one out of that is we had 15. We actually had 20 applicants 15 that passed the initial background and 11 that showed up and passed the physical assessment, which is the first time that's happened in 10 years long time. So because of that, and part of that quite honestly has to do with the DOC stipend, you know, it's, it's that we've, we advertise that money on our salary and we had five people tell us why we asked them, why, what's your interest in applying here? Well, you guys have raised the salary to where it's affordable. Now that is a direct comment. One of them who's now an employee here. So we felt like, you know, the goal in 2022 was to raise the baseline. We felt like we've done that. That goal's now been accomplished. We've attracted 15. Quite honestly, we're the most qualified applicants that I've seen in my tenure at the Sheriff's Department.

They're so close. Usually there's always one standout and some down here. We had some top-notch people, and we've hired two of them.

And the longevity... First of all, there's not very much longevity at the Sheriff's Department. There's just not. I mean, $5,900, $3,000 of it is him because of his 30 years. So if you put that into the evaluation, there's not that much longevity there. And my concern is not I feel like we're at the point right now where we do have a group of people who probably will stay. Several of them live here. One of our new hires is moving here. So that's not always been the case. And I feel like If you're gonna strike you strike when you can to try and keep those people. I mean if you look at if you look at You know the people we've lost them will exclude the one we got rid of out of FTO But if you remember back in 2022 the evaluation we put on on the cost that we're losing per person the minimum amount was $125,000 the minimum for the basic officer so That's what, $500,000 that we've lost just this year?

No. Go ahead. So you're saying you have a more stable

yeah yeah I think our base is stable because of the DLC that was able to do that you know and you guys allowed us to do that commissioners allows to do that we're going to continue doing that we've got people coming in from Monroe County Jail paying the same things DLC it's just going in the same fund that's that's the only reason we were able to raise that we've got 17 deputies Sixteen and then the matron is on the deputies type salary so that will be. Total of seventeen people.

Of the seventeen employees, off the top of mind, how many of those individuals have less than five years with the Brown County Sheriff's Department? Ten.

I can tell you right now. I'd say at least ten. One, two, three, four, five, six.

seven eight nine nine people have less than five years yes maybe i should one of those is probably hitting five years right now yeah so and i'm going to assume that do we have anybody with 10 years or more of an experience void of you brad me brian is that it i've said stargill i have 17 years josh has 15 colton has

Nine.

Maybe nine. I've got Greg Duke, who retired from Bartholomew County, that came over to be the school resource officer and now is on the road. Right. But he only, he don't have, he's got seven years here. Right. But he's got a lot of experience. He's got about another year and he's going to be retired.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

I would say right now it's in pretty good shape. She's got the numbers right now.

Since August of 24 up through April, we've brought in over $368,000.

Is that received funding? Received. We've got it.

And there's still outstanding over 20 that's coming in.

And this month's billing is going to be good.

How many?

Is it consistent? It's been a little up and down on the flow of that. Like I said though, Monroe County is, you reached out to me on it and I've already been working on it. They're wanting to offload some inmates.

We have three in Monroe County right now.

And that number is going to go up. We'll get more inmates there, and they're going to be that way for a while. We are working on another process. If it comes through, you'll be the first to really know about it. If it comes through, it's going to be great.

Tammy, what was that number again that you received? I'm sorry, I missed it.

$368,000.

So when Governor Braun took over, there was a lot of meetings with DOC, and a lot of the sheriff's departments were complaining that they were holding DOC inmates for so long. So there was an influx of DOC coming and getting all these people and taking them to prison finally. The problem is that now the prison's filled back up, and they can't take any more. So it's where we had low numbers for, I don't know, three or four months, it's going back up. And they don't have any means of taking any more in the future, which, honestly, it happens often with the OC when you have administration changes. And what they did is they just released people early out of prison to try and make room to appease you know, certain sheriffs in certain areas, but that was not a long-term fix. It's never...

The biggest thing they fixed when Ron came in, and I was a big greasy wheel in that. I was like really... because we weren't getting paid. You guys knew that I done. I caused a stirred up a lot of crap if you will up there. But how we're getting paid now has changed. And then also how the six is because we get money from that six is now which the county here like our own. We can house our own level six felonies here. We were just getting a flat fee while we were getting hosed on that flat fee because the state the way they did it wasn't right. Well, now we've got it. They changed it to where it's day for day. Whatever we house, we get day for day, and we are already probably $10,000 on the year over what we would have gotten from what their rate was that they had set for us.

Is it $70,000 now, $75,000? No. It had been given us like $10,000 a year. That's all they were given, a flat rate once a year. We got a check, missed a unit fund. So far in the last 12 months, we've brought in over $20,000.

And that goes into our misdemeanor funds, which we use for the jail stuff. So like our jail van that we have, we bought that out of that. If a stove goes out of the kitchen, we can replace it with that. If an ice machine goes out, we can use that misdemeanor fund to replace that stuff. So that money goes in there that we can use for the jail stuff. So, which helps other, we don't have to deplete other lines.

How much is in there now?

In the misdemeanor fund? Yeah.

It was around $58,000 the last time we looked. $5,800?

$58,000.

Okay. The DOC stipend fund, how much are we spending out of that each year?

We're just spending out what they actually allocated out of it for their stipends.

Well, they've collected $368,000. What is the stipend amount that comes out of that every year?

Well, for instance, the sheriff's, the DOC that comes out of there is $90,552. For what period? That's for a year. That's the yearly.

In 20, when Greg Garitas was here as our financial advisor, which I believe, Brad, that was for the 2025 budget. So I think in 2024, when we worked on the 2025 budget, that's when you all, the council, and you negotiated this DOC agreement, correct? I think it was for 2025. Yeah. So what I do know for 2025, because I've got it, I've got the numbers, the total was $183,000 worth of stipends for your 47 employees. So it appears that the DOC project is in a positive cash flow, Tammy, would that be fair to say? oh yeah I mean yeah it's paying for itself and it's you know those months they didn't pay us we were suffering but then they've gotten all caught up and they're within 60 days in 2025 is when you all had a receivables issue because the VOC wasn't reimbursing right correct right yeah okay and now they've got things like Bronte and you guys graciously carried us through that time and now we're caught up now we're in the black Yes, yes. How did, how did, okay.

So we've been still housing Bartholomew? No, no, no, no.

My question is, is the stipends, because we did that for stipends. Are all those stipends still in place? Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

We pretty much live off of those.

Well, that, like, like Brian said, if we hadn't added that into our advertising for our hiring, we wouldn't have what we have. it's it's it's imperative that we keep that in there and keep that money going or we will probably lose officers that we have now even more so and we wouldn't be appealing to other that was the only reason when we we talked a great deal about it's like okay we've got it we've got to be something to get be competitive and so we added our dlc stipend in there knowing that it's we'd use jailers too And, yeah, so we add that in there when we advertise because otherwise we're not appealing to anybody.

All right, so the $5,900, I'm just trying to get clear in my mind of what you're requesting. I heard $5,900?

It's longevity. For next year, it would be $5,900. No, no, no. That's just for merit. The rest of our department gets longevity. Okay, this is just for the merit officers and the matron.

Okay, thank you.

It's not in the salary template thing, it's broke down to what's DOC money and what's longevity.

Is it under the jail budget?

Yeah, the stipends are on everybody's line in our department.

What I've got up on the screen there where you see the third line down, deputy, that 66587 request, that includes the stipend?

Yeah. On this form here that we did, it's broke down and added up to that number.

I'm sorry, Julie, on the Form 1, is it on there as a line or no?

It's on stipends right here.

It says DOC stipend.

So there is a total sum of $97,000?

On page 1. DOC stipend.

Okay, gotcha.

But in the book, you have that as a separate line of $90,000. Yes. But it also shows... So my question is, we're spending $90,000 a year on the stipends. Is that the total of that? And the sheriff budget.

That's just the sheriff.

That also goes for the jail.

How much? She just read them off.

She just read them off. Oh, I'm going to tell you in about three minutes.

One thing I don't want to do is when we redo the scope, the 186,637. No, that was more than a year's worth. And the numbers are going up. I think we're doing okay.

I mean, I think we'll be... Darren, it's $368,368 plus 20, so it's three...

That's what number she just gave you.

186, whatever.

That's what comes out in a year.

That's been since August of 24. That's how much we've taken in.

Well, that was billed then. It didn't come in until 25 or whatever.

So on the budget, I'm seeing 90 of the DOC stipend out of sheriff's budget, 55 out of the jail budget, that's 140 roughly. Where's the rest of it? Dispatch. Dispatch.

Dispatch and then other office staff.

Dispatch, jail, 911, and those are all the numbers you added up. Yeah.

So we've got nine dispatchers and then that would be three... four other officers, well, a few cooks and what else?

Well, that's in the jail.

That's in the jail, in the jail budget, yeah.

But, I guess my point is, when we reconfigured everything and then pulled the longevity out, we redid the structure to get a better structure for the Sheriff's Department. I'm reluctant to add longevity back in just because then we're reconfiguring the reconfigured structure and what we're looking at in the future is like a as part of the FES system a time I guess a time and service that's going to replace longevity Sheriff's Department is going to have its own structure within that ideally that better fits what you need instead of

So during that time, I don't know how much reconstructuring it is adding longevity like everybody else in the county has. So I don't get that restructuring. It's adding longevity back to what we used to have, like everybody in the county does have. It's not, I'm not asking for a huge request here. This is a request that's going to help build. And then if later down the road, if you guys have a better restructure for everybody, then they all get it just the same. I'm just asking for back. I wasn't the sheriff that asked for that to be taken away like that. And I'm asking for it back. And I think that it's imperative that we get it back. I think it helps. I think it gives people a look at it and go, yes, I can build on it. And I, quite frankly, I think $100 a year across the board for everybody in this county is a joke. But it is something. And it matters. And I think that this matters to people. And to say that that's restructuring everything, it's not restructuring. It's adding longevity in like everybody else in the county has.

My curiosity is we control the rest of their salary, but I don't know that we control the rest of your salary, so we can factor that in and adjust it accordingly. I'm just curious how that plays out.

It has been added into the budget, just so you know.

Well, it's in there, I agree. What I'm saying is we can say, okay, we're going to give it 3%, 1% cost of living. We don't control that necessarily in yours. No. And I'm not saying it's a big issue. I'm just curious how it plays out.

Yeah, if you give the county employees a 3% raise, the merits will not get that.

If I understand, you're based on a different system from the state.

Yes, and we understand that.

Right. We're not doing the 3% raise. We have the FES system now. No, I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying, like, we... And I understand what you're saying, Darren, about that's not the way that the system...

that's not what was requested in 2022 again that argument was that we wanted to bring the baseline up and and you know 15 qualified employees shows you that you've done that so instead of doing that can we take it it seems that there's excess uh doc stipend money can we take some of that and increase the stipend amount for each of the deputies If we reinstitute the longevity, our plan is to get rid of that completely and replace it. So what we don't want to do is put something back into your pay structure that's going to come out and be completely redone anyway.

Well, what I will say with that and my rebuttal to that is no, because it's already my jail staff feels like they're doing the work, and then here's these other people getting a benefit from it. So all that does, every time you raise that stipend for anybody else other than my jail, get blowback and and rightly so they're the ones in there dealing with those inmates and getting and and then they see okay well this employees getting way more than I'm doing and I'm doing the work so I don't want to do that because I it's it's already an issue and it will be a bigger issue and I will lose jailers and stuff over that and so

They get it. But I'm saying, if you're going to increase the stipend... Well, I'm saying increase it across the board for everybody. Everybody getting the stipend, increase the stipend. Because if we're looking at a $5,900 increase in longevity, $3,000 of that goes to you, that leaves $2,900 that's going to be spread out for everybody else. If we take an additional $6,000, $7,000 of the DOC stipend and spread that out among everybody... does does that accomplish what you're looking to do because that then increases increases across the board what you can advertise to hire and retain people

How much of your stipend is directed towards these salaries? Is there a leftover?

Quite a bit. About six grand an officer.

Right, but so is there leftover money for more work?

It would be really close. It would be really close to do that. I think if you start doing stuff, you can dink and doink the stipend, the DSC money, all you have, but then you have no idea what's left in the cash flow eventually.

And then if that tanks, if we have low numbers, then we're...

I want to clarify something for my own mind. When we did the FES system, I thought we built in the stipends already. That FES built that stipend in already. We included that in. That was included in the FES. Did I dream that?

No, we've still paid the stipends.

Right, that's what I thought. I just wanted to clarify, though, because I think there are people who think that we have taken that stipend away. We did, but it's built into the FES system already. That's what I'm trying to get clarified. I believe that's what we did.

I don't think it's built in. We retained it on top of the FES system.

That's what I'm saying. We're saying essentially the same thing.

It's included in the FES pay rate. Yes.

Yes.

But not included in the FES system itself. We just retained the sentence on top of that to eventually work in some kind of years of service compensation of some kind.

Without a longevity, which I think is what they're asking for. Right.

I don't know if you all will know the answer to this question off the top of mind. First of all, we're talking about 17 employees, correct?

Yes.

All right. What I want to ask is this. Of those 17 employees, how are those positions currently classified within the FES system? I don't even know. I don't know. Okay, because, you know, what we need to address, what I'm looking here is you have Merit Pull A, Merit Pull B, Merit Pull C, wrong, but of these 17 positions, would those fall under a merit poll? Because it says protective occupation law enforcement. So at the core of this issue, what needs to be addressed is the compensation for each one of these job classifications on an hourly basis, because that's really what needs to be bumped. That's what needs to be solved. Because once we solve these classifications, okay, then it's plug and play. So trying to dance around the issue with this, well, we'll do stipends and we'll do this and we'll do this. At the end of the day, what the council needs to address is these classifications of these 17 people. that rate needs to be established.

Is that for 2027?

Yeah, that needs to be established. And it cost what it cost. Because I guess what I find offensive with this is that we've got 17 people, and 10 of the 17 have been here less than five years. And if it wasn't for three or four people, we would literally have no experience within Brown County.

That's why I'm trying to build some things up.

Yes, we cannot continue to do this. We need to fund law enforcement. Law enforcement needs to be, it's either a priority or it isn't. It's real simple. So if we're going to make law enforcement and security within our county a priority, so I don't have to worry about my stuff getting stolen out of my house, right? Or getting shot or Lord knows what else. then we have got to hang on, and we've got to get back to what we get. And furthermore, with regards to compensation for law enforcement, the challenge with it, and you've not brought it up, is you can recruit people, but they can't afford to live here. So now of the 17 people, and not to put you on the spot, but of those 17 people, I wonder how many of those people live outside of the county currently.

I'll tell you that. one, two, three, four.

Well, Jim, those positions were evaluated in the IBS.

Right, but they're not at the 50% midpoint.

Right, that's what we have to do. That's the issue. That's what we have to do.

And we haven't done it.

And we need to do it.

That's the reason I've been harping on this going all the way back to February and March.

And we'll have to do it again.

I've been harping and harping and harping. It continues to fall on deaf ears. How many people did you come up with? Five. Okay, so a third of the employees live outside of the county basically.

Thank you. So the question is how do you do it and what do you do with the DOC income? And why do we have a jail that's got over 100 cells so we don't have a need for this county?

unless the goc income is integral to that model it wasn't always that way though we used to house 60 some but i can tell you i think there's a lot of things that factor into that one um our our community is aging very rapidly so therefore we don't have a whole lot of people that are out committing we are a very senior system community one also i want to think that we're doing a good job Two, we've done a good job with reducing recidivism with all the programs that we have in our community, community-wide, when we had a lot of crisis with the drug issues and people dying and things like that. This county stepped up, and I think we've done a good job at reducing that recidivism and keeping people out of our jails. And that includes these gals back here and everything. I think system-wide, we've done a really good job, and our community is aging out. We are old. This community's old. And they're not, old people don't go out and commit crimes.

I mean, I'm serious.

It's true. You look at all those factors, and I'll be honest with you, we're doing a damn good job.

No problem. Part of the stipend is the DOC model, which helps fund the...

Currently their DOC is holding $444,527.62 in that fund. Correct, it's a budget.

And you've got another program that may even contribute more. So it's like, okay, I'm just saying, that contributes to our budget. If that weren't there, we're strapped. So it's helpful. You're saying, when we put it in the FES, somehow it's got to go into the FES. Right now it's a stipend. How do we put it into our budget if we want to do it differently?

We're going to have to work on it at the end.

I think when Brad first talked about the DOC stipend, I was involved in that conversation. We were even talking about another program. I do think it's important to help fund and offset it so that it's not all on the taxpayers. I'm totally fine with that. I'll even say that if that happens for years down the road, I would totally commit to continuing programs like that because I think it's being responsible, especially as a taxpayer myself.

I think it's excellent to become a profit center.

And if we get this other program in, you guys are going to be ecstatic.

And that's what we asked you to do.

Yes. Yes. So I asked for money. There was no money. So I found a way and a means. Okay.

Would it be possible? Just I'm thinking off the top of mind. In your budget. All right. There was $401,469. sitting in the general fund for the pension benefit. Sheriff's defined benefit plan. Could the DOC money be used going forward to help offset the cost for the pension? Do you have any restrictions on that DOC money? Or could it be used to offset purchase of cars? Could it be used to offset the burden on the general fund? If we could use in other words if we could we've got to look at is we got to look at the FES job classifications to where they exceed to where they you know where you are today to make it competitive and we use the DOC revenue to offset another line item expense within that general however you use it as long as my salaries get up to where they need to be that's what I'm talking about I'm trying to figure out I don't get the challenge Brad yeah there's there's no regulation on the DOC stipend you can use that can we you guys can use that however you can go straight into county general what we're trying to do is to keep account say that again The DOC money currently gets deposited into the general fund? No, no.

You can do what you can. There's no restriction.

Does the DOC money, Julie, go into its own fund? Yes. All right, perfect.

When we originally created the DOC fund, when you initially started that program, we specifically stated that you did the work on that as a way to get money to pay your deputies better. I do not want to start splitting up the DOC fund that we collected. This isn't about you. Let me finish. It's not about you, though. You get upset when people interrupt you and then you interrupt. This is money that was collected strictly for increasing the salaries.

I was here when we did it.

I know. I don't want to start saying, okay, we can use that DOC fund for other stuff because the intended purpose of it was to increase deputy wages. to make us competitive. I would like to continue to keep using that for that and not use it for other purposes.

You're just going to sit there and come from your frame of reference or your perspective and your close-minded lockdown and not open any other ideas.

Let me clarify.

I gave my opinion. We're try-ins.

We have to solve this.

I gave my opinion, Jim. I didn't lay down my wall.

We have 10 minutes. We've got four more budgets.

I think what Jim wants to do is to make it more secure coming out of our budget rather than variable layer and use that money as it comes in accordingly.

We need to solve this.

I'm all about shifting money to free up money. But still, if we're freeing up money and it's salary money, we're still freeing up money somewhere else is the way I look at it. That's just my opinion.

But then what we do is we put the expense of a constant into revenue that could be variable.

No, no, no. I'm saying if we're using the DOC money as DOs to help pay their salaries, We're still freeing up money somewhere else.

Let me add this. We had a meeting here several, several, several months ago at the sheriff's office. Hypothetical situation, the DOC money dries up and there is no more DOC money. So are you all, the other six of you, going to sit here and tell me that if that DOC money dries up, that you're going to come back and tell these 17 people, oh, you know that stipend deal you had, it's gone, and now all your compensation is going to go back. Is it 47 people? You're going to tell 47 people, sorry, the DOC money dried up, we're not going to pay you anymore. You're going to tell them that?

It may not be in the minutes, but it was in the discussions that if it dried up, it dried up.

Yeah, but are you really going to do that?

Yeah, I'm willing to say it. I'm one person. I believe I was even the person that said if it dries up, it dries up.

All right, so Brad, now all of a sudden you guys are faced, you don't have the DOC money, and now all of a sudden you're faced to have to tell your 47-hour employees, your pay's going to go down dramatically from what you've been using. your staffing?

Well, it would suck.

In talking hypotheticals, the fact is, okay, if that happens, we as the county has to say, we still have to try and protect the county. What are we going to do?

He does have more of what we need to go through and he has very few minutes left. I know.

The only thing I would say to you, Darren, about starting to pay other stuff out of the DOC money, for that example right there, if you build that fund up to where it has a savings amount and, God forbid, DOC stops, then you buy yourself time for us and you to figure out what you're going to do. What we're going to do. That's why we have not asked to increase our stipend amounts knowing that that fund can build a savings so that if that happens you have time at least to figure it out.

We call operating reserves and I think we should shoot for 30 to 50% operating reserve in that misdemeanor fund. Is that what it's called? No, it's the DOC side of the fund. And so let's shoot for that. And I think we intended to go to, it's not just for deputies. No, it's for my whole staff.

Across the board, for my whole staff.

So yeah, it's a whole staff. And this is just, I'm trying to get some information here. Do you know what percentage of your people that come in that are incarcerated actually have to go to the hospital or injured overall? And I know that's a dynamic that has changed. And the reason I ask it is this, that when I was working at Marion County, and there is a law for this now, used to Marion County got stuck with everybody that was injured drunk driving prior, this occurred prior obviously, to them being incarcerated. And we took that to the state legislature unless it's changed. And so one drunk driver could cost you hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And if this county gets stuck with that and that increases your contract, that could be a big variance on the amount of income. You might be able to stop that because a drunk driver or somebody coming to crime prior to being incarcerated that has to go to the hospital, that occurred prior to them being incarcerated, and that responsibility was on them. That might be one way of looking at some revenue. That might be a significant amount. I have no clue, but I have a feeling, I don't know how many people incarcerated a year here, do you? Just off your head, how many arrests would you guess? Do you take a lot of them to the hospital prior to being?

Can I say something about that? Drunk and they wreck and they're gonna be in the hospital for two weeks. You're like We'll talk to you later. We'll get a warrant.

We'll get them later A lot of people you know, they go to the emergency room big cost incurred If you're just there six hours or a few hours and then they're released back to you. Do we pay for that? No No, I'm talking about if somebody If I went out here right now, crashed and I was drunk.

Yeah, I can answer that. It's on you or your insurance or whatever.

Okay, so you're already doing that.

We would file charges on you and get a warrant for you after the fact.

Okay, so you wouldn't make the arrest then? No, no, no. Well, a lot of counties do that. Not so much anymore, no. So you've got a $130,000 inmate medical request.

What's that go to? The contract is just a yearly contract.

Well, plus we pay for medications they don't cover. And if somebody would fall out of their top bunk and break their wrist, right, they're going to go to the ER.

So it's like an insurance contract of sorts?

Of sorts.

We have a nurse on staff, a doctor, that covers all of that.

So do you have any clue what the cost that you don't pay, or the cost that you do pay, does anybody keep track of what cost perhaps that you could defer back to that person that is incarcerated? If they're in jail and break their arm, I get it, you're going to pay for that. I totally understand.

So a lot of it depends on how they come in in the system and when they've been sentenced or how long they're there. Their insurance goes for so long, but then once they're incarcerated, we can't, then it occurs to us. And QCC helps us navigate all that. You know, if there's insurance available that the inmate can be billed, then it's billed to the inmate.

So there would be no savings, bottom line. There is savings. There is savings. Because we have the contract. No, I'm talking about any new savings that you could make.

Probably not. Probably not. That's my question. Yeah, I mean, this stuff has been gone over so much. We go to conferences. That's one of the reasons we go to conferences. All this stuff, QCC is very good. They work on the billing. They do a lot to try to reduce the bills as much as they can.

Also, out of that medical, you know, one bill, for instance, what was it, $8,000 for a shot recently? Yeah, for a mental health shot. For someone with schizophrenia, they have to have a shot every few months. It's $8,000. There's no way around it. We have to pay it. It's a court-ordered situation.

So on the, you know, looking at the FES midpoint comparisons to pay for counties surrounding us and similar to us, if I recall correctly, a lot of our dispatchers and jailers and admin staff are pretty low.

Yeah, we're grossly underpaid compared to surrounding counties.

And then, you know, just observation, I think you pointed it out, you know, our deputy pay, you know, based on the attraction of candidates is getting closer to the ballpark, right? We're getting closer. We're getting closer, but we're not where we need to be. But we're getting closer, and so I just want to be very mindful of those in your words grossly underpaid staff that are not deputies and we are too that they get the attention they need and we've talked about this on the council is it's those people that are way underpaid that we kind of need to focus on first because those days are pretty low and that's what i'm hoping to kind of gives everybody a raise this year well that's my point is and it's kind of a I mean, you've got, and that's a tough question for you, Would you rather have a little for everyone or a little bit more for the people who really need it the most?

Everybody in our office needs it the most.

I don't know how you break that down. Our last dispatcher application, we waited three months for one application.

And that's one of the positions I'm referring to that seems to be too low.

And it's so hard to get anybody very qualified to stay up there. We're going through dispatchers just because the applicants that we do get can't do the job.

It's an awful job.

It is an awful job. And they can't do it. And we're not paying enough to get people that can go in there and do the job.

That's my point. If you want people to be able to do the job and you want to attract candidates, not just the deputy positions, all of those other positions, you've got to do the same there. And we're sounds like we're kind of close on the deputy side closer than these others and that's my concern and you're you're reflecting the reality that that's the case these are two underpaid attract 15 candidates per job so my focus goes to that as a problem more so this isn't a problem with deputies but this seems to be and you're telling me it is a problem i think i'm just trying to prep you i think there's two there's two sides of that um

jail and dispatch everywhere for instance bartholomew county is churning jailers out and they're one of the highest paid in the state no one wants to do that job it's just the job no one wants to do the job in my opinion that's the worst job you have you got the mental health issues that are going on nowadays and people are throwing poo at you it's not a and you're making 20 some dollars an hour yeah twenty dollars an hour yeah our jailers making twenty one dollars an hour uh jim does

The sheet you put together, the one where we had a 90%, target 90% of 2027. That was the total increase of 323,875. What we have on that, is that 90% of the external midpoint? Yeah. Okay. And is that the goal? I mean, I know we talked about this at our work session. Is this kind of a goal? Target goal of everybody here?

My perspective is we as a county across the board for all employees that the county be at 100% of external midpoint. When I bring up external midpoints so that there's no confusion.

We can't get into this.

Real quick, there's eight counties. They've looked at all these counties' compensations based off these classifications. And they've gone in and used a calculation called to come up with this 50% target. And that's outside. So if we can get to 100% of that 50% target, The challenge is that to try to do it all in one fell swoop, you're about $1.5 million increase in labor costs.

That's the challenge. OK, now to that, if we go with a 90% target that we're looking at, we're looking at an increase of total labor, just labor, 323,875 for this year. What that does is the civilian poll and the Merit Poll. Civilian Poll A, the jail staff is Civilian Poll, correct? Yes, Civilian Poll B.

They're not Merit Poll? Okay, so Civilian Poll A would get an annual increase of $2,300.

Civilian Poll B would get an annual increase of $2,700. Civilian Poll C would get an annual increase of $6,300. Merit poll A would be 29.54, merit poll B would be 22.26. And these are just projections based on what Jim put together. So this isn't a promise. Merit poll B would be 22.26, merit poll C an increase of 54.34, merit poll D of 54.50. That's what we're aiming for. We're aiming to get everybody up to where they're supposed to be. Adding back the longevity for a $2,900 benefit for 17 deputies is far less than what we're aiming for. What we're aiming for is going to benefit you far greater than reinstituting the longevity. Which we're trying to get away from. Anyway, we're going to be redoing that. And that's been how many years down the road there. That's a couple.

What we got to do is get everybody to give it to us and get it away within two years.

But then we're going to have we're going back on something and I don't want to push us up somewhere. We're going to have to come back from it even though it's 20. It's a total of $2,900 59. Well, taking you out of it.

Oh, okay.

I'm saying that half of it is going to benefit you. The other half is spread across the other deputies that you're looking to benefit. What we're looking to do is going to be far greater of a benefit than that. And that's what we're trying to do. Speaking off base for anybody else.

What I'm trying to solve, what I personally have been working on trying to solve for is could we in 27 get, and keep in mind this, these 19 job classifications basically represent, you know, over, well over two thirds of the 151 employees. All right. so if we could get these 19 job classifications was basically taking us the 80 20 rule because the 20 would be what it's going to be the special occupations and elected officials so the council will not get any raise never got a raise neither will the commissioners so any elected officials take them off the table right and let's look at the bulk of the employees and how do we get can we get to 90% of the 50% external number. In 28, get to 95%. And in 29, get to 100% of the external. Now, keep in mind, in that formula, you have to increase 3%. So I've got a 3% cost of living adjustment for 26 and for 27. So I'm taking the 26 salary ordinance that was implemented based off this factory evaluation system, increasing those wages by 3% for 26 and 3% for 27 and then giving those employees, get them to 90% with the idea that in 28 we bump it 3%, get them to 95 and then in 29 we bump it 3 and get everybody to 100%. because once we can get to that 100% number, now everybody within the county, based off your job classification, which is the key, are all being treated with equity, to use a term. So when will that occur again? It won't occur until we as a council body address it and make a decision.

Okay, so part of the question is, the issue is when, and let's assume, I'm just entertaining you, let's assume, He gave it to him now and says it goes away when we finally get our act together up on that. I don't understand your question. You're saying that the FES, if we did it right, is going to take care of that and don't need the longevity, right? No, I'm not saying that because I don't know that. But that is somewhat of our objective. Correct. Correct?

Which is why I'm saying it's hard to make a decision on this right now.

Correct. So I'm saying that if we have confidence of sorts that we could say, well, we could entertain this 5,900. But it goes away when we get our act together on that aspect, whatever that looks like.

So in other words, you face out the 59. It's an option. We're going to have to look at that. We've got to look at it and evaluate it. That's what I'm saying.

Those 17 people are the only people in the county that don't get the longevity right now. So if you're doing it the longevity way from everybody because if you fix that system, then rightly so. That's all I'm asking. Yeah, I want to fix the system.

So here, just to set expectations, at the end of the day, all the budget requests based on what we have on hand in terms of revenue is about $380,000 countywide in surplus for the whole budget. It's not a lot. Okay, so unless we see cuts, you're probably not going to get everything everybody wants here. I just don't see it in numbers yet. Unless something changes. So it's going to be somewhere between $0 and $3,000 a year raise. We've got to see how this works out. That's just what the numbers are telling us. But yeah, it sounds like your deputies are improving. And then your other staff needs help. Really, it's everybody.

I think the attraction is improving, but the retention is not.

That's the thing like you got all these guys come in and it's that golden ticket they get Get the training through us get the Academy once they get three years on the state law that they passed now They're eligible to go anywhere else and those other counties and agencies don't state agencies don't have to pay that money back because of the state that We don't want to slow her down

But what I would say is, can you use the misdemeanor fund to pay longevity? No. You can't, okay. No, it's for jail step only. But you could use DOC for that. So there may be something here in the short term that you could compromise and say, hey, we'll bump that up by the DOC.

Any other questions about someone like that?

Yeah, 35, 100 in the jail, education and It's doubled to 5,027 requests. Is there a need for that?

Yes, they need training. We've already burned through it.

Expensive.

Yeah, I understand that. Is that because you've lost some of the training?

That's for the jail. That's for the jail. There was another one in the sheriff's office. If I don't provide good training for my jail staff and everything... That could compute the lawsuits that this county can't take. I understand.

The sheriff's training also went up because it got cut a couple years ago. And $5,000 is nothing. That's nothing. A murder training is going to cost you half of that for one person.

Plus expenses of being there. Right.

And we have a lot of change right now. So we have a lot of training requirements that are needed. And that was the increase for the training.

I mean... Costs incurred to us?

Yes.

Okay, so you've been short-staffed for once. You're not transmitting to people. No good. But also, the short staff is more overtime. Is that any change in that going on?

Right now, our guys, honestly, are adjusting comp time. But the biggest concern is our comp time is rising because they're not taking time off. And now you're having burnout. So I mean, I would say, personnel-wise, we're in a great position. The problem is they're all going to be burned out by the end of this year. And I really, really worry about that.

I guess I would ask benefits beyond that hundred dollars a year to address the burnouts so benefit packages I mean I you know you got to be creative here time off comp time, vacation, carrying over the problem.

We got to be I think that this has more you can't take.

Well, it may but I'm saying we got to be committed because I see the other departments doing those things.

And so when we run out the $100 a year is not going to address when we let people off, they got to fill the gap with someone else.

Yeah, no, I get it. So that's not you're not going to solve that. And so we got to do something else for that. And so I would encourage you to do that. There's something we need to build in, please suggest it because it sounds like an issue. So what's our status on the $5,900?

I would prefer to not go backward in what we're trying to do with the FES system. Re-implementing the stipend right now is a step backward in what we're trying to go forward with and correct. We're not there yet, Peg.

And we need to set a time when we're going to look at the FES system, and I think we should do it at the end of our office.

We need to work on it, is the answer.

Well, some of the reality is that perks provide a good, perks such as that can provide a good stimulus to the people for motivation. And it isn't unsurmountable to pursue it at this point.

Well, implementing it is going to be so negligible in their benefits. Correct.

We don't have much time discussing it.

If we can do this, the benefit is going to be

astronomical compared to yes I'm just saying in the meantime compared to if we come to an agreement that we change the system it goes away yeah my only last-ditch comment would be is is that it is important I understand what what you're saying Scott about that hundred dollars but decisions you're making right now is going to affect those guys five and 10 years down the road and look no farther than our past five years. The guys have not stayed. I mean, I can name them. They're great officers. I can tell you that I have sat at conversation and tables with other sheriffs and chiefs who would love to have me and I can make $115,000 a year. I have chosen to stay here because I love Brown County. I'm one of one. I'm one of one. So, and I promise you, they're all gonna watch this YouTube video. It will happen.

I hope they do.

Yeah. and i'm not i'm not saying that i'm just saying those those decisions you make are affecting five and ten years down the road and it's i live here i want good law enforcement and i know you guys do too i just want to say it darren i understand you're wanting to do this but i've heard wanting to do from this county council for years and years and years and years and it never gets right we are the reason the reason we implemented the fbs system

perfect as it was is because one of the things I said is if we wait for it to be perfect, we're not going to implement it. I want to get it implemented and then get it to where it needs to be. If we waited, and the same thing, I've sat here and watched all kinds of great aspirations come. This is what we're going to do. We implemented the FES system. We have that. Now it's on us to get it to where it should be. And that's what we're working on. We've got a three year goal on getting that to where Like Jim said, you know, by 2030, you know, we're looking at having everybody funded to that external midpoint with incentives for experience. And that's part of what we're trying to build into, especially the Sheriff's Department is going to have their own tier of experience

and uh hey but we are we are addressing we are looking at that we absolutely do want to want to address i appreciate that but i'm going to keep working hard on just taking care of myself let's just say but it's three years off so that you will have it then but we're not doing it i'm not saying i know we're working on it we are working on it

It just, I mean, it's just promises and promises that never come true. I'll keep working my end to do what I can to make sure my people get paid.

Well, good morning. I think I'm first. I think I'm first. I can do that. That's all right. Gave me a chance to look at this again. No, not this morning. I had a week-long trial that came off, so I'm a little more flexible this week. So I didn't see that we submitted a T-chart this year, so I thought I'd just go through my proposed decreases and increases from last year. I can tell you that according to my calculations, with granted I'm a judge and a lawyer, not an accountant, I actually have a request to decrease the budget of the secret court. The way that I propose to do that is my assistant has looked carefully through our postage, even accounting for all the postage increases that have been happening and will continue to happen. We propose to decrease our postage, which is in 21200 by 500. I think we have accomplished that by greater use of email notices. Magistrate and I have been working hard to try to talk people into receiving their court notices by email. We've also been very careful about our return mail and making sure we don't send subsequent mail to a bad address. And speaking with the Director of our guardian ad litem program. We're looking at line 3 6 1 0 1 We're able to propose a decrease in guardian ad litem increase expenses by 500 I Also in my law books which have last year came out of cum cap. That's four to seven. Oh, oh my contract on law books if you want to call it with West and I think it was West was up for renewal and I decreased what I thought we needed, and so I'm requesting $2,000 less in that line. And then I also made a reduction of $50 in $3,700 for dues and subscriptions. My increases in line 32400, I'm asking for an increase in juror meals by 200. In 3500, professional services, The Maximus account, which is our tracking system for 4D expenses, that contract went up by $100 a year. I remind you that that service, the court pays about $5,800 a year for that service. And through that service, we recoup $15,000 to $18,000 per year into the county general fund. think I've told you before I'm not interested in renewing that contract when it comes up next time but the county can do so if it chooses using incentive money from the 4d project under 35 200 repair and maintenance the contract for our BIS recording system went up, is going up by $111, and therefore I'll need more to cover that system that is the system that records all of our court proceedings as required by rule and law. So that is a summary of what I have. I'm open to any questions.

I may be looking at the wrong thing. I decreased by 2,000. Now, okay, this is what happened.

QCAP. So I want to include that because I don't want you to forget about my copier, my law books, and what was the other thing that's included in there? Equipment mate and fixtures. Yes, so all of that Got diverted to a different funding source. Okay last year, so But as I said, I wanted to make sure that that did not get forgotten As of last year That was the issue that I came before you because all of a sudden it disappeared from my budget, and it got placed in the other budget, so I needed to know why, and I was satisfied by that answer as long as it's getting paid.

Does anybody see in law books in your QMCAT budget? I see it zeroed out in the 3D book.

okay well I'm glad I brought it up there should be three things the three things that got switched were in my with the furnitures and fixture office equipment which I think is my office equipment the Toshiba copy or lease and law books should all, I think, is what got placed instead of in the court budget in the QMCAP budget last year.

Oh, last year. Last year. Last year it's in there, but this year I'm not seeing it.

Right. So if we can... I don't have any control over what's in the QMCAP budget, but I request that those matters be put in that budget.

So you did talk with those powers that be?

I have not. I just made an assumption, which I know is very dangerous, but I put them in... I mean, they're in my budget. They're in my budget, but on a separate page. If you look at my budget, the last page, I submitted the regular court budget, and then I submitted circuit court through CUMCAP. for 2027 as a separate signed document.

Okay, I'm finding it on Julie's book, Law Books at 2000. Yes. But it's not on the Reedy piece. And then the other one was Equipment and...

It's under the... It actually should be on Reedy.

Yeah, it should be. So Office Equipment and Fixtures is at 1200, if that's for you.

No.

lease agreements over the three are in there under their department so there's several different departments added into Comcap hers is under department zero three two three so Julie it should be there in your numbers that's in my numbers yeah it's in there thank you good thanks so you're uh again the three the three that i believe are

Furniture and fixtures, office equipment and fixtures, lease agreement, and law books.

How much is your lease agreement?

That is $1,300.

Okay, this is $1,300.

It's only $4,600.

Yes.

Yeah.

I just want to make sure it gets paid.

I got that. Yeah. Good.

As long as it's there. There it is there.

find them what what what page

The total was $407,061. And out of the $407,061, $371,361 is labor costs. The only other item in here is the fuel cap, which is $4,600. That's it. It's pretty straightforward.

I try to be.

Yeah, but we just want to make sure that it's accounted for somewhere. That's on the form.

What do you get paid? So is it accounted for or not? I'll be coming back if it's not you know that any other questions about the courts proposed budget

Yes.

Because I don't ever get an opportunity to question local circuit court judges.

Teresa says it's actually in their own fund. It's not in their own fund because it wouldn't go into Gateway that way. So I had to actually combine them and put them under 000 so it would actually go into Gateway. Okay.

Yes, sir.

It is in there. It is just added together with other police agreements. I don't know what happened to that.

you look at your activity level rolling through the court system because we just had the sheriff deputies up here we got the prosecuting attorney sitting back there that flows to your court that when you look at that activity i mean and you're just off the top of mind i mean is is and i know you what type of cases do you have to deal with you know on a 12-month period i mean is it a bunch of it substance abuse issues? Or is it just a mishmash of everything?

So I think a lot of times people focus a lot on the criminal docket, and it is always substance abuse. I mean, there are some cases that are not substance abuse related. However, I would say the vast majority have either alcohol or drugs as some component. Your domestics occur a lot of times because somebody's Using substance, not all the time. Certainly the ones that are directly under the substance abuse offense statutes, then you see it, thefts and other matters, but I think what a lot of people forget, the CHINS docket as well, the Child Need of Services docket is heavily influenced by substance abuse. But you gotta remember, we are one court, so it's all the small claims, it's all the estates, it's all the trusts, It's all the people in traffic accidents, the torts. It's all the plenaries. I handle every single kind of case that comes before the court, the family law, everything. So if you look at the actual numbers of cases filed, the civil docket is just as busy as the criminal docket. And I think that it is easy to focus on the court's criminal docket. But there's my days are filled with I do mainly criminal Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of the week I do juveniles on Wednesdays generally, but I've got protective orders and everything else in the mix for all those other dates and times.

And then as far as just the caseload, on average, rolling 30 day period, how many? Oh, I it varies. Oh, at least

At least. For that amount of time?

Oh, yeah. Just an ongoing thing. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean.

So you've got 100 cases in the year and anyone gives a time.

100 for what?

For everything, all in. Civil and criminal.

Per week or per?

No, just on average. On a 30-day, if you take an 18-month period, the caseload, you're going to have these open cases. Because eventually those cases close, right? And then they're gone.

I can give you my court statistics, and they're available online, and you're going to find there's a lot more than that pending and active.

So that is public information? Yes.

If you go on to the Supreme Court, the Indiana Office of Court Services court statistics, you can look by county, and it'll actually give you a pie graph of the percentage of civil as opposed to criminal ordinance violations, the whole thing, and you can look at the actual numbers. We have to do quarterly reporting. And so those statistics are available to the public No, the biggest thing we've had is the two years ago when they doubled the jury pay and

Okay.

That hurt a lot. I don't know of anything else that would have that significant of an impact.

Okay, we just wanted to get trending what's going.

I don't know of anything.

Okay. All right. All right. Thank you, Judge.

Thank you. Probation.

You're free to head back if you want.

I need to sit with, they're my employees and they're a part of my court, so I have to be here.

So, I mean all we asked for was actually the probation officer salaries did not change from last year. This is our second year in a row we haven't cut increases. So all of our increases are only just for longevity and then, but I did ask for a new line item for overtime. $5,000 is the request for that. Because we've got, it just happens, like our juvenile officer got really, really busy this year. We're going to have to pay her out some downtime hours, so.

What was that being paid out of previously?

Well, actually, the only time, the last time we did it, I think I had some funds. I had some old drug and alcohol funds that we used and a program that we no longer have.

This time, just to address that, I'd hoped to be before you on the 20th, but I had to defer that because I had to go to a funeral. One of our public fenders passed away. What we're proposing is a payout of the overtime using part probation fees and part of my Salary that I have an out salary pays for the part-time security officer I've not had to use that service as much and I think I can give wiggle room on that to do that That's I think going to be on the agenda for August for your regular meeting So we are trying to do that without an impact to the county budget We appreciate that because I know the county commissioners are looking at some

overtime issues and those are some things that we need to discuss as well.

And I think that's why we included, we are asking for an overtime line so that way it's already anticipated in the budget and out of County General and that reverts back if we don't have to utilize that. So that way we can be prepared and not have to come to the County Council when we get to that point. It's already factored in.

And one of the things that was brought up was If we have to pay for somebody to pay them out over time, vacation time, those kinds of things, let's just say because they're going to a new job, you might not be able to hire anybody until we become equal again. Correct. I mean, we haven't voted on that. But that is something we talked about in our last meeting. We've talked about it in the past. So just giving people who bring this subject up and we may want to bring it up. Those are things that we need to look at because it really eats us up when people do that. And we appreciate you looking at other sources too.

Not eats us up emotionally. Not emotionally. I don't know. Sends us down emotionally. Is 5,000 going to be enough? I don't know.

I think so. So the ask that the judge was speaking about that we were going to be on the county council agenda for this past month but will be in hopefully in August. It was for to pay out I believe 110 comp hours and that equated to I believe $3,100 roughly. And so and that is accumulated basically over the last two years. So we wanna be prepared that if we have to pay that out, should someone depart from our department or that we have a situation where like this summer has been really busy in the juvenile world and that it's almost been unavoidable at times to utilize that comp time that is earned. So we wanna be prepared in the future Um, and that way it's factored in and we're not having to come and ask for that. And so I think 5,000 annually would be sufficient. Um, so. Okay.

Great. And yes, I need you to be verbal that you are on the agenda. That's our regular office.

have a 3d financial group and with all our numbers on here though I only see one air from what I asked for a difference yeah it's my pretrial officer should be 45,000 228 we have that in in our book here we have 45

If you look at the far end, they took out the longevity.

Yeah, it's kind of difficult when we're working with our format and Lee's format and trying to translate between the two for everybody.

But yeah, everything else is in my budget. That's the same. Anybody else have anything?

Are you OK with the $5,000? Motion to dismiss. Everybody good with $5,000 for overtime?

I mean, it's paid. It's paid anyway, somewhere.

So I mean, like, okay, bring it to us last time. 2016 or something. It was awful.

Yeah.

I'm sorry. I just said that. So it doesn't happen, it's not something that happens every year, but it's juvenile now where sometimes it's just a wave and then everything calms down and we're back to normal and right now we're in a wave. And it's something you have to do.

You can't just say, eh, we're not going to do that this week.

And then we encourage you, if they can take the time off, if there's time. We've attempted.

They have, they have. And we even tried, I mean, like this past, we detain a kid every week. It seems like. Last month. And, you know. Kids. And, I know, and, you know, we have been actually, because our juvenile officer actually had to be out of the office. It's like, okay, we have to do it now and do that work for her. So, we try to assist as much as we can.

Yeah, looking at the readings. document under probation. 19,000 and reductions for staffing 15,000 probation officer. Do you see that in the reading? Page 17. Scroll over to department budget request over under 26 and then scroll down. Probation officers are dropping 15k. That should not be right now. Yeah, I didn't think I was right. No, so I think... And then $2,000 for pre-trial.

Looking at that, I think that $15,000... Oh, that's my... Oh, so what that is, is actually, yeah, that's my... The $15,000 comes from my adult user fees.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, that's... For both the chief probation officer and the adult probation officer. And then the $2,000 comes from the juvenile user.

user fees for the juvenile it's just being paid not out of county general is that what you're referring to being paid by user fees yeah but what this is saying is it's less than last year coming out of the county general fifteen thousand less fifty thousand less two thousand less than last year No, that's not what that means. That's what this is saying.

Well, that's not. No, because last year the request and what was approved for like the chief probation officer out of county general was $74,228. Oh, that's different. And then $15,000 was paid out of adult user fees.

Hold on. This is saying $89,000 was approved at $26,000 for the probation. Total salary. That's total salary.

No, I know I try to take some of our user fees and if we earn that make that money we can use that for some other salaries

So it ends up being about 15 grand for two adult officers each, and then for juveniles just getting bumped up, so 2,000.

On the sheets we printed out, it looks like 26 adopted budget includes that in probation and also accounts for it in adult user fees.

Yeah, we did the same thing last year.

We can talk about that later. Yeah. That's a paperwork thing.

Several years in a row now we've been doing that. Okay, yeah. To try to alleviate it.

The $15,000 in adult years fees goes back, you know, at least to 2023. Okay. Okay.