County Council - public_hearing

So it's always.

We're not going to do the pledge? No, still the same meeting. Oh, good.

Still the same pledge.

OK, let's go. Go ahead.

We don't know exactly what to do.

Start with the school resource officer. That was one thing we didn't get to. In 2018 when that was applied for it was a hundred percent full reimbursement grant the school gets the grant it's a matching grant so

It was $75,000, so I think it was like $3,750 or whatever that the school gets for the grant, and then the school pays $3,750 for the grant.

The sheriff doesn't pay anything.

The sheriff doesn't pay anything. But I mean, the school pays the employee? No, it's reimbursement through the auditor's office. The problem was is that since that inception, it's never paid for everything. for the deputy. Well it originally did pay for FICA but the problem was is that every year the school has had to return money on the grant because and it has to do with the cycle that the fiscal year the school is on versus the fiscal year that the county is on schools July to July counties January to January And because of that grant, we're not capturing all of the money. And so every year, money has been returned. I'll add the amounts, but it's $7,000, $8,000, $10,000. And you have to double that. So that is a loss to the county, if you're understanding me. So even though it was 100%, the grant was supposed to be for 100%, it's never been paid that way since 2018.

So because they're on a fiscal year, And we're on a calendar year. That's where you're saying the part of the problem. It is part of the problem. And I had to deal with those. And I'm going to have to think about how I did deal with those so that I captured it. I mean, that's a long time ago.

So it was. And then the other problem is that we've always only built. Amber has a folder down there. I went through the entire folder. Because what happened was the school was applying for a second grant, which is where we're at right now. um the school and the commissioners brad there's a whole new mou that's in the process right now to pay the school and the grant will cover 75 of the off of everything of fika of 10 days of everything um say that one more time The new MOU is to pay for 75% of the officers.

And before you go forward, before 2027, which is what we're talking about now, 2018 through 2026 was never paid 100%?

We have always operated at 75% or less. When we return funds, we're paying it less. Right. Another thing that happened, The officer that's the SRO right now takes family insurance The people that were there prior prior to that did not and so that's a difference of about $20,000 So because of that because those things were never You could you could put blame on three different people really would be us The school and in the auditor in terms of but nobody really knew what was going on.

How many hours a week do they put in?

40 42 42 hours but basically I've done the math with the new officers with the if they get the new position the total cost to the cap is the total cost is It's $200,290.65. That's for both officers. Two officers. Okay. The school would be paying $150,217.98. Say that one more time. The school would pay $150,217.98. Again, this is under the new MOU. This hasn't even came to you guys yet. The commissioners are going to be signing it, I think, at their next meeting, and then it comes to you guys, and then the president has to sign the new MOU to agree to that cost. The only difference, and the reason I say that it makes sense is because, in actuality, last year the county paid $67,721. so for one officer because of that because of the breakdown that's not being kept up with and you can put that amount on 2025 as well if i if i'm making sense so four times so in 2026 this year we and you have to base that off of the school calendar we paid 67 721 dollars our portion our Well, yeah, we shouldn't have had a portion, but we've had a portion every year since its inception because...

So when you say leave, that's coming out of your budget?

No, it's coming out of county. And the thing is I've sat down with Kim downstairs. We don't even really know where it's coming from. Is it coming out of county medical? I have no idea. I would assume it's coming out of county general.

Julie, do you know where that's coming out of? Probably coming out of the same place the SRO is coming out of.

Part of it is the insurance. You guys take your chunk of insurance per person and you put it into that pot, right? And there's no real knowledge to say, okay, we're reimbursing that pot from here. And I think that's part of the confusion.

Whose employee is this, out of line?

He is our employee.

He's your sheriff's office employee. Well, he's driving it. Does the school demand it of sorts?

No, the way it works is first of all they get their law enforcement powers from us. It is a requirement by state that they be through us.

So are they hired as special deputies?

No, they are full merit deputies.

It's a merit deputy that goes to the academy that has to have specialized training, a week training for the school resource. However, when they are not in school, like through the summer, they work On the road for us.

So the new MOU is to model what really happens, both fiscally what's been happening for eight years basically, and what happens on the road.

So how much are we actually losing per year on one deputy? The bottom line, what are we actually losing per deputy? Because that'll be doubled soon, correct? No. No. No.

What I've done is what we have lost the last two years is basically $67,000. Over two years or over one?

Each year.

Each year.

I have a question.

Yeah.

Have you met with the people who pay this to you? to see how you can capture that extra money. And my second question is, and I know it's going to require more work on your bookkeeper somewhat, there should be a way that at least in some sort of an Excel spreadsheet, something, that you can track how much that the county is using for their health insurance and that kind of thing. So that you can actually say, this is what we spent By putting a name or something that says this is so and so resource center and this amount is being paid I mean, it's work, but it's stuff that we need to be tracking. It's not impossible to do.

We have never tracked it at our office. It has always been at the auditor's office.

Well, maybe y'all need to start tracking it, too.

And that's part... We could, but we don't track that on any other employee. The auditor's supposed to track all that stuff.

I realize that. But we want to capture as much as we can, but if you can, even... for a bit to get the handle on it.

No matter what happens, whether we get two or whether we get one, we have to fix the billing issue. I've already talked to Gavin Steele about this. We have to bring in Amber. We have to bring in the person from the school. Gavin, us, and probably the new auditor at this point in time to figure out what the method is to do this. To answer your question, we've lost $67,000 this calendar year. The year before that, I believe it was $58,000. I don't have the exact number written down.

$134,000 this time? Yes. This year, $15,000.

Because they don't pay his...

This year $15,316 was returned to the grant, meaning the school has to have an invoice to bill it because they have to have the invoice for the grant, they have to have the invoice because they're paying it out of their base as well. What I'm telling you is that you've lost money every year Because they weren't but to do it correctly I've asked I've already asked the school to increase their grant for the correct amount But that's being done at 75% so if if we were asking for the grant amount the way it was being done the grant amount would have been for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars and which at 75% of that would have been like 80 and some change. That's not what I asked them to ask for. I asked them to ask for 150, 217, 98 to get us If the new MOU is 75%, then that gets us at that. So by going to that new MOU, you will save $17,000 every year, and you're going to get a second officer.

Does that benefit you? Yeah, 100% you support that.

So let me tell you how that's going to work out. So with having two now, we would keep one on this campus here. There would always be one on this campus. The other one would be rotating. even during the day between the other three elementary schools. So it would be a schedule between those two. One may stay here one day, one may be running about. So that also puts us another road officer moving about the county and going to these three different locations of our schools and being at those at different times and different days, which is going to provide a lot more safety for our kiddos and our teachers and everything. And if we know we have an event or anything like that, we can always have one baby take off that day and then come to the event. So it gives us a lot more coverage. Great use of people. Absolutely.

The reason the second one came out anyways is because this grant used to be under the Department of Education. It has shifted to Department of Homeland Security. In the school's Homeland Security audit, they found that our officer was traveling anywhere from 15 to 20 hours work week driving to all the schools and so the audit was failing so to speak and they recommended a second officer to meet that need to meet the homeland security need and so that was when the conversation started and then Like this was like I don't know first two week or two of me being the chief deputy that I I asked for numbers from the school I asked for my off numbers from the from Kim and I realized we were in I mean we were in some shit Well, I appreciate you doing that and be very forthcoming.

You're probably gonna have to bridge the gap maybe for a while I like that you're going to call in the school, Amber, whoever, because we do need that money. It's got to be tied up. It has to be tied up. And if you can report back to us.

I think, honestly, the biggest problem is that everybody that did that in 2018, meaning everybody, everybody from the school, everybody's gone. It's not the same county council.

You probably can't go back.

The commissioners that were involved, the council that was involved, the sheriff that was involved,

the superintendent that was involved all gone all nobody's there all right so let's do this we're at 17 minutes in and so it sounds like you got a grip on that I mean I fully support it I think we need those satellite officers it enhances our local public safety Patrick I hear you absolutely positive about that and so let's let's move on

How many events or encounters have they had at school?

Well, I can tell you this. As being the detective, it lessened my workload and I was able to focus on the stuff I needed to focus on because they are taking two to three cases a day in the schools.

That's sad.

And hopefully managing those in a way that's... And most of that is in the high school, so that's where we're... we're not getting the security and support at the elementaries that they deserve as well.

And they have, just to be clear, they've applied for that second position. If they don't get it, then I ask them, they have a second amount threshold that will capture 75% of what is existing now to lessen what we're losing. But that's all kind of what if right now. I believe strongly that they're going to get the grant because Homeland Security encouraged them to apply. I think it's important. Either way, we're fixing it. Good job.

I think it's important at the younger age because they need that.

Christmas, they're dedicated to the school nine months out of the year. So historically, spring break, fall break, Christmas break, summer break, the officer actually works their road. Okay.

I'm telling you what this year if we didn't have our school resource officer on the road this summer with all the turnover we've had it was like a huge it was huge to have him come back on the road for us this summer to cover shifts

Because otherwise, you'd have to hire just regular mayor deputies full-time to do whatever you're doing.

The 75% really just comes about to do basically financially what's kind of been done forever since its inception, and then really what they work. It really just makes... For the school. It just makes fiscal... It makes sense.

All right. I know... I just want to clear that up for the record. I've had some time to talk to... Brad and Brian, I think you've got a $4 million budget. And overall, between the jail and Sheriff, all your operations, you're only asking for something like a 1% increase. It's less than $50,000, I think, what we're asking for. Under $50,000 on a $4 million budget is incredibly conservative and a much smaller increase. money to get people to train yeah yeah the training stuff is very important I mean we've got DOC prisoners now in our jails which are a little bit higher risk that training is key I've done the Enforcement Academy and talk to the jailers and that's a tough job And so we need I've seen videos of Brad and Brian jumping in to help with the jailers and inmates I mean this is training is absolutely essential for that. And so but out of the four million we've touched on 5,000 plus the 120. What about the other? three-point 7 million. Any concerns there? We've got 10, 15 minutes left.

I know that we have the lift, public safety. I know there's been some talks about our cars and stuff. What we've done with the cars, we're saving the county a shit ton of money by buying now versus leasing.

How did we go back to leasing? At one time, we were buying.

When Diana Biddle was in there, she started leasing. And that's when we started leasing. And the last set of leases that we have, we will pay off. Next year, there's $55,000 in there that will pay off the last set of leases that we have. And then we don't need it anymore. And then we won't need that anymore. But that is saving the county $36,000 per three vehicles that we buy. No kidding. Per three vehicles that we buy. And we buy three every year so that by paying them outright, like we would always have those lease payments and it would just keep... compounding. It's not good. So we've managed to get that cut out. So that's where we're trying to be physically responsible and save that money. Yeah, you had to kind of pony up the front, but then once you get past that and get those leases gone, we're buying them outright, we're paying for them, and then we have a little bit of money left in there if we have a wreck and the insurance doesn't cover all of it. Because Because they put a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of miles on them. And there's a lot of deer in this county. There's a lot of problems in this county. And they wreck them. You're driving hard. We're driving hard. We do stuff. So that gives us a little bit of a cushion to replace the vehicle after plus insurance. And so that $200,000, it's imperative that we keep it in there on the lid. The three vehicles are running me about $180,000 some. a little over $180 to get them and everything in there. There's another $60 each. And then that leaves you $20. We have the equipment line in there. But see, we're having to replace... Because of IPSC, the new radio systems that are coming in, we're having to phase out our old radios. So it's costing us a little bit more, but once we get through, I think... We got two more sets of... Two more sets of radios. We're buying like three at a time because they're expensive. But when we buy new vehicles, we're buying new radios to put in to where... And then, because we've been recycling our old ones forever, well, those aren't going to work anymore. When they flip the switch on the new system, those are done.

The in-cars radios, I think, are like $8,000 a piece, and there's two per car.

Yeah. So you're saving money on leases. You're saving money. This is great. you know, SRO thing. What else? Let's move on from vehicles because I'm trying to speed around you here. We want you to get us everything.

The other stuff that we've asked increases is in our training budget. Our training budget got cut last year. Training is super expensive. Brian's moved up from detective. We don't have a seasoned detective now. We don't have anybody that is murder certified to work a homicide or anything like that. Those schools are about $2,500 a pop plus expenses of hotels and things like that. We want to get – we're having a whole brand-new batch of officers. So we're going to have to start – and I think we're maybe going to keep some of these. So I want to start getting them some specialized training, some things like that that cost money but it benefits everybody in this county. Let me jump in here. Hold on.

So I'm an active shooter trainer and he is too, so we teach our own. But we have sent guys to specialized classes. The school SROs, that's part of the SRO class, the required one-week class.

But when you have to take your deputies out, how can you replace all of them to get all this done? Or you're not training them one at a time, I'm sure.

No, we usually split the shifts, and we do training on days they either work or are off work. If it's their off work, they gain comp time, or they take times off. Either way, it takes them from a way of working. So it is a hard increase, too. It creates a void. Yeah. But we have to do it.

That's part of the offset. But I'm just trying to add to it. the cost of things like that. That's a good point.

That's a huge part of the turnover. Like you said, a lot of times it doesn't just cost us what the training costs, it costs us overtime. We have to have people on duty. You can't train them on duty. They have to be available to take calls. You can't get engaged in a training and then leave it and go to the call. So we have to pay them off duty to do these trainings.

Yeah, that's why yesterday I said the investment, like it's a two-year officer is $125,000 that the county has invested in them for sure.

And then every year past that is... Once we get an officer to three years and we can start getting them specialized training where they can be trainers... That's what we want to get. That's what we're hoping to get some of these guys that will be 20-year people. You know, that's our goal of what we're trying to hire. I think we've hired some here in this last go-around that are going to be probably 15- to 20-year people. And that, if we can get to that, that saves everything in here. It saves a lot of money on the – we're losing a lot of money over the years. We've given other counties so much money by you paying for them to be trained.

don't know so they have no clue like these types of things and I understand the cost that you guys have that is underlying that really doesn't show up it just looks like numbers but there's all these other ancillary things involved yeah I mean like right now we're basically scrambling we increased our incentives

Budget line this year because we want some of our guys that are here right now to go and get these classes that we need That was the whole philosophy behind increasing that that like we have a lot of needs that have left in the last year Yeah, and now we're like we need guys to do this. It's a fact so we asked for the increase to the incentives so that we can incentivize them to go and get these things that we really need. Being 16 man, the difference between us and Bartholomew County is you'll have one guy who's specialized in one thing over and over. In Brown County, we'll have one guy that's specialized in five things. or six things, and we use them for all six. And half of those things just walked out of the building this year.

We've lost a few of those deputies that had that.

Which puts a lot of pressure on the existing ones, and they're not getting necessarily compensated for that.

Where do they go for the training?

everywhere everywhere I mean part of it is through ILEA at the police academy some of the stuff's through them or they'll have like satellite classes from ILEA that goes out different departments but then we can I mean he's been I've been to Quantico I've been to Florida San Diego you guys have good resources on that I see 10,000 in your in one line item here for training which I

for 16 officers and several new. It's really not enough. It's not enough. Is that the only training line you have in here, 10K? Well, that's for just officers. That's for just the officers. And then we have a jail and dispatch.

Five for jailers only or five for those in the dispatch? I think we only have for 2,500. The $2,500 was the incentive for the jailers to try to get. We want to give them some incentives so we can have the trainers in our jail training our people that we can send them to specialized classes and they can be certified in certain things. So temper officers buy for jailers and dispatchers both?

They're separate. They're each separate.

Do you have five? How much training for dispatchers? Five. Is that the same pool as the jailer? It's a different budget. Okay, good. You say it's not enough. How much is enough?

It would be... It's a good investment, right?

We're trying to be fiscally responsible. The thing is, if it gets down to it, we try to find other ways to move stuff around and pay for training because we have to have it.

Yeah, we were modest, quite honestly, in the training request. And historically, and it does, our training budget is at basically zero right now. But that doesn't mean we'll stop. We'll pay it out of commissary or pay it out of other ways where we can send guys to classes. And we've always historically done that. Scott did that before Brad did that. I think maybe that question... is a question for 2028. Okay, you're good for the seven.

We'll make it through 27. Okay. But 28. You know, I mean, we get these get all these new guys on the road and get trained and see where we're at. And we may we may need to, we may need to increase that I don't. And like I said, I'm okay with paying a little bit of commissary. I mean, that's kind of an emergency fund for us for training and equipment, right?

Yes. So good. Okay.

How many years? I mean, how many hours do you have to have a year per officer to keep them certified training?

24 minimum.

So you've got 24 hours training there per officer times 17? Yeah, but we're always way over the 24 hours.

But my point, I'm trying to point out to the council, the cost incurred in that, that is a mandatory thing or your officers can't work. They're not certified anymore. They don't get certified.

people are not aware of you have to pay you either have to pay him overtime for those 24 hours or you pay him comp time it's one of those which comp time brings overtime so your overtime budget is is there a budget in here i did not see that for overtime we do have an overtime budget and Right now, we've kept on track because a lot of the guys take comp time, quite honestly. But we're at a point now where our guys are way too high. And so we're going to have to work. Brad and I are going to look at the end of this year, and we're going to have to pay guys their comp time out of the overtime budget. In years past, we've ran over overtime line and had to ask for appropriations.

Can you have a set amount per year that they can accrue and that they have to use it in a certain amount of time?

The county policy is 80 hours of comp time is where it caps at. For a year? For a year. At a time.

But I'm going to add that in that the PAC has been discussing on doing I should just say just in fact commissioners are looking at doing some changes in overtime I don't know if that's gonna affect you guys because of your own SOPs and all those kinds of things I'm just letting you know and we're also going to be look as counsel with those are discussions after our meetings that we've got to have on how we want to see some of these things handled but again paying out overtime we know you've always built it in your budget you know we want to see you guys the guidance, use it if they can, but we also understand that that happens if they can't in your situations too. So I just wanted to throw that out there.

So we talked about equipment, training.

The money that you use for training, the $125,000 that it costs to get the new deputies trained, does that come from different line items or is there one simple way to track that What I'm getting at is if we can get to the point where we are retaining good deputies, Is there going to be a way to show that savings?

Well, in a way, yes, because some of that money goes towards the officers. So in their files, I can look at what each officer's training is, what their cost was, and there's a set value I can assess to that, which is how that number comes from the beginning anyways.

How to place it.

Yeah, so it's very easy in five years if guys aren't leaving, I can tell you how much you've saved by...

Looking at each I can go through each one and tell you how much you've the salary on top of while you're training them so like like you build in that salary of this cost us 16 weeks to send this officer to the Academy and

We paid him for 16 weeks and somebody else for 16 weeks to cover.

Yeah, so they're up there. Cover the void in so that you have to look at that cost too. It's like so when I every time I get a new officer that I have to send an academy. OK, well that takes us about a year to get him up to speed and fully trained and going so the rest of the guys are absorbing that extra pressure and they're also in the county is paying that expense. to get that guy up to speed. And quite frankly, it takes about three years to get a guy that's like, you feel like, okay, he's got it. He's fully capable and can handle about anything that's thrown at him.

You've given us a lot of information on that over the past few years, really. And so it's a real number that we pay. I know we're pushing on time here, but I did see, so we talked about vehicles school resource training safety equipment for officers tasers body armor development you may or may not see this last year we paid 2500 for body armor this year that's zero is that accommodated somewhere else are you guys just good on body armor or What do you need there?

It's really not enough because it cost about 1200 and that just depends for 2027 if nobody leaves we won't need any because they all have new That's true it's every five years Right now it's a year old. So everybody except our new hires would be less than that.

In three and four and five years from now, we're going to need a lot more than that because they're going to be replacing a bunch of them. So you're good for now? Okay. that's where that would I mean it's kind of that's one of those situations if we do that I mean that's where in the past we've just paid it out of concert there's one of the things that I can buy a body armor out of commissary it sucks but I mean it's just they have to have it Would anything else last?

No. I think from Brad and I's perspective, yes, we increased our budget by around $50,000, but we were trying not to shoot for the stars and do what we thought was enough to get us by to... Get back to where we were a year at least at least a year ago with what we've lost. I mean, replacing five deputies. I know that just doesn't when you say that it's like, you know, not a big deal. Maybe to some people it is. It's over a quarter of our department.

It is an astronomical half a million dollars in training.

It's like three years and it's not just that what left that building. It is an astronomical feat to get over right now and what's being asked of the other road guys. right now like you guys should all thank them because they're working their ass off they're having to train guys in the car so they never get that time to take a breath you know because there's always someone there if you think about it with your kids if your kids are with you 24 7 you get tired of that that's what they're that's what they're having to do right now it's like they're raising a kid in their car all of them all of them and that's the thing I mean

And to Kemp's question, okay, so we've got people that have less than five years on that are all our trainers.

that are being our trainers across the board and luckily you got you two and Sarge on some others and but thank you I'm glad you came back we needed to hear you out a little bit more we didn't get to your your longevity question but we've heard lots of other information about longevity with elected officials and other folks and departments it's not you know I just believe you this because I know that's important to you and it's a key piece of what you're doing but when we talk about raises I think you'd rather us talk about that than a $100 a year thing. We're going to get to that. It shouldn't be either or. I'm not going to ask you right now, would you be happy just with longevity increases and no raise? I don't think that's a good thing. You don't want that. Let us talk about that even though it's

I mean if there's no raises then yeah I want the longevity put in right there if the raises but didn't see like what we're looking at we're looking at that other thing what you're talking about yeah that that projected six thousand dollars that's at twenty thirty well that doesn't help now no if that increase and and we're gonna have to look at crunch you know crunching numbers on how much we can actually do on that

If the first step is to get everybody up to the 90% of external midpoint, I think the total cost on that would be what, $383,000? $383,000? And... Go back, that's... Yeah, and I don't think that covered everybody that was just But It's gonna be some some portion of that and we're gonna do everything we can to get that as as close to that as we possibly can Yeah, I think you know from our perspective we understand what you're what you guys are working on we just have to

I think it was important for us to ask. We have to, because all eyes are, I can tell you in the three months of being chief deputy, all eyes are on us two in that building, and they're wanting to know what we're doing for them. So we have to ask, and we just ask that you guys consider that. That's really what that is.

You may ask. Everybody's asking. And I expect them to. And they'll all come together at the end and we'll let you know.

I expect every department to do that. I'm very protective of my people. You should be. And when I feel like they're getting messed with, I'm going to swing. I'm a papa bear when it comes to that. And my people are my people.

I've seen a lot of deputies leave over the last couple decades and it's, on a personal level, seeing some really good deputies leave has been, has And also from your financial point of having to spend so much money on training, rescuing you from retention. And it's cyclical, and I want to get that cycle stopped.

Behind you is Sandra, our new highway person. She's going to help us improve those roads you guys drive on. So our vehicles will last longer. Thank you guys for coming back.

We appreciate it.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How are you guys? Alright, how are you? We're so good, we'll see. You're a little more seasoned now, right, than you were a little bit.

So you've got your budget book is there. We're going to be looking at that and then we're going to be looking at this reading packet. So you're in here second day. You have that.

There's the start years and then you should be just page after page and then here's the greedy financial

budget. Get it into Gateway. We had to actually combine everything and put it in zero to zero. Okay, but we need to keep that in mind. I also want to show you my files on the school resource office. We are very due diligent with this.

Okay. And so where do you want to start? We have all the invoices, all the paperwork. You want to start at the page?

This is doing fiscal years is what I understand.

Yeah, that's where the whole problem is.

yeah but I mean I dealt with those back in the day and I remember working with state and saying half a week after we send our invoices we go start with ABH oh I believe you I'm just saying that I used to ask them, how can we capture all of this? And sometimes it would fall into place.

Page 39. That's it. Page 39 on 3D. Page 39 for MBH.

And then it's on your second tab, first page, second day. Yeah.

And Sandra, let us know if there's something on Reedy that they didn't capture, but maybe Julie did capture so that we can correct that.

And don't feel like you have to. I would use whatever you're comfortable with. You can get a Form 1. And that Form 1 is the budget book. It's the same thing. So if you've got notes on your Form 1, feel free to use that. And we don't have the Form 1. So excuse what you're coming with. We can kind of try that.

Yeah. But if you do see something, even if it's .

Thank you. I haven't gotten here yet.

You just flipped your first tab in the budget book. That's MBH. Thank you, Dad. Yeah. Just trying to get us moving here. So you want to just go through any changes in MBH while we're kind of catching up to you here, Sandra? for important items you want to talk about.

Hey Scott, can I jump in here and ask a question please? Yeah. I'm looking at your actual Form 1 on 1176 MBH and right out of the gate. The total budget was $2,820,812.32. But if I cross-reference over to Reedy and I look at Reedy's number for your budget for a bunch.

That's why I was asking to make sure.

It's off 800, a little less than 800 grand. I don't know why.

That's why we need to keep an eye on that.

So let's go to the bottom. MVH, page 10 under MVH. The totals, yeah. 26 adopted was 1.9 and 27 requested is 2.6. So it's actually... 2.06. 2.06, sorry. So it's actually very close, under 100,000. Oh, you're looking at the Form 1, not the budget book. So the Form 1 is different than the budget book?

My budget book is correct with the Form 1s. Reedy's is not. Reedy's is not correct.

Reedy's is not correct. They are way off to the tune of 800 grand.

Jim, read the two numbers to me again. Or where are you seeing the two numbers again? Because I'm looking at MPH 1176, right?

I have the actual form. I brought all of the form ones for every department is what I'm going to use to go by during these budget hearings. So I have the actual form one that was submitted to the auditor's office. And how much is the total amount?

$2,820,000.

$812.32. 2.8. 2.8. Gotcha. Sandra, is that right? 2.8? But my question, Scott, slow up. Yeah. 1176 Motor Vehicle Highway. Yep. The total budget here is $2,060,000. Yeah, I see that. That's an $800,000 delta. That's in your budget book, though, not 2.8.

Oh, she's chewing something. Go ahead. So yeah, the budget book is 2.6. That's the number you're seeing on the, it matches what Jim is reading. I thought I heard it.

It's not 2.6, it's 2,060,000. There's a big difference. It's a 600,000. No, no, yeah, that's right.

Everything that was in the Form 1s is in my budget book.

Well, that's different. I have no idea. Now wait a second. So if everybody's looking at the budget book, so Jim's talking about the form one, which we he's got the budget book is what we've got mbh. You look at that, it says 2.0. It's 2,060,356 is a 27 request, not 2.8. According to the form one that Jim has, it's 2.8.

I don't know.

I have not seen them either.

Are you adding them up? Are they added together?

Huh? Are they added together? What added together?

The funds.

Does that include local?

Sandra submitted Is it Sandra or Sandra? Sandra, please. 1176, 1135, 1112, 1169, and 1134. Are they? Because it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 1s. 5 separate funds. Correct. Yeah, that's what you submitted. That's what I have right here. And the total you're reading... That's what I used. Exactly what I used. Jim, the total you're reading, is it... First of all, Scott, is it... Because MBH. Yeah. Budget book is saying that 27 is the best. The budget book that Reedy gave us is incorrect. Well, I mean, Julie's budget book. I don't know about that, because I don't have a budget.

I'm looking at the Reedy book, and it says,

Yeah, it's the same and Julie's and Reedy's but the form one is different unless we're adding up more than just what 1176

Here's the challenge is that if I look at the 76 because I know we're paying reading I'm gonna go off the reading this page here, okay And this is the one, you know using the 2026 salary ordinance plus longevity increases.

I

So that shows, he's showing a surplus based on that $2,060,000 of 46,521. Well, if you add in the $2,060,000 out there, they're writing major red ink in 1176. Can I see that from one?

I've actually, I'm balanced. I've balanced everything.

So Julie's mentioning it.

No, I'm not.

So I just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention.

Sorry. Okay. I'm not really was accurate on the 1135 when they were right on the 1112 for the economic development. They've got 12 1,000,260,000 and she's only asking 260,000. So I don't know what's going on between their funds. Why they give an extra million in economic development.

Well, when you say she's only asking where did that source from? I only have a couple of accounts in there so they may have everybody's total in there.

So I have road improvements at least equipment and dump truck, okay, so mine is Correct Gary do you hear that? That's right. Thank you You're seeing a lot more in the 1112 Because I am only asking for my accounts. There are other accounts in there that the highway department doesn't have She's a piece of it.

There's other I only have three accounts or funds Sir, economic development totals, correct. Jim, are we seeing this total? Let's see what you got.

These kind of mistakes are what we're supposed to find. Let's call it a day.

I think on the Form 1s there's just an error in the calculations, because when I re-add it...

Okay, it's just an adding error. Yeah, I think it's just a... Yeah, that was going to be my next step, was go through and add everything.

Julie, did you hear that? She thinks the total on the Form 1 may just not be accurate. I think so. I think the formula may be wrong. Yeah, okay. So the standard, if you added them up, is this one, Julie's budget book and Reedy's budget book accurate on the VH?

It's real close. If you don't mind, I want to re-add it just to make sure. Yeah. Thank you. We're in the long run. It's great. He's looking at it.

You can't see it. Can we resolve that? That's good. I feel better.

he's going to double check our math all I know is Sandra just lost $760,000 she didn't even know she had it so if she falls in the woods and no one hears it well yeah we'll take it out of the sheriff's department

And the good thing is this really caught it I

Yes. And Julie did too. Julie and Lee are magic.

The only thing we caught was COVID.

Where's your mask?

To protect your identity. Yeah.

Oh, that's, hey, today. Oh, I know. I hope he goes to private. I hope he goes to private. he's killed more people than mingled 20 million so they started a business 20 million that was russia russia killed more people well he's an individual yeah he just he was funding that whole gain of opportunity and that's himself thank you man you're welcome anybody else want another a copy of it we trust you This is kind of a lighter coffee. Can I get a darker coffee?

That's not for you.

It's been killed at 37. I guess it's not too late, is it? Oh, no. It's a cute tree. I'm moving down that way.

I was just trying to find where my arrow was.

Yeah. We're good.

You're matching up.

Cool. All right. Sandra's matching up. The NPHC double-checked it. Aaron's still working on his. We'll wait for him.

Apologize about that.

Just in the formula somewhere, I'm not exactly sure.

I think I just found it.

I think I just found it because I about did the same thing on me. Well, then I want my money back, please. Let's put it back in there twice. Jim, what did you say the delta was on that?

What did you say the difference was? About $760,000. Okay, I found it. If you go to page 1, halfway down, the $760,000 subtotal was added again. All right, NVH.

All right The one thing I noticed I guess I'll jump in on the reedy piece You know is just that and Julie I think you mentioned this earlier in a prior hearing the line items with the zeros at the end That was something you had to add just to get it to go into Gateway, is that?

1138, Kuhn Cap development. They actually have several different things in there, like they've got Sheriff's stuff in there. Several several things with the sheriff in there so I had to actually add those together and go back to the zero for the 1138 to actually enter it in Gateway.

If you look at, yeah, look at page 40 on MBH because the same things happen there. It's like a new line item, a set of new line items at the top that are existing Already and the numbers are showing up in like a new line item with zeros at the end if that's if we're talking about the same thing It's like a new line item out of the historical line item. You see that Sandra.

Yeah And that was I believe Eric wanted to go to all we're talking about last year pitch 40 Julie top

Go to all zeros. Oh.

For a location? Is that the ones you're talking about?

Yeah. So right, it's being paid out of, this year it's being paid out of, yeah, sand, gravel, gas, oil, tires, tubes. It's being paid out of kind of a new line item. But the budget, the 27 department request, is out of the old line item that we've historically used.

So those are the ones that she said that was coming out of No, I think it's a different issue now that we're looking at this.

That's more the sheriff's stuff.

Oh, okay, that was the sheriff's. Okay, this is the economic development thing?

No, this is on NBH page 40. So these top lines, see how this is like a new, at the end here, these are all zeros on the line item. And then the same line items are duplicated here that we've historically used and the budget request is coming out of here, but We just need to pick one of the line items or the other and use it. Exactly.

And Doug and I did try to clean some of that up, but there has still been some nice confusion with that. So for this next year, I wanted to switch everything to the 0531.

which is where it is now you've asked your request in the 531 so yeah okay so that's okay gotcha okay so we're going back to that because some of us shifted last year it was

It's not about the shift.

It's just about the location. Trying to clean that up. It didn't shift it to another fund. It just gave it a different location at the end.

There was a new line item in the same fund that was being used, but she's going to the one that was historically used. Which was super confusing. Yeah.

Okay. We like things less confusing. Yeah. So we appreciate it.

That clears that up. I wasn't sure what was going on there.

I'm a simple girl.

Because it goes on on page 41 as well. Design engineering, repair truck. You'll see things being paid in expenditures through 331 on the fourth column over. But the budget request for the same exact line items is below in different lines. So you're still using the 531. All the zeros are... So your budget request is in there. I did see...

I even want to get rid of 530, 533, and just make them all 531s so it's cleaned up and even more simple.

You can do that. I mean, yeah, it'd be nice to not have to jump around too, especially if you got them in multiple, same expenses in multiple lines, kind of consolidating them. That'd be great. They're all the same. Yeah, you got to split up restricted.

Like Eric got rid of all the 531, the 530, 520. 533, 531. And then 530 that wasn't actually a great idea. So we're going back to the other.

Yeah Well, however you want to do it. That's that's fine.

Can I jump in here for a minute Scott? What I'm gonna look at is you got five funds and is a projected surplus of forty six five twenty one with an ending balance of twelve thirty one twenty twenty seven two million eighty eight thousand eight hundred forty eight dollars so check that funds you have to do your math to get it yourself in a deficit in 27 of 96 grand, but it really doesn't matter because there's almost a million three left over at the end of 27. That's Kimberly. 11-12 fund, there's a $792,000 surplus at the end of 27, and then a cash reserve balance estimated at 2.3 million. 1169, $25,000 surplus, $711,000, almost $712,000 cash reserve balance at the end of 27, and then 1134, $39,000 cash reserve balance. So based on these five funds at the end of 2027, the highway department has got ample, ample, ample supply of cash reserve balance. The only thing I want to say to you, Sandra, based on a conversation with Reedy yesterday, is it would be great if what the highway department can do in conjunction with the commissioners look at 27 28 29 well not 27 because you guys have already got your budget set for 27 but what we've got to figure out the highway the commissioners and the council is i know there's a backlog of bridge work road work there's a backlog of work that hasn't been accomplished for probably the last 10 years okay so let's just acknowledge that you know there was care of a lot of stuff that should have and now the highway department and you specifically and the commissioners are kind of stuck in a rock in a hard place because you're sitting here realizing that we've got a ton of bridge work that needs to be done we've got ton of road work culverts etc and so my concern is a council member being just fiscal responsibility is how do we cash flow 28 29 and 20 30 while at the same time trying to protect Some of these cash reserve balances that you guys have currently Because my concern is is if we look at 28 29 and 30 and a lot of the work that needs to be done Where do we find the money to pay for it? and what I don't want to see have happen to the highway department or the commissioners for that matter and the county is for us to burn down those cash reserves and find ourselves in trouble. Now we don't have any money to basically do any, to operate on. Exactly. We could easily do that.

Sure.

Yeah. So that's my disclosure and thank you for listening.

Anybody else have any other concerns or questions?

Yeah. Remind me, Sandra, is the MVH restricted fund, that's the one where we put pavement on the ground, gravel on the road. The restricted portion. And then there's the unrestricted, which is more administrative stuff, if I'm remembering that right.

I believe so. It has our pay.

Yeah, pay and personal services. So on the restricted version, that is meant for payment on the ground, okay? That's NVH restricted. We've got $2.4 million in projected cash reserves at the end of 27. and you don't see that summary sheet so that's what greedy is projecting at the end of 2027 mbh restricted we'll have 2.4 million uh the revenue we receive each year is 1.1 million so every year we're getting 1.1 million to pay for roads. It's actually pavement, gravel, materials, culverts, that kind of stuff, right, that comes out of that restricted fund. And that's half of what we get, roughly, I think, for that fund. For that fund, knowing that it's meant to repair roads, pave roads, I think we need to kind of pour that on. needed. You know and our breed kind of confirmed this yesterday. We need to Put that money to work for people, right? It's tax money. People are paying for road materials to improve their roads Our budget this year for 1173 work at work. We're bringing in 1.1 million. We got a 2.4 million dollar reserve and the MVH restricted budget 1173 where are we?

So the request is one and a half.

We're bringing in 1.1 and even after that one and a half budget, we still at the end of the year have 2.4 in cash at the end of the year. So what I'm saying is, actually it's a question. So, and again, you're not seeing this. So, and here's Kevin.

We need to get a copy of it. Yeah, let's get one. I think we have a copy of that. No, we have a copy of it down there.

It's a summary. She doesn't see the revenue and the expenses. I'm going to get a copy. I'm going to get a copy of this.

I have not seen the revenue and the expenses.

Yeah, you're getting 1.1. And Kevin, we need to get Kevin these copies, too, if you haven't seen these. Okay, right. I'll get three copies. There's some notes on this. There's some copies right there. We'll know the individual sheets, the two that they get. Oh, I've got those, too. There's summaries. Kevin, they're very helpful. Thank you. Can we pave and repair more roads knowing we have a $2.4 million surplus in MVH restricted, which is intended for pavement and stone, knowing we're going to get another 1.1 again for 28? It looks like there's room there to do more if there's capacity. And that's kind of a question. Can we do more paving, more gravel, knowing we have the money there?

Yeah, I wouldn't see why we couldn't, knowing that that much was there. It looks different than always does. There you go. Thank you.

Is that the same one? It is. She just checked it. So far right column, 2027 projected cash balance. Go down to the age of restrictive, about halfway. It's 2.4 at the end of the year. After your budget is spent, 1.4, you've still got 2.4 left and you're going to get another. And then revenue, projected revenue, 2027 projected revenue, Kevin, kind of in the middle for NBH Restricted is 1.1. So you're going to get another 1.1 next year, but you've got 2.4 at the end of 2027 still there. Think you can pour another million on next year 27 and still have a 100% operating is it's not really an operating funds paving fund So, I don't know why we would reserve that much When we know we got roads we could Put it on So that's my question is a can we do more? With the knowing we have the preserves and then really I asked this question yesterday. They said I spend it, put it on the road. You know, there's no shortage of need, right? So I would ask you to maybe continue more there.

Yeah.

So yeah, I know you have a road inventory and conditions in the roads. I don't want to just just because we have money, I don't want to just So that... Throw it down on a road somewhere. I want to be strategic about this.

Oh, no, I would use our PACER ratings.

Okay, so... Yeah. So, yeah, PACER ratings, and she's doing, you know, a good job of catching up and actually understanding what violence allows us to do and give us information on it. So, to sit there and say... You're doing the seats.

I mean, I don't expect you to have, you know...

So I would rather approach this in a different way and have it be in a manner in which we follow the process set out there. I don't want to basically go through and ask for more funds to sit there and think that we can go through the exercise of paving roads when at this point in time we've still got a plan that's in process. And that plan and then process has not been definitive. She's she working with her assistant superintendent has identified what roads we will run a target for 2027 and then now taking the next step to 2028. So I would much rather us take the tact and approach coming back before the council to ask for an additional appropriation. knowing that there is a willingness amongst the council in order to give us the additional funds to do that work. But until we have a firm plan in place, I would prefer not to proceed with adding $1.1 million to a budget until we can actually validate and quantify that we can have $1.1 million worth of paving done. as it sits right now we're behind on getting the paving out because of various reasons and other activities the other aspect of this which does not fall into place which sandra and i are going to work on is the actual bridge activities because the restricted funds is not only isolated just from the paving aspect of it which is not our problem in this county that's being addressed by the the time and the areas that are in the most Um, in need this being dealt with that. So if we look at that, there are again, I will go back as she would knows as well. There are 10 bridges of which are classified as critical. Okay. And that runs over a 10 year period. There are 27 or 28 bridges that are falling under the rehabilitation activity. What we as a county have not been good at doing is addressing the rehabilitation aspect of things and only focusing on the critical aspects of things because those are failures.

What's the definition of rehabilitation?

Rehabilitation is basically going through, dealing with decking, maybe addressing safety issues with regards to guardrail, taking on better improvements with regards to approaches and things of that nature. And it could even include some of the substructure of the bridge itself. It could also deal with erosions and things of that nature related to embutments and things of that going on. So it is a gambit. When you talk about one that isn't critical, you have multiple aspects of that bridge's criteria that they look in that bridge report as being one in which it is intimate that you're going to have a much larger issue because you have so many either poor or unsatisfactory or fair.

Structural instability then.

In essence, it could be as much of that. Yes. So we have done and when Eric was here and standard picking up is there has been some rehabilitation stuff. So let's give an example of that. Orchard Road had a bridge that was a 70 foot bridge that basically had wood pilings that were basically to the point to where. they were deteriorated and on an imminent failure that bridge was only had a two-ton rating on it okay and that was a bridge that even in our report they had slated for three years from today so we were going to have to end up living with a two-ton weight rating on a bridge that was near in end-of-life and down to one link And so we know that that was not practical, because we know that there is farm equipment and heavier trucks and things of that nature running across that bridge because of the nature of where it's situated, right?

Is that limit you can't take a loaded pickup truck across?

In essence, yes. So, and I'm not here to step on her. I'm just here to tell you. No, we appreciate it.

No, you're part of the conversation. So you've got a road plan for 27 and you're fully funding it with this budget? Yes. Awesome. And so the other part is, and so you're wanting to use some of the NVH restricted for bridges also?

Yes, but we don't necessarily have an active plan on that getting forward.

Right.

That was my point, Kevin, is that you guys have done a great job as far as I'm concerned for 2027 because you've not gone in and depleted your cash reserve balances. And so now my concern going forward is 28, 29, and 30 because it's going to require the highway, the commissioners, and the council. And the council needs to be, we need to be looking to say, okay, here's your need. How do we help fund 28 29 30 31 because it's my understanding kevin this is coming from you previous comments is we've got a backlog of work uh that where you guys are confronted with um i mean very simple and so my issue is i think you've done a great job with those you know Yeah, so my comments you to is I think is that the community crossing grant we've they've cut that statewide back about million five that we've received in the past. They're phasing that program out. They are.

We do get lane mile funding and I've got some information on that to keep collecting information on how we use that but it's in conjunction with CCMG granting. So I'm not sure if it's dollar for dollar for what they take off of CCMG to give us on the lane mile or if it just knocked us down a percentage.

From what I've seen and read on it the mile What's it called? Lane Mile. Lane Mile is not going to exceed the community crossing. No, it will not exceed it. But it will take away from what you didn't get from it. Yeah, so they're removing community crossing funding and sliding that over to Lane Mile.

But it's also not a guaranteed dollar amount, so you can't... say I have $250,000 to use for whatever.

It's a different funding formula than .

So I think you answered my question of, hey, we've got this surplus, and you're seeing it too. And what you're doing is you're saving that, using kind of the NBH restricted as a cumulative fund for bridge work. You have a plan in process is what I mean. You're developing a plan.

We have a plan in planning.

So I think the other thing that just as part of that step forward and engaging with that is with the knowledge that Eric left with her and she's picked up and picked on that is we as a county have not been doing a very good job of actually being able to pull dollars out of the restricted funds. There are means and mechanisms for us to pool dollars associated with labor, overtime, and all those things, as long as we can identify and put an attribute of a project that's specific to that in order to do that. That is another aspect of where when we came forth and we entered into a contract with an organization called, I can't remember. Charts. Charts is the actual software that would allow us to have her as the manager and the superintendent of that saying, here are the projects. that we have once we go through if we considered an asphalt project or a bridge project the things that fall in the classification for restricted funds then we will be able to better pull from that reserve of cash so that's again why i'm hesitant to sit there and say wait let's not simply just go down this path and and throw a million dollars at something until we have a much better understanding what that plan needs to look like okay i'm going to shift gears here for a minute on two different separate topics

just curiosity, if anything. 2023, when I took office, I had some highway people come to me personally. And what I'm aware of is that the highway department, the highway department's equipment at that point in time, 23 and 24, if you had a five-star rating,

Have you all been able to go through the equipment You know, all the equipment that it takes for you all to do your job. Have we been able to update that equipment? And is everything in pretty good operating condition? That's my first question.

Yes. Yeah, we've updated a lot of our equipment. We have a new grader.

So you feel good. If you had to do a five-star rating right now, you know, five-star, man, everything's perfect, we're in a perfect world, what kind of a star rating would you give the overall equipment at the highway department currently?

I would say probably about a four.

Okay, good. Secondly, how many employees total does the Highway Department employ?

Nineteen.

Nineteen. Are you a full employment right now? Yes. What type of turnover has the Highway Department experienced, you know, just over the last 12 months?

It's been pretty low. We have had a couple. One left to follow his dream job. Okay, that's fair. You know, we did... terminate a couple of employees. Okay, that's fair. But we've replaced them quickly.

So turnover's not an issue, you're not having problems with recruiting, trying to recruit new people, and you're full employment right now. Yes. So you guys are, good job, you're in good shape.

When we did the truck driver opening, we had like 36 qualified applicants apply.

Wow, that's a big change.

this year it's gone up 85,000 well if you look at MVH on the reading report page 41 on the reading report not that one the other one yeah that 41 you'll see the repair equipment three quarters of the way down up 85,000 from last year

So that was one that we had two lines for the same thing, and I put them together. Got you. Thank you.

So I want to make a comment about the equipment in that part of it as well. Under the direction of the leadership in this department, there has been a dramatic shift in the way that we are viewing the way we do that. So the approach that's been taken with Sandra is we're not simply going through and applying funds and spending that money. They have also been going through and identifying for us the commissioner's surplus equipment that no longer serves a need or a function in the county or isn't viable for us. So as part of that plan and what they have been doing, that surplus asset has been identified and used to further and improve our four-star rating as it relates to equipment. to the tune of taking and relieving ourselves of two pieces of equipment that were not hardly ever used at all to now giving us two pickup trucks that allows us to do better flagging opportunities and actually give us the resources and tools to go out and do the actions, which we always think of, I think the constituency, the people in the community look at it as saying, Well, they're just doing roads and they're just doing bridges. Well, there's weed control, there's mowing, there's dealing with the fallen trees, there's dealing with ditching and all those aspects of it that typically don't get lumped into very large categories, which requires not a tandem axle dump truck to go and do that. You don't want to be taking a tandem axle dump truck to go out and weed eat around guardrails and things of that nature, right? so that's why when people say why is there so much equipment at the highway department that's why that is the purpose of that now and Sandra you know again her plan is again like I think she's going to share with you is what the assets need to look like and what the plane is I don't know how far you've gotten there okay we all saw the maintenance plan in place with our mechanic Tim

doing preventative maintenance and watching hours and things like that. We're not just going to get rid of something because the hood is faded. You know, it has to be mechanically reasonable to get rid of it. You know, we're putting more money in it than what we can get out of it or whatever. So we do have a plan in place. Awesome.

What about the facilities? Is the facility adequate?

Sometimes we wonder, you know, parking is at a minimum. But sharing it with recycling.

Does that cause issues?

It gets a little crowded sometimes.

Does it?

Yeah.

Yeah, because recycling takes up quite a bit of space, do they not?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beyond equipment, do you have any capital requests? I mean, aside from bridges, are there any other building needs? Storage?

We would eventually like to get... I'm probably going to call it wrong, but... Yeah, my mind went blank. We want something so that we can back our dump trucks in and unload the salt boxes instead of having to lift them off and put them somewhere. That'd be nice. We'd like to have a setup to where we can just back under them, hook under it, and drive out from under them.

Dry storage with a full salt box, and you drive out, it stays full, and it's covered so that it's solidifying.

The full part isn't necessary, but just a place to, because now we have to take them out of the truck, carry them over, put them on a block. To get them back in, we have to take them off the block, put them in the truck, and if we could get some kind of storage so we can just back under there, hook it up, and drive out from under it.

One person, one truck. Correct. That would be a dream. Is there a place on site for that?

So I think the other thing, too, which is to the question of do we have enough space, I don't think the answer to that question is ever going to be fulfilled because there's always opportunities to improve. that's one aspect of it which is critical because again that's equipment that's setting in the weather right and it's in the weather anyway when it's user eyes and it's being used with sand and salt so it's going to deteriorate anyway but if you know resource utilization is the key part of that where if we can didn't take it to where it has a three-man crew to deal with that and we can do it with a one-man crew and then we've not doing in an environment that's adverse to them is an improvement all over think the other thing too Sandra we talked about is there needs to be some level of storage or some level of under roof storage related to some of the the material that we use on the roads especially in the wintertime as it roads to again we don't typically get around to plowing roads when we do get around applying roads you can't put salt on those gravel roads okay it's just you just don't do that That creates more problems than it is. So what we're looking at, and again, the discussion here is the equipment on her side is actually making sure that we have the proper equipment to put down chipped gravel, in essence, smaller gravel that adds traction to those roads. And again, right now, the gravel that we do use and get on there Sets in the weather. So when we have a storm that delivers 12 inches of snow, and it's out in the weather and that. You can't you can't break it up into chunks small enough to make it work in the actual equipment itself. Right? So that's again. So you asked, do we have space for that? Yeah, that's a challenge.

Do you have enough covered space for all the equipment? No. Absolutely not. Has it been filled up over the years or was it built too small to begin with?

I think it was built to what was available.

Do we have the staffing with regards to the capacity for road signs?

Road signs?

Yeah, I brought this up years ago with the previous superintendent, and then because there's, you know, the north end of the county, there's, you know, you can always find roads, there's no signs for the road, right? And then, you know, you don't know where you're going.

You mean street signs? No, county roads. And road, main road signs.

Road signs, yeah, and I didn't know if we had...

We do have it in our budget. It is a small amount. It's a small amount though, right? We are looking into making our own road signs.

Oh, we don't have the capacity to make our own signs right now?

We do not at this point.

Okay, okay. And then the only thing, and the last question I have is can we make some new road speed limit signs at 65 mile an hour on the county roads?

Is the recycling part of the highway department? It is not. So does recycling cost the county?

so you have to understand that the recent the solid waste and solid waste is isn't it's in and of itself a separate government entity away from the county government so the only the only um so for your knowledge in that is is that we exist in the same building because brown county is has an agreement between ourselves and that that that government entity actually Brown the county commissioners do not own the highway garage building we do not that is solid waste okay so solid waste owns that building the whole the whole building they do not they do not own the land that it sits on But they own that building.

So the commissioners own the land, but Solid Waste owns the building. That's correct. Do we pay them solid waste rent?

So we are treated as a leasee where we pay 46% of any of the bills and things of that nature with regards to repair, utilities, gas. that's what our floor space is so we occupy 46% of that building no solid waste is a government entity it's established by ordinance it is a county entity

on that NBH fund that's meant for roads, there's a plan for the roads, what's going to be paid, and it's coming out at 1.4 million requests.

They're in the process. We do have projected roads for 2027 and 2028.

You do? Okay. Would you tell us what the seven roads are with the 1.4? What are the roads or miles that you're planning on paving with that?

some of that money includes gravel and that kind of stuff too probably so it's not so for 2027 we're looking at poplar grove um the area between bellsville and keep donaldson hamilton orchard road and harrison ridge for a total of 11.58 when you say harrison you mean harrison ridge yes harrison ridge i'm sorry for a total of 11.8 11.58 11.58 great thank you

We don't. That's what I'm good at.

It sucks.

It's a waste of resources, a waste of money.

I don't think you get the longevity out of it.

I agree.

Does the PESA rating call for that as a maintenance technique?

Not necessarily. It is an option that you can put in for that.

I would like to see us not waste any money on shipping sales. personal things.

Sounds like you're good on staffing, equipment, and you're paving 11 miles of road next year, although five roads, I mean, 11 miles is quite a bit, I mean, that's quite a lot of miles. I mean, it'd be nice to do 20, I guess, but your staffing's good, as I mentioned. Your budget, you've got good reserves, which, again, I just, I want us to pour that money on. I mean, it sounds like you're working on a plan, a smart way to Utilize you're basically trying to pause here Excruciatingly spending that but with the hopes that we'll be able to make it go further by fully utilizing those funds and being reversed that sort of thing so But yeah, I mean what I'm looking for good shape overall or anything That's not that is a concern other than bridges, which is a major concern and so The plan there is to use that MPH fund as a cumulative fund in some ways.

I don't know that it's intended to be used as a cumulative fund. We're going to be more practical and identify what we should and shouldn't be, what we can, and be pulling money out of that fund with it.

Right.

And you're planning to come back to the council with additional preparation as soon as you have it, right? We'll have more solid figures.

We know it's there, but I don't want to drain it.

Which I appreciate, having a plan. Having a plan before execution is always good.

Well, you know, you'd like to live on what you can. If you do need it, it's nice to know that there's a push in there.

What I would like to challenge the council with is, I know that there's that, like I said, you have that money that's sitting there. I would like to challenge the council with saying, we know we have these cash reserves. We know that those are dollars of value. We know that we are working together, wanting to go back and pull the, you know, we have these funds, let's do what we can do with that. We should be discussing, or at least contemplate or have you think through, what kind of reserve would you like to see in those funds? Okay?

I have to read that. And he said, I thought I wrote it down, but I mean, on NBA, he said spend. operating fund where staff is paid out of so you want a cushion there and I think he said 30 to 50 percent operating reserve at the end of the year but we have to go back and listen we should sit down with them if that's a question you want to answer that's a typical for an operating fund you want a 30 percent operating reserve if you're paying staff out of it fuel and you gotta if something disrupts that revenue you want to be able to continue that so But yeah, I would consult with, you know, reading on that, just to double check. I think he answered that. I think I asked that in the opening portion yesterday. Okay. Because what should we reserve in there? And he said spend the one that's meant for pavement. Again, as soon as we're ready, don't want to spend it unwisely, but as soon as you're ready, put it on the ground, you know, because we know we need it. Right. Yeah. In other words, there's not much need for an operating reserve there.

How's your staffing?

We're fully staffed.

When I first came here, I was just doing a walkthrough on the grounds trying to figure out what I volunteered for. And there were some really unhappy people down there. They felt that they were not being utilized or being received. And I'm glad they're taking care of that.

I hope that we are. Our plan is to make them feel wanted, but make them feel like they're doing what they need to be doing as well. They don't want to just sit around.

Sounds like we got a lot of thanks to our deputies, our highway guys and gals. Last thing, we're hearing from CBC, Commission for Business Commission, later today about tourism-related expenses and the covered bridge is under the highway department budget. I see we have $20,000 Once you get that spreadsheet, we have $20,000 in cash flow, cash reserves for the covered bridge. If you've looked at that bridge recently, you know that's about five times less than we probably need to kind of bring it up to speed. Am I seeing that situation right? There's a need for significant repairs on that structure.

I don't know off the top of my head. I haven't looked at the inspection report recently.

Did they inspect that covered bridge? Yes, they do. They do? Okay. Yeah, do you recall what...

I'm not expecting a good report on that, but... Basically, the two issues that they identified in the report when we looked at that the other day was... alignment issues with regards to the road and there was some issues with regards to the support the structure regards to decking and things that nature but I think in railing in railings aspect of it which they've had done some work on that I don't know I don't remember from a timing standpoint because they did those inspections in October so I don't remember so my comment my request there is since I know we've got these things going forward and we're looking at opportunities to unburden the general fund and things that nature and other funds of this with regards to that is I think there are things that we could look at doing at the cover bridge but we just need to take the time to do it the inspection doesn't associate a cost with that either right it's just an evaluation well i just well yeah an inspection when we like we had this conversation the other day we do have a rehabilitation a bridge that's going to cost us quite a bit of money yeah at tc steel oh different because it's a trust bridge it is a steel trust bridge it is not the cantilevered and structure so and then that in and of itself is going to be a relatively expensive repair

Good job. Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you mind if I keep this reading? Oh, we got copies, yeah. And we need to get, yeah, you got the summary sheet of revenue and fund balance. Thank you for the education. Thank you.

We'll be back asking for more.

Alright, we have planning up next, so... Good job.

Do we have a sign seating up here? Anywhere you want. I went ahead and made copies of everything that we turned in. Thank you. It looks like you guys have enough copies still around. So the most important part to look at here is probably this letter from Lonnie and I. And just explains that due to the legislation changes, House Enrolled Act 1001 and House Enrolled Act 1210 that are in effect now for the 2027 fiscal year, the building commissioner and all the expenses for the building department, they're gonna have to be paid from a non-reverting fund. So we are still researching trying to figure out exactly how to go about this the two departments have never been separated So this is really a learning curve So from what I understand just financially So all building permits are going to have to go into a new non reverting fund and And then everything for Lonnie's department is going to have to be paid out of that non-reverting fund.

This is the Planning Commission. I just think of Planning Commission, which is right here.

Yes.

Okay. And then how many employees do you have total in the Planning Commission?

There are four of us in the office.

Yeah, and then you have a board. Yes. Okay. which I'm assuming that's you.

Yes. Right now it's titled...

Your name is Lonnie?

My name is Lonnie Farley.

And you are the margin of charge over any, when you say building, If I want to put a horse barn on the property, I've got to come to you and get approval, correct?

Electrical upgrades.

Electrical upgrades. Plumbing.

Oh, yeah, plumbing, electrical. And all that goes into commercial as well. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So it's basically all the new and existing buildings in the county and in the town, anything that goes on with them.

So you're the compliance guy to make sure everybody's in compliance. Right. Okay.

Well, it is, but it's worked that way for long 40 years and really i'll say this the only time that really stretched me to the limit was covid okay simply because we we did like triple the permits and i was getting have to do inspections that kind of thing but you know it's gotten back to a point where we're almost back to normal so realistically one person can do this job okay so

The only thing that's changing is you all need to establish a new fund.

Yes.

And that fund needs to be a non-reverting fund. And then whenever you do your Form 1s in the future, you will have to, you'll have the general, and then you'll have this new fund, this non-reverting fund, and you'll have to separate your budget out. You'll have to budget specifically for the building for Lonnie, because he'll have his own separate budget. And then you, the Planning Commission, continue to operate like that. My understanding, because we had a couple of cases earlier this year on that, and this is coming from Lori Rogers with the State Board of Accounts, okay, is really probably who you should contact. Lori Rogers, correct, Julie? Yep, and I believe what has to happen is that the auditor legally does not have the statutory authority to arbitrarily create a fund on their own for obvious reasons. And so I think what has to happen is that the commissioner's office will need to pass a specific ordinance. Authorizing the auditor to create a non reverting funds specifically for you Yeah, because then that inside that and there'll be the description of how the funds are to be used, you know, so on and so forth I believe that's the process

Unless the state already assigned one.

Yeah, unless the state then, yeah. I would probably start with the state court of accounts because obviously, you know, if we do it wrong, they'll find it.

Right.

So they should be able to give you, you know, legitimate direction on the proper way to establish that fund.

So I have a question and thought. So currently you turn in a collections report, which would include his building permits and all your fees. Yes. So you'll do like a separate...

collection report probably separate from yours and what is on his then we'll go into that non reverting fund yes so hearings for tourist homes or rezones or anything like that will stay in the planning forms which will then go remain in the general fund and then building permits anything related to to building will go into the non reverting fund.

Okay, so you'll have your two separate collection reports. The other thing is, he will still be under your authority. Is that correct? Or is he going to be his own department head and his own boss? I mean, I don't know what this actually says as far as... The law changed.

The law changed. Yeah, right, yeah. When I hired, when I hired, the planning director was kind of the above, it's called the planning and building department, but the planning director was, if you want to say my boss, whatever, but...

So who would you, who would you be reporting to?

Has that changed in the law, I guess? And I don't know the answer to that question.

When he was hired on, he was hired on by, he was appointed by the ABC. So they need to be looking at the reports to the board. So he already is a department head.

Interesting.

It just hasn't been done in practice. That way.

So you probably need to look at the code and actually see what it says and then get that back to us as soon as possible.

We've got our attorney looking at it.

Okay. Yeah. And then we need that back to us as soon as possible so we can do the correct classifications through WISC.

Yeah, could that, I mean, is that, and the reason is if there is a change in staffing, you know, a supervisory change, it could affect the salary. And we need to incorporate that into our budget.

Well, he's a departmental one, so he's not going to be supervising anybody. Well, he has to report to someone. Obviously, you have to report to someone, the ABC or someone. So he may technically not be a

Well, but if he's doing now all of a sudden his budgeting and is responsible for overseeing that.

I think she's going to continue to do his budgeting, she told me yesterday. You can help each other.

She's going to be my helper.

Kayla will be my helper.

I told him I would continue doing his budget.

I don't look at your collection report. The fees that his department brings in will pay for his salary, his benefits, his needs.

Hopefully. That's the goal. So we just talked to the APC last night about increasing our fees. There's another thing that changed with these two house bills are that you can change You can update your pricing now, but you cannot update it again for five years.

And I get that, yeah. So you definitely want to look at that.

We want to look at it, and we're so far below where everyone else charges.

Yeah, because you have to be reasonable. It has to be a reasonable charge. They have to figure out his time and cost, and you can't go above and beyond and say every permit is going to be $2,000 when that's not reasonable. Right, yeah.

Yeah, I've always felt, maybe it's me being around Danny too much, I don't know, but I have agreed with him that, you know, Brown County is different than Monroe County, Bartholomew County, Morgan County, and some of the other counties around us. So it's not necessarily fair and just to go, oh, look what they're doing. Look what they're doing. We're going to crank it. Because we're different. And so I understand we need to raise fees and make it applicable to the time period. But I don't want to see it be so high that it becomes ridiculous. Because on one of the other titles that was Brung down to us from the state was that we you know, they're looking at affordable housing stuff and doing that well That seems to be part of that, and we know we don't want to go excessive, and we won't, for pricing and stuff, but we do. Right, I mean, you have to make it reasonable. You've got to make it reasonable, or people will— And you have to make it cost—yeah, you have to put in your cost. So, yeah.

I think on behalf of many taxpayers, I appreciate that.

Absolutely, yeah.

Well, yeah, and we're here to serve the community that you know that well These are you know?

ideally the fee should cover the cost of doing that of performing a service in How difficult would it be for your office?

To go back and look say at the last three years specifically on new construction How many homes have been built in Brown County over the last three years?

It probably wouldn't be difficult he does reporting to the board every month and

Yeah, well, as you know, I mean, you know, is that, you know, there, I believe you all are, there's been conversation in 25. And I think the conversation continues on a comprehensive plan. Correct. Okay. I've been actively involved in the county since 2017. Because the first three years was with the redevelopment commission. So during since 2017, you know, I continue to hear You know, affordable housing, economic development, comprehensive plan. However, my frustration with that conversation, because it's a circular conversation and we don't ever seem to make any progress whatsoever to move forward, which is what's frustrating.

I understand 100%. Right.

And you know and being able to get the infrastructure in place to be able to add Housing, right?

That's what we've we've had these conversations over.

It's not any great My frustration is is we never seem to make any progress at all. It's like if we're gonna do this, can we do it? Yeah, or you know or stop talking about or stop talking about yeah, it's Yeah, so it's it's I understand, you know, and it's the challenge with her story that you know the school corporation struggles with it and their recruitment of new teachers because the new teachers cannot afford to live in the county at the same time you know I've heard from law enforcement that they have a difficult time with recruitment and as a matter of fact they testified yesterday that we've got 5 out of the 17 that live outside the county so clearly there's a need for additional housing whether that's It would help me as your council member to be better well educated on, you know, for example, how many tourists, you know, I've been told by CBC, I don't know if it's accurate or not, that we've got approximately 400 tourist homes in the county.

I think that's a high number.

I don't know. Well, see, I can never get my head wrapped around an actual concrete number. Yeah. You know, so there's we need to be working together in a collaborative effort if that's the direction that everyone in the county wants to head. If it's not, then let's stop talking about it. So I would like, if possible, you've got my email address, but I'd like to have a better understanding of how many homes have new homes. And what I'm referring, these are residential, they actually live here, and they're Brown County citizens, so they can vote. How many new homes have been built in all four townships? And what's that look like?

You want them separated by townships?

That would help, yeah. I mean, that would help. Because in the other issue, and I don't know how to get my hands on this data either, and what I'm after is accurate data, not just... some kind of superficial numbers. But you get into populations of those townships, we get into age of the townships, et cetera, et cetera. And so if we want to move forward with economic development, if we want to move forward with affordable housing, then we've got to make a commitment to figure out how to cash flow and address the septic I think it's a better word to use. Because until we get that in place, then you're not gonna, because we just simply, as everyone knows, and I hear, we don't have the real estate. right and we can't reduce lot sizes until we have a place to put waste water right yeah yeah it's a double edged sword yeah we're rocking a hard place now i do believe that the county um because i was appalled when i found this out is that we still actually have people that live reside full-time in the county that depend on portable water because brown county water are you one of them are you really tc steel road i live three miles from lake monroe

And you don't have any access to water? So we get it hauled.

How expensive is that?

It's 125 bucks a haul and we, during this time of the year, it's three people now in my family and it lasts about a week, week and a half.

Is that a thousand gallons per load? Yeah, so you're burning 4,000 gallons a month, which is average.

And I've got a well that's supposed to help do it and this time of year it doesn't keep up.

Yeah see that's another issue.

And that's more common than I ever would have guessed. Yeah see I would have never drink that in a million years.

So I'm asking you please help. Please give me water.

And Jim on that point having some knowledge of folks who don't have water at their homes There are a lot of them and a lot of cases that I've heard of, they can't afford the connection fee to connect water. You've got some of these people are right on the edge of the water company's line, but the extension to their home is, it's financially impossible for them to reach. And so it kind of creates a little bit of a health issue and a high cost of living. And so as the council has asked for new water and sewer connection money,

we've got to make sure we understand the full picture here because not having clean water to drink at your home is a major problem well and that's one thing we don't drink the water because it's well water and we don't have the water capacity to get a purifier because it regenerates itself and uses more water

So you want to be able to build homes and you don't have clean water there, you need to also extend water to areas without water. So we got to see the full picture before we start pouring thousands on.

It's the infrastructure that's going to be so important to affordable housing.

And the water company knows who these people are and they know how much it will cost to extend to them. They're just not coming in front of us because they don't know that the county can pay for that stuff.

We but we as a county need to be aware of those people and make sure we're treating them fairly as well Yeah, so from what I've understood I'm sure you guys are familiar with where Crooked Creek Road is from from what I understand the first house on Crooked Creek Road All the way through going all the way down TC steel. None of those folks have County water.

Okay

from either Nashville, Brown County Water, or Bloomington. It's just not available. They fill up their cistern, or their well.

They could exist there, but it costs money. Somebody's got to pay for it.

And maybe we're asking the wrong people.

infrastructure grants out there so that those companies can be applying for them i've i've talked to east monroe i moved there in 91 where we live on tc still road and and east monroe has never it's it's not cost effective they they rented up to tc steel um and that's as far as they could go because they said it wasn't cost effective it wasn't enough people and there wasn't enough pressure to run it on you know they they said they'd need a tower that's the recent issue now with running that I've heard is they they would need a tower to to keep the pressure which is you know more expense and who's gonna they don't want to pay for it is there a department in the county like yours that is kind of aware of those things you deal with

every request that comes before you you ask typically is water available as sewer available or set proper septic facility so I mean I think I know the answer but I mean aren't you kind of the only other than the health department maybe that would be looking at water access you kind of don't look at it unless it's reactionary right I know there are some parts which which doesn't make sense the closer you get to a bigger city I feel like the better chance you have to get water so the closer you are to Bloomington we know

No water. The closer you get to Columbus, Grandview Road, some places, I believe on Bellsville Pike, out in that area, no water.

Jackson Township, too. Saint Laurent Road, Indian Hill Road. Possum Trot. Possum Trot Road, no water. And those people are living there. If you're paying $125 a truckload and you need three or four loads a month, Talk about a high water bill. It's not $118 a month. It's $400 a month.

Yeah. Depending on how large the family is. And I know Hamblin's in a little bit better shape because the Conservancy has their own water. So they're in a little bit better shape up there. They've got better access.

So the water that you buy, is it drinkable? Or on top of that, do you provide drinking water?

We don't drink it because our well also feels that sister and so we and we've done that for years Knock on wood we don't have too much iron issue and our white shirts aren't red clay Are you testifying today that you don't have Culligan soft water?

Yes I am

I will send in my resignation at the end of the day.

So, I mean, in terms of the number of homes without clean drinking water in the county, I mean, it's ballpark. I mean, any ideas at 100, 200, 300, 400 homes? I mean, do they know? 25%. Out of 7,000. That's a...

Wild guess I don't Yeah, I tell you what as a council member and then we bring this issue up is you know I think praise the Lord Emma and Brown County water Yeah, okay. I know Ben Phillips Ben Phillips is the president of the Brown County water and they are a separate utility company and don't have anything to do with Brown County government and So I think what I may do is, after this conversation, is as a member of Brown County Water, is perhaps I need to start going to the board meetings and start asking questions to figure out. And then Scott, I'm going to ask you, last year, actually the last couple of years, we've had conversations about an economic development area. And because this may be a benefit, depending on that contract, between Owen, Monroe, and Brown. If we, the commissioners, and we all agree that that is in the best interest of Brown County over the next 30 years to get involved in that EDA area, could that potentially give us access to federal money that we could seek specifically for Brown County water? in order for them to be able to have the grant funds to be able to extend that service out to try to get water to everybody who lives in this county. Yeah, public facilities is absolutely a part of water. Is it part of the EVA? It's usually, you know, there's got to be some kind of project.

Remind me of the federal department that ties us into... Department of Commerce, and they want to see job creation, I mean, right? Right. And so you've got a portion of the county that you can't really build on, I mean, unless you don't need water for drinking.

But you still have to have a septic.

You still have to have a septic, yeah. Right, right. But the nice thing is if everybody was on water,

then you can meter the water flow to be able to do the subject wastewater treatment and as building Commissioner I will say safety wise there's been two fires on my road since we moved there in 91 one of them was a total loss the other one was you know at least 75% loss because they had to go number one the closest fire department we have is here in nashville um and they have to go to lake monroe to use the pump truck to set up a pump so they could drive for the fire so so our hope well i mean it was it was when bill cook was here and he said we've got to insure it for a total loss because it will be yeah right

So that's another thing. We lost our largest employer in the county because of poor water flow. Same situation. It was a big part of it. Just no fire flow and I don't think anywhere in the county is fire flow rated if I'm not mistaken. So the EDA funds, that is exactly the kind of project

And you talk about commerce in the county there's people probably who want to do if it's zone correctly businesses out in the county, but that business may require sprinkler system and 90% of the time there's not pressure to do it So, you know you can do things with the building code and with the state to not provide the sprinkler system but okay is Then you ask, well, is that good or not? And I can't answer that. You can do it and they do it. So, you know, like some of these barns that you used to have for wedding events that used to be so hot. Well, if you get too high a number, most of those had to be sprinkled and a lot of them got variances because there wasn't pressure and there wasn't water.

We've got a good resource here in the planning department that is like impartial. I mean, you guys are just trying to protect health and safety of the county and people building things and living here. It's a great resource. And before we go, I mean, you both have been here. I'm looking at your... I don't think we want to get to the longevity discussion today, just for your own best interest. We're also out of time. But 10 years of service for Kayla, 12 years of service for Lonnie. It really is.

And it will be 10 and 12. It will be 10 and 12. In 27. Gotcha.

Okay.

And thank you. Not only is this budget discussion, it was educational for us and for people who are listening to hear what you just said about water issues and that kind of thing. So while we deviate sometimes, it's an educational process for us and others. Thank you for that.

Lonnie, real quick, and then you guys got to get out of here. You got the veteran behind you. Give the council your background real quick because you've got a fascinating guy.

special background worked in the architectural community worked with Miller architects for over 20 some years drafting and doing that so that's kind of where I came from new Danny since I was a little boy riding a bus going to school and he said I'm gonna put your name in for when I retire and he did and so I appreciate that but yeah you know i'm a county kid so i've seen the i've seen the struggles and the you know what we're trying to do and it's you know the county has done uh i think um a pretty decent job on getting as much as they can done, but we're a small county and all that, but I think the utility part of it, if you're wanting the concerns with housing and stuff, I think it really does fall back on infrastructure, water, and sewer to help. It may not be the equation answer, but it certainly will help.

Would it be out of line if I asked If I can find the time, then could I call you up and schedule a time to basically spend a day with you?

Out on the?

Whatever, yeah. Because what I just heard you say is that you grew up in this county.

Mm-hmm.

and you've been on the job 13 years, so my assumption is you know this county like the back of your hand, you know it forwards, backwards, sideways.

Tell you what, I thought I did before I took the job, and then I went to some places that I had never been.

Yes, me too. What I could use is, I don't know what I don't know, Right. And, you know, while I've driven the four townships, but, you know, there's road, well, coming in on 135 this morning, there's a road I saw that goes west, and, you know, like, nah, it's gravel. It's probably a dead end, you know. So, I don't know the county as well as what I should, if you will. And, you know, if I'm going to be on this council, and we're going to be looking at funding, and, again, it's in the context of, you know, keeping You know for budgetary issues. It's the next four or five years But then you've got to look at it. Let's look at 2050 because at this stage of the game for me. I know how quickly 24 years goes by Okay, and so this county it will be 2050 before you know, I won't be here but it will be 2050 and my concern for the county is is you know the questions we ask and the decisions we make today definitely influence you know what this county looks like in 2050 and so how do we preserve and make sure that in 2050 it's a county that we all still want to be a member of that doesn't change dramatically to the point to where you don't even recognize it anymore and that's my concern especially Because I assume and maybe you can help me with this question. My assumption is is what's happened over the last ten years is that the Because of the Music Center and the marketing trying to market outside the county to draw tourism into the county for the Music Center and you know hospitality sector Now what's happened is that that you know, if you take somebody that lives in Chicago That lives in a three million dollar home And so what's happening is is the county's actually being bought up For people outside of the county and they're buying up the real estate because the county's a real bargain So it's easy for them to come in and buy homes Put money into a flip into a tourist rental, you know Or by hundreds of acres and do nothing Right, so that's my concern. Who's buying the real estate and how much real estate has changed hands? Let's just go back to the last five years and look at those real estate transactions. Has it been a lot? Yeah. And we ought to be paying attention to that. We ought to be paying attention to who's buying Brown County and where are they coming from? Because if we don't take a look at that, because that question then plays right back into the comprehensive plan.

And are they coming here to be here?

Correct. Or are they just here and they live in Florida or whatever, right? And then I'll finish with this, because the other big concern I have, because I don't have the answer to this question, I would love to know, yesterday the assessor was in here and they reported there's 15,200 parcels. Yeah, that's what she testified. And I'm not going to hold specifically to that number. But let's say that's 15,200 parcels. Of those parcels, how many parcels are owned by baby boomers? Because baby boomers were born from 1946 to 1964. So in the next 24 years, if you do the math, the probability is those baby boomers won't be here anymore. So in the next 24 years, you're going to see a dramatic change in the ownership of the real estate because the probate court is going to fill up and you're going to have a lot of real estate changing hands. Well, who's coming in and buying it? With that point, we have 10 minutes over. Okay. Going forward, we have got to start... Addressing some of those I think yeah, if we're serious about the whole Direction of the county and then also we want raises to I'll make a quick statement so we can't discuss the other question that came up in the Whatever report was that thing?

future thing Comprehensive With zoning possibilities. So we either seem to have either zoning as residential or Walmart. Something in between for cottage industries to develop. That's something we think about.

A home business.

Right. That's what's going to happen there. We're not going to get industry. We're going to have home businesses. We should facilitate that. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you both.

So next time we come in, bring treats, and then we will get the raises.

No, bring cash. No cash. Donuts and drinks. Cold hard cash. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Introduce yourself to everybody.

I'm Andy Alexander.

I'm the veteran service officer for Brown County, along with Sharon Coco, who is also a veteran service officer. Historically, she's the first woman non-veteran in the state history of Indiana to hold that position. And our department's 33 years old this year. There's been six VSOs. It's the first time in our history that we've had two VSOs. And through your funding, your return for investment we put out a goal of two million dollars this year to go after a federal money for disability claims and support all the different claims that we have coming in and we're at 119 percent of our goal for the year so your investment of making her full-time equal to me has made a difference for return for investment of $90,000 we've brought in $2,385,000 for 875 veterans living in the county. That money's all going through our three banks as tax-exempt money from the federal government. We've brought in more money than you can see with some disasters in the country from fires and floods from the federal government that people don't get through FEMA. So we've been very successful at it. We're one of 10 counties that do direct submits. We have governor coins on our certificates in our office. Most counties have to go through the American Legion or the Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs to review every claim they have, but because Sharon and I got the top accreditations through the Veterans Administration, the Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs, and the American Legion nationally, we get to do direct submits. That means we can package a claim within a day after two or three hours with a veteran determining what their needs are. They could be disabilities, it could be funeral expenses, it could be burials, it could be dependency, all the different, there's over 2,000 benefits from the federal government, and about 600 from the state, and here in our county, we have about 10 benefits for our veterans. So right now, we're doing really good, and the cooperation from the system of care in the county, the four trustees I work with, the council, the three commissioners, The people themselves We are sitting on a gold mine here. I mean it's operating well and I have no real demands for increased budgets other than what inflation is doing in the current war. The hardship of the job, though, is I've handled more veteran deaths than the entire Iran war through this county. I've lost 20 veterans. I have 45 veterans in the Health and Living Center, and I will lose all of them within the next two years. I have 100 – go ahead, Pat.

What is your caseload per year?

But we have 65% of the market share. We started at 42. That's about 890 veterans.

I would like to say something to the councils here. I am a disabled veteran. I started out with 10% disability. I've been kicked around my entire life by the Veterans Administration. Was put out of the Navy, got absolutely nothing. Probably awarded 10%, taken away 10 years. Recently, in the last two years, I think I came to your office. It was an eye-opener. I've now actually increased my disability to 60%, and actually I'm being represented now in my cases going for a federal VA job, which takes five to seven years, if you can believe that. The problem I see for you is I saw the caseload on the, it was a big table like this, enough help I'm not I know you're doing the best you can not asking that you get more help but I just the people need to understand the the scope of this hit that entire table was covered with cases and veterans I happen to be a nurse and an x-ray tech so I could filter my way through the system and it has served me well but you have a lot of veterans here their educational levels not high and they don't have any understanding they get stuck is that not correct in these cases you have like maybe a year to get something done and they and they can't so i just want to acknowledge the work that you guys do because without that how many veterans would be at the poverty level here i mean it's considerable amount of money that i get every month And a lot of that has to do with education from his department because, just like in my own case, because I was not, even though I was in a Vietnam era, I was not in the Vietnam War. And there's a lot of guilt associated with not going to war, but being injured in the military and not getting an award of some type. So it saves the county a lot of money, which you didn't mention, maybe you did, I didn't catch it, but a lot of welfare services here would be taxed even more if it was not for your office and the money that those veterans receive because they also, it pays for our health care if we deem it so. And the average health care policy, and Jim will rear this be about $20,000 a year per person so thank you for that I appreciate that appreciate what you do appreciate what you do for the people and the fact that you held your budget down to really nothing other than inflation I commend that thank you well as a Ranger serving 25 years in nine combat tours I will never ask for an increase that's not necessary right I was just trained that way

You turn me loose on a mission, I'm going to do it with the resources I have.

But a lot of people do have guilt. I mean, they have a lot of, just like myself, you don't think you deserve something.

I have people come in every day that break down crying over the loss. you know, from our oldest veteran, who's 99, our last World War II veteran, Maurice, who I visit every month. I have 40 veterans I feel live in poverty in this county, pumping water out of their ponds through our aid and assistance and our non-reverting fund. We got about 10,000 in it. I'm constantly filling propane tanks and visiting with them, working with the sheriff, the tribe department, the deputies, the social people, Centerstone.

And when people see veterans walking around in the theater really wrong with you but my whole law enforcement career I've missed work because of my disability I suffered for 50 years before they even ever give it back so but if there weren't people like you an organization like you where you could get represented people lose out on one thing one good thing that's going on with the auditor right now

We have had 1,320 veterans in this county that are walking around. If they're married, that's over 3,000. If they have dependents, that's another 1,000. If they have caregivers, we're really dealing with about 4,000 people with walk-in traffic, text messages, emails, everything coming at us. but it's all put in the queue you know we're going to figure it out the state legislative passed property tax exemptions five categories for veterans effective one july in my opinion the auditor state system is ready for it a lot of the the push out on it educating the veterans and their dependents we have 136 spouses who have lost their husbands that are still under those exemptions in property. We've become very familiar with the GIS system in Brown County. Every parcel we look at every day to put those packets together to verify they're entitled to one of those five categories or multiple categories that we send to the auditor's office. My point is we have about 45% market share. If you're a business in town and you've got 45% market share, that's pretty good. but we really own about 65 we figure by the end of this year we'll own about 75 we have veterans coming to us we haven't seen in 10 and 15 years because they want their tax exemptions on their property they went into those benefits they even have a benefit on there that we haven't clicked yet any world war one surviving spouse is entitled to tax exemption at 100 percent she'd have to be 126 years old. I don't think our legislator really looked at some of those things. But as we put the newer back in the cow every day on these claims and on these tax exemptions and that, it's a collective effort through the auditor's office with Amber downstairs, through our GIS people, Tom over here, to the trustees that I work with. It's a good system, I'll tell you. I have no complaints. And when I go to the other 91 counties and I look at what's going on, it is chaos going on. 55,000 people up in Marion County, we don't have it. Now, the offset is we serve 35 counties. They come to Brown County because they know there's no security stopping them to hit a courthouse where most VSOs are at. We're sitting in a veterans hall. They call it the island out there in the county. And they come in walk-ins. Half of our traffic is walk-ins, and everybody wants to be addressed immediately because of whatever. Just the residual effect of the deaths this year, 20 of them, that's with full honor guards and burial and follow-up with a spouse for three months for benefits, services, funeral expenses, whatever. It's very taxing, not only on us emotionally, we're just not two clerks sitting out there We're in the funeral business with seven funeral homes, five monument companies. We're managing 121 cemeteries with the preservation system, the historical society, the trustees, and all the other people who are keeping up with those cemeteries. We have 1,900 veterans in the ground right now. I have 71 requests coming at me just to repair burial markers. Andy Rogers, I just looked up on Jackson Branch the other day for his daughter, has to be repaired. One of the wealthiest men in our town that developed Nashville, even his little marker has to be looked at and protected. It's a rite of passage that I have to watch over as a veteran service officer. And our last thing I want to share with you, Since 1836, we have documents sitting in our closet that started out at the recycle center that was flooded out and they moved the VSO out here in 1993 into an office. We had 13 filing cabinets when I took over three years ago with no scanning or no automation to support a virtual office. As of today, with five months left as a three year goal, all 13 of those file cabinets are gone. We have scanned in with the help of Eric, which is part of them, and Bill Moyer. We have scanned those documents in and protected them so we don't have the mess that we've heard from other counties under ransomware and that, under what we call the V file. We then upload them into the Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs and protect them there. And then, of course, they're in the VA files and the National Archives. So a veteran is protected in this county. Every document, every piece of paper that a veteran, their dependent, their survivor and spouse gets when they leave, we are now a department that's a virtual office. We could not operate at this level if we weren't there. The paperwork was drowning and killing us. Like Patrick, you said, I had eight tables in my office with documents back to 1836. That's 16 war errors. From the Civil War, War of 1812, Spanish-American War, we have all those burial markers for that. Thanks to you all for funding a $4,000 in the commissioners' burial thing. We took 4,000 pounds of weight off of Mark Shield's head that we would put markers in for the winter because we couldn't set them. We're the only county that sets a marker for free. by the American Legion. You go up to Greenwood and you put a marker up there, that cemetery, those funeral homes up there will charge you $800. There is so much fraud and gouging of the veteran or family, but this county, we protect these people. We protect these veterans. So every penny, everything I have in this budget, I ain't talking about stretching it. I'm using it to its fullest extent and shows for return for investment.

but if I do ask for money you know what's behind it yes sir Jack I would highly encourage you okay you know in my business it's called business continuity you know I hope and pray that you are actively trying to recruit and find your replacement?

We have.

Have you? Do you have somebody, if something happens to you?

We have two of them. They're married. They live up on Plum Creek.

They can move in and carry the torch, if you will?

Yes, because it's 75 and Sharon's older than me. We're in our last 25 years. Yeah, me too. Well, there's six VSOs in Marion County at the mayor's office. They're hard to get to. They don't do anything close to what we accomplish down here. They just do claims, disability claims. Well, two of them moved in our county. They're in their late 30s. They have children. They live out on Plum Creek. I don't know why they picked that gravel road, but they like it there. But they've come down and they're chomping at the bit for Shannon and I to move on. So we're going to vet them because this is an honor to move this office to protect what goes back in this town or this county to 1836 and before that.

Now I have a follow-up question. I think I heard you say that you have We have 1,320 veterans residing in Brown County?

Yes, sir. That's about 8% of our population.

Yeah, it's 8 1⁄2 and 15 5.

And it's 1.5% above the state average.

Say that again?

It's 1.5% above. So we're 1 1⁄2% higher than most other counties. Plus we're supporting 35 other counties veterans that are coming in here because they know we have a high win rate. Sharon and I have figured out how to work with the federal government and get a claim in that gets up to 60%, or gets 100%. And then the ancillary things like, tax exemption at 100% now, or when the veteran dies, the spouse picks up dependent indemnity compensation and gets $1,900 of his pension for the rest of her life, if it's a service-connected.

Jim, getting to your question, the high percent, when I grew up, Kokomo, Indiana, all this military. That was about the only option we had. Brown County is obviously a poor county, so therefore I would assume that that high representative rate of veterans in this county was basically because they didn't have a lot of opportunity and they went in the military. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I would guess that played a big part in that.

Sure.

A lot of my neighbors ended up dead.

In closing, some great news. Of the $4,000 I asked for flags, that's for the nine county flag polls, three flags per poll. That's for the 1,900 flags that our 70 volunteers put out on those veterans we have in the ground every May. That's for the 1,200 flags that have gone from 800 flags to 1,200 that we give to the children in this town during our parades. We run out of those little flags every year. I've made it to the Cornerstone Inn this year. I run out before I can make it back to the high school. So now I'm going to order more flags for next year. But every year I make it further and further. These children are watching us. They're our patriots. the veterans stand up in our parades in this town and you know this is great it makes my job very easy but even veterans that come through our town I uh the SOC called me Shirley Borden the other day we had a veteran being a little naughty over at McDonald's and the people were afraid of him the moment that call comes in I get it or the sheriff But if I get it, I'll call over there, and I'll tell him, tell that veteran to meet me at BP, or now Amoco. Just tell him to meet the VSO. He'll drive over there, and the moment I meet him, I vet him, and I go, where are you from? I'm from Anderson, but I got to get back to Evansville. I'll take our non-reverting fund, aid and assistance money that's donated by people in this county, and I'll top off his gas. I'll give him my card and my counterpart's card in Evansville. and I'll show them how to get a job, how to get lodging, But you don't have veterans in this town eating out of dumpsters or standing on our corners begging for food or not addressed immediately, you know, or doing without. And that's because of this system of care. These 30 nonprofits, our churches, these trustees. Sandy Higgins gets the biggest kudos. So with that, that's kind of my closing. Thank you. You've got a lot to be.

Yes, ma'am. No, I just want to give you something.

And then just to close up and. That's impressive. Raise your hand on the council. You're a veteran, if you wouldn't mind.

I have three. Yes.

And you said something at the beginning that shocked me. I've heard you give, maybe this is your sixth presentation, probably more I've heard. Tell us your background one more time.

I'm a Woodstock baby that went to Woodstock a year later. I was in Vietnam in the first cab as a door gunner at 19. 19... Well, 69 was Woodstock, so it had to be about 60.

So you went to Woodstock? I did. You were also there.

Well, four of us from East St. Louis, we got out of high school and headed to Woodstock.

So you actually heard the fish cheer.

We missed the first day because we didn't know. Woodstock moved from Woodstock to Bethel Hills. And they thought it was going to be at White Lake, but Governor Rockefeller, remember, he canceled it. And we didn't have ticket money, but when we walked in, we could hear Janis Joplin singing that morning with the Who right behind her and Jimi Hendrix on the last day. A year later, I heard that over my headset on an A-track in a Huey helicopter from Woodstock. But I was a tunnel rat in Vietnam, infantry. To get out of that, I got in the helicopters, survived Vietnam, went to Korea, got my associate's undergraduate and graduate degrees through the Army, 11 years it took me, through the mail. I never did a resident course. And I've been the, I'm a graduate of Villanova, Tar Heel University, Central Michigan University. And I was promoted 14 times in the military, received a direct commission in Panama, served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Kosovo, Yugoslavia. I was in Desert Shield in Kuwait during the 180 oil fires. Served in Korea. It wasn't a combat area. I was in Monaco. As a ranger, I went through the results of the Beirut bombings with our Marines that were killed. I've seen Sandinistas and the Contra. Just a great career. I went in as a private, made first sergeant E-8, had a direct commission in Panama with the Noriega incidents, and became a second lieutenant, and then I retired as a field grade officer as a major. Had a great career. And then I ran my own business for seven years with 245 people worldwide on government contracts, sold the business to a $2 billion company, and then I became a college professor at the University of Nebraska and Iowa State University in the engineering and college departments. And I got to work with Mr. Buffett to Oracle in Omaha and Charlie Unger to Berkshire Hathaway, and I was hired by The adjutant general of this state, six years ago, as a contractor for Crane for hypersonics, defined contractor to build those submarines and tight missiles down there because of my background with seeing that overseas and that. And then Keith Baker and my wife, Sue Redd, who was the matron of the jail, convinced me to tone it down. I took a $45,000 pay cut and took this job to give something back. And it's one of the best jobs I've had in my whole journey. And I'm a product of Sogier, Illinois, which is East St. Louis, 90-people population. The arch was built across the road with no opportunities, but the Army gave me all that. So that's my...

You need to take your story, and I'm serious, it's a heart attack. You need to take, anything I can do to encourage you. No, no, no, get started on it now. If there's ever been a time in this country right now to talk about the American dream and what individual agency means, and how you went from nothing and have been able to accomplish what you've accomplished because you've got an incredible story. If you don't get that in writing, dies with you, and that would be sad.