County Council - Regular Meeting

Wow.

Do we want to do those here, or do we want to wait until the ringer will move up?

Do you want to look them over, or does anybody want to look them over? Let's throw it away. I'm going to work session August 6th.

I have a budget hearing the 30th, or the 28th, 29th, and 30th. Thank you. And work session of July 19th. We want to do those now, or you want to wait and review them and do that at a regular meeting?

What are you asking? Regular meetings. Oh. We usually do them at the regular meetings.

Okay. We'll go ahead and do that then.

We'll motion table of minutes until a regular meeting. Anyone? I'll motion table of minutes until a regular meeting.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Can we have a couple of things to take care of real quick? HRSD for $175,000 of the sock factory farms.

I'll make a motion that we approve it.

I second. Any discussion? Some people feel it's sort of like a targeted thing for a unique thing rather than a spread out thing for future. utilization of broadening the picture of the site. Okay, let me update you.

I went to the meeting last night and we had a lengthy conversation about the whole thing. Okay, and I'll show you, I'm going to do a quick summary. Rich Hall was there from the Rock County Regional Sewer District. Okay, Adrian was there and the board. First of all, with regards to the collection line, and the 10 connections, which is what this 175 is for. SRF, State Revolving Fund, when you apply for an SRF forgivable loan, number one, the language in those documents requires the regional sewer district to pay for the connections. Furthermore, standard practice or best practice is to the regional sewer district to pay for the connections. So that's kind of the standard. So this idea that, you know, the regional sewer district should either means test, you know, the installation of the connection systems or require the landowner to pay for it doesn't fit with the industry. And then the other issue with it is I want all of you to stop and think about having to go out. Because you've got to keep in mind, for me, know we have five members on the brown county regional sewer district we have three board members on the helmsburg regional sewer district and these people are volunteers all right so you know if there we if the county ever reaches a point to where we can't try to recruit and get you know and build continuity on those boards to where that that I'm going to call it tribal knowledge or institutional knowledge which is another term for tribal knowledge because there's a lot to know and you know we can't you can't expect just somebody coming in off the street to fill that board spot and then to be able to learn everything you need to know to be able to manage these things and to be able to to make you know be productive and make progress So an issue is if each and every one of you had to go out and go talk to property owners and ask them to sign off on an easement to put the pipe in the ground. Have fun. I wouldn't want to do it. So that, to get the people to, because you've got half the people that are going to, nope, don't want wastewater treatment. The other half says, yeah, absolutely, we want it. And so you've always got to divide, right? Kind of like with the AI centers we've got going on in the country. So this common practice is for the regional sewer district to cover the connection for this. Number two, the other issue is that, and my main takeaway from that meeting last week, and I'm not, you know, this is not accusatory language and I'm not pointing fingers, but if the leadership within this community is, if we're serious about additional housing, economic development, You know, comprehensive plan, supposedly the commissioners are, you guys are doing something with the comprehensive plan, right? But you can do all you want with the comprehensive plan until you're blue in the face. But at the end of the day, you know, this county, if you all want to add additional housing, increase the population, add, you know, retail stores, whatever, we're gonna have to have infrastructure. And a key to that infrastructure is, you know, not only do we not have all of the land or all of the residences don't have water. So, A, Brown County water needs to, you know, we need to figure out how do we get the capital to make sure they got the money to make sure everybody's got access to water, number one. And then number two, is this issue with wastewater treatment? So it appears that the Brown County Regional Sewer District and the Helmsburg Regional Sewer District are working together. The Brown County Regional Sewer District is going to really focus on Lake Lemon. because that is a major train wreck at Lake Lemmon. And then as you all are aware, we have for 20 years had issues with bean blossom and how bean blossom needs it. So the Helmsburg Regional Sewer District have the capacity with the new plant going in of around 85 people, or excuse me, 85 households at 4,000 gallons per month. But they also have the capacity to extend that, and that's at an 80% capacity utilization. They have the ability, provided they can get the funding, to extend the capacity of that plant up to about 100,000 gallons a day. so what we we when i say we the and i'm going to be i'm going to make a judgment statement here but based on my perspective and my history with working in the county since 2017 is the commissioners and the council We're going to have to. It's time that we sat down. We create a vision for 2050. Okay. And we as a leadership group get serious about the county and doing everything we can to help support the Helmsburg Regional Sur District, the Brown County Regional Sur District, and we've got Naubone that needs to be dealt with. Okay? And I think where we've failed is that the ten elected officials, we as a group, have not provided the leadership and the support for the board members. And to illustrate this point, there's the great woman in Helmsburg, Harrietta Weddle, okay? And that woman, I mean, she was on that from the beginning until, you know, she was it, all right? And Harrietta Weddle's a great woman, and she had great skill sets to manage the day-to-day operations of that Helmsburg Regional Sewer District, okay? And so she managed the payable receivables, you know, the fixed and variable cost, okay, and did a great job. But she never had any support. So it's like for me, you know, what do I know about raising money, going out and finding grant money, right, to try to help working with SRF, working with the federal government, to try to raise capital so that they have the capital and the money they need to be able to resolve some of the issues. And that's where, because I don't know anything about, I've never done a grant, I don't have a clue, right, you know. That's where I think the council and the commissioners, if we put our heads together, provided the leadership and begin to provide a clear vision and begin at 2050, which is only 24 years from now, and let's back up to where we are today because the challenge for Helmsburg is Helmsburg is going to have to find the capital to get pipe in the ground to take care of bean blossom Because if they can do that, they'll end up picking up another 100 plus connections, which will put them, let's say, maybe close to bumping 200 connections. And if they can keep a lid on their fixed and variable costs, that will drive down that monthly usage rate. But right now, that monthly usage rate is $118. And the challenge with it, and the thing you've got to remember, if you go online, you can research this quick, 2 thirds of the American population live paycheck to paycheck. So we have people that are living paycheck to paycheck that are over here paying $40 to $50 a month for water, and then over here paying $118. That's $168 to flush your toilet a month, do your laundry, and wash your hands. So I would really encourage, going forward, the council and the commissioners, we need to put our heads together and we need to discuss it. And let's go back up to how do we support them. So that's the reason. Let's give them the $175,000, but let's not stop there. Let's continue to pay attention.

What they're doing right now, they have a serious need for it in that area. There's a huge need for it. If Helmsburg is going to be able to remain existing, And like you said, get the infrastructure.

Well, if they didn't have the money right now. I didn't interrupt you. No, I'm not interrupting. I'm just agreeing with you. I just want to make sure. See, if I don't interrupt you, then I'll forget what I was going to say. I'm forgetting what I'm saying, too.

So we've got to get this infrastructure there so we can sustain and preserve Helmsburg. Yeah. Because if we don't do anything, there's a lot of people that are going to be at some serious trouble there. This step, what they're doing right now, hooking the 10 extra people on, that's the step to get to an expansion down Helmsburg Road and... Oak Ridge Road, if they're gonna do that. If this does not happen, those are dead ends that stop. And then before that, before they even start out toward Bean Blossom, this has, there's steps. This is the next step in what they need to do. If this step doesn't happen, then it's gonna hamper them.

It's my turn. How does this fit into the meeting a week or so ago? You talked about it in Brown County Utilities Type Corporation or whatever. Overall picture, you know, the whole county's under Some utilities think that it operates efficiently and effectively. So is this lean towards that? How does that play out? That's at least a decade away. I know it's a decade away.

The only thing I was going to say, Darren, the only thing I was going to say that I was just going to add to your comment, praise the Lord that they got the funding to put the new plant in. Because if they hadn't gotten that new plant, then every one of those houses would have to be condemned.

Helmsburg entirely would be condemned.

The health department would have to condemn it all. So thank goodness they're getting the new plants. Let's be grateful for that. Let's go to 2050. All right? Let's go to 2050. Because it's a stewardship legacy issue. We're here right now. 2050, I'll be dead. Me too. Yeah, you'll be dead. A lot of us won't be here, right? Well, it's just the way it is. So what are we leaving, okay, what are we doing today that we can put in place so that we can protect the county, you know, and the county continue to kind of grow and prosper, if you will, right? Okay.

And the details for that will have to be worked out later. We can't work it out today. Yeah, that's right.

Well, in a perfect world, right, the perfect world would be to have a Brown County wastewater utility company, right? And that company then owns all of the wastewater treatment plants, right? So that you can try to get it to an economy scale to drive the cost per connection down, right? But that's going to take a long time. And the challenge with that is the, because my, I'm going to go ahead and say this, is that because of our Because we're a small community, and because everyone knows everyone, right? Because everyone knows everyone, right? And any time we get into discussions, you get into this tribalism. I'm going to call it tribalism, right? And it's an us against them mindset.

We're repeating ourselves.

It's win-lose, right, yeah. And what I'd love to see us do is shift and just start thinking 2050 you know next 24 years back up all right and and let's work on being able to have conversations where disagreement is encouraged but it's never personal And we have to begin to go for win-win. And unless we can shift and begin to work together, learn how to argue forward without making it personal, right? And unless we can have that, then you're going to continue to have the bickering between these different entities. And that's what's got, that mindset has to shift. If it doesn't, then you're going to just continue, you're never going to make any headway. Couldn't come on up.

president of Helmsburg Regional Super District, and I wanted to answer Gary's question. Gary, you had asked about, like, the single entity and that kind of thing. Well, I can tell you guys, the first hurdle that we've had to deal with is wading through a relationship that was already tensioned from the get-go. We've got new boards, right, on both sides for the most part. I can tell you over the last couple months, I went to very new Rich showed up at our meeting yesterday. It's been great conversations that we've been having. So there is a way forward. And I just want to let you guys know right now, Helmsburg is pushing back against black consolidating. There's a big reason. And I think Brown County understands that is we can be stronger separately right now because if we're together and we go for SRF money, we have to choose which way we go. But if we're separate entities right now, then we can go for a project, they can get funded for a project. I won't say it's game and system, but man, it is optimizing as best we can. But what the conversation has been, Gary, is once we get to a point where we have infrastructure in the ground and got the majority of the money that we need to build this infrastructure, that conversation will happen.

And I'm not going anywhere.

I'll be around as long as they want me. But I definitely feel that way, and I feel that we can find a way to move forward and work together. We've got other plans that we could potentially be separate entities, but work together for common goals. So we're exploring all of that. But we have to wade through the BS that you guys know is already existing. And I think we've turned a corner. I feel fantastic about working with them.

I want to commend you and Matt on your conversations you've had coming together. I know there's been some conversations otherwise. And like you said, there's been a legacy of tension long before any of you were on the board and others were on the board. I mean, it just, it goes back and that's a hurdle that has to be overcome and I've seen some good progress on that and I just, I want to commend everybody.

Thanks for being part of that. You kept him in the loop on emails.

I want to say something briefly about tension in this government. We've got to have people who are going to be adults in the room and work through that and say, we've got to work with people we don't want to deal with or whatever, but we're going to do it. Why? Because the people out there need it. We've got to be big boys and do that.

No, I get that. And that's where, with different boards, we'll lead it through that. I think we've come out on the other side. I think there's a very good path forward for us. I just wanted to come up and kind of answer that. Hopefully that gives you guys and the commissioners, Kevin, When you're taking some really good steps, I'm very happy with where things are. My stress has come down. So that's all I have to say about it. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, that's why I said, you know, any kind of consolidation of any kind is, you know, a decade at least. And I think that's ambitious to bring the boys together. They are stronger, more efficient now as two entities together. trying to get different parts of the county together. Because like I said, if they were one, then it'd be one trying to do all of this. There are two of them, they need to be, separate and cooperative to get the projects done that they are chasing both of them are chasing really good projects right now and i i would hate to see anything happen that would that would jeopardize any of what they're any of what they're doing so that's all i got well we got a second a first and second we have a first and second one other thing you know uh to me the plant pressing need of the plant is really the most important there's an urgent need there

and you know that's kind of the baby that we don't want to throw out with the bathwater here and so hearing about the SRF requirement to pay for 100% of the tap fees is helpful because I think we were told it was done in exchange for the easement and that concerned me just a little bit and so hearing that is helpful to me that was one of my concerns I do think tap fees are common practice and best practice across the industry that helps pay for ongoing maintenance and the cost of serving a customer that is actually a standard and I'm sure they'll do that moving forward to pay for grinder pumps that sort of thing but the other concern I had was that the funding source which was the sock factory funding You know, and so hearing kind of the collaboration between the sewer district and the county sewer district, that's encouraging. And I can also see, you know, that Sock Factory money was meant to sustain and grow Helmsburg. and without this plant and we've got a what 700 000 shortage in the grant funds that they're trying to you know cover i think that's actually what we're doing here is providing missing funding it could go to three different things but they picked this particular item um you know i can bridge that gap from the sock factory funding to this plant that sustains everyone in town even though i really wish there was a different investment we could make with that we didn't need to do that but we don't have other options right now and they don't either and so um i'm kind of you know it's a little painful for everybody probably because we'd like to put that money to pay us forward and gain ground in helmsburg with some kind of great family investment or whatever, but we're just not in place to do that right now.

We can't do any of that until this gets done. It's steps. You can't jump over this step to get to that step. This doesn't happen every once in a while. Then you're investing in a town that's, like we said, is...

forward we can't grow it and and I think you know the council a year or so ago asked for this regional economic development opportunity to be explored and so you know that can fund major sewer expansions and investments and so we'll see how we can we can work through that but so anyway just want to say that I mean it's

it's kind of a necessary step even though there it'd be nice if there are better options but I'm ready to second or whatever we got a second any other comments all right we have a motion and second on providing $175,000 from the sock factory funds to the Helmsburg regional sewer district all in favor opposed Karen yes Gary

yes patrick yes jim yep scott yes joel yes i'm not missing anybody we're good hey thank you thank you guys thank you go forth and explain so get out there get your show and get to work

How quickly do things like this happen?

Let's talk about that real quick because we just got some feedback. just we just got some feedback from our attorney on dispersing funds prior to services being received and so she said you know in the case where we would need to disperse before services were rendered it would need to have a very strict contract which requires Commissioner review council review but what I would say is if you're con you have a contractor lined up yet I Sounds like no. That's okay.

Well, Kyle is much more in tune with that. That's fine.

But my point is, if the contractor would require 25% upfront, say, as an example, then I think our contract, we just need to bulletproof a contract because we don't want to give a contractor $100,000 and then they go to Florida and retire. And so our attorney is giving us very, I'm sorry, not our attorney, our financial consultant, our accounting firm is saying, don't distribute money until service or good has been received. And so I guess there's more follow-up on that. Like I would get your contractor together. We should not write a check for the full amount until you

175 you're going to get less than 175 right and so some things for you to figure out there i think work with us so can i can i since since contract remember something that's my favorite thing so so to me is again services delivery so that in going through this do you have outstanding invoices and things of that nature or materials or that kind of thing okay all right so at that point just i believe like scott said draft something it shouldn't i mean i don't know i can engage our attorney and see what if we can get that done right now we have a template but it's a services template so i don't know if it's even applicable

Well, I can tell you, we don't have the extra money. That's why we're here, to front that 80%.

I'm confused. I thought we voted to give the Helmsburg Regional Sur District $175,000. Okay, then I thought the auditor would have cut a check to the Brown County Regional Sur District for $175,000 and they put it in their checking account and now they're responsible for it. That's what we just voted to do. We didn't vote to say, you know...

No, no, I understand.

That was my vote.

So, again, the expenditure part of that is fine because it's not the, it's a, okay. So, from my understanding is, the commissioners, for example, if we have a contract that's worth $2 million, then we need to go and engage. And we need to have them provide dollars up front to meet that obligation. Let's say it's 25% up front. There's a criteria for which we'd have to come to you and say we have permission. You've given the permission. I'm not sure if there's a contract necessary. So I guess that's the question.

It wouldn't be a contract with the council. It's a contract with the contractor. If they require upfront payment or whatever. So we've just got to be careful. We follow what our accountant is saying we need to do there.

I think you as a council have done what's necessary. I don't know if there's anything else to do.

I think the auditor needs to cut a check to the Brackett County Helmsburg Regional Sewer District for $175,000. All right, and if you guys misappropriate, steal the money and do something illegal, then we'll come after you and you'll go to prison, okay? So, it's real simple. It's up to you.

I will do a quick call to make sure that there's no documentation necessary, that we basically go through the exercise of filing a claim like we would with our normal process. To answer your question, so how quickly could you have the money if we followed the normal claim process? It's a get it in, because we've already had our meeting last night, which means that we were authorized to approve the claims for the next round, which would mean checks cut for that will be cut before the claims before this. So it could be as much as three weeks. Unless, and again, the commissioners basically gave a recommendation to approve and proceed forward with this. We can get two signatures and have it done in a matter of time.

So, Adrian, the real question is how quickly can you get a contract bid? Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. Let me back up. Adrian, my point is proceed.

No, we didn't.

Your contractor's not gonna, you got a couple weeks before you can bid it, secure it, right? In the meantime.

We actually already have bids. Kyle, again, noticed this.

Adrian, you guys are a separate legal entity. We just gave you $175,000. that is your responsibility period we don't have anything to do with that and neither do the commissioners that's your board's we don't have to approve anything we don't need to approve anything we just did we just we gave you the money we just gave you 175k suspended wisely yeah that's all i think is just legally jenny you brought up yeah that the council would release

up to $175,000. And that is not what the motion was. So when this kind of thing happens, it's confusing to the rest of us. And it also seems like you're considering reneging on the thing that you just passed.

No, the bid just, the vote was the vote. And it was $175,000. My point in saying... So why did you bring that up? Here's my point in saying that, is... You know, if what you're saying you're going to do it, and you said it was for the 10 service connections, right? And that's what the council is. let's say you've got a wonderful bid back I don't think this is gonna happen actually I think it's pregnant more than what you did or what you just asked for let's say it came back as less and it was the ten services not that we would want to pull that back but I mean these are tax obligated stop stop stop I made the motion I made the motion and

Patrick Nylander seconded it, and my motion was to cut a check for $175,000 to the Helmsburg Regional Sewer District. That was it. It wasn't conditional. I didn't say we're going to cut it a check. Conditional that we're going to approve every, because we as a council do not have the authority nor should we micromanage Helmsburg Regional Sewer District or any other department. If you start micromanaging, well, wait a minute. These are, because I'm heated right now. Well, this is important. This is dangerous. We have three volunteer board members. We have five at the Brown County Regional Sewer District. If we start micromanaging, they have enough stress and enough frustration, as it is, because they're getting beat up by 65 to 70 customers every when they get to pay their bill and if we step in and try to micromanage every decision they make you run the risk of saying you know what i'm out of here i don't want to be do this i'm not going to play this game and then what are you left with Okay, what are you left with?

And what we did just now is we gave, they have the $175,000. They now have the incentive to get a better deal on contracting the hookups. Whatever they have left over can go into funding the new plant. So, I mean, it's win-win for everybody.

Let's do this. To clarify, and Jenny's got a good question here. And to Jim's point, so let's clarify that that vote was not for the 10 service connections. That vote was for 175. And really, to my point earlier, it's to help you offset the 700 deficit. That's what we're doing here. It's actually 1.7. Or 1.7, whatever it is. But you've cut it back to 700 or 900, right, Jenny? What's that total now?

Well, we had to be under 6-something, 6-6 for the entire project. And that's why we're coming to you here, because these 10 were initially part of the project. We had to pull them out. And that's... I mean, we're grabbing as many as we can.

And that's the point is this. So let's clarify.

This takes a chunk out of that 1.7 deficit. Yeah, it does. So this gets you this gets you closer to having that plant up and running.

This also means I don't have to go back. to our customers and raise the rate again than we just did. Yeah, you're going to pick.

And so to Jenny's question and to our vote, let's just clarify that we've heard a lot about this 10 service connection. We probably shouldn't have even gone there. We went way down that road. Let's have it be just the 175. And it's not for the 10 service. It's for the project.

Yes.

and it's and then we get out from underneath hey the contract stuff right it's just a 175 call it a grant it's a grant your question I would like to I'm quite a bit older than you could probably be my son okay I'm going to use my can be a hero scott or you can be a roadblock so decide which person you want to be well we just voted including me to pass the 170 i know but then yeah you went and tried to screw it up no what i'm trying to make sure we do is do it right because as darren and gary know we just got that advice from our accounting firm on how we distribute funding and so we want to do it right and we don't want in saying let's make sure we do it right and if the commissioners need to do something let them do it but I think we've just kind of backed off the 10 service connections to a 175 which is actually helping you and taking a lot of strings out working for nothing I get it and they have worked a long time to try to keep that thing going it's impressive what you've done and to serve sixty two customers in a sewer district I know it's impossible I mean what you're doing is a massive uphill climb I understand it maybe more than most of the folks at the table You got your 175. I don't know if there's something else you need. If anybody is from the commissioners.

So the only thing that I'm going to say is I will make a phone call to insure. that we don't have to follow the standard claims process. Because the reason that this question has come up is that down the path, statutes have changed, and we have not been observant of the statutes that changed in 2023. So again, it's compliance. It's simply a making sure that we're not going to have an issue with the State Board of Accounts audit.

I'm going to say one last thing. I'm going to say it again because this is the third freaking time, okay? I made a motion to cut a check for $175,000 out of the... line item whatever it is, 80 something. Alright, but it's a line item. What is a line item? Anyway, out of that line item, cut a check from the auditor and hand it over to the Helmsburg Regional Sewer District, which is a legal separate entity in and of itself that the Brown County government does not have any legal authority over correct period okay and that was my motion he seconded and you all we've approved it so it's a done so how do we get the money straight forward now doug tell us to cut you guys 75k just do it and then you all it's your response all i would recommend you'll authorize it right

You've got to make sure you get...

If you want to do something on your own to feel good, but that's my takeaway. That's the motion I made.

The quickest, least expensive way, call State Board of Accounts. They'll tell you. Don't go to an attorney. Call State Board of Accounts.

Yeah.

The only reason that I ask is... Whatever. Again, I understand the rule at that health board. Okay. I'm not saying that there needs to be a contract because there's no service being rendered to them. They are illegals.

They're good. We'll figure it out.

answer and when will they be satisfied who will answer you i'm not i'm just making sure that we're all i'm not i'm going to answer it julie's going to have a conversation state board of council so adrian go ahead and make it out to and okay adrian and bill wait a minute oh no make sure you give them one more point and then i will leave the room

I want to make two points. Thank you very much for what you just did, because the people of Helensburg and the HRSD very much appreciate that. And so we extend our gratitude for this decision that you have made. My other point is, to my recollection, this money was not tax money that was collected from It was a gift from Sharon Grettenberg. And she started that factory. A big part of that was trying to give her disabled son work to do that he felt he contributed. And then when they had their fire, they decided to not rebuild and they moved the factory

the martinsville area so we lost jobs they moved lack of infrastructure like water yeah right yeah and jenny this is just a thought when when you all get that new plant and everything done right since we We ought to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony, number one. I mean, we really should, I think. I'll be there if you have it, okay? We celebrate that success. And then number two, the thought of do you put a nice sign like we put up back with Helmsburg signs, something like that, in memory of, to honor, her son to get his name, you know what I'm saying?

That's been talked about with the ACDC type of practice.

Yeah, because if you had a ribbon cutting, had a nice son, and a loving memory of, I don't know the individual's name, but maybe the mom and the son, just to honor them. yeah right so I just throw that out just a thought like this is a thought well it's just a thought do what you want do what you want Jenny just to answer I mean you know because it sounds like you're thinking I may be a roadblock but you know these ten connections in my mind are the

is my concern long term and so you know these ten connections I mean this is not the major problem this is a very small piece of a much larger problem that you guys have been working on for many years as volunteers so but not getting those ten connections do not belittle the people that are out there no no that's a piece of it there's a much bigger problem and this is just kind of the beginning it is of how we fund that and make it sustainable well and

We didn't talk about this, but aside from the people that live in Helmsburg, other customers of the HRSD are at the Helmsburg Elementary School and the beamery and the steamery, which I believe you all have supported. trying to develop that whole thing. And fire department. And fire department. So, I mean, it's not just, well, the people that live in Helmsburg. It's a couple hundred school kids. It's everybody that's involved with the beamery.

I want to know when we're going to get a really full service really nice restaurant in the old masonic lodge building i've got to go but i wanted to tell you guys thank you so much thank you thank you community development meeting next week and we get to go and say help is on the way yeah

And one last thing, just to say, keep it in line with the 2050 overall utilities board. Go in that direction, work together.

And let's save brownies. I don't want to lose brownies and meatballs. I just ate there last weekend. Thank you. Thank you. You're eating there? Yes. I love brownies, man. It's a great restaurant. OK, we have a couple other.

Darren, wait, before you move on. Sorry, that's an ordinance, so that needs two readings.

OK.

So you can do it by title only, just the 175 from regional sewer. From redevelopment, pardon me.

OK. Judy's not here and did not vote. Is that going to be on that at all? Or can we go ahead and do that?

No, that doesn't matter for additional appropriations.

OK. So what we need now is a motion to suspend the rules for the second reading?

Correct.

OK. Because it's an ordinance, we have to have two readings and two votes.

And for the Helmsburg thing? Yes. Okay, let's do it. Unanimous?

Huh?

Because it was unanimous? Yeah. We're good.

So now we need somebody to motion.

I'll make a motion that we suspend the rules for a second reading of whatever ordinance number it is.

What ordinance number is that? Do we know?

It's council bill number nine Julie will have it on her email so that she can bring up the page for you to sign on after your break And Julia signs the ordinance number Okay

Okay, I, Jim Kemp, suspend the rules. So we make a motion to suspend the rules for number nine. The second reading of the ordinance of number nine.

Okay, we have a second. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, so this is the second reading of, what do we have as a title on that, Susan?

It's just an additional appropriation ordinance. It's Council Bill number nine.

OK. Second reading of Council Bill number nine, additional appropriation from the Sock Factory Funds for $175,000 to the Helmsburg Regional Sewer District.

Can I make a motion that we approve it?

OK, motion of second motion. The second all in favor of Council Bill number nine. Opposed.

OK, that's it. We're done. Yes.

Yes.

Patrick, yes.

Yep.

OK.

Scott. Yes. Joel.

Yes. Does that button us all up on that, Susan? Are we good?

Yes. Yep, you're all good.

All right, thank you very much. Okay, we have a couple other... Transfers do we want to do that now? We think we can do it pretty quick.

Yeah, let's get it over with Okay, these are just transfers not additional appropriations, correct?

Okay, so Susan do we have The council bill number for the transfer of the four hundred and five thousand to the forty seven hundred health insurance fund I

Yeah, all those transfers will be as Council Bill number 10.

OK. Is there two readings or one?

Tell me one.

And that's just one reading, correct?

Resolutions.

OK. Does that include the appropriation or transfer of funds to cover the overtime for the court in the amount of $3,113.55? Yes. OK. Yes, all of your transfers are Council Bill number 10. So in council bill number 10, we have the $405,000 to the health insurance fund, $700,000 to rainy day fund, and approval of the $3,113.55 for the overtime costs in the court.

I'll motion that we approve council bill number 10 to appropriate the 405 transfer to the 4700 account, the 700 grand to the rainy day account, and then whatever that nickel and dime thing is to the court for overtime. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Where's the money being transferred from?

Economic Development Fund.

Oh, okay.

Who seconded that?

We put it in there last year.

One roll call on that.

Yes. So is that done? Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. All right.

OK, with all that out of the way.

Lori got fed up with that. She's probably just wanted Go get prepared.

I'm going to soup for you.

Soup Nazi.

The rest of this meeting is all about the FES system. Do we want to take a break? Yes. Before we start? Hurry up. Hurry up. See you, Tommy.

Why does it take us 15 minutes once we allocate money to figure out how we're gonna do it? Get a doughnut budget line so we can have doughnuts at these meetings.

That's not healthy.

It doesn't matter. They're all plant-based. I don't know. Doughnuts are all plant-based.

Hold on.

okay discussion of our FES system changes updates upgrades job description changes turn it over to Lori you're not turning it over to me so I watched the council meeting

couple weeks ago, maybe, where you had the health officer come in and talk about meeting a new position and combining positions and interacting and all that stuff. And Gary, I think it was you that said, has a job description been written? Has it been sent to WIS? Has it been classified? All this stuff. And I immediately thought, well, wait a minute. I never got all that information from June. And now here we are in September talking about other stuff that needs to be done. So I just reached out and I said, What's happening? I have had zero contact since June. So I don't know if there are changes that have been made or what justified them. I don't know. And Darin told me that there's now a committee. But I don't know internally what's happening and what more I need to do to help. I do want to backtrack a little bit and say that when I came down in June and we talked about some of the changes that had been made, you guys are in the in the county you're in the system you know what is happening day to day is the fes system perfect no is there need for changes yes What I base it on is what is written and submitted to me in the beginning. Um, so the original sheets, there may have been people missing. There may have been wrong, higher date, longevity, whatever. Um, we presented that information in 2025, um, based on what we felt was accurate. I know I received an email from Darren with some of the changes that have been made. Some I absolutely see and agree. Some of them I'm still not sure where they came from. The big one is the, I think it's called head bailiff, head security officer. I see that. If we have rank structure and we have one that's supervising the others, yes, they need to be classified higher, paid higher, however that works. I get it some of these that there's no changes to the job descriptions but you know it was said to me well we don't think so and so should come in for so much money so we drop them lower that doesn't stand you know if we go to court and we have an equal pay for equal work case and you know Kent and Addie both in our office have been expert witnesses and they say to them did you base this on the job description Yes. Does it factor here? Yes. Period. So without these changes and without understanding why these classifications were done internally, I can't support them or justify them. And that's why when I came down in June, I said, right, whatever we need to change, we can get them changed. But let's get them changed in the job description first. I stand by the FDS system. It's been around since the 1970s. Department of Labor created it. 85 of the counties that we work in uses it. But it has to be customized for Brown County. You guys are not comparable to Monroe County. You're not comparable to Hamilton County. I'm not going to compare you to those counties when setting these salaries. I know that that's just ridiculously high. Your staff number is not as high. So your auditor's office may have seven. Monroe County may have 17. Hamilton County has a whole HR department with 20-some people in it. Brown County doesn't have that, so that's why I justify it and create the classification levels that I created for the county customized to what you guys have.

Laura. Hold on, before you get to, at this point, the, oh, what's the official name of the committee?

Personal Advisory Committee, PAC Committee.

Well, the Job Classification Repair Committee.

Oh, okay. That was Scott, Gary, and Judy. Have you guys made any progress? No. Do you have anything in the works that you've received on that? You have some job descriptions that were, requested changes, correct?

We haven't functioned as far as I know.

I think Gary just took Darren's spot just last month or whatever. So I think, Gary, if you want to call a meeting or...

I'm the head of the group.

Well, Darren was.

He passed it to you, it sounded like.

Well, Gary took it because I... Yeah, he's busy.

Can't let him make a living. So I think Ted, the prosecutor, sent us... All right, so we haven't done anything yet.

So what do we need to do is question. Let's get you the June stuff, you're saying, plus the new stuff. and we need to somehow acclimate ourselves to saying we're rigidly structured to the FES system legally on the outside.

So what I would like to do is meet with this committee and explain to you what the FES system is on my end. So when someone submits a new job description to you and says I made these changes and now I want it classified higher or even lower, as a committee you can say, oh wait, there's enough changes to it? I think it needs to go to WISC. Enough. What does enough look like? exactly and that's what I want to show you if we're adding one thing

and how big that is?

Absolutely. May attend conferences as scheduled. Well, that's not going to classify them somewhere new. If there was something missing like supervising, you know, four or five other employees below them, assigning work, ensuring work is done, that's probably going to reclassify them. That's the kind of stuff that I want to show the committee.

So maybe even before that, you know, the other thing that's happened since you were engaged, I think, is we've securing the contract which I think you were waiting on first and second we had a form we developed a form that allowed department heads to request a change in classification those department heads have since filled that form out and submitted it I think through Julie to us and so now that you have a contract you can forward those forms and those requests from the department heads to then she can take a look and then give us feedback at our first meeting. How would you like to see it to work?

Okay, so the way the system works efficiently, exactly like you're saying, department heads say, I need a request. So the auditor says to them, change on the job description what has changed, fill out this form and submit it. It goes back to the auditor. Yeah. She sends it to me. And then I'm going to write, I'm going to update your job description. I'm going to write you a memo and say yes or no.

I think you'd recommended that process last time we met and we followed it. Now it just needs, now that we've got your contract, Julie, you can just give her the contract, the changes. Yeah, and then she can review it and then get back to us.

I actually thought the committee was supposed to be the ones that looked it over and decided. That's what I said. But we looked at it. Eventually. Absolutely, eventually.

But until you're trained, you don't know what you're looking at.

So when it comes from her to you, you not only look at the job description, you also assess it. Yes. Yeah. So I'm going to...

we have sellers committee or whatever so what i want you to do is to be trained on what you're looking for on these job description changes and these requests because eventually the committee can look at the request before they're ever sent to me and you can say you change the title from crew leader to crew foreman that's not a classification change the answer is no and then the committee goes to council and says no so if we met with you how long would that take about an hour okay is that something you need to be here for or is that something you could do we can do it either way i mean whatever works best for everybody involved did you see value in the committee

Committee here though, but the committee comes in after you just to approve what you've done Yes, so the committee is the ones that are going to make the official recommendation to the council to approve the question Yeah, I think we we hear and then we recommend to the broader

think you should consider training the analysis so we can determine authority so we've completed the steps you've asked us to complete now we need to get you that info you're under contract now you can review those those kind of more complicated issues and i think the committee uh judy's not here but i think we've reviewed i know i've reviewed i'm sure judy's reviewed those requests and so i think they're all worthy of your consideration especially before we're trained i mean it's harder for us to see what we should be pulling out of that list. Okay, that's good.

Kevin's got a problem over there.

No, I have an opportunity. So hearing this and listening to all the details of that, who's going to put a document together that says this is A, B, C, D, and what needs to be done so that when this comes forth and you have a new council member to join, that you can sit there and say, here's the process that would go through handling job classification and the job descriptions.

They have one. It's called the maintenance plan.

We passed that. We passed that. And it was engaged before that. So the plan's in place, and we've passed it.

As you know, I've done my thorough homework.

I was confident.

Okay. I've got a number of hours wrapped up in doing my due diligence.

Confident.

So I took that stuff you gave us in October of 25, read it like three or four times to make sure I understood. All right.

You have to have a gold star. Right?

Then I submitted a 14-page report to the council here a number of weeks ago. And then recently, Darren, I submitted a statement to Rudy Financial, and I sent the same thing out in response to Ed Voydiello's email. I think it was just this week or last week, all right? To me, you have, everything starts with the job description. And let's back up for a second. When Julie Reeves and I and Gary Hewitt and Theresa Cobian, when I drove them to your office in Muncie back in what I think was 2024, to have that initial conversation to get to where we are today, what created that was that in 23 and 24 the council had asked me to determine pay grade for the commissioner's administrative assistant and they asked me to do it for the at that time the payroll clerk So I had to go in and grab all the labor costs, all the information I had. And that was an interesting experience because what I realized is that that decision was extremely subjective.

Absolutely.

And that was a problem. Absolutely. And then when I looked at the 35 pay grades and when I began to realize what was going on is that you have all these pay, which is creating all sorts of ill will within the employee workforce. And our human capital is the most valuable asset we as a county have within county government. What I realized was that that system was being gamed. absolutely okay and so there's a constant argument that this person needs to be a pay grade 11 a pay grade 15 and then they would come before the council the council didn't have any sort of way to make any sort of decision and then on top of it then we get into the stipends there was no policy documented policy for how you issue stipends when they expire it was a free-for-all absolutely okay so obviously there was a clear need to go this this needs to be completely changed all right so then in 25 last fall we voted by order to implement the factory evaluation system And this factor evaluation system is really pretty straightforward. It's not that difficult, okay? Because first and foremost is there's a, I'm going to refer to this as the FES schedule.

Okay.

Okay?

Do you have another copy of that so I can?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just get, this is the FES, and this FES schedule has the six categories and the 19 subcategories. It does not include special occupations. Okay. Those special occupations are kind of carved out.

Exactly.

Correct. Right. My understanding is that first things first is you get into the job description and then you have the classification scoring process, which no one inside this building has any idea of how to score that job description. Right. And the challenge with those job descriptions is you get language and that language, depending on the language can trigger the scoring. So for example, I'll throw out manager. Oh, wait a minute. You know, you're going to have a manager that's managing two things or, you know, you can have a manager in parks and rec managing the mowing crew. Or you can have a manager in the 911 dispatch that's managing the whole thing over there. Huge delta in the level of responsibility. Just because you use the word manager shouldn't automatically trigger a pay grade increase. My first concern that I have is this system being gamed. And what I mean by gaming is the health department has got a big challenge in front of them currently. And we don't need to get weeds on that, but what we were confronted with was a quick fix was for them to come in and take two job descriptions and commingle them into one with the idea that we're going to reclassify that into a different pay grade. That has been halted. And that's been killed. That's not going to happen. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. All right. The second issue is that, you know, with regards to this schedule, okay, the schedule with these six categories and 19 job classifications, all right, the key thing, the key takeaway for me is what? So she can have a copy. Just let me finish first, okay, and then I can more than happy sit down with her and go through it.

All right.

because I'm doing big picture, okay? Big picture, okay? So big picture, top down, is that you all went out, and there are eight counties that you guys surveyed. You compiled the data with all of the job descriptions and the compensation for each of all these employees in these eight different counties. Nine, eight, nine, 11, 12. It was eight, whatever. I don't want to get in weeds and argue about whether it was seven or 10. I'm going to use eight. And I've got the documents in here to pull it out if you need me to verify it. You took the eight counties, you put that on what you used, calculated it, and you used regression to the mean.

Yes.

And you took out the top 10% and you took out the bottom 10%. And then you ran the regression and mean calculation, and then you came up with three categories, right?

One category.

Well, you get, was it 50% external, there's another one, and then there's another one. Oh, internal. Internal, external, right. So where I'm at with this system, because the decision that this council has to make, right, is how much can we afford to... pay for 2027, okay, and then we get 28, and then we get 29. Now, the thing that I like about this system is that if you are a, just I'm gonna pick something out of the blue, if we've got 15 PAT As in the county, then those 15 PAT As, their compensation should be identical. There should be no discrepancy whatsoever. If you've got LTCBs and you've got 35 of them, they should be the same. There's no discrepancy.

Their base pay should be the same.

Their base pay should be the same. And that base pay, to my personal and professional opinion, should be based off of the 50% external. because now what we can say is that look you know we are paying you based on the median of these eight counties and you are all at a hundred percent of that fifty percent external the challenge is is we don't have the cash flow to get there immediately to me what has to do is we have to phase that in and i would like to see it phased in from 27, 28, and I think in 29 we can get there. Now, to get there, the numbers, this 50% external midpoint for these 19 job classifications, that was based off 2025. So what I did is I went in and said, okay, we're going to take this 50% external midpoint for these 19 classifications, and we're going to bump it for 3% for 26, and we're going to bump it again for 3% for 27, cost of living adjustment. Because if we don't do that, then you're behind the curve immediately.

Absolutely.

Okay. So what I had pitched and I had sent to every one of these people, because they've all had it, never got any feedback from it, But what they have is I calculated 90%, at 95%, and then at 100%. And then what I calculated was, because there are one, two, three, four, five funds that cover these 19 classifications. You with me? Does that make sense? Okay. And so... so we can look at and say you know how much can we cash flow can we do 90 percent in 27 adjusted three percent three percent right and then we do the same thing in 97 or 98 and then by the 99 99

29.

29, thank you. By 29, we're at 100%. And we're adjusted for inflation. And all of these employees, because the numbers I used, there's 113, this proposal essentially covers two-thirds of the employees. Now what I didn't address was the special occupations. The only thing I think that we need to go in and look at is we've used the special occupation category and we've kind of used it, you know, and I don't know if those special occupations are accurately aligned to the specific job description. So, for example, special deputies. You've got the elected official, you've got a special deputy. To me, why not have a special deputy for elected officials? Special occupation specifically for that law enforcement you get into you know these special occupations but what I did is I this is what I proposed to the council or just it was a proposal is that These employees, it covers two thirds of the employees, all right? But we still have the other issue of what adjustments for 27, 28, 29 need to be made for these special occupations, all right? And so, because my concern is I've sent out to each and every one of you, if you read the emails, is that we have to back into this, okay? because of you know and focusing on our year-end operating balances if we make these labor cost changes right how's that going to fix the year-end operating balances and and that is so we're really solving for what can we do because the other part that I did pull and I took a hard I started with all right and is that let me find it Actually, I got it right here. I think I did it there. No, that was just that one. Let me get the other one. As I went through, and I've got it here somewhere, but what I did is I went through and I looked at the 2026 salary ordinance, and I'll just give you an idea. And I'm just going to roll through. I'm not going to name off the classifications. Okay. Okay. We have 19 different classifications. 86.7%, 91.8%, 90.5, 92.5, 86.3, 89.2, 86.4, 82, 86.9, 87.2. We have two in here that are 70.4, 73.3, 85, 84, 79, 85, 86, 84, 83. And what these percentages are is where the 2026 salary ordinance and the hourly rate as... compared to that 50% midpoint index. Because in my mind, I'm sitting here going, no, to make this to be very fair-minded, and I'm going to use this term, to have equity in this compensation system, everybody needs to be at the same, all classifications need to be at the same percentage as the 50% midpoint index. Period. Is that? Agreed. Okay. That's where my head's at on this.

Let me back up. That's where I do my hand graph where I talk about we've got the line we're trying to get to. We've got some people here. That's that percentage that you just went through. Correct. What we're trying to do is get all of these different up to the same level to where they can all then move up to. But we have some of them above the line that are not going to move for a while.

Couple of things that I jotted while you were talking, Jim. First of all, your SOs, your SO category is actually split into four separate SO categories. So we pulled your SOs for those, you call them special deputies, chief slash first deputies, whatever they are. So they really do have their own classification. What council has to decide is are we tying them to 80% of the external or are we tying them to 80% of the elected? Again, that's a matter of council figuring out financially what can you afford and how do you want to be compared to other counties, the counties that you may be losing employees to. So that's why your SOs really do have, number one, there's definitions and reasoning into why we pull them into SOs. Number two, they are grouped because of it. You know, SO probation, completely separate because of the Indiana Judicial Conference. Your attorneys, we really recommend you bring them in at the external point because attorneys are so stinking hard to get a hold of and keep in county government right now. And then your SOs, your other ones that are just different, unique, you're Chief deputy in your sheriff's department, you don't want to tie him to 80% because your sheriff is able to contract and negotiate his salary. So that's why we say, well, percentage kind of thing. Sorry. No, you're fine. Your health officer, you know, they usually are just given an annual amount because we never know how many hours. Some work 30, some work 20, some work 5. You know, we don't know what it is, so that's why they're pulled out. So just keep in mind, you know, we don't want it to become that we want all, because this is what you're going to start hearing, is we want all our employees to become SOs. And we want them to become SOs because then we direct job match for just that one position. And we don't want to do that. So that's a logic behind the SOs. The second thing I jotted down here, and you hit on it, is to remember it's a moving target. You are never going to be exactly there unless we run new numbers for you every year and say, this is where it is. If you guys can look at your financials, and again, I'm not a financial person, I'm not an accountant kind of thing. you know what what the county has you know what you can afford if you give a cost of living plus look at making adjustments to bringing some of those people up that are so far below that that's that's where we leave it to council to say what can we afford can I tell you which classification levels or which job categories I think you need to start looking at first absolutely and I think you hit on it when you're telling about this these percentages these are this close these are way farther away those are who we need to look at so can we give a three percent cost of living adjustment plus twenty five hundred dollars more to those people that are so far below maybe you know I don't know what you did for This year, I don't have the salaries like you do. So, you know, I pulled the spreadsheets and I ran numbers for you, but it's all based on 2025. So it gives you an idea of what to look at, but it's not 100% accurate because you've made some adjustments for 2026.

Yeah, because to me going forward, counsel, with the Paycom system going in, all right this my understanding from that is this i'm going to refer to we have a schedule okay the schedule is pretty straightforward so the decision that has to be made each and every year by the council What are we going to do with regards to the schedule? Because the schedule can be implemented into this pay comp system and it does the math automatically and we should be able to get the reporting so we can look at our labor costs Absolutely, right so we can back into the year and operating balances Right because you got to kind of you got to back in that back into that. Yeah, so it did for the council Um, the general fund at 90%. So if we move, you know, some people aren't going to get, we can, you know, I think we can, some people over 90%, some, let me back up. Some classifications are over 90% because this is really not about the individual. This is about the job description and how the job description is classified.

Actually, I had it right because based on the old system, we had some people above the new classification. Correct. Some positions. I don't want to say people. Some positions above the category.

And we'll have to hold them where they are until the rest of them move up to where they are.

Correct.

Correct. Okay. So the $1,000, the general fund, it came up with $217,000. The total for 2027, the total was $323,875 to try to take these 19 job classifications to get them at 90%.

In these numbers, did you account for the difference in the percentages? Did you bring everybody up to... like the one you said was 77%, does that bring? This brings that one up to 90%. So all of those different percentages you talked about, those numbers that you ran brings everybody up to the 90%.

The only thing that's not, the only thing that's, because actually, to me, if we were going to, you know, I had to use the data that I received from Emily Reeves, okay, that she had emailed out, all right? And then I had to use some of the data that I had created last year for labor costs, right? And this is why this Paycom system, once that thing gets implemented, it should make it a lot easier. I'll try to,

So you're saying what was included. The only thing that wasn't included.

And I gave you guys all a complete of everything that was excluded. Special positions. Yeah, because it's all right here. Because we have, there's some compensation in here that says, like for example, circuit court court reporter, 50% of comma C. Now, I'm not going to go in and manually calculate U's and XL's, all of these custom payouts, because it's just too time consuming. So I just, and what we haven't done, which to me, You know really and maybe this is what Ed was alluding to yesterday in his email is to have our compensation and employee benefits manager Give a complete breakdown by department every job description in each department and how that job description is currently classified and which fund that job description is being paid from.

So we already have that. So you have the job title.

No, I don't. Let me state again, because I don't think we're connecting. You have part of what you're asking. You have part of it. What I'm saying is, okay, this conversation is not about people. It's about job descriptions. Exactly. Because we cannot hire a person unless there's a job description. Exactly. Fair?

Fair.

Okay. And an issue is you have all these different departments. You have, because I think it's community corrections, Julie, is it community corrections, that the county doesn't have, we don't have to pay for? That's correct. Okay, so community corrections, as long as it's being paid by another source, then hey, it is what it is, okay? And I think that's... state mandates and stuff as far as their compensation and all that stuff. So like community corrections has to be kind of pulled out of this because they're over here, they're an anomaly, they're operating on their own. But everyone else for the most part is we should, you know, for example, I know for a fact that law enforcement, the sheriff deputies, the jail and dispatch, 47 employees. So it's one of the largest departments in the county. Highway department is another good size one. Second from there is health department. So we have to go by and look at, because I did the best estimate and I came up with 113 employees based off the data that I have. Now do I know if those 113 employees are accurate? I don't know that. because I have not been able to get any data and nor have I attempted to get an accurate job description count by department with the current classification for all county employees. Because until we have that, You can't go through and do what I've done here. You with me? Yes. To look at the total labor cost.

So what I'm saying is those spreadsheets that I created and sent in Excel, you can take those and sort them by department that's going to give you your job title, and your classification, and then you can go in and start adding your funds. But two-thirds of the information is already there for you.

I'm not getting paid to be a financial advisor for the county.

Me either. Me either.

So anyway, that's where I'm at with it.

And that's all I was saying when I was like, oh, you already have it, but you don't have the fun part of it.

Yeah, I'm close to the cost.

Right, so what I'm saying is it's not a big task to ask someone to go in and do that because you've already got the template for it.

Right, right, right.

And what I don't understand, Darren Bird, okay, based on our personal email or our phone conversation, is, and I'm a little frustrated with this, I'm a registered investment advisor. I do financial planning. I've done it for years and years and years and years and years. So when I go in and have a new client, I have to go in and do a full-blown big picture discovery. Grab everything. And then obviously I've got a financial planning system that I pay a lot of money for. So I've got to go in, do big picture, and then drill down into the weeds. You with me? Because that's what I do. And I'm a fiduciary. Where I'm running into problems with Reedy is Reedy has access to all of our data. Reedy is aware of the fact that we installed the FES system, okay? And what I don't understand is why Reedy hasn't taken the initiative pull the data, get all the data put together, and put together a 2027 proposal, budget proposal, that is as close as, because a budget proposal is a forecast. That's all it is. You've got to do a snapshot. If the data you got in there is messed up, then your forecast is a joke. And you change anything a little bit, it messes everything up. Right. But what they've not done is they've not come in and gathered, and they have all the information. I got it. Because it is a math story problem. Is it not? Yes. Okay. So why is it that I'm sitting here, I'm having to do this, okay, on my own just to satisfy my own due diligence on my end so when I go to vote I can know what the hell I'm voting on. And they've not done that. They've not put this in there. They've not put anything in there and said, okay, here's the FES system. If you bump it up to this, this, this, here's what it's going to do to your end operating balances for 2027. And here we sit on September the 3rd, and to be quite honest with you, the only thing I've got to make a decision on is this. Do I know whether or not how accurate this is? No, not really, because I don't have a full, complete picture of it.

Do you know if you have any other counties that use reading by chance?

I can tell you, yes, I know that other counties use reading. Can I tell you any off the top of my head?

I don't know that I care about their names, but to interact with what he's asking about. Does anybody know anything about that going on?

Yeah, what's your experience with that in terms of doing a salary update?

Oh, I have very minimal.

So that's all internal to us, and you don't care? Absolutely. I tell you what you need to do, and then you go do it. Gentlemen, and my comment is this, is that I like Jerry Hickman, and I like Reedy Financial.

okay but I don't think what we have done as a council board we have failed and effectively communicating our expectations of what we want from Reedy that's the point I was going to make to you about what you just said we have we have we have really which is a good good for a good part we could we could use the information they give us to do great things we have failed to in guiding them and directing them. So I think our next work session needs to involve all of us with Jerry in here once we get the FES done and decide the direction that we want to go with Reedy, what we want Reedy to do, specifically what we need from them and give them some good direction so we're not just saying, okay, give us what you think we need and just, you know, paying fees for a bunch of stuff that does not mesh with what we're trying to do. So yes, if once we get this work session wrapped up, I think our next work session needs to be all about reading once we get all of this tied in to where we know the direction we want to go and the guidance we want to give them.

Are you guys just, I'm not just trying to get consensus here, How do you all feel about using the 50% midpoint and a 90% target for the classifications? That's what we agreed to. Is everybody kind of okay with that?

Based on your numbers, we need $323,000. We added $400,000 for this budget year to try to get us to that. So that adds a little bit of the SO and the other stuff that we're talking about.

Right, and what we need to do is just simply validate that that's not going to mess us up on our year-end operating balances for 2027.

Right, and based on that number that we added to the budget to take care of this, we may have to adjust it to 88%, 87% instead of 90. As long as it's the same across the board. As long as we adjust to the same percentage. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's been on the table as a standard target. Just so we can target a 90, 50% external. Yeah. If we can't do it, it's going to put us in the red too much, then okay, we can back it down a little bit.

Whatever that money that we allotted allows us to do, that's the target we need to be looking for.

Kip, our compensation employee benefit manager. How difficult is it going to be for her, because you guys are not operating on the pay comp system yet, and I'm assuming, Kevin, once that system is in place, hopefully a year from now, you can go ahead and go, push F1, F2, and print it out in a New York City second. What we need to know is, if we've got 150 employees, and let me pause there, I'm not concerned with how many we have today, how many we had last week and how many we may have next week, because as we all know, that number changes every day. It's a every day. It's sad to say it changes. What I am concerned with is how many total job descriptions do we have broken down and categorized by department and fund. So, for example, dispatch is paid out of 1222. Correct? Okay. So how many job descriptions do we have for dispatch? Now, maybe we don't have all those positions filled because two people quit. I don't know. Because all I'm interested in is the job descriptions, okay, and then the classification. How are these job descriptions classified? Because that's what Reedy's going to need in order to do their work, okay, to build that into their system so that we've got, okay, do we have 150, 155, 160? I don't know how many job classifications we have. No, not a clue.

So let me just make a comment there to give you a little hope. Faith. Okay, because it's all about hope. Faith. The Paycom system is part of the actual integration and the bring up of that system is they will be going through the exercise of looking at all of the employee data as the number of positions that we have, their pay rates and all those things, pay salaries, and then they will have to go through the exercise and connect what funds those employees are being paid at. So that's part of that. So that should be available by the 1st of November.

Yeah, but we can't do that because the budget has to be passed by November 1st. You have to upload it November 1st. So what I'm asking is, I have faith that that will occur in the future, but we're not there right now. What we are there is, I think we're using what, Excel? What does Kim use to track all this? Pardon me?

Are you talking about the budget or are you talking about the salary?

No, I'm asking specifically for how many job descriptions.

I know what you're asking for, but when you're talking about what gets recorded when, because our budgets go in in October.

I know, we have to prove it the third Monday of October.

But your salary ordinance doesn't have to be there until December.

Okay, time out. That's where you and I, I'm going to respectfully, respectfully, completely.

I agree with you that you do that at the same time.

If that happens, then I'm going to vote no on both the salary ordinance and the budget. done i'm not voting i will not vote for the budget nor the salary ordinance because that salary ordinance has to be done i don't care what dlgf deadline is what i care about is in order for me to approve the budget i have to understand our labor cost because our labor cost is the single most expensive item in the budget and i'm not disagreeing with you okay I don't, yeah, but the salary ordinance has to be approved first, and then that has to be in the budget so we can look at the year-end operating balances. Okay? I'm a council member, so that's my only focus, right? Okay, well, so my question back to you is how difficult is it going to be for Kim, because I don't know if you're just using Excel or how you guys track this stuff, is how many job descriptions do we have in Brown County government? All in, everything. 150, 155, 160, 140, 132. I don't know.

I think, if I can interject, Jim, he's not talking specific job descriptions because you're going to have one job description for all your dispatchers. I think what he's looking for is an employee list.

Oh, see, wait, wait, wait. I didn't know that.

Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you're looking for... Job title, employee, number of employees.

Yeah. And funds they're paid for.

And funds they're paid for. Classification level, funds they're paid for.

Yeah, because what we needed, what really has to have is an accurate head count now that, because you were right, I was thinking... employee job, every employee had their own job description. Okay, all right, all right. Because I know they all had their own line item.

Let me throw an example. For example, Your jailers, when we did the project in 2025, you had 11 jailers all working under the jailer job description that were at least $3,888.92 below the external low. Right. One job description. But what classification are they? Civilian poll.

Okay.

One job description, one job title, but 11 employees. Right. So to get that job, that position up to the external midpoint, or excuse me, the external low based on 2025, that was going to cost the county $42,778. But I want to get it to 50% external midpoint. Right.

My approach is to do it by percentage. Mm-hmm. until we can work our way up to where everybody in the county, regardless of what their classification is, that we can, as a council, look at the employees and say, you are getting 50% of the external midpoint, 100%. So you're getting 50% of the eight counties based off WIS, and we're trying to be fair and have equity to make sure people are being paid for what they're doing, period. And it's fair, right, to stop the internal bickering. let me back up now that you thank you for that new information because I was languaging that the wrong way we need every department by fund job classifications in a headcount for each job classification is what really needs an accurate and it's accurate because then all we got to do is then if we use what's have already done we can have Reedy plug in the 90% adjusted for inflation for 26, adjusted for inflation for 27 hourly labor cost. and then they can calculate what the total labor costs are going to be, and then push it out to each fund.

And I don't know fund-wise, but it should be able to be pulled off payroll. It should be able to run a payroll report.

I don't say it is a payroll report. Let me go again and play another voice of reason. The data that you're asking for, Paycom has asked for, and the expectation is that they need that general employee data by the end of next week.

yep it's out there well if you're going to do it then you can do it and we can get that and then we can get that because i'd like to have it and we get that down to reedy okay so you got the implementation will be finalized at the beginning of november no i know that yeah yeah that's that's a whole separate issue i'm not necessarily data extraction and the data review and all that stuff's happening within the beginning of the next my concern is is we've only after today's meeting we only have three meetings left Okay? And, you know, that last meeting in October, the third Monday of October, we have to vote to approve the 27 budget. Okay? And I will not approve personally. I'm going to vote no. Okay? Unless I know for certain what we've done with regards to the salary ordinance. so the salary orders addition subject needs to be approved prior to approving the budget so that we can look at the year-end balances all right and the reason that that and this is i'm speaking for myself We have to manage our expenses. We have to increase our cash reserves. We've got to build the rainy day fund, okay? And by 2030, I do not want us to have to borrow any money for capital improvements, okay? Because if we can do that, then that means that the council will not have to be forced with saying, well, we're going to increase income tax because we don't have enough money. And if we don't get a grip on this thing, that's exactly where this board's going to end up. is y'all going to end up sitting here going, we don't have any money, and we're in trouble. And so let's go out here and borrow more money, and we're going to increase the income tax rate.

Uh-uh. OK. So let's stick with what you're talking about.

Well, that's what I'm talking about.

Salary orders can't get done until you guys do your job.

I know, but I just gave you the information that we need so that, Darren, we can get it to Reedy. Right? And so that they can put in, because Julie has sent them all of the adjustments. I believe Julie has sent them the adjustments that you all made during our three-day dog and pony show. okay so okay so they have that yeah all right so now we need to do is a labor cost issue that plugged into that to have them run that report that they run right it's a one page is the only thing we need to look at is that one page to see if we go to 90% of external midpoint on the night what does that do what's that I do in our cash reserves for the end of 2027 yeah because that's what we're solving for know because as i said in the past i'll say it again and i'm not going to back off is that you know we as individuals you know dave ramsey's going to tell you how to have three to six months in an emergency fund okay well brown county government ought to have six months worth and cash reserves in our fund right because it's only six months worth of operating expenses that's all it is so i'm done i've said what i had to say and i'm going out

Question regarding say like the health department wanting to combine two sub two things Can we do that? Should we do that? And if so, what would it look like? What's your suggestion in the future things like that tell about because we are a tight budget Sometimes we have to squirm to get things done That come under a special operation My concern and even doing that is it we do that there. Let's say we do accommodated but then three years from now, we all of a sudden say, whoa, we need this position too, and now we're way above where we should be.

Right, so the biggest hesitation I have is when you set a precedent.

President.

You do it for one, who else is coming out of the woodwork now? Now all of a sudden I want my highway clerk to also be the heavy equipment operator. Combine that and pay her or him.

An extra $10,000.

Yeah, an extra however much. So I understand and I absolutely don't want to take the authority of a department head to run their department the way they need to but remember my interest is for the council you know how are we going to pay this and again and that's what i've already said if we start pulling these and creating all this special stuff then they're special occupations and we are direct job matching and when we direct job match every single position we go right back to your 40-some classification levels with absolutely no definitions on what they are.

And that was my point when they proposed the change, the bringing of the two. One is a PAT-A, the other is a PAT-B. And what they were wanting to do was kind of combine the two jobs together with a combined salary of both jobs. Right. When both of those jobs coming together would really just be a pat B. Exactly. So it would be paid as a pat B, not, you know. Yeah, A plus B doesn't equal SO. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And if we're going to maintain the integrity of the FES system. That's what we need to look at. We cannot be doing, we can't be playing games with it. Right. Because then we just destroy everything.

So even though that would be a functional entity in our county to try and manage our budget, you recommend against that?

I do recommend against it.

Okay, just wanted to know. I've got a question. I thought you were done. No, go ahead. It has nothing to do related to this conversation, so I apologize for that. The commissioners made a change in the personnel policy. what they've decided to do is that if you are the surveyor council commissioners there's a couple other ones that in 27 will not be uh will not have any employee benefits so we've taken away all the employee benefits from these elections okay okay my concern is is that uh and i'm thinking keep in mind let's go to 2050 let's back up to where we are where are we done it's how my brain works is that it comes time to every four years the county's got to elect hopefully quality people right that are going to be very conscientious that's going to work to understand and learn so they can be extremely effective in whatever role they choose and if they get elected. The issue is, is that we are what, 58.88 a year is our compensation. So now all of a sudden, you know, $24,000 a year worth of economic benefits to me, beginning in 2027, if I make it through November, that's an if, 50-50. Maybe more people vote against me than they vote for me. So I don't know what that 50% external midpoint is for commissioners, for council members, for surveyor. Who else is in there? Coroner's in there. Part-time elected officials. Yeah, and I don't know what those should be. Because I guess my concern going forward is, you know, it's hard enough to find, I think, people within the community that want to get involved, right? You've been here for a long time.

Your spreadsheet of elected officials that I created for you that did just external salaries. It was just raw data. It does not include health insurance. I did not put on there whether or not they get health insurance. I mean, that is just the base salary. It also doesn't include whether they're considered full-time or part-time because some counties do consider commissioners full-time and provide them insurance. Some counties do consider surveyors. part-time or even less than part-time because they have their own surveying company outside and they come in once in a while kind of thing. All that is the extra stuff. But if you're looking for just what is the salary, what is the raw data, that's what you have. Do you make adjustments and pay more because they're not getting insurance? That's a decision that the council has to make. Right.

And how long have you been in this game?

I, personally, 16 years.

Okay. And I want to make a statement, and then you tell me whether or not my perspective is accurate or inaccurate.

Okay.

Okay. What I've been told historically, and actually you can answer this probably, is that if you go back 40 years, go back 30 years, county government attracted those who really came to work for county government because of the benefits.

Yes.

Okay.

In the hours. In the hours. In the paid lunch hour.

In the paid lunch hour, okay. And back in the day, you know, the good old days, we'll call them the good old days before you know, that they would come to work for county government and they would work 20, 30 years.

Absolutely.

But today, when you look at that nationally, people are jumping from job to job to job to job to job to job. Right?

Private sector. Private sector pays more. Quite often now, private sector benefits are better. Your public sector people come to work for the county because they love the county.

And so what we've done is what we currently have in place is we're real top heavy on the cost for the employee benefits, right? And we've sacrificed what you guys get deposited in your bank account every week because of that. And so my question is, personally, if a person is going to come and work for five years or whatever, then let's pay them. I mean, let's pay them, and let's pay them good.

Have you surveyed your employees?

No, I haven't, because it's not my gig. It's the commissioner's.

Well, that's not why we're up here.

So it's because, to me, if I'm 30 years old, Single parent, okay? I'm 30 years old. 30 years old, you're gonna live forever, all right? And I need as much money as I can. And you gotta remember too, two thirds of the population in the US live paycheck to paycheck. So if I wanna look at it through the lens of a 30 year old single parent, I want as much money deposited in my bank account as I can get each and every week because I could really care less about retirement because I'm waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning worried about if I can make my car payment.

We did a staffing and benefits survey for another county. We survey monkeyed. It went out to every department. The department heads distributed it to every employee. What is priority to you? Take home? insurance.

Right.

Do you want more days off or do you want more money? Do you want paid lunch or do you want more vacation? And I mean the amount of information the employees were pleased to actually think they had a voice and be allowed to.

How much does that cost us to for you guys to do that? What did they decide?

We did not decide to we we basically what a data set. I do not know you know Yeah, no no so so what I do is I create the survey I distribute it I get it back I compile it I send it to council commissioners whoever is doing it and it's just the raw data we asked this question this this Percentage of people want this answer this percentage of people want that answer. It's billed by the hour and

So did the data fall in any categories? Did they want benefits more than they wanted salary?

Do you know? If I remember correctly, you have in this county that we just did it for, it's a younger employee base. They wanted the salaries.

High margin?

Yes.

High margin wanted salary?

Yes.

And I think today, Julie and Kevin, I mean, isn't our employee base probably younger? We're here because we want to make sure that council is aware of all of the nuances for 27 with the new Commissioner

changes to the policy manual. The financial part of it. And definitely the financial side because as you know, commissioners make decisions, you guys make different decisions. But financially, if you don't want to cut the pay that our employees are making, the changes that they are wanting to implement is going to make people's salary, or their pay, less.

It's going to... You guys will lose two and a half hours every week.

Right. And that's if you don't take lunch. That's if you don't leave your desk. So like, how is that going along with what you're wanting to do? to increase pay or employees pay. I'm not talking about me. We're not talking about us. We're elected. Kayla's department.

But it's our staff. And we already have a problem keeping staff. So why are we going to make it It's less desirable to work here. And how do we, as department heads, how do we make sure our employees are really coming in at 7.30 and working? Not just coming in at 7.30 and doing their makeup and eating their breakfast and doing whatever until 8 when the door opens. And same thing, you know, until 4.30. How do we make sure that they are staying until 4.30? So do I have to come in from 7.30 to 4.30? no i don't want to come in from 7 30 to 4 30. yeah every day i'm talking about 7 30 to 4 or 8 to 4 30 i believe but what if i have two employees and one wants to come in at 7 30 and one wants to leave at 4 30. seniority they pick or just set the set the hours do i come in from 7 30 to 4 30 to make sure my employees are actually doing the things that they're supposed to do i would think i would think do you don't you have a deputy that works under you So right now, no, I don't.

No, but normally you would, correct? Is that right or wrong? I mean, that's just a yes or no question.

Is there supposed to be one?

Pardon?

I'm over my deputy. I would need to make sure my deputy is doing it too.

No, I understand that. Maybe one of them could come in earlier.

My question is... When we had our department head meeting, commissioners, maybe some council was there, and I asked, did you do any research prior to making this decision of taking away the paid lunch hour and going directly to a half hour unpaid? No. We did not ask any other counties what they do.

Yeah, we did.

Well, whoever responded to me said no, they did not.

Judy did.

Well, when I have done my own research, out of the over a third, close to a half of the counties that responded, their pay is based on a 35 hour work week and they get an hour of unpaid lunch. Why is it not that simple? Why can't you just make our pay based on a 35 hour a week instead of 40, give us an unpaid hour of lunch and be done?

Well, because other than us who are salaried, our employees are hourly. So they would be losing more money that way.

Not if you figure out time on 35 hours instead of 40. What the employee makes now, which is based on a 40-hour work week.

Okay, let me feed this back to you just so I think I understand what I hear you're saying, is you take the annual and you divide the annual compensation

1950.

Is that what it is? And divide it by 1950. And then that determines what the hourly rate is. Because the hourly rate will be based off of the 35, the 1950, right?

And if you base it on 35 hours versus 40 hours, that changes the hourly rate. Correct. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Because if not, you're going to end up with money left in those lines. And at the end of the year, that money doesn't go to the employee. It goes back into county general.

Yep.

And what about our offer of employments?

So our workaround, let me feed this back and let's make sure I think I understand what I'm hearing you say, is that we go back to the 90% of the 50% external. How many hours? 35 times 52? 1950 is 35 hours is a 35 hour work so essentially what we do is we take and i'm thinking i'm just thinking out loud we take the the 50 factory evaluation per the classification and because we have currently we have to we take that and what we would do is we'd have to take that number hourly rate multiply it times the two the 2080 hours to get the annual amount but then we'd have to turn right around then and take the the annual amount and back into it with the 1920 right 1950 that would establish the hourly rate let's just take a random number i see what you're saying yeah your external low salary for a common a position

was 38 332.94 so it was showing 18 43 an hour but if we are going to keep that salary But at just the hourly rate, it will now be $19.66 an hour instead. So we're giving them the same salary for less.

For 35 hours.

For 35 instead of 40.

Yeah, so basically nothing changes for the employee. Exactly. I take my 30 minutes lunch.

Yeah. No, an hour. It's an hour. It's an hour.

The $19.50 is based on an hour lunch, five hours a week.

Excuse me. 35 hours a week times 52 is 1,820 hours. That is 260 hours fewer hours a year. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. 35 hours a week times 52 is 1,000. 37.5.

37.5 is 1,950, which would be a half an hour larger. 1,820. I stand corrected.

Thank you.

All right. That's 260 hours difference from the 2,800. Right, right, right, right, right, right.

The financial implication of that, though, is overtime. Yes, correct, because overtime is figured on the hourly rate. Not until they hit 40 hours. Right, but if we... Not including the lunch hour. I know, I understand that, but what I'm getting at is if we base it on the 35, then the hourly rate goes up, so any overtime is then based on that hourly rate, which is increased by...

But how often are they working at least six hours? So now if we drop it down to 35 hours, you're telling them they have to work at least six hours before they're going to get that overtime, right?

So for example, if we had to stay late in the treasurer's office, it's tax time. We have to stay until 5 to get everything balanced and done for our day. that would actually make it an eight hour day right but we don't get overtime so it would either be we either get comp or we get flex so for that hour what do they get right but your comp and just like your hourly rate your comp at that time and a half also so yes yeah which also

Is it flex or is it comp?

But once comp accumulates, then we have to pay out on the comp that's based on the higher hourly rate, correct?

You have to pay out the comp based on their current hourly rate.

Right, which goes up if we go down to 35 hours.

It shouldn't be up to the department head to choose. I think that needs to be in the policy manual, black and white.

Because that's part of the problem, why we're going here, is that department heads are letting their employees work through their lunch and then get paid for it.

So they're getting comp time on an hour paid lunch.

But see, in my department, if we have to work through our lunch because we're the only one in the office, they get flex. It's time for time. It is not comp. If you have department heads that are giving comp, That is an issue with a department head, with a department. It should not be punishing the entire county.

Who are doing it right.

Yeah. Who does it right. Yeah, like, okay, I said this yesterday. I've got two kids, right? If one of them does something bad, I don't punish both of them. I address it with the one that's doing something bad or incorrectly. I don't punish both my kids. because the one did something wrong and now they both misbehave obviously they're both in trouble and some of his education punish everybody for just a couple people who are doing it in incorrectly that's with bad intent or not i don't think that's the case but and a lot of our frustration is not at least personally i'm assuming for the rest of you you are correct about one thing it is the department head's responsibility you sign off on it yeah you send us this stuff that's your responsibility yeah not

the payroll person.

I don't agree with that because I've worked here long enough to know that there have been auditors and there have been payroll that when they look at those timesheets and there's a whole bunch of this comp time and worked my lunch hour, worked my lunch hour, that's a red flag that needs to be addressed.

But Mary, they have to look at the timesheets.

The timesheets have to be looked at by the payroll clerk and questioned. That just seems like

Not even just that. They can't do anything about it if you've signed off on it.

But they could come to us and say, did you know this?

Do you understand that this is...

It's all about training.

If they don't realize, if the department doesn't realize, they shouldn't be letting their person work through lunch and get a comp time or whatever. It's communication. But because of this lack of communication, now we're all being punished now employees are being punished we're going from an hour paid lunch to a half hour unpaid and then you still have to make up two and a half hours either by coming in early or staying late when the building isn't even open or you sit at your desk all day yeah or you sit at your desk all day and you get absolutely no break from your well we're going to get two 15 minute paper whatever yeah i mean okay fine but and i'm not i'm not upset about the half hour i'm not upset about it being unpaid I'm upset that it's a half hour and that then if an employee wants to take their lunch, they're not ever going to get a paycheck. That's what they're getting now.

Well, you talked about the single mom with kids or whatever. Maybe that hour is the only time she has to run errands, pay bills, pick up groceries, or she has to pick up her kids from school or else she has to pay for after school child care. And that's not cheap.

maybe she's already that's why we're feeling for a minute 7 30 and she can't stay till 4 30. what then there are employees that could have to choose between leaving the job that they might love or picking up their child from daycare or finding something to do with them for a half hour early because they have to be here. I have a question.

Statistically, as a reference, what do other counties do?

It's all over the board.

All over? Did you notice any change for larger, do it one way, smaller, do it another? Anything like that or smaller?

Hancock County does 35 hours a week. The majority of the counties that I talk to.

Is there any value that you could see one way or the other? I mean, objectively, because you're outside of us.

Well, it depends who am I here to speak for. If I'm here for the employees, it sucks. If I'm here for the council, it's a money saving.

Ultimately, we're here for the citizens paying the taxes, not all of us.

How many of us are citizens paying the taxes? We want good employees to hire and train and retain and again it goes back to that private sector, public sector. I can go work in the private sector and get a paid lunch.

It's not even about it being unpaid as much. If you divided our hours By 35 instead of 40, we'll be making the same thing and still have an hour.

Yeah, it's a matter of are you setting a salary for them or an hourly rate? If you're looking at the annual salary for them, then, you know, are we doing it based on 18, 20, 20, 80? You know, what are we basing it on? Yeah.

I don't care what anybody else is doing in any other county. I don't care. What matters to me is our biggest asset as a county government is our human capital. It's the most important asset. And what I want to know is how do we make it a fun place, an enjoyable place to get up every day and have to go in and drive into this building, all right? And so it needs to be a good experience, it needs to be a great culture, it's enjoyable, I like it, enjoy being part of Brown County government number one number two is it's clearly not that now it hasn't been for a long time because we've got some major culture issues within our county government and it's just cultural issues that is a part of why we have so much turnover Because the other thing we have not done that I think you guys could do is, number one, we haven't surveyed the employees. Number two, another thing we haven't done is we've not gone back and analyzed, say, for the last 10 years, what our turnover ratio's been by department to say, okay, what department's got, what's going on? And to look at that turnover. Another thing I don't know that we do, when somebody quits, Is there an exit interview to find out why they left?

Yes. Supposed to be.

Do we have that?

Supposed to be. It's optional. It's not mandatory.

It's not mandatory? Yeah. And so to me, because there's, and I think this little, you know, it's like the Jerry Springer show kind of thing.

We can turn it into that. What did I tell you earlier? Let's have fun.

I said that as a joke. I couldn't think of it. But this has been, for me, very beneficial. I'm glad you guys showed up because it's been interesting to listen to you. Because all of this plays into, Darren, the FES system, our labor, our employee benefits, The goal is, to me, the why, why are we having this conversation is, you know, we want to have an emotionally healthy, financially sustainable environment for people to work in and they enjoy to work there, right? And that's what we need to do. Because if you don't have that, then, you know, first of all, To me, and I'll be quiet after this, but the department that, I'm serious, the one department that I probably wouldn't want to work in would be the clerk's office. Because the only good reason to go to the clerk's office would be to get a marriage license. Every other reason to go to the clerk's office is not good. It's not their best day.

It's not their best day.

But it's divorce, it's DUI, it's speeding tickets. So it's important to, because we're supposed to be providing a service to the taxpayers, right? And so how do we make sure that if you're going to get surveys back to where we get an A plus? And furthermore, I would like to see us as a county government establish the standard in the state of Indiana. Why can't we establish the standard? Why can't we have the rest of the counties looking at Brown County going, what are they doing down there? Man, they're really doing it. Let's come down to Brown County and check out what they're doing. There's no reason whatsoever why, because we got a good, I have, Brown County people are nice people.

and so i'll be quiet and we hear can i jump in we hear that a lot we work with people you know a lot of contractors realtors everything that come into our office that have been in four other county offices in that same week and they're like me and i love working in brown county you guys are easy to work with you're you're exciting you're we can laugh with them and still get our done like we're getting it done and we're we're helping not only the taxpayers but the other people who are probably gonna buy a place down here because heck yeah all those people are smiling and they're happy and they're fun they're energetic we hear that we are saving ourselves from burnout by being able to step away from our desks we are saving ourselves from burnout so we can still smile and be happy and retain our people

It's all good. The question is, where do we get the money?

It doesn't cost you any money. It's not costing any money. Five hours instead of 40.

And an hour and a half. It costs money, folks, and comp time.

That's what I'm saying. Control the comp time.

Ain't the bad kid. Not all the kids.

The commissioners have no authority over elected officials. We set the policy. You can adapt or change or put it on your time card. So when you put it in your signature,

That's where the timesheets need to be looked at.

If there is a person that their employees are constantly getting office

There needs to be conversation.

So let me clarify one point. It's not just the comp time for the purpose of, I'm not talking about the lunch hour. I'm talking about the comp time to where we're paying for 35 hours, but there's well more than 35 hours worth of work. And I will point to that young lady that's sitting right there behind you that has someone sitting in her office that is carrying well over 100 hours of comp time.

And if you look historically, it's I can tell you 20 years ago that happened. So again, hire somebody else at a lower level to take care of them.

So the point being is, it goes through the exercise of establishing what it is. The other problem that I have with this is that it's not hard for me to have a conversation with a constituent that works 40 hours a week. They don't get paid lunch. Who cares? I do because I have them accountable to the taxpayer.

So are we.

I understand that.

We're the ones here every day smiling, laughing, joking, and getting the crap done.

Lori, go ahead.

What's your max accrual on comp time?

Master accrual? Maximum accrual? No more than 80 hours.

So why do you have someone with over 100? Because accountability.

Visibility.

But once they hit that 80, it should automatically turn into overtime payment.

okay so they don't have it in their line visibility one of the biggest things that this county is doing is a step in the right direction is a pay comp system we have no visibility right now all the time cards that we get are manual manual that means that the payroll clerk if you're expecting that burden to fall on her means that she would spend her time every week going through 164 time cards to check on comp time balances and all that

I did that.

Is that an appropriate utilization of that resource?

It's happened before. That's a second step. Because it's our responsibility.

Whenever I was auditing them, that's when all this was brought to light last year. That this was happening.

And it was brought to light before that when I was hired to do a Comptime KLX project. And I

But there was nothing I could do, I was told, because they're signed off on at that point. There's nothing I could do, and that's what I was told.

So are we having department head conversations and saying, hey, guys, we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing? Let's fix this right now.

I'm not allowed to do that.

No, but I mean.

No, but it had been done in a department head meeting. Last year. I'm just saying.

This isn't against you. This isn't about you. No, no, no.

I didn't say it was about me. Historically. I just wanted you to know that I was looking at those.

So why did it take a year to react? Why did it take a year to react and do something about this? Like they were starting to say, why didn't you hold a department head meeting and talk about the discrepancies in timekeeping? Why didn't we start correcting this then? Instead of the drastic...

I think being on the PAC committee, part of the reason was there's so many anomalies out there. We decided we just got to rework the whole system. That may have been why. I'm not sure totally.

So I'm going to chime in. So first off about the timekeeping. I think I've said this in many department head meetings since I started, since we started department head meetings, even before we started the regular Monday once a month meetings. When I started in September of 2022, I went to HR when it was up here in the commissioner's office, I went down to the auditor's office and asked them, I went to other department heads and asked, how am I supposed to do timesheets? It was not laid out in the policy manual. So I went and asked, I was told, three or four different ways from multiple different people. That is not a me issue. That is not a them issue. It's a systemic issue of training that has not been done. And if everyone is continuing to get wrong information, then yes, you're going to have these problems where people are giving confidence because it's not how it's properly supposed to be done. Now I'm going to speak for my department and advocate for my employees because that is what I am here to do. My staff, My one officer that does have comp time and we did get it paid out. We don't have an overtime line. We never have. We've added it. We've asked for it for 2027. So that way it's expected. So we don't have unexpected costs to the council and have to come for additional appropriations. We paid out that comp time, not out of county general. We paid it out of existing money, existing funds, or existing lines. We didn't ask for any additional money that the county hadn't already appropriated. We just moved it to a different line. On top of that, with the comp time, there are times we cannot control, at least in probation, our juvenile officers, and it's not just her. The amount of hours that I know our chief probation officer and myself have worked outside of our 40-hour work week to do juvenile stuff to help out because we tried to mitigate the comp time and have her use it and create a plan. It ebbs and flows. We cannot control when juveniles decide to make decisions or when we have to respond to situations. We cannot control that. That is out of our control. We have tried to mitigate it. This year has been crazy. I mean, look at the juvenile detention fund. I'm pretty sure it's going to be completely spent after this month's bills. We have had just a crazy year, and that is not something we can control. We've gone to the judge. She is the one who approved for our officer to have the 110 hours and came to the council to have it paid out. It has since been paid out out of existing funds that were already appropriated. We did not ask for new appropriations. So we created a plan. We tried to execute a plan as per the policy stated. The judge approved it, which the judge has the power to approve additional things. She can create her own policy and procedures and everything. And she approved her to have that. And we came to the council to get that paid out. There are some things that other departments have the ability to control that there are times that we don't though. And I think it's a systemic issue. It's a training issue. When I started as a department head, I didn't work for this county existing. I came from another county. So I had no clue how anything functioned and not one person sat down with me to say, hey, this is exactly how things need to be done.

You're accurate. It's a systemic issue. We didn't have our act together.

trying to get it together now it's not going to be perfect it's going to be rough and it may take two or three years to work out the bugs and i understand that but i think the problem is i think the problem is we're being reactionary instead of saying let's fix let's have a department meeting where we're explaining how things exactly need to be done because i'm telling you everyone department head does their time sheets different

And we want to know the right way.

I've asked many times, and I've been told different every time. We didn't disservice to you. No question. Two points. Does PACOM take care of that situation? Absolutely. Yes, it will. Two points. Go ahead.

Number one, Jason, you said that you wanted Brown County to be the bar. Right there is your department had to show you That's what you need that that's a that's a standard that you want your department heads to be in look She's asking questions. She wants to do it, right? She's going to the proper channels to get things approved She's doing it and saying you can't tell me I'm at the department head. This is how I'm going to do it That's your standard number two

newly elected official training so maybe the General Assembly will handle that and they'll get that pass to the AIC but good luck so the part of it is the process work in process all of this started last year three months into the to the change in the commissioner's administration. There were staff meetings that were never held before. There were department meetings that were never held before. There were questions and answer sessions that were taken and gone through that. So the aspects of it, has there been? There have been conversations about do we do PTO? Do we do all of those things? and then the decision was made to go now it needs to be handled in those conversations and that kind of stuff and information from a policy standpoint needs to be put in the personal advisory committee which was never utilized things are changing things are moving along the policy in and of itself which is now written in the handbook that will go to the employees to do it and sign off will be acknowledged everybody when they sign on this and I accepted the position of commissioner signed on the fact that I read the handbook and you should have received the current version of the handbook now all of us when we had the very first meeting we're all operating on different versions of the hand because it was never sent out in the past So my question to the audience there is, has it been fixed?

It's in the tech drive.

The handbook. It's now in the tech drive and we know that it's correct. Has the commissioner's office gone through the exercise of looking at putting systems in place to go through and hold accountability? Because right now the system we have in place, there's no accountability. There is no way for us to be accountable.

But I think Kevin, going back to your, you know, there have been things that the current commissioners have done that have not been done before such as the department meetings or consistent department meetings i should say that i at least i felt for a period of time were very productive where i felt as a department head i was able to advocate for my employees and i was able to feel like we were our voice was being heard and then when we got the policy and procedure manual the draft i felt like that was such a waste of time because in terms of We sat here, one of the very first few meetings we had, how can we retain employees? Financially, we can't have the highest paid salary. We know that. We understand that. We are limited by our tax base and what we can afford. I understand that. I think all of us understand that. However, with benefits, and I have said multiple times in department head meetings, I've worked for many other counties. I lost benefits coming to Brown County. I did. I lost benefits by coming to Brown County that I had that Brown County doesn't have. But I love this community. You can retain employees by having benefits, and benefits is not just insurance.

Okay, I got to, wait a minute. What benefits do, What did you lose?

So I worked for Monroe County. And so what did you lose? So the amount of vacation you could roll over. We were a 35 hour work week. We did get an unpaid lunch, but we were a 35 hour work week that you could either choose to flex your time or that was based on what your department had or supervisor at the time. You hadn't worked with them on how you wanted your got your schedule. So you're a 35 hour work. We came here to work 40 hours. Um, so less on the hour, essentially in terms of pay, um, the, I mean, I will say insurance was way better over there.

How was it better?

Uh, I, I think as a single person, I think I, my deductible was $750 and, um, my premium that I paid was 57 to pay. And it was a PPO plan.

Did you get HSA money?

Um, no, cause I had a PPO plan. So we did, if you had a PPO, you did not get HSA. So, but you have the ability to roll over more time for a year. So we were able to roll over up to two weeks of vacation time into the next year. They also, shortly after I left, they implemented a six-week paid maternity and paternity leave and FMLA leave. Paid? Yep. Holy cow.

Do they have a personnel manual that's available?

Every county should. Every county should. And I think every county, county and every county court system should.

Okay, so can anybody access that payroll, that policy manual?

I think you could probably email them and ask for it. You should be able to get it. And I think in Bartholomew County, I mean, they went to, they went... don't know if they're still 40 hours but they reduced their hours of operation they were eight to five now they're eight to four um they just implemented a paid six week paid maternity and maternity leave they have the ability to roll over more time than we do here on onto the next year or whatever um so there were different they a lot of other counties have different benefits that that is attractive to people so

I was involved before in setting up a company and how we got to our personnel and all the manuals and procedures from like three companies. So I guess I'm saying, can we do a simple makeup of what's there, what's here, and what's the difference?

That wouldn't be hard to do if you got the policy manuals from the other counties, which it's public record.

That's not yours? That's Commissioner's. I'm just saying.

I want to interject something in here. First and foremost is let's begin with the end in mind. What are we solving for? Let's answer the why. Why are we having this conversation? What's the purpose of this conversation, number one? Number two, one of the issues that I don't know if you all... We all live in a silo. Is everybody familiar with the silo concept? Old screen. Huh? Old screen. Old screen, right, that's what I thought. Right.

I know, I didn't know where we were going.

The silo concept is, to me, a really important concept. And what I didn't realize is 2121 25th Street, Suite A, Columbus, Indiana, 24 years. I have my private, little, safe, secure silo that I own. it is mine i go in there got my key it's my world you will you know i control my world i leave over there and come over here january 1 2023 and all of a sudden it's like papa whoa there's a whole different world over here right yeah and i didn't realize i was over in columbus with my little safe secure silo right then i come over here and go oh my god it's all this blah blah so My point of bringing up the silo concept is we are one organization. Fair? And we have all these little parts that have to connect and work together because all the little pieces, all, it's a puzzle. And we are all, is everybody familiar with the concept of interdependence? Does everybody understand that? You know, you've got independent, dependent, or let's be interdependent. We need each other, all right? And one of the concerns I have is we can't make decisions in a vacuum to where we have just two or three people that are out here, and by God, they're going to fix everything. we don't need to fix anything we need to get clear about the why and what we're solving for and realize that we're interdependent on each other and we can do this together but we first got to understand where is it that we want to go and i really appreciate because i've learned a lot from you guys this morning on what you shared with me because i will finish with this the three-day dog and pony show which is what I refer to on those budget hearing things. What I realized this year, which is my fourth budget year, I think, for me, because I've been here 44 months, that the value of that dog and pony show, it allowed me to sit there and allowed you all to come in and for me to have a better understanding of what you guys actually do.

So it wasn't just a dog and pony show.

It was educational. It was for me. There was more value in those three days for me just to listen to all the different department heads, to have a better understanding of what challenges you have to face, what's going on, what's your world look like? Because each and every one of you got a little different world from everybody else, right?

I like the budget hearings. That's a day that I can come in and you guys, you'll listen to me try to complain. You actually hear what I'm saying, which I thought we were doing in the department head meetings. Apparently, it was one ear and out the other. We had a voice and then just kidding, no you don't. But I like the budget hearing because we actually do. I feel like we do have a voice. We can speak for our departments. We can speak for our people. We can keep everybody content. Even if they're not happy, let's at least not be miserable.

Well, we got to understand you guys need to keep up.

Yeah. And it helped me to understand what you guys are challenged with.

Yeah.

Like I learned a lot about the county council. I'm never going to be on the county council.

Right.

But I learned a lot about what challenges you guys face by just speaking with you for 40 minutes. It's communication. It is.

It's working together as a team to... Because let me say this, there's 26, 27 different areas within the county government, right? We've got approximately 150 employees. And it's a small business. It's nothing more than a small business, right? And we've got 150 employees. And I think, you know, get a large business, you know, IRS is, I think, over 500 employees. So we're a little small business is what we are. And this little small business is funded by, as we all know, the people who are citizens of Brown County, right? That's who pays for this.

One thing that challenged that, and we're not... We're not just a small business. We're not a corporate. We are more of a business park of, you know, the auditor's office is a business as part of the conglomeration. Treasurer's office is a business because they all have their own department heads, elected officials that we cannot control. So in a corporation, top down, there's chain of command, everybody, you know, there's somebody who has authority over it. We have limited authority over what the auditor does. We have a limited authority. So that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to place it in the proper context. I'm just saying there's slight differences.

And we can get into how you want to language it and argue all day over that. But just think, it's nothing more than a small business with a lot of little departments, right? Car dealership, new car dealership. Well, it's got five businesses in it, right? You got new cars, used cars, F&I, parts department, service department, right? Oh, and body shop. That's six different separate businesses that are all under that one umbrella. So that's all local county government really is, except it's got a lot more. Now, the good thing about it is, is we don't have to worry about sales and marketing and gross profit margins, right? Because we don't have to worry about revenue. It just comes in, right? Every year. But we do have a responsibility to manage our small business effectively. by managing the expenses and trying to keep a lid on the expenses, right? Because we're really not any different than each one of our own personal households. Money comes in, receipts, money goes out, disbursements. How much cash reserves do we have in the bank so we can make sure we don't have to worry about how we're gonna make our car payment, right? We wanna get our credit card debt paid off and we wanna get, you know, in perfect world, And then we want to have enough money to be able to buy a car and pay cash for it so we can stay out of debt. That's all this county government is. And if we can do that, then we can move away from this thing of having to increase the tax rates, right? the tax rates now the challenge with that is is that most of the counties in the state of Indiana are already exceed the property tax levies every county almost in the state of Indiana almost all 92 their budgets exceed the Property tax level right just like us but We then have this issue with the income tax, and then we have some statutory changes being placed on trying to keep a lid on the property income tax. And what I don't want to see us do is to where we are all having to pay more in the way of income tax. So for us as a council, that to me is our primary responsibility as a council, but at the same time having to work with the commissioners have any work with you all because our biggest suspense is we're spending 11 and a half billion dollars on labor costs and employee benefits which is a large which only makes sense because it's our largest asset our human capital right so i don't know how we go forward but um that's for you to decide at the department head meeting were we not told that we would be

made aware of the changes before the changes were voted on you have the manual

You have that manual. Well, on the August 17th meeting.

And you have sent subsequent and sent feedback and all those things. So that's making you aware.

Have we received that feedback from our feedback, though?

I think the understanding was, I think maybe then it was a miscommunication because our understanding leaving, I will say, at least my understanding leaving that department meeting on August 17th was that we would at least be made aware of what the feedback that us as department heads gave at that meeting regarding some of the changes that we would be made aware of the final decisions before they were voted on or whatever. I thought that was going to be discussed at the September 21st department head meeting, but I guess I interpreted what was said wrong.

So that's the way I understood it as well. Before we left that meeting, I specifically asked, has this decision already been made? I was told no. It's not.

The decision's not going to be made until the second meeting in September.

But without any department head feedback ahead of time. We were led to believe, I think intentionally, that the conversation was going to continue happening. The conversation is not going to continue happening because it's already on your agenda before our next department head meeting. So any other conversation that's going to happen is going to fall on deaf ears.

as i think that it already did at the last department meeting so so can you explain to us how is it going to work we're going to do an unpaid lunch and so we are going to pass along the understanding of the mechanics the commissioners do not set office hours for each of your departments since when that is hold on that's a misnomer by state statute the only thing the commissioner sets the opening hours of the public facilities that's it I don't set when your employees come in and work that's not our task that is left to you and Lori shaking her head yes that it's left to you to manage your personnel to cover the hours to do the work that you need to do the commissioners only defined when the buildings are open I'm not telling you we're not responsible for telling you when you're at your desk

But when our doors are open and we're open to the public, that's the hours of operation.

That's the priority of our job. Again, so I need her to nod her head. She's sitting there saying, yes, you can have hours that deviate from the 8 to 4.

Do you agree?

Which means that, again, so it goes down the path.

He needs to see your face.

I absolutely agree with what you're saying.

Okay.

I'm trying to understand the benefit of having employees. The majority of the positions in county government are to serve the public. What is the benefit of having employees in an office that is not open?

So then I'm going to hear from the audience here that if we made the hours from 7.30 to 4, they'd be okay.

I would prefer 8 to 4.30.

Now here's one thing I have heard in a couple of the offices. We can't get... It's hard to get our work done because we have people coming in the office all day. That's correct. So if you had a half an hour after the office closed, wouldn't that be much more of a productive half an hour than during the workday?

If you're not able to get your job done between 8 to 4, there needs to be some reworking of your office.

I would also like to... Bring us back to Indiana code where council sets the annual hours that the salary is based on. Indiana code. That's why we're here.

That's why we're here. That's why we are here. We don't set all the other stuff. No, we understand. We were constructed on that, but, but so Sheila, would you, I'm sorry, Lori, would you say that again?

Indiana code states county. Council classifies the employees and sets the annual work hours.

So example 35 or 40.

Exactly. So is the employee, what is a full-time employee? Is it 2080? Is it 1950? Or is it 1820? Okay.

So commissioners are deciding there's a change. Mm-hmm. And are you recommending...

I'm not deciding any change. No, there's open hours. It's already been set. We've defined our work week as... eight hours 40 hours a week it just so happens that in the policy that we have is that there is a paid lunch for certain positions not all positions in the county received a paid lunch the highway department does not receive a paid lunch the highway doesn't work they work differently

four 10-hour days there would be what the difference what was it what's the difference and they're not just like the sheriff public like the rest of us are like their job isn't based on the building being open from this time of this time but not with the not with the guys Yeah, not with the highway.

Right, it's noon. I've been in here for three hours, and I've got things I need to do.

Half hour. Yeah, get a half hour.

My takeaway from this conversation today, I'm going to walk out of here, and this is what I'm going to take away. is it's the 2,080 hours versus 1820 that core is what this issue is correct yes is that fair yep okay and i feel like that's us asking you guys for your help because we're being no i know yeah i got it i got it i think the heart the hard thing is

We're going to have to go to staff and say, hey, if you want to take a lunch, you now have to come in 30 minutes early or say 30 minutes late. And that is hard. We get to deal with the repercussions of that in our department and the turnover and whatever it may lead to. Obviously, there's a lot of unknown, but I think that that's a hard thing to ask some people to do when they have an expectation as to what it already is set at.

So the other thing. So Darren, you're the president of the council. We've had this meeting today. We obviously, I think we agreed to, we need to get with Reedy and have a conversation with Reedy of how we want this budget book proposal for 27 put together, right, based off this FES conversation. And there's basically kind of, you know, We need to approach it from the 1820 versus the 2080 issue is what we need to look at.

Which would start as of when? November?

Well, January 1. January 1. It would be January 1. Your salary ordinance is already set. Oh. For 2017. For this year.

That's not what we were told. They were going to start it immediately in November.