Town Council - workshop

We'll be right back. question.

A lot of these answers are going to come from our attorney, the town attorney, or the fire territory attorney, because they're the experts on this.

I'm just trying to gather.

So, Jeff?

So, on that particular issue, it was pertaining solely to... Sorry.

Thank you.

So this is solely related to this section about equipment replacement, but it'd be examined earlier because we had a couple pieces of equipment that

probably without exaggeration, for not quite being sure what our procedure was going to be. So the only reason that I suggested that for deletion, and this is an entry point, this is not the end point, I think we're probably going to have at least one more conversation about this, about introducing this, was we were trying to get to a point of If an expenditure had already been approved in the budget, everybody's seen it. The Territory Board has seen it. We actually just did that an hour ago and had that first introduction.

And then both units can see it if they wish to. And so they will have looked at the budget and then ultimately been approved and prepared to go through gateway.

And then we have that unfortunate opportunity, maybe it's being little axle brakes, frame brakes, or we have unfortunate opportunity when, hey, we've got something that's coming up in the next two years and one of these three gentlemen goes to FDIC or they get work from a vendor or whatever that someone canceled a contract or there's a spec deal or something that's available right now and we need to make a move because build times are still 18 months plus. an additional appropriation that's outside the budget and so that's going to have to go through the additional appropriation process and then the territory will see it send it back through just like we do the gateway notices and for some reason the provider disagreed with the territory board the territory board doesn't approve it we're just not doing it if the provider then disagrees with the territory board that means they're just not turning it in to dlgf and it's not improving expenditure That would be a situation too where I would look at that, it seems very rare, very recurring, but perhaps we do a deeper dive into, you know, in copper where things are, look at it and go, hey, yeah, it's a great opportunity, but you don't have the revenue. So we're not gonna approve it unless we have a certainty about the revenue. So my feeling that that language would just surplus of if for some reason the council didn't approve the additional appropriation, territory board can always make an adjustment come out but this was making it mandatory well if it's denied it has to come back well maybe we just don't do it so i think it's just open that it it can it can be reviewed a second time another question kind of related but a broader question not that it's special to you talking about this i would like to see is

to get to the point of eliminating duplication of efforts, that if the fire territory has its own levy, which has its own source of revenue, which has its own board, so if the fire territory board approves a budget that can be funded with the funds they get through their own levy, why does it need to come to the town for approval? Why do we on the town side need to meet with certain values?

The way the statute is set up, and I've had units through agreement, preserving, made a very worthwhile comment before we started. These agreements can be as flexible as the participants that want to engage them. So there are territory arrangements where the board is the final say. There are territory arrangements where all very capable participants. I warned them when I wrote it. They introduced it to the territory board. Then it was introduced to Town A, Township, Town B.

They could accept, modify, or reject.

It went through a May to August reconciliation process. Now, Rick and Alex and Dustin and Bob are all having Dunn-Budgets thought I don't want to do from April to September fire budget, but I told them, I said, you're going to hate this, but that's what they want. Others are, we have made the territory board the experts and our delegates, and we want to be the experts. Give it over to you and you just input it behind the tab and you're told a budget. They cannot do We can make that a little clearer. So this is my phone. So that's who we're looking at, you know, the ultimate, this is acceptable. So if for some reason they don't approve the overall budget, that's another problem. But I won't work for Graham. We will see if there's a deeper or darker line to put in there. But I think it's pretty simple. It passes over to you to be input into your budget and revenue is revenue.

substantially independent people can get there if you're on their own budget uh we're not trying to go any other counseling maybe tonight if you ever want a bit of time to think about it and have some further discussions on it i agree with the thing i think this is stepping right direction i'm also on board with that i i feel that people are you stepping the fire territory more

which are the town and the town would move it up to 12.

So it's just kind of a neutral ground if you will, but it's none of the waters for us as administrators. No, absolutely. And Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, it literally would only take two trustee board members to vote to change. Am I not correct? Or does all agree? It's actually that regular or something, isn't it?

Well, you would have to have a majority of either unit in the first quarter of any calendar year decide they no longer want to be a participant and then you're still a participant for the remainder of the year right but after that if they could also just two members decide they want to change this as well well participating units. The two participating units would have to have the same, in my opinion, the same level of agreement. Both units would have to agree to whatever revisions we come up with. So I think what I... You're here for your internal conversations, I think, certainly, and then I'll work with Graham on how to get there. changes, the township meets in its own meeting and the township board considers the changes and the council meets and considers the changes. I was forecasting the grant a little bit. It kind of seems September-ish, perhaps October-ish, depending on how everyone feels on the timeline.

all i know is if we were to be if the town is to be audited for accounts those two funds for the territory are under the time danville's there's no separate thing that i go into when i go into dlg have to do reporting it's all one the town it's just different funds can't overspend she's not gonna she's not gonna write a check i'm sure yeah i don't i don't see how there isn't

One of the things too, from back in the day, and Mark can confirm this, is under the contract, there was probably a fair amount of flow back and forth from, and then whatever the needs of the department are, at least on the spreadsheet, not to use back and forth units can contribute more if they feel like they need to but it has to be an official resolution and you would have it presented or the township would have it presented and often this happens they might want a piece of equipment or something but with the idea that there would be any flow or anything permeating along that that column that's not going to happen can what happened between tax rolls and they have to plan on that the funds were there to handle all their operations we can't the law is set up because i don't know from hard experience but i have suspicion provider units would go and say oh we're light on our side of the column but here's this nice erf funds or whatever on the buyer side and they would float either the township or town operation we can't do that But this also speaks to your comments of it's on that side, and it must rise and fall on its own.

If you have any questions, we have a council meeting following this. Would it be appropriate for us at the council meeting to hold for discussion and consensus on kind of where the council would like to go with this? I think if you're ready, yeah.

board, which you'll hear several times, differentiate which board. The employee thing, too.

It needs to be defined. This is going to get down to where the eyes and body of the table cross. Let's talk about employees while we're at that. Now, my understanding of this, the town internally, and I throw this out there as my understanding,

Is that the correct statement?

I want my popcorn back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'll take it. Yeah, pass it. I'll share it.

I noted the topics. I don't want to jump ahead. Would you like to get to that portion? Mark, this is just a generic topic.

We don't have to stick with this type of topic.

to bring in the original .

This doesn't do it justice, obviously, because this is having to be posted online. I can bring you . It's a work study.

It's a very casual one. You're my friend. Does everybody have this?

Does the car care authority have an EIN?

I don't know about that. They have an employee ID number. or just the territory.

So. I believe so.

That's correct. So right now, like when we report our 100R, it's reported under the being built civil town, just because they're just a separate fund within the town. And I don't know if BLGF would change that. I don't know how.

We really care. They just want to see everything kind of balanced and clean up there.

Well, I know the DLGF does not care because it's talking to them. They say some departments just put, you know, category one, personal services or whatever, and there's nothing else in there. It's not why I want to do it. It's easier for me to account for every penny. That's just the way I hope.

prepared this in anticipation of these questions. Just use experience code and your agreement. So to avoid i call super interlocal you know you can general interlocal but under the territory you've got a specialized agreement you can do together you can give some of your authority and some of your authority together to the arrangement the things you can actually do to create this and get greater flexibility some laughing relief so really just is ever adopted, and maybe that will be adopted someday. I put a statute in, the territory board acts as the safety board, not either the council or the township board. For discipline and discipline due process, the territory board acts as the safety board. Thankfully, we haven't had any of those yet, but inevitably someday we probably will. I think a chief, and to his credit and the staff's credit, the miracles that would be adopted. We basically take the territory board and have someone on the left end and someone on the right end, but you'll still be the core of the board. That'll be the miracle. The promotion process, hiring process, creating the list, doing the testing, you're really under the safety board statute. The stronger batteries just keeps dripping. he goes ahead and brings the list and the promotion list and the hiring list to you guys, and really doesn't have to, but I would probably applaud that from a transparency perspective, and also from getting your reps. We're probably gonna get to Merit someday, so we're acting like it. So that happens at that level. We put Bob on the global pension board as the pension rep, and then firefighters and public safety are eligible for 77 funds. There's a lot of things that even though they are administratively municipal employees, they're administered by the board. So as far as administration policy setting, also too, they've got to be governed and treated differently than all other kind of employees because of the Fair Labor Standards Act. They do not do 40-hour weeks. My brain still hurts trying to figure out county days and balancing their schedules. As well, I would say from the municipal side, there's policies and then there's all their SOPs and SOPs and how they attack fire, how they arrest equipment, how they just deal with everything. That's really probably from the general municipal point of view, you don't want your policy made. And I think that's all been outsourced to a program and they make those changes and they go right down to the individual firefighters. And then even the current agreement says members shall be employees and provider units shall serve under the authority and pursuance of the orders of the chief and the executive board.

So a little clarification on that.

We've got a slight modification of that just to make clear that for administrative, they do that, but they really serve at the pleasure of the chief and serve at the pleasure of the board. I just threw this in because I'm dealing Fourth possible thing is, and you guys know this, you know, people talk, want to talk to their reps and maybe don't understand this breakdown, but, you know, having unclear lines of authority or someone comes and talks to you and says, hey, I don't like what you did or I don't like what you did to my son, my nephew, my neighbor, whatever, in a discipline scenario, that is really There's another question about if you don't mind issuing debt. I look at debt as if it creates a new levy, meaning the taxpayer would have the opportunity to come and speak on whether or not they wish to remonstrate it with their possible taxes going up. The territory on its own cannot do that. The units can. The units can collaborate and talk about whether or not they want to extend the debt levy, whether they want it to just be at the limits of one or the other, but they do it through their own inherent hearing authority. Now, I concur and agree with some of the comments Mr. Potter made in the past of if you're financing something that's dead, if you're doing these lease options to purchase, not technically under law. If we appropriate that in an additional appropriation or a general budget, and there's enough money to pay it, those are technically considered leases. And they renew year over year over year. If you don't renew it, they'll just come pick it up and they can't accelerate it, they can't foreclose on it. They just go and they take their truck and sell it to someone else. Both units delegated the authority to the territory to own property. I think as an attorney, however the state board of accounts writes the accounting rules for the state of indiana and they said for the purposes of accounting keeping track of it's going to be titled to the provider and so i suggested that we always have to track who brought what to the top is developing a couple more pieces of real estate in the future so we have to by statute be able to understand if there is ever a separation of the agreement who brought what and what was brought jointly and what's brought jointly has to either be bought out or liquidated for a wrap i hate talking like that it's like is if there's anything bought with that mutual money, it just is either territory care of the town or town for benefit of, for the purpose of tracking, and they've got a good capital schedule, so that will cover that.

And we did delegate the authority that if they can enter into contracts, leases, service agreements, facilities,

one limit in there and i think even with i would suggest it when you talk we need to put one limit in there of the units have to approve if you do a public work and the standard for a public work has gone up but we're going to be you're not going to have straight cash to do a public work i would guess and so you'll want the units to look at that and they'll probably get borrowing for that so i hope that answers some of the questions that i i took from that agenda and lets everybody what the territory board can do.

To the extent it matters, the more they can focus on fire, the better they get at fire, and the more creative they can be.

Page two. Page three. Page four. Five.

One five, under paragraph B. where it says talking about board meeting the way this is written you could just say at any point in time i don't want to have a board meeting i think that should be approved by the territory board chairman or president of the territory board so i'm not suggesting there instead of just saying with a hot underline where it says are the four chief fire chief in front of the board fire chief with

The worst-case scenario in this situation would be not a good relationship or something like that. The fire chief condemns you to cancel meetings with your father-in-law. Would that happen? Hopefully not, but I guess that would result in a loss of focus. I think that protection there makes sense.

That's a territory decision, right? Does that have to be side details?

to kind of qualify it to a little bit of no pending business. I mean, if there's work to do, if you get to that bad relationship, it's like, well, we got stuff to do.

You can't get us to meet.

So I've made that note. And if the chief's not coming to the table before we get going on. There you go. Yeah. Six.

on real property and buildings.

The way that reads, it says, the town of Danville as a provider shall provide, maintain, build, or relocate fire stations as needed by the territory. That's a pretty open-ended statement that I'm, as a council member, I'm not willing to go along with. So we need to put some parameters on that in terms of either monetary limits, some kind of review process, and I'd specify that we're not responsible for new buildings that are outside of the town limits.

That was the one comment I had.

Outside of the town limits? Outside. I want to put one way down in the center township if you pay for it. If I put it in town, it's the same thing. Or you can do it together. We need to put it together. You can do it together, too. and the townships would come together and do that as well. Because it's no different than if you buy a fire truck, right? If you get divorced, you have to figure out how to get rid of it, same thing. Obviously, if we need a firehouse outside of the time limits, then there's a need for it, but not just build firehouses, build firehouses.

So that would perhaps prompt people. My thinking from the beginning was that if the fire station was to be

I don't think I was suggesting changing the word provider.

written is basically if I say we need a fire station over here, the town council has to do it. They don't have to say it, right? Maybe put a tag on it and go through the normal process, blah, blah, blah. That kind of thing. So we'll clean that up for sure.

forming a territory.

for the town and for the township respectfully. The question is, I believe, Bob, tell me if I'm wrong. Who's gonna figure out how much you're gonna get for that? That's the real question.

Well, and also the fact that when we did the search for it, your grade was 53,000.

So you're down 40.

You're providing it for both areas, right? Make sure we're collaborating and helping you get what you need to build and grow. Is that wrong?

I don't know. I think my, for what it's worth, at least who won't reconsider their weapon. You gotta see what DLGF projects, and then practically, it's gotta come in, and then each unit can visit on it if there's an item amongst something bought, or we just look at it once it gets handed.

I would feel uncomfortable if there was something in place that wasn't applied every year, but we were saying, no, I won't put as much into it. I didn't need to get any of those dollars and stuff. Okay, well, I asked for it.

Deal? Okay.

There'll be no circuit breakers at some point, 20, 30, 31, 32, somewhere in there. So it actually makes my 40 cents a little bit more money. At the end of the day, like I've been saying all along, they made you guys the bad guys, without a doubt, because in order to survive, you're gonna have to impose a lid in the town and give that amount to keep it good lid as a township, but also we're going to the county to try to get that 0.4% from the county of lid. So that's the position back and say, well, I didn't raise your taxes. And then point four, that's fire dedicated.

That's not PS lit.

PS lit has been changed to pure fire lit. And you would qualify as a territory.

I guess one fault to both areas and just make sure it's distributed.

I know this isn't on the agenda, but I want to go back to what I was talking about. I think a reasonable solution was, in my mind, when we did this, I didn't think, well, if I were to deliver here, they no longer have access to this money. That money is for all the departments originally. It's just so big for all the departments. Probably the only easy way to do that is a percentage of this, right? The territories. That's not worth it. Because we had time to pay for the container to lock the car, but some of that was money. Yeah, that was up to you.

I know looking around, there's nothing as far as like Brownsburg, Plainfield, other places in that territory. We're trying to look at how they manage and how they do theirs. None of them are the same.

Some drive around around 100%. Their rain covers everything.

Other towns, they pick up. the weight that they're collecting for the territories, just for salaries and so on and so forth. So I think it's really to spend on what you agree to across the board.

And that's it.

And here's the bad thing, right? If Carrie decides, hey, we're going to absorb $20 more of everybody's whatever, to be in the negative entrance because i'm i have i'm hearing what the town does or in this latest one uh there was a meeting uh one was not at and uh they wanted to go to the next tier for the

It's one plan that they're underneath the town.

I think it just means decisions get made that affect that. Yes.

They come back as if they're a town employee. Again, there's options to pick up that kind of stuff. Other territories do that. The town will take care of the insurance, let's say, and other funds.

does that mean they're determining what we're charging for no uh basically what that says

What we constantly do when it comes to the PMS rates is we look at what everybody else is doing and try to figure out are we close, are we too high, where do we need to adjust that to keep it reasonable.

I mean, where do those funds go?

It comes to us. It comes to us through the board.

Okay. I mean, if that's... I don't know if we're pointing this out, but it needs to be, you know, established.

So who establishes those? I do. I did before you guys came in.

Yes, but that was under the board of the town, so... does it need to be does it

There's things that derive from municipal ordinance, and I'm sure he goes out or Alex or someone goes out and re-inspects. I don't know if you guys get asked to go look at sprinkler design or permit design or things like that. That would need to come from a unit that has authority to do that. And then there's the other things, such as setting the angle to be scheduled, I would see that as being, since it goes into the territory, you guys would have to look at what's prevailing around, what the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates are, what our insurance reimbursement rates are, just kind of keep up with the market.

So that's just me. January 7th, the chief doctor presented a fee schedule for community risk reduction, motioned by Robert Fibbs to approve fee schedule second by law and said there's no security for this year. Right.

I'm talking about the language here. We just need to clean that up. Yes, why is the Brits in this page look intentionally like that? You can always send that to me, right? And then come back, and I send it out to the folks. And then, by the way, you don't have to come to the public meeting.

The way I send them out, you don't have to.

So if everyone agrees, go through the document. If you find some questions, comments, concerns, send them to Chief Duncan. He can push them up the ladder. We can get some revisions done on both sides. And then we will, you know, reconvene another time. But for the time being, send all your thoughts, questions through to Chief Duncan if everyone can agree on that.

Yes. Jeff? trustee side uh is there a time frame you need to have anything in or is um i don't want to speak for two positions but you know i'm going to you i need to have a meeting i feel like you haven't needed to discuss this with the first one yeah so i need you to perform that yeah absolutely it's important to remember that the territory board is not the entity they're the governing body

deadlines i would put it on the sooner the better without being hasty i mean we've all kind of committed and then also to maybe set yourself some degree of backstop like no later than kind of budget introduction meetings which budget introductions are august september range because unfortunately what i've seen in my several years of practice and doing this Well, you know, maybe we ought to change those hyphens to dashes. Maybe we ought to, maybe we ought to just say, you know, let's make it, we run it for a year.

I think everybody thinks it's going, but it could be a little better, be a little clearer. So let's shoot for that. But also have that be, have that be the shot. Have that be what we do.

Make that revision and then, you know, hopefully we don't have to

you i've got the red line um and then i'll give you um a clean as well let jeff go too because then you can pay him answer your question brett i would say if anyone has anything they would like to see different on this by the end of this month would be fair enough to get to june and really there's nothing huge here i mean we've had some buffs along the way with leases and stuff but

I think we all have the general understanding how I'm running the department under the auspices of the original agreement, right? And I'm going to continue to do that until one of you five tell me about it, so.

And for the record, I think I can speak for everybody. The department has done a good job. I've seen the runs go by. I've seen you guys respond. Just like tonight, I'm fortunate to have the main one here. Thank you very much.

Anything else? Sorry. budget, but make up those budgets. So where's all that money coming from and where's the breakout for that?

Like who's, like your territory grade, what is it?

4.2 million, I believe, or something like that. So the rest of that money, I'm not sure. I don't know, I'd say a little bit of town. Well, I mean, I just don't make sure. Well, like town horse, where's the rest of the make up? We adopted it when it came in, but just seeing that makeup and going forward, how much, you know, how much accountants are putting in. Is it solely on that 40 cents or so? You're not functioning where you're at now then and so on and so forth.

So that's one of the reasons why we're changing financial advisors because hopefully before the end of October, when you make your vote, when you do the budget, with how much tax they're collecting for this year to pay next year, right? We're going so fast that that's really not a known number. We can ask for it all we want. We can have a $10 budget, but if DLGF gives me five, then we could crazy start figuring it out. That's the model that you're representing. Anything else? Did I answer your question?

No, sir. I want to see where the bank is made up from. I say, I know where your money's coming in from. That's easy to find out the facts on that. I know where the rate, but where's the rest of it coming from? Is the town pitching in, or is there other stuff they're covering? Are they town employees, or are they picking up insurance, or are you a lot of work comp? Are you awful for things that are outside your control, or rate-driven, or all that stuff there? I'm an independent unit, in turn.

So, the way we're operating now, we started with and so if it comes to a point to make really made the town do a balanced budget. So, like, we have been able to cut things out, but for this year, what we're still using, like part-time, part-time employees, I can't cut them right now. So we did, that was one of those easy swags, $250,000 gone. So that's underfunded, obviously. It's a big zero, but we're going in the negative on that. But there are other areas, we haven't hired a Division Chief of Training all year, but there's 100,000 right there. After that, we'll be settling.

Is there anything else?