County Council - Regular Meeting

Connie, are you ready? Are you ready for the live stream? We'll call this meeting to order. Everyone will join us with a cry of allegiance.

As a recipient of federal funds and in support of Dearborn County's efforts to ensure non-discrimination and equal access to all citizens, the county gathers statistical data regarding participants and county activity. Therefore, we have provided a voluntary Title VI public involvement survey at this meeting. You are not required to complete this survey. However, the form is anonymous and will be used solely for the purpose of monitoring our compliance with Title VI and ADA. Prior to the County Council meeting this morning, there was an executive session of County Council. The executive session was called pursuant to Indiana Code section 5-14-1.5-6.1 subsection B4. For discussion of strategy with respect to interviews and negotiations with industrial or commercial prospects or agents of industrial or commercial prospects by a governing body of a political subdivision. However, this subdivision does not apply to any discussion regarding research that is prohibited under Indiana Code 16-34.5-1-2 or under any other law. and subsection B-19 to have communications with an attorney that are subject to the attorney-client privilege. I would just ask counsel for a motion to certify that those were the only matters that were discussed in executive session and that no other matters were discussed.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes.

And as to any final action on the executive session matters, there is a resolution 2026-007, which has been presented to council for consideration. There are representatives from the Redevelopment Commission here that can speak to that.

Mr. Perlberg, are you presenting?

Hello, Mike Burlberg with One Dearborn Economic Development. Thanks for allowing County Council for us to visit with you today. We have an exciting economic development project which is proposed for Dearborn County in West Harrison. Commission has worked with the company that is requesting a personal property tax abatement today since early this year to get to this point and it's been a phenomenal partnership so far and we're now ready to bring this public this project to the public purview and seek formal approval for this tax abatement today Just some quick comments on the projects. Phenomenal wages, which we'll hear about here momentarily. A very innovative company, which is in the I think would be very complementary to our existing food and beverage production industry in Dearborn County. Of course, you know, we've had very strong industry with MGP ingredients, Ross & Squibb Distillery, Kaiser Pickles, Whitewater Mill, Brighton Mills. white water processing cops turkeys which is under construction in west harrison right now and it's just phenomenal to see dearborn county continuing to get interest from food and beverage companies in an industry that that does not slump no matter what happens in the economy we all need to eat and drink and so i think it's a it's a it's a smart industry to have as a key target industry for dearborn county so we are extremely excited about this project I'm happy to field questions as we go here, but I would like to welcome up Brad Mignol with Cushman and Wakefield. Cushman and Wakefield is the broker representing the Dearborn County Redevelopment Commission in marketing the county-owned sites on Harrison Brookville Road in West Harrison. And thanks to Cushman and Wakefield, they also brought this project lead to us, which he will be happy to tell you more about.

yeah hi um good morning and uh thank you for allowing us to be here uh as we talked about private compass is a project that's going to create 147 jobs on initial and ramp up to about 251 jobs at an average wage starting around 62 500. we're looking at a total capex potentially in the range of 245 million dollars that would be the construction of what we would call 100 000 square foot footprint but a lot of more cubic space AS WE SEARCH THROUGH THE PROJECT AND JUST TO KIND OF TALK ABOUT HOW THIS PROCESS WORKS IS, YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING THAT WE DO IS MITIGATING CLIENTS' RISK FROM AN OPERATIONAL STANDPOINT, WHETHER IT'S BOTH ON THE QUALITATIVE AND ON THE QUANTITATIVE SIDE, REALLY UNDERSTANDING THE CONDITIONS OF THE DIRT, THE CONDITIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTION TIMELINE, HOW THE SOIL GRADE LOOKS, THE GEO, THE TOPO. We've looked through about 22 sites in five states and really tried to understand what site looks great for what we want to do for a building of the future. And this operation is the building of the future. The one challenge is as you start to look across the country, no two sites are the same. And that really comes on to from a legal perspective as to what the taxation looks like. So as we talked to Mike as we were going through the operation and trying to level outside everything, we started to talk about personal property tax. AN INTERESTING DYNAMIC BECAUSE OF THE MARKETS THAT SURROUND INDIANA. A LOT OF THEM DON'T HAVE PERSONAL PROPERTY TAX AT THE LEVEL THAT THEY'RE SOUGHT AFTER. SO AS WE WORKED WITH THE DEERBORN REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, WE CAME UP WITH AN IDEA TO MITIGATE AND KIND OF LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD. WE LOOKED AT THE TIME OF THE OVERALL COST AND WANTED TO STILL CONTRIBUTE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PROPERTY TAX COSTS Attorney Anthony Smart and Mike Proberg, we came up with a solution that this made sense. As you look, you see the request is for 10 years with potential opportunity for renewal for another 10 years. The reason we did that too is when you start to take a look at everything with depreciation and the way that we're gonna put our assets into service, a lot of that's gonna depreciate totally. Indiana, as we were going through the process, it's kind of changed the way that they look at depreciation, but if you look, it's kind of a schedule I THINK IS WHAT IT IS, BUT IT'S A SEVEN-YEAR DEPRECIATION FACTOR, SO WE'LL FLOOR OUT AT A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE FOR THE PERIOD OF THE TIME. A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF OUR CAPITAL INVESTMENT WILL ALL BE MADE BEFORE ANY OF THE OPERATIONS IS PLACED INTO SERVICE. IT'LL BE ABOUT $58 MILLION, BUT AS YOU UNDERSTAND, IN INDIANA, THEY TAKE THE FAIR MARKET VALUE AND THEY KIND OF PLAY AROUND WITH THE TRUE TAX VALUE. SO MITIGATING THAT, REALLY, THAT INITIAL IMPACT IS REALLY WHAT'S BIG. AND WHEN MR. PROBERG AND I LOOKED AT EVERYTHING, WE FELT THAT THIS WAS A BETTER OPPORTUNITY THAN TO DO LIKE A FIVE-YEAR 100% OR TO DO ANYTHING. WE THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS A BETTER PARTNERSHIP LOOKING AT THE OVERALL COST OF THE PROJECT. AS WE TAKE THIS PROJECT IN FRONT OF THE BOARD, THE ONE THING THAT I LAUGH IS I DON'T GET TO PRESENT IT AT ALL, BUT I GET TO PUT ONE SLIDE TOGETHER. AND THERE'S TWO THINGS. DOES THIS LOOK GOOD? DOES THAT LOOK GOOD? AND WHAT IS THE COST? SO BY PUTTING THIS, IT'S ALMOST PUTTING ALL THE COSTS IN A FAVORABLE CONDITION. AND WHEN WE KIND OF LOOKED AT THIS, THIS WAS A CRITICAL COMPONENT THAT WAS THE OUTLIER. AND I WENT BACK TO THE DEERBORN REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, AND WE TOLD THEM KIND OF WHERE WE WERE SHORT. And we worked together to find a solution that benefited not only my client, but also was a good public-private partnership. Our company, coming here today, really wants to create a great public-private partnership and be here for a long-standing time, creating a big impact into the community and finding a way to work with the community to grow their workforce, to grow the workforce coming out of Europe. high schools, your middle schools, your elementary schools, and even your vocational schools to create a partnership here, finding ways to work with businesses here, and everyone to grow here together. And that's what we believe is growing here together in the community. And when we saw the site, and we met the people, and we met with the Redevelopment Commission and others in the area, we felt that this was a great opportunity for us to grow into the future.

Thank you. I agree that different families is a great place to live and work. Does anyone have any questions? Mike, did you have anything else to add?

I don't think we have anything. No, just happy to answer questions.

Okay. And we do have two representatives from the company to show their investment in time and energy to Dearborn County. So they've been here this morning to explain some of their company's purposes and their expansion over the years. I think that Dearborn County would be a great place for them to locate and I think it would also be good for Dearborn County.

What's the situation with the water? Is that being worked through?

It's being addressed.

How's that looking as far?

We've been working as a partnership and have, we believe, a path forward. We are working all the way through with the local provider, state, engineering, and the county. AND THE COMPANY HAS BEEN PARTICIPANT IN IT AS WELL. WE'VE GOTTEN TO A POINT WHERE IT HAS REACHED A POINT WHERE WE FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT THE SITUATION IS, BUT REALLY WHAT WE'RE PLANNING FOR IS NOT ONLY TODAY, BUT FOR THE FUTURE. WHEN WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE SITE, WE ARE BUYING MORE LAND, IF POSSIBLE, FOR GROWTH, SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CAPACITY IS THERE FOR GROWTH TOO. But the team that has been working with the county team has worked together to figure out a solution and a path forward. Additionally, Mike and myself have been working with the state of Indiana. United States Economic Development Agency and the rural water, correct? I'm going to pronounce that wrong. The local utility? Well, we've been working with the local. What is it? The rural water. Indiana has an agency for rural water to grow the rural water base. But also talking as well to other community partners as well, talking to them about it as well to try to find a solution. And we think we have a great path forward.

As part of the state of Indiana support this project and its incentive offer to the company, the state of Indiana and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation are providing a million dollar industrial development grant fund grant to help address the water infrastructure needs of this project and which will also help address the needs of West Harrison holistically from increasing the water capacity to serve current and future industry in West Harrison. So we've been very glad to see the state chip in as kind of first dollars into water infrastructure improvements. And the other incentive piece on the local side to this project is on the real property, the buildings in the land, which the Redevelopment Commission anticipates creating a TIF bond to help fund that and against existing TIF revenues to finance that. We've been working with a number of different financing institutions and speaking with a number of financing institutions, Lawrenceburg Bond Bank, Indiana State Revolving Fund, IFA, and of course looking at grant dollars as well. to go into that water infrastructure improvement in West Harrison to set the stage for this company and future growth in that corridor.

Yeah, I mean this project will serve as a catalyst to expand the capacity of the current water provider has today, but also serve a catalyst for other utilities as well as we work with them, just even talking about what's going to happen in the future as we talk about what our demand is and what the demand will be for the future that will allow for that out to the Western frontier, right? So we have the ability to continue to keep investing into growth. But a lot of the regulatory stuff that Mike and I talked about throughout this process, and when I say Mike and I talked about it, this was a true partnership. I think we talked probably at least twice or three times a week. FIGURING OUT SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE FOR, YOU KNOW, TO MAKE THIS A REALITY. AND ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE TALKED ABOUT IS THAT, YOU KNOW, THE CHALLENGES THAT WE FACE IN, YOU KNOW, A LOT OF THE REGULATORY CONSTRAINTS IS THAT AS YOU WANT INVESTMENT, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A CATALYST TO DRIVE THE INVESTMENT. THE CURRENT CAPACITY WOULD BE FINE IF YOU JUST LEFT IT AS OF TODAY. BUT NO INVESTOR-OWNED UTILITY, NO COOPERATIVE-OWNED WATER ENTITY IS GOING TO JUST MAKE AN INVESTMENT WITHOUT ANY RETURN ON INVESTMENT. This project will serve as a catalyst for redevelopment for the entire area. It is a significant capital investment that's going to allow to create long-term revenues to continue to expand and grow the tax base for Dearborn County, but also grow the opportunities for the individuals living in Dearborn County and those that want to move here into the future. And we would never be able to just say to an electric provider, a gas provider, a water provider, go build me a $20 million plant with nothing there. And unfortunately, that's just the way our regulatory system is today. So you can't just put a substation, you can't just put a water plant, because at the end of the day, it's going to be past the taxpayers. By having this here, it's a catalyst that there's going to be an investment to return on that cost. It's not going to push it out to anybody else. And when we talk to the Indiana Public Service Commission, and we talked to all the utility regulatory boards. By getting this, it's an opportunity not only for our company to have the capacity if we choose to grow, but for Dearborn County as a whole to expand their economic base.

Mike, do you have an agreement with the different entities as far as participation and who's providing how many dollars? And is the company participating in the water infrastructure? You previously discussed that. And if so, at what level?

Yeah, it's an ongoing discussion with the company, so we are in the process of drafting an economic development agreement with Mr. Smart, Mr. Migdal, and the company to outline what their support of the water infrastructure investment could look like.

Is it a percentage or do you have a dollar amount?

There would be a formula component to it.

We're still doing general engineering studies to determine what the cost would be and what the capacity needs would be and how you could phase it and tranche it.

But you've got an idea how much the project's going to cost, right?

We have a very, very rough idea, but there is no official early preliminary engineering estimate we're just getting started on that with the redevelopment commission which is funded uh tri-township water to begin arriving at some of those answers here soon yeah so if if you've got to provide water you that has to be part of the agreement with the company right your bureau is that in the it's part of the economic development agreement yeah so so you're on the hook to provide the water but but

You don't know exactly. I mean, I guess is the company on the hook to participate? Or are you going to end up footing the bill? You know what I'm saying as far as...

It's an ongoing negotiation right now with the Economic Development Agreement, which is still being drafted. And we'll have to get the Redevelopment Commission and the company to agree on that ultimately, what exactly it looks like. So I don't have a great answer for you at this time, but it's an ongoing conversation.

I think the biggest challenge is...

So the answer to Glenn's question is you don't really have an answer yet. THE TOTAL ANSWER.

NOT A TOTAL ANSWER. YEAH. THE PROBLEM IS, IS WE STILL HAVE THE ENGINEERING ESTIMATES ARE GOING TO TAKE A LITTLE BIT LONGER THAN ANYONE ANTICIPATED. IF YOU LOOK AT THE CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE, THE CURRENT OPERATION OF WHAT WE WOULD NEED IN THE TIMELINE TO GET IT, WE WOULD HAVE A DELIVERY THAT WOULD BE THERE BASED ON THE CURRENT CAPACITY THAT'S THERE TODAY. UTILIZING THE CURRENT CAPACITY, IF WE WOULD HAVE THAT NUMBER, WE'D BE FINE WHEN WE FINISH CONSTRUCTION IN FOUR YEARS. BUT AS WE HAVE THIS TIME RAMP-UP PERIOD TO HIT THROUGH CONSTRUCTION, we'll have the ability to figure everything out. And as Mr. Proberg points out, we want to make sure the engineering estimates are tight and firm, and they're all tightened up. Originally, there was a proposed a loosey-goosey number of it could be arranged between this and this. And everybody that was involved didn't feel comfortable without knowing what the upper end was or what the lower end was. So everybody really wanted to get to a firm number. So by understanding that firm number through our construction phase, And also with the change of technology, because as we discussed a little bit earlier today, we tend to recycle a lot of the stuff that we use. So we don't even know our capacity based on the change of technology. What we do know is that there's a significant amount that's there today that can get us to this point. We've had consistent conversation with not only the state, we've had conversations with the Indiana Finance Authority, the US Economic Development Association, which is a federal government economic development association. MY CLIENT, THE COUNTY, THE REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, AND TRI-TOWNSHIP. EVERYBODY'S BEEN ENGAGED IN CONVERSATION, AND THE FIRST STEP WAS TO DO AN ENGINEERING SETTING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE TO DO IT. SO IT WAS UNDERSTANDING WHERE WE WOULD PUT THE STATION, UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE COST WOULD BE, WHETHER WE WERE GOING TO USE WELLS, HOW WE WERE GOING TO RUN THE TIGHT PIPING. WAS IT GOING TO BE A 12-INCH, AN 18-INCH? If not knowing what we were going to do, there really was no high end or low end. There's been conceptual conversations based on percentages and allocations, based on usage for future use and upcoming use, how tax revenue is going to pay it back. We actually figured out in the calculation as well, too, what the cost of water was if we needed to use the water, what the REVENUE-BASED WAS FOR TRI-TOWNSHIP. AS YOU KNOW, TRI-TOWNSHIP IS A COOPERATIVE OWNED, SO IT'S A MEMBER-OWNED WATER. SO THEY'RE SHARING IN THE COST. SO IF WE TAKE THAT AND PEEL BACK THE ONION, THERE COULD BE A PROFIT. THERE COULD BE ANOTHER WATER COMPANY THAT COULD COME IN. BUT WITHOUT KNOWING THE CERTAINTIES OF WHAT THE CAPACITY IS AVAILABLE, WHAT THAT ENGINEERING COST IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE, WHAT TYPE OF UTILITY LINES WE WANT TO USE AND WHAT TYPE OF PIPING LINES WE CAN DO, IT DOESN'T MEAN, IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER, BECAUSE THEN WE'RE JUST REALLY THROWING UP A NUMBER IN THE AIR. I THINK THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY MATTERS IS IF THEY DON'T COME, THEN THIS WATER IS NEVER GOING TO COME WHATSOEVER. AND THE MILLION DOLLARS FROM THE STATE GOES AWAY, THE CONTRIBUTION, WHICH IS A CONTRIBUTION FROM THE STATE, THEN CONTRIBUTION FROM OUR CLIENT, AND THEN EVERYBODY ELSE THAT'S COMING INTO PLAY. SO BY GETTING OUR PROJECT TO POTENTIALLY COME, AND IF WE COME, WE ISSUE THAT CATALYST THAT MOVES FORWARD AND ALLOWS ALL THIS TO OCCUR. BUT THE REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, TRITOWNSHIP WATER, THE STATE, AND EVERYBODY SAID, WE'RE NOT SPENDING ANY MONEY UNTIL WE KNOW THAT WE HAVE THIS PROJECT HERE, AND WE KNOW THAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO CONSTRUCTION FOR FOUR YEARS, AND WE GUARANTEE ALL THE PARTIES IN THE ROOM SITTING TOGETHER THAT WE'RE GOING TO WORK OUT A SOLUTION THAT'S FREE, I'M SORRY, THAT'S FAIR, ANY GOOD FOR EVERYBODY BASED ON THE ALLOCATION OF WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO USE AND WE'RE GOING TO FIND A WAY THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THAT WATER. BUT IF YOU TRY TO DO ANYTHING TODAY BASED ON WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO, YOU DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE CAPACITY BASED ON WHAT WE'RE HERE TODAY BECAUSE YOU HAVE A MUNICIPAL, I'M SORRY, CO-OP OWNED WATER AND THEN YOU HAVE A UTILITY THAT CAN'T DO ANYTHING FROM A REGULATORY STANDPOINT. The true catalyst really is this Project Compass. If Project Compass comes, then it really opens up the opportunity for your utilities, your water, your gas. But without it, it just sits what it is today. And when you start to think about it too, there's our taxes and revenue that come to the community by utilization of that. But it's also everybody else utilizing it and lowering the rate because you have the opportunity for more capacity for everybody else here in the community.

And given that the water situation is resolved, it doesn't delay the ability of this phase one to proceed, correct?

Yeah.

Anyone has any other questions?

What about fire and EMS service? I know we have a contract with Harrison.

They have a letter saying that there's provision for sewer.

Is there going to be, as far as contract price, Is there going to be any more expense to the taxpayers?

Not at this time, no. The commissioners just renewed the contract with Harrison.

There was a 6% increase year over year, and they mentioned this potential project as something they wanted to be kept abreast of. Every other service has given letters saying that they can provide their particular service for this project. The only fly in the ointment at this point is the water, and they've got enough CAPACITY FOR PHASE ONE, WHICH THEY PROBABLY WOULDN'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL THEY HAVE THE WHOLE THING KIND OF TIED DOWN, BUT THEY COULD ACTUALLY START ONCE THAT HAPPENS. SO PHASE ONE COULD START BEFORE THE ACTUAL ADDITIONAL WATER IS PROVIDED.

WELL, REMEMBER, TOO, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A 36-TO-48-MONTH CONSTRUCTION PERIOD.

RIGHT.

SO BY THE TIME THAT WE'RE DONE WITH THE CONSTRUCTION PERIOD, YOU'LL HAVE THAT ELEVATION OF EVERYONE FIGURING OUT WHAT ELSE YOU NEED. THE OTHER THING IS THAT ONE OF THE REASONS, TOO, TO GET BACK TO YOUR QUESTION, WHY WE REALLY HAVEN'T FIGURED ANYTHING OUT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE TO HAVE ELIGIBLE PERCENTAGES. AS WE START MAKING THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, WHO ELSE IS GOING TO COME AND WHO ELSE IS GOING TO DO ANYTHING? BECAUSE THAT MAY CHANGE THE CAPACITY OF WHAT IS NEEDED. AND BY HAVING CONVERSATION WITH THE INVESTOR ON UTILITY, They're curious as well, too, that if this project comes, what else do they want to put there and what type of investment do they want to make? Do they want to put a bigger substation? Do they want to earn more line? And then that conversation extends to the water and extends to the gas. So it's really kind of as we go through this construction period, if we come here and you see this ramp-up period throughout the entire time, you'll see those catalysts, other investors coming as well, too, which will change that scope. So by having an engineering estimate that's firm that shows us from what we could have today, what we could have best case, even worst case, and we're talking millions of gallons of water per day, and understanding what those tranches are and cost as we go over time, that as we go through the construction period, LAYING OUT THE INFRASTRUCTURE, THE PUMPING STATION AND THE ACTUAL WATER THAT WE WOULD NEED, THAT CAN ALWAYS INTERCHANGE AND PLAY, BUT IT'S REALLY UNDERSTANDING WHAT CAPACITY WE NEED AND HOW THAT CAPACITY CAN GET THERE AND WHAT THAT COST IS GOING TO BE BECAUSE, A, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A 48-MONTH CONSTRUCTION PERIOD. What something costs today, I don't think is going to be less than 48 months. So building in those inflation factors and everything goes up to update the cost factors. But if there's other users that are using it, then you're going to have the ability to potentially have a lower cost because there's going to be more contribution from other parties.

What effect does a 100-year floodplain have on this project?

Yeah, part of the property, the site being considered as a project, is within a 500-year floodplain, not 100-year. But I'm not very privy to the company's site plan or their grading plan for that. But it is something that they will have to address through their permitting and site work.

We've hired a world-renowned engineering construction firm to handle that. They've mitigated all those risks and understood everything. We've been doing due diligence on this site since February. This is not something we're coming to today, but we just looked at it. This site selection process has been going on since, I think, Keep me honest, like April of last year? I mean, it's been quite some time that we've been spending going around the country looking at other sites. So we've been working with Mike and his team, but also having engineering firms, geotechnical firms, everybody out there testing everything before we even would consider the site for consideration. There's been a tremendous amount of private dollars invested to do investigation on this site to completely understand any pitfalls or any risks that are there. We're at this point because we looked at every risk and adjusted every risk and rightfully so you brought up the water. This is something that I can tell you we've been talking about for the better part of three and a half months to understand and make sure that we are completely comfortable with the situation and what's going forward. And that has to do with the soils. It has to deal with the roads. It has to deal with the workforce. It has to deal with costs. And coming here today is kind of getting to a point of finality that we feel comfortable that we could move forward given the support of the community.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, I would consider a motion to approve Resolution 2026-007, the tax abatement for Project Compass. Is there a motion to approve the resolution?

I'll make that motion.

Thank you, Doug.

And I'd like to thank Juan Dearborn, Redevelopment, this council, commissioners. Cushman, Wakefield, everybody involved. This has been a lengthy process. I sit on redevelopment as a representative of council. So there's been a lot of work that's went into this, and I think it's time.

Thank you, Doug. Is there a second?

I second the motion.

We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

No.

No.

We have a roll call, please. Aye.

Glenn?

No.

Dennis? No. Mark?

Yes.

Tim? Yes. Doug?

Yes.

Motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I hope to see you in West Harrison and Dean. Thank you very much for being here.

Nice to meet you folks. Thanks for your time.

Next on our agenda is investment of public funds. Our treasurer. Yeah, let's do take a minute while we're all here and sign the, and there are two columns. One's a yes, we'll just give you a second. One column is for yes, and the other column is for nay. So be sure you sign in the right column.

What was the resolution number? I'm sorry.

007. 007.

Christine. Anthony.

So you're going to sign here. You can.

How are you doing?

GOOD MORNING.

GOOD MORNING. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? GOOD.

I'll take

it's right

Good morning.

I am Haley Hatfield. I am the treasurer.

So every four years we just have to renew the county investment policy.

Just stating that we're going to abide by all the IC codes regarding our funds. Andy had prepared it. I didn't tweak anything from the past. Connie had emailed this to all of you to just peruse. I just was coming for a signature. It basically just states that our investments will be according to the IC codes, that I will report all of the investments every year at the annual board of finance meeting. It talks about the safety and the liquidity of our investments. Did anybody not read through it? Do you have any questions?

I'm pretty sure it's pretty much boilerplate.

It is, yes.

Do we need a resolution, I mean a motion, Connie, or do we just need to sign it? I think you need a motion. Okay, is there a motion to approve the investment of public funds?

So moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Any conversation? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Is there something for us to sign? Yes. We'd like to just sign it while we're all right here.

Absolutely. And we don't lose track. See, I was easy. Thank you, guys.

Do you get a copy of this too, Connie?

Yes.

So you don't need original signatures on yours? Oh, she's got two sets.

No, I'll just take a copy.

Okay.

Or she'll send a copy to me.

Okay. Tim, you're next if you want to head on up. We're running a little behind schedule today. It's kind of bad when you're just starting and you're already a little bit behind.

It is a Monday morning. It is a Monday morning. Yes, it is.

And, of course, we're tearing up.

Oh, I know.

It's not ideal. Here. Here.

Okay, so your first item is for two trucks, and it's a transfer of funds from one fund to another.

Yes, it's just a transfer, and that's what mine is, and then Todd will handle the rest.

So you're asking to transfer the funds from... Yeah, it's an LRS to that account in LRS... So basically it's just a transfer within the IRS from one fund to the other from the 10 minutes to purchase equipment. And it allows them to have two new trucks that next year would cost an additional almost $34,000.

Those are like foreman trucks or something?

No, those would be dump trucks.

Oh, yeah?

Well, here's the whole scenario here. The trucks are going to cost $224,000. We're going to use Todd's $60,000. He has his equipment fund towards this. And then we moved the $154,000. And then I have almost $10,000 left in that account. So that covers the $224,000 so I can purchase the trucks.

What's the total for the trucks, for the two trucks?

The two trucks, these are chassis now, just for the chassis. It's $224,438.32. And Todd, you're agreeable.

And then we just bought two trucks last year that weren't in the budget too, right?

Yes, we did.

Yes, we did.

So we need... We're trying... There are several reasons. I don't want to bore you to death since you're running late, but there are several reasons. By saving money because the emissions are changing January 1st, the emissions are changing again. So the tried and true L9 Cummins engine that's been around for a long time, and we have several great engines, they're going away. and they're coming out with a brand new engine, brand new emissions, and more money. So we thought it would behoove us to maybe get a couple more trucks to improve our fleet, and now we'll be in pretty good shape. You know, we may not buy trucks next year.

So you say chassis only, can you use existing?

No, we'll be, I have, we'll be, The idea is when these trucks come in, then I'll have my budget money for next year. That we'll talk about tomorrow. And that money will pay for the beds and the plows and all that stuff. This is just for the chassis zone.

Is this like with the trade-in, or what do you do?

No, they're not trade-in. They're just bought outright. Then we'll have an auction again. But our stuff's pretty rough. I mean, we keep trucks 20 years. Most people don't do that. Most people are 10 or 12 and out, and we keep trucks 20 years. So 20 year lifespan on assault trucks, pretty.

So how many trucks will this take us to now, Tim?

Be like a total like 24 probably with all of them.

The one time we're doing two a year, that's 12 years to replace your whole fleet.

Well, what happened, we got behind because of the COVID thing. Couldn't get trucks. And we couldn't get any. And actually we bought a couple. I found a used one. That helped us. A decent used one. But that don't always come along either. You get a decent used one.

I'll make a motion to transfer these funds as requested.

Is there a second? Doug, do you second? Second. Is there a motion and a second?

I'll add.

Tim made the motion. Doug seconded. And that's what I heard.

It doesn't matter. Whoever wants to do it.

Is there a question about this? I think Lynn's seconded. Okay. Is that correct?

That's fine.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Motion passes. Next you've got, this is Todd next, I guess.

Thank you. Thank you. Say one more.

Every little bit helps. Thank you. Okay, Todd, yours are transfers as well, right?

Most of it. The first few. The first one, yes. The first one we're going to talk about would be, I don't know, how's the list look like?

We've got Lower Dillsboro, St. Peter's.

okay okay so the first the first one is we got federal aid money 80 20 for the replacements of bridge 73 and uh 218 218 being lower dillsboro road bridge 73 of st peter's road what i need is just some seed money to go ahead and get the process started since it's a reimbursement As that project develops, we'll have to add more funds to that account as we go through the years. But for now, I just need the seed money to go ahead and start the design PE phase of the project. The PE phases are approximately a little over $500,000 a piece. So 80% or 20% of that is... $500,000 for the engineering? That's just the engineering. That's not the construction or right-of-way utilities or anything else. That's just the engineering cost. The contracts have been signed. They were agreed to by NDOT. It fits within the NDOT schedule. A lot of it has to do with the environmental requirements that we have to do and the studies they have to do with environmental as well as the design. So with that being said, We're trying to go ahead, and I'm going to transfer money that's already in the lower deals for a slide job. That project came under estimates, so we didn't need as much money in that account when we bid it. Therefore, there's money available to go ahead and make the transfer. So I'm asking for $100,000 apiece to be transferred to bridge 218 and bridge 73, and that way those it'll keep everything separate so those contracts as it goes through.

I move we approve the transfers for bridge 218 and bridge 73.

Thank you, Mark. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dan. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Now we're on to paving.

The next one is paving. We set aside an amount of money that we thought we were going to get through community crossings. However, community crossings did not come through this past year. They cut way back on the amount of money. So, what I'd like to do is take the community crossing money that we had in there, that was for share with paving and put it towards the two minutes paving so I can still spend that money on paving it's just no match money to go with it but at least that we can do an additional since we set that money up for paving we take that money and still use it for paving it'll be for a contract for next year's I think that's a good plan is there a motion to approve this transfer don't move second that you do yes please any discussion

ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE. AYE. MOTION PASSES. BRIDGE 82.

BRIDGE 82 IS HIGHLAND ROAD. IF EVERYBODY'S FAMILIAR WITH HIGHLAND ROAD, YOU LEAVE STATE ROAD ONE, YOU GO OVER THE FIRST HILL AND YOU GO DOWN, YOU GOT THE LITTLE STRUCTURE BRIDGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT per se, is for looked at cost-wise. The best thing we can do is look at that as doing some replacing that structure, some widening that structure to help the safety a little bit of structure. But there's just no way I can spend the funds. People are asking you to raise it, try to take some of the humps out. Funding doesn't exist for that. I looked at that as a possibility for a future federal aid project, but it just doesn't fit the nature for an 80-20 federal aid. So what I'd like to do is go ahead and start and get a consultant in and do it in-house. which we have to do a mixture in-house of federal aid. There are certain ones that fit federal aid. You can't do everything that needs to replace federal aid. Money doesn't exist. We're not going to get all the money from the feds. So you have to pick and choose which ones you do yourself and which ones you do.

Is this $250,000 enough for the engineering and the actual construction?

This is just engineering. This is just the engineering. Now, you see the difference is that's about half of what I would have to spend on the federal aid side because all the federal aid requirements are so much more than what we're required to do locally. But when you look at it, 80% of $500,000 to $100,000, this is total, our cost at $250,000.

You use the same guys all the time on these bridges?

No. No, we've got, I think I've looked at, somebody's asked me that before. I think in my 20, just starting my 21st year, just the other day was my, Saturday was my anniversary of 20, 21 years here, or 20 years here.

Great years.

21 years here, sorry. Starting my 22nd year. I THINK I'VE USED 24 DIFFERENT CONSULTANTS IN MY 20-SOME YEARS HERE. NO, AS YOU'RE SAYING, IS IT THE SAME CONSULTANTS? NO. IS THERE A GROUP OF CONSULTANTS THAT DO THIS WORK? YES. BUT I ALSO LOOK AT WHICH ONES, WHEN THIS IS OURS, WHEN I DO SELECTIONS FOR CONSULTANTS, It's quality based. You select your consultant, then you negotiate a contract.

So that's part of the reason why it's a little higher too.

Here I can negotiate cost because it's our own funds. We can negotiate cost up front. So we also get a little bit better pricing because I can negotiate cost up front with consultants.

Todd, I know you used to have a lot of luck with, I think it was FPBH, and I think they were acquired by, is it Gonzalez maybe?

Yeah, they do the smaller stuff. So they do a lot of our smaller stuff. So they just, and Civilcon. So a lot of like the smaller structures that we're going to talk about in a little bit, the smaller type bridges that we do locally funded, a lot of those get done with Gonzales and FPB, or Gonzales and Civilcon.

Landwater used to be one of the little ones that are no longer in existence.

So yeah, we try to, so they don't have the overhead that the big firms that do all the federal aid requirements, but they don't have as many people and they can't do all the environmental stuff that they don't require on our local projects that are required on the federal aid project.

When you come for your budget, will you bring your list of your bridges and small structures and stuff? Correct.

Is there a motion to approve this transfer from bridge 82?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion passes. Now highway additionals is next.

Okay. These are your small structures. Okay. These are the looks like a bridge, smells like a bridge that need replacement throughout the county.

Is all this engineering also?

What's that?

Is all this just engineering?

All of this is just engineering. Okay. But again, they're smaller in scale, so they're not near as much as the one up there, the bridge. Because they're small structures, they're smaller in scale. Again, these are all designed. These are all structures that are bigger than Tim. crews can do the pipe structures are to be a contract to be let in the future and these are just to go ahead and start to and these would be more in line with you talk about the fpbh's gonzalez now and civil con doing small structure designs right now i'm in the process of buying right away for small structures with andy because we do all our buying in-house for their small structures to try to keep our costs down so we'll be coming back in the future for some additional funds some you've already funded once i get the right away we can build some of the other ones ought to come back and get additional funds for the construction side of it so all together these are 470 000 out of your 4916 account correct and we have enough you have 2.7 in there it looks like so

We can do this as one motion. Is there a motion to approve these additionals out of 916? I move. Second. Is there a second? Thank you, Glenn. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you, Todd.

Thank you very much. Any other questions for me?

Thank you, gentlemen. Is someone presenting for the veterans?

That's why I want to see this list, to see which ones are queued up in what stage.

While Leah's making her way here, I just want to mention that we did get a thank you note to County Council. Tim, you got a thank you note from St. Louis. of Health Care and Dearborn Cancer Center, appreciating our donation to that cancer center.

Just want to make you aware. Basically, both requests from the veteran service officer is there's more trainings, and since he has another part-time person in with him, they just need some more money to go to the trainings and pay for their subscriptions. We've had a lot of changes in there this year, too.

I move we approve the $1,000 additional for veteran services.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion for the two items passed. Next is Superior 2, additional money for public defender. We don't really have a whole lot of choice, but something like this. This is out of County General. It's $45,000. The judge marked that it is required by law. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Surveyor needs... This is a two-part request. There's a truck that apparently is like 15 or 20 or 500 years old or whatever. And so the choice is to either try to repair this old, old truck for $50,000 or out of county general, partly with his corner fund, 30 out of county general, 25 out of his corner perpetuation fund to purchase a new vehicle for $55,000.

I just wanted to, you said $50,000 for $5,000 for the repair.

Yeah, the repair is $5,000. The vehicle is, I think it's like at least $55,000. Okay. And then the new one, he would ask for $30,000 out of county general and $25,000 out of his corner perpetuation fund. So it's one or the other. Okay. vehicles are sometimes hard to find. My personal, I'm not really crazy about sending that much money, but it might be smart to buy a new one rather than fix a really, really old one.

Yeah. Did you have anything you wanted to add?

You said it came out on fire.

Pretty much it was like smoking out of the open air.

So is that your motion to approve the $55,000? I'll second.

Who did first?

Me. Dan. Dan. Do we need to, I'm sorry, finish that one first.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Motion passes. Do we need to vote down this other one then or does it just go away, the $5,000 repair?

We can vote to deny. Is a motion to deny?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Deny. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Who seconded the vehicle purchase? Dan made the motion. Glenn. Glenn. Thank you.

So what was the other one? The $5,000. The $5,000. Yeah, but who did it?

Tim and Mark.

Okay, so next is Sheriff, Holiday Pay.

We have moved every bit of money that's free that they have. There's no more meat on the bone to move.

Okay, so the sheriff and the jail both need holiday pay. Yes. We'll only do them separately because they're different funds. So although it's not required by law, I think that our citizens are expected to be protected. Is there a motion to approve the holiday pay request from the sheriff for a total of $43,060? Did you make the motion?

Can I ask a quick question? Is this underfunded because of overtime, or did we just not fund it to the appropriate level?

I think they've left it the same amount for years through budget, and it's finally catching up with salary increases, and they're actually fully staffed right now, too.

Okay.

Thank you.

We have a motion to approve by Dennis. Is there a second?

Second.

Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Additional money out of correctional or jail lit for holiday pay for matrix of poison in the jail. Request for $65,367. Any questions for Leah?

Move we approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

We need a roll call vote. I didn't catch that. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay, motion passes unanimously. I didn't hear another. That's okay. And the next one is also an additional from the jail for part-time in the amount of $53,826 out of the jail lit. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Next is maintenance. Glass around the jail booking area for 26 out of June cap.

Is that over here?

No, the jail.

The jail. I thought they just did that.

I don't know if it's... I don't know where in the jail exactly.

You can't even see them in there.

It's around the booking area.

Yeah, that's all he... You walk in there, you can't even see if someone's sitting back there. I'm trying to stay away from there. Well, sometimes work puts me in there.

Yeah, you're making deliveries. You're not being booked. Is there a motion to approve this for, this is out of CUMCAP, $26,550 for the glass? I'll make the motion. Thank you, Dan. Is there a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Dennis. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Community corrections user fee, they're asking for $26,913 for part-time employees for the rest of the year. And this is out of a user fee fund for a total of $26,913. Any questions for Leah? If not, is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion at all? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Next we have the health department, Ms. Rhodes.

SO I DIDN'T KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO ELABORATE ON EXACTLY WHAT WE'RE DOING. ADDITIONAL, SORRY.

OKAY, IN THESE FUNDS, THERE'S PLENTY OF MONEY IN THESE FUNDS. SO THERE IS A DESCRIPTION OF EVERY REQUEST. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FOR MS. ROSE ABOUT ANY OF THESE? THERE ARE SEVERAL. in here. Is the new location working out pretty well? We love it. I mean, is the public responding?

Oh, yeah. We just did counts, people counts, because we've been there for a year and some change. We saw more people in that year and some change than we did the last five years in this building. Seriously? Because it's easily accessible, our seniors can walk straight in, you know, and people don't have to take their baby out of the the seat and put it back in the seat. We just got people who are lost a lot of time to find us down there. But yeah, it's been phenomenal. Plus, we're in an actual clinic space, so we're able to do a lot more than we were here. We have later hours. We're open until 7 on Wednesdays. And then, of course, our bus is parked there, so people see us all the time. But yeah, it's been...

Is there anyone in the upstairs currently?

No, but someone's looking to purchase it. I don't know the specifics because we're just a leasee there.

They're looking to purchase the entire building? Yeah. Okay. So are the commissioners aware of that?

Well, I just found out Friday, like Friday afternoon, these people showed up and said, hey, we're looking to buy this building. That was all I knew about it.

I think it might be important to have a conversation with Dr. E and yourself with the commissioners on it.

As you see on here, we had to pull up more for our utilities because there wasn't really a baseline, but there's issues with the utilities there. So if they do purchase it, something's gonna i don't know if they'll have to rewire or whatever but you can't split up the utilities from top and bottom so i mean we've had some instances where power's been turned off and we've had to call large utilities out multiple times it's because of the internal wiring of the building not anything anyone else is doing so i'm trying to split off the bill It's shed some light on some real issues inside that building as far as how it's wired.

So these are all out of fund 1161. Can we do a single motion to approve all of these for the health department?

Motion to approve.

To approve all of them? Yeah. Thank you, Tim. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Glenn. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion passes.

And I'll just note that in our lease agreement, it's a 10-year lease agreement. It does allow the lessor to assign the lease to someone else, but it is in there that it does not affect the terms of the lease if they assign it to someone else. So if the building were to be sold, it would be assigned to the new owner, but our lease would continue.

And they have to honor that.

Perfect. Good job.

Sometimes it pays to have attorneys. Usually it costs.

This is one of those five, yes.

Did we vote on that?

Yes.

We're good. Thank you. Thank you guys so much.

Thanks, Amy.

Thanks for what you're doing for the people of Dearborn County. Thank you. Auditor is next. We have a request from the court board for equipment. It's just a formality. UC is giving them health equipment. They're not asking for funds. It's just us agreeing to let them install the equipment there.

And the money doesn't come in or go out. They go ahead and pay for their equipment. Right. And that's what this is. So there's no cost to the county? Yeah.

It's just equipment at Bright Meadows Park.

And we want to do a resolution. for the park board and the grant paperwork, just to cover our own butts.

Does anyone have any questions for Connie about this?

Is this resolution for that equipment or is that a separate resolution?

UC... No, University of Cincinnati. UC Cincinnati Health and the National Fitness Campaign.

It's for the exercise equipment. I'll make a motion to approve.

The resolution and for the grant? Yes. Thank you, Tim. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Thank you, Mark. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. And let's all sign this and we'll wait a minute until this is done.

You guys had to be writing fast out there today, typing fast out there today.

Susan, we won't be too much longer. We're a little bit behind schedule today. But we've been paddling fast.

This is the only one that has to sign this. Sorry.

.

. . .

So is Mary Street going to be available for parking tomorrow or not? Well, they might start.

They were supposed to do it today and tomorrow.

Tim said they were going to do it tomorrow.

So the earliest we can park on there is Wednesday. Maybe. As tempting as that is.

Well, for all we've had to do.

One spot on there or two? Just one.

Got it.

HOW WAS ONE OF THEM?

THAT WAS THE LAST PAGE OF ONE OF THEM.

Next is the ordinance for the use of a quarter's perpetuation fund for budget, and that's to use it for training and such. Yeah, we definitely do, but you want to just give us a cliff-nuts explanation?

that she just budgeted to use her perpetuation fund to supplement her budget.

And that helps County General quite a bit. Is there a motion to approve this ordinance?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. We'll need to sign that, correct? Yeah. Okay. I got it here. So we will sign that, and the next will be minutes before email to us.

And you had a special meeting in there too, so you have two sets of minutes, if you can do them both. It's for Joyce to use her perpetuation fund.

We pass that ordinance.

Yep, no problem. Then do you want to do, it's July 7th, which is your executive session and special meeting, and then May 6th, meeting minutes.

Is there a motion to approve both sets of minutes?

So moved.

second i'll second any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye motion passes both sets of minutes are approved and the next will be a salary ordinance and that will also require signatures and leah has a bunch of stuff for you to sign so Every time we're transferring funds. If the minutes don't suffice for that, that just seems silly.

What, salary ordinance?

No, every little fund that we've got to sign for. It seems like the minutes all suffice.

Well, it used to, but you're supposed to do an ordinance. Did you want to vote on that salary ordinance?

We need a motion to adopt the salary ordinance.

So moved.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Now that requires signatures. Yeah, she'll get it. She's got a bunch of stuff.

And then I need you to sign the minutes.

Keep her straight, keep her straight.

It's new.

We're going to come with popcorn.

Yes. I think that's a very good idea. I hate to make Susan wait, but... I know. Another three minutes and we can't do this.

That's just 10 minutes. Are you OK, Susan? We're fine, Kevin.

We're fine. No problem.

I need to give you a stamp. You ain't gonna call me in a week to tell me to get my ass down.

I'm gonna double check on where you're at.

Andy, I assume when you were going home to get your Kroger delivery, you were going to bring us some breakfast foods or some snacks?

You know, when Dave Lusby was sheriff, he had coffee and orange juice and stuff like that every morning. Just saying. Dennis is probably the only one you and I, well, Dan would have been on back then.

I don't think so

So I printed out one circuit right from your court, so you guys want to look through this. Each of you look through it and pass it down.

You already seen it? Yes.

Did anybody want to look at this hard copy? I got one here. Oh, goodness. Is that your first?

No, it's the third. Oh, for heaven's sake. Second. They have a hard time concentrating on writing that small. I know.

You need something to bellyache about. I made my wife get a non-click.

I brought you something over there.

I've seen you with a clicker. I got two of them. She said, does it?

I do that.

I've got one today.

She said it drives Leah crazy. She's like, does it drive you crazy too when you shake your head and bounce up?

Okay, is that all the paperwork we need to sign?

Are there any late arrivals? Seeing none, I'll accept a motion to adjourn, please. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Motion is done. I need a restroom break.

We're going to take a three to four minute break, please.

Thank you. Oh, you need to go now? Well, as soon as we all get back, we're going to get to your information.

It never stops. So it's up to you.

Okay, I want to hear it.

Does Paige still work with you? Oh, yeah, I work at Paige exclusively.

I will sure yeah okay yeah I see as much as I can that's kind of hard because we are always at different meetings and doing different stuff 86 year old Joby was asking me about the LA open I know I said they haven't drawn teams yet he said he's 86 this week oh really He said, man, I'm still just doing a bunch of the state work. I said, Joe, because everybody you ever wrote a will for, you're living longer than him.

Yeah. Yeah, he's straight as an arrow.

He's straight as an arrow. He played at IU when Nicholas was at Ohio State. Oh, right.

I didn't know that. I'll send it to you.

Did you see the flyers that were going around in Aurora? Yeah. Calling on Swing to resign, calling him a drunk and all that stuff. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, somebody's been posting flyers.

It's one guy. Yeah. I was seeing Pat at the Ice House Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How are you?

Good, how are you? Good.

I was seeing you on Facebook about Aurora this weekend.

Me and Connie?

Sure.

Oh, just to chime in. I don't think he signed it.

So Roe Collins played golf at IU at the same time as Nicholas B.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

likes the name yeah there's no sealer to it so so you have to put it in like yeah so it's almost like a membrane on the outside and it kind of like It self-heals if there's small scratches, but you don't want it to get scratched up, so you've got to be very delicate with it. But there's rubber gaskets where they come together, and it fastens mechanically versus steel where we'll weld it.

One of the rubber gaskets got already out of position, so it was leaking real bad as well.

I forgot about that ordinance to update the copying fees and stuff. No, remember, I sent out the one. The statute changed this year, and so they gave us a lot more tools for public record requests, and I said, oh, well, we should take this time to go ahead and update 3704. And I sent it to you and Connie, but that's all I sent it to. I didn't send it to everybody else. So I'll just send it out to everybody. You guys can handle it at your November meeting. It's not a big deal. I mean...

It's not super pressing. Oh, like your adoption here?

Right.

I got it pulled up, so I'll send it out to everybody. It's not a huge deal. Because the state statute is going to dictate anyway. It's just updating our own book.

This about went down in your bag up there earlier.

Nope, this will be fine. Thank you.

Susan, you don't have any extra copies of this, do you? I've got one. If you wouldn't mind, when you're done, would you leave it just for future council members so they can kind of see what we've looked at this year?

Sure. I can send it to Connie electronically, too. Okay. Do you have one for Connie today? Yeah, Connie and I have one. Okay. Thank you. All right.

Thank you very much. Don't have too much fun.

Take care, my friend.

thank you susan appreciate you sure thank you welcome ready yes okay great good morning council pleasure to be here again this year um got some budget information for you i'm going to start out with some brief legislative information the last couple years has been a lot of legislative changes I want to hit the high points on some things that changed from last year and a few things that were new this year. So last year, the big bill that everybody talked about was SEA 1. This year, it was House Enrolled Act 1210. So they didn't change the basic, or they didn't revise the basic changes that were made to property tax collections last year, which was changing from a to change the amounts of the homestead deduction and the supplemental homestead deduction and they added a supplemental homestead credit. They didn't change that. They've added some additional credits for veterans and those that are disabled. Those are shown on the first page where it says property tax changes. We don't expect these to have the huge impact that the supplemental change had this year. just because these credits don't impact a huge population. There's a smaller population that they impact. There were changes made to local income tax as well on page two. So if you remember last year, you were supposed to be adopting new lit rates next summer to take place January 1, 2028. That's been pushed back a year, I think largely because the Department of Revenue was having issues determining AGI on a per community basis rather than on a county-wide basis. It's our understanding they are still nowhere near done with that. But so now that's pushed back a year. So not next year, but in 2028, you will be going through the process as a county council to adopt new local income tax rates. The DLGF clarified in their memo on July 17 that whereas it was originally inferred that you would immediately begin collecting in 2029 based upon those new rates, you actually will not collect based upon the new rates until 2030. So in 2029, you said everything in lit happens a year in arrears. We thought they were the way it was written. They were going to use the trust fund to supplement it, but no, they are going to, whatever is collected actually in 2028 will be distributed in 2029. So that will still be on the portion. Uh, your, your portion is equivalent to your proportion of the entire county's levy. So if the county unit has say 30% of all the levy in the county, YOU GET ROUGHLY 30% OF THE CERTIFIED SHARES. YOU GET THEN WHATEVER THE PORTION IS RELATIVE TO YOUR LEVY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY AND OTHER TYPES AS WELL. SO NOW THE NEW POPULATION-BASED COLLECTION AND ALLOCATION DOESN'T START. YOU ACTUALLY, PEOPLE WILL BE TAXED ON IT IN 2029, BUT YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE IT AS A COUNTY UNTIL 2030. House and World Act 1210 also created this year something called a multi-unit strategic task force or a must that is they're basically asking for input from counties and municipalities on what you think your local income tax would look like adoption wise in 2028 for 2029. So it's a non-binding exercise. It's basically by December 1st, you have to form the must and have your first meeting on or before October 1st, and then prepare a report to send to the DLGF, which will then go to the legislators by December 1st with recommendations and comments. For example, one county they did it immediately when this must was create uh ability create the must happened and they said this doesn't work for us at all we don't like this we want to go back to you know they gave basically an alternative plan so know that you can say if you do if you choose to form the must you can say kind of whatever you need to say or whatever your municipalities need to say knowing that it may not be actually possible in the future and you will have to conform to whatever comes out of this next legislative session. Because next year is another biennial budget year, so we are expecting significant changes again potentially next year. So, you know, change, change again, change again. That's one thing we can kind of count on, I think.

It's something that Tim and I went to the state called meeting and something we discussed. is the futility of having a must. We have gotten preliminary numbers from AIC that shows that Devon County at the 1.2 will be fine, even though we lose 25% of our filers don't pay into Dearborn County Lit, that even with that factored in, it looks like we'd be okay at .9. I think I would adopt at one point instead of just under the fence. So the 1.2 works for us. I don't think there's a municipality within Dearborn County that couldn't live with the formula that's currently adopted. But all that's so much subject to change yet again. It is.

to me i don't i don't see the point in having a must meeting so yeah like i said we went to the state called meeting we also participated in the the uh regional just the district meeting virtually policy analytics just for council's knowledge is a company they brought in to actually put together a spreadsheet that we could interact with as a council body that we can manipulate all the different rates and send to the auditors and see how that yes so it's been given to the economy we haven't had the opportunity to do that but that's been put together on behalf of council Similarly, the mayors have their own version that they have somebody else who put together a version for themselves. So we've had some, you know, I've had some conversations with lots of different people about what this might look like, but there's been no energy towards let's do a must committee.

And AIC has made it very, very clear that this, they paid for policy analytics. So AIM or anyone else is not supposed to be able to have access to that information.

There's only one user per county that has access. Do the towns, like cities, mayors, you said?

You can manipulate that to get the different scenarios.

Can't they do whatever we do? The Accelerate Indiana Municipalities sent their municipalities all information as well. And we've seen estimates from both sides. We don't have hard copies, but we've seen estimates. We also have estimates because we are, AIC's goal is working with counties to make the counties whole. AIM is working with the municipalities to make the municipalities whole. We are working so that you can create a view of all units, libraries, townships, if you've got fire, because there's a new fire in EMS that's not been there before. So we have estimates for all types to determine what you know what may need to be done because in some cases some units don't know what other units are doing they don't understand what fire contracts and how those are being paid and if you don't give townships sufficient local income tax in the future they may not be able to pay fire contracts or do volunteer fire departments you know need so some of those those cross community needs are being met with the must because they haven't all been in the room. We also find a lot of units don't understand what's going on. We are already. We are working with a number of counties. I mean, and granted obviously that's every county's choice and not every county is doing a full-blown must. Some of them are doing like an informational meeting and then nothing more. Some of them are on the third or fourth meeting already talking about it. they're they see it as an opportunity to come together and get common goals on the table where they haven't really had the purpose to do or a reason to do this before they think it's important to do that but it obviously it's up to every county what they think but to your point this has been pushed back to adopt in 28 to implement in 29 we've got some time if a must committee was formed it's really just to inform our legislators right going back into the legislative session because i think they're getting a lot of random comments and hallways and emails and things like that and this is a way to put things in writing and say, this doesn't work for us anymore. In some cases, because going forward, there's no local income tax for schools. Some communities believe there should still be some allocation.

That's only the Cajet counties, right?

Right, yeah. They still believe there should be some, and that's a way for them to formalize. We believe in our schools being successful, and we think continuing to provide local income tax.

Our schools don't get any of that.

Your schools here don't get it, correct. Correct. So yeah, it would just be certain Cajet counties that do that. I mean, there's a million different reasons to do or to not do it. No worries.

I think our two legislators are aware of where our thoughts are.

OK. OK. So they did change, the first adoption is a three year adoption for lit. So you would be taxing in 29, 30, and 31 on what's adopted in 28. Then you can change it after that. It changes the population on the fire and EMS led if you choose to do that. Also makes clear that counties, the counties are paying for EMS service, whether you have a countywide EMS or you have a contractual EMS service, that you can keep a portion of the fire and EMS lit for the county to use for that. The previous version, it was not clear that the county could retain a portion of the fire and EMS lit. The structure changed slightly because now any municipality can opt into a countywide municipal rate regardless of population. Previously, anybody 3,500 and above WAS GOING TO DO THEIR OWN, BUT UP TO 7,000 PEOPLE COULD SAY THEY WANTED TO BE PART OF THE COUNTY. NOW ANY MUNICIPALITY OF ANY POPULATION CAN BE PART OF THE COUNTY-WIDE RATE. THE POPULATION CUT OFF FOR ADOPTING THEIR OWN IS STILL 3,500, THOUGH. SO IF A MUNICIPAL IS 3,500 OR OVER, THEY CAN ADOPT THEIR OWN. or they can petition to be a part of the current system.

But unlike the current system, we wouldn't give up part of our 1.2 potential.

No, right. That's an improvement. And in fact, depending upon who chooses to take part, counties receive a portion of the municipal lit. So if you have just the small communities taking part, a portion of that goes to the county. And when I say small communities, you can, potentially, depending upon how large the larger communities are, still receive a portion. But generally, the bigger the communities that take part in that countywide rate, the less the county receives of the countywide municipal. You still have your separate up to 1.2 that you don't share with anybody. Yeah, that's correct.

That's in a locked box? Yes.

I think the cities, I think that Lawrenceburg and Greenville both have 5,000, maybe 4,000 in Greendell. Aurora, what about? They just missed it by like 21 people.

Because they're using the 2020 census. Even if they've grown since 2020, they can't take advantage of it. I knew Aurora was on the cusp.

They fell under 35.

The problem that we see is a lot of municipalities, when they do the calculation, since we don't have information from the Department of Revenue on specifically what the AGI is within their city boundaries. It's all estimated based upon census data, but a lot of municipalities don't have the AGI within their boundaries to get the amount that they were receiving before.

What's a town like Dillsboro when I do?

They're going to be... They're going to have to be part of the county-wide rate, whatever the county chooses to adopt for them.

Anything 3,500 and under falls in that category.

And, Dan, the thing from policy analytics, we can literally go down to every line item and say, okay, if we put half of a percent here and then divvy up all these portions, all the different cities, we can see what they're currently getting, and if we did this, what they would get to see if there's a net change one way or the other. So it's a super powerful tool, and we need to get with Connie when she has access to that to get some eyes on it. I think we do have access to it, isn't it?

But it is a little bit premature because it doesn't go into effect for a few years, and they are going to be in session in January and probably change everything again.

Okay, no problem.

So on the next page, page four, other legislation this year, they certified the max levy growth portion at 6%. It was not limited this year during legislative session, so you are getting 6% growth in your max levy. for your revenues this year. We don't know if they'll put the 4% cap back in next year. Who knows? But for right now, we're up there at 6%. That's the maximum it can ever be, is 6%. There were some changes made to how you handle and how you deposit and where you deposit your supplemental motor vehicle taxes. In the past, any fund that received property tax also received a portion of supplemental motor vehicle taxes, what's called vehicle excise, commercial vehicle excise, and financial institutions tax. The first two are paid when individuals go put plates on their license, their other trucks, their cars, their boats, their planes, whatever. A portion of that stays with the county, and it is distributed based upon relative proportion of levy for each of those. They've always followed the type of property tax. So General got some, Health got some, CCD got some, Cambridge got some. Starting last year, they took the two smaller distributions, which is the financial institutions tax and the commercial vehicle excise tax, and by default are rolling those into the general fund. So that means in 25, and right now in 26, general is receiving its motor vehicle excise plus all of the fit and commercial vehicle excise from all of the other funds. And that is what DLGF is considering the default action. If you want to do something other than that, meaning put it someplace else, like you can put it in, the legislation says you can technically put it in any fund you want. You could put it in your rainy day fund. You could choose to put it all in some other fund. But if you choose to do anything other than general, you need to at least have a vote in minutes to show that you've chosen to do something else so that your auditors know, your State Board of Accounts auditors know where that revenue is going.

So we can leave it?

You can leave it just the way it is.

And if there was a vote, is there a deadline, Susan, on when that vote has to be?

before the year. So this year, I don't think you can make a vote to affect this year. You could make a vote to affect next year because next year all of the vehicle excise will also be moved to the general fund. So CCD will no longer get excise bridge will no longer get excise and that was the larger portion of the supplemental revenues that you received and so we are the numbers that we're giving you here show everything rolling into general assuming that's where you were going to do it so it would be nice because that way general purpose revenue you can use it wherever you want for however you know whatever you want so and that's that second course portion that motor vehicle excise part takes effect January 127 Couple other items related to your revenues. I'm sure you heard last week that the governor extended the gas tax holiday for another month. So that's creating some uncertainty in your monthly revenues currently. state got together the legislative committee got together and has reimbursed at least part of what you've lost so far they've reimbursed the reductions would have been for April and May these revenues come in about two months behind as well between a month and a half to two months this is your motor vehicle highway and local road and street So it looks like this year is running a little bit short, even though they will likely at their next meeting the end of this month opt to go ahead and reimburse then the June and July potentially revenue loss. And they say that everything will be If they're going to do subsequent reimbursements, everything will be completed by November 1st. So you will end the end of the year relatively whole on your local road and street. So what that means, or your motor vehicle. So your monthly receipts that you're getting in now are less, about 53% of what you brought in the same time last year. but they're just supplementing it with money from the state's reserves. Because it doesn't go to just municipal units. There's other state units that were short on revenue as well. So rather than just focus on state, they have made the local units, or their goal is to make the local units.

Well, there's some question whether the governor had the authority to extend it in August. That could be dicey.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, that gets tied up in the court.

Yeah, if anything happens with that.

Then we're going to be, that August distribution could be in limbo for who knows how long.

Yeah, until they get the reimbursement done. Stupid. Yeah. So because I think they said that because technically if you're September, if things are cleared up and this is stopped by September, Two months later is when you would receive those revenues roughly from September. So by November is when they would try to have all the loose ends tied up. But yeah, if something got caught in a court case, that could potentially postpone it. There were changes also this year to how building permits are to be receded. So currently building permits in most cases and in your case go into your general fund. Going forward, there are stricter enforcements on how much you can raise your fees for building permits at any point. And by segregating this money into its own fund, the point is to determine whether or not the fees you are charging are making that a self-sustainable activity. In most cases, you're not. But so in 2027, you have to put any building permit that would have normally gone in your general fund in a separate fund, 1240. building permits and fees. Then if you want to increase your building fees, they're going to look at these revenues and say, now, wait a minute. We see that you're only, you know, your revenue stream is this, but your expense stream is this. Your expenses are less than your revenues, which in most cases.

They are micromanaging to the nth. They sure are. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Because they've got all the answers in Indianapolis.

Yeah, and there's lots of building permit, like, new things attached to what goes on permits and how they're handled. I mean, in most cases, even if you put all that revenue there next year, you're still not going to have enough to fund your building permit department and the people that are doing the permitting and doing the inspections. So you're still going to have to have a part of it in your general fund, most likely. you're not going to have enough from the building permits. Yeah, yeah. So it just makes it more complicated. Some communities said, yeah, no, there's no way we're going to spend it for like two or three years. We're just going to keep it in our general fund, let it accrue for a while, see where our expenses go, figure out what we're going to do, and go from there. And then there's also limits in the future on how often you can change your building permit fees. If you do it once, you can't do it again for five years or something like that. So there's a lot that they're putting, like you said, micromanaging.

budget in there in the first year because we don't know how much it's going to go in. Exactly.

Yeah, you have no idea. I mean, you're almost going to have to see what gets put in there in 27, then maybe budget it in 28. Right.

Yeah, but who knows? I know. You can do a five-year look back and average it or something. Yeah. And that's without health insurance. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's...

I don't understand. I don't know if you've had any libraries that have come to you to ask for binding review, because they're tightening down their budgets. They're not tightening down the revenue they bring in. They're tightening what they spend and making them go for binding review. So that's a lot of communities.

So if they have more than 50% of their operating budget, they have to get a bond new review?

Well, the new thing that's different is in the past, they've always been able to increase their budget annually by the same percentage as the MLGQ. So last year, if MLGQ was 4%, their budget could go up by 4%. That's not their levy, their budget, what they're asking to spend could go up by 4%. this year they said that their budget can only go up by 50 percent of the max levy growth so max levy growth is six their budget can only go up three percent if for maybe a debt issuance or a building remodel or something like that they need to have a budget that's more than a three percent increase they have to come ask the county council. And then yes, there are also limitations on how much they can have in their operating. And if you can request, if they have a high operating balance, you can request they come for binding review as well. But increasing their budget limitation has changed this year. Instead of all of the full MLGQ, only half of the MLGQ this year, which I don't understand because they still get the 6% levy increase, but they can only spend up to a 3% increase in budget. I'm not... We tried to figure out what problem that was solving, but I'm not... We haven't covered that.

There must be like a halo around Marion and the donuts. Like once you cross into that... No man's land. All logic goes away.

That's what it seems like sometimes.

That's what it seems like sometimes. We do not have local income tax. Speaking of local income tax, we don't have those estimates yet for 2027. We expect them this week by the 15th. So I'm not sure if we'll have them by the time your workshops are over this week.

And as soon as you get them, you'll shoot them.

Yeah, we'll let Leah know what the difference is and what changes. Last year, unfortunately, it dropped, so we're hoping it goes back up.

And that's because of that out-of-state credit.

Yes, because of that out-of-state credit. So maybe if we get growth... still including the out-of-state credit this year, then maybe we can start going back up.

I've seen a sheet where, like, there has been growth every year because they're making us do that over six years. So I think we're in year either four or five.

I thought it was, yeah, like four or five.

We're getting close to the end, but, I mean, the piece of the pie is getting smaller because they're taking more of that percent.

Yeah, to finish that off. It makes it tough. All right. So, and lastly, I wanted to show you since last year, the question was what exactly is SCA one going to do to us revenue wise brought on the property tax side. So, um, on this page, page six, the top part is showing what your circuit breaker credit loss was this year, just for the County unit. So the total amount down there at the end, all the circuit breaker was $1.615 million in 2025. Your total was 978,000. So it went up by six and a half, $650,000 roughly. The bulk of it comes from that first column there on the far left, supplemental homestead credits. Those, that's the 3% or the up to 10% credit at the end of a tax bill up to $300 on any home. So, you know, some homes get $20, some homes get the full $300. But your share of that across the board was $703,000. Then we have other new over 65 credits. Those changed somewhat. Your circuit breaker credits, the portion that's kind of to the far right, second to the last column, the 1%, 2%, and 3% credits, those actually went down from 25% to 26%. That's the cap loss by the 1%, 2%, and 3% properties. But because of the implementation of that supplemental credit, that's where the biggest amount came in that you then are not able to collect on your property tax. So that $703,000 was a revenue Reduction again, and we expect this similar revenue deduction this year. It's not like there's going to be another round of the 10% credits It'll be roughly the same probably amount or similar to this amount as they it shifts a little bit based upon home values but It depends on where to assess values fell out in all that too Yeah, yeah Yeah Yeah, so at the bottom I made a note of They're county-wide for all the units, townships, libraries, towns, whatever. Last year, a $6.4 million loss. This year, 26, it's 9.2. So that's $2.8 million more in tax credit losses in 2026 than there were in 2025.

We kind of calculated some of the inspections, deductions, too. And they're getting credits now instead of deductions. So if you're putting that assessed on there, they're getting less. So I don't think we're going to be losing. But people that get 100%, yes. But there's not a whole lot. No, that's what I said.

That population is smaller. That's a few dozen homes. It's not the whole county-wide stuff in common. Right. And I'm sure their level of disability varies because there's 100% disabled.

It is, and we're trying to get everybody to come in because a lot of people don't get that 100%.

Oh, wow. Okay. Not a lot. OK, does anybody have anything else, any questions so far on any of the legislative stuff? We'll jump into budget then. This shouldn't take too long. As Leah mentioned, most of your departments tried to keep budgets kind of in line with what they have been previously. On page 7, your assessed value at the county did go up from 3.298 million. That was from 3.040 billion. Not million, billion. 26 so that's about I think I calculated it was around an 8% increase in your AV so since it's more than the max levy growth max levy growth is 6% in the county's case that should create a reduction in tax rate reduction in tax rate feeds then to potentially less circuit breaker so some of that impact that I just talked about on the previous page may actually drop a little bit this year. Because at least, I don't know what other, that doesn't speak to what other units do. Sometimes other units, whenever they see a drop in their current tax rate, that triggers them to go issue debt to make up for that amount. But if all the units are seeing decreases in their rate because of an increase in net assessed value, that could potentially improve some of that circuit breaker and credit loss that I just talked about. Page eight is just sort of an explanation of how we made estimates. I don't think there's anything here unusual. We did flatline local income tax, each of the types of local income tax for the incoming year just because we don't know what it will be and we should, we're expecting to get that hopefully soon. Then 2027, we have all the budgets from Leah. Those have all been plugged in. We're taking account for those in all the cash flows that we have. The schedule here with the bar chart, that's just relatively what your assessed value has been over time and your tax rate. We stop at 26 because we don't know 27's tax rate yet, even though we do know the assessed value went up. So we would expect to see that 0.5016 for the county JIP a little bit further. The next page is a schedule that's the ending balance. This is from each year, the annual report that the county does, all of the county civil funds combined. So you've gone from about $45.4 million combined ending balance in 2016 up to $98.1 here in 2025.

The next page shows... And that's really driven by the fact that we adopted those LITs in 2018, right?

Probably, yes. And you had some, at some point, you had COVID money and ARPA money that you could spend on things, on other, so, you know, you could free up some of this for savings or other purposes.

We got some money from High Point Health.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, the LIT that you put in place was, is a large part of that. The next page just shows overall your riverboat totals over the past few years. They've actually stayed since 2021 around the $10.2 to $10.4 million range. Just since those are an important revenue here for you, we include that schedule. The next page jumps to the general fund.

I'm sorry, you have to clarify for me. So this is just the portion that flows to us, so like if some goes to Lawrenceburg and then Lawrenceburg gives some back to the county, is that included in here?

This is direct distribution. That's what they call dock city receipts. Okay. And the riverboat that comes directly from the state. Depending upon how you have your information structured, I don't know, Leah, if in the information that you gave us, if any of those revenues are from external sources. Everything we saw looked like they were state distributed sources and then moved around internally.

This has to be both funds.

It has to be from Lawrenceburg too. That's why I wanted to clarify. Because the one fund is $6 million.

The other one should come from Lawrenceburg. The other $3.7 million should be coming from Lawrenceburg.

So it comes from Lawrenceburg. Okay, we need to make a note of that.

But it may actually go, I mean the state may cut the check to Lawrenceburg. I don't know how the mechanics of it is. But the two funds run between $9 and $10 million. Okay.

There's admissions in Dock City. There's admissions to what we get from Lawrenceburg.

Lawrenceburg is revenue sharing.

Okay.

Don't we get a check from them quarterly, Leah?

We get a check from Lawrenceburg monthly.

Monthly, okay, monthly.

But they may get, Lawrenceburg may get its check from the state.

But either way, that's part of its revenue sharing. That's the one that comes directly from...

I guess I just, what I was trying to understand is how much this might be vulnerable to hold harmless funds going away if the state legislators... Just the six million would be... Just... Well, but I mean... Yeah, the other, the three should...

All of it should.

Well, yeah, all of it definitely should, yeah. Absolutely.

We want to deal with it down here.

And we've made the argument, like, you know, we don't, they don't share Indy 500, Colts, Pacers, none of that. Right. So how does this make any sense?

We may make a change to that in future years so it's a little more clear. The next page then is your general fund. So we start out with where you actually ended 2025. You ended with $24.5 million roughly at the end of the year. Then we have your planned budget and then what we see for estimated expenses. I sort of highlighted that line there with the building permits where there's actually two kinds that would go into that new building permit fund. So that yellow line with a blank there in 2027, that's where that would need to go out to another fund.

Is this just our building department? It does not cross over into planning and zoning at all?

I don't think so. It's building permits, and there's another specific one that I thought was linked to your building permits that would count.

Because reading it, it made it seem like it could be part of planning as well. OK. So where is that 200 in here?

We didn't, I didn't include that as a fund. It's actually fund 1240 is the one that the county has to use going forward. Since we're just showing one year here, we're just assuming, and there wasn't a budget created for it. So. It has to be created for 27 or not? The fund has to be created for 27.

But you don't have to create the fund.

But you don't have to spend it in 27. She's not budgeting for it because there's not enough to support the department. You don't know how much. You don't know if it will technically come in at this $212 or $188 or $150.

You don't know where it will come in, for sure. I wonder if you could do additional appropriations out of it.

You can. You can do an additional appropriation for anything. So if it came down to that and they needed money from somewhere, and you had enough revenue next year during the year, you could do additional appropriations for it. Yeah, you certainly could.

So one look at our bottom line, we can

figure like at least 150 200,000 in addition to what yeah yeah to use for that building department since you kind of have to split it apart but roughly yeah so it's nowhere right now it right now no it's not here and it's not on another schedule because there wasn't a budget created for it and we don't know but mentally we can just add roughly 200 but mentally you know it's there that is so crazy I know. You need more funds, right. So the way it stands right now, the budgets in the general fund are using about almost $1.3 million. If you look at the green line down on 43 and the 27 column, that shows how far those budgets are out of balance. Now, do you have revenues and reserves to support that? Yes, you have reserves to support that amount. We ended up pretty close. Actually, 25, you were a little bit over. You ended up adding $420,000 back to your bottom line. 26, you've got a fairly large chunk of encumbrances there, about almost $4 million in encumbrances. So that looks like you're using up quite a bit in 26. But you had a large chunk of encumbrances last year that didn't get spent. And your 25 ended up better than we anticipated at this time last year. So it's likely your 26 will end up better than we anticipate right now, too. but just engaging the budget. We always talk about balanced budgets. You're out just a little bit out of balance there. But that's, again, like I said, you have revenues, plus you have roughly $10 million in your rainy day fund, too.

Which we want to keep.

Yes.

We've been...

If you want to be a perfect balanced budget, yes.

Just like last year when we dipped into reserves and balance.

At the end of the day, if that has to happen, then... She said she has to look at the numbers the same way.

You make a budget...

I MEAN, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE QUITE... YEAH. RIGHT NOW, SINCE WE DON'T HAVE A CRYSTAL BALL TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO SPEND NEXT YEAR OR EXACTLY HOW MUCH YOU'RE GOING TO BRING IN, THIS IS THE GUIDELINE. THIS IS WHAT WE'RE GIVING YOU AS A GUIDELINE FOR YOUR BUDGET AS YOU'RE EVALUATING. OR IF SOMEBODY COMES UP WITH A REALLY LARGE SOMETHING THAT THEY DIDN'T INCLUDE IN THEIR BUDGET.

IT GETS WORSE ON OTHER YEARS.

And if the LIT is, if we have the same experience as the last year where it goes down slightly, then this would affect that. Yes.

Yes, it would affect that. Right. Correct.

You know, of all the counties that are affected by the out-of-state LIT credit, the biggest county is Clark. But the one that has the biggest number of people who qualify for that is Dearborn, 25% of our filers. Wow. five million dollars last year I know a lot of people in Clark County work but they're there is that because they don't it's because of you I mean it's not but that's because we work out of state yes if they and if that where you work if they have a lift anything greater than 1.4 they keep sure well we lose five million a year so a lot of them do And the state used to make us whole. The state that had a $1.96 billion surplus last year with a B, it was costing $36 million to make these counties whole. And it's like, oh, we can't afford to do this. So now we're having, they're phasing it in. They're being so kind to phase it in over six years. So that's what that's about. But don't get me started. Where's that AED?

is you got this gosh that just burns a hole oh yeah that's crazy that's crazy then the same logic follows on each of the other pages but next is your reassessment this one you have a fairly large cash reserve what we could consider over a hundred percent cash reserve so I wouldn't recommend giving this one any more tax revenue unless you have something large it's needed usually we recommend if anything you direct property tax levy to your general fund just because it's that it's your general fund it's not restricted if you put a lot of levy here you can't use it for anything but reassessment there's no statutory authority to just randomly move revenue around from fund to fund after you get it anyway. But before you get it, you can make a decision that you might want to put more revenue in general or change this revenue amount. At this point, you're going to be spending down for a couple of years to get down closer maybe to that 40% to 50% revenue. The budget stayed the same as last year, and you are using some revenues. But in this case, I think that's appropriate. because you have quite a sufficient balance, a significant balance there. Unless they're doing something large like photos or anything like that, GIS mapping or anything like that. Sometimes they have large projects there that it's needed for.

Next is your CUME Bridge Fund.

Remember, this one is a rate-driven fund. So the amount that we have here on line two for property tax is the same rate that you had last year. We don't want to let that drop because you can't raise it back up unless you go through what's called a reestablishment process. And just as a reminder, this is part of your max levy. So it's not separate revenue. So if you were to increase this one for whatever reason, it pulls revenue from general. It pulls revenue from reassessment or from health.

And there are people who have talked about, like I see in stuff, because CCD is outside the max levy, that if the legislature would make this outside the max levy, it would help counties because bridges are so vast and expensive. Bridges are huge.

And expensive.

Yeah. When some county has 80 bridges they have to deal with and 10 of them are restoring.

We've got half a million. We've got 100, don't we? I don't know, it's a lot.

When you saw the engineering, $100,000 just for engineering.

I think he told me one time we had over 100, counting the little

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely the small ones and the big ones, but they all require maintenance. They all get damaged. They all have to be fixed. They all reach a point which they can't be used anymore without being fixed.

There's just a handful across the state that are outside the max living because they're long bridges. But every other bridge is most bridges.

There's a county major bridge fund, which you can get, like Elkhart County, for example, has some of those because they have very long bridges. But yeah, that's what those are.

But we're going to do some whittling on the Cambridge account.

Yeah, this one's coming up negative. So this one is a problem.

Exactly. There's 100. Whatever we approve today comes off.

$470,000 will come off.

You also have a fair chunk of encumbrances. In 25, if you look on row 17, I don't know if all of that will be spent. Because obviously if that's not spent, that gives you more on your bottom line at the end of this year to go to next year. But I don't know if that's a project that's continuing or a project that wasn't started. That's your local bridge people.

I'm sorry. Celia, you're saying that what he came today and asked for, he also included in his budget for next year in case he didn't get it. Yes. So he'll be able to cut that $470,000 out. Yes, exactly. Which will make this number better.

Right.

Okay.

You know, I was wondering when they were coming and asking for trucks and cars, why didn't they just do it in the budget?

Well, for Tim's, I think he has to get those trucks right now or he'll lose them.

Well, we shouldn't be doing engineering at a special. It should be planned a year in advance at budget time.

Yeah, I agree with that. That's why I didn't understand all that, to be honest with you, why they just didn't wait.

Well, he does have federal matching right now, so I would jump on that for sure. I'm sorry, Susan. Yeah, because they don't know when they're going to get that and the timing of it.

If you ask them, it'll be a 30-minute explanation.

He almost bomb-rushed you.

The next page, 16, is the cumulative building courthouse. This is another rate-driven fund that is within your max levy. So we have it calculated at the appropriate rate that it was last year. This one, obviously, is for maintenance of the courthouse. But basically, a county can choose to put revenue towards whatever fund it wants to. It doesn't have to be strictly one of these. If you chose there was some other one-off fund that you wanted to put revenue to for a year, you could. So at some point the decision was made for courthouse maintenance, you started this fund and it maintained it going forward. You have a decent balance there too, but those larger capital projects that need significant funding. And the next is your came capital development. And as mentioned previously, as Liz mentioned, this is outside of your max levy. So this is a separate 3 and 1 3rd cents applied directly to your assessed value. So when your assessed value, I said this year, grew by 8.7%, your property tax levy grows by 8.7% too. The rate stays the same, but the AD is more, so you get more revenue. You can do bridges out of this fund. You can. This one is for any capital project. Yes. Yes, if you need a smaller structure out of here, you can do vehicles with it, you can do anything capital in nature. A lot of communities use it for IT infrastructure and IT maintenance. They can be used for buildings, for roads, for parking lots, for whatever it needs to be, yes. Next is your regular health department, your 1159. This one you have about, We had a little over 100% operating balance at the end of last year. The budget here is a little bit out of balance too. But this one I think some counties are struggling because that 1161 fund I heard you talking about when I came in, there was a significant funding given there upfront and now it's been cut.

That's the Health First?

Yes, the Health First Indiana. so this was the traditional health department that was in place first but some counties are struggling with we started this program this program successful but we're not getting you know a way to fund it do we put it in 1159 or what do we do with it so I don't know if you're crossing that boundary but you you are looking like you're using some revenue. So in this case you could actually potentially shift property tax levy to this one if you felt the need or you can technically pay for health department expenses from your general fund too if there's not enough revenue here. You can use your general fund to pay for anything that you want.

The way it's sitting now it's in good shape.

But a couple more years of using $250,000 then you know when your balance is $514,000.

But again if the legislature wants to make Indiana healthy And I think it went from 45th to 38th when they were doing $150 million. Yeah. And they cut it. Yeah. So it's like if your goal is to get us higher, you can't cut it and get results.

Exactly. I know. They need to put more money back in. They've been silent. Has your health department had, like, any correspondence from it? Nobody has. Nobody knows what's going. We're just – there's nothing on the website that indicates what it's going to be.

Are you guesstimated it will stay the same?

Yeah, that's kind of what we were thinking too. Some counties are like, I'm not comfortable saying there's going to be anything. We know it got cut last year, but then there hasn't been anything more about it this year.