County Council - Regular Meeting

Make sure your mics are on. Yep.

Okay, it's 8.30 and we'll call this session of the DeKalb County Council Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 meeting in order. At this time, we'll begin with an opening prayer by Bob Kraft.

Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for today. We thank you for another day of life, another day to serve you and to serve the citizens of DeKalb County. We just pray that you give us wisdom and discernment as we talk about things for the taxpayers and that we would serve them well today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. At this time, would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, please? A council you've had a chance to look over the minutes from the May 13th 2026 meeting are there any additions or corrections? Hearing none will accept a motion for approval Motion by any process in a second by Any further questions from the council I'll abstain because I wasn't here at that last meeting. Okay, we'll make a note that Amy's going to abstain and This time we'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the minutes from May 13th, 2026, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Minutes are approved. Thank you. Okay. We have three additionals here. So if you'll take a look at the first one. Always good to see you. Okay, first one comes from Central Communications. Fund name is the Public Safety County Share. Fund number 1170. Account number 12200. The account title is Insurance. The amount requested is $124,206. Was this included in the annual budget request? And the answer is yes. How will this appropriation be used? It will be used to make up the difference in the amount provided at budget time to the actual cost. Specific cost of the item, $124,206. How was this cost determined by the auditor? Is this a recurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with the liaison? And that is yes. And the liaison's name is Rick Ring. Rick, do you have anything you would like to add to this? Not unexpected?

Or changed?

There will be another one coming for highway, but I'm waiting until closer to the end of the year for that because we'll transfer as much as we can first before.

Thank you.

And Brian won't have anything to transfer. because he doesn't pay much from this fund besides wages.

So this is something that we didn't see coming, right?

Well, we do the budgets six, seven months before the new year. We're basically doing the budgets right when we are just getting a new health insurance premium. So we have no idea what's going to come in another year to able to plan I mean we can inflate them but then you guys would be approving a number that we have no idea what it is and then there would be extra money in there that could be transferred to something else it depends it depends on the employee yeah And it depends. Now, if the employee does the wellness, they get $40 off instead of $50 total. And if they have a spouse, the spouse can do it, and they can get up to $65 total off. So it all depends on what plan they're on. It depends if they're on PPO. If they're on HSA, then there's HSA money to put in. It's never, ever going to be a number that you can actually budget 100%.

Renewal date in February you're not gonna know until January and you'd have to know by July renewals July Yeah, that's what I'm saying right renewals you'd have to have your renewal in August to get those numbers in July

We were October. We were October, so we were after. Yeah. It was weird.

Are we staying with the same company? Yes, PHP. It'll be the same cards.

Any further questions?

So on this documentation that we received, At $50, is that per pay that the employee earns for doing the wellness?

They don't earn it. They just, it's reduced from their premium.

Reduced off of their premium. And is the, so I'm looking at one here, the very first one, 1568.76. Is that their premium then that the employee is paying? Oh, no, it says employer. I got to see what you're looking at. Yeah, so.

I would say it's probably the employer part because that's what the... Yeah, so the two columns that are peach colored, those together would be the employer amount, which would have to be in the budget.

Per pay.

Per pay.

And then the one in the white, like that first one there, $226.84. That's what the employee is paying.

Correct. And if that same employee had not had the wellness, then theirs would have been $50 more.

Got it. If they do the wellness, then they get $50 off every pay.

Well, that ends this month. And then they changed it. And so for starting July, now it's $40 for an employee and $25 for a spouse. So they can get anywhere between 25 if the employee does it, but the spouse does, 40 or 65. No.

Correct. And that's per pay, not like per month or anything. It's per pay.

Per pay, and that was the commissioners that adopted that. Bottom line.

Oh, yeah, I wasn't arguing though. I wasn't arguing on this point at all. I just wanted to understand the numbers Sure I don't have any other questions. Any further discussion?

Okay, we'll entertain a motion to approve the $124,206. We have a motion by Rick Ring. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

I'll have a second by Bill Van Wye. All those in favor of approval signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Hey, Brian, can I ask you a question? You've stated it. Come on. Are you at full capacity now?

I have one opening that we're doing application process for now, and we will have one more at the beginning of the year. We have one retiring.

Okay. And one other question that I have to do is, what is your, is this his testing variation from $11.77 to $35? Was that part of his deal? What are you talking?

We're doing really well our one recent opening came because young gentleman decided he wanted to go work at one of the distribution warehouses and Didn't like night shift well I'm gonna have three of my female workers all going on maternity leave within about a month and a half of each other so I will have an additional appropriation request coming down I would like to try to backfill the retirement position early And if we can do that, along with Tiffany and I helping out, we're not going to stress the center out. But yes, three babies between the end of December and beginning of February.

This must be a thing.

That's because women are the best.

Well, you know.

Just please don't drink the water if you come to my center. That's all I ask.

Good. At least he's filling in so we don't have to listen to some baby cry when we call in.

No, no, no. We'll fill in.

Have we got any questions? No, I'm done. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Moving on to the next one from the Family Recovery Court Grant. They're requesting $5,000 for medical testing services. This will be used to cover the drug screen costs of FRC participants. Cost of the testing varies from $11.77 to $35 per test. Does anybody have any further questions regarding this?

Again, what is this for?

This is medical testing. Family Recovery Court.

Oh, Family Recovery Court. Okay. I didn't see that. Okay. Thank you.

We'll entertain a motion for approval for the $5,000 additional. So moved. Okay, we have a motion by Amy Dembski and a second by Rick Ring. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the $5,000 for medical testing services for the FRC participants signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? The additional has been approved. And the last one we have is coming from probation. Again, this is for medical testing services. The amount requested for an additional is $2,500. This will be used to cover the drug stream costs for ATC participants. Again, the cost varies from $11.77 to $35 per test. Any discussion from the council members? Hearing none, we'll call for a question. All those in favor of the approval of the additional $2,500 signify by saying aye. We need a motion. We need a motion first. So do we have a motion to approve? I'll make a motion. Amy's made the motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Second by Bill VanWy. All those in favor, signify by saying aye of the approval for an additional $2,500 for medical testing. Signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? The additional has been approved. Okay, that takes care of the additionals that require council action. The non-approval transfers you have a list of. approval of updated job descriptions like salary ordinance amendment And we have one for the veteran service office We have one from the deputy veteran service office life's office manager and we have a third one for the veteran service officer assistant there so we have a We have three requests for updated job descriptions here. Susan, how do you want to proceed with this?

Well, I think the subcommittee probably needs to talk and not me.

Yes, so I met with Rhonda, the current veteran service officer, Her deputy, Samantha, as most of you know, Rhonda is retiring in July. And Samantha will be taking over. Her deputy will be stepping up to do the VSO position. So we're excited about that transition. As Samantha is stepping into that new role, her and Rhonda both had asked for a couple tweaks in their schedule. The first one is changing their job description from 8 to 4. I'm sorry, I think it was 8 to 4 to changing it to 830 to 430. So nothing big in the job descriptions at all. It's just changing that time because they felt that would be better served for their veterans. So that, I think, is the first one. And then the other thing that Samantha wants to do is rather than hiring someone to replace her as a deputy, She actually would prefer to have a office manager. If you remember, we've had that position in the past, who worked kind of as a VSO deputy slash office manager. She is actually requesting, though, just an office manager who will not be a veteran, if I remember correctly. She felt like if she had somebody in there right now just to handle all of the paperwork, that she would not need a deputy at this time. So it's a little bit of a money saver for us, for the county, and she will be trying that out as she starts to take over the Veterans Service office in July. So the other part then that the office assistant manager said, That position technically has been listed as a part-time position. And what we're asking the council to do today would be to move that to a full-time position office manager for them. So those are the two changes that we're requesting. There will still be two. Yeah, just different rules. Yep. Yep. So those are the only changes. Any questions on those?

Thanks, Amy. Does anybody else have any additional questions for Amy?

And I know Morgan's here also to assist with any of that, if anybody else had any questions on that.

We're all good.

So we need you guys to motion and approve the updated job descriptions for the time change and the VSO assistant.

OK. Do we have a motion to approve these three Descriptions here and as Susan mentioned for the change of hours and for the office assistant there I'll make that motion. Yeah, we have a motion by Amy Prosser. Do we have a second? second by Bob Kraft any further discussion Hearing none. We'll call for the question all those in favor of approval of the Descriptions of the job description signify by saying aye aye opposed Motion is carried Okay, next item is the ordinance number 2026 OCC Day 6. This is a 26 salary and hourly wage ordinance amendment. And this is from the Veterans Affair. Account number 11408. Job title is the Administrative Assistant. The WISC category is Comat A. And the pay hour twenty four dollars and eight cents okay we will need an approval of reading on title only that I just read do we have a motion to approve this on title reading only like that motion hey we have a motion by any processor do we have a second I'll second second by Bob Kraft any yep you That is the maximum on the category Thank you any further discussion We have a motion a second all those in favor of approving this wage ordinance number 2026 days OCC day six on reading of title only signify by saying aye Motion is approved on title reading only Next, we have...

Okay, wait a minute. You approved that on first reading?

We approved it on title only. First reading.

Okay, so who motioned that?

Amy Crosser and Bob Kraft seconded.

No, that was to approve the job descriptions and the time change.

But we did it again. But they did it again. The same two people did it. It's times two.

Okay.

We can make it times three on this.

Okay. Go for it. We're going to move to suspend the rules. Yes, please.

I'll second that motion.

Okay. Okay, to move on.

We good?

Yeah, they've suspended the rules now for you.

Well, we're going to vote on that.

Okay.

You guys are efficient.

We're ready.

We have a motion to suspend the rules by Amy Prosser made the motion and Bob Kraft the second. Any further discussion on suspending the rules? Hearing none, We'll call for the question. All those in favor of suspending the rules, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion is carried. Now we're down to the second and third readings here for approval of ordinance number 2026 OCC Day 6. Do we have a motion? I'll move to approve.

I'll second.

Okay. They switched you up on you there, Susan. I know. We have a motion by Bob Kraft and a second by Amy Prosser. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving ordinance number 2026, OCC, day 6, on second and third reading, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And that is carried there. Okay. Moving on next, we are going to discuss tax abatements. And I'll turn it over to Rick. on this part here

Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion by Rick brain to find the Four six seven companies with tax abatements all in substantial compliance. Do we have a second? I'll second that second by Bill van why any further discussion from the council? Hearing none. We'll call for the question all those in favor of approving the tax abatements That participants are all in substantial compliance signify by saying aye. I Motion is carried. Tax abatements have been approved. Okay. Moving on. Randy, airport.

Good morning, all. Good morning. First off, I think I'd like to express our thanks to allow us to present to the council monthly and keep you up on what's going on. Our tea hanger project is well on its way. They should be breaking ground here in the next week or so They'll do all the foundations. Let them set and then the steel buildings will go up in October everybody who is in the old C row of hangers that we're going to demolish as Either said they want a space in the new ones or they're going to move so once the They moved their aircraft, we think by January that we won't, we'll be able to demolish those old hangars that I used to fly out of long, long ago. So that'll be done. The runway 927 rehabilitation project bids open this week. Again, we're gonna do 5,000 feet of runway, 100 feet wide, and I believe five and a half inches thick. They're going to mill all of that out. They're going to reconstitute the subsurface with some concrete, mix it in, let it set and stabilize, and then they're going to put the 5 1⁄2 inches of blacktop back on. We anticipate that taking up to 60 days, again, depending on weather and that. When that's done, then the airport will stay open for a month. and then we'll close down for up to another 30 days where they'll come out and groove the surface so the water runoff is enhanced and the runway is again safer for aircraft to operate in less than optimum conditions. So that's that project. Um, the taxiway that now extends all 7,105 feet. When we put the last 2,000 feet on, there were some grading issues, some lights that stuck up out of the blacktop and stuff. They're all being fixed right now. We expect to sign that off shortly. Um, lunch on the fly. A week from Friday, we'll have lunch from 11 to 1 at the airport. You're welcome to come in. Um, take a look around, see what's there. uh... kind of on the uh... we're looking at the addition of another corporate hangar on the uh... aircraft property actually down where the church was we're still working through that to see if that between all the state and federal requirements to the structure that big on the airport takes some time to get all the approvals and stuff done so doing that and uh... I would like to tell Bill that babies happen. You seem surprised by that, but.

That's good, that's good.

Yeah, as an off comment here, I delivered a baby in Corona in a really thick fog. The kid's now 35. I met him at Home Depot not too long ago. His mother introduced him, and her first comments were, do you recognize me? And I said, no. So... They do. And with that, I'll open to any questions. We're in Corona. Pardon? Actually, that great big brick farmhouse that sits on the north side, right there on 6th, the fog was so thick that we ran 30 miles an hour lights and siren from DeKalb Memorial to Corona to get there.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's great when it's over.

At least the mom remembered you.

Yes, she did. It was kind of fun. I was walking down the aisle at Home Depot, and she came running up kind of and said, do you remember me? And it's like, no. And she says, remember delivering the baby? And I said, yes. And she says, well, here he is. And he had actually been waiting on me for about two weeks at Home Depot because it was during the time we were building the escape room. So babies happen.

Makes it all worth it with those moments.

It did. It did. That was one of two in my career.

Anybody else have any questions or comments?

Yeah, I got one thing. So you got to fly in next Friday, right? Yeah. And that will probably end. When does your airport officially close down?

Well, we don't know that yet because that's going to be next summer.

Oh, it's not this summer?

No, no, it's not this summer. We opened bids this week to... make sure we got a contractor that can do the job, again, fall within the engineer's estimates. And once that's done, then we'll start planning for the closure. One more thing I just remembered. I was gonna bring a picture. Russ and I went down to Indianapolis. John Feister, who is the engineer assigned from BF&S to the airport, was the state finalist for an award for engineering on our project. And we went down, got the award, Allen County, their engineering department got an award as well, and the guy says, well, at least people can see what John does because he does sewers, and he says, we bury all my good work. So we did have an award winning, a state award finalist doing our work at the airport, and we're very happy with that.

Any other questions or comments? Randy? Thanks, Randy. Appreciate the update. Thank you very much. Okay, we're a little ahead of schedule, and I don't see Jeff Peters here, so we'll move on down to take a look at the updated job description for the GIS.

You might want to call Chris in. Do we need to have Chris?

Yeah, is it Chris? We don't want to do that one.

Okay. We don't want Chris to be here.

So...

You could do Commissioner yeah discussion and then We could move the council so okay council commissioners discussion Bill you got anything you'd like to add Or Jim's up Jim's back. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I'm sorry I

Caught me off guard there a little bit. What's that? He caught me off a guard a little bit and I just want to make everybody aware I'm sure most of you are already aware that I will be stepping down to end of June and His Commissioner they will caucus in a new commissioner on next Monday the 15 Reasons we changed it down.

No, we changed it 22nd now. I We changed the date. It's the 22nd now. A week later.

That's good to know. Anyway, reasons is I'm just tired. And, you know, I did everything I thought I really set to do when I took the job as commissioner. It's come to a point where I'm not as sharp as I used to be, not as energetic as I used to be. And I've come to the point that I can do the job I think I should be doing. I would step down, and that time has come. I give it all I had, and I've got nothing more to give. So it's this time to step aside. I'm not one to hang around just for the sake of hanging around. need new ideas, new blood, new energy into that seat, and I think we'll have that depending on, of course, the caucus, but I think that's pretty much set. Other than that, just it's been my pleasure to work with everybody and to be a part of this, of this, what do I want to say? county government and do what best we could for the county, what's best for the people, the taxpayers. You know, they foot the bills and we spend their money and I was always conscious of that responsibility and was always, in my mind, a good steward of their taxpayer money. Other than that, it's just been, like I say, my pleasure to work with everybody. You know, we had a good outcome finally with the highway. I thank the council for their participation in funding that project. That was a big, important project, well overdue, and so thankful for that. But anyway, just we'll catch you later. Any questions or comments?

Bill, on behalf of the council, we'd like to thank you for your service. And you're right. You've always kept the taxpayers' focus as number one priority. And you've faced up to a lot of tough decisions over your tenure. And you never vacillated. You stood the course here. We may not always have been in agreement, but that's what it's all about, too, to present different points of view here. And I respect and admire you for your leadership. And thank you very, very much for your service.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bill. You've done an amazing job. We're very proud of you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay, Jim, we weren't slighting you back there. I couldn't see you back there, so come on up, please.

What did I do this time? I'm just here because we have a meeting with the auditor afterwards. Okay.

Didn't know if you had anything to share, anything coming right there. So we're not trying to put you on the spot. Just want to give you an opportunity. Thank you, sir. Thank you for being a man of few words.

So I'm going to play Kellen for a minute because he is not able to be here. He's at Vacation Bible School with a bunch of kids. But he wanted to... touch base on, he asked last time about the jail, if you're moving forward with it, what you're thinking on it, and he just wanted to touch base again on that. That's all I got.

Excuse me, okay.

You said that they're moving forward on it, or he's wondering if the council... No, he's wanting to know what the council's thoughts are, and if you're moving forward soon, not moving forward...

We have anything to look at or a Total amount of what the jail will be because they can't make any decisions until we know what we have what we need to do There are plans that are still out there correct bill Yeah, there are plans that are out there, but I don't think any we've not I don't think the commissioners or us Have gone any farther. I do know and Jeff will be here in a little bit Jeff has Asked on several occasions that we start looking at how we're going to finance the jail and if Because it will be a long process. It's nothing that can be decided in a matter of a month or six weeks So those are questions to ask him when he's here, but we really need the direction Commissioners I think would have to come back to the council With these are the plans that are still active This is the new price. I think Kellen gave us a kind of a jaw-dropping Update a couple of weeks ago when he said the price has now climbed to 50 million dollars which We're gonna have to decide can we afford something like that? And if not, what are you going to do to cut that price down? And nobody knows how accurate it is. That was everybody's best guess.

So I don't know if maybe, I mean, it's been a while since those jail plans first were done. So I don't know if maybe they're trying to figure out if you're wanting to move forward with it in a sooner than later time so that they can go back because it will cost to go back and have them update all their information.

Don't know if that's what he's trying to find out before they pay To redo it if it's still gonna be like ten years down the road because then you'd have to pay to redo it again I think that's just They start spending money To start reviewing the plans of renewing them if we're not doing, you know We need Jeff Peters to be involved so that we know the direction we're gonna go I

The other issue is we've put money aside in the in the rainy day fund for a couple of years now to offset whatever we might have to bond in the future and I Would propose that we actually go against what Jeff had originally proposed but I would propose that we establish a jail fund and save money for the jail and we move some of the money out of the rainy day fund and put it in a jail fund.

I think we've talked about that in the past.

I think it's time to do that. I mean it's going against what initial advice we were given but there are so many different things happening right now that it's possible that that money, because of the suspension of the gas tax, the governor's already, he has told us that he will have, the state will help backfill what we're losing in not having the gas tax. That proposal's been pushed out there. But what I'm also hearing through the grapevine is what that means is We're going to suspend community crossings and take the money that was going to be in community crossings grants and backfill everybody that way. So you're a loser one way, you're a loser both ways. The other thing is we've got money, the commissioners have money in their economic development fund that is guaranteed to pay the bonds on the highway department. In two years when that economic development tax goes away, there won't be any more money going into that fund Those bond payments are going to have to come out of the general fund you You know, that's that's just not going the right direction so, you know that we got to preserve the money that's in those economic development funds and to pay those bond payments for the highway department and then make sure that we don't spend the money for the jail on something else.

But Rick, before we were putting it kind of in rainy days so that it could be used if there was another emergency. For emergencies. But now we need to, you're saying, possibly protect ourselves from the state or somebody coming back and saying, oh, if you have reserves, you've got to use your reserves to get by this shortage. So we might want to preserve those by encumbering them as a jail fund. Is that what?

That's what I'm saying and then Jeff just walked into the room so he makes it we can get we can get into that here in a few minutes, but But yeah that I mean He's been after us to get something going on this jail because it's got to be planned for and it can't be done overnight So getting him involved and getting him involved sooner the better If I may sir address that issue I

As far as I believe the commissioners are looking at, and I'm going to speak for myself only and not for the other two commissioners, is my belief that I do not want DeKalb County to end up the same as Allen County. And we have a federal judge telling us what we can and cannot do. I think everyone in this room realizes that having a federal judge mandate, the cost to the Allen County went up immensely compared to what it would have been had they had control themselves. Given that, I do not, as a commissioner, want to be in that situation. I would much better like to be proactive on this and get started on the jail, as opposed to reactive, having a federal judge tell us that mandate what we have to do. So given that, I think the first step for the commissioners is we have the set of plans. Kellen and I, and I don't know, I suspect Bill has too, all of us talked to Alevitas to see what the price is to have those, obviously they're eight, 10 years old. They will have to be updated at least for ADA and I'm sure there's a lot of other things. We need to make sure that if we're gonna do that, that the council's on board moving forward with a jail. Yeah, I believe it's gonna be a three or four year process at the very least. The council's made it very clear from my understanding that They do not want to take a bond out onto jail until community corrections is paid off. Totally understand that. But before that, a lot of that work can be done so that when that happens, we can move to get this new jail. I don't want to do it. I don't think any of us want to do it. But again, I do not, as a commissioner, want a federal judge telling us how we have to do it. I think that would be very detrimental to the county and cost us a lot more, as Allen County has learned. So given that, I guess The first request would be that we come back, the commissioners come back with a number that says this is what we're going to need to update those plans. To me, that would be the first step. So I guess that's, at least for myself, that's the road I'm going down is we need to update those plans.

And Jim, I think that we also need to point out the fact that We receive a weekly report from the jail on the occupancy of the jail. With the exception of a couple of weeks just not too long ago, we have never been at or below the 80 prisoners that we say is maximum for the jail. We have always been 90 plus. And so we are still overcrowded technically, and we have the records to show that. It would be even more overcrowded if it wasn't for community corrections. And community corrections, we have an advantage there because if those people were in the jail, we would not only be supporting them, Through our tax dollars, but we'd also be paying all their medical expenses When they're in work when they're in Community Corrections, they're in work release They can still go to their jobs they get they have to pay the county Certain I think it's $30 a day still or maybe it's a little more they pay the county for every day that they're in there They pay the county Plus they're still on their medical insurance. We don't have to cover those those things so it's an advantage that we have

Community Corrections we'd be over by 30 or 40 more people And what's the capacity of the new jail that we're looking at building well I've heard it's 150 But I've also heard that it's 125 I've not seen the plans and So therefore I really can't answer that but given that I was told I think someone from elevitis, but wherever it was at this when I was at the commissioner conference that We don't need to build a 200 person facility and so I've taken that under advisement and Until we get updated plans. I really don't know what that figure is. I

That, Amy, that number, and I think that 200 number that Jim's talking about, might have been in the original evaluation that we received in 2016, which I think I sent that when I found those recommendations from that study that we paid for. I think I sent that to everybody. But if you don't have it, let me know, because I do still have it.

If you would just resend it just wouldn't have it it would be good to resend it I think just so we could all kind of review that and yeah It was really at that time though.

We were holding a lot of eight prisoners and That continues to be an issue because the state can't accept them fast enough. I think the last report I saw there were like 15 Prisoners in the jail that should be going to state prison in the in the future and But when that happens, I don't know. The state does pay us. They're not always timely in their payments, but they do pay us for keeping those people an extra length of time.

And that was before community corrections was in place, and so it would have been more on target for 200, which is what we would have needed. The other thing is the modular design that we had, Bill, I remember that, If we build 125 or 150 or whatever, I don't know if you can add extra modules. It's laid out so we would be able to add extra modules in years to come when we need those. I don't remember the capacity of each module, whether it was 25 or 10 or whatever, but each module held so many more.

A little clarification on that estimate we did back. when Alvarez designed the jail as part of that design process. And it was actually designed to 240 plus beds. So I think the 50 million estimate that Kellen is talking about is a worst case scenario. I've talked to a person that is well versed in jail construction, and he is suggesting maybe 200 beds. But he's also suggesting that we do a data research on how many beds we're going to need off into the future and get this number maybe more around the 200 rather than the 240 plus. That'd make a big difference. And yes, it was designed to add a module. And these are pods, whatever you want to call them. They're a circular module, and one will go off. I think the original plan was off to the north, and then it would go to the south. I don't remember the specifics exactly, but it was designed that way. And there was a lot of extra stored into that design that maybe could be pulled out as far as the administrative part and the size of the cell block itself. So anyway, there's some, we really need more information, updated information on that gel design. I think the modules are probably pretty much set. It's the latest design, it's very efficient. One jailer can cover the whole jail. Now we have three and four jailers in there watching to make sure everything is maintained and peace kept, so to speak. So anyway, that's kind of a brief summary of where we were at with that jail design.

The modular design is really designed for efficiency. There's plenty of room out there to add modules. They're not going to landlock or anything like that. And there are several examples within Indiana, some very close, where you can go and see that jail design actually functioning now. The original one is in Adams County. Fulton County has one. I believe Henry County has one. And all of them are the elevitis or those sheriffs. Our sheriff can arrange to get you a tour of those jails down there because they are working very, very well. And with each new jail being built, they've updated and tweaked. things in the original design to make it more efficient. And I think they're doing a good job. But I think Bill's probably correct, too. The number that we originally designed around was based on that study that we had done back in 2016. And things have to have changed since then.

The previous sheriff, he pushed for a lot more than probably what we needed. And we did go down to Adams County. We went through the Adams County Jail. We also went over to Rochester, a jail that was being built at that time. And they both have the same newest design in those pods where the prisoners are kept. And in addition to that, these things are designed, it's like a wagon wheel. The jailer sits in the middle of an elevated pod, and he can see every bit of that jail, every part of it. Around the outside of that jail is a open chase. And all the plumbing and electrical and everything comes in through that chase. That chase is wide enough to run a one-man lift around there because it's a two-story design. You can run a one-man lift around there and service those pods or those gel cells, whatever is needed as far as plumbing, electrical, and so forth. Where now, the whole design is really tough to work on. It's made easier. It's made a lot more efficient. What the money's going to be, it's a shot in the dark. We've got to get some more figures together and get some estimates. Any questions?

Thanks, Bill. Jim, excuse me. Soon, I think we need to get some kind of a hard number that you bring so we can get this ball rolling because we're getting closer to paying off community corrections. Speaking for myself, I haven't seen any updated plans in quite a while. Is there something that we could get to share with the council or anything?

To my knowledge, no. I spoke with Elevitus and obviously they're interested in continuing the relationship and I'm sorry, it just makes sense. Since the original plans are there, it would be very cost effective to just update them as opposed to starting all over. I don't foresee that happening in any way, myself anyway. I don't foresee that. But I believe the commissioners We will take that first step and see what that number is going to be to update those plans. And I will be back.

OK. Thank you, Bob. That's what he just said. OK. He's going to get a number to update the plans. Right.

OK.

Sounds great. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it.

Well, I guess we didn't want to pursue it if the council's not interested. So I'm just trying to make sure everybody's on the same page.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. Jeff, welcome. We're going to take about a five-minute break here, if that's okay, and we'll get back here and get started a little after 9.30.

Well, if we have to take the county money and go through the fire and EMS, which EMS is my fire, now if Auburn goes in and sets their 0.12 percentage, they don't have to put any money back for their fire department. We're covering that, right?

They would get both. They could get their 1.2 and then they could get their proportionate share of the 0.4. And in a lot of my clients what i've seen is they're gonna need both of those just to replace the income tax they're getting today but again i haven't run any of those analyses for your county yet i've held off for everybody as much as I can in the fact of what you brought up. We have a 27 legislative session, which is a long session. I'm sure there will be changes. And there might even be tweaks in 28 before you ever get to make the decision. I hate to build a whole big elaborate model that is a solution, and then they throw it out or cut the legs out from under it. And I think it might be throwing good money after bad.

My question is, getting back to that jail question, that if we don't need that whole 2.9, which when she was running on the seminar last night, she actually did our county as kind of an example, didn't appear that we're going to need that whole 2.9 to make everything whole, but we could use part of that 2.9 to fund a jail. Is that what you're saying?

And that you may want to do so that you don't have to go through the property tax procedures to get the debt approved. Right, to try and get a reference, I mean, because... Yeah.

What you're saying is that it would come out of that 1.2%.

Correct. Or the residual amount of the 1.2 that you levy for the small municipalities. Or part of the 0.4 that you now have offloaded the expense out of the commissioner's budget for EMS. That would be three potential new income taxes that you could get in and siphon off enough that you can make debt service payments on the new jail from income tax and not property tax and therefore have easier procedures to get approved.

Beth, I think you are listening. When you said new income taxes, we don't want people to freak out because some of our current income taxes will go away. And these will replace those. Correct.

It is a new income tax regime, but it is still income tax. They're currently paying today. It may be more or less when you go through the process. I would say it is likely more because the legislature again has taken away property tax dollars from you. They have made that decision that as a group we should rely less on property tax and more on income tax. Whether you believe that's good or bad, that's a legislative initiative so don't be Shocked that you're potentially going to have to raise income taxes because you have less property tax and May just need to raise income taxes in general The fund your service leave those property taxes will actually start to go down or because right now the assessments are going up as fast as the rates are going down so we end up paying the same or more and Your assessments went up your assessed value went up in total, but you still had new Homestead credits that went out that's going to take away a half million dollars from your property tax collections this year and those were those were the additions or changes they made in the last legislature for over 65

Disabled veteran it was those along with you get 10% of your tax bill up to $300 is also issued as a credit from home all of that took money away, but then One of the other changes in the current local option income taxes that we have We have a point five property tax replacement That goes away.

That goes away in 28. So then in 29, where certain people's property taxes were subsidized with that income tax to keep them below the tax cap and the circuit breaker, now those people are going to come in above the tax cap. They're still only going to pay their 1%, 2%, or 3%. And you are going to have a greater loss in property tax dollars. It's not a huge amount, and we've got that on the first page of the assumptions as to how we've modeled it. But again, we've talked about projections before. Typically, we would only model three years out. We can make a pretty good projection across three years. This goes out to 2032 and incorporates that 25 legislative change, and we don't know how all that's going to shake out. We've also assumed a very small underlying growth in assessed value, which last year it proved to be more. But assessments, again, typically lag a couple of years behind based on sales data. So where the value today might be a little less than it was two years ago or 2 and 1 half years ago, those assessments propped up 26. I think you'll start to see some reductions in assessed value 27 and forward, unless, again, you have good growth, if you have natural development that continues to occur, or if you, again, have a hot appreciated value market for homes, businesses, et cetera, it may keep you in the positive as well. But it's not going to be the same growth that you would have experienced but for the 25 legislation they put in place. So kind of some overarching things in what we've looked at is the biggest thing we wanted to get out of this fiscal plan was can you survive with your own authority at that 1.2%. And that's pretty much what this plan proved, is that once you get to, even though these tax collections have been postponed to 2029, if you get there, you'll have more than enough money to fund all the operations as you're currently undertaking. Now, between now and then, you are consuming cash through 2028, unless you were to raise your income tax now before you're mandated to change all the income taxes come 2028 or 2029. The thought last year was it was going to be 27 pay 28. You would just wait for that to happen. You'll absorb those reductions to your cash reserves. You have wonderful cash reserves. You've done a great job of setting money aside. I think this is perfectly fine if you want to continue to eat into those cash reserves until you reset everything with better information come the summer of 28. Again, though, if you wanted to correct that trend in the interim of 27 and 28, You do have the ability that you could raise income taxes. You could potentially generate about another $6.9 million in operating income taxes, either through the economic development or the public safety portions of income tax.

The limit that we have currently is 2.5%.

For the expenditure rate side, it's 2.5%.

And we're at 2.13, I think, right now.

Well, that includes your property tax relief. You're at only 1.63 for the expenditure side. But all in, I think you're at 2.13. One other thing in the fiscal plan as you go through that, when you look at public safety lit in 2028, it's going to be short potentially about $866,000. those expenditures if they're still planned to be made in 2028 they're going to need to be offloaded to another fund like the general fund again this won't affect your 27 budget but just so you have in the back of your mind that that revenue stream is insufficient to get through 2028 based on the expenditures and the projected expenditures of the fiscal plan in in that one

DeKalb County has, apparently there's provision within that public safety tax that we could take off the top the amount of money that we need for the PSAP. We've never done that. We've gotten the public safety tax in and then divided it up among the cities and towns and us based on, what is that, based on population or something like that. Currently that was based on levies. Okay, so we could actually take what we need off the top for the PSAP.

We could and that would reduce the distribution to the cities and towns. Yes. Or you could raise the public safety for just the PSAP portion and keep that to offload some of your expenses.

You're assuming a 3% growth every year of the expenditures that we're looking at.

I believe in the assumptions, I think it's 3% growth, yes, on all the expenditures.

So we're seeing a reduction in the amount of what's coming into our, what our general fund would be because we are continuing to spend at that 3% additional every year.

Yep.

Okay.

So in theory, we could not spend, we could not grow 3% every year if we were worried about the results.

Yeah, if you want to balance revenues to expenditures, you would have to make a lot of expenditure cuts in 27 and 28. Again, like I say, you've developed these cash reserves. You're going to have to adopt a whole new income tax regime. I don't think you have to do that. But if your goal is that we have to balance revenues to expenditures, then yeah, you'll need to make cuts.

But that's 27 and 28 with the new rules.

it's pretty much the old rules and the old revenue stream. Yeah, at this point in time, you're spending more than you're bringing in. But again, that's not to say that that's wrong. You know, you are delivering the services that your people are requesting or requiring you to deliver. And, you know, over time, inflation typically outpaces what your revenue stream is. That's why the legislature has in place up to a 2.5% lit expenditure rate that you can impose today all the way through the end of 28. And you've only imposed 1.63%.

Do you ever make recommendations where we should make those?

I try never to. Because everybody's different as to what is it they benefit or what is it they... they value most. There are some people that would never give up their park and rec stuff. But those are one of the things that I always say, well, I'd rather have a cop than a park. But again, that's just me. And I wasn't elected to do anything.

You did make a suggestion a couple of years ago, which we did last year. And that is we zeroed out the reassessment. We had asked where which fund has more than necessary and you pointed out that the reassessment fund Had far more than it needed.

So I think we zeroed that rate out for this year anyway Yeah, and I think in the fiscal plan I've assumed that you'll zero it out for 27 and 28 as well because it has well more than Money that it will ever need that doesn't decrease any of the expenditures that are coming from the reassessment fund But that cash is built up there.

It'll take a decade to spend Yeah, hold that down, you know spending more than you take in and that that also you have to take into account This is fund accounting You might have plenty of money in in one account that can't be spent for other things. I Simply because of the way the government funding is structured.

Yes, and you know it will ebb and flow And you know your income taxes previously you had Been under distributed in your income taxes and you have these supplemental distributions that came every year based on statute Now for this year, I believe there's no supplemental distribution so your 2024 income tax was less or pretty much equivalent to what the state thought it was going to be, so you're not getting a supplemental distribution this year. That might flip again in 2025's data. It'll depend on the income tax.

What do they retain? 11%? 15%. 15%, and I know we've gotten that reduced at least once.

Yeah, back years ago, it was 50%.

Yeah, I said it long ago.

And then, yeah, I think in the mid-2000s, they flushed out all of that money and took it to 15%. And my question, in the new legislation, they're going to revamp all of your income tax account that's held at the state, and they don't specify what happens to your residual balance. So I'm assuming it's coming back to you, but I don't know if it's coming back to you two and a half years later after the audited numbers come in, or if they will assume part of it is real and apply it toward the 15% balance they want to keep in your new lit account. But when I read the law, that's not how I see it. I see that they are going to distribute you 95% of what they think will be collected in 29, 30, and 31, and that's what's built into your plan. And then in 32, you'll get 100% of what they anticipate you'll be distributed. But you still should have a chunk of change of income tax that comes back to you, but I don't know when it's coming back, and I don't know exactly how much it is. On the economic development income tax fund we did look at after 2026 we've reduced the annual revenue back to about the two million dollars a year that that fund collects It looks like you've undertaken a big project out of economic development lit in 25 and have budgeted another one for 26. Is that true?

Is that the bond payments for the new highway?

No, it's above and beyond the bond payment for the highway garage.

Well, they spend a million dollars every year for highway operations.

Okay, so you're undertaking highway things.

They've done that for the last probably three or four years, so a million in operations, and then we added the highway bond payments.

Okay.

Yeah.

So in the fiscal plan, we've scaled that back to the $2 million revenue stream because they've basically burnt through the cash. Part of that might be offset by you adopted the wheel tax surtax so that you would also get the lane miles distribution and some of that revenue. That is built into your motor vehicle highway fund. So that should provide more money for you to undertake those projects. So that will alleviate some of that need that's been coming from the Economic Development Lit Fund.

Speaking of that, now it's already been published that Garrett is going to establish their own wheel tax. And I believe that Auburn will also. So that's going to take that revenue from registrations in the city of Garrett or city of Auburn. Out of our income so it's going to be less than Because both both cities and both of those cities found out that in order to qualify for the additional Monies they they had to have their own wheel tax they could not Use the fact that the county had one And they did not put it on the time period that it allowed it to be stacked it does not it can't be stacked okay but under the original they did not stack it they did it after that right this yeah it's just now been Garrett's has just been published like last week I think it was and I don't think Garrett Auburn's not published one yet but I know they're gonna go go for one before the end of the year and we'll revise that the other

Revenue amount that's in the Motor Vehicle Highway Fund is the estimated lane miles. When you had Jennifer Sharkey up here last year and gave the presentation, she had provided some estimated numbers to us. We put all the lane miles in 27 because her original thought was it's not going to be distributed until 27, but it's going to include 26 numbers. I had some email correspondence with her in the last month or so, and now they believe there will be a 26 distribution, and later in the summer they're going to send out what those amounts are. So hopefully by budget time you'll know more what that amount is for 26. I assume it'll be a similar amount for 27, but the two of them put together still might be close to what's in the fiscal plan.

I'm smiling because I know that the governor has suggested that the state might help us backfill what we're losing in the suspension of the gas tax. And simply because I think that some people think that that money to help backfill us might come from that community crossings money instead of community crossings projects.

That would be disappointing, but I can see that. So is there any specific parts of the fiscal plan that we want to dig down and delve into? Again, like I say, the overall process that we wanted to make sure of is that you're able to, under your own authority, be able to continue into perpetuity. And I think the way the law is written today, giving you approval for that 1.2% to be used specifically for county purposes, That gets you all of your operational stuff in the fiscal plan, and then some. What's not included in there yet would be income tax payments for jail debt, if that is something that you were going to pursue, income tax rather than property. The property tax would be above and beyond, but again, it will take you through a process that you may have to go through a referendum.

Make sure I got this straight. What is our rate for our local income tax right now, 1.6?

I think it's total 2.13. 1.63 is for expenditures, and then 0.5 is for property tax relief. It reduces people's property tax bills.

And you say if we can raise that up just a little bit, we can raise it up a point or two, we have room to do that?

You could raise the 1.63 on the expenditure rate side. You can raise it all the way to 2.5 if you desire right now through 2028.

And do you say that would probably produce another $6 million for the county? It would be about $6.9 million. And if we follow that steps, will that be our expenditure? And then we can use some of that money and put back Put in a jail account so we can... You could continue to accumulate the excess for jail, yes. We can get enough money back where we don't have to have bonds issues. I mean, a bond issue for the jail. I mean, we'll have to, but we don't have to do it on... The property side because I already know that won't pass the way I've heard people talk everything Yeah, I'm just trying to see what our options is so that we ease into it I don't have to race and be taxed for years on end for a new jail The more income tax you would generate in 27 and 28 the less you would have to issue in bonds and

for the jail project but again you know that is uh... an income tax increase to the people i just wondered in the long run which way would save us more money the more cash you can put into a project the cheaper it will be from the interest rate side obviously because if you do this And we use the same methodology we've done before, which is back it with property taxes, even if we pay it with income taxes, so that you get the best bond rating and the lowest interest cost. That will limit the debt repayment to 20 years. So a 20-year debt with an amount that large is going to have a lot of interest. So the more money you can throw at it in the beginning, the less interest you're going to pay and the smaller the payments are going to be going forward.

Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. I mean, yeah, I knew that. It was probably the less interest we have to pay, the better that we can. Our bill wouldn't be as big as in the long run. So I understand that. Thank you.

As we do our budget in July and August, it's going to be close to the phone. If we got questions.

I think the days that you have department head stuff, I'm going to be in a teams meeting.

Well.

I guess I get to watch.

That was the original request, but I believe if you're just available for us to call if we have questions during that, that that is sufficient.

That would be better.

Yes. Yeah.

Not that I don't want to hear everybody's requests, but yeah.

Totally get it.

I can do that. I'll block those days out and I'll just be in the office working and if you guys need anything Jeff thank you.

Hey, thank you We're in such a better place today than we were 12 years ago when I got on council and that's that's because you've worked with us over the years and and helped educate us. And just thank you so much for participating and being part of this. Very helpful.

Thanks for letting us out. My life's work.

Thanks, Jeff. You gave us plenty to think about and plenty to digest here. So it's a good presentation.

Yeah, and if some of that sinks in and you need clarification, send an email or give me a call. Thank you. Thank you. OK.

Moving on GIS system administrator Morning morning Chris, how is everybody?

So we're here today I brought Jarrett With us who's in the GIS department Dottie and Morgan are here as well to lend their support to request Two job description changes ones in addition to the department the other one is More or less a revision to an existing job description we have When the cyber incident happened back in September our data Jared's far more articulate than me with this because he knows it like the back of his hand. So he'll probably correct me on some things. But basically our data being stored with the City of Auburn for GIS, Auburn's requiring us to separate from them starting January 1st. So December 31st is the last day that we will have access to our GIS data. requiring us to create a data enterprise system. See, I'm getting it. Create a data enterprise system that we will have to manage and make sure stays up and running. For everybody that uses Beacon, our realtors, our surveyors, auditor's office staff, they have their own standalone desktop versions of GIS. So all of that data has to get managed and updated. And that is something that right now the city of Auburn does. I believe at a no cost to the county. It's just kind of been a gentleman's agreement for the last number of years. We do pay into a... a ESRI agreement that gives us the licenses for the GIS mapping, which will not change. We will still have to pay into that. But the management of the system is something that we will have to take on. With that, what we're looking at doing is creating a GIS specialist position. This would be a full-time, non-exempt, entry-level person right out of college that can be data entry for transfer deeds, new subdivisions, things that day-to-day need to get done for the updating of the mapping software. I believe Jarrett sent out or gave you all copies of those job descriptions. I believe the first one is the GIS specialist position. Again, that's just kind of an entry-level position that we are requesting. The other one is, right now, the two people in our staff, Jared and Anthony, are under the same job description. It's a GIS data analyst and GIS coordinator, I believe is what they're called right now. And with that, we're keeping that job description, but kind of creating a new job description in addition to those duties, a GIS enterprise system administrator, which would be, you guys kind of have a choice here, and this is gonna be really confusing because it confused us during the email process, but there's a GIS enterprise system administrator that would be exempt, so it would be a full-time salaried position. versus a GIS coordinator slash enterprise administrator that would be full-time not exempt. So it would be a full-time hourly position. And the reason, and I'll let Jarrett come up and talk here in a minute about kind of the specifics and answer any really specific questions you have to the jobs, but This position, not the specialist, but the position we're talking about now, whether it be exempt or non-exempt, will require probably quarterly Jarrett or whoever would have this position to come in on weekends and do updates. The last thing we want to do is have this go down when staff of the county are working in the software and we need to do a... six hour update or what have you. So that update's gonna have to be done on the weekends. There's a handful of times as well that currently Nate Fry that used to work for the county in the surveyor's office is the GIS administrator over for the city of Auburn. There's a handful of times that the system does go down and he needs to come in after hours, on weekends, at night and figure out what happened and get the software back up or get the enterprise system back up and running. We see that as more of kind of a IT role, which is why we're proposing it be exempt, which would also, and Dottie can cover here yours on this one, what I see it as is it helps save the county money because we're not paying for up to 40 hours plus potential overtime when he needs to come in and do these updates and when he may have to come in and fix an emergency problem. So with that, that's why we've proposed it both ways. I'm fine going both ways. I believe in my budget I have it proposed that he would work up to 40 hours a week. So that's what I put in my budget, just so you guys could see that. But I would need to add a overtime budget into the budget for 2027. But with the exempt status, it would go down to whatever the tier is for the PATC, and he would just work when needed to get that job done.

Chris, can I? Go ahead. Since we're on this exempt status, so we had a lot of discussion by email with the committee here. And Dottie did send this to WIS about that exempt status. And I can read, they did, based on assessment of the updated job description and FSLA compliance questionnaire, the position of GIS coordinator and enterprise administrator meets the computer-related occupation exemption test. However, we found the position to be borderline in meeting the test. So it does meet it. They're saying it does meet it, but it's just meeting it. So we can make them exempt, according to WIS.

In that in that memo didn't I also see that if it's determined later that we didn't meet it then we might be liable for Overtime and fines and whatnot That was why that was the reason for the it says meeting the exemption test which may present a liability for the county of back pay if the classification is ever challenged and

And that I think would be if it, and Dottie can come up and speak to this too, I think that would be if they're doing more work, or sorry, yes, more work than what they feel they're getting paid for. So if they were doing more non-IT work on the side of it than doing more data entry, for instance, or something like that, then it could be considered a liability.

But those exempt hours, from what you just described, 99% IT, like you've gotta update that.

And I'd like Jared to come up and explain what that enterprise administrator stuff requires. I don't have the, I mean stuff is probably as good as I can get on it, but. You know, he's going to be doing a lot of system building and data enterprise building and managing and not so much the day-to-day, we have a new subdivision and he's got to plot it out on the GIS map. So, here, if you want to come up and just kind of explain a little bit of that to them and answer any of their questions.

Yeah, so I mean, the specialist position is basically when taking what I'm doing right now day in, day out. And the new... enterprise administrator slash system administrator, whatever we decide and go with. That one is, yeah, it takes a lot of work and a lot of time because ESRI makes it so that you can piecemeal your system and piecemeal your components by county size, by all data standards and stuff. But like with the city of Auburn, right now it's spread out among the entire county, Butler, Waterloo, Auburn, we all share the same system. And it's gonna take even more work when now we have two systems standing up, then we have to share all those together. So, I mean, it's gonna take monthly, Overnight stuff especially in the first year year and a half of designing and developing this system stuff can just break It's not an easy thing to just put together and make seven or eight Computers talk and making them talk with all the Auburn stuff.

So It is a lot of data management was the fact that we've got Act and that that's why Auburn is requiring us to separate and

Yeah, because we almost lost everything. And that would have been very bad. And now they're left.

So there's still some interaction between the county and Auburn.

Yes, as of right now, we're still kind of working on a semi-status quo. We're way more restricted than we were before the cyber attack. But the way it'll work now is there will be an independent Auburn GIS system. There will be an independent DeKalb GIS system. And then Nathan and I will make those two talk in the background. So that's All the cities can get our tax parcel information, and we can get all their water and sewer distribution stuff.

And none of the other cities then are doing anything separate? It's just Auburn?

Yeah. We'll be hosting stuff for, per the co-cedious agreement, we'll be hosting stuff for Waterloo, Butler, Garrett, St. Joe, all the other municipalities. We only won't be hosting Auburn information. Does this mean you have to have a new license, too? No. Through the co-cedious agreement, we already have enough licenses to cover two systems. So no increased cost there. And then, yeah, with this new position, after I eventually build everything and get the whole system up and running and smooth, my next goal will be to move on to cost-saving, cutting out beacon and building our own stuff in-house, because we already pay for all the tools to do beacon ourself. So that'll be like... Yeah, so eventually that'll be 20 something. That'll be 20 grand a year that we won't have to pay anymore, but that's obviously website design, a lot of IT stuff, a lot of HTML coding that I'm not perfect at, but I know enough to get it done. And I'll learn more as I'm in this position and save us money.

Will you be able to get this process done by

time you're supposed to split from auburn or that's the goal right now i've been pushing a lot off to anthony our other gis guy as i've been working on this and it's been overwhelming him quite a lot because we've got more than enough work for two people right now and that's why we need the specialist to take what i'm doing off my plate so i can dedicate all my time and attention to this enterprise system and then all the projects that need to come later yeah he started

building the system, right? In January. In January. We've actually gotten the tools from BESA and IT to start doing this. Right now, while we're looking at this, we don't have time. We just don't have time to do the day-to-day activities along with this. We wouldn't be able to do it by December 31st if we don't create these new positions. And the data specialist position, my opinion is that we need to do the GIS enterprise system administrator position, whether it's exempt or non-exempt. today, the GIS specialist system will have to be done, because this would probably unload onto the auditor's office and the transfer side in doing this data specialist, and they are overwhelmed, right? Like we just have, there's a lot going on in DeKalb County. We should raise our hands.

Which is good.

Which is great, yeah. But there's a lot of things going on through the transfer office. that speaks to the GIS side, that gets to the assessor's office, that gets to the report's office.

I would need another employee.

It would have to be done. Someone's got to do the work. Someone's got to do the work.

We'd rather have a GIS professional do the work, someone that just graduated with a GIS degree. Hey, kid, here's your first job. Work it for a year or two, and then I'll write you a letter of recommendation. You can move on, and I'll find another college kid to take your spot.

And probably this is not going to be a position that someone's going to grow in the county. It's going to be something that you're going to be hiring, like you said, every two or three years. When they get that experience, they're going to go on to somewhere else to make money.

But I mean... But it's a great out of college role. I mean, speaking from experience, this was my first job out of college and it was... And he loves it. Yeah. And it took me six, seven months to find this job, find my first GIS job. So I mean, if I could help provide back to some kid that needs his first GIS job, that'd be nice.

And this enterprise system administrator would... Supervised some sort of the new GIS position to get them up And so there is a little bit of supervisory that is required with probably would be sorry to speak out of turn Probably be more supervisory.

This would be of the kind of entire GIS department Where he wouldn't Be doing like because he falls under development services. We'd still be doing right just I am and and but Hiring and any budget requests that they would have would fall through our department So it'd be more about but the workload is gonna fall.

Yeah, I'll be supervising because yeah It's gonna take some training to learn what I do. I mean When you get a legal description from 1850 and you have to map it out and rods and links and chains That's not an easy thing to learn. I mean And plus, we need someone that has that geospatial discernment skill. We can't just hire someone off the street and say, here, map it down. Because we've had GIS people that had no experience in the past, and I've seen the quality of their work, and it's caused a lot of problems. So I want someone that has the education, someone that has the knowledge and geospatial skills to see, oh, OK, these are use lines. This is how we need to do stuff. There's a 15-foot error here. How do we make that look right? Because GIS, while not legally binding, is what we show the public. I mean, people go on Beacon all the time. It's like, well, this is my property line, and we want to make it as true as possible for the public. But yeah, I would essentially be supervising the two existing roles and trainings.

Okay. Dottie, anything you would like to add?

Let's see.

What we will need to do today, because the GIS specialist is not currently a position, the job classification subcommittee, I think would recommend that we create that specialist position. That would be the entry level one. And that goes into our professional administrative technological area, and that's in A. And then, we currently have this position, but we need to enhance it, so that's why it's the GIS Enterprise System Administrator. We don't need to hire anybody else for that position, but this updated job description will also need to be approved by the full council. I'm sure the classification subcommittee would recommend that that happens. And somehow there's money somewhere that will need to be appropriated for an increase in Is that the PAT? Nope. That's the money. But for the GIS specialist.

And thanks for that segue, Dottie. We planned that. You're welcome. For the GIS specialist position, we'd be wanting to probably get that hired relatively soon. And I say relatively soon because I understand that I'll have to come here and ask for additional appropriation. If that would get approved, then we would still be looking at probably August or September. We've kind of... lost the hiring of somebody right after college because college has graduated. College graduates have already graduated, but I think we could probably still find somebody. But with that position, I believe it's $51,000, $52,000 a year now in that category, so we would just need to appropriate I'm going to do the math in my head, which I'm horrible at, probably like $15,000 or $20,000 to get this through the end of the year for that position. And then whatever you would have to do for health insurance.

Because you have something you can transfer to help offset that?

We don't have someone yet. I would like to get someone hired.

Do you have any funds that you can transfer? I know we had spoke about it when we met.

Maybe. I could probably finagle something. Well, it'd have to be within the...

Not a lot. It doesn't have to be within the personal services, but the whole new position wouldn't have been in the budget at all. So he's got the money that he needs for the, whatever, the administrator part of it, but this new position is brand new.

I might have some that I could help set that cost, but yeah. You're going to have an additional, no matter what.

So your budgets gonna be down a little bit because you won't have to have that hundred fifty two hundred thousand dollars for here, right?

So my overall budget this year I Hate to say it before you we meet but went down about a hundred thousand dollars just because of I Part of that is the new LIDAR, which is the contour mapping of our contours of our GIS. We do that every three years. But then also the comprehensive plan update that we don't need a budget for. So it went down quite a bit because of that. And I'm even adding in, I didn't do it on Susan's side of things, but on my Excel sheet I added in the money needed for this new specialist position.

So are we at the point we need a motion to approve the two job descriptions and add?

And I think the decision needs to be made about an exempt or non-exempt status for the GIS.

I would do the GIS specialist vote whether you're going to allow that to be created and approve that job description. And then I would do the other one separate.

I'll make a motion that we approve the GIS specialist to be added to their department and to accept that job description. That's the specialist. That's the...

The new position.

Yeah.

I'll second that.

I did have a question. I think you said this is kind of IT, a lot of IT stuff. Is the pay then similar to what the IT is bringing? Like intern, IT intern.

You're talking about, you're not talking about for the specialist position. The specialist would be more entry-level data entry stuff. That's not IT. This is more, this is more, this GIS specialist is GIS data entry.

Right. That's not.

The GIS enterprise system administrator that he would be doing with the. The splitting away from Auburn is more IT.

Is that comparable, I guess, to what other IT positions are making? I mean, I just don't want to open a can of worms here of, oh, this is IT. I'm not aware.

I don't know what IT, what their salaries are. I haven't looked at that to make sure.

Yeah. Our IT department, they are a separate category unto themselves. Okay, so this would be in the professional administrative technology, the PAT category in the C. WIS said that it should stay in the same category as it had been before, even though it is enhanced. It just kind of went a different direction into more IT, so a lot more advanced. a lot more of the computer, the systems stuff than what they had been doing, that that particular position had been doing. So it's less IT than our IT department. That's kind of it. So they didn't feel that it ought to go into the special category that our IT department is.

Amy, you're good.

I guess I kind of thought we were at this point where we were kind of looking at the hiring freeze for a little while. So it just caught me off guard a little bit of, oh, another position.

It's what happens when you have things like our cyber attack and you have to address it. Right.

We have a motion on the floor by Bob. Would you restate your motion, please?

I made a motion to accept the job description for the specialist and add that position to the company.

We'll do that. You're adding it to the department and approving the job description.

Do we have a second?

I second it.

Second by Amy Demski. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

So the second half would be the administrator to accept that new job description for Jared.

Well, you need to decide.

And decide whether it's going to be recommended to be either exempt or not exempt.

Yes.

I'll make that motion that we adopt that new job description, and I would like to see it be exempt to save us, to allow him to have the freedom to come in when he needs to to make those updates.

I'll second that.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion is carried. Thanks, guys. We appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, moving on to our council discussion. First item is up is... Next item we want to discuss is the wheel tax we've Toss it around whether we stay at the current level we adopted Or if we need to look at an increase and if we need to look at an increase This has to be adopted by the council on or before September 1 so We know that Garrett is putting a wheel tax on, Auburn is going to put it on, and it's probably safe to say it'll be at or higher than where we're at with the county, probably higher. So discussion would be whether we want to stay at the same tax rate or if we as a county, we need to raise it.

And it is, as was mentioned when Jeff was here, It's not stackable. So those people that live in Auburn and Garrett are not going to have the Auburn tax or the Garrett tax plus the county tax. But those registrations in Auburn and Garrett will be exempted from the county tax.

Which right now would be a loss of funds for the county. Open for discussion.

what the rumor basically about possibility of that coming from community crossings is that impact that extra million we were trying to by passing the wheel tax to begin with we were trying to make sure that we were eligible to get that extra million to replace some of our lost highway income but that extra million might go away is that the possibility or

All of that's just rumor talk who knows I mean that but if the date that fills us If they actually do that that money is going to have to come from somewhere so Who knows where it's going to come from but it's one of the possibilities But I do you know the unfortunate thing right now is we don't know I Think it might be available, but I haven't checked recently We don't know how many registrations are within the city of Gary. And that's the only one that's been publicized. That ordinance that they were going to pass was publicized I think last week. We don't know how many registrations that includes. And if Auburn were to do it, we don't know how many registrations that includes. So we don't know what dollar amount we would lose. So we right now be flying blind, but I do believe you know I think that the rate was set too low by the county in the first place So it does need to I think needs to be increased. It doesn't need to be increased to the maximum. I don't Nobody's gonna want that but I do know that it's kind of foolish that my car is gonna cost me more than my motorhome in my registration just because of the way we set it up so I it ought to be looked at again.

I agree. My semi-trailer costs less than my car and truck going down the road. One $10, another $15. Something I think has got to be fairness to it. Even though I don't drive the semi-down truck as much, local income tax so we don't have to pay as much property tax. That's where I get burned. That lady back there, she always collects my money. She's still back there hiding. She always collects with a smile.

I think if this is something we want to look at, possibly increasing, we're going to need to take a look at numbers. We won't be able to do it today at this meeting, but we still have time between now and September 1 to enact so I think maybe for the July meeting we take a hard look at the numbers Especially when in July we'll be starting to look at our budget for right Maybe we'll have more information on Auburn and Garrett what that's going to take out We're going to affect January 1st of what he said, right?

Yeah, they couldn't they could not in By September one, but it wouldn't take effect until January 1st

And just to defend our tax rate on that, as Rick mentioned and everybody else did, we had to put a wheel tax on if we were going to be eligible for that extra million dollars. But there was also, I know Ben was talking about there could be money available where we wouldn't even have to put a wheel tax on at one time from the state. And that's probably all disappeared.

And some of that about what money was available was also based on There was a special provision for Indianapolis and Marion County, and they were going to get more money if they themselves raised a certain amount of money. And I believe they did, because I think, if I remember right, I think Marion County put on a wheel tax that would have generated that extra money that they needed to get the extra match from the state.

And there was another rural county fund that was supposed to be available, and Parker told me that if you already were getting community crossing as a rural county, you weren't eligible for that pot. So we were already getting it, so we didn't, which they never told us that was going to be the extra $50 million pot, that if you're already getting it, you're not eligible.

But again, just like we were talking earlier, everything we're thinking about, everything we're calculating is based on the rules today as they stand right at this moment. I'll guarantee you that come January, in a long session that they're doing the state budget, everything will change again. And in 28, they'll tweak the changes they made in 28, in 27. It's just, that's the way it goes. You've got to stay on top of it all the time in order to understand where you're at and where you're going. That's why Jeff is so valuable.

And also, I was talking to Blake, which is a senator from Elkhart, says, you know, it's going to change... Bet plus the fact that the guy that was behind The property tax relief got defeated this May so that's gonna change some of the steam going out there He said I don't know where that's gonna change a lot But he said he was he's gone and several other people that was behind the property tax relief So it all depends what the governor wants.

Well, and you've also got you've got one of the state representatives. That is a proposing a bill, whether it gets any traction or not, that eliminates property tax in total. And if that happens, the state and the locals still need money to function, so you're going to raise taxes somewhere else to eliminate property tax.

Or cut spending.

The problem is, Amy, and that's a good thing to say, But what are you going to do? How many jailers are you going to? Our biggest expense is people.

I'm not talking about basics. It's just an idea of, hey, states should look at cutting spending at some point, too.

Our state is one of the few states that's fiscally sound. What are you going to cut?

What are you going to cut? I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah, you got a list. I already gave you a list. You got all the attorneys out. I gave you a list.

I gave you a list. Stop sending that money to Purdue and IU and Ball State. That's step one.

Step one. I like it. I'm just saying. Here we go. Let's do Notre Dame graduates. We won't go down that.

Yeah, we'll keep going. OK, we're going to move on. So we'll take a look at the wheel tax at the next meeting here. Innkeeper's ordinance, Susan?

I just was I'm not sure that it's ready yet. I Haven't gotten a final version yet. I don't know if Don has anything on it. What's that on the innkeepers?

ordinance, you know, I Frazier's here. Yeah satisfied with the final drafter Yeah, I added I Thought she sent it she said she sent it All it said was I added in addition to In addition to any penalty imposed herein any delinquent payments shall be subject to the interest rate established annually by the in the Department of Revenue Commission for underpayments and Ryan asked for right to try and help out election what you have to decide is the percentage number That's what I left blank I Did not get the final draft so they've not seen it at all.

So we will have to Well, we can adopt the ordinance at the next meeting if you guys are want to decide on a percentage, we can decide on that. Otherwise, all that will have to be done at the next meeting.

What percentage do you want, if any, to increase? That's the blank in my ordinance.

And the state law that just changed allows us to increase the percentage to what number?

Eight percent, isn't it? Eight percent, up to eight percent. And it's currently four. Four, five, five? Currently five, and it could go up to eight if you pass the ordinance.

This is a tax that is paid by people that stay in any of the hotels or Airbnbs and... Hotels primarily comes from hotels, but the Airbnbs...

The Grange County, according to this, has already adopted up to 8%. Noble has proposed to go up to 8% on the information that

Ryan gave us County Excuse me. Do we have that?

Allen is currently at 8% You got to remember it's sometimes apples and oranges because the innkeepers tax statute has a list of Counties that have a separate or statute that they go under then what the Cal County goes under And the reason is there's the general innkeeper's tax statute, and then several counties have specific ones that apply just to them. And so you've got to be careful when you compare counties, because some of them have been charging 8% for 10 years.

Did they do that based on certain projects that they were going to do? That's why they got the different rate? It's possible.

I don't know. Some of them. More than ten years old, so I don't know I think His Ships Juana areas and higher the later that's LaGrange County has been higher because they have a special statute and of course Marion County and Davies County has a special one.

There's any of this gonna go to pay for the Bears to come Indiana. I

Well, from what I heard this morning, they haven't come yet.

Can you apply any of that to the roads?

This has to be used solely for promoting tourism.

In the way of tolls.

I'm looking for a percent.

I'm in favor of going to the 8% since it's a tax on people coming into our County and using well our facilities staying at hotels They may not be coming into the county. So I primarily I'm here what it is and Knowing what a lot of the funds having been a part of the tourism bureau and meeting with Ryan on a monthly basis knowing an amber before that knowing that they're doing more and more grants out to organizations and entities to increase tourism and to help them put on

festivals and Those kinds of things I yeah, I'd like to make a motion that we entertain the full 8% like Brian asked Motion on the floor to move it up to 8% The hotel tax I'll second that we have a second any further discussion from the council Here none will call for the question all those in favor of the innkeepers tax amendment Increased to 8% from 5% signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

Aye.

Motion is approved 6-1.

And we'll actually do the ordinance next time.

Yeah, it's kind of lengthy. I would think that you guys.

Yeah, I think we should read it. I'll get it. We're just giving him the 8%. To the auditor and to the treasurer today. our final review and I'll have the 8% in then when it gets to them. Okay.

Okay. Reminder, the next meeting is July 15th at 8.30 and that will be a regular meeting followed by budget presentations. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Emails, no. Emails went out from Jody yesterday because the judges cannot, they have Their schedules are full, so they are coming on the 15th at 8 a.m. So that morning we will have judges presentation at 8, our regular meeting at 8.30, and then after our regular meeting around 10.30 or so, we will go back into budget presentations on July 15th.

So next meeting is July 15th at 8 a.m., and we'll begin with the judges presentation. Susan mentioned, followed by regular meeting at 8.30.

Chris? Just a quick little announcement. I'm passing out things. You're going to have a really long day on July 15th. I'm sorry. We're having Dr. Roberto Gallardo from Purdue coming to the plan commission meeting at 5.30 on that evening to do a presentation about data centers. You're welcome, Bill. You're going to have a really long day, buddy. It's just going to be an informative Q&A. I'd invite you guys to join us. If a data center does come to DeKalb County, You guys may need to be involved for any type of economic development agreements or things like that that may come forward. So you'd be invited to join us for that meeting. We'll be here. So you might as well just bring your sleeping bags.

I'll bring a sack. Okay, great.

Thank you. Okay. Does any member of the council have anything else to come before us? Chris, I know you've been practicing on these words.

Okay, wait.

No, wait.

I want to keep it in everybody's, in front of everybody's Minds that you need to still think about the must committee that Can or cannot be formed. I'm sure there'll be more information this weekend at the council County Council meeting but Just don't forget about that municipal unit strategic task force that can help with deciding the new lit rates and

None of those new late rates take effect until 27 pay 28, right?

Correct, but a must committee has to meet and Either come up with a favorable or unfavorable agreement before October of this year Or agreement for what the lit rates but those lit rates wouldn't happen until I understand I understand but they want to know whether the county and the units are

And I think what has to happen is that particular portal that we were using last night Has to be available during that committee during that must committee meeting the The auditor is going to have to be there where the cities and towns are concerned is the people that will sit on that committee are the clerk treasurers, because the law specifically says the financial officer of the city or town, not the mayor, not the president of the council. It has to be the financial officer. So it'll be the clerk treasurers, and then the council appoints someone, whether it be someone from the council or someone else to represent the council. But I think it should be the council member, but the auditor would also be the one in attendance because she is the one that will have the portal that she can show and manipulate during the meeting as you're discussing, changing percentages, changing allocations, whatnot. You can see it all in real time during that meeting. And that meeting does have to be a public meeting. So it will be one that will be in here and be live streamed. You have to have a unanimous agreement. And it has to be a unanimous agreement. So that's where everyone has a veto. Because in the end, it all goes to the county council for a decision. But if the council member would say no to whatever agreement came up, that would just kill the whole thing because it has to be unanimous.

That's an option, right? We don't have to. It's not mandatory. Those committees are not mandatory.

No, it's not mandatory, but boy, you try to do something and not involve everybody else, your slings and arrows will come out quickly.

It's not binding on the council.

What they decide is not binding.

It's not.

No, it's not. But if you're going to have an agreement, you probably should stick with it.

I think the idea is to get the discussion started and get people to get their minds wrapped around it. Because they said over and over again last night in that presentation that we aren't going to have the right numbers until the next year to actually apply that. Right. People now need to start, all these entities need to understand how it's going to work.

And the must committee came out of the fact that it has been a priority of the County Council Association over the last four years that I'm aware of to eliminate the COET councils. In those, there are counties within the state of Indiana who the LOCAL OPTION INCOME TAXES WERE NOT CONTROLLED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL. IT WAS CONTROLLED BY, IN ALLEN COUNTY'S CASE, IT WAS CONTROLLED BY THE CITY OF FORT WAYNE. SO THE COUNTY HAD TO LIVE WITH WHATEVER FORT WAYNE DECIDED. SAME THING, IT'S IN HOWARD COUNTY I THINK WAS, COSKIOSKO COUNTY WAS, BUT IF IN A COIT SITUATION, THE The location with the largest population, the largest percentage, controlled those local option income taxes. And it was the desire of the county council association. And what we were pushing is the county council represents everyone in the county. No matter where you live, You can vote on a majority of the county council. You can vote on three at-large members and your district members. So you always had to vote for the majority. They eliminated the cohort councils. That upset those cities and towns that had cohort councils. So this must thing was created because there was starting to be a battle between counties and cities that the county was going to harm or was not going to work in conjunction with those larger cities. So it was a compromise that came into place. So that's why it exists.

Anything else before the council?

Chris?

Yeah, we have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.